Common language, division by

I may have the world's most extravagant collection of recipe books, but actually most of my cooking happens in my head. I assemble ingredients on the principle of "oh, hey, that should taste quite well with t'other thing..."

Which is an approach that can be utterly sabotaged when a word turns out to mean not what I think it means.

Spanish chorizo, I learn, is not the same as Mexican chorizo. Not by a country mile. Not by a country, indeed.

Spanish chorizo is a sausage, with all that that implies. Even chorizo fresca is a semi-dry sliceable sausage. Mexican chorizo? On this evidence, is a paste contained within an artificial skin, only waiting its opportunity to ooze.

Also, the spicing is entirely different.

So my kale-and-chorizo lunch dish (topped with fried eggs, since you ask) turned out to be almost entirely different to what I was expecting.

Still, she ate it. And then took me to the bank, where I opened an account. Which was all exciting enough on its own account (and US banks supply candy and cookies to their customers, which is just - well, two nations divided by a common appetite), but what you don't yet know because I haven't told you is that my new US bank is -- drum roll, please -- Wells Fargo! (Which, for those of you who grew up accustomed, is a phrase redolent with cowboy excitements to those of us more distant. Wells Fargo is all about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and so forth. I had no idea that Wells Fargo still existed, let alone that it was a bank and you were allowed to belong to it. They even have a stage coach on their cards!) (And as it happens I am not at all interested in Westerns these days, but the childhood thrill still abides.)

So, yup. Ex-pat. Half assimilated, half bewildered. I even remembered to say "sidewalk" on one of my FogCon panels, because I knew that "pavement" would only confuse the issue. But by the time my new ATM card arrives, I'll be back in the UK.

In the offing

There are actually several significant events in the offing, including my departure for the UK on Thursday (sob, whimper, don't want to go). More immediately, though, Karen is having a party tonight for her slightly-early birthday. She, of course, is at work; I am catering.

Laurie is, we think and hope, bringing cake. I am on savoury duty.

So far today I have made sourdough rolls, which I think are quite nice if not exactly perfect; a tomato-and-red-pepper dip, to which I keep adding a splash of this and a shake of that; a pork terrine, which is still cooling down and I have no idea what it's like; and merguez sossidges. Which are causing me a quandary, because I don't know whether to serve them hot with their dipping sauce, cold with their dipping sauce hot, or cold with cold dipping. Hot food is fussier, and requires implements and so forth; but warmth brings out the spicings better, perhaps. I don't know. I am currently allowing the heel of a test sossidge to cool down, to ascertain.

Also, I don't know whether to start drinking yet. People are due after seven, and it's two-thirty now, and I have nothing to do but inhabit this kitchen and cause foods to occur. I have been known to drink at such a time; and that bottle of wine over there? Is actually open.

I think I can hear it singing.

Ongoing, foodwise

I think warm merguez is the way to go; there's a lot of cumin in that mix, and it is not a spice that loves the cold.

In other news, I have added a simple salad of green lettuce and radicchio and scallions* and tomatoes, simply because of all the pretty colours; and I shall dress it in oil and pomegranate vinegar and cumin, simply because that is awesome*.

In other other news, I wonder if it is possible actually to overcook a tomato sauce? I can't see a difficulty, so long as I keep slackening it with water; and the more the onions and tomatoes break down into a homogenized* gloop, the happier I shall be.

In other other other news, the terrine has now been out of the oven for an hour and a half, and is still too hot to handle. In three hours more, I should like it to be cold, please. Will someone kindly see to that? *transfers terrine to waterbath*


*Why, yes. I am developing Californian ways of speaking. It seems to make sense, if I seem to make sense. I was halfway through an anecdote on a FogCon panel (for yes, I am in my anecdotage: I can only make a point with an illustration) when my thoughts ducked ahead of my utterance to point out that I was the only Brit in the room and that if I said "pavement" every single one of my auditors would utterly misunderstand me. So I self-corrected just in time, said "sidewalk", and then paused to point out that I had just said "sidewalk" for their sakes and I hoped they were duly grateful.

And furthermore...

Cheesy sammich, anyone? Sourdough slices, interleaved with mozzarella and basil, lightly fried both sides in a smear of olive oil until the cheese melts and the basil wilts. Sliced into fingers and handed around with napkins: a feast fit for a party, say I.

I might stop there, or thereabouts. Everyone will have eaten anyway - Karen assures me - before they came. After all, we're not starting till seven o'clock... (I have American hours all around me, this urge to eat early; in my head I have Spanish hours, m'friend Ruth and others, who are not inclined to dine till ten or eleven at night; in my heart I am still secretly fond of English hours. Dinner at eight just seems right and natural to me. Besides, it allows proper time for a gin or two beforehand...)