desperance

Seanan was meant to be coming for dinner, but logistics fell apart somewhere between parades and BART strikes, so shepherd's pie was cancelled for the occasion.

Instead, lifeofglamour and cathyn came down to play. There's a nice Japanese restaurant at the head of our street, and we allowed them to serve us lunch (mmm, sushi...); and then we abandoned poor Karen to her working-from-homeiness, and zoomed off to the Stanford Art Museum for some culture. This just in: Rodin's fallen caryatids? Not yet got up again.

And I still hadn't figured out what to do for dinner. But we stopped at Lucky's, so I bought a chicken and lamb cutlets and potatoes, for I knew I had a couple of little cauliflowers at home.

So the chicken was smoked on the barbecue, while the cutlets sat in olive oil and mint until a quick last-minute grilling; the cauliflowers were roasted whole with a little smoked paprika; and the potatoes were Moroccan.

This seems to have become a fallback in recent weeks: cut unpeeled potatoes into inchy chunks, and toss in a bowl with a couple of dollops of harissa until coated. Then a couple of glugs of olive oil, tossity toss; and a scatter of chunky salt, tossity. Spread 'em on a baking sheet and scatter liberally with sesame seeds. Roast in a hot oven for forty-five minutes, turning once.

But! The jar of harissa I had was perfect to the occasion, as it was strongly flavoured but not hot at all so I didn't need to angst about spiciness and other people's palates. That jar is now empty. I have made my own harissa in the past, but it tends towards the other end of the spectrum (willy-nilly! there is nothing I can do about this! etc). Whether I can find and visit a source for Shiloh sauces before the next time I want to Moroccanise potatoes - well. It doesn't seem likely.