Easter

Easter, the feast of the year! This year's was remarkable. I took a couple new recipes for a spin, and a new beverage too.

Since we moved beyond mint jelly a long tome ago as an accompaniment to lamb (we now rely on basil pesto as a spreadable edible for lamb) I wanted to find another way to get some mint back into Easter. The aperitif...mojito. I enjoyed this so much that I forgot 'till the last minute to snap the photo. Jodi made a great salad of spinach, walnuts, strawberries, and raspberry vinaigrette. Very delicious, I'm sorry to say it disappeared before I pulled the trigger on this photomatic. A credit to my beautiful wife's talent with greens. Next, vegetable.

Asparagus in a in a dijon/mayonnaise sauce topped with the ubiquitous fried onions. This was a side I did last year, minus the onions, that I learned from Jacques Pepin's cooking show a couple years ago. Fast Food, My Way, is a terrific program. Which brings me to another great recipe and another great resource: Red potatoes with lemon zest, parsley, and feta, from Cook's Country magazine.

Genius. The garlic, feta, and lemon complimented the mustard in the asparagus, and reminded our tongues of the citrus in the drink and salad. And when the taters got in the pesto, and asparagus got a crumb of feta as a carry on, it was glorious. Then there was the lamb.

Sorry vegetarians and cute-baby-animal lovers, but some beasts were meant to eat. I feel good knowing that somewhere out there some other family is sitting at a table enjoying the other hind of this guy. Pierced and implanted with garlic, rubbed down with salt and pepper, browned in the pan then covered in the same dijon mustard from the asparagus sauce before roasting, this leg was simple and turned out like a dream.

We ate, we drank, we laughed and made yummy sounds. Then we brought out my mom's lemon chess pie, a pie that had a poem written about it (or at least the promise of a poem). Garnished with strawberries, the end of the meal harkens back to the beginning. Even chilled, it melts in the mouth. Buttery and sweet, tart, creamy, crunchy, it was all of these and more.

It would diminish the night to say the pie was the end of the meal. We kept having a good time and finding room to sneak more odd bites of pie, lamb, and potato, long after the main run through. Thanks to Jodi for cleaning up after, thanks to BearPaw and Nonni for making the trip out, thanks to Ella for being so durn cute and sweet throughout, and thanks to the whoever first distilled magic from sugar cane.

Have a great one.

Cheers!