Four year anniversary . . . nothing special . . . maybe to others! My wife and I began our day of quad-anniversary celebration by eating a fancy breakfast with our 2-year-old son, Elliott, at Cracker Barrel. Promptly, he treated us as well as the CB staff and paying customers to a shattering display of pancake plate tossing. I never wanted to be that guy (or that dad) where everyone is looking at you because of what someone had just done. Thank goodness my wife was there to savor the moment with me. Nevertheless, next stop was to the movies to see Cars 2. Again, and obviously so, given the movie choice, Elliott joined us. Occasional screaming at the screen and questioning aloud of everything should be expected of someone witnessing his first movie ever, right? We were the last people to leave that theater showing. But - finally - later in the evening, once Elliott’s bath was complete and he was tucked safely away in his “big boy” bed, dinner was about to be created.
It was Date Night: The Home Edition . . . with the baby monitor on! The day before “Our Day”, I had found a recipe in the recent issue of Food and Wine: Gingered Salmon with Grilled Corn and Watercress Salad. Initially, I thought that the corn would be grilled and then the final salmon skewers could be thrown on Ethel, too! I was wrong. We could only grill the corn, which meant Pigskin’s Ethel still made a brief appearance:
The dinner turned out great. Actually, it’s an awesome summer dish that we’ll be having again and again in our household. The ginger that was tucked between the prepped slices on the salmon gave it wonderful flavor. However, be wary, initially we thought the salmon wasn’t cooked all the way - “Oh wait, it’s the ginger!” As for the dressing, it was good all by itself and could easily be used for other salads and dishes. We basically followed the recipe. The “tweaks” we made were as follows: about ⅓ more salmon, 2 less ears of corn, same amount of water cress, and barely the required measurements for the dressing. If it said a teaspoon, we added almost a teaspoon. Sorry - we aren’t practicing gastronomy here.
Side note: Doesn’t “gastronomy” sound like something you get after eating something that wasn’t cooked properly? Or, as my wife claims it to sound like - “The Study of Farts.”
Anyway - you get the basic gist of the dish. The dinner was good and we’ll be making it again, but maybe not on Pigskin Gourmet. However, at least you know that we’re working out Ethel during the off season. In addition, we’re keeping our culinary skills in “shape” for cooking and grilling this upcoming season! Oh yeah, to man-ly up this dish (my request), we shared a big bottle of Hellhound beer - a beverage from Dogfish Head. Beer was good, just sadly not with this meal. Of course, the magazine suggested a certain wine, but as you saw in the picture with the corn grilling on Ethel, beer was popped and we stayed the course with that arena of alcohol. For great wine suggestions always visit, 1 Wine Dude.
The successful dinner of Gingered Salmon with Grilled Corn and Watercress Salad helped make our anniversary a great one - with more dinners and anniversaries to come!
Here’s a final look at the meal. Please note that the images taken in this blog were via the camera on my Blackberry and should not be associated with the dazzling pix of Cecil E Rudd Photography.