#ROAST RACK OF SPRING LAMB

[vittlemonster]

Roasted rack of lamb with herb mustard and breadcrumbs crust, lamb jus, potato croquette, spinach purée. Palm Springs CA 📍 @levallauris 📱 ••• Omg, I was so impressed by this restaurant! The service was amazing and the food was wonderful! Definitely the place to go to for a special occasion! 🐑 • • • #lamb #rackoflamb #meat #dinner #entree #croquette #food #foodie #foodporn #foodstagram #foodphotography #vittlemonster #feedme #instafood #eater #nomnom #foodgasm #yummy #tasty #palmspringsfood #palmspringsfoodie #eaterpalmsprings #eaterpsp #pspeats #palmspringsrestaurant #palmsprings (at Le Vallauris Restaurant) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cph_uD-LaBg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[allwaysfull]

AThe Best of Gourmet 2006: The World At Your Table

Sketches of Spain: A Tapas Dinner Party

Salt Cod in Tomato Garlic Confit

Roasted Peppers w Boquerones

Chicken Empanada w Chorizo, Raisins and Olives

Rich Beef Broth w Carrot

Short Rib Terrine

Hot Pepper and Garlic Shrimp

Minted Eggplant

Cauliflower w Serrano Ham and Tomato

Potatoes w Peppers and Chorizo

Assorted Spanish Olives and Cheeses

Dried Figs /Red Wine w Mahón Cheese Ice Cream/Sherry Vinegar Syrup

Pumpkin Seed Brittle

Super Samba: The Flavors of Brazil

Caipirinhas

Shrimp and Black-Eyed Pea “Croquettes”

Calabaza, Corn, and Coconut Soup

Roasted Racks of Lamb w Maagueta Pepper and Farofa Crust

Brazilian-Style Collard Greens

Yuca Gratin

Caramel Coffee Meringues

Chez Nous: A Bistro Dinner in Paris

Salmon and Scallop Terrine w Friséé Salad

Braised Rabbit w Grainy Mustard Sauce

French Lentils w Carrots and Pearl Onions

Prune Armagnac Sorbet

Orange Corkscrew Tuiles

Rewriting the Classics: Easter Dinner in London

Asparagus Custard Tart

Bibb and Tarragon Salad

Mustard Fennel Pork Loin w Cumberland Pan Sauce

Pork Cracklings

Roasted Potatoes w Lemon Salt

Smashed Peas w Mint Butter

Pistachio Rhubarb Trifle

Dinner at Moro: A Spanish-Moroccan Feast | Samuel and Samantha Clark

Grilled Endive w Sherry Vinegar and Ham

Roasted Whole Sea Bass w Pistachio Sauce

Winter Tabbouleh

Dates w Coffee and Cardamom

La Dolce Via: Al Fresco Dining Sicilian-Style

Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Chickpea Fritters

Roasted Red Bell Peppers

Baby Octopus Salad

Fresh Mozzarella

Provolone

Pecorino Romano

Fresh Ricotta

Soppressata

Capocollo

Prosciutto

Sicilian Cured Olives

Rustic Italian Bread

Macaroni and Eggplant

Veal Involtini

Sicilian Salad

Sautéd Escarole

Grilled Oyster Mushrooms

Strawberries w Marsala

Sicilian Cannoli

Passion Pink: A Modern Mexican Dinner

Chile-Dusted Oranges, Jicama, and Cucumber

Black-Bean-Stuffed Plantain Croquettes w Tomato Sauce

Veracruz-Style Shrimp over Tortillas in Pumpkin Seed Sauce

Guanabana Sorbet w Mango Lime Coulis

Masala Magic: A Casual Dinner in Southern India

Chicken and Green Bean Coconut Curry

Basmati Rice

Carrot Pachadi

Watermelon w Fennel Salt

Street Food: Favorite Snacks from our Travels

Jamaican Hot Pepper Shrimp

Beef Pot Stickers

Yakitori

Grilled White Cheese w Oregano Oil

Warm Peanut Salad

Passion-Fruit Nieve

Belgian Fries w Sauce Andalouse

Turkish Lamb Kebabs

Butter Mochi

Orange Crush: A Wintry Dinner Featuring Clementines

Clementine, Olive, and Endive Salad

Glazed Duck w Clementine Sauce

Wild Rice and Bulgar w Braised Vegetables

Chocolate Tart w Candied Clementine Peel

Fresh: An Early Spring Dinner

Artichokes Braised w Garlic and Thyme

Anchovy and rosemary Roasted Lamb w Salsa Verde

Roasted Fennel and Baby Carrots

Souffléed Gnocchi

Chiffonade of Romaine and Bibb Lettuces

Apricot Almond Layer Cake

In Bloom: Lunch Among The Lilacs

Dandelion Salad w Lardons and Goat Cheese Phyllo Blossoms

Wild Salmon/Pearl Couscous/Slow-Roasted Tomatoes/Lem Oregano Oil

Blackberry Buttermilk Panna Cottas w Compote

Cool and Bright: Dinner In a Tranquil Garden

Chive and Pine Nut Dip w Sourdough Toasts

Horseradish-Crusted Beef Tenderloin

Bloody Mary Aspic

Potatoes and Haricots Verts w Vinaigrette

Passion-Fruit Meringue Tart

Easy Living: A Lakeside Grilled Supper

Crab Salad w Wonton Crisps and Lime

Grilled Cornish Hens w Coconut Curry Sauce

Pickled Napa Cabbage, Carrots, and Snow Peas

Jasmine Rice w Peanuts and Scallions

Grilled Coconut Pound-Cake Sundaes w Tropical Fruit

Beginning to See The Light: Brunch Alfresco

Mango Mint Sparklers

Smoked-Salmon Quesadillas w Warm Tomatoes and Arugula

Cherry-Apricot Yogurt Sundaes

Maple Granola Brittle

Plateful of Summer: Dining Waterside

Chilled Zucchini Soup

London Broil w Soy Citrus Mayonaise

Summer Tomatoes

Lemon Sun Cakes w Berries and Cream

Dinner Gets Crackin’: Feasting on Crab

Radishes w Triple-Créme Cheese

Steamed Blue Crabs w Black Ginger Dipping Sauce

Herb-Pressed Corn

Farmer Market Greens

Warm Skillet Sour Cherries w Vanilla Ice Cream

Twilight Zone: A Cocktail Party on the Beach

Jealous Marys

Grilled Beef, Chicken, Shrimp, and Mushroom Skewers

Assorted Vegetables

Anchovy Mayonnaise, Cilantro Chutney, and Romesco Sauce

Strawberries w Port 

License To Chill: Cool Food For a Hot Night

Arctic Char Grarvlaks w Cucumber Jelly

Lobster Salad w Glass Noodles and Jicama

Ice-Wine Sorbet w White Peaches

In The Mood: An Intimate Dinner For Two

Fever Cocktails

Smoky Peanuts

Oysters w Champagne-Vinegar Mignonnette

Skate w Wild Mushrooms in Pearl Sauce

Chocolate Mink

A Little Bit Country: Barn Dinner

Deviled Eggs

Cucumber and Tomato Salad w Buttermilk Dressing

Garlicky Fried Chicken

Yellow Squash Casserole

Slow-Cooked Collard Greens

Skillet Corn w Bacon and Onion

Blackberry Peach Cobbler

Chocolate Whiskey Bundt Cake

A New Tradition: A Rustic Thanksgiving With Vegetarian Choices

Edamame Dip w Crudités

Chestnut Soup w Sourdough Sage Croutons

Miso-Rubbed Turkey w Turkey Gravy

Persimmon Cranberry Sauce

Chickpea, Eggplant, and Tomato Tarts

Rustic Porcini Onion Stuffing

Celery and Jicama Sauté

Sweet-Potato Brûlée

Brown Butter and Scallion Mashed Potatoes

Apple Tarts w Vanilla Ice Cream

Honey Pecan Tart w Chocolate Glaze

A Midday Feast: An Easygoing Thanksgiving Brunch

Corn Custard w Chorizo and Mushrooms

Green Leaf Lettuce, Pomegranate, and Almond Salad

Orange Cinnamon Sweet Rolls w Orange Butter

Pineapple Tangerine Batido

Cafe De Olla

Christmas Present: A Very Special Yuletide Dinner

Mussels w Tarragon Celery Vinaigrette

Crown Roast of Pork with Onion and Bread-Crumb Stuffing

Cranberry Horseradish Sauce

Potato and Lardon Casserole 

Frenched Green Beans

Hazelnut Paris-Brest

Poached Oranges w Candied Zest and Ginger

All Aglow:  Relaxed Holiday Buffet

Crisp Pickled Vegetables

Smoked-Trout Spread

Pasta and Chicken Gratin

Bitter Green Salad w Roasted Pears

Broccolini with Lemon Oil

Chock-Full Blondie Squares

Eggnog Ice Cream

The Recipe Compendium: Appetizers/Dips and Spreads

Asparagus Cigars

Chicken and Cilantro Bits

Orange Soy Baby Back Ribs

Tuna and Caper Brandade Crostini

Crostini

Stuffed Eggs w Goat Cheese and Dill

Cheddar Red Pepper, and Horseradish Spread

Ham and Cheese Spread

Lebneh w Sesame and Herbs

The Recipe Compendium: First Courses

Grilled Zucchini and Tomatoes w Feta Sauce

Beer-Battered Asparagus

Avocado Mousse w Papaya Tomato Relish

White Fish Terrine w Salmon Roe and Dill

Steamed Clams w Bacon, Tomato, and Spinach

Grilled Eggplant Sticks w Tomato and Feta

The Recipe Compendium: Breads

Oatmeal Wheat Bread

Oatmeal Scones

Cheddar Dill Biscuits

Cinnamon Sugar Biscuits

Linzer Muffins

Bacon Corn Muffins

The Recipe Compendium: Soups

Chilled Carrot Honey Soup

Peach and Tomato Gazpacho

Barley Soup w Duck Confit and Root Vegetables

Cream of Barley Soup w Dill

Cauliflower Soup w Almonds

Tawianese Beef Noodle Soup

Asian Dumpling Soup

Herbed Bean and Pasta Soup

Lemony Lentil Soup w Cilantro

Cheddar Beer Soup

Curried Pumpkin Soup

The Recipe Compendium: Fish and Shellfish

Flounder w Champagne Grapes

Flounder in Jalapeño Cream

Fish w Curried Cucumber Tomato Water and Tomato Herb Salad

Catfish Spicy Tomato Sauce

Peanut-Crusted Trout w Pineapple Cilantro Relish

Fish Tacos

Broiled Salmon w Citrus Yogurt Sauce

Salmon w Endive, Dill, and Cream

Broiled Mackerel w Ginger and Garlic

Mahimahi w Brown Sugar Soy Glaze

Mussels Lager

Mussels w Tomato Broth

Tomato Sauce

Sea Scallops w Mushrooms and Sherry

Green Curry Shrimp w Noodles

Shrimp and Tasso Gumbo

Shrimp Curry

Shrimp and Avocado in Tamarind Sauce

The Recipe Compendium: Meats

Broiled Steak w Horseradish Cream

Filets Mignons w Orange Fennel Crust

Sunday Rib Roast

Boeuf À La Mode

Rib-Eye Steak w Warm Tomato Corn Salad

Beef Pinwheels w Arugula Salad

Skirt Steak w Red-Wine Sauce

Stout-Braised Short Ribs

Meatloaf

Chipotle Burgers

Grilled Jerk Pork w Curried Peach Relish

BBQ Pork Tenderloin

Orange-Soy Braised Pork Ribs

Pork Chops w Mustard Sauce

Vietnamese Caramelized Grilled Pork

Stir-Fried Pork and Napa Cabbage

Italian Sausage w Red Grapes

Grilled Italian Sausage w Warm Pepper and Onion Salad

Potato-and-Chorizo-Stuffed Ancho Chiles

Rosemary Lamb Chops w Swiss Chard and Balsamic Syrup

Turkish-Style Lamb Burgers w Walnut Sauce

Lamb and Polenta “Lasagne”

The Recipe Compendium: Poultry

Pan-Seared Chicken w Tarragon Butter Sauce

Roast Chicken Dinner

Roast Chicken and Asparagus

Grilled Lemon Chicken

Apricot Chicken w Almonds

Sweet-and-Sour Chicken Thighs w Carrots

Chili and Honey Chicken Legs

Braised Chicken w Apples and Sage

Chicken w Chilaquiles and Salsa Verde

Duck Breasts w Sweet Cherry Sauce

The Simplest Roast Turkey

Turkey Giblet Stock

Turkey Giblet Gravy

Turkey Jambalaya

The Recipe Compendium: Breakfast, Brunch, and Sandwiches

Multigrain Toasts w Scrambled Eggs and Canadian Bacon

Zucchini, Bacon, and Gruyere Quiche

Arugula and Fontina Frittata

Poached Eggs w Tomato Cilantro Sauce

Tomato and Cheddar Soufflés

Belgian Buttermilk Waffles w Glazed Bananas

Griddle Cakes w Marmalade and Clotted Cream

Browned Onion Kugels

Spiced Beef and Onion Pitas w Parsley Sauce

Grilled Cheddar and Bacon Sandwiches w Mango Chutney

Roast Beef and Watercress Wraps w Anchovy Rosemary Mayonnaise

Grilled Monterey Jack and Corn Quesadillas

Pasta and Grains

Pasta Shells w Summer Vegetable Sauce

Linguine w White Clam Sauce

Cavatappi w Butternut Squash

Red Wine Spaghetti w Broccoli

Whole Wheat Spaghetti w Broccoli, Chickpeas, and Garlic

Couscous w Spiced Zucchini

Penne Rigate w Mixed Greens and Pine Nuts

Macarornes Con Crema Y Queso

Acini Di Pepe w Spinach and Feta

Tagliatelle w Chestnuts, Pancetta, and Sage

Savory Farro Tart

Butternut Squash Polenta

Cumin Herb Rice Pilaf

Cinnamon-Spiced Rice

Bulgar, Apricot, and Pine Nut Dressing

Polenta and Sausage Stuffing

Louisiana Shrimp Rice Dressing

Vegetables

Asparagus w Olive and Orange Butter

Kale w Garlic and Bacon

Green Beans w Lemon and Pine Nuts

Brussels Sprouts w Chestnuts

Southwestern Succotash

Roasted Corn w Chipotle Mayonnaise

Scallion Cornmeal Fritters

Wilted Cabbage w Mustard and Horseradish

Peas w Bacon and Dill

Curried Okra w Chickpeas and Tomatoes

Roasted Potato Wedges w Rosemary Butter

Bubble and Squeak

Fried Potatoes w Oregano and Parmesan

Balsamic Roasted Potato Wedges

Potato and Blue Cheese Gratin

Swiss Chard w Raisins and Pine Nuts

Roasted Sweet Potatoes w Lime Syrup and Chives

Sweet-Potato Purée w Smoked Paprika

Tomato Bread Pudding

Butternut Squash w Shallots and Sage

Salads

Melon, Zucchini, and Chicken Salad

Salmon Platter w Caper Dressing

Curried Egg Salad

Spinach Salad

Fennel and Endive Salad w Orange Vinaigrette

Casear Salad

Escarole and Edamame Salad

Parsley and Cabbage Salad

Roasted Potato and Okra Salad

Cherry Tomato and Lemon Salad

Lentil Salad w Tomato and Dill

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad

Barley and Corn Salad w Basil, Chive Dressing

Quinoa and Bulgar Salad w Feta

Sauces and Condiments

Asian Dipping Sauce

Spicy Hazelnut Sauce

Cranberry Quince Sauce

Onion Gravy

Beurre Blanc

Thyme Garlic Butter

Green Olive and Pimiento Relish

Concord Grape Jam

Pickled Onions

Pickled Peaches

Desserts

Chocolate Yogurt Cake

Blueberry Pudding Cake

Cardamom Apple Almond Cake

Cranberry Walnut Upside-Down Cake

Chocolate Espresso Spelt Cake

Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake w Buttermilk Icing

Mini Black and White Cookies

Fig Swirls

Coconut Macaroons

Granola Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peanut Tuiles

Crunchy Pecan Cookies

Cranberry Oat Bars

Sweet-Potato Pie w Gingersnap Pecan Crust

Kiwi Tart

Banofeee Pie

Brandied Peach Parfaits

Banana Ice Cream Sandwiches

Cantaloupe Granita

Avocado Gelato

Rhubarb Sorbet w Vanilla Rhubarb Compote

Amaretti-Stuffed Peaches

Berry Toast Cups

Broiled Plums w Mango Sorbet

Apricot Pandowdy

Lemon Gelatin w Raspberries

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Black Rice Pudding

Orange Coeurs À La Creme w Strawberry Raspberry Sauce

[mccraybrix27]

Japanese Curry Powder Kare-ko Is The Key To Creating Great Japanese Curry

This is important because it retains moisture out of the spices and retains it from clumping. ¼ teaspoon Cardamom - It's finest for the best taste profile not to substitute spices, but in a bind here are some cardamom alternate options. I don’t like curry, but like the straightforward chicken recipe.

It was during this identical time interval that British cookbooks started together with recipes for “curry sauce,” another British creation. And this “curry sauce” has since turn into world famend and conjures up an instantaneous recognition and expectation of what it's going to style like. A. Curry powder can keep fresh up to three years, relying on how and where it’s stored.

Cauliflower & Tofu Curry

Curry powder is truly a unique mixture of spices. It’s slightly sweet, slightly savory, quite earthy, with a bit of heat. Add a number of the different elements we talked about earlier. Whichever Chicken curry + curry powder like they’ll go properly with the dish you’re making. If you do end up wanting a bit of a unique flavor in your curry powder, be at liberty to make use of our recipe as a springing off point.

If you'll have the ability to abdomen the warmth, attempt the new and spicy or mild variety for a savory punch with simply the appropriate quantity of sweetness.

The flavors will differ from region to area and chef to chef.

Our Kashmiri Chilli powder is made of one hundred pc pure, non-gmo, vegan gluten-free components that can put your spice stage on one other stage.

Though blends can vary dramatically, curry powders are available two basic styles—mild or sweet and a hotter model known as Madras.

I adjusted by adding more of the other spices and added a bit of fenugreek and allspice which are common in curry spices. But if individuals like it as is that’s great. Realising I was out of curry powder for my leftover roast lamb curry I determined to attempt making my own.

Moroccan Spice Mix

This is a straightforward and very flavorful recipe. It is my go to recipe for curry rooster. Our team has years of experience in advertising analysis and understanding what folks want from a company like yours. We will work along with your price range and make sure all these different questions matter much less when it comes time to choose the best curry powder for you. The customers should research the curry powder which respected stores/online shops promote. When choosing to buy a product from a good store/online retailer, their high quality can also be assured in comparison with those of unknown origin.

If it sits on a spice rack over the stove or in direct sunlight, that time may be a lot shorter. If you’re not sure that a curry powder continues to be good, test it by pouring a dime-sized amount into the palm of your hand. Rub or crush it, then scent it and taste a little of it. If the aroma and taste aren’t very robust, it’s time to switch it. Simple shouldn’t imply bland – and this Chicken Curry recipe knocks it out of the park! Even my husband who's type of choosy enjoyed it. I was making it for four folks, used 2 lbs of chicken, elevated the ingredients, . I added half head of cauliflower florets and cooked for 10 extra minutes.

[menubot]

Welcome to The Palace Hotel, would you care for the menu? http://menus.nypl.org/menus/29870

[radio-charlie]

U know how some of us when we were kids we loved writing down random shit and just getting really into it. for instance: “in my heaven i would have a mountain of soft toys, a mountain of watercress” (watercress in chicken broth was one of my favorite things at the time) etc. well anyway i am about to do that now with describing my ideal buffet at a party i am throwing all of my friends. here goes:

15 different indian dishes a mix of north south east and west, big bowls of ghee  and dhal powder on the side, big pot of pineapple rasam on the side, unlimited pappadums and a dosa bar

giant salad bar with the works: the white people part will have hearts of palm, smoked salmon, arugula, crunchy red peppers and delicious spring greens etc etc. the malaysian part will have all the freshest crispest ulam ever and 5 exciting types of sambal

sashimi and sushi bar

roast and grill section, a fan will be blowing gently behind to distribute the beautiful aromas all over the room, huge juicy roast beefs, lamb racks crispy around the edges etc. there will be good vegan options

laksa station - asam laksa, lemak laksa, laksa kedah even laksa terengganu but sorry. no laksa johor. weird spaghetti laksa i dont know u.

thai seafood bar - seafood prepared in thai styles

free flow juices sodas and alcohol, no bartender everybody is the bartender, make ur own cocktails any way u want

5000 weed

There will be 20 self-cleaning toilet cubicles in case some of u are not used to thai or malaysian food.... god bless

[intcrpol]

@oukido​

The Lounge served as Interpol’s own personal cocktail bar and restaurant, that spring’s seasonal menu featuring dishes such as seared scallops angielica; roasted duck breast served with honey roasted tri-colored carrots; or curry and herb rubbed grilled rack of lamb finished with goat cheese. It was plainly  luxurious, but considering the line of work their agents willingly stepped up for, it could very well be their last meal- Might as well make it count.

The surrounding tables were empty, spare for ornately folded napkins and polished silverware waiting to be used, so he and Oak were afforded a measure of privacy. Shirogane barely seemed to touch his food as truth be told, most of the dishes were far too rich for his liking- But he wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to taste a fine rack of expertly prepared lamb.

Each menu item was paired with a suggested wine, though the younger man was free to request any drink he desired (within reason). The conversation was typical, Ginjiro inquiring about Green’s travels and ongoing research with a polite degree of interest.

“Entertain a nosy old man’s curiosity, but I’ve always wondered where you stood on the subject of legendary Pokémon- Do you believe that the knowledge of their existence is something that everyone has a right to claim? Where would you draw the line between research and respecting that certain aspects of these beings will continue to yet remain unknown to us?”

[bridgewoodhq]

DINNER OPTIONS!

New Zealand herb crusted rack of lamb, resting on a bed of pearlised cous cous with spring vegetables and a drizzle of tamarind balsamic reduction

Beef Rending (slow cooked Balinese dry curry), served with ginger, coconut infused basmati rice and a side of Asian salsa

Linguini zucchini with pistachio pesto jumbo prawns topped with a parmesan lace wafer

Pan seared Ahi tuna encrusted with Japanese seasoning and sesame seeds, on a bed of soba noodles tossed in a wasabi mayo sauce, with a garnish of Wakame seaweed salad

Porchini dry encrusted fillet mignon on a bed of roasted garlic smashed potatoes with a confetti of oven roasted grape tomatoes, leeks and shitake mushrooms, with a drizzle of port wine reduction sauce

Grilled Caribbean lobster on a bed of traditional peas and rice with a pineapple relish, and plantain crisp garnish

Herb crusted pork tenderloin, stuffed with fresh herbs,onion and garlic, on a bed of potato galette stacks with a rosemary mango glaze and pan seared baby bok choi

SPECIALITY DRINKS MENU!

Azuria Blue

Cap’n Castaway

Callista Classic

Rosemary Daiquiri

[getdestroyed-staydestroyed]

What exactly does the common orsi diet consist of? Are they carnivores? Or, are they omnivores like us?

Orsi are omnivores but lean more towards meats so there are very few Orsi dishes without some source of protein in them. However, because of this meat-heavy omnivorous biology, Orsi do not have a very particularly strong natural taste for sugar/sweets. Orsi cuisine is quite absent of an extensive palette of desserts, candies, or other confectionery. The most commonly consumed are candied fruits topped with creme or Hashaan which is a less-sweet Orsi varient of ice-cream or gelato that is used usually as a palette cleanser after meals. 

However, there are always exceptions in genetics and some Orsi can be found with an insatiable sweet-tooth for human sweets. 

1. Naa-Shurat: Meaning “Mixed-up” loosely in Orsi tongue, Naa-Shurat is one of the older recipes in Orsi cooking and is a cold simple dish that consists of chopped vegetables, olives, and meat scraps (usually pork) mixed together in spices and a touch of oil. It’s often eaten as an appetizer in smaller portions at restaurants or as a quick lunch in larger ones due to it’s ease of preparation and ability to package it and take it with you.

2. Roasted Rack of Lamb with Siva Sauce: A traditional rack of lamb seared in the pan and finished in the oven along with roasted potatoes and carrots, make for this very rustic and satisfying dish. It’s hallmark is it’s Siva Sauce which is an Orsi invention. The origin and ingredients seems to vary very slightly from region to region, and are disputed between culinary figures. The result is a dark reddish/brown sauce with middling viscosity. It has a sharp aroma and a savory taste with a slightly sweet after-taste.  

3. Laurel Bake (served with garlic rolls): Named after the Orsi Laurel-Yves who reportedly popularized his town’s local southern coastal dish, the Laurel Bake is a bed of seasoned fragrant rice, springs of herbs, baked in a special tin with a fish protein that’s flash grilled and then finished in the tin along with citrus garnish. The dish is traditionally served with garlic rolls. Sometimes chicken is substituted for fish in landlocked provinces. 

[marckende]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Marckende Pierre (@marckende)

New Item Roasted rack of Lamb with Lobster tail and beets Then in the middle Pasta and peas with Jerk Alfredo Please follow @marckende For Booking and information please call or text 954-857-1651 #earlylunch #travelchef #eats #love #Black #cometogether #lasvegas #lasvegasstrip #personalchefoflasvegas #personalchef #arizona #personalchefofarizona #california #foodporn #goodvibes #food #foodie #haitian #chefmarckendepierre #chef #chefmarckende #personalchefoflasvegas (at Spring Valley, Nevada) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB1CmgtBm2C/?igshid=575l9a3u2k2p

[lilithnewzealand]

Outlasting the darkness: lessons of six Scottish winters

A view towards the Isle of Mull from its neighbor island, Kerrera--spring

I begin these winter musings in the final weeks of the American summer. Light is waning, and we splash one last time in the magnificent lake, pretending that the golden heat of this muggy, molten season will live on forever. In reality, the earth in its tilted run is already siphoning the minutes off the days. We can no longer reliably plan late evening BBQs around our garden’s shady oak tree, for it will already be dark by 7pm in these last weeks of August. Suddenly, we’re careening into the hectic, school-filled days of early September. One or two punctilious neighbors have already mutinously exchanged flip-flop door wreaths for pumpkins and gourds. I know that in the weeks to come, a veritable sea of hay bales and potted autumnal mums will sprout up in pleasant but unoriginal beatification of this dying season.

Chrysanthemums seem seductive envoys of death, cultivated to bloom only in hues mirroring those of a mature leaf’s swan song—pear-like yellows, burnt oranges, reds umbers, and even crackling browns. Flowers that are unwelcome and doer in the heady exuberance of spring find themselves the befitting adornment of atrophy and waning. Festive gourds, Halloween treats, and crisply weathered hayrides ease us like a conciliatory lullaby into the season that flows towards the utter darkness of the northern hemisphere’s agonizing winter solstice.

I will admit that It is not beyond me to pray, to beseech, to quietly plea for something as elementary as winter sun. Just as I pray quirky prayers that as a Western populace we’d forgo ease and profit for truly earth-honoring, nutrient rich, non-carenogenic farming, or that God would bring suffering children out from pain and fear this night, or for a friend who’s mother no longer lives, so I whisper this prayer for the mercy of winter light. I lift my voice in an entreaty that as the icy air stings our braced, pale faces, and layers panoply our bodies, that the far off winter sun with its weakened winter force would reign over our sky.

I come to these prayers with memories of winter’s capacity for mental woundedness. For six long seasons, I lived as a young adult through the insanity inducing darkness of west coast Scotland’s seemingly amaranthine, sodden winters. While before my travels I had known in theory that places such as Finland, Alaska, and Russia endured a departed sun for seasons together, I was wholly unprepared for the true, if somewhat functional insanity human beings endure when caught in the grip of a dark, far north winter. I had come to a country whose springs and summers produced some of the most stunning landscapes on earth, but whose winters’ lightlessness and wet stung the equilibrium of every cogent citizen. At ten steps beyond cozy indoor lounging, and peaceful snow-filled Saturdays, winter in the Scottish city I’d called home was, in my experience, something to survive, like an ancient, enveloping, heavy, returning foe. This is my small tale of everyday endurance.

When I left east coast America for Glasgow, Scotland in 2005 as an energetic, adventure-seeking twenty-two year old graduate student, I only vaguely considered British lore of generally omniscient rain and mist. If tea and scones accompanied that promised rain, I felt equal to its challenge. After all, I was no stranger to varieties of weather. We of the American Northeast gloried in the wonder of nature’s four faces, and cherished each one’s splendor.

Not we the soft, milk toast citizens of mild Florida, with its perpetual clemency like the slog of a meteorological purgatory, never proceeding from heaven into hell, or fleeing hell into the promise to heaven (apart from those apocalyptic moments of hurricane decimation, to be fair!). Nor were we the unfathomable folk who think it prudent to nurture community so far north as to warrant cars block heaters and homes with double heating systems. Surely a routine -30 F was nature’s indication, to western folk at least, that such landscapes as Alaska or Manitoba were not intended for human flourishing!

For all the variety of season, one reasonable constant was sunshine. From fifteen hours of committed, humid sunlight in the height of a suburban Philadelphia summer to a mere, miserable nine hours mid-December, with sunsets slipping down by 4.36pm instead of summer’s 8.32pm, the sun still at least shone weakly and cruelly in winter. How different it all was just across the pond where dramatic lochs lay and bagpipers piped.

In the beginning, my new young adult life in the art-loving, gritty, dually medieval and Victorian city of Glasgow proved mostly splendid. The beauty of nearby Hebridean islands, hill walking, and Harry Potteresque Edinburgh all soothed the longing I’d followed for vivid, three-dimensional encounter with everything I’d seen on the countless BBC murder mysteries and Jane Austen adaptions. With ceilidhs to dance, coffee shops to visit, curry to discover, and accents to unpack, the insidious impact of a profound lack of vitamin D3 upon my skin and in my body went under my radar. My mind perhaps registered the lack of sun, but only to complain or “winge” of its inconvenience, as the Scots would say. Surely, the November sky was darker than I’d ever known, but there was a jolly Burns night feast to attend, and a grotesque Haggis to address and devour.

Loch Katrine, July

Soon, alongside studies, I had found work at an inner city hotel’s vivacious restaurant. The job stretched my world from church and post-graduate university to the bustling business district of that medieval city. Working the evening shift at the flashy five-star hotel’s eatery, I saw business executives live in rooms week-to-week as their veritable second home, while lush, pleasure-seeking weekend holiday makers shifted the energy to indulgence come weekends. Often, I’d wake from a drug-like sleep the next afternoon in recovery from a previous night’s early morning finish. Weary from consecutive hours of cultivating restaurant elegance on the ground floor, while then frantically couriering steaming room service to more private, weary, or work burdened guests on upper floors, we topped long evenings with free beers and huge communal plates of greasy chips in the wee hours. Night after night, we sat like those participating in a greasy, ritualistic, pagan Scottish communion, where no one but me remembered Jesus’ body and blood.

As the sun glowed a very muted gray buzz across the daytime sky, I’d then half glimpse two hours of cloudy half-light before diving back into the murky cave of our sophisticated but windowless hotel restaurant. Here, I served Scottish rack of lamb to the lonely Welsh businessman, or waited upon the elderly far north Scot who kept the chefs in their windowless aluminum kitchen interested in life by routinely ordering the “special” of the day, chased down by an elegant but heavy triple Laphroig. We’d watch this distinguished man canter very intentionally, like a lad pulled over for his sobriety test, back across the street to the more budget hotel where he slept off this gourmet evening, ready for the following day’s to work on Scottish Educational databases.

When I’d dart out to the wide atrium bar for a diner’s wine or beer in winter, not a spot of sunlight could be seen after 3.30pm, despite the 25 foot floor-to-ceiling windows that invited every ray of lingering sun. Blackness framed the football (soccer!) fans zealously bedecked in their ribald sporting colors, marching drunkenly through the streets to and from pubs screening their games. Their glamor and serious fervor was like a shout of resolve against the depressing dimness.

As I raced along hotel corridors with my dented aluminum room service trolley and my tender, undying hopes of a small cash tip, I’d consume any glimpses of light or sky in passing windows. The mournful beauty of gulls swooping in the inky night’s electric semi-glow is my salient memory of visual grace on these long roomservice patrols along unrelieved gray corridors. Arriving at the penthouse suite on such a preternaturally shaded evening, burdened with the happy, hot, succulent roast chicken for Tony Bennett or hot chocolate and scrambled eggs for Jermaine Jackson and his shy, Caucasian girlfriend, I would sometimes pity the confusion I imagined these grand American stars must feel in our dark cityscape. Why would a civilization choose to stay and inhabit such a gritty and preternaturally dark island? On the surface of things, our commitment to this dim, soggy winter space seemed bewildering and foolishly patriotic.

Wrapped in the stalwart blanket of Scottish pride, Scots rarely discussed why they stayed at all, or how they survived. A tale of explanation that I once read was that in former generations the peoples occupying the coastal lands had found the atmospheric shoreline and islands habitable by aid of their vitamin D3 rich fish, seaweed, and cod liver oils. These they kept in a vat of fermenting sea fruits near the door of their mud-made huts. Oozing the invaluable nectar D3–liquid sunlight in food form--these earlier chiefs and clanspeople weathered the darkness abetted by foodstocks most natural to human survival in their particular climate. Did some of this impulse survive in the English and Scottish default to fish and chips on any possible occasion? In America, we grab burgers or sushi on the run. In Scotland, folk did a wee nip doon to the chippie, perhaps in an unconscious genetic compulsion back towards the fish liver oil origins enabling their earlier mental survival. 

Modern-day Scotland offered not so much a supplemental strategy, as a mission of pitiable smothering —endurance through camaraderie and pub life. In short, we drank the winter away. The prevalence of alcohol, clubbing, and more alcohol, to forget or enliven the threatening, consuming darkness was farught reality. This turn to the wine, the jack and cokes, the gin and tonics, and what became gallons of hard cider was followed, inevitably, by pursuit of deliciously repulsive fried food. A vivid memory of a winter’s evening during my university years in Glasgow was standing with friends in a grease-filled chip shop at 3 am, where a sober, level-headed, but smirking shop owner in turban and mustache served the scantily dressed, blitzed, and literally tottering western “Christian” guests a zero nutrient meal of hot chips (fries), with the chip shop’s familiar grayish green anointing curry. Indeed, a mini industry had sprung around the predictable depression of winter-bound, partying Scots—that of chippies and fish shops, open into the wee hours of the morning. By the end of six years in Glasgow, I stood well aware of the national sting of alcoholism, but certainly, and sadly, not without understanding.

I paint with broad strokes here, of course. These are memories mainly from days spent among hotel friends and university colleagues. My church friends weathered the winter rather more sedately, but not without a wee nip to get through the days, and certainly with a lion’s share of fish and chips. West Wing DVD binges, evening parties of games and “chewing the fat” (fun, leisurely chat), and mini-breaks for those who could afford to flee the gray all sustained the less alcohol prone types, as we grinned and struggled to bear the black winter away.

For myself, winterizing our let Scottish flat remained central to my mental survival. There is such a thing as cutting off your arm to spite your face. And, there is such a thing as having no good choices. When the darkness of a Scottish winter crept into Glasgow like the angel of death looking for blood on the lintels of homes, I was living with two American expatriate friends in a grand West End Glasgow flat. A magnanimous blonde stone mansion that had once outfitted an oil or railway baron of sorts in one of Glasgow’s poshest neighborhoods had now been sequestered into four elegant westend Glasgow flats. By some beneficence I still thrall to remember, we three American post-grad students had obtained “letting” rights to this splendor over a small host of other applicants. During spring, summer, and into autumn, we were the envy of all we knew. Our sprawling lounge with its twelve foot high bay window allowed in light, images of foliage, and the sound of children at play on the grounds of their expensive public (private) school across the way.

As winter crept through, however, opulent settings that had once framed our elegant spring view transmogrified to the Achilles heel of wellness and peace. My male flatmate at the time worked part-time researching medieval and modern lives of the saints, and the other seventy percent of this time drinking Jack Daniels and coke and playing an internet based video game with brothers and friends back in the US. His perch was the delicious round table within the sweep of the elegant bay window. Come November, he and I would rather awkwardly heave out the hidden, original, indoor Victorian window shudders, painted black and capable of covering literally the entire span of the floor-to-ceiling windows in a complicated inter-working of hinges and panels. Assembling this indoor screen felt like the muzzling of a bulldog or the blinding of hero, Samson-style. But we did this because there was other way to keep warm. The meager oil heaters scattered here and there like tokens to modernity held no real efficacy. They were no match for the high ceilings and now-insanely tall windows, and this shudder system in effect double glazed the space, however imperfectly. Whereas with a modern home, one stood a chance of creating somewhat stable warmth with space heaters and extra layers, these old flats stood impotent against the softly insidious sting of that millions-strong army of wet winter water cells.

In western Scotland, winter was not the season of snow, but of the far worse dual enemy of damp and darkness. This was the place of clothes that took a week to fully dry on British drying racks, and Victorian floorboards that leeched cellular moisture perpetually. Continually running dehumidifiers, we found, was positively the most effective form of heat management. Would the yesteryear drying power of real fires in the tenement fireplaces proven the key to survival against the potency of this winter water cell army? I certainly hope so for the sake of our forefathers and foremothers!

When we were done securing the blackened panels across our lounge’s windows, I turned to my own small room, likely once a servant’s quarters. There, too, hung original wooden indoor shudders for my window. Around the awkward fitting paneling, I stuffed old pajamas and the summer shorts and tank tops I’d literally never worn in Scotland. Their summer lightness now served as plugs and sealants against my greatest enemy--winter. At last, my small space lay hermetically sealed and guarded against any speck of outdoor water, and indeed, any ray of weak winter sun. I slept, lived, and worked in a cavernous darkness at least three or four months of those years in which I resided in that flat of historic luxury. Night blended almost unnoticed into day, and a cell phone flashlight directed into my eyes each morning was the best means of indicating dayspring to my searching body.

Deeper into the stretch of the city’s west end, my husband-to-be, with a professional job, traditional office hours, and a somewhat larger bank account, battled the lows of the western Scottish winter more genteelly. His best mate, a distinguished Scottish surgeon, lured him into membership at the sleek and financially exclusive David Lloyd west end gym. Here was a gorgeous, artificial, perpetual summer of sorts—the chemical paradise of an indoor pool, ensconced safely within the glass. Here, eminent surgeon sat swan alongside high stakes IT programmer, property developer alongside Oxford-trained eye surgeon. Thus it was that Alistair and Chris swam their way through the sadness of winter.

Somehow, when I think of Alistair, quietly and dramatically insisting that the David Lloyd gym and the pool were the only places keeping him from actual insanity between the pressures of complicated, risky surgeries at a large regional hospital, estrangement with his brother, tensions with a difficult mother, and the memory of a dead, beloved father, I recognized a specter of my own mental workings–a reluctance to admit or inability to see that a beloved object or passion could actually be foremost implicated in my own harm. Was the west coast Scottish darkness the true force that exacerbated all other struggles beyond the point of endurance? Yet, for this Gaelic patriot, the Scottish winter’s almost unrelenting lightlessness never came to the fore as perhaps the central instigator of mental agony. Alistair loved Scotland deeply. The main fonthead of soul-reviving relaxation outside of the gym lay in his emotional involvement with the waves and rhythms of Scotland’s contemporary celtic music. For a man so somber and focused by day, it was spellbinding to observe him unwinding with dances, fast foot-tapping and a subtly rocking body at modern celtic concerts.

As I would think of those two friends, my mind would automatically contrast them, for some reason, with the astonishing scarred man I met at the Garnethill laundromat one Scottish summer’s day. It must have been the year after my own traumatic second degree burns to my feet—boiling kettle, rushing for church, tired and stressed, slippery hands–and my subsequent skin graft surgery at Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary. The scarred man was short, almost childlike in stature, as I found many Scottish men to be, but clearly aged. Almost up the rim of his chin, where neck and head met, danced plaited, pleated scars so complete and decorative that he almost seemed reptilian.

A thick, three-dimensional scar smiled darkly across the top of neck of where throat and chin meet, reminding me of the mark made by my great uncle, who, carrying the burden of PTSD from violence seen in WWII Pacific battles, and now in the first stages of dementia, had slit his throat with a huge metal saw. This gentle, kind, and tall music-loving man had once played the saw musically, eliciting its wobbling, otherworldly siren song with a cello bow against the flat side of the tool. The musical saw’s sound is piercing and otherworldly, finding its sound family with the glassy, wobbling chords of Benjamin Franklin’s glass harmonica. Two decades later, during my undergraduate years, that tall, German-American vet who’d lied about his age to begin serving before he actually turned 18, took that very musical blade slashed it across his neck. “Look what you made me do,” he cried to my usually strong, forceful Polish-American great aunt. He survived, but forever wore that same ring around his long, elegant neck.

Now, as I bid hello to this diminutive, thoroughly scarred man, I looked quickly away, resolved to appear oblivious to what seemed a very intimate tale of attempted suicide on his body. To my surprise, however, after polite greetings in the otherwise empty laundromat, he immediately commenced the tale of his body with strong Glaswegian inflections. Perhaps it was our isolation. Perhaps it was my conspicuous burns scars blazing through summer sandals. Whatever it was, I was so glad to know him, and moved hear his story. I’ll loosely translate from that lilting Glaswegian brogue into more comprehensible but less lyrical American style.

When he was no more than 5 years old boy, he began, his mother had spilled a full kettle of boiling water over her wee son in a horrible kitchen accident. He was taken to hospital, and almost died. These scars besmirching his flesh were the best doctors could do in skin repair forty years ago, and so he’d borne these ostracizing wounds for almost his entire life. Through no fault of his own, this scarred and anxious man stood thoroughly adorned by permanent markings of unintentional violence. He displayed on one frame forever, something of every person’s lifetime of wounds, internal and external, secrets which other bodies adeptly conceal.

He continued his story by describing a most isolated life, one that I can only attribute to the visual taboo of his grotesquely slashed and matted skin. His home was a single bedsit in the Glasgow city center, where he shared a tiny kitchen with four other single men. His trade, however, was sharpening knives and blades of all kinds. I was mildly surprised to learn that he worked, for it had become routine to me to meet men and women “on benefit” for an array of real mental and physical struggles. The delight he took in his labor delighted me.

From the small, highly regulated and much rarer hunting knives that still circulated after the successful 2005 Scottish gang crackdown and knife amnesty, to larger industrial blades for manufacturing machinery, the man whose name escapes my memory, but whose face and form I’ll never forget, could sharpen them all. Here, with talk of his trade, his eyes finally shifted from their haunted anxiety to brightness. I was blessed to hear him speak with some joy of camaraderie among the gents who worked on site with him at the mechanic’s shop. While the rest of the team fixed tires and engines, he practiced his own highly tailored, solitary trade in a small corner.

Perhaps boldly, because of the safety of my engagement ring, I asked him about girlfriends and women, only to hear confirmed a lifetime of isolation and singleness. He sticks out to me among these contemplations of winter for perhaps unmatched mental resilience against outwardly imposed suffering—a human creating what order, purpose, and joy he could amidst day to day agony. It was the story of a lifetime’s Glasgow winter.

I longed for him was to experience acceptance and community across ages and genders. And so, I, not being one to routinely do so, invited him to stop in at our church in the center of the city, a place of community at the very least. I knew men like him there, faint bodily memories of times past —beatings, disabilities, and trauma—but now slowly flourishing, incrementally renewed, and even married against all odds.

At just that moment, my posh Oxbridge roommate arrived. In the wake of the awkwardness of that invitation and her aura which recalled both my connection with another social realm and his gendered isolation, he quickly scurried off down the road, bearing the burden of his laundry like Quasimodo returning to the tower. I have thought of him often since then, praying for love, for community, and great, new hope. As I write here of winter and mental survival, of Alistair needing the bright lights and chlorinated waters of the posh David Lloyd spa and fitness club, of drunken friends, and mentally suffering colleagues, I think of him. I think of the steady, determined living of the scarred, knife-sharpening man.

One late winter’s evening sitting before the artificial blue glow of my laptop in a room enclosed by the total blackout of a Glasgow winter’s evening, I purchased tickets to the romantic heart of Southern France to visit a childhood friend. I was going on mini-break! Think Van Gogh’s cafe by night painting, and you will know Arles, France, the actual location of that iconic coffee shop, and the Dutch master’s home while at the from February 1888 to May 1889. Late February, almost March, I flew from Glasgow to Barcelona, Spain, and from Barcelona to Grenoble, France, and then by train to Arles. My dear American friend’s smile and transcendent ruby curls greeted me, and together we sauntered like those who’ve reached heaven itself through her adopted hometown, a healing intellectual and aesthetic distance from the New Jersey suburb of her youth. I posed by a Baroque fountain, while an enthusiastic male youth, adorned in an expensive Chanel “merce”, man-purse, jumped in to cradle me and photobomb the shot. We paused at a cafe on a winding, cobblestone street resounding with gentle guitar music for coffee and cocoa--all my European dreams were coming true. We continued on to Arles’ ancient Roman arena, where I heard tell of jazz and opera concerts, and finally emerged before the pinnacle, iconic Arles sight–its mirthful 1900 carousel.

Each of Katherine’s overseas guests were brought here and invited to ride the most famous of all Arlesian beasts—the black bull—El Toro of the carousel. Arlesian voices, Katherine explained, cacophonied in a dynamic, regional debate over the beauty or butchery of the bullfight. When these people of Southern France craved societal momentum, their chosen form of activism was always the formation of a society–the Society for Perpetuating Bullfights, the Society for Ethical Treatment of the Bull, the Society for Ending all Bullfights, etc. Across the road from one such society in an elegant turn of the century building, I paid my euros, and we laughed as the little carousel propelled my postgraduate student body up and down like a child’s. I balled my hands into fists and extended pointer fingers into two playful horns for my own forehead. For one puerile moment, I embodied El Toro himself.

For all the charm of that exploratory, Southern France day, the moment that stands immortalized in my mind was a quiet one. Descending the bull, and resting on the cobblestone pavements between the carousel and the boulangerie where Katherine quickly ran to purchased dinner baguettes, I felt a warmth steal across my face, neck, and decolletage. What was this glowing orange heat descending from the sky? How was this mercy of a peachy, gentle heat present on a mere late February day? Soaked in the mild ecstasy of this magnanimous anomaly, I drowsily wondered again what was this golden orb was doing filling the winter sky so warmly. I am not one to anthropomorphize flesh, but in that moment, my assemblage of cells spoke almost audibly. They begged me to pause, to stop, to soak, to drink in every lingering ray of sunlight. They would not budge.

There can be tears for the relief of battle we barely knew we had. There can be weeping with the realization that we had unknowingly survived truly destabilizing insufficiencies for so long. And at that moment, tears literally sprang to my eyes as I luxuriated in the gentle fullness of a benediction so long denied—the necessary mercy of sunlight for my pale, deprived epidermis. Here was a long forgotten grace for both body and mind. Here was a reminder of an alternative world where sun reigned not as a far off, chance promise, but as an immanent, abundant love.

In 1971, John Denver, the American folk singer with a flaxen gold bowl cut sang, “Sunshine, on my shoulders, makes me happy…Sunshine almost always makes me high.” This racy line sat neatly memorized in my mind, snuck in among other more lighthearted folk fare from my parents’ 1970’s favorites. I vividly recall my parents discussing, with insufficiently hushed voices from the front seat of our gray airport limousine-style van on a trip west around America in the mid-1990’s, whether Simon and Garfunkel’s Cecilia was appropriate musical fodder for the mixed company of our family’s emerging pre-teens, teens, toddlers, and elementary students. “Makin’ love in the afternoon with Cecelia, up in my bedroom! Makin’ love!…” So little music did our parents bring, and so many long hours in the car made for a categorically memorized albums–beauty, revolution, salaciousness, and all. By the end of that month-long trek we kids had memorized much of Peter Paul and Mary’s In The Wind, John Denver’s Best Of, and Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters—all of which rotated like clockwork with an audiobook performance of Jane Eyre.

That day, standing in the long alien sun on that street in southern France, the line from John’s “Sunshine” filtered to the surface of long forgotten memories. To be clear, whether it makes me nerd or novice, I have never been “high” in the usual illegal, high school manner; yet, I have experienced the ebullience of a day out with friends and no obligations and money to spend, or the delight and honor of winning a grand, unexpected prize, whether first place in a the school wide coloring contest in kindergarten, or the university Presidential Award. This moment of sun’s mercy was like that—a shock of sheer biological joy, soaking in upon my skin, almost against my will or asking, and ushering with it, a deeply gladdened heart and endorphins. I no longer giggled and smirked at John Denver and his chillaxed, hippy musings. I sang alongside in fully realized understanding. How, oh how, could I return to dark Scotland?

Back in my little cavernous bedroom a week later, I distractedly ordered a large jar of encapsulated vitamin D3. Each small, smooth and marble-like tablet appeared so inane, harmless, even placebo. I tossed one in my mouth, In fact, I think I tossed 5 in my mouth for few days straight. I had no idea of their efficacy, but I reasoned that if in theory, I had been missing out on this necessity for five years, my body would require a small jolt of awakening to begin its journey into recovery. Chasing them down with water, I probably raced on with the movements of my busy life. And suddenly, a week or two later, as I turned up the circular staircase of our Victorian flat, I noticed that the unhinged sadness and chaos that had darkly plagued my inner world had calmed ever so subtly.

It was not the burst of what I imagine a drugged high must be, but the soothing calm of gently increasing stability, the slow, almost imperceptible release from the whirling bedlam of a blurred and muddied mind. The little blue pitch-forked demons of Disney’s 1959 Sleeping Beauty had ceased their authoritative dance and disappeared into a poof of nothing.

“Wow, I’m not insane anymore,” I muttered softly to myself. Gratitude, then annoyance flowed through me. Why, oh why, hadn’t I just tried it before? I would have liked to know that I was more than the “sweet” but distracted and zany blonde—that a measure of winter peace was possible, ever so subtly.

I’ve been a sun chaser ever since. I could not go back, could not slacken my pursuit of the gift of God’s best UV rays. My body and practices have grown more savvy, tailoring their thirst to the most vanguard research—10-20 minutes a day of obsolescence before the orbital rays on as much skin as possible in the prime window of lowest UVB rays—10am to 2pm. I respect the sensitivities of the face, neck, and shoulders.

For so long, I’d scorned the Glaswegian flight to crass, boozy Majorca, Spain, with what I deemed to be its tacky modern hotels and abundance of alcoholic loitering on the sands. Why, I mused, would a nation with such ready access to Europe’s innumerable cultural splendors and fine countrysides beeline in droves to a that tasteless resort landscape? I’d drunk the molding Kool-aid of belief in fading science—wearing sunscreen even on overcast days in cloudy Scotland, and trying to cover every inch of skin with fabric, even on warm far northern days, dreaming all the while of the crowning trophy of smooth, creamy pensioner (retiree) skin, coupled with a remarkable freedom from skin cancer. But now, after seven years of winter darkness and year-round mist, my snobbish disdain broke down with understanding for those I’d once slighted –you must fill up on sun and wellness before any culture becomes important. Pale and D3 deprived as I was, it dawned on me that there was grave logic to British comedian Michael McIntyre’s routine about the Glaswegian airport bombing attempt. Contrasting successful terrorists in London and Manchester, British born Islamic jihadists failed in their malicious bomb plots here in Glasgow, where a winter-beaten Glaswegian man tackled the physician- turned-jihadist in overweening determination to let nothing keep him from…Majorca.

When I next visited Glasgow seven years following our emigration, my friend Lindsey stood contemplating my Americanized postpartum body. She who had known me well in the Glasgow days observed, “You have some curves to you now, and some colour!” It was late October then, and so particularly gratifying to appear even remotely tanned! I reveled in my new hue, a sun-kissed peach, no longer the pallid, muted white linked to breast cancer and MS.

Now as a thirty-something year old scholar, mother, and partner, I look to photos of fellow thirty year old Scottish friends. Two Octobers ago, I sat with them in an ornate Victorian sandstone building-turned-Starbucks, drinking in the miracle of their lovely children, and seeing photos of their flourishing middle class lives. They worked as a professors, teachers, bank tellers, mothers, and volunteered with refugees, addicts, and international students. They lived day by day still in this cloud of gray, and theirs is a resilience I marvel to behold. I raise my glass of almond milk and another of kombucha to them, and salute their Scottish hardiness. My heart opens in prayer for the gift of mental wellness for them, and for those of us everywhere who find the shift to winter darkness an elephant of gloom sitting upon hearts. Let us fill our homes with green plants, keep connected in fun and kinship with friends, especially the lonely, pop our vitamin D3 with its enabling K2 buddy, and long for the lights of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Yule who offer bright, needful stars of hope and celebration against a black winter sky.

As we walk in darkness, visions of summer remains my close companion hope, a specter walking by my side, the dream, like heaven reaching close to earth. And if we have eyes to see, we raise our fragile fingers to touch the veil between this present world and the next springtime. Memories and testimonies from far across the equator where antipodean New Zealand and Australian summers reign alongside our winter become the motivating promise that at the culmination of this obligatory darkness, there will be my body glistening with sun and sweat by the sonorous utterance of the lapping ocean waves.

[thechitchatbar]

GREEK STYLE LAMB(BY Kizmet)

Hey peeps!!

I was contemplating doing a weekly foodie thread so please let us here on TCCB know if it’s something that would interest you?

As a little trial, I am popping up the recipe I am making for our dinner tonight.  As Spring has well and truly sprung here, I thought I would make an Oven Roasted Lamb Shoulder, with flavours of Greece front and centre.

The cool thing about this recipe is, it is an all year all rounder and one of my favourite styles of cooking too…set and forget for a couple of hours  lol

As it’s heating up here, we are having it with some greek style salad, some flat breads, Tzatziki, Tabouli and Hummus.

  If so inclined would also be awesome with roasted potatoes and an olive tapenade.

In cooler months though, it could be served with a roasted vegetable melange tossed through some cous cous.

Anyway here is the lamb recipe.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!!

Ingredients:

1 leg of lamb, bone-in - or shoulder, bone-in

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

Sprigs of Lemon Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary.  If you don’t have fresh, then a teaspoon of each of those dried herbs, is fine.

flaked salt and ground pepper

2 lemons

extra-virgin olive oil, to finish

2 tbsp chopped parsley and 2 tbsp of chopped mint alto as a finishing flutter.

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 160C (140C fan forced).  - 320F or 280F .Cover the lamb in olive oil, garlic, herbs, some salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper. Squeeze over the juice of one of the lemons.

Place lamb on a rack in a roasting pan, pour in enough water to come 2 to 3 centimetres (inch and a half) up the pan’s sides and cook for 5 hours.

Check the lamb every hour or so and baste with the pan juices.

After about 3 hours, once it is golden brown on top, cover with foil and continue to cook.

When cooked, remove from the oven and rest for 20 minutes before serving.

Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, some flaked salt and ground pepper, and a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley and mint and if you would like an extra flourish, pop a couple of extra lemons there for those wanting an additional zesty zing!

Serve with sides of your choice.

This lamb is not meant to be served “pink”.  It should end up being fork tender perfection.

Also any leftovers make a good souvlaki  ( gyro) a day or so after.:)

[genevievemd]

McRam Wedding Menu

Marrying the mini chef, Ethan Ramsey, meant that the food at he and Gen’s wedding was top tier. It was also one of the only areas of the wedding that he wanted a say on.

They had a sit down dinner, with plenty of options. The appetizers were passed during cocktail hour. And obviously dessert was later in the night.

The Appetizers:

Mini shrimp salad rolls

Raspberry infused vinaigrette + mixed fruit salad

Assorted charcuterie board

The Dinner:

Herb roasted chicken and rice with fresh apricot.

Spring vegetable risotto

Lightly seasoned trout with parsley-caper vinaigrette

Grilled rack of lamb with asparagus

The Desserts:

The Cake

Petit Fours

Champagne glazed fruit tarts

Canadian butter tarts

Macarons

Chocolate mousse cups

Bonus:

Much to Ethan’s dismay, G insisted on having signature drinks! She had one of each at the wedding, Ethan had none.

Cherry Julep

Lavender Mojito

Peach Bellini

Wedding Wednesday: Week 14

First, let me apologize for posting this so late in the day! I usually do it Tuesday nights but writing and homework got away from me. Anyway we’re where now.

This weeks is all about the wedding food!

What was the menu at your MC’s wedding?

Was it a sit down meal or a buffet?

How many courses?

If you know, what we’re the specific foods at the wedding?

Was there any compromises between your mc and li on what was served at their wedding?

Bonus: did they have any signature drinks?

Have fun!

[livinginlandmarketing]

In a normal year, Southern California’s casinos offer dozens of options for Christmas dining ranging from full buffet smorgasbords to unique options such as sushi.

However, with the novel coronavirus pandemic, many of the properties have revamped their approach this year by limiting dining options and adding offerings such as to-go meals. But chances are you can still find something tasty.

(While Southern California restaurants have been ordered to stop in-person dining, the tribally owned casinos are on sovereign land, so they are able to continue to be open.)

Here are 18 different choices for Christmas dinner at the casinos.

Agua Caliente Casino Palm Springs 

401 E. Amado Road, Palm Springs. 888-999-1995, aguacalientecasinos.com.

Holiday To-Go: The Palm Springs casino is offering to-go meals that feed 8-10 people. Meals include a whole roasted turkey with chestnut sage stuffing, cream of chicken soup, whipped mashed potatoes, turkey giblet gravy, rolls and more. Dessert includes pecan pie and New York-style cheesecake. $210. Orders must be placed by Dec. 21 and will be available for curbside pickup on Dec. 25. sparesortcasino.com.

Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage 

32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage. 888-999-1995, aguacalientecasinos.com.

The Steakhouse (Rancho Mirage): Pre-fixe menu featuring choice of veal chop and Alaskan king Crab or salmon coulibiac. 5-11 p.m., Dec. 25. $95. Reservations recommended, and can be made by calling 888-999-1995.

360 Sports: Prime rib sandwich, horseradish mayo, caramelized onions, Swiss cheese, arugula and potato flats. 11 a.m.-midnight, Dec. 25. $16.

Holiday To-Go: The Rancho Mirage Resort is offering to-go meals that feed between 6-8 people. Meals come with a maple-dijon glazed honey baked ham with pineapple, tomato bisque, dinner rolls, baby lettuce salad, haricot vert green beans, pasta primavera, virgin eggnog and more. Dessert is a holiday yule log cake. $210. Orders must be placed by Dec. 21 for curbside pickup on Dec. 25. hotwatercasino.com.

Southern California’s casinos will be serving a wide variety of meal options for Christmas, including turkey, ham and prime rib. (iStock photo)

Augustine Casino 

84-001 Ave. 54, Coachella. 760-391-9500, augustinecasino.com.

Café 54: Christmas dinner includes prime rib and lobster with baked potato, asparagus and glass of Champagne. 11:30 a.m.- 8 p.m., Dec. 25. $28.95. Reservations are required and must be made no later than Dec. 18. They can be made by calling 760-391-9504.

Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa

49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon. 951-849-3080, morongocasinoresort.com.

Cielo: Brown butter Jerusalem artichoke soup; braised bone-in short rib with cheesy polenta cakes and honey-roasted root vegetables; and Othello layer cake with chocolate ganache, hazelnut buttercream, espresso and Baileys-soaked sponge. 5-11 p.m., Dec. 25. $68 per person. Reservations recommended and can be made by calling 800-252-4499, ext. 6.

Good Times Café: Salad with beets, arugula, candied walnuts, radish and blue cheese pomegranate vinaigrette; roast beef tenderloin with potato gratin, broccoli and red wine sauce; and pecan pie cheesecake. 11 a.m. Dec. 25 – 3 a.m. Dec. 26.  $32.99 per person.

Sideline Bar & Grill: Sideline bacon cheeseburger Philly with thousand island dressing, mayonnaise, bacon, cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato and pickle. 11 a.m. Dec. 25-3 a.m. Dec. 26. $14.

Pink Coffee: Serving a chocolate Buche de Noel throughout December. $7.50.

Pit Stop Diner (Casino Morongo): Candied walnut salad; slow roasted braised short ribs with mashed potatoes, demi-glace, cherry tomato and asparagus; spiced eggnog cheesecake with a gingerbread crust. 8 a.m. Dec. 25 midnight Dec. 26. $21.99 per person.

Christmas to-go: You can order a complete meal for eight people to-go from the Cabazon complex. The meals, prepared by Morongo’s chefs, include an entrée, sides and dessert.

Prices are $175 for a 16-18-pound turkey; $185 for a 10-pound glazed carving ham with pineapple bourbon glaze; or $215 for an 8-pound slow-roasted prime rib of beef. Sides include mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, sage stuffing, baby carrots and baked yams with honey and marshmallows, among other items. Comes with choice of apple, pecan or pumpkin pie.

Meals can be ordered by calling 866-234-7006 or visiting morongocasinoresort.com and can be picked up beginning at noon on Dec. 24 or 10 a.m. Dec. 25.

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Pechanga Resort Casino

45000 Pechanga Parkway, Temecula. 877-711-2946, pechanga.com.

Holiday To-Go: The Temecula area resort has to-go meals in two different sizes. There’s an option for a bone-in prime rib that serves six ($175) and a bone-in prime rib that serves 12 ($350). Meals include mashed potatoes, roasted baby carrots, brussels sprouts, au jus, creamy horseradish, rolls and butter, apple pie or pecan pie. Orders can be picked up curbside from Blends Coffee & Wine Bar from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dec. 25. Orders must be placed by Dec. 17 and can be made by calling 951-770-2307.

Related links

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San Manuel Casino

777 San Manuel Blvd, Highland. 800-359-2464, sanmanuel.com.

Note: San Manuel is not offering full-service dining for the time being, so all orders are to-go.

Food Court: Slow-cooked prime rib sandwich with garlic fries. 11 a.m. Dec. 25-1 a.m, Dec. 26.  $19.

Rock & Brews: 10-ounce roasted turkey breast with gravy, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and cranberry chutney. $19.95. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Dec. 25.

George Lopez’s Chingon Kitchen: Red pork pozole. 11 a.m. Dec. 25-1 a.m., Dec. 26. $15.

Soboba Casino Resort 

22777 Soboba Road, San Jacinto. 951-665-1000, soboba.com.

Canyons: Maple-scented butternut squash bisque, grilled prime filet and jumbo prawns and buche de noel for dessert. 5-10 p.m., Dec. 25. $85. Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling  1-866-476-2622.

Fairway Cafe: Choice of winter salad with a parsley lemon vinaigrette or roasted red pepper and gouda bisque; choice of coffee-crusted beef tenderloin or Australian rack of lamb; and pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. 11 a.m. Dec. 25-midnight Dec. 26. $28.

Noodle Bar: Egg drop soup for two; braised short ribs with wine sauce, vegetables and rice; and lemongrass creme brulee for dessert. Noon Dec. 25 -1 a.m. Dec. 26. $32.

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-on December 12, 2020 at 02:54AM by Alex Groves

[roadtrip-2020]

Sedona

The second stop on our road trip was Sedona. And boy did we love this magical city!

Where we stayed

Nights 1-2: Sky Rock Inn of Sedona

Since this was only our second stop, I refused to let us stay at Enchantment Resort, probably the most well known and expensive luxury resort in Sedona. (I felt we should “earn” our luxury towards the end of our trip after camping a bunch). We found a hip-looking refurbished roadside inn with beautiful views, Sky Rock Inn of Sedona, online for about $250/night and booked it. It ended up being decent, but not as great as advertised online. 

What we liked: 

Free yoga at 9 am every morning

Big, shared deck with beautiful views of the Sedona Mountains 

Pretty good, free breakfast every morning

What we didn’t like:

The rooms weren’t as nice or clean as the images we saw online. “Worn” would be a relevant adjective

Restaurant and bar were closed when we were there so we couldn’t even enjoy a drink on the awesome deck to take in the views over an adult beverage during “golden hour” / happy hour. 

Night 3: Don Hoel’s Cabins

Our third night in Sedona we were supposed to camp outside of Sedona, but realized day-of that the campsite we had booked was over an hour outside of Sedona and was closer to the Grand Canyon, which was the next stop on our trip. So we decided to stay in Sedona, but couldn’t find a last-minute campsite anywhere! Turns out Californians have flocked to Sedona because of the wildfires and because, due to COVID and no international travel, everyone is looking to camp and get outside. We were getting nervous, but I had read of an amazing dispersed campsite online, so we set out to find that. Dispersed camping is essentially camping without any amenities (i.e., no reservations, bathrooms, showers, potable water, etc). They are specific areas that the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) allows people to camp as long as they follow “leave no trace” principles. So that’s what we were searching for!

We stopped by a roadside market to ask for directions to dispersed camping and found that this market was also the lodge for an Inn comprised of 18 cabins, The Butterfly Garden Inn (previously “Don Hoel’s Cabin”). Turned out that they had vacancy in a cutie little one-bedroom cottage that evening and also had private access to a creek to swim in across the street, Oak Creek Canyon. In Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon is where everyone goes to swim and when it’s super hot out -- which is was when we were there in late September. Some areas get crowded with strangers, so having a private access area was awesome, even if it were a bit rugged.

Nights 4-5: Camping in Oak Creek Canyon

We learned that the best way to get a last minute campsite is to go to campgrounds that have plenty of “first come, first serve” campsites and show up very early (pre-7 a.m.) to get in line for a spot. So the morning after we stayed in the cabin in Oak Creek Canyon, we woke up early and waited in line at Cave Spring Campground, then checked out Pine Flat Campground afterwards. Both are in Oak Creek Canyon and have streams running right through them. Cave Spring seemed to have more families, so we decided to camp at Pine Flat. The camp hosts at Pine Flat were so nice, organized, and helped us switch to a better campsite for our second night. Some punks also stole our firewood and the camp hosts gave us two free bushels. The bathrooms at Pine Flat were pit toilets (very common), but surprisingly clean and actually smelled nice! Crazy, I know.

Other Sedona campgrounds to check out:

Cesar Crossing

Manzanita

What we did

We were in Sedona for 5 nights and 4 days, so we did a lot. I’ll put the highlights in the recommendations section below. We were there in late September so it was very hot when we were there still, in the mid-90s during the day and 60s at night. Our days centered around hiking and then finding a way to cool down in the afternoon. Either swimming at the hotel or swimming in Oak Creek Canyon when we were camping. Our first two nights we went to nice dinners, since we were staying in town and at a hotel and could look nice. Our third night we did Cathedral Rock hike at Sunset which was amazing, highly recommend! On our last two nights when we camped at Pine Flats we made dinner on the campfire both nights: Campfire Cast Iron Pizza and then roasted chicken and veggies (similar dish here). Both turned out pretty well but the roasted chicken and veggies was my favorite. I’ve never had chicken cooked so perfectly and it felt like a much healthier camp meal!

Sedona Recommendations

Restaurants

Hideaway House, a very cute Italian restaurant built into the side of red rocks with multiple stories of outdoor patios -- great for COVID dining!

Rene at Tlaquepaque, the nicest of our Sedona dinners and my personal favorite. I got the rack of lamb and Chris got the roasted duck, both were delicious. For dessert we got bananas foster, which was made right at our table. Reserve an earlier dinner and walk around Tlaquepaque to check out all the cute shops. 

Heard great things about Mariposa Grill, but it was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s “Latin-inspired” cousine. 

Hikes

Soldier’s Pass to Brins Mesa Trail - 5 mile loop hike with beautiful views.

Cathedral Rock Trail - Short but steep hike -- our favorite of Sedona! Awesome for sunset. Also, it had one of the strongest vortexes in Sedona.

West Fork Trail - 6.8 mile out and back hike in Oak Creek Canyon. More shade the the other hikes in Sedona and has plenty of places to swim in the creek. The hike wraps around the Canyon wall, which is beautiful.

Other

Swimming in Oak Creek Canyon - The linked article gives directions on how to get to a good swimming hole. 

Shopping at Tlaquepaque - Really cute arts and shopping village that made me nostalgic for Europe!

[frankpanioncube]

Round 1 Done - SO - Crown rack of Lamb crusted with pistachios, rosemary, thyme,parsley,Parmesan cheese and tarragon, red cabbage salad with red and orange peppers, spring onion, almonds, crushed ramen and sesame, wine braised leeks with garlic, Käsespätzle with Jarlsberg, Gruyere and caramelized onions, Roasted Carrots with black sesame lemon glaze

Gingerbread Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Dipped Blackberry Cookies and Gingerbread Yule Log.

...and now to prep for tomorrow.

[tsgnorthwestarkansas]

EASTER TAKEOUT FEASTS TO ENJOY AT HOME

The upcoming Easter holiday won't be our traditional norm, it's true, but it can still be extra special and full of wonder and making unforgettable memories. With virtual meeting sites like Zoom to connect family and friends, virtual religious services, and our local restaurants offering delivery/takeout eats & drinks, we're really beginning to get excited for families staying home together this year. We’ve rounded up a few of some mouth-watering Easter meals you can order locally – be sure to click through each restaurant included for their full menus (availability and menus may change, please contact the businesses directly for the most up-to-date information).

Happy Easter Everyone!

FAYETTEVILLE

Ella’s Table 

We love Ella’s Table restaurant, located inside the Inn at Carnall Hall in Fayetteville, for their Southern cuisine and Easter brunch tradition within a charming nostalgic inn setting on the University of Arkansas campus. Since we are all staying at home for Easter this year, Ella’s Table has created a build-your-own Easter Feast to-go menu (above) allowing you to create your very own Easter brunch tradition. 

Place your order by calling Inn at Carnall Hall at 479.582.0400 by 4:00pm on Thursday (4/9). Orders may be picked up on Easter Sunday (4/12) between 11:00am - 12pm curbside at Inn at Carnall Hall.

Mount Sequoyah Center 

We are sad to not be able to attend the Annual Easter Sunrise Service at Mount Sequoyah this year, BUT Chef Justus Moll has prepared a fantastic Easter Dinner menu to-go that your family can enjoy at home.

Brown sugar and Dijon-glazed ham

Four cheese and bacon potato au gratin

Bourbon-glazed heirloom carrots

Capicola green beans

Rainbow Easter salad with citrus vinaigrette

Stone Mill rolls

Deviled eggs

Carrot cake

Place orders by phone (479.443.4531) by 4:30pm on Friday (4/10) or online HERE by 7pm Friday (4/10). The cost is $20 per person (there is a box to check to select how many people you will be feeding when ordering online) and pick up will be available between 4:00pm and 6:30pm on Sunday (4/12). For pick up, your order will be brought to your car outside the Dining Hall located at the top of hill when you enter through the main gates of Mount Sequoyah Center.

Atlas The Restaurant

We love that one of our fave new restaurants, Atlas, has put their spin on a traditional Easter Family Meal featuring roasted rack of lamb or prime rib. And we have to give a major shout out to one of their amazing sides – beet poached deviled eggs! 

To preorder, call Atlas at 479.332.4601 (starting at 12pm) or place an order online. Curbside pickup or local delivery (within a three mile radius) is available on Easter Sunday (4/12) between 1pm - 7pm.

Snack Lab 

Let Snack Lab do the cooking so you can focus on spending time with your family. They’ve put together a fresh and healthy Easter Meal that feeds 4-6 and is sure to please everyone! Looking for individual dishes instead of the whole meal? Snack Lab has those options too!

Complete Easter Family Meal

Feeds 4 Generously | $100

Includes choice of: 1 Shareable, 1 “Risen” bread, 1 “Glorious” entree, and 2 “Compliment” sides .

Add-on a Breakfast or Dessert to complete your meal!

Order online or by phone – Bentonville: 479.268.5353 or Fayetteville: 479.332.4969 by Thursday (4/9). Curbside pickup and delivery available April 10 and 11 for both Bentonville and Fayetteville. Gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian options available.

The Event Group Catering

We know you can’t gather with all of your loved ones this year, but you can still have a wonderful meal (menu above) prepared in a safe environment by The Event Group Catering. Best of all, The Event Group Catering Easter Feast features local NWA vendors to help brighten your day:

Pies: Fork & Crust Pie Company

Wine: Sassafras Springs Vineyard & Winery

Floral Arrangement: Jules Design (flowers are sourced from local farms)

You can place an order online here, call 479.444.8626 or email shellie@nwark.com. Curbside pick-up is on Friday (4/10) and Saturday (4/11) between 10am and 6pm at The Event Group Catering.

Mockingbird Kitchen 

We’ve all relished the weekend brunches created by chef/owner Chrissy Sanderson at Mockingbird Kitchen (who doesn’t love their Eggs Benedict and Spicy Backyard Mary!), so we were extra excited to learn that she is offering the full Mockingbird Brunch menu that you can order from to suit your individual tastes for the Easter weekend. 

To order Easter Weekend Brunch, call Mockingbird Kitchen at 479.435.6333 by Saturday (4/11). Ordering hours are 10am-1pm and 4:30pm-7:30pm daily and you can let Mockingbird Kitchen know what time you prefer to pick up curbside between 10am-2pm on Saturday (4/11) or Easter Sunday (4/12).

BENTONVILLE

Oven and Tap 

Oven and Tap continues to reinvent themselves with their fabulously creative and delicious meal kits. O&T is taking Easter preorders this week through Friday (4/10) for curbside pickup on Friday (4/10) and Saturday (4/11) from 12pm-8pm (with deliveries to Fayetteville). Call 479.268.5884 starting as early as 11am to place a preorder.

O & T Easter Kit Sides

Mashed Potatoes

Broccoli Cheese Casserole

Roasted Carrots with Herbed Butter

Housemade Brioche Rolls

Feeds 6-8 people for $50

Mollie’s Faves

O&T Deviled Eggs: $8 dozen

Take & Bake Ham & Cheddar Drop Biscuits with garlic butter // 4 for $8; 8 for $16

O&T Signature Kit

Marinated Pork Loin Kit featuring locally-sourced 3-pound pork loin from Bansley’s Berkshire Ridge Farm marinated with olive oil, garlic & rosemary (ready to put in the oven or on the grill!): $35

Take & bake pizza, pasta and cookie kits are also available.

ROPESWING GROUP

Easter is a family affair with Ropeswing Group with three of their signature restaurant concepts – Louise at Thaden Field, BlakeSt. and Pressroom – offering a variety of options to suit your Easter brunch, lunch or dinner palate and plans.

Louise To preorder, call Louise at 479.250.0477. Orders will need to be placed ahead of time for pick up on Saturday (4/11) between 9am-12pm or 3pm-6pm. Louise is closed on Easter Sunday (4/12).

BlakeSt. To preorder, call BlakeSt. at 479.268.4157. Members and non members may place orders. Orders will need to be placed on or before Saturday (4/11) for pick up on Sunday (4/12) between 12pm-4pm. 

Pressroom To order, call Pressroom at 479.657.2905. Orders can be placed anytime for pick up on Easter Sunday (4/12) between 10am-2pm.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and #stayconnectednwa!