Friday Night Dinner

Let me backtrack to Friday night and the dinner here at my home. Soon as we finished rowing and the equipment got put away in the late afternoon, I hightailed it back to my house to get the last minute preparations underway. First I put on the tiny red potatoes to boil up with lots of garlic. Then the roast was slapped back into the turkey roaster. The juices from the previous days cooking were added after taking off the hardened fat from the top of the bowl. That roast was then smothered in cut onions and carrots and placed into a slow oven at about 300°.

The ice for drinks was put out and the gas lights and fireplace lit. The cats knew something is going on. I left the doors open to the basement and upstairs so Daggy could have her choice of where to hide when the guests arrived. Stump preferred to be outside!

I used a whole stick of butter to smash into the potatoes along with a bit of milk, salt and pepper. I had heard on a cooking show that when boiling up potatoes you should not cut them into sections: A lot of flavour can be lost. That was the reason I got the small ones: So they would cook more evenly. The oven temperature was turned back even more and the finished potatoes were put into a covered serving dish and placed on top of the oven to keep warm.

It was at that moment Ted, Dianne and the guests of honor Dick and Donna rang the doorbell. Jason and Alison our coaches arrived a bit later, and then Ann showed up just as we sat to dinner. It was a perfect eight guests around the table!

The entire meal/night was wonderful. The potatoes turned out to be out of this world! I was so pleased to see Jason dig in for seconds!! There is nothing I like better than to have simple home cooked dinner and see my guests enjoy.

We sat around the dining room table discussing rowing till 10:00! Everyone agreed it was so much nicer than being in a restaurant.

As usual things were so busy and spontaneous I never thought to take pictures. Our gathering could have gone on all night, but the workshop was scheduled to begin at 7:00 a.m. and run till noon Saturday at the University.

There were the usual offers to help clean up, but I shooed my guests out the door. “I’ll just put the food away and then to the clean up in the morning while my coffee is brewing,” I tell them.