I Can't Believe I Didn't Try Before

Curses!  Foiled again!

I'm dabbling in the art of reproducing something great I ate at a restaurant.  Been at it for months.  Been back to the Chicago restaurant so many times, they're starting to remember the odd-duck lady who dissects the food on her plate like just so much pinned frog.

There's a reason I like cookbooks and recipe sites.  Somebody else has tweaked the sauce, eaten the almost-rights and borne the suspense.  So why did I cast off into the uncharted seas of cookery?

Well, the memory of this menu item sticks to me like cat hair, which we all know never lets go.  Some people hear a band and they MUST snag concert tickets.  Some see a pair of spike heels and they MUST own them.

I just MUST.

I thought I would have results to share with you tonight, but I'm still not satisfied.  My motto seems to be "Wait!  Let me try it one more time."  My family rolls their eyes so much, they risk permanently staring at their pre-frontal cortices.

At least they eat all the versions I feed them.  "Mom, it's fine.  This is really good."

"No, it's not quite . . .  not quite right yet."

Therefore, what you get tonight is:

CHOCOLATE-COVERED STRAWBERRIES

So easy, I can't believe I didn't attempt this before. 

(Actually I did, in a half-hearted way )

The recipe instructs us to "Insert toothpicks in strawberry leaves.  Holding by the toothpick, dip the strawberries into the chocolate mixture. Turn the strawberries upside down and insert the toothpick into styrofoam for the chocolate to cool."  I just held them by their leaves and let them cool on a wax-paper-lined cookie sheet.  I chilled them for 20-30 minutes.  Then they lifted off the wax paper easily.   Thirty-eight calories per medium berry, probably more for large ones.  And no fancy white drizzles in my kitchen.  I have never mastered drizzling.

Still reading Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels.  After finishing Some Hope, I caught up to where I originally started in Mother's Milk.  

You may recall young Robert, son of Patrick, who describes his birth.   Father Patrick has taken his young family to dwell at his mother's estate in the south of France, which Patrick will not inherit because Mummy has dedicated the house to the Transpersonal Foundation, offering it as a haven where people might "connect."  No one knows what they are connecting with. 

The charm of Mother's Milk  is in seeing everything from little Robert's height.  Puzzled by adult conversations, he escapes to stare into the fish pond.  Then one of the people trying to "connect" happens along and tries to convince him to listen to the fish which "bring us messages from the depths." 

Good luck, little Robert, figuring out these adults.