Near-Divine Food for a Divine Occasion

My friend Mike arrived yesterday. He is moving to the Ocala area, and he just sold his house in New England. He left on Wednesday, and he arrived on Saturday. It was a horrible trip. Car problems. Bad hotels. No one to share the driving. He should have arrived Friday, but his Mercedes had to make most of the trip in limp mode, and he stopped in North Carolina overnight for an unsuccessful repair.

The night after the failed repair job, he went to a hotel in South Carolina and found it too filthy to stay in. Someone had even left him a little gift in the porcelain receptacle, if you get my drift. He drove to another hotel, and a shabby pickup kept following him as he tried to park. Obviously, it was some white-trash dirtbag hoping to loot his trailer. He called the cops, the trailer left, and a beat-up Pontiac showed up to continue the game.

He checked out and gave up on hotels. He ended up stopping periodically to sleep in his car’s front seat.

Of course, demons were resisting his move to Christian Northern Florida. But they failed to achieve victory. They are, after all, losers and the children of losers. Losing is what they do.

We had to move maybe a thousand pounds of stuff into my house today, and there is still a lot left on his trailer. He had 20 pounds of yellow grits with him, because he didn’t want to throw out everything from his kitchen. They got out and went all over his lawnmower. He had similar problems with sugar and a big bottle of Mexican vanilla extract. And a bottle of liqueur someone gave to his late father.

The good news: we’re working on Passover dinner. Let’s go ahead and call it Passover, even if Christians celebrate on the wrong day. Jesus is our Passover lamb, and he was killed on Passover. No chocolate rabbit ever died for anyone’s sins.

Local stores put rib roasts on sale, and I picked one up Tuesday. I covered it with salt, butter, and garlic, and stuck it in my spare fridge under kitchen towels. I wanted to roast it in my new oven, but Mike got all excited about the Showtime rotisserie, so that’s where it is.

I told him I’d handle the baked potatoes and Caesar salad if he cooked the roast. I cut a baguette in pieces and roasted them. Then I tossed them in olive oil in which I had fried garlic. Very nice. I dried the romaine as well as I could and cut it in suitable pieces. I finally found a very good dressing recipe. You can look it up over at Serious Eats. I used to use an Epicurious recipe, but it was disgusting. I kept forgetting it was bad, and I ended up using it more than once. I also used a Bon Appetit recipe. Forget both of those. It’s Serious Eats Caesar from now on. I had to use more lemon and Worcestershire than the recipe called for, but the dressing is perfect.

Now I just have to fix the potatoes and horseradish sauce. I now rely on Mike’s potato method. He covers his potatoes with oil and salt, nukes them, and toasts them in a toaster oven. They’re better than potatoes cooked in a regular oven from start to finish. Really easy.

Yesterday, we ate leftover pizza, and Mike made garlic knots. I also had some homemade ice cream from my fancy Italian machine. Vanilla with Grape Nuts. Sounds terrible, but it’s delicious.

In an hour or so, we should be eating. The only disappointment is that Rhodah can’t be here with me.

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful Passover or Resurrection Day.