Muehlbauer

Happy Valentines Day!  I hope everyone had a good day with their loved ones.  I had to go to court to find out what the jury's verdict was.  Showed up at 9:30am, jury went into deliberations, got done at 11:00am.  And guess what, all that effort and the lady wouldn't settle for $5,000.  Justice was served.  The jury found that she was not injured by my negligence.  It was so gratifying!  And of course the 11 jurors all live in Chapel Hill so I kept running into them all day yesterday.  One of them stopped me and said "I just wanted to say how sorry I am.  I know you must have gone through a lot"  That was really nice to hear! 

Last night Jeff and I started cooking at 5pm.  I thought I had it all down, I actually read the recipes beforehand and thought I had it timed so that we would eat at 7pm.  Well...almost....we sat down at 7:40pm.  Our appetizer was cauliflower custard, which I thought was pretty tasty.  Then, we had aigo bouido, sweet garlic soup.  That was amazing!  After soup (which we have leftovers of), I made a watercress salad with camembert cheese, candied walnuts, and a warm fig balsamic vinegar dressing.  Finally, the main course coq au vin, chicken in a red wine sauce.  Oh my god, I thought the beouf bourignon was good, this blew it out of the water!  It was really fun to make too.  We pan seared the chicken and then poured cognac in and lit it on fire so that it caramelized the chicken.  Then the red wine (expensive french but very tasty) and stock and cover for 30 minutes.  While that was cooking, we made the mushrooms and onions to go with the chicken.  Oh man!  Both were pan seared until browned and then cooked in stock with an herb bouquet.  Everything just melted in your mouth.  And for dessert, chocolate souffle.  I was afraid that it wouldn't turn out, souffles are really hard!  But it did and it was excellent!  And throw in another bottle of pinot nero, my favorite red wine, and we had a great dinner at home! 

Tonight is pizza and a basketball game.  Jeff's advisor gave us his season tickets to see Wake Forest play UNC tonight.  Although, I am pretty tired from staying up last night and eating so we'll see.  I'm not that big into basketball, I actually find it boring, but since we live in Chapel Hill I figured I should go to one game.