Wimpy Seattlites were calling it Snowpacolipse or Snowmaggedon. Flights were cancelled, work was missed, and worse, a dinner date was post-poned! Were Erica and I destined to fail? Could we pull off a decent double date in the midst of ice, snow and wind with friends flying into visit over the weekend?
Like the reliable friend she has been to my wife ever since they met, Brianne (who will be refered to as Bucket from here on) came through with rescheduling a nice, laid back Sunday night dinner with her son Aaron and his father Aaron. Little and Big. Respectively.
Bucket and Big Aaron are those type of people. Rock solid friends, always there in a pinch. Aaron has fixed almost all Erica's car troubles, as he is a top notch automechanic in the Lynnwood area. Bucket has remedied all Erica's boy troubles up until Prince Charming finally came along. Although the night I met Erica, who was with both Bucket and Aaron at Waldo's North (a classy Norf-end bar, look it up), Bucket had declared me to be on "Erica's Team," which had to imply I at minimum looked like a frog.
Erica and I exchanged a series of messages over the net, and she dragged Bucket out to a few of my shows. I vividly remember the show which I asked Erica out on our first date at. It was in Chop Suey and they came back stage to hangout with Grieves and me. I talked to Bucket the whole time because I was too nervous to say anything to Erica. And that really saved me. She was super fun and quirky and I actually liked the conversation, so it wasn't totally an abandon ship due to shyness situation. She is a person I would be a friend with even without my wife in the picture.
So I couldn't drop the ball on this dinner. I had little time to prep after a full day of driving around band equipment and taking visitors to the airport. I was only able to get to the grocery store one hour prior to our scheduled time. I had to think quick and cook quicker. I felt like a chef on the show Chopped.
Let's walk through the process. My initial thought was stick to my go-to style dish. So I wanted to do pasta. Pesto was already cooked in Week Two, so I decided to make spaghetti. The only kind of proper spaghetti is the kind with a nice meaty bolognese sauce. A simple tomato sauce is unacceptable.
So I grabbed some Painted Hills all natural ground beef, an onion, minced garlic, chopped mushrooms, and some basic tomato sauce. I fried the ground beef up first, then poured some Worcestershire sauce over it for seasoning, along with some salt and pepper. As it cooked, I added in the onion and garlic. I let that simmer and started on the salads.
I didn't have time to plan for a fancier salad, so I knew I was going to have to go with a basic romaine, tomato and carrot salad with an Italian vinaigrette. I thought I could at least spruce that up by making it interesting looking. Okay fine, the term I thought to myself was "pretty." Anyway, I noticed some organic heirloom carrots and tomatoes in the produce section. Heirloom vegetables are very colorful. Each one is either a bright yellow, deep orange or dark purple color. I figured I could use those to disguise the salad as more than just basic greens on the side. So I grabbed the goods and while the meat bolognese was in process, I started cutting tomatoes and peeling carrots. I popped some garlic bread in the oven and started the noodles boiling as I added the tomato sauce and mushrooms into the bolognese.
If I'm being totally honest, the salad wasn't a hit. But it would have been solid if I chose a more zesty vinaigrette, like a Chive Tarragon. All in all it was bland, despite looking like the Skittles equivalent of veggies. More importantly, I got my food plated in time for the visit!
As we sat down to the table, Bucket broke out some red wine and started to heat up some delicious homemade artichoke dip. A few minutes into conversation it became totally obvious who the star of the show would be in Week Three... Little Aaron.
Little Aaron had a blast eating his spaghetti, hovering the fork over his face and dangling the noodles downward, spreading sauce all over his cheeks. He was also very alarmed by the coloration of the salad and wasn't convinced it contained tomatoes. He was shocked that we got two pieces of garlic bread each, and commented "Why do we get two pieces?" Bucket responded, "Because we are fancy." And Little Aaron replied, "Jeff's not fancy..."
I can't really argue his point. I currently have a full beard, I was wearing a beanie at the table, and I'm pretty sure I ate the entire meal with my elbows on the table. The kid is right, I ain't fancy!
We broke out some more question games, and it turned out that three weeks in a row might be a little repetitive for that type of game. Most questions were things we already knew about each other, added to the mix was Little A answering the questions randomly, which was my favorite part of the game. One question in particular was "Where does your life need change?" And Little A says "the bank." It was genius on multiple levels. This kid is going to be really smart when he grows up.
So I break out the camera for the group photo and Little A announces "Take a picture of me while I'm not here!" The camera turned out to be something he enjoyed quite a bit. We ended up making a game of trying to capture a cardboard box in mid-air as he threw it.
I hadn't ever enjoyed hanging out with children until the last few weeks. The Oreo cookie ice cream for dessert might have taken things a bit too far, as I believe a sugar high commenced and then a burnout and crash for Little A. And Bucket was off with the Aarons. It was a very pleasant meal. I got lucky that the artichoke dip did not come out until later because it really stole the culinary show. I would have completely loaded up on that and had no room for anything else! We agreed to do this again at their place and Erica and I look forward to that.
Coming up this weekend: The bestman from my Wedding, Aaron Greene, and his lovely lady friend Sara.
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