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Best meal ever and #StateofOrigin Game 2

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Last night Bron and I visited some close friends who we often have dinner with. Mostly it’s us going to their place to eat wonderful food. Last night was no different. In the words of Bron (and I agree), “Best meal in my life“.

A few weeks ago we set up the date and started talking about a menu. We suggested we’d go to Costco and get King crab legs for an entrée and Bron said she’d make a lemon tart for dessert. P and LP came back and said they would happily prepare an Asian degustation for our main course.

Bron and I ventured out to Costco yesterday morning to learn that the seafood arrangement only came out every fortnight. We’ve been to Costco so many times on alternating weeks that we had not noticed this. This was disappointing because Bron was also going to make her gorgeous aioli and and another dipping sauce. Bron sent P a text message and explained. No worries, “We have prawns” came the reply.

The lemon tart was an experiment. Bron had not made this recipe before. She need not have worried. It was perfect.

So we started with a few prawns and homemade dressing. These had only been frozen once and were a delicious and certainly acted as an entrée or appetiser for us. I was so hungry.

What followed can only be described as awesome. I use that word advisedly. Like a good many words used on social media and on television and movies, “awesome” is over used. This meal was awesome.

We started with LP’s dumplings. Mouth sized and full of flavour. The spicy dipping sauce was just right. P then followed with some of his signature pieces, namely, a crunchy Chinese cabbage salad and seafood cakes. I could have eaten the salad all night. This was followed with LP’s tamarind prawns. Oh my the flavour was fantastic. This was a first time for LP. The Pièce de résistance was P’s twice cooked belly pork. The reduction could be smelled when we entered the house. The star anise and cinnamon wafting in our nostrils tempting us to pick up the jug and drink the sauce was an ever present danger.

With the ‘mains’ over, we entered the dangerous world of dessert. I say dangerous because no one gets between some of us and their dessert.

LP was preparing the chocolate soufflé as we arrived. She was so delicate in folding in the cream. It was certainly worth the effort. I have never had a soufflé so light and fluffy. Bron was concerned that I had left crusty bits of chocolate on the edge of my ramekin. I quickly fixed the problem without burning my tongue :-)

Bron’s lemon tart was also a triumph. Earlier in the day Bron had received a gift from a dear tweep who shared from her bounty of lemons. The quickly prepared candied lemon rind was also delicious along with the cognac whipped cream that LP had provided with her soufflé.

To finish the evening we all enjoyed a half of a small pavlova that P has now perfected. It was a perfect evening with fantastic conversation, lots of laughs and dare I say, for me at least, belt loosening.

I apologise for the quality of my iPhone photography. I was trembling with multiple foodgasms that I had trouble focusing.

Prawns with homemade seafood sauce (iPhone)

Pork dumplings (iPhone)

Crunchy Chinese cabbage salad and seafood cakes (iPhone)

Tamarind prawns (iPhone)

Twice cooked pork belly (iPhone)

Twice cooked pork belly (iPhone)

Chocolate soufflé served with cognac cream (iPhone)

Cognac cream (iPhone)

Lemon tart with Cognac cream (iPhone)

Pavlova served with Chinese gooseberry, passion fruit and strawberries (iPhone)

More as a post script than anything else, I have not blogged for a few days and I should comment on the second game in this year’s State of Origin series. NSW defeated Queensland. As much as I wanted the Queensland XXXX Maroons to win, it wasn’t to be. The game was fierce, it was tight, it was superbly played. Queensland played well and NSW played better. NSW were the best team on the night and deserved to win. This now means a decider in two and a bit weeks. This is not a bad thing. If Queensland had won, this would have made game three a fizzer and given Queensland has won the series in the last six years it would severely damage the State of Origin concept. Dare I say it, NSW winning the series in 2012 would not be a tragedy. The important thing is ensuring the greatest game on the planet, i.e., Rugby League is maintained for everyone to enjoy.

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Big day and a big result and shout out to @phonakins (#QUEENSLANDER #StateofOrigin)

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Today was huge with back to back meetings all day. I did an hour session on record management systems and came back to the office to be greeted with cake. Readers who follow me on instagram will know I regularly post photographs of cakes and biscuits that work mates make and bring in to work. It makes for a wonderful work environment.

During the training session I answered some questions and received chocolates :-)

Cake and chocolate (iPhone)

Tonight is the first of three State of Origin games. As I was driving away from work I thought about dinner. It needed to be a footy dinner. Hamburger I thought and hamburger is what I made. For readers who don’t know me, I’m a convinced and convicted Queenslander, that is, I am passionate about Queensland the greatest state in Australia; and Rugby League the greatest game of all; and State of Origin, the greatest sporting contest known.

I checked my e-mail and discovered I’d won a prize. On 16 May @phonakins at littlelioness.net posted on her blog a competition to win a Red Rock Deli Corn Chips hamper. The request for the competition was to let Fiona know in the comments your ideal corn chip and dip combination (fantasy or reality) and why they go so well. I answered, “I want a sweet corn chip coated in icing sugar that can be used to scoop up thickened chocolate sauce or melted chocolate and then eaten whole, that is a chocolate corn chip slam ;-) Perhaps then http://wayfaringchocolate.com/ can review.“Thank you very much Fiona. Much appreciated :-)

So I better show images of my hamburger.

Cheese and barbecue sauce with Wagyu beef burger (iPhone)

With it’s top on (iPhone)

And to all my friends and family who support New South Wales and the Blues, I’m sorry if you find me offensive on nights like tonight.

For readers not familiar with State of Origin rugby league history. Queenslanders (Maroons pronounced marones) are known as the cane toads (Buffo marinus) and NSW (Blues) are cockroaches. These are affectionate terms of endearment. As they say, State of Origin is mate against mate, state against state. For those interested, it was Kangaroo great Barry (garbo) Muir who coached the Queensland side from 1974 to 1978 (two years prior to the adoption of Origin selection criteria) and during this time Muir coined the term “cockroaches”, the descriptor of the New South Wales rugby league team still used by the Queenslanders.

In the end, Queensland defeated NSW 18 to 10. There was a very poor decision that resulted in a Queensland try in the last ten minutes that soured the victory. But as they say, a win is a win. I will attend work tomorrow a happy Queenslander.

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