33. Liver a la Gourmet

I have no idea why I have been unable to write this post. It’s been completely piecemeal, stops and starts, a line here, a line there, and then just apathy.

This dinner turned out pretty good, and liver is such a fun subject, but I haven’t been inspired to write about it. Eventually I just had to force myself and set a deadline. Which was today, mid-morning.

So now to #33.

I had my pal Claire (quasi-vegetarian) and her gentleman-friend, Gregg, over to my place to sample the offal. Claire only agreed to the liver because it was organic. I got it from Arganica Farm Club.

Before they arrived, I assembled the Jellied-Lime Cucumber Salad and the Jelly Roll.

I had success before with cake rolls–my lime sherbet roll was divine–my Jelly Roll, not so much (but it tasted good). I don’t know what went wrong. I refuse to blame myself so I will point fingers at my much-maligned apartment-sized mini oven.

That’s a pretty sad looking dessert. I rolled the bitch up, anyway.

As for the Jellied-Lime Salad, I found this recipe from the June 29, 1961 issue of The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA). I cut the recipe in half since I do not own a 3 qt Jell-O mold and really, who needs one?

This was pretty straightforward and easy. But man, it took a long time to grate all of the cucumber. And the recipe didn’t specify whether or not to peel the cucumber so I did half and half.

The liver was simple, although I will say that I did overcook the meat a bit. The sauce went off without a hitch.

For the Onion-Mashed Potatoes, I bought a tub of Country Crock premade potatoes, caramelized some onions, and mixed. These were pretty damn good. For the peas, I totally forgot that there was a recipe for them on card #92, so I just cooked some peas with pearl onions.

So that was that. Dinner was complete. Dinner was served!

Inspired by Inspiration Soup, and the rest of my framed 1974 Weight Watchers cards, Gregg went about my apartment finding assorted tchotchkes for the photo. He finally settled on an old geisha girl cocktail mug from a Benihana, one of those good luck cats that they always have at Chinese restaurants, and one of my old timey Heinz kitchen tins…

The collection was sufficiently weird in that they had absolutely nothing to do with each other or the meal. It makes just enough nonsense for a food photo.

I thought this was good. Gregg made yummy noises throughout dinner. Claire still wasn’t sold on liver, but at least she tried it. All of the sides were good.

The cucumber Jell-O was quite refreshing. It was a bit odd, all of that shredded cucumber encased in gelatin, but it tasted quite nice. And look how fricking GREEN it is.

And the jelly roll, although not much to look at, tasted pretty yummy.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening–lots of wine, lots of laughs, and in-depth conversations about how they just don’t make action movies like they used to.

Case in point, Kickboxer.

We most definitely do not put our action stars in pleated pants and have them prance about like a drunken AC Slater in an inexplicable dance sequence that then culminates in a knife fight.

Watch the clip. For real.

He’s doing The Splits like Juicy Joe Guidice.