08 January, 2007

Entertaining Joyce

Lisa's great friend, Joyce, came over from New York on a visit to spend New Year with us. She did the same last year, so we must be doing something right as hosts!

Lisa has written up the New Year's Eve dinner in A Cook's Journal but that was far from the only culinary highlight of the visit. The Genoese minestrone in the photo was prepared by yours truly as a relatively easy-to-eat dinner the day before for Joyce's first (and consequently jet-lagged) evening here. A huge pot of vegetables is gently cooked down to an intensely flavoured soup, laced with pesto and topped with lashings of parmesan cheese.

On New Year's day we worked up an appetite with a stroll across nearby Coldham's Common and then went to work to prepare Jamie's "Incredible baked Lamb shanks", yet another stunningly successful dish from "Cook with Jamie". As Lisa and I were back at work the following day, Joyce turned the tables on us and treated us to dinner out on her. At our suggestion she took us to the Wok & Grill in Trumpington: a pan-East Asian restaurant that
features a deliciously tasty buffet together with a chance to have your own choice of ingredients and sauce stir-fried in front of you by one of the restaurant's chefs. Great fun and hugely popular.

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