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Financial Crisis Dinner

As our economy spins out of control, we gratefully could partake of the incredible Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park – free, thanks to Warren Hellman. This post-show dinner reflects both the lack of time available for preparation as well as a “on the brink of a recession” mindset. Baked potatoes with Berkeley Farms sour cream (the best sour cream I have ever tasted) and Campbell’s Healthy Request Sirloin Burger soup were served along with a celery salad. Note: the sour cream and soup were bought at Walgreen’s. The deliciously fresh salad recipe came from high end Saveur Magazine – it was simple to prepare and cheap. A surprisingly good Kirkland  (Costco house) brand Chardonnay accompanied our meal. For dessert, we enjoyed Peanut Butter (with chocolate chip) cookies, a wonderful recipe from 

Food & Wine Magazine. Good music, good food and a wonderful husband are a great comfort in these unsettling times. 

Bon Voyage Dinner

In celebration of my husband’s upcoming trip to Burning Man (see his Mind Shaft Society web site for images of Uncle Sam’ Elvis Island Immigration Station) and my whirlwind trip to Louisville, Kentucky to visit my room mate from college, I prepared this casual dinner. It consisted of shrimp antipasto and lemon with mint and parmesan pasta. Martha Stewart Living was the source for both recipes, however, the shrimp antipasto was a recipe card I had saved from years ago and the pasta was from the current issue. It called for fettuccine but I used a sprouted whole wheat pappardelle instead and added sweet cherry tomatoes since I had them on hand. A Russian River chardonnay accompanied our dinner. The easy dessert was Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. We ate straight from the quart container I bought at Trader Joe’s which cost little more than the pints sold in other stores!