Monday, July 14, 2008

Central American Dinner at Jon and Lois'


Sunday July 6

Thanks to the fact that the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana has an excellent rare book collection (containing the letters of Beccadelli, celebrated lousy Latin poet and obscene author of obscene Hermaphroditus) we had an excuse to go up there and see our BFFs, Lois and Jon. We reminisced about Tucson days on their beautiful terrace, sipping piñas coladas, until we were rum-soaked in our good old San Carlos fashion. Then, somehow, they produced out of nowhere (i.e., several hours' work while we weren't looking) a full Central American feast, mostly inspired by some Steven Raichlen recipes in the May 2008 Bon Appetit.

The centerpiece was a luscious piece of meat: pibil-style pork.

On the side were yucatecan pickled onions,

fresh pico de gallo, two kinds of roasted tomatillo salsa, and of course, rice.
Several wonderful wines accompanied the meal, but things start (!) to get hazy here. From the bottles by the recycling we see that we had an Oratoire St. Martin 2005 (from Cairanne in Côtes du Rhône Villages) with a nice blends of grapes (marsane, roussanne, etc.) and a D'Alessandro "Il Bosco" Syrah 2005 (from Cortona).
But there was some wonderful chocolate flavors (including dark olive) for dessert.

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