As we wind down High Season at Boar Lodge, there are only a few more guests on the books for this year.
A big one (physically and literally) is JoEllen’s oldest brother, John and his wife Debbe, who arrive tomorrow.
This is the typical sibling portrait of JoEllen and her brothers as the "honky" version of Gladys Knight and the Pips, btw. (John is far right. We are in Cancun for the wedding of his older daughter.)
Although their visit is only a short two days, Jo is determined to make them feel at home. And impressed, of course!
Knowing some of his (if she remembers correctly) gastronomical hot buttons, Jo is cooking up a storm for her brother.
First, she has assembled four chicken Kiev filets today. She faithfully follows the Cooks Illustrated recipe that calls for ‘high quality white sandwich bread’ for the bread crumb coating. Therefore, she insists upon baking her own Cooks Illustrated recipe for “American sandwich bread.”
While Scott is allowed to enjoy a slice or two of the loaf after it’s cooled, much of it (four to five slices) goes toward the bread crumbs on the Kiev.
JoEllen has learned how to beat the breasts into flat, tortilla-like shapes in order to fold them around butter that will not leak until it’s cut into at the dinner table. (She has had mixed success on this, but mostly good.)
The four Kiev filets are assembled and resting gently in the deep freeze for Monday evening’s repast. Jo will serve Cook’s Illustrated’s “perfect rice” recipe along with some steamed baby spinach (we couldn’t find haricots verts, dammit).
JoEllen also knows that her brother likes his PB&J (peanut butter and jelly) sandwiches; so of course she is baking another Cooks Illustrated “American Sandwich Bread” in time to serve lunch when John and Debbe arrive. She will share her coveted Jif Super Crunch peanut butter (we can’t get it here – the best we can find is Skippy at Julius Meinel in Vienna). The Jif arrived as a much-loved gift from her cousins Carol and Nancy. We do, luckily, have really good potato chips and fruit jams here. You can’t have a good PB&J sandwich without chips on the plate!
One last thing Jo will bake and assemble in the morning: a German chocolate cake from scratch. You can guess that it’s a Cooks Illustrated recipe, yes?
It cannot possibly be as difficult as the cherry pie she made earlier this year.
Time will tell.
We are sorry there are so few photos for this post.
If all goes well, then the fruits of Chef JoEllen – or Yoshka – as they would call her here (a Slovak diminutive of Josefina where the J sounds like a Y) will be duly photographed and posted.
If not, well then: think that all the efforts paid off no matter how awful they look! Her brother will enjoy them anyway, we hope!
A penultimate note: we are sorry we have not posted in such a long time. We’ve been busy trying to get the chata back into shape after one third of the year spent with construction, and making it guest-friendly for all our guests.
A final note: although this post sounds like a blatant advertisement / endorsement of Cooks Illustrated, we have not been paid by them. We just really like their recipes!
