Travels with The Rayman

Now that we are vaccinated, we invited Jim and Mary over for dinner on Saturday.  A menu was planned.  I jumped head long into early today because the chicken needed to marinate.  The potato salad had more than 5 ingredients and as we all know, potato salad tastes much better the longer it can sit unless it is in the Sahara with a mayo dressing and a silver spoon stuck in the middle of the salad..  And the lemon dessert made from Jim and Mary’s lemon tree required an afternoon bake so it was super fresh.

Fine.  

My day was free so I took my time measuring everything ahead of time.  As the potatoes boiled, I prepared the marinate which required fresh squeezed orange juice (is there any other kind?).  Once completed I threw the chicken in and the marinating started.  Then the chopping of veggies for the salad.  Did I mention that the salad recipe included a fresh homemade dressing (is there any other kind?).  Enter the duplicity.  Lime juice was required in two dishes.  Lemon juice was required.  Buttermilk was required in two dishes.  

What could go wrong?  

When the potatoes were done, the recipe instructed me to let them cool.  Boomerang.  This got me out of my zone.  I was ready to complete the dish.  Oh, well, I’l finish the dressing.  Tasting it I thought it was very limey.  Then I went on with cooking.  

When I got around to the lemon cake pudding dessert, or was it lemon pudding cake, I had things pre-measured.  But where was my lemon juice?  OMG.  Where was my lemon juice?  Was I imagining?  So I dug thru the garbage and found the empty lemon skins.  OMG.  Did I throw it away?  Did I put it into another dish?  

As I was fretting aloud, Rayman said I should check the volume of the batter.  Bingo.  After checking and double checking I concluded the batter was missing the 1/2 cup of lemon juice.  So…I got my juicer out and when I juiced the second lemon, the inside of it had black on the peel.  What was that?  Had to throw the juice away.  More juicing commenced.  When done, I threw it in the batter.  

Whipping the whites came next.  No problem there.  That’s a good thing because I was getting ready to throw the whole darn thing out and go by some lemon gelato.  Or throw myself on the floor and kick and scream.  

Here’s the good news.  When it was all assembled there was just exactly the right amount for the 6 ramekins required.  Yippee.  Here is the recipe.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1022010-lemon-pudding-cakes-with-sugared-raspberries

But where was the missing lemon juice?  

I started throwing the potato salad together.  That’s when it appeared.  I had exactly 1/2 cup much dressing…I thought it looked like a lot.  

But it doesn’t end here.

Having been in the kitchen for 3 hours, I wanted to sit down and have a glass of water.  Which I did.  That’s when the phone rang.  It was Mary.  I was expecting the call because I had sent her an email checking to see if it was ok to eat indoors maskless and, oh, by the way, did she like margaritas?

Mary Informed me that I had invited them for dinner for TOMORROW night.  They had dinner plans with the Woods tonight.  

Perfect.  Just perfect.  What a screw up I am.  I fell on my sword and told her that was okay.  They should come tomorrow night.  I reminded her that I am a senile old woman and just glad that I had sent that email.  That she had seen the email.   That we would just order in pizza for tonight and let it be good.

Flavors will meld.  And being the busy socialites that we aren’t, we would be here…and anyway, the table was set.  I figured we could handle it.  And we will.  

And then I hung up and screamed!!