#2 - Shroom OD

So Sunday night Joan and I had a Golden Globes viewing party.  We started with some bubbly and baked brie with fig & ginger jam.  Normally this is where I would take a photo of the glorious brie wheel and tag my cousin Becky, but there were no survivors (and I forgot to do it ahead of time).

I made Jacques' Savory Stuffed Roast Chicken from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home.  Not a new recipe, but this has been my tried and true favorite way to roast a chicken for a few years now.  Stuffing the shallot and herb mixture under the skin makes the chicken so incredibly tasty!  Since I discovered that recipe, I've not been able to resist stuffing something under the skin of the chicken whenever I roast one.

This meal would not count without a new recipe, so to accompany the chicken I made Asparagus with Morels from Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love.  It sounded amazing, but truth be told the morels were overpowering and I felt like I had way more liquid than I needed.  I would definitely try this again, but would probably cut the morels in half, and maybe the liquid too.  The morels should probably be smaller too, as the texture just didn't jive well with the asparagus.  I really wanted to love this recipe because I love her soup cookbook, love asparagus & mushrooms, but it just didn't translate well for me.

Something else that evidently didn't translate well - Ricky Gervais' hosting job on the GGs.  Heard a lot of criticism today, but he did a great job of sticking it to the celebrities who are used to having their egos stroked.  On a day like today, when we should be remembering the legacy of Dr. King, the criticism seems overblown.  Yes, some of his jokes crossed the line, but we still have much larger battles to fight than the hurt feelings of a few celebrities.  So many injustices left to correct here in America and throughout the world, and in the words of Dr. King: 

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."