• Tortilla chips and Pico de Gallo 
• Mexican cheese and zucchini soup
• Carne Asada with spanish rice and refried beans
• Tres leches

Our visitors brought a bottle of margarita, which neatly completed the meal.

The chips were good, but pretty bland. I plan to add some oil and/or lime next time to help with the flavor. The pico was good, but Lisa suggested adding some lime next time. Lisa’s soup was great, although there was too much left over. I thought the carne asada was over-flavored, but the others said it was just fine. The Spanish rice was a bit mushy. I covered the pan for too long, trapping too much moisture in. The tres leches was very good–I’d never had it, and I like that it was different than the desserts I’ve had lately.

Our menu:

• Garden Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Pierogies with sour cream
• Tomato Bisque
• Chuck-eye Steak with Roasted Vegetables
• Tiramisu

What is the American fascination with that green parcel of land called the lawn, that settles in front of suburban homesteads? It's just a useless adornment that we cling to, as a last vestige of that earthy life humankind once lived, straight off the fruit of the land. I was reading an article the other day that claimed that tales of the Garden of Eden, a common cross-cultural motif, was a story to remind us of our transition from gatherers to hunters. Our ejection from Eden was the story of how the children of Adam multiplied and the land could no longer sustain them. Grazeable food became scarce, and we had to become nomads and hunt and disperse throughout the lands. The lawn is our own little piece of Eden, a last connection with a mythic past.

- Jamie

- Jamie

- Jamie