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<\/p>\nWell, really it’s a passel of poached pears, since I can’t think of a word for “80” that starts with P.<\/p>\n
I spent a couple hours in the kitchen at Eulipia yesterday afternoon, peeling and poaching the pears that have been sitting in the walk-in cooler since we picked them back in, what? August? And, true to the predictions of my friends with childhood experience with pear orchards (and it’s something that I say that in the plural) almost all of them hibernated quietly and emerged ready to grace the world with their tender, perfectly-ripened presence.<\/p>\n
I wish that my right thumb had survived the experience with as much success. I tried to use my handy-dandy Vermont cranked peeler-corer-slicer, but without the coring and slicing. However, I couldn’t remove the slicing and coring blade from the contraption (because of my own ineptitude, I’m sure, since it’s made to be removable.) So I decided to gut it out and peel the bin of pears by hand. Eighty of them, with just four or five tiny, wizened specimens left over after I was done. I still feel the effect of pressing a piece of metal into the heel of my hand for an hour. <\/p>\n
Anyway, they all poached happily in five bottles of Santa Cruz Mountains zinfandel and four pounds of Willow Glen honey. Now they’re soaking in the syrup, back in the walk-in. Saturday night, I’ll serve them with biscotti and cr\u00c3\u00a8me fra\u00c3\u00aeche.<\/i><\/p>\n
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This morning, I pick up donated dairy from Whole Foods in Campbell, and garlic from Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale. I feel compelled to say that I’m using salt and pepper that are not sourced from anywhere in particular, and that we’ll be serving coffee after dinner, although I hope to get something locally roasted, at least. But otherwise, I’m pretty darn smug about the ingredients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"