Have You Ever Seen . . . . ?

I needed to get a case of furnace filters, so I headed to my home improvement store – the very same one where I bought my Christmas Toilet Paper and Christmas Bleach. 

The furnace filters were near the back of the store, so Goodnight and I had to walk through nearly the entire store to get to the check-out on the other side.  On the way we ran across this item:

Wow!  I’ve never seen an umbrella chair that HUGE.  I looked at the tag to see if the title or description would give me a clue as to who would buy one or even imagine they could find one.  No help. 

Six beverage holders all together – three in each arm of the chair.  Looks like one could hold a Super Bowl party in that thing!  $99 for all that . . . roominess.  I should have checked to see if it said how much it weighed.  Can you see the carrying case for it hanging behind the chair?

I love being surprised, don’t you? (no, I didn’t buy it.)

Hah!  Goodnight told me that the chair was called a King and Queen chair.  I didn’t think of that.  Sort of a love seat lawn chair.  I guess Officer Friendly has been gone too long . . . . .

Dinner by Alphabet – X

I’m writing this post after dinner, after the deed was done.  But let’s get nerdy for a moment.  X is the 24^th letter of the English alphabet.  I own an unabridged dictionary and even in that nearly four-inch thick book, there are less than two full pages of ‘X‘ words and their definitions – and not a single one having to do with food! 

X:  something having the shape of an X, a representation of the letter.

X:  the Roman numeral for 10.

X:  the mathematical unknown quantity or a variable

Lots of possibilities for fun given the above dictionary entries: an X-shaped pizza or criss-crossed submarine sandwiches.

Maybe X-bean soup, as in 10-bean soup, would taste delicious.

Or I could just fake it, prepare absolutely anything and not tell you at all, leaving it a mystery as ‘x’ always is at the outset of a math problem.

Scratch the dictionary, head to the cookbooks.  There is an American entrée called Xavier Steak.  It’s easy and delicious, but I opted away from that cut of meat for our meal.  There is Xavier Soup, which is Italian.  There is an Indian dish called Xacuti, which actually looks delicious but I won’t be able to make it until I take Goodnight on one of our Friday Field Trips.  Yum!

It was a television ad that sparked my imagination for the side dish of our main course, and a trip to my African cookbook that led me to the entrée for Dinner by Alphabet – X.

I didn’t think we were going to actually need dessert, but that’s Goodnight’s favorite part of the deal and she offered a suggestion.  I took her up on it.  She’s great a being a kid and that deserves its own attention.  No baking for her again this week.

I, on the other hand, had another sweltering late afternoon in the kitchen.  Whew!  Not too much shopping involved either: just the vegetable and the um . . . cooking liquid.  

Goodnight lazily read in her rocking chair while I butterflied, sliced, cubed, sautéed, simmered, dredged, whipped and (sipped) my way through prep.  Could a summer evening be any more laid back?  Nah!  It was great!

Dinner by Alphabet – X

 

Main Course

Xerem de Fiesta – a dish from Cape Verde, Africa.  I’m familiar with a few versions, but the dish I made for dinner amounted to a chicken/broccoli stew with a coffee-honey sauce.  It was simple and wonderful!  It’s supposed to be served over rice, but I called in a pinch-hitter for the side dish.  I had an aunt and uncle who owned potato wareouse in Idaho, so I naturally tend to gravitate toward spuds!  I served the Xerem de Fiesta over beer-battered potato shingles and the beer batter was made from Dos Equis. (Spanish for two Xs).  Can you guess that’s the commercial I saw on TV?  Brilliant, eh?

 

Beverage

I hated for the Dos Equis to go to waste . . . The beer batter only required 2/3 cup so – well you know.  Skol! 

 

Dessert a la Goodnight

DQ has a Blizzard called Chocolate Xtreme – close enough, right?  Yah, I thought so too.

If Goodnight hadn’t stepped up to the plate with her idea, I had dessert covered . . . Hershey’s Kisses . . . be-cause . . . how do we represent kisses in print?  You got it!  XXXXXXX

X-L-ent!  And I have xtras!