We finally received our new dining room table from Jordans yesterday. It goes pretty well with the current decor in our dining room, although I think we'll eventually get a rug of some sort to put underneath.

In any case, Laura and I want to host some regular dinner parties at our new place, which would hopefully be really fun, and gives us an excuse to use our wedding china. The only problem is, my repertoire as a chef is fairly limited at this point. Other than your every day food, the only things I've really mastered are breakfast foods. Which is good for brunch, but not so good for dinner. I was thinking of doing a simple cheese Fondue, but I'm afraid that might be a little too 70's. Although that recipe doesn't seem like your mamma's fondue.

If anybody has any ideas, feel free to mention them here. You might be eating them after all. But keep in mind that Laura doesn't eat meat or fish, so our choices are somewhat limited. (Although don't tell her that!)

In my continuing quest to become a better cook, I made some fantabulous french toast over the weekend. The recipe comes from my favorite TV Chef: Alton Brown. The key here is that you want to use stale bread. Yes, stale bread. This means, of course that you can't use bread that doesn't age correctly (i.e. any mass-produced store bought brand). I bought a nice loaf of brioche at my local bakery and had them slice it for me. I made a slight mistake and didn't ask them to slice it thick, so the bread was about 1/4" thick, instead of a good 1/2".

The night before I mixed up the custard mixture (1 cup half-and-half, 3 eggs, 2 tbsp warmed honey, 1/4 tsp salt), and put the bread on a drying rack in the open air so that it becomes sufficiently stale. The next morning, I just performed the standard french toast recipe, with a slight twist: after cooking on the griddle, I put the toast in a 375 degree oven for about 5 minutes, just to finish the cooking down to the inside. The result: the best tasting french toast I've ever had!

Next time I might try fat-free half-and-half. Probably won't turn out as good, but I am on diet after all! Also, be aware that the custard mixture makes enough french toast for 2 hungry people (about 8 pieces total). So adjust accordingly.

Updated 8/23/2004: So there's one improvement that I discovered over the weekend, and really this should've been obvious before. Previously, I had been putting the french toast directly from the griddle into the oven for 5 minutes, thus creating breakfast in batches. Instead, everything should be grilled, and once done, put everything in the oven at once for 5 minutes. It probably doesn't help that I'm making them 2 at a time, things might go a lot better if I could fit 4 in my frypan.

Last weekend I attended the wedding of a good friend, Scott Weller. He's the guy who got me the job up in Boston. We sort of knew eachother in college -- we knew a lot of the same people -- but we've become great friends since moving up here (even if all we can talk about is work!).

The wedding was great. The ceremony was nice and simple, and as far as weddings can, actually reflected Scott and Jessika. They honored me with the opportunity to do a reading, and I chose a simple poem by e.e. cummings. I flubbed up "frequent", but everybody said I did a good job anyway.

Any way, here are some pictures from a very fun evening. I hope you all enjoy!

Weller - Parkinson Wedding