Lamb, Cat, etc.

Our dinner at The Dining Room in Monticello was quite good. Lisa was somewhat excited by a star hanging outside. I am not sure why. I was more excited by the sign outside.

We had a Queso Fundido appetizer which contained chevre and pepper jack cheeses, crab, and a corn salsa. It was excellent.

Lisa ordered the Salmon which had lots of mushrooms and a potato cake. I tasted it, and it tasted like Salmon.

I ordered the Chicken-Fried Lamb which had a rosemary gravy along with cumin cream on the lamb, as well as mashed sweet potatoes (which were excellent) and spinach (which tasted like spinach).

The salads that came out before the entrees were the only thing we didn't care for. The greens were ok, but the dressing was a bit overpowering. Very vinegary.

For dessert, Lisa ordered the Chocolate tart. It was ok, nothing too special. We both agreed that the Toffee pudding was excellent, however. I might go back just for that. All in all, it was a good experience. I felt it was a lot better value than was L'Etoile the last time I visited there, though my date at the time would probably disagree.

On New Year's eve, I spent most of the day and evening at Lisa's place. Lisa's old college roommate Jamie visited and drank the brains of an innocent carebear.

I managed to get some decent photos of callie, including a Glamour-Shotty one. It isn't the greatest picture as far as glamour-shotty ones go, I definitely think the one of chopper is a lot more artistic, but it's pretty good considering how hard Callie is to photograph. Lisa has been trying to help me photograph her cat, for example by holding her in a vice grip, but it's still tough.

I have been coming closer to the perfect photo of Audrey, but it remains my greatest nemesis at the moment. I'm not really sure how I got that perfect chopper photo above, I hope I can reproduce it. The closest I have come is an out of focus photo of Audrey looking away. I did get one shot which is kind of pretensious while at the same time reminding me of a music video.

Chopper has been paying a lot of attention to Audrey lately. About half the time he seems to want to do a group bath. Sometimes he succeeds, but other times Audrey gives him a smack on the head. It must be hard for her to tell when he is being nice as opposed to attacking. They did sleep together this weekend, but I was unable to get a photo without disturbing them.

I have one theory about improving their relationship, though. Audrey seems to really enjoy getting brushed with a new brush I purchased. Perhaps if I did that any time chopper is near, she might be less fearful of him. It seemed to work briefly, at least long enough to photograph them.

Yesterday, I gave myself food poisoning. At least I think I did. I made some enchiladas on Sunday, and things did not go well for me on Monday. Lisa had some as well and was mildly sick, but not quite as out of sorts as I was. It may be time to switch to cheese-only enchiladas. I'm not really sure what happened, because the meat was seemingly well-cooked. No pink and what not.

It won't matter much if our plan goes well anyway. There's a place called Main Dish Kitchen where you go there and assembly 6-12 ready-to-cook entrees and then cook them for the next month or so. We are going to try it out. Whether or not it is worth it depends entirely on how big the portions will be, because if they are correctly assessed at serving 2-3 people, it will come out to about $4-5 a meal, which isn't too bad. It's not ramen noodle cheap, but it's close.