Cooking and staycation

My staycation started last night at 5:00 pm. We went to 206 Front Street, had a few mixed drinks, then repaired home. We prepped crudite, cheese, and hummus, and had a delightful evening of zakuski, Ignatiev family style, and drinks.

This morning, we did a shopping marathon of over 3 hours. Bought enough groceries to feed an army (or so it seemed) and bought three top-shelf kitchen knives. We are kissing the dreaded Chicago Cutlery stainless set goodbye. It served loyally for years, but we now have the Alton's Angle Shun Kershaw 6" utility and 4" paring knife, and the Viking 6" Asian cleaver, all bought at half-price at The Kitchen Table today. I baked some good french bread, and we had a nice salad and Tina made homemade linguine, which I cooked with some goat sausage, mushrooms, red onion, and marsala. A delightfully simple dish, with great promise.

And in the midst of all this, we watched Julie & Julia. Tina appeared to like the more modern portion of the movie, while I preferred the flashback section. Still, it's better than the reviews (except Ebert got it about exactly right, as usual). A solid 3.5 stars on a four-star scale, but it does lack the element of greatness. The whole time that I was watching Stanley Tucci as Paul Child, I was thinking, "He could play Gene Kelly in a biopic." I should pitch that to him.