Thursday 26 February 2009

lunch date @ char's

Char is a good friend of J&I and also a food blogger (you can find her food musings at charpost.blogspot.com). She got married last year and since the year started and she & A started getting their place together, they've started to have guests over. We were there for our second time a couple of Saturdays ago for a lunch date. We were in the area (I was buying a printer) and J had promised Char an aloe vera plant - J will discuss with you at length the benefits and merits of having an aloe vera plant. J also claims that I can't keep plants and continues to tell everyone the story that I killed the aloe vera plant that he gave me (and apparently aloe vera is classified as a cactus). Point is - me and plants don't seem to get along.

Anyway, after the dramas of J being stuck in lift for a good 20 minutes (he forgot to bring the aloe vera plant and went down to get it), we made a start on lunch. Char had said she'd do pizza, I'd been watching way to much Nigella and decided on one of her midnight feast recipes - Spaghetti Alla Carbonara.

It was actually the first time I'd cooked Carbonara - it was very different to the other Carbonara's I've ever tasted  - it was heavy and actually quite eggy. After discussing this at length with one of our Italian Art Directors at work - I believe that the Carbonara's you find here in Australia are midway between a true Carbonara (containing egg) and a Bosciaola (containing cream and mushrooms). Anyway, in his words, saying that a carbonara and a bosciaola is the same thing is almost the same as saying apples and oranges are the same thing.
Char's homemade pizza on  Lebanese Bread. Ingenious and tasty too! The 4 of us gobbled up 2 of these.
The table is set for lunch!

Some hour or so later, our bellies were full from both food and wine. As I got back into the car later that afternoon, I tell J, 'I really need to close my eyes and sleep' and pretty much did so without opening my eyes until the car took us back to my place. As soon as J got out of the car, it was his turn to sleep. What a nice and relaxing way to spend a weekend!

Thanks Char for having us over!

2 comments:

char said...

Our pleasure, we really enjoyed the home cook meal though very sorry about the lift incident !

The aloe vera plant is still alive :)

panda said...

i'm sure j will be glad to hear that the aloe vera plant is still alive :P

and lol...i still laugh when i remember how the lift lady michelle said that 'your friend was sweltering' and justin comes out saying 'i'm fine'. i wonder who was speaking the truth.