tasty tuesday - crab lettuce rolls and chocolate torte

I tried out this 'crab delight' recipe, although I did not blanch the almonds, I did add a carrot, and I had to sub in 1 T of white vinegar for the 2 T of lemon juice. It came out really tasty; now Milt did not like the raw onion, although I honestly didn't even notice the taste, so next time I may set some aside for him before adding the onion.

nom nom nom

I also made this delicious pecan chocolate torte, to try out for Asher's birthday party. It is really really good, but very rich. It also did not set up completely, so we ate it as a sort of pudding. next time I think I'll cut the agave nectar in half, and use a little more salt.

so fantastic

Still deciding if that's what I want to do for his birthday, as well as figuring out what we want to serve in general. I'm thinking tostadas, but... I dunno. I feel less confident in my serving choices lately, as people are simply not willing to go outside of their food 'box'; a few months age Milt and I decided to make dinner for his family, so we bought a bunch of stuff: fish, potatoes, things for a big salad. His sister went out and bought chicken 'for the guys' and that's what basically everyone ate; they didn't even want baked potatoes. It was ... weird for me. Really weird.

I remember when I was young and my grandmother encouraged me to befriend a little girl who lived down the street. I wound up in inviting her for dinner,and she accepted, although her mom made her a white-bread american 'cheese' sandwich first, 'just in case'. Well, I could see why when she came to our house and my Mom offered to serve her some dinner- a cheese souffle. "ew, I don't like that." I was shocked; I could never had said something like that to a host. wow. My mom was surprisingly tolerant though, just asked her "do you like eggs?" "yeah." "do you like cheese?" "yeah." "Well, this is just eggs and cheese." " I don't like it like that." " have you ever had this?" "no." My Mom had me walk her home so we could have a peaceful dinner, as there was no point in having her just sit there and watch us eat. I never hung out with her again;
it was just too weird for me; I could not reconcile the way she had acted about food with having her as a friend. I'm not entirely sure why. and it isn't as if I had this surplus of friends, that I could 'afford' to be picky about making a new one. That, however, is a topic for another time.

Which is a really long-winded way to say that I feel awkward offering people food that they may not like, partly due to how I may feel about them afterward because of it, but I also don't like serving food just because it's 'expected': I am not serving chips, pizza, and soda. I'm just not; I'm not that person, we're not that family. Maybe it's weird, maybe not, eh, I can see I am getting way too stressed over this, so I think I'll go finish off some of that chocolate goodness and work out a birthday menu I can be happy about.

happily,
nava