A Family Lunch

There hasn’t been a lot of recipes on my blog lately but that doesn’t mean I’ve been exiled from the kitchen.  No, I’m still in the Hotly Spiced kitchen but bouncing from one event to the next.

Recently my sister, Em, has been in Australia with her son who was born a few weeks before Christmas.  It was a business trip and as that trip also included a few days in Adelaide, we didn’t see her terribly often but we did get together for a Sunday lunch.

The weather was perfect.  I do love Sydney in March; we have some glorious days.  We met at a clubhouse on the beach where Alfie and his male cohort cousins can run wild and burn off all their unleashed energy.

Three of my four sisters were able to be there which is a rare event in itself.  We all brought a dish to share.  I brought some chicken and chive sausages and marinated pork fillets that were to be cooked on the barbecue.  I had good intentions but Carl erupted.  Here’s what happened.

I was at home in the kitchen doing my cooking tricks and the marinade for the pork fillets needed 60mls of whiskey.  I don’t drink whiskey but Carl really loves it and has quite a few bottles in a cupboard.  When I read the recipe required whiskey I reached up into the cupboard and poured out 60mls of the first bottle that was within reach.  Can you believe there was just 60mls left in that bottle!

So I threw the ’empty’ into the recycling container and then Carl walked in and I asked him if he could take the recycling down to the bin.  That’s when he saw his whiskey bottle.  ‘What happened to my whiskey?’

‘I needed it for the pork’.

‘You used my favourite whiskey for cooking?’

‘There wasn’t much left in the bottle; just enough for the recipe’.

‘I was saving that.  Saving it for a special occasion.  That’s about an $18.00 shot of whiskey, and you used it for what?’

‘To flavour the meat’.

‘Couldn’t you have used the Johnnie Walker?’

So here’s what you can take away from this; when you need whiskey in your cooking, use Johnnie Walker.  Carl said the whiskey I used was a smokey whiskey so it would ruin the pork and no one would like the smokey flavour.  No one mentioned the smokey flavour!

Apart from the whiskey drama we had a very lovely day.  One of my sisters brought a dessert that was a chocolate meringue torte.  She said I couldn’t put a photograph of it on the blog because it didn’t look good enough.  It was certainly yummy enough!  I’m going to make it and share the recipe with you – one day!

I’m also going to blog the Spiced Chilli Caramel Pork Fillets too but not these – they just don’t look good enough on the paper plate and the sauce is supposed to be reheated and poured over the meat but we didn’t do that yesterday because I forgot to bring a container to heat the sauce up in so standby – I’ll be back with the recipe that uses whiskey but not your husband’s most favourite whiskey.

And off Em flew with little Freddie back to LA.  She and her husband are trying desperately to coordinate their next business trips with Archie’s 21st so there is a slither of hope they’ll all be here in a few weeks for the next big family event.  We are all hoping they can manage it.  Archie is very blessed to have people in his life prepared to go to so much effort.

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