Insert Sparkling Clam Joke Here
I have an epic post for this weekend but I didn't get to it yet. I spent all day working on my final project for Illustrator. I'm slow and not especially artistic and having a hard time.

Meanwhile, the non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner went fantastic.

I ran into trouble with the pasta maker because the person who designed it had a limited idea of how thick a kitchen counter might be, as if we had kitchen counters/tables/whatever made out of a sheet of plywood. I couldn't clamp it down. For the first rounds of flattening it didn't matter but as I got to the last couple of levels I needed more muscle and I couldn't hold the pasta maker down, crank the handle and manage the pasta at the same time so it got all gummed up which lead to me opening the dinner wine a couple hours early. I ended up finishing it with a rolling pin which required a lot of brute strength, it's not like rolling cookie dough. The strands were all different shapes and some with rough edges but turned out fine when it was cooked. It was excellent pasta but I'm not sure worth that much extra work.

Now that I've done it once I think I can make it easier next time. I'm going to try at least once more before I give up on homemade pasta.

The linguine turned out excellent. I sauteed Prosciutto with leeks and garlic and then added some cheapo white wine and chucked my very thoroughly scrubbed clams in there. I had clam paranoia so they were sparkling by the time I got through with them. The recipe called for cherry tomatoes which are out of season and I don't like to cook with them anyway. I used a half a jar of sun-dried which was a good call. The cooked noodles get added last and after letting it all mingle together for a few minutes, it gets heaped on warmed plates and sprinkled with parsley and toasted pine nuts. Excellent.

The bread didn't rise into a pretty dome but tasted great and the roasted potato and spinach salad had a nice zing from the dressing, a fairly generic vinaigrette with tons of shallots. I ate leftover salad for lunch today.

The brulee turned out creamy delicious but the torch was a little scary. It doesn't come with many pictures but tons of directions with millions of danger disclaimers so I was afraid I'd blow up myself and/or the house. Filling it with the butane is also scary and I had some dripping down my arm which I then washed for 20 minutes so as not to accidentally ignite it.

The directions weren't clear on how much sugar to put on so I used a lot and the torch is like a extra-hot hair dryer and blew the sugar around which I didn't expect. Also the sugar didn't slowly burble, it melted and pooled into a brown mass. At that point I figured it was done. It tasted fantastic.

Priscila brought crab and shrimp and crudités so we did end up with way too much food. But we've got all weekend to eat it.