• Pan-roasted chicken with sherry vinegar & marsala wine sauce
• Carrot mashed potatoes with fresh chives
• Asparagus with crushed garlic & olive oil

The past few weeks I’ve been traveling and moving around. I just set up shop in a new place in Oakland, next to Lake Merritt & Piedmont. So this is the first meal I’ve cooked in a long while. Luckily, I had the help of my friend, Brian.

I asked Brian to drop a whole chicken in a large bowl of salt water to brine it. Well, I misjudged the capacity of the bowl and the water (or “salmonella water” as Brian would call it) spilled onto our counter (or “salmonella counter” as Brian would call it) soaking a roll of paper towels (or “salmonella paper towels”) and his clothes (or “salmonella clothes” as Brian would call it).

He showered, changed clothes and did everything short of calling for a government Hazmat team to come sanitize the kitchen.

Everything else went smoothly and the mashed potatoes have been dubbed by Brian, “The best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had… That I can remember.” So unless he’s had mashed potatoes that were so tasty that it caused memory loss, I think that’s a good review.