I’ve been missing in action for a couple of days; my sister Jennifer was visiting from NJ. Whenever I have company, I spend time with them and try not to use my phone or laptop. Jen arrived Monday evening driving up after work; she’s a pediatric dentist. She’s super smart, lol.
We had a late dinner of french onion soup and a roasted carrot salad with maple, balsamic dressing. We ended up having dinner for two because Marty and Sam were out in a rescue squad call. Two back-to-back calls; these poor guys ate their dinner after midnite. What made me feel even worse was that they were both starving before their first call.
Marty and I made a lot of spätzle on Monday with the hopes of not working in the production kitchen during Jen’s visit, but the wholesale orders were pouring in, which is a blessing, so we told Jennifer she would be working with us. She didn’t mind at all.
Marty and I are the entire Vermont Spätzle Company, but it was easy to find something for Jen to help with. As a pediatric dentist, she was meticulous when weighing and measuring spätzle then packing the spätzle into our 12 oz retail-sized packages.
I told her to pack work clothes just in case we needed to work; she was so cute when she came down the stairs with her scrubs on.
The three of us were able to bang out production with ease which left the rest of the day free. We ate, hung out, watched movies, laughed a lot, and had another late dinner.
I made jerk pork tenderloin on the grill with candied curried sweet potatoes and grilled pineapple. Jen brought the pineapple and talked me through how she makes it. It is finished with chili-lime seasoning which gave it a kick, and the lime cut through the sweetness. The grilled pineapple was delicious; I will definitely be making this again! I didn’t take any photos since it was an unattractive tone on tone meal: Delicious, but nothing great to look at.
It was a short visit since she left at noon yesterday. We made an early lunch before she left; we made Thai panang chicken curry with rice noodles. It was best she left when she did to avoid downstate traffic, and we had a severe thunderstorm around 3 pm. The storm was even worse in the Albany area, so I’m thankful she wasn’t driving through there then.
It feels natural for Jennifer to help me in the kitchen; I always insist that no one helps me. I had her prep the vegetables for the curry. When I looked at her, she was standing in my exact prepping spot with Klaus right at her feet, hoping for something to fall off the workbench. I saw myself when I looked at them. Standing the same way, she’s just a foot taller than me with a ponytail and glasses like mine. Lol!
Her knife cuts were perfect and exact then I showed her how I make my Thai curries. I make mine very traditional; no fusion ingredients. A few simple ingredients are all it takes. I’ll have to post one of the Thai recipes that we made in my cooking class.
Marty and I had to head back into the production kitchen after she left to squeeze in a couple more batches of spätzle. Marty needed it to make 3 deliveries in the afternoon when I went to bellydance class.
We had a great time. It’s hard to believe Jennifer, and I have only known each other for a little over two years. It feels like we’ve always known each other. She will be back in a couple of weeks for another very short visit with her kids Sofia & Julian; to make up for our botched Fourth of July celebration.
We want to try to fit in a bunch of things in only 24 hours, including tubing down the Battenkill River and a gondola ride up Stratton Mountain. Hopefully, Mother Nature will be kind to us and bless us with nice weather. 🙏🏼
Scrubs! How clever of her as they surely are work clothes indeed. Loved this post. Learning about your sister and letting us get to know her better was great. We’re making a run up to the Littleton CoOp this weekend expressly for SPATZLE! (Sorry, not sure how to insert the little booboo above the a) Have a great weekend…and here comes the heat again!