Comments from the Left Coast...

Everybody loved tonight's meal. I thought the cucumbers were a bit too salty, but I was alone in that. We had our friend RJ join us this evening, to serve as an independent opinion. He has invited himself to join us for many of the upcoming Sunday dinners, looking forward in particular to the sweetbread menus. I am decidedly not looking forward to those, but I reckon I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Not much to "learn" in this lesson, I thought. The method of roasting the chicken was new to me, that of cooking it on its side for 20 minutes, turning it, cooking on the other side for 20 minutes and then putting it on its back for the rest of the roasting. It reminded me of positioning a baby for sleep, in the old days when you were supposed to lie them on their stomachs.

I can't find chervil, so instead I tied a chunk of fennel into the parsley in the peas, which gave it a nice subtle almost licorice flavor. Other changes: I also put the onions in first and let them cook for a couple of minutes before adding the peas and the lettuce, so that everything was cooked at about the same rate.

Substitutions: Frozen petite peas for fresh; canned peach (in juice) for fresh; English cucumbers for "European cucumbers", which might be the same thing. Also, we added a baguette on the side.

Our Royal Miss M took one look at the dinner and elected to eat a frozen burrito instead. Royal W was the sous-chef -- only two cuts on his fingers until we took him off apple peeling detail (he switched to using a potato peeler). He was very helpful with stirring and measuring. After helping me wash and prep the chicken however, he has returned to vegetarianism.