George RR Martin, in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, includes many loving descriptions of mealtime for various characters. Most of the meals set within castles seem to be lavished with loving detail, and one recurrent motif is the trencher.
A trencher is, very roughly, what we moderns would call a bread bowl. Think of bread-bowl soup sold at your local Panera. GRR Martin's trenchers are normally made with large, long loaves of bread that have had a trench dug into them (hence "trencher"). In Martin's world, which resembles medieval Europe, trenchers are often filled with various soups and stews and meats, fish stew prominent among them.
Because I still had leftover coquilles St. Jacques from the previous day, I decided to make trenchers at the office. I bought bread and shared my leftover creamy seafood with my coworker, who made short work of his lunch.
Here's a shot of my trencher:
It was every bit as delicious as it looks.
ADDENDUM: Charles commented that there was "blue stuff" in the photo. At first, I thought this was the result of poor color correction in Photoshop, but I've just looked at the original pic, and it looks pretty much like the pic I had put up in this space. I've changed the pic, replacing it with one that's been more subtly color-corrected, but I suspect that the "blue stuff" remains. I'm now pretty sure that the "blue stuff" is actually the gray frills of the oyster mushrooms, poking out of the cream sauce. The onions and celery leaves, meanwhile, are obviously green.
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What is the blue stuff in the soup?
ReplyDeleteThey do look kinda' blue, don't they. They're actually supposed to be green: green onions and celery leaves.
ReplyDeletePhotoshop Elements has several color-correction options, but whether they work depends on the lighting conditions of the room in which your computer sits. In my apartment, the lighting is all weirdly fluorescent, which may be why I didn't catch the bluing effect after having adjusted color slightly (the original photo was too pallid and lacked decent contrast). Perhaps I'll try again with the color correction tonight. If I'm not feeling lazy, that is.
Now that I've heard the explanation, they don't look as blue. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is one of those "Is this dress black and blue or white and gold" things?
"Leftover creamy seafood" isn't code is it?
ReplyDeleteIt does look delicious. But, sadly, I will pass on leftover seafood. It is one of my quirks. Don't eat leftover seafood.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteYou and your weird white-people hangups. The food was perfectly fine. I'd be cautious if it sat for three weeks inside my fridge. Heh.
Indeed. Very weird white-guy hangup. I made crab cakes over the summer. I had a few left over and I wouldn't eat them. My own handiwork and I wouldn't touch 'em. It is one of my things. I have no other problem with other leftovers, and indeed eat leftovers regularly. But seafood leftovers are strictly verboten for me.
ReplyDelete