Meal No. 29: Teriyaki Steak Skewers

Thanks to a good recipe shared with me some years ago, the Sunday night meal here at the end of August was grilled teriyaki steak skewers, and they are so very good.

This preceded Movie Night No. 7: The Matrix. What a fantastic movie!

[Editor's Note: There is a pretty good stretch of Roediger House meals in the early days of the new kitchen for which there are no pictures and no blog entries. I still wanted them to be recorded, as long as the blog serves that purpose so well, so I made some efforts both in 2011 and in early 2016 to at least post what those meals were on the proper dates.]

Meal No. 28: Dinner with the Jens

My normal excellent calendar note-taking falls short for making this entry. Dear Roediger House friends Jen and Jen were here for dinner but I have no idea what I fixed them, since I'm composing this blog post in January 2016 with my 2009 calendar open in front of me.

[Editor's Note: There is a pretty good stretch of Roediger House meals in the early days of the new kitchen for which there are no pictures and no blog entries. I still wanted them to be recorded, as long as the blog serves that purpose so well, so I made some efforts both in 2011 and in early 2016 to at least post what those meals were on the proper dates.]

Meal No. 27: Asian Pork Tenderloin

It's quite a shame I haven't developed the habit of photographing meals each night, because this one was quite a feast: Asian pork tenderloin, with southern style green beans, company mashed potatoes, and even buttermilk biscuits. Quite a lot of food with only three of us around the table, but I don't think we minded. I can do without the Chinese Five-Spice addition to the BBQ sauce, which I'll make a point of fixing when and if I make this again.

[Editor's Note: There is a pretty good stretch of Roediger House meals in the early days of the new kitchen for which there are no pictures and no blog entries. I still wanted them to be recorded, as long as the blog serves that purpose so well, so I made some efforts both in 2011 and in early 2016 to at least post what those meals were on the proper dates.]

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"Asian Pork Tenderloin," from Cuisine at Home, Issue 60 [recipe clipping].

"Southern Style Green Beans," by April Moon. The Flying Biscuit Cafe Cookbook. Atlanta: Longstreet (1998), p. 47.

"Company Mashed Potatoes," a Jones family favorite.

Meal No. 26: Seared Salmon with Tarragon Mushroom Sauce

With just three of us around the table on this Thursday evening, I tried out seared salmon topped with a creamy tarragon and mushroom sauce, along with steamed spinach and basmati rice.

[Editor's Note: There is a pretty good stretch of Roediger House meals in the early days of the new kitchen for which there are no pictures and no blog entries. I still wanted them to be recorded, as long as the blog serves that purpose so well, so I made some efforts both in 2011 and in early 2016 to at least post what those meals were on the proper dates.]

Meal No. 25: Standing Rib Roast

For a small boys' night dinner gathering on this fine summer Sunday, I made a standing rib roast and served it up as a remarkably early dinner.

[Editor's Note: There is a pretty good stretch of Roediger House meals in the early days of the new kitchen for which there are no pictures and no blog entries. I still wanted them to be recorded, as long as the blog serves that purpose so well, so I made some efforts both in 2011 and in early 2016 to at least post what those meals were on the proper dates.]

Meal No. 24: Beef Stroganoff

There has been way too much traveling this month (a few days in Wyoming in the middle of a lot of time in Virginia), and that's put a hurting on my meals in the Roediger House kitchen. Tonight I got back into the mode and made beef stroganoff for the first time. It was pretty good but I thought the sauce was just too thin. I'll give it another go sometime and see if I can't get it closer to fine.

Saturday Night Bath Fever

The time finally came to inaugurate the grand new soaking tub in the Master Bathroom. It was a casual day yesterday, trying to catch up after having been out of town all week and knowing that I'm leaving again (on a jetplane) early Monday morning. The time just seemed right, and the occasion begged for all the pomp and circumstance of setting it up as the right mood.

I'll also admit: it was freakin' hot. So a nice relaxing soak for a while, but then a cooling cleansing shower followed. Not sure how much I'll take advantage of this great tub, but it's nice to have it, no doubt.

Meal No. 23: Margherita Grilled Pork Tenderloin

My college roommate from the University of North Carolina, Jimmy Randolph, made his roughly-annual pilgrimage to the Roediger House. For dinner, I made a grilled pork tenderloin recipe that's got some heat and some great flavor. We enjoyed ourselves and talked up a storm.

Meal No. 22: Burgers on the Grill

It's summer, and it's easy to turn to the simple burgers that I put together for grilling on a lovely summer evening. It was a later dinner, which shows the benefit of some wisdom when the heat of summer is on the scene.

Meal No. 21: Not So Cajun Chicken

The meal made at mid-day today was subsequently delivered to friends working at 6th & Vine: a repeat of the first meal ever made in the new kitchen, inspired by a dish found at Crowley's in Raleigh. Not So Cajun Chicken is always a winner to me.

Meal No. 20: Coronation Chicken

Bradley Phillis and Trevor LaFauci came over this afternoon for a challenging round of Trivial Pursuit. The mid-day/mid-afternoon meal was coronation chicken.

Meal No. 19: Beef Tenderloin Stir-Fry

A night breaking out the wok in order to create beef, mushroom, and onion stir-fry before settling down with a DVD movie for the evening.

Meal No. 18: Burgers and a Movie

For the last night of the Oklahoma crew this week, I had to go with grilling burgers as a prelude to Movie Night No. 6 for this season: Heathers.

The burgers are a pretty simple recipe that I got a while back, and they always come out very good and very tasty. The actual name, believe it or not, is "Juicy Burgers on the Grill."

Done.

It's not really summer to me until these burgers show up on the front porch for a good evening outside with friends.

And it was a sign of great progress with the 2009 Roediger Theatre movie season: another good movie and a happily receptive audience for it.

Meal No. 17: The Roediger House Dinner

When it is a special gathering, my most favorite meal to fix for a crowd is the one that showed up at the Roediger House tonight for my visiting Oklahoma friends. It was garlic and rosemary roasted beef tenderloin with a spicy horseradish sauce; layered green bean casserole; feta-stuffed bell peppers; company mashed potatoes; yeast rolls; and, for dessert, chocolate Kahlua cake.

New North Fence

OVERDUE SUMMER UPDATE / July 2009

The blog has been much neglected, so before the Christmas holiday is over, I'm getting some more pictures up. When Pete LaRoque, the general contractor, determined that significant grading was needed around the addition, it became necessary to erect a retaining wall between my property and the gravel parking lot to my north. This begged for a fence to match the one I'd already put up on the south side of the property, and in early July, this was installed by Fence Builders of Winston-Salem.




By early July, the grass in the rear courtyard was really beginning to take hold and grow, and it was a nice change from the exposed raw red clay that had been the standard look for so many months.


Also, in early summer, the first flowers to warm the new addition were presented by good friends who visited from Oklahoma:

Meal No. 16: The Brunch Meal

Because I am actually blogging this quite some time after the fact, I am going on partial memory of what all I served for Meal No. 16: The Brunch Meal. The picture here was taken at the end of that meal, when only one plate remained on the table and all the rest of the attendees were easing into their respective food comas.

My typical menu for this meal includes zucchini bread and Bundt coffee cake; make-ahead scrambled eggs; spring frittata quiche; creamy cheese grits; and a big bowl of fruit.

Meal No. 15: 2x2 Soup

A crew of good friends from Oklahoma arrived this evening for a week of hanging out at the Roediger House, and a pretty helpful and accommodating meal to have on hand when arrival times are uncertain is my cousin Betsy's 2 x 2 soup. That was the evening's fare.

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"2 x 2 Soup," from various sources.

Meal No. 14: Bama Chicken

In special celebration of Jen Martin's birthday, it was another quick return to the favorite dish called Bama Chicken.

Getting the Look, Slowly

01 July 2009

Meal No. 13: Seared Salmon

A Porch Rail Update

I have this fear that your 4th of July weekend might be terribly incomplete without a word or two about the porch railings, which (last you knew) were reinstalled but not yet painted or stained. Since they are pressure-treated lumber, the idea was to let the new railings sit out and cure a bit. While I was away last week, Roberto was sent over to give them a good solid-color staining, and they do look good. Unfortunately, the post top piece cracked and the boards used to construct the post no longer neatly aligned, so the result was a tad unsightly. Never fear, though: Pete sent Roberto back with caulking instructions and he cleaned it up pretty well. Here are the shots to help you see this.

Paper Route

Back in the early days when I'd first bought the house, this is what the dining room looked like. It had a dark green wallpaper with tiny colored designs in it, and a less-than-pleasing fruity border up around the top. There were also fancy valance treatments that, while pretty dusty, actually looked like someone had spent some money on them. It took me a while to pull the trigger on this, but it finally seemed best to let it go. So last week, my painter Gary Hudson had a couple of his crew come over and pull that paper down. The room had always seemed pretty dark to me, and I'm ready for it to take on a warmer and attractive feel. It helped to replace the ceiling fan with a more appropriate chandelier.

If the picture to the right here is the BEFORE, then these next two are the DURING and AFTER.



If you read through the post "A Series of Unfortunate Events," you may recall that our dear plumbers failed to glue the drain on the old upstairs tub, and this led to a water disaster in the dining room below it. There seems to be no obvious lasting damage to the floors, but all that water coming down did manage to strip the varnish off the wainscoting along that wall in the dining room. This week, one of Pete's crew put fresh clearcoat along that wall, and it gave off a shiny sheen once he was finished.

Two Phases of the Swoon

The makeover of the Roediger House has two distinct phases, and so far the blog has been focused on the first part of this, which was the demolition of the old kitchen and bathrooms and the construction of the addition. For that job, Pete LaRoque has served as the General Contractor, with the charge of bringing into being the design that my architect Sam Binkley worked up. Now, I can keep trying to find ways to describe for you how much I love the new space: the kitchen and master bath are particularly incredible to me. Suffice it to say that it's pretty doggone awesome to now be inhabiting these spaces, enjoying them in the quiet times and reveling in the better ways they accommodate friends for fun times.

Next up: renovation and improvement of the existing or original house. Part of this has begun: replacement of a lot of light fixtures, about which I've already written. Pete's part of the project also involved elements of "renovation," in addition to the addition: things like replacing the HVAC system, putting on a new roof, insulating the attic and crawl space, and painting the exterior of the house. But what happens from here is up to me to schedule and arrange, which means it's likely to be more haphazard.

Essentially, what it boils down to is this: there is a fair amount of plaster repair needed in the south parlour, master bedroom, and dining room downstairs; and in the four rooms and hallway upstairs. After that, I'll have Gary Hudson in to repaint those walls and ceilings. Then, the floors upstairs can be refinished. Beyond that, I need to get shutters and storm windows and tackle landscaping.

In the meantime, I guess the Roediger House blog will become a bit more all-purpose: notes about events and happenings, mostly, and a few other random things here and there. Stay tuned, if you can stand it.

Tuesday Tattler

I'm feeling pretty yawn-y, thanks to a couple of nights of showings of the Roediger Theatre and an early start to today. Last night, there were about 20 folks on hand for The Empire Strikes Back, and Sunday night a few more than that came out for Drop Dead Gorgeous. I love these summer nights and it's fun to hang out and enjoy shows on the big screen. I'm hoping the chocolate fudge with walnuts, and the cinnamon chip cookies, were suitable snacks for the crew. Monica Alonso brought over some of her famous mac-n-cheese, and that cleared out half the audience to run inside and wait for it to be served up hot.


The night began with grilling out: burgers on the grill with Bradley, Trevor, Chris, Shane, Beau, Brian, Stephen, and Danny (Meal No. 11 in the new kitchen). In some ways, we think it's our last hurrah with Trevor, before he moves out to San Diego to undertake a masters program, and probably to fall into habits of grave sin and debauchery. You can see he was visibly moved by the finality of it all. And hey: those burgers were pretty good. And the company for the evening was great.

Preceding Sunday night's film, there was also some grilling out, for Meal No. 10: filet mignon, company mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, and poppy seed rolls. Fudge for dessert, too. It made me mighty happy to have a thick medium-rare steak in the new kitchen. It's been a long time coming.

In the next few hours, the final inspection by the City should occur. Pete had to come and address two issues related to insulation over the new kitchen space; otherwise, we were looking pretty good. Pete and I met Saturday and did a sort of final "walk-through" of our own, noting the things that still need to be addressed or tidied up. Another sign that things are just about done.

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Late-Day Update: I prepped enough burgers last night such that there were some leftover but ungrilled, so that became Meal No. 12 this evening.

Latest Meals

I suppose it's the novelty of having this great new kitchen, or maybe it's the part of me that used to be a history teacher, but there is an undeniable need to document the meals cooked. The good thing about a blog is that you guys don't have to read what doesn't interest you. Being able to cook again interests me a great deal, so this is what I'm thinking about with this latest entry.

There's already been a repeated meal: Bama Chicken (No. 7 in the new kitchen). That was last Sunday before I took off for part of the week in Pinehurst, working. Once I got home again, I could get back to trying out recipes, and last night (Friday) was Meal No. 8: grilled parmesan-crusted salmon with a port wine reduction based buerre rouge. It was pretty darned tasty. Tonight was sesame-crusted seared tuna with a ginger cream sauce and stir-fried glass noodles (Meal No. 9). Not as good and way too much trouble for the results.

Fan Mail

Dear People,

Seems I'm making, at best, trickling efforts to give you more photos showing the new electrical fixtures here and there. So here's another: the new fan with lights that Jason mounted in the corner of the porch coming up from the parking area. This is a favorite spot for sitting and drinking coffee and watching birds in the side-yard grove; or for grilling; or for hanging out when movie nights get rained out. Needed breezes to be available on command, but also needed enough light to tell me if the meat is grilling properly.

Sincerely,
Ray at the Roediger House

Front Porch Sconces

I've already talked about a number of inside light fixtures that have been replaced, but it was also necessary to do this on the porch on either side of those massive front doors. Here is the photo from the online catalogue from which I ordered them, and below is an actual picture now that the fixtures have been mounted. I'm very happy with their look, and what they replaced should probably have never been on this house anyway. They've got a good old-fashioned gaslight look to them and really look snappy at night.

Since Jason Lanier, our electrician, also got sconce lights installed on the upstairs porch balcony, there is a pretty cool nighttime look to the place. It's yet another step in the right direction.

Trivia Night No. 2

It was another intense competition around the new eating nook table for the second round of Trivial Pursuit in the new addition. It was a repeat match-up of three teams, with Beau, Bradley, Ray, Shane, and Trevor bringing their best minds and memories to the task at hand. As can probably be discerned from the furrowed brows in this photo, the team of Bradley and Trevor (proud graduates of the social studies education program at Wake Forest) concentrate pretty deeply on the exact number of teams in the NFL after merger with the AFL. Their 38 minutes of contemplation led them to arrive at the right answer: 26.

Starry Night Cinema at the Roediger Theatre

Here's a little bit of fun and a diversion for you: a newly-created website focused just on the outdoor movies nights here at the Roediger House. It goes by the name of Starry Night Cinema, and you can read more about it here:

http://people.virginia.edu/~rcj6t/rohotheatre/Roediger_Theatre.html

Railing Reality

Whilst I was away in beautiful New Mexico, where the unusually prolific rains have made things a lovely sage instead of the usual brownish tan, Pete had the bannister installed for the bathroom on the upstairs landing. He says I have expensive tastes, and I guess I'd best not run from that indictment. The end result looks terrific. Still to be done: applying clearcoat and installing one last missing picket (the company shorted him one when it shipped the materials to him).