If you could invite ANYONE to dinner, who would it be and why?

I love to read, and adventure books are a real favorite of mine.  So I would invite two of my favorite adventure novelists-matthew Reilly and Clive Cussler.  I have read all of Reilly’s books, and probably 85% of Cussler’s.  I would just like to pick their brains, ask them questions about the characters, and possibly see if I could get some spoilers on upcoming novels.

I just finished Jim Beaver’s (Yes, he plays Bobby Singer on Supernatural) book, “Life’s That Way.” And was in such awe of his ability to put such raw emotion out there for anyone to see.  He wrote about losing his wife in a way that didn’t just express his sadness, but let us see the love and joy he felt just simply for being with her.  It really touched me, and I think it would be fun to talk to him.  Perhaps I could also get some insight as to what is gonna happen next season on Supernatural!  My kids would dig that.

Well, we went back to our experiment and this time C cooked dinner as we had to run and pick up J.  He made Apricot Beef Stir Fry.  We doubled the recipe, of course!  I spent about $19.00 on ingredients or about $2.38 per serving. Still not bad, though more on that later.

C LOVES to cook, but is new to working with some of the appliances, or is unfamiliar with the one we have as he has only used the one he has in class.  Our rice cooker can be temperemental and the rice didn’t quite get cooked, so crunchy rice was not a favorite here.  The beef was pretty..well, sucky too.  Too fatty, some cartilage still on it, etc.  I usually get it at Costco, but was not going out that way this week, so I bought it at our local store….will not be doing that again, at least not the sirloin stew pieces!

CL-(that’s me!)it was ok!  The Apricot preserves didn’t make it overly sweet, and I don’t usually use an asparagus stir fry blend, so that was nice and different.  (will definetely do that again!) but I couldn’t get past the crunchy rice.

R-didn’t like it.  He didn’t like the veggies used this time, the meat was yuck and he couldn’t get past the rice either.

C-I was glad he was able to laugh off the rice…we all make mistakes, and he took this one in stride even joking with us about it.  I think he liked the sauce, but that was all.

J-This rice is crunchy, enough said.

A-see J’s remark.

H-“I don’t like this, mommy! My rice is hard!” he gave up, ate a few pieces of veggies and ran off.

D-he picked at his a bit, but overall he wasn’t impressed.

Using a better cut of beef would have helped, as would properly cooked rice, but I think I will stick with my own recipe for beef stir fry.