The Last Supper

Well, it was fourteen people at the table, not thirteen, but we did have bread and wine. Both good. Anne and Meredith used a pork medallion recipe from Marilyn's Kitchen, Mer did a bangup dresssing for the salad, there was a good rice recipe (brown rice, nuts, wild rice), Christina brought some excellent Schnucks bread, and in addition to the several bottles of store red wine, Anne cracked open the Syrah from the vinyard run by her friends the Carsons just a few miles north of Tecate on the Mexico/California border. And Kat had made some wonderful filled cookies, some with chocolate and Nutella, some with apricot, some with rasberry. Also we had Anne's brownbread and some very tasty TraderJoe vanilla icecream to top things off.

It has been a good run, these dinners. So much variety, so much sharing, so much plain fun, mixed with not a small amount of work. It takes a lot of energy to pull off a dinner for 12-14 people, and it takes at least two days to recover.

Petra and Kat gave me a present, a Hungarian tourist guide, which I will DEFINITELY use, especially next summer. They threaten to come for a while next May, which will be great-- they can use my place in Tata as a base for Budapest.

And Kay, the ever practical, rounded up a gift credit card as a little farewell gift. It doesnt work in Europe, so I have to spend it here, and I intend to go to Borders and see what it can be converted to in the way of Hungarian language instruction material.

Snow overnight, about 5 inches, which paralyzes St. Louis. I am still packing books and sorting through drawers of tools, combs, old medicine bottles, expired hand lotion tubes, broken nail clippers. And trying to put material together for Anne to take to the Housing Violation court next Tuesday.

I will definitely get on the plane and leave. The place will not be left as a total disaster, but I do wish I had about 5 more days before I head off. Oh well, alea jacta est, and I am off to cross the Donau, if not the Rubicon.

Just read that there is a transit strike scheduled for Budapest on 12 Jan. Maybe just take taxi to Metro, then metro to closest station, then walk? We'll see. At any rate I expect to meet Mary/ Hajni at the airport and they will clue me in.