tin omen

Tonight was the end of an era - Claude is moving to Yale (aka jail) on Friday, and we got together for one last dinner tonight. The participants were the remnants of our original crew; Adit, Oniel, John, Jess, Vidya, and Sri were all in attendance as we bid a sad farewell to our departing comrade. We had a generally merry time, punctuated by a ritual that I awkwardly forced on everyone, in which we each took a candle, said a nice thing about Claude, and then blew the candle out. In general, though, it was clear that we will all miss her tremendously - particularly for me, this is going to be hard, since Claude was my go-to best friend for all sorts of mischief and merriment, in addition to my partner in culinary adventure. I don't use emoticons lightly, but I shall use one here. :(

Anyway, we had a v. nice evening, and I just parted ways w/Claudia and Vidya. Now, I should really go to bed; the weekend will be soon enough to dwell on Claude's absence. I'm busy at work tomorrow, and will want to clean up my kitchen when I get home (although it's not too bad - I just need to run another dishwasher load and clean up a couple of serving pieces). I will also want to eat more boeuf bourguignon - it turned out fantastically, if I do say so myself, particularly over the mashed potatoes that I made on a whim tonight. I also made a spinach, pear, walnut, and gorgonzola salad that was good, and the quiche that Claude brought was excellent. We topped it all off with some walnut brownies that Sri brought, so in general we had a feast that was worthy of Claude's last supper with us.

Please think of one nice thing about Claude; and now I shall go to bed!