My sister-in-law Sophie invited us over for dinner. I was very excited because Sophie is an excellent cook! See? A plate piled high with delicious things!
It’s nice to have so many of the ‘kids’ living in the same city now. The Husband + myself + Sophie + brother-in-law Nick. Oh, and since I get this question all the time: Sophie and Kristien share the same parents, but Nick is technically the Husband’s stepbrother. This means that Sophie and Kristien both have sweet British accents but Nick does not. I, of course, am rocking the Southern-Miami hybrid twang.
Anyway – WINE!
I’m all over the sweet stuff lately, huh?
Sophie makes excellent roasted potatoes – I don’t know how she does it. It’s definitely ‘English’ style because their grandma and mom cook potatoes the same way, too. Not the ol’ American way of rubbing oil on them and simply sticking the potatoes into the oven. But I can’t get anyone to really explain to me HOW they do it! I asked Sophie again tonight and all that I gleamed from her description is that she boils the potatoes first, drops them in hot oil, and then roasts. But there’s a bunch of other steps that I didn’t understand (something about fluffing something?). NEXT DINNER PARTY – I shall figure it out. NEXT TIME!
Best part was this stuffed mushroom, which was packed with veggies and sunflower seeds.
We had brownies for dessert.
Anyone else related to people with much cooler accents? Ten years later and I’m still jealous.
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{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
My mom is marrying her fiancé of almost 8 years on Saturday. In Australia. Where she lives now. He. Is Australian and has the most adorable accent!
I’m Australian, but my husband is Irish. I don’t notice his accent – it’s just the way he is – but other people comment on it all the time. Being married to an Irishman, I had to learn to cook good potatoes too! The “fluffing” thing is this: after you boil them, drain them then shake them around in the pot a bit. It kind of mashes the edges a bit so they get “fluffy”. Then when you put oil on them and cook them, the edges get crispy, but the inside cooks all nice and soft because of the boiling first. Hope that makes sense!
Hello from the UK
It really makes a difference if you let the potatoes cool right down after you have fluffed them up. Basically, you boil the potatoes, fluff them up the way Kat explained and then let them cool down while you heat your oil in the oven. They get super crunchy this way!
A good way to get them nice and fluffy is to put the boiled potatoes in a colander and toss them around before roasting them. That really gets the edges nice and crispy!
My fiancé’s English mother makes the same potatoes! I’ve always wondered how she did it…
That stuffed mushroom looks AMAZING!!! Think she’d let you share the recipe? I’m drooling…
That stuffed mushroom looks so delicious! What were the veggies inside?
That dinner looks Divine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You have awesome in-laws! Not only can you workout together, but they can cook for you!
My mom is Romanian and lived in Bucharest until her early 20s when she and her parents left the communist regime and came to America. All my friends say she has an accent but I’m so used to it that I don’t notice. Every once in a while I can hear it when she pronounces certain words but most of the time I don’t hear it.
The fluffed potatoes! I believe it is a British thing and I learned of it on Jamie Oliver’s Christmas special on Food Network a couple of years ago. You boil then first, heat oil (he did duck fat but blech!….I did olive oil and butter). The “fluffing” is tossing the boiled potatoes around in a colander so the edges get a little roughed up. Then put them in the pan with the heated oil and roast them till they’re crispy and ridiculously delicious. The fluffing makes all the difference since those edges get super crisp. They were a huge hit and I’ve watched him on UTube since to get a refresher.
I’m french, living with a Scotsman in Canada. So I guess we both have an accent
I hope one day our kids will have one too. I love the Scottish accent
I just visited a friend in England with my two roommates and his Mum made potatoes just like that! We couldn’t believe how good they were! The accents kill me every time. I love skyping with my friend just to hear the accent. You surely lucked out
The stuffed mushroom looks amazing! Any chance for a recipe on that?!
Let me ask her!
I want to go to Sophie’s house for dinner! What did she stuff that mushroom with…it looks wonderful!
Oh wow that mushroom looks so good! Plus two posts about sweet wine definitely has me craving some…
My sister and my nephew live in the UK. She has a mixed accent, but he’s full on. And i love it! Just talked to him today, and it’s always so fun to hear what he has to say.
Mmm… love Moscato!
No cool accents in my family (unless you count almost all of us being born and raised in Minnesota.
), but a couple of my friends can do relatively good English/Scottish accents. I think it comes from watching a lot of BBC stuff. And Fry & Laurie.
My dad’s originally from California but he’s been here long enough that if there was much a difference in accent, he’s got a Minnesotan one now. When we chat with family out there, I don’t ever notice much of a difference, but maybe I’m just used to it.
Found this recipe – http://www.food.com/recipe/proper-roast-potatoes-english-style-91179
Didn’t realize there was another way to make them. Will have to try these.
Yum! Those potatoes sound wicked good! (P.S. first comment, yay!) My two great aunts (adopted by my great grandparents after the war) are Hungarian and Romanian and even 60+ years later they still have the cutest, thickest accents and I love to hear them speak. I love accents <3 especially because in the West we really sound so plain and boring.
My husband is English and so are all of my in laws. We live in England and our two year old daughter has a pretty cute English accent. Her accent is different from my husbands though, probably because of my Canadian influence! Roasted potatoes are awesome..my husband does them like Sophie does!
I’ve been reading your blog forEVER and have always secretly thought that we could be besties (we have the same name, a love of the Obamas and peanut butter toast, and a similar sense of humor), but your wine choice just confirmed my suspicions. Barefoot Moscato is my favorite wine in the entire world! For me, the closer a wine tastes to grape juice, the better. Hope y’all enjoyed it as much as I do!
hahah we’re do you live?! please say charlotte.
Winston-Salem! Lover of Charlotte though
So your sister-in-law is married to her stepbrother?
And that dinner does look delicious!!
Um, no. LOL
Ultimate [British] roast potatoes? Obviously everyone has their own secret recipe, but this is basically the gist: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1303/ultimate-roast-potatoes
Nigella uses cornmeal instead of flour for the fluffing stage, but I usually just use flour, and the goose fat is definitely not vegetarian friendly, but olive oil works *almost* as well. The key is to make sure that the oil is REALLY hot before you put the potatoes in so they crisp up on the outside and don’t just absorb all the fat and get soggy!
Oh yeah, that’ll get potatoes good and crispy. It’s just more work than what I’m usually up for.
See Delia’s recipe for roast potatoes; http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/party-food/accompaniment/perfect-roast-potatoes.html
The “fluffing” just means bashing the potatoes around a bit (in the saucepan) once they’re boild to rough up the edges a bit. This makes sure they go extra crispy when you roast them in the oven!
Haha I’m English and I fluff my potatoes up too. Kat and Kathy have explained it well
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1237881/Michael-Caine-knows-secret-perfect-roast-potato.html !!! Sounds delicious.
Stuffed mushrooms are the best! You can put anything in them and it’s always so tasty and fun. I think potatoes are best fried in butter… yummmm.
No cool accents here. We’re all as southern as it gets! I wish I had a cool British accent. That’s definitely the one I covet!
My husband is originally from West Virginia… Not a “romantic” accent, but an accent nonetheless, haha!
My father is Hungarian, born and raised, so whenever anyone meets my Dad his accent is very strong to them. They say her sounds like Bela Lugosi from Dracula
lol. Since I have been around my Dad all my life I don’t notice it, but everyone asks what kind of accent he has.
My mom was born in Co Sligo, Ireland and my dad in Perth, Scotland. They met in London in the 50′s working in a bar and married and moved to Canada.
My mom’s accent is mostly gone. Her first job interviewer here told her “You’ll never get a job in Canada with an accent like that!” So she promptly tried to lose it.
My dad is fiercely Scottish and still has a thick accent which everyone notices right away. Of course when I was young I found it embarassing. Now that I travel to Ireland/England/Scotland regularly to visit relatives, I LOVE it and wish I had it too
That mushroom looks like like it was amazing. I wish my fiance liked mushrooms. Maybe I’ll make stuffed mushrooms one of these days and he can just fend for himself for dinner.
I really like the Barefoot moscato. It’s cheap, but because it’s so sweet it doesn’t taste cheap. It’s definitely a go-to for me if I really want a sweet wine.
This meal looks delicious!
Yummm – that looks like a great dinner! I love being invited to people’s homes for dinner, and I love having people over. Eating with friends/family is the best!
My husband is British and we live in the UK together (I’m American) so I guess I’m the one with an accent!
Of course I love my husband, but funnily enough, I don’t quite understand the mass obsession with British speech! I really want our kids to have a west coast accent like their mama. Weird?? I’m totally the only one hahahaha
My hubs is Aussie but I barely notice the accent anymore! We’ve lived in the U.S. for a long time now so he probably has a bit more of an American pronunciation. His family all lives in Australia though and they sound super Aussie to me!
Please have Sophie share this recipe…it looks DELICIOUS! And yep, I totally feel ya on the accent front. My fiance is from London. His accent is so…for lack of a better word…dreamy.