Grilled Salmon, Managing MS and Time to Celebrate

First dinner party of the season. Not a big one but enough to make this Girl with MS think about a lot of things, mainly how to manage this illness during the next 24 hours...

House is decorated thanks to mom and her elves. We took it slow but spent the last few days decorating and cleaning. My office is usually set up at this table but now it's time to put it away. Oh bummer! Hate when I have to put my office away. (we are only talking about a laptop here...keeping life simple with MS)

Everyone has a different style. (This isn't quite my style...but I love it anyway) Individual styles are part of why the Holidays are so interesting. We grew up with a nice large tree and a variety of ornaments from around the world and through our lives. I just made the Lego logo for University of Oregon. Go Ducks!

My mom just gave me this great apron from Williams Sonoma. Perfect for the holidays! And I'm kind of messy when I cook.

Tonight I'm making a slight twist to my grilled salmon. The salmon was caught fresh in Canada by a good friend. Usually I make a bit of a mayo, worcestshire, herb sauce for the top. Today I went gonzo with the herbs in the garden and made a sorrel pesto with parsley, chives, basil, arugula, garlic chives, pine nuts and olive oil.

I just puréed it in the Cuisinart adding olive oil as needed. Remember to taste along the way. The salt, Saltverk, was a gift from a friend and is from Iceland. It's sea salt flakes and is the only salt produced 100% geothermal energy. Love this stuff! Like snow flakes of mineral yumminess.

We had a pretty hefty piece of fresh salmon. I covered it in the pesto and let it settle for awhile. We knew it was too much for tonight's dinner but left over salmon makes great patties, salad and dip.

The grill under the Christmas lights. Time to turn this baby on!

To get the Weber grill ready I blast all the burners for a first, cleaning the grates. Then turn off the center burners, turn down the outer, etc until indirect temperature about 300-350. Often I use cedar planks and tend to cook slow and a little longer then usually required. It always comes out rare to medium depending upon the thickness. With these big wild pieces the size can fluctuate quite a bit. I don't want to dry out the thinner pieces so tend to leave the ticker parts more rare. Folks can have their choice. It's all tasty!

Remember to let the fish rest for a bit after taking it off. I don't follow any rules here but prefer to tent with foil and just let everything settle into place. Its important to warm the platter so that the cooked fish isn't stuck on a cold surface right away.

All I had to do was grill the meat. Mom made the green beans, mushrooms and bacon mixture; the citrus wild rice pilaf; and the brownie tart with anglaise sauce. I forgot to get a picture of the tart but I had two servings and I rarely eat dessert!

And cranberry salad! Almost forgot that.

Well, anyways, it was a lovely evening. I managed my MS during the day, kept activities low so my energy would maintain. I left the party early as I needed to go to bed but that's OK. I slept very well. And actually woke up feeling a bit stronger than yesterday. Since when does waking up after a party feel better than before?

Maybe I'm actually learning how to do this. How to live my life with this disease as it progressively attempts to steal it away from me.

 

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