July 12th - Kendra and Trevor Mitchell

The first official guests of Cafe Davis were Kendra and Trevor Mitchell. Kendra and I started working at the Northeast Health District on the same day back in October of 2000. Trevor, her husband, used to be our $5 a case hook-up for super cheap beer. He's left the land of Miller Light, however, and is now pursuing bigger and better things in the land of chemistry. He currently works for the USDA in Athens, and Kendra just started a new job as a policy analyst at the state Capitol. Since Athens and downtown Atlanta are a bit away, she's also our new unofficial housemate during the week, so you'll see her in a number of future Cafe Davis blog entries (and special thanks to her for always offering to help with the dishes!).

The menu for tonight was heirloom tomatoes with bacon, bleu cheese and basil; grilled steaks with red chile sauce; pickled red onions with cilantro; corn and haricots verts in lime shallot butter and Newcastle Brown Ale to drink. Trevor is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so they had to come on steak night. And luckily, corn and green beans are the two vegetables he'll eat. Kendra and Trevor also brought all of the ingredients to make Pacific Breezes for us all - vodka lemonade, Blue Curacao, lemon slices, and a touch of mint. Yummy! Kendra also made a fantastic homemade dessert - an orange bundt cake. It was superb!

One spectacular event of the evening involved the red chile sauce. The recipe called for dried guajillo peppers - I had to slit them open, clean out the seeds, pour hot water on them, let them rest to get soft, and then puree them. Unbeknownst to me, there is an ingredient in peppers called capsaicin that can cause skin reactions. Hmmm... I followed the directions, then went to take a shower, and couldn't figure out why the water felt so hot on my hands, but nowhere else. I got out of the shower, dried off, and continued to burn like crazy. I managed to get all of the food on the table, and tried to eat, but then I couldn't take it anymore. Trevor suggested soaking my hands in milk, which seemed to help a little bit. It was probably two hours before the burning stopped. Then I made the mistake of trying to wash the dishes... I got more on my hands and the cycle began again. I was a bit smarter the next day and washed all of the dishes that touched the peppers while wearing plastic bags on my hands. So word of warning - beware of peppers.