1.21 gigawatts of taste

I sort of got off track for a while there, but the next thing I was going to blog about (*ahem* anonymous) was the dinner that Roland made us all this past Sunday. It was the last day of our AOW class and Jason and I had two dives starting at about 12:00 and getting done at about 4:30/5:00ish. Upon our arrival we stepped out of the car and honest-to-goodness I smelled something delicious on the air. I dismissed it as someone grilling on their balcony (no you're not supposed to do that, but yes they do anyway) even though it didn't smell like grillish. Jason and I lugged all of our stuff out of the car and up the stairs. Did you know that stuff gets heavier when it's wet? Yeah, well, I suppose I did too, but there is nothing like experience to illuminate things. When I opened the door to the apartment that self-same mouthwatering aroma nearly overwhelmed me. Turns out Roland had the door to the balcony open and it was wafting down there to taunt anyone who happened by. Jason and I ditched our stuff and started investigating. Dinner was still cooking. This was bad for a two main reasons.

1. I was pretty hungry, the smell was awesome, and now we had to wait.
2. Now we had time to start to rinse off our gear rather than procrastinating.

Jason was kind enough to rinse out our BCDs at the same time he rinsed the salt off of himself. He actually ended up rinsing off everything else as well later because he's just that kind of guy (thanks J).

Eventually everything was ready and dinner was served and this is what we saw.

We each had a Cornish hen, which had been brined and then stuffed with garlic, rosemary, and lemon. Seriously people, the.juiciest.thing.ever! And the juice is bursting with flavor too. I can not even describe the deliciousness that is this Cornish hen. It has easily met and surpassed lamb as my favorite meal that Roland makes for me. The breast is fairly well dripping with lemony rosemary goodness and I pulled the leg bone out of the meat whole. Talk about tender. This time there was a honey glaze that made the skin all crispy and slightly sweet. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

There was also an artichoke and sausage dish with a white wine reduction that I really like. Artichokes are hard to deal with though so I'm lobbying for a zucchini version so that we can have it more often. We also had a cornbread square with some of the honey glaze drizzled on top which I thought was a very nice compliment to the Cornish hens. Lastly there was a salad that Roland makes a lot of variations on, but I really like so that it fine by me. Spinach with some sort of moldy cheese (blue, gorgonzola, etc), red onions, and walnuts, with a vinaigrette dressing. Very tasty. It is absolutely incredible to me that Roland can make this kind of stuff right here in our apartment. It tastes like some famous chef made it for a restaurant. Did I luck out or what?