Friday's Feast

The regular chef at Friday's Feast is taking a week off, but another cook has taken over the kitchen just for this week at StoneGirlBlog, and posted a set of questions, so go on over there if you'd like to join in. Appetizer
What is your favorite vacation spot in the United States?

That is a question that is both easy and hard for me to answer. As I've only ever visited Northern California, parts of CoastalOregon, and a smidgen of Washington State, I'm not really qualified to judge where the best spots are, but from my limited experience, any of those places are wonderful - so much so that after my first visit in 2006, I went back again in 2007 to California, and when I go again this summer it will be to California and Oregon. Two places I particularly liked were Patrick's Point State Park, and wandering around the Sacramento Delta (which happened by happy accident last year, en route to Yosemite). Yes, I adore Yosemite too. And the Columbia River gorge is mighty impressive. Just transplant me anywhere in the Pacific Northwest!

Soup
If someone else (friend, co-worker, family) brings up a religious or political topic, how likely are you to join the conversation, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = not likely, 10=very likely).

Religion about 8, if I'm in the mood, but not if the topic is contentious. Politics much lower. Have very little patience for party politics, but don't like to argue about it.

Salad
What song do you listen to when you feel very sad?

Any Leonard Cohen; James Taylor "You've got a friend"; Sinead O'Connor "Thank you for hearing me"

(in fact, much of her work); Then, of course, there's Bridge Over Troubled Water. And "Yesterday" too. Oh.... and Janis Ian. Jesse's just heartbreakingly great, and In the Winter, too! And Don MacLean's Empty Chairs. .. and Vincent. It seems I have a neverending supply of feel-miserable music. I love it!

Main Course
Someone you really admire is coming over for a home-cooked dinner. What do you serve him/her?

Start with roast red peppers filled with goat's cheese and pine-nuts on a bed of rocket. Follow with Pam's lemon chicken on brown basmati rice with a spinach and orange salad. For dessert... I'm not a baker, but I think I'd like to fill lemon-shells with a lovely lemon sorbet and a spoonful of an avocado/lemon/date pudding I found in a Gillian McKeith book. Too much lemon? Ok. I'll serve chocolate cake too.

Dessert
If the only form of transportation left in the world is by animal (horse, mule, camel), where would you live?

Well, much as it would break my heart to leave my friends, my home and my work here in the Northern tip of the island, if my only choice of transport was animal, I'd need to move back to live closer to my parents. If my sister's country cottage was available, I'd move in there. It's ten miles from the home my mother lives in, and not much further from my Dad, one of my brothers and one of my sisters. I don't know where my son would be living! Could be anywhere. Oh. I don't like imagining the choices I'd have to make. Once in every few months, then, I'd make the trek by horse-and-carriage to wherever he is. What if he's overseas? Oh... I don't like this idea! Not at all!