having read much and regularly about poach's dinners and seen the mouthwatering photographs on her website, the "farewell" dinner that she invited to me last saturday was a much anticipated affair. (farewell? the woman says it was actually meant as bribery, i.e everlasting imprint on memory through total conquest of stomach!) it was also the first time i have been to her house in all twelve years of knowing her, and the first time i've been introduced to her family (i met her brother and mother briefly a few weeks back when they came to pick her up from su-lin's, but hellos through a car window do not really count!) and so altogether a special occasion. my dessert queen aunt could not be persuaded to make me one of her complicated cakes, so i went and got ritz strawberry strudels and hoped that it would complement the mystery meal. (i had misunderstood poach who had said not to get chocolate ice cream for dessert (meaning other flavours are okay). i heard "not to bring a chocolate-based dessert", so i was wondering what on earth she could be cooking up that couldn't be finished off with chocolate cake.)

on arrival the mystery menu was revealed: for soup poach had prepared cream of potato, and then there was a simple lettuce salad with apple cider vinegar for side dish, then she steamrollered the rest of her way to my stomach with large quesadillas filled with poached chicken, mushroom, tomato, olive, cheddar and onion, accompanied by a large tub of salsa she had made that afternoon, and in which she substituted chinese green chilli for want of jalapeno peppers! her mother also contributed a heaped dish of fried chicken drumlets to our dinner, so all in all, it was a very filling meal! we managed two quesadillas each and shared a third, and poach's mom kept urging more on us!

after dinner, we lounged and browsed poach's foster's market cookbook, ruined the cover of her new twelve angry dvd (on that count we wielded equal destruction,) she lent me her copy of the return of the native but wouldn't allow me to sneak our sec one geog project one inch out of the door, and after puzzling our heads over a strangely compiled compendium of verse parodies we threw up our hands and poach drove me home.

unfortunately food photos can't be posted here yet: poach has lost her usb cable. but they will in due course be found here and on her journal! keep your eyes peeled!