As a guest, you instantly get a sense that it is privileged experience you are soon to get into for the next few hours at Roger's place. Your eyes gaze into the view of the flowing East River that separates the island from Manhattan, which brief distance is bridged, among many choices, by the subway and the tram. In the comforts of the apartment, you are being served by someone like Roger who gives and shows prime value to shared home-cooked meals. And I get to know better the kind heart-ed person behind that man who was first introduced to me by a common friend who is based in Los Angeles, California, at least 4 years ago as of this writing. You get a sense of the peaceful lifestyle that Roger leads at his neck of the woods in that part of New York City.
The food he prepared this time deviated from the usual that he would come up in previous occasions that we had lunch. We had his version of fresh green salad mixed with his own dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, honey, pepper plus garnishing including walnuts, cheese, and craisins. He also baked salmon this time with dill on the pieces, which I found fresh and very tasty. He emphasized that baking fish doesn't need to be overdone or longer than the usual 20 minutes or so, or else its unique flavor would be gone. He made sure we had fried shrimp dumplings, too,and he asked me about my preferred sauce to dip them on. I thought I'd like the usual white vinegar with red chili pepper from the gardens of one of his friends out in the West Coast. I recalled we had chocolate ice cream, coffee and cookies for dessert, which we enjoyed much later after our lunch. Needless to say, it's been a grand feast, which is always the case when I have lunch at Roger's place.
