Linguine Overleaf 
Jenrose

1 package basil-garlic linguine

Sauce: 
1 can tomato puree
1 can chopped tomatos in their own juice
1/4 pound smoked salmon (preferably kipper-style)
1 zucchini
1 tablespoon chopped basil (jarred is okay)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic (jarred is okay)
Red wine to taste

Seafood accompaniment
3-5 oysters per person
Several vegetable or herb crackers, crushed

1/4 pound scallops per person
1/4 cup white wine per person
1 tablespoon chopped garlic

First, realize you can't find a can opener anywhere. Call Sandy and 
send someone down to get a can opener.

Open the cans. Realize you don't have any oil. Improvise.

Start water boiling.

Bring the juice from the tomatoes and about a half cup of red wine 
to a simmer with the basil and garlic. Grate the zucchini into the 
liquid. Simmer until the zucchini is soft, adding red wine as 
neccessary to prevent stickage. Add tomatoes and tomato puree. 
Bring back up to a simmer. Flake the smoked salmon, and add most 
of it to the sauce, leaving some for a garnish. Remove from heat.

Realize the burner wasn't quite plugged in under the water, fix 
it, and prepare shellfish while waiting for the water to boil. 

Crush crackers on a plate, coat oysters with crumbs.

Realize you really have to have some sort of oil to cook 
the oysters.

Call the front desk and sigh with relief to learn that they 
have butter pats available. Promise Sandy a plate of linguini.

Melt one butter pat, fry oysters on one side. Add another butter 
pat and fry them on the other side.  Fry until they are hot through 
and toasty brown. Set on a warm plate and cover.

Melt the other two butter pats, realize the water is boiling, and 
start the linguini cooking while you prepare the scallops.

Add the scallops and the scallop liquor to the butter, and add 
white wine and garlic quickly. Cover the pan.

When scallops are just cooked on one side, flip them over and 
re-cover. Don't cook them too long, or they'll get tough. They 
should lose their translucency. Barely.

Put the salmon sauce in the microwave for 2 minutes to bring back 
up to hot.

Drain the liguini and take the scallops off the burner.

Serve linguine onto plates, spoon sauce on top. Top with about a 
teaspoon of smoked salmon pieces and grated romano cheese.  Place 
oysters and scallops next to the linguini, and serve with either 
red or white wine. Whichever wine is better. We bought the red for 
cooking and the white for drinking, so we drank white with dinner.

Take plate of linguini with salmon to Sandy while going down to use 
the oven to heat the hors d'ouvres.

While cleaning up, find the can opener and TWO corkscrews that were 
in the room all along. Decide to take the staff some hors d'ouvres 
because you feel silly for not finding them first... Realize that 
at the Overleaf, they really do think of everything.  Including 
noisemakers for New Years, which you get when you take the plate 
down.


Hors d'ouvre menu:
Crudites: Celery, carrots, turnips, other crunchy things
Five billion different kinds of crackers
Baked Brie in pastry with portebello mushrooms (don't ask me how they 
make it.. we got it at costco..)

Stuffed Mushrooms a la Kimberly (From the Silver Palate cookbook.)
Grocery Store caviar.
Salmon Cheesecake (another Kimberly recipe.. don't ask me where she 
got the recipe)
Onion dip
A couple more kinds of crackers.


All in all... a fantastic meal, great company, great setting, and 
the staff were extremely tolerant of our eccentricities. One of the 
most memorable and happy New Year's Eves I've ever had.