Some time ago my buddy Chad and I conspired to launch "Cookin' with Chad!", our weekly dinner attempts in which Chad cooks and I lecture him on what he's doing wrong as far as I can tell. I knew this would be a good idea because Chad and I have fun with food often (see also photo, above). And it gives me a chance to pad around the kitchen drinking and talking while cooking, which is pretty much my favorite thing to do in this world.
We kicked it off this week first by me presenting him with my favorite how-to-cook-book (yes, I know I'm an Alton Brown fiend, and it's best read by those with a high tolerance for goofy illustrations and metaphors, but it's particularly excellent for meat-cookers, what with detailed explanations of proteins and whatnot) and then by choosing a recipe I'd stashed away some time ago - mozzerella arancini. It was decided that we'd pair it with some whole-wheat linguini tossed with parm and sauteed baby spinach and toasted pine nuts.
We hit some snags along the way: the crappy grocery downtown didn't have individual balls of mozzerella, and I forgot to mention to Chad that we were roughly halving the arancini recipe so too many eggs ended up in the rice mixture that was supposed to coat the cheese, and the little balls ended up flattening into fried-egg-like blobs of ricey cheese, and the parm that we tossed oh so delicately with the fett at the last minute ended up forming with the little spinaches to form an odd gluey green mix. But this is why "Cookin' with Chad!" works: because Chad sat on the couch, shoveled the flattened-mozzerella-and-fett mixture into his mouth, and proclaimed it delicious.
Knife safety 101 with Chad: knife points down
Like this, Chad. Don't lose your fingers or YOU'LL NEVER PLAY THE PIANO AT CHURCH AGAIN.
It occurs to Chad that ours do not look like the picture.
Let's have another ghetto gimlet and declare this a success!
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In other news: the cat that we are cat-sitting is quite friendly and tries to bat at my face while I type this, which is unsettling because even though I think I like this cat, I am scared of cats in general. But it is cute, especially draped across my desk when I am not typing:
And I've ripped off some kids in Brooklyn and coverted, using some Modg Podge and old mail, our previously ugly coffee table into an official Table of Literary Rejection. It's important to keep some of your rejection/acceptance letters, I think, particulary since decoupaging them to the coffee table you inherited from the ROTC allows you to add a splash of color and literary pretension to your living room. Thanks to Rob and Suz for the idea back in the days of yore, in 40-City.
Also, if you know anything about the city we are moving to next month, please tell me where we should look for apartments. Because as of this post, I have yet to visit it! You can imagine how calm this is making me.
ohhh, and we just decouped some new title pages onto the coffee table the other day! it is becoming quite layered. i am going to ad something from your thesis soon! yeay. also, i have heard madison often referred to as the berkeley of the east. i think this is a good sign. we took the highway past it once and the embankments there seem great!
ReplyDeleteYou're moving to Madison? Since when?
ReplyDeleteMaybe check craigslist?
I didn't know you were moving to Madison! Excellent! I love it there. I lived in a few places around that fine, fine college town during my fine, fine undergrad years. I particularly liked near west neighborhoods (Lake Wingra & Vilas, near Edgewood College and the Arboretum) and near east (Jennifer Street) neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteVilas & Wingra Parks are nice, and if you run/bike through the arboretum in the early AM, sometimes you can hear the lions roar from Henry Vilas Zoo! Of course, I haven’t been to that zoo in a few years. It could now just be a petting zoo with squirrels, ducks, and white-tail dear. Watch out for the squirrels.