foomart foomart

So. Since the last entry, lots of fascinating stuff happened. Unfortunately, I was in the kitchen for most of it. Somehow this me cooking thing keeps on happening, and I don't think I like it. Saturday we had our friends over as planned, but at some point in the afternoon the direction changed from tapas to Italian tapas and the number changed from five to seven or eight people. I made focaccia, which came out horribly. I'd misread the recipe and didn't plan for one of the rises, so I had to rush it and it came out all hard and horrid. And I put too much salt into the basil oil. Everybody was nice about it but it was definitely the worst focaccia I've ever made. We also made rice balls, though, which came out brilliantly and got raves. We fried up half of them, and the other half is in the freezer ready to go, lucky us. Same thing with the artichoke hearts appetizer. B figured out that if you actually put a thermometer in the oil, and monitor the temperature, deep frying goes really well. Who knew! We also baked up a bunch of stuffed mushrooms with pignoli nuts, which always go over fine, and a nice tray of bruschetta. Our neighbor also brought over a lovely big salad and a nice baked eggplant dish which was delicious. We'd prepped two pounds of shrimp for a shrimp dish, but by the time it got to that point, everybody was full (and shitfaced) so we just jumped to coffees and dessert over a disjointed game of dominoes. Even with the extra people, there was plenty of food in the end, I think. And I know there was plenty of wine.

Of course there were numerous breaks to go up and check out the progress of the eclipse in the telescope. I wanted to yell at the neighbors across the way to look away from their TVs for a second and see it, but was forcibly dissuaded. The evening ended naturally, early in the morning.

The next day, a plan was hatched to watch the second Matrix movie. We'd gotten up at 7 am because B realized the telescope was still on the roof from the night before. Something about your bedmate sitting bolt upright and yelling "oh shit" first thing in the morning just kinda gets your day started whether or not you're really ready for it. Anyway, we cleaned for a while, put stuff away and ran several dishwasher loads of what seemed mostly to be wine glasses. I took a nap around 2ish, and told B that if 4:00 came around and I wasn't up yet, to just go without me to see the movie. Next thing I know, it's a little after 4 and the doorbell rings, and then I hear voices coming up the stairs and realize the movie is going to be shown at our house. Urk. Good thing we'd cleaned up. I dressed, de-drooled, and headed down to where the guys were diddling around with the DVD player. We've had the thing for years but never actually played a DVD on it. So it wasn't quite hooked up. Oopsie! B got it working, and we settled in to watch the movie but I wasn't in the mood for it at all, too wifty and hung over and impatient, so I...headed into the kitchen to cook more. Which is just so unlike me, really it is. I was heating up the oil to fry up the rest of the rice balls when I noticed that the candy thermometer looked funny; the mercury was all split up into little lines instead of being one big mass. I figured I'd forgotten to shake it out before I started, so I took it out of the pan and gave it a little up-and-down motion. PIFT! The lead plug on the bottom popped out, and pretty little globules of lead and mercury sprinkled into the hot oil. Great. I hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, probably exposing myself to horrible toxins, then I put the hot pan out on the balcony and the kibosh on the rice balls. Made up some more bruschetta, and prepped the shrimp dish and a spinach/mushroom thingy. It looked like a cooking show, all the perfect little bowls of ingredients all lined up neatly. Once the movie ended, I cooked up those things and heated up some of the focaccia and we ate. Everybody left not too long after that, which was fine, I think we all must have been exhausted. Cleaned up again, diddled around on the internet for a while, and finally to bed.

I did cook one more thing today; chopped up the last 5 or 6 shrimp and made a shrimp and cheese omelette, which was exquisite, if I do say so myself, and I do. I'm well over the cooking thing for a while though, other than the inevitable redemption focaccia which I need to do in the near future to be sure I can.

11:00 AM