One Thing (One Thing) Leads to Another...

I figured out how to make ricotta gnocchi sometime within the last year. Since it was so easy to freeze and cook up and so tasty I wound up making it 5-6 times within a number of weeks. Tech Support's eyes turned the color of tomato cream sauce and he said "Ricotta gnocchi again?" like a man facing a firing squad. After finishing up the last frozen bag-full I laid off of the ricotta for several months.

Months and months later, the Kitchen Gnome in town, and Meggish and her Nick due for dinner, it was time to dive into the gnocchi once more. For kicks I decided to make the version from Apples for Jam which is simpler than the Cooks Illustrated version, but has a tomato pesto sauce.


Good food and good company go well together.


Though I'd seen it done and understood the basics, I'd never made pesto before that night. The tangy, garlic infused sauce inspired me and within the same week I had to make it again. I also made focaccia (a name I will never pronounce correctly), using Apples for Jam's recipe for that too. I laid it all out with some feta cheese.


Despite having forgotten to put salt in the focaccia, it made a wonderful, snacky dinner.


I'm going to lay off the tomato pesto for a bit though, to make sure Tech Support doesn't get sick of it too soon.

Don't Do It Half-Way

When we got to the booth the lights were on bright. Everyone sat down, but after a moment I got back up again and headed for the knob on the opposite wall.


That's better. Karaoke was not meant to in the harsh light of reality. After all, who are we kidding? We're not there because we're talented singers on the way to the top. We're not practicing. We're not going to be the next White Stripes or Patsy Cline.

But we like to pretend.


To karaoke properly you have to put your whole body into it. That's why I don't do karaoke bars. I'm not interested in exposing myself to strangers that way.


In the comfortable companionship of friends and family, the lights dim, the sound turned up loud -- we rock. I lay down across one seat and start taking pictures at odd angles, timed to be blurry and indistinct.


I'm operating on far too little sleep. The plot of my story still vexes me. Everyone else is dealing with the stress of daily life. But belting out Major Tom, 1234, Kids, Wheel of Fortune, I love College, Starlight, and whatever Japanese songs have tickled J-Po's fancy, who really cares about such petty crap?


After all, I can do a mean version of Jealous Guy.

I think embarrassed is spelled wrong

If I were in charge I would spell it emberass. Actually, I spell it that way on a regular basis, but an awful red underline forces me to change it into the 'correct' spelling. Pah!

Moving on. Though I can put on a good show, I've discovered that having a single night of bad sleep can throw me off for the next several days. I slept poorly on Tues, okay on Weds, and well Thursday night, but by the end of work on Friday I was falling asleep on a student who'd come in for a private lesson. Luckily I still managed to help her fix her lace, which she proclaimed 'saved her life'.

On the bus ride home I contemplated dinner. We were supposed to do burgers. I was so tired. Yawning tired. I ran through a list of local restaurants in my head, and argued with myself internally.

Pro: I am tired and won't have to do anything if I let those nice peoples make my dinner.

Con: I will feel like a weak failure and probably won't enjoy the ill-gotten food that much.

The fact that we were eating out all weekend pushed me back into the "no, I will be STRONG!" arena of thinking (though I suffered a setback when I realized I had also planned on making fries). Then a blast of inspiration, what if I topped the burgers with caramelized balsamic onions and brie? Memories of the burger at the Bistro in Independence tantalized me.

I think this is why I get lazy about cooking sometimes, I seem determined to always make more work for myself.



But surprisingly, the fries and the onions were very easy to make and didn't require much more than slicing and putting over heat.


Tech Support came home and I put him in charge of the burgers.


In about a half an hour, we had brie burgers. Not quite as good as the ones in Independence, I think we needed a milder brie, but delicious anyway. Very satisfying after a long day of saving lives.

In The Family

On Sunday a Kitchen Gnome showed up.


And I got him to do the dishes somehow. He also helped me make Pasta alla Norma which I discovered in the latest issue of Cooks Illustrated. I like eggplant, but have had issues with cooking it before (so have other people, I've received eggplant dishes that were entirely too firm from restaurants). This dish had some creative way of cooking the eggplant to guarantee it wouldn't be chewy and unpleasant.


And it wasn't.

The next morning the Kitchen Gnome got to work with my Cooks Illustrated baking book, and by the afternoon, this had appeared.


Yum!