I am having my grandma, my great-aunts, and my great-uncles over for lunch today. Which means, I need to hide all the booze and crack pipes*, quick.
ahem. It's not THAT bad around here, but I do need to tidy up and get cooking. I am making Rachel Ray's
muy fabuloso** carbonara pasta. I saw this recipe while thumbing through a Good Housekeeping on one of our trips this summer and knew I had to try and make it. YUM-O, folks. Why I am cooking pasta? One, X can't eat it, so I have to cook it for others these days. Two, Olathe Grandma is the Seinfeld of Restaurants. Over the years, acceptable restaurants have been nixed left and right for various unforgiveable indiscretions such as loud music, slow service, inconvenient handicapped parking, etc. The only ones left on the list are places like the Crappy Chinese Buffet, Perkins, IHoP, and the spot she calls "that fish place", known to the rest of the world as The Red Lobster. Even, then, she will only deign to go to the Red Lobster if my sister lies to her and says Older Nephew is asking to go so he can see the lobster tank.*** So, in the grand scheme of things, it is much better for me to just cook, but Indian is out because curry "upsets" my grandma's stomach and since she can't exactly "run" anymore, I need to be kind to her, ya know?
ahem. Anyway, this way everyone can hang out, watch the babies play, and just relax. And no one will be fighting over the check. I love having people over to cook for, so I am looking forward to it. I hope they don't mind when I shove my new camara in their faces.
In other news, I did watch Survivor last night and you know what? I LIKED it. Did I enjoy the cheesy gimmick of playing the Race Card? NO.. But, I do appreciate having such a diverse set of folks to watch for a CHANGE. It's been the first "premiere" episode of Survivor that I have watched with such interest in a long, long, LONG time. Again, not because of the gimmick but rather, since the players are all so different from each other, it was easier to keep track of who was who. Apparently, all white people DO look alike.
* Speaking of crack, I had resisted buying Goldfish crackers because I LOVE me some Goldfish crackers and I knew it might be a "problem", if you will...... I totally caved the other day and I can report that yes, YES, it is a problem.
** I don't think that is really a word, but if pronounced veddy, veddy slowly with a totally Gringo accent, it could perhaps fool someone into thinking that you are somewhat witty. Maybe. Maybe not.
*** Damn straight, "Melting" and "Pot" will be part of Arun's vernacular.
Bittersweet Symphony
It's true. Practice makes perfect. To that end, more practice is definitely in order.Temperamental Artist
Big baby.Green Eyed Monster
Smooch...smooch.....
8 comments:
That last picture is hauntingly beautiful. You and X made a stunningly gorgeous human being.
I'm with you...I LOVE cooking for other people. Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday of the year solely for that reason and I adore making every last thing from scratch.
My Italian cooking skills are very, very weak. I can do a good lasagne and chicken marsala and that's about it. Mostly I'm good at Chinese, Thai and Indian and I even figured out how to make sushi. I bought the spices to make Ethiopian food but I'm holding off on the doro wat etc. because it's incredibly unhealthy. I think I'd like to unfurl it at a party or something.
Oooh, 2 things...back when I was making limoncello I bought a microplane for the lemon skins and I just remembered the other day that I can use it for Parm. So I bought myself a hunk of cheese at Trader Joe's and now I just microplane a bit over salad when I want some. It's so much better than buying the fresh grated because I feel like I'm not as bound by the sell-by dates. And it's fun. Whee! Microplaned parm shavings!
The second thing is that Arun's eyes are definitely his most beautiful feature. Brown in some lights and green with brown highlights in others...they're like gemstones. He has a good looking face but it's those big beautiful chameleon eyes that give him that haunting quality mle is talking about.
New camera looks nice. I really did like your mom's pictures although I think part of it is that she also got great lighting to shoot you in. I've discovered lighting makes a difference in bringing out the best of different skintones. The retard photographer at my sister's wedding managed to make us look grey in some pics and both of us have abundant amounts of yellow in our skintone (courtesy mama). When my dad shoots us in certain lights we look golden (hence why my parents named my older sister Hema).
I am now going to start referring to Red Lobster as "that fish place." That is, if I ever have occasion to go to one. Not sure we even have them in Oregon.
Mle,
Gosh. Thanks. We, of course, think he is perfect, but we are acutely aware that we might be slightly prejudiced.
Monkey,
Unfortunately, cooking for Thanksgiving in MY family is NOT fun since we have all the same old, same old that you find on most tables Turkey Day. I do try to make some curry-ish for X so he doesn't starve. I have determined that we ever live in another city and are stuck fending for ourselves, I will institute a new tradition of turkey biryani (which I think would be really tasty, actually). Regarding Italian, you should try Average Jane's baked Ziti which is AWESOME. The beauty of it is that it can easily be made vegetarian and/ or spicy, so it is easily modified according to your guests' tastes.
ModernDayHermet,
Yes, cooking for a larger group is definitely more satsifying than just cooking for my husband. Not that I am such a stellar cook, but he definitely takes most of what I make for granted.
Rozanne,
My grandma does that A LOT with things because she will space on the name. I'll have to keep track of more of them because it is pretty frickin' cute when she does it. Half the time, I can't tell where she is talking about.
awww your little baby is one of the cutest things ive ever laid my eyes on!
Love, love, love the last photo. Look at those big eyes!
I love pasta carbornara. Heart attack on a plate! Yum! I love cooking for others, too. I like going to a timeshare with a nice big kitchen and cooking for my family on vacation. It's relaxing to me.
Shawn,
I use turkey bacon to help out the ole arteries, other than the eggs yolks, I don't think it is that bad. Unless your plate is really, really big. Like mine might have been. gulp.
Post a Comment