adventures in cooking

As November and NaNoWriMo approaches, I am becoming more and more frantically involved in finishing my current novel. I have written and deleted the last two chapters at least three or four times. Also finished my Press Kit column for Writing-World.com.

I opted to stay home and work on Friday night while Jeff went off to do gaming with the guys in Scarborough. Didn't feel like going out or doing any real cooking. In fact, I didn't really give serious thought to finding food until I was suddenly starving, around 8:30 pm.

What to do? I snooped through the pantry and fridge. Nothing appealed to me. Canned soup? Blech. Instant noodles? Blech. Then I checked the fridge and saw that I still had two Veggie Delight patties left. The product sounded so healthy, delightfully so, when I ordered it from Grocery Gateway. I tried cooking them in my George Foreman grill clone, but they ended up as sodden masses. I figured that I had just chosen the wrong cooking method, however, and decided to give them another go.

This time I opted for the method suggested on the package, which was to coat the bottom of a frying pan with cooking spray, then heat the patties on medium heat for eight minutes. Except the two patties in the package were frozen together. They had a square of paper between them, but I only managed to tear off the paper around the edges when I tried using it separate the patties. I tried a spoon. I tried a knife. Nothing worked.

In retrospect, I should have just popped the frozen patty sculpture into the microwave for a few seconds to soften them up enough to separate, but I was too hungry to wait.

They'll separate more easily if I heat them up a bit, I thought confidently, and threw them into the frying pan, paper and all.

At first things looked good. I heard sizzling, and a yummy fragrance arose. After a few minutes, I tried separating the patties. No dice; they were still frozen solid in the center. Hm.

I cooked them some more. They started crisping on the outside. Tried separating them again. Nope.

I started panicking with the outside surface of each patty started turning black, and I began scraping the softened patty mush off the frozen bit each side, hoping that eventually I'd get to the center. This method finally worked, except that I ended up with a misshapen mushy lumps consisting of overcooked bits and undercooked bits all mixed together.

I did take a photo, but it was so gross-looking that I couldn't bear to post it. I kid you not.

But by this time, I was so hungry that I ate everything anyway. It was okay-tasting, but the texture was truly revolting, probably similar to what it would be like to eat wet paper pulp, or day-old cold cheese pizza that had been put through a blender.

Then I got a craving for chocolate. I know, you're all shocked. Maybe it had something to do with my recent chocolate polls, but I suddenly had to have some chocolate, even just a little bit. But AUGH, there was none in the pantry, none in the shelves, none in the fridge.

On a whim, I decided to check the freezer. AND THERE WAS CHOCOLATE! (insert sound of angelic choir here) Okay, so it was only white baking chocolate (stop grimacing, Joey), but still...! It even came in little neatly wrapped squares. I have no idea how long it had been there. I know I must have been the one to buy it and put it in the freezer, but I had no recollection.

I took out a square and unwrapped it, tried gnawing on it. It was frozen solid.

This time I remembered the microwave, put the square on a plate, stuck it in the microwave. Jeff and I have a Junior Samsung microwave oven left over from the Inkspot office because our original microwave stopped working and we never got around to replacing it. Anyway, none of our plates fit into this tiny microwave except for the smallest saucer, which still has to be inserted on a tilt (making it impossible to microwave anything slightly liquid unless it fits in a mug).

Anyway, I stuck the unwrapped square on a plate and tilted it into our microwave, zapped it for ten seconds. Checked. Still frozen, but the plate was somewhat warm. Zapped it for 30 seconds. Checked. Still frozen, but the plate was much warmer. In fact, one side of the plate was almost too hot to touch.

Hm, not good. Maybe it wasn't frozen after all, but just petrified by old age.

I'll bet you're all thinking that at this point I decided the heck with it and zapped it until it melted and ran off the plate and burned and exploded in our junior microwave, aren't you?

HA! WRONG! I gave up on the microwave idea completely, took out the still rock-hard square, began gnawing at it. Didn't taste half-bad, really, once I managed to actually get a piece off the darned thing.

And that was my adventure in cooking yesterday. I'll bet you're all dying to come over for dinner, aren't you? Just give me some warning so I can order more Veggie Delights.

Links/News:

Andrea has asked me to record some flute and possibly vocals on one of the tracks ("Saxophone In Spring", a song we co-wrote) on her upcoming CD, which I'll be doing sometime during OVFF. Many thanks to Bill Sutton for arranging to bring recording gear!

My songwriting music theory column has been updated on Muses Muse, for those interested.

One year ago, my American friend Andrea had to translate my Canadian English for a waitress in a Cincinnati restaurant. I also visited my editor at Writer's Digest/F&W, which is also when I pitched my Market Watch column idea. 9-month-old Nicholas does his very first Guest Blathering.

Three years ago, Jeff and I moved furniture into the new Inkspot office with the help of Scott, Helen, Parki and Doug. Ruth "thanked" me for giving Sara and Anne a tape with Aqua's Barbie Girl song recorded on it multiple times.

Four years ago, I danced alone in my office and my friend Andrew did a Guest Blathering. Andrew (who works at Apple in California), by the way, has a Movable Type blog that will especially be of interest to technonerdboys/girls.

Five years ago, Jodi, Allison, John & I had brunch with Scott Snyder.

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Today's Blatherpics

Can't recall where I took this photo, sorry. I do remember Luisa was with me, whatever restaurant it was, and we both liked this bottle of olive oil that was on the table.