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 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
top tier!
2019-11-28 @ 10:43 p.m.
so like i keep not updating for weeks and i don't know why i keep doing it! i will start writing and abandon it i guess and then my computer updates or is otherwise shuts down and my partial entries get lost. at least that's what happened over these past two weeks. two pretty good, juicy entries had been started, then i realized i wanted to splice them together because the ideas overlapped, then i got busy with thanksgiving prep, then while i was gone overnight it all went poof. but now that i think about it, i am quite sure this has happened a few times before and i just thought i was crazy, that maybe i just imagined that i started writing something but i had only just been thinking about it. but now this makes a lot more sense. so anyway, i'm just writing tonight to talk about thanksgiving. there is one thing that i always prepare and it's like, my THING. everyone loves and expects it, it's a cornerstone of a solid, classic generic american thanksgiving meal. then i started making this vegetable dish and presenting it and some people loved it and for others it wasn't their cup of tea. fair enough, there are some things i don't eat. so it got incorporated into most holiday meals too. so this time, my mom and i were discussing the menu (she and my aunt are the bosses of all the holiday menus) and she said i was going to make my usual dish as well as the veg dish, and i offered up this amazing soup i had made for myself a month or two ago. we don't usually do appetizers or anything like that so i thought it would be different, and it's like "optional" so you're not missing a major component of the meal if you don't eat it. she was like yeah! why not? so i was super excited to make it. tuesday i had to drive to the italian produce market because no store near me had one of the major ingredients of this soup. it was like a half hour away so i did a couple errands for boss on the way. that night, i told boss not to stay too late so i would have time to run to the regular store for something i forgot to get over the weekend (ughhhhhhh), as well as prep for all of these dishes i had to make. i washed all the dishes remaining in the sink from the morning and my lunch, cleaned off the counters, spent a lot of time preparing the other major ingredient of this soup .... and my oven was broken! shiiiiiiit! so i had to prepare this ingredient on the stove top, which took twice as long as it should have because my pan is only so large, then doing this caused me to have to use all of my oil so i couldn't start the second thing i was supposed to bring prepared ahead. it really messed up my whole schedule and flow, and i was so worried the alternate cooking method was going to make my soup too oily or something and all this work and prep would be for nothing. went to work yesterday, then packed my car and drove up to my mom's. ate dinner, then stood in the kitchen for 2.5 hours after everyone had gone to bed, chopping and measuring and packing everything neatly so i could just grab it and cook today. today, woke up and started cooking. i had one of my dishes done when my stepdad took the prime rib out of the fridge and saw how expensive it was, then started arguing with my mom that we needed to hide it from my aunt who cooked it last time and ruined it because she doesn't eat red meat and had no idea how to cook it properly. my mom said she'd cook it, and started saying she was going to put it in one of those oven bags (NO!), and i immediately protested and my stepdad was said to my mom, "no. let [TINEA] cook it. she's the only one who won't ruin it." my mom was like, "do you want to cook it?" and i just said, sure. i've never done it before, but i thought i could do it and didn't think the opportunity would come again if i didn't. yo, i can't even tell you how fucking honored i felt. when you are trusted with one of the meats, that means you're top tier in my family. the responsibility of cooking one of the meats, plus the way my stepdad just confidently decided that even though i have never cooked a prime rib before, i could be trusted to do justice to this $50+ piece of meat. it really made me feel so good about my cooking skills. i found a recipe for a nice compound butter, and my stepdad found me one of my grandfather's old cast iron skillets, i followed the roasting guidelines per pound, and crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. first of all, the SMELL as this meat was roasting. holy shit. it was incredible! based on that alone, this was going really well. then we took it out and over to my grandmother's house to finish resting, and while things re-heated a little in the oven, we all sat down to the soup. i got SO many compliments on it, several people insisted that i text the recipe to them immediately. i was told that i needed to open a restaurant and sell only this soup, and that it was the best soup my favorite aunt has ever had. guys! it was so great, i was so happy everyone liked it because it's so different from what we usually have. people called portions for leftovers to take home. NONE was left! all of that work was so worth it. and then, my prime rib! it was cooked PERFECTLY!! soooo tender, like butter knife tender, juicy, a beautiful subtle herby, garlicky flavor. cooked to a perfect medium. i was worried i had under-seasoned it but the salt level was absolutely perfect, and had gently permeated the meat. everyone was so impressed. a few people joked that i had cooked the entire meal. "you and your brother need to open a restaurant already." !!! so that just really made my day. i had some setbacks but really delivered today. my dad always says, "it's your turn at bat," and i am so proud to say that i hit it out of the park. so i am back home now, my little loveboat asleep next to me, really happy but absolutely exhausted. i put away like half of my laundry and then just collapsed on to the couch to write this. once i'm done i'm showering and getting directly into bed. i think i've said before that i know i love to cook, and that it is a calling of mine, because i have so much energy for it when i'm doing it. but man, it is a lot of work! even after you're done actually cooking and eating, you still have to clean, pack up, put away everything. whew. alright well, i hope everyone else had a great thanksgiving! i have to sleep and go to work tomorrow. i should have told boss i was going to take off but i like him and i need money. next weekend i'll keep all for myself if the weather is nice. also, i've washed my hands about 20 times today but my fingers still smell like garlic. haha. <33 goodnight! |