Mixing it all together
Originally uploaded by la_fleur.

it is not often enough anymore that flavi and i are able to get together for a meal- something about the distance between us and her work on an honors project that keeps her busy. regardless, when we do make time to meet and cook, it is just as splendid as always. for last friday (yes, 8 days ago... i am late in typing this), we made cod.

i am not so sure about cod- the name just sounds so drab and dreay. it is not flamboyantly playful like mahi mahi (or dolphin), solid like a salmon, or even exotic like tilapia. still, i would never doubt a selection by flavi!

the sides were the truly joyful parts of this dinner, though. collared greens with garlic and fresh red peppers, and orzo with an onion and yummy mushroom mix for a topping. these two were straight-forward and delicious. the fish presented more of a challenge, our estimation of cookig time being more than mildly too long.

our fishies were baked in the oven with a nice little garlic marinade before being briefly sauteed, and covered in roasted seasame seeds. overall the flavors came together quite well, but the fish was a little chewy. for leftovers, though, the meat broke down a bit more and was great and tender 2 days later. i guess the fishies just needed some time to decompress after that stressful bout in the oven.

in assebmling the ingredients for this dish, dear flavi had to go through quite a lot of, well, stuff. whole foods did their part in supplying most of the bits and pieces, except for something rather important: an onion. now, coooking with either of us, one will learn that there are a few ingredients that appear in practically every dish: garlic, olive oil, and onions. many times chicken is there too, just because flavi wants to appease my carnivorous stomach. for the cod and sides, onion was crucial. some consipracy to distract her at whole foods led flavi to depart the store with out any sort of lök, so her journey to my apartment carried her through the local shaws übermarket. of course, a mass produced onion shipped from who knows where was readily avaialble along with 3000 more hormonally altered mega onions, but the checkout proved a bit of a difficulty. anyone who has attempted the self checkout at a store will understand the myriad issues that pop up every time that make such an edeavour horrible at best. my hungarian friend decided to attempt this feat, but was heart broken when she told the computer she was buying yellow and not red onions. in her goodness, she wanted to correct her misstep so the red onion counting club, local 1769 of porter square did not chase after her. of course, voiding an item on the self checkout requires some sort of national pardon from the ceo of star market (parent company of shaws), and much discussion ensured over the potential alterior motives of the shady looking girl trying to buy just an onion. clearly she was a communist.

in the end, good prevailed and the onion was placed in the canvas bag for the final, rainy, walk to my apartment. though, i did forget to mention that the apple crisp i was trying to make needed butter- which meant a third grocery sotee trip later in the evening.

flavi took 3 lessons away from this cooking experienece:
"1) never come to boston again without an onion (? i'm probably not serious)
2) ask you if there are any other ingredients to get, hehe.
3) don't bake stupid fish that long. yay!"

as for me, i think i just need to remember to help cook instead of watching flavi be amazing at creating food :)