our dinner was... a mess.

"well, were you in good spirits about it?" maya asked.
"umm... yes?" i responded. :-P
"well, you guys are rather elitist about your cooking... so it was a good reality check!"

thank you maya. there is a bit of honesty left in this world!

saturday i trekked down to boston (a non-trek actually, i get on a bus and get off a bus. whoo. basically, nap time.) to visit gravling and see the decemberists in concert. the concert, was amazing. john was in reasonable spirits. the days wanderings were pleasant. dinner, on the other hand, was probably the closest thing i've experienced to a nightmare in recent memory. i say this and laugh, because it was alright in the end, but as i like to remind myself, humans are... human. (the self-critic in me is forcing me to also write that while i laugh etc. the mistakes made in this dinner were entirely avoidable and as such, i should go punch myself and not laugh. silly flavia.)

moosewood cookbook has an interesting recipe for a winter curry-ish stew with squash and potatoes, garbonzo beans, black mustard seed, and tomato. the weather was called for a hearty stew-ish dinner, so we agreed to give the recipe a try (this was early in the afternoon... probably 2ish.) aand here begins the story of the end. haha. drama. gravling wrote down on the ingredients we needed on a little piece of colored post-it note and on our way out the door he put it in the canvas grocery bag we were bringing along to save the environment. i generally like organization and mentioned that if we left the sticky in the bag, it would be the best way to insure that we lost it. haha, we laugh... i put the sticky note in my wallet, and we're off. fast forward to 5:30ish as we stand in the grocery store happily contemplating dinner, when i realize i've lost the shopping list.. i don't think john thought i was serious at first. awkward chuckle, "no seriously flav... what do we need?"

we gathered what we could remember best from memory - potatoes, squash, spices (not necessarily the right ones), yogurt, cucumber, onion... oh minimalism. at the time, i thought that it could just be an adventure. after all, we should be thankful that we generally have access to everything our hearts could imagine... what is one dinner without everything, right? back at gravling's apartment, we realize that a few key elements are missing - notably black mustard seeds (shaws didn't have them) and tomatoes. still, things are ok. we get chopping, peeling, boiling, sauteeing, and time comes to add the garbonzo beans. john looks at the can and says, "flavia, didn't you ever learn not to buy dented cans?" GAH! awkward chuckle. we open the can, and it smells funny. i look at the lid: expires 09.2002. WHAT?!?!?! i swallowed my heart just a little. 4 year old chickpeas!?! the good thing about chopping onions is that you can mix in a few "oh god this sucks" tears with the "wow onions hurt my eyes" ones. (i'm only joking, no tears involved. thank goodness) :-)

in the meantime, the rice cooked beautifully, the wine was tasty (gravling has good wine taste - even though he allegedly bought this one because of the bottle. or perhaps i thought it was so good because it was something i couldn't spoil. anywho, it was good) and our "curry" came together. sadly, out dinner was really monochromatic. save for the little chunks of squash, everything was WHITE. in a tiny bit of desperation, we tried to defrost john's experiment in frozen basil. unsuccessful green slime water resulted. (good mental picture?). the dinner didn't taste bad, in fact the ginger/garlic/curry aspect was ok. it was more the energy behind it that was lacking. once one thing goes wrong, you aren't really inspired to continue. haha the image that comes to mind as i type this is dick button and scott hamilton commenting on figure skating. the poor kid keeps falling on his or her behind and by the end of the performance, the curtsy/bow is half-hearted. :-) that's how i felt eating dinner.


(the "beautiful" wine bottle.)

i agree with maya that it was a reality check (but not that we're elitist. for heaven's sake! where would "hungarian peasant" fit in there!?!). most of all, i like the fact that this dinner may shatter gravling's perception that i don't screw up food. hallelujah! i just hope it doesn't mean we don't cook well together again in the near future, because that might just break my heart.

this wonderful comedy of a dinner behind us, i have to reflect on how absolutely wonderful the concert was. i have been looking forward to it since august, and it was everything i'd imagined. i'm sure if john were writing this entry, he'd have a much more nuanced critique of the sound system, costumes, venue choice, etc. but i was just happy to be in boston, with one of my best friends, listening to an absolutely delightful band!