Cooking well means you aren’t a glutton, right?
Thanksgiving is nearly upon us and, like a marathon runner practicing for the big race, I’ve been busily making and eating vast quantities of food these past few weeks.
My cooking free-for-all started when everyone else in the house went on a Florida visit and left me alone for a week. I ate so much food that I couldn’t feel lonely: my stomach took up all the room left by my family.
Night one was my second attempt at making sushi. While the food was tasty and I ate it quite happily, I have decided that I should leave sushi-making to everyone other than me. However, I am getting a bit ahead of myself. To start my process, I grocery-shopped with the same kind of stunned euphoric covetousness that those kids in A Christmas Story had in front of the toy store window. Tuna, cucumbers, avocado, nori wrappers, sushi ginger – who knows where I would have stopped if I’d had a slightly larger grocery budget (ie a grocery budget at all). Back at home, I cooked rice, sliced cucumbers and avocados, thawed tuna and sliced it. I may have been dancing to a mix of Coheed and Cambria and Protest the Hero. It is a bit of a blur. Sushi rice was made with extra vinegar and sugar (I had made less rice than the recipe called for, since I was going to eat it all myself, then forgot when I made the sauce…) and fanned awkwardly with a plate. Finally, the moment of truth arrived and I arranged a roll. The damn thing wouldn’t stick. I gently squeezed it and rolled it about in the sushi mat, but it still threatened to unravel. Since I was starving, I shrugged, sliced the ungainly thing into ragged pieces, and set about making whatever it is you call those balls of sushi rice with things stuck on top of them. Again, my lack of skill stymied my attempts at creation. About three balls into this new process, I became sick of it. Sushi type 3 was undertaken with great success: scoop the rest of the sushi rice into a bowl and scatter the rest of the vegetables and fish across the top. I retired to the table with my grand (and terribly ugly) assortment of sushi… and ate it all. At some point, I forgot that I’d made somewhere between 2 and 3 cups of sushi rice, and simply kept eating. I only realized how much food I had eaten as I chased the last few grains around my bowl.
I couldn’t bend my body at all for the next half hour without putting painful pressure on my engorged stomach. It was amazing.
Dish two of my Home Alone Cooking Extravaganza was a favorite combination of mine: meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Unlike the sushi, I didn’t even try to eat it all that day. It kept me happily fed with leftovers for the next two days. After reading (and drooling) over the Fine Cooking article on meatloaf, I undertook a very traditional meatloaf with a ketchup-brown sugar glaze, my favorite part of the meatloaf. Comfortably matched to it were my mashed potatoes, which are getting to be pretty consistently good, even if I do say so myself. So tasty.
Did I mention that my wonderful family had bought me some fresh cider to keep me company in their absence? I guzzled so much that I’m surprised I didn’t start pissing apples. Or maybe I did, and just didn’t notice, thanks to my food stupor. Which brings me to the final item of cooking excitement of that week:
An excellent (package-mix) spice cake with home-made buttercream frosting! Except for the fact that I made it with salted butter (which resulted in salted frosting, odd but tasty), I declared the frosting a complete success, and after slathering the slightly-warm cake with it, had about 2 cups left, which I promised Dad (probably walking on a beach at the time) I’d save. In a fit of artistic frenzy, I decorated the whole sugary pile with candy corns and candy pumpkins. With the return of my family only days away, I undertook a heroic, nay, epic task – to devour the whole cake, so as not to share it with spoiled Florida-goers. I’m pleased to say that I succeeded in my goal, comfortably, happily, and apparently no worse for the wear. So delicious. The white cake made later for the rest of the frosting rivaled it not at all.
A few days later, I went to visit my boyfriend. To appease the poor fellow, who, being away at school, missed that whole gluttonous celebration, I roasted him a chicken with lots of garlic and no carrots (he doesn’t like cooked carrots, the crazy lad) and made more mashed potatoes and boiled spinach (which he loves, go figure). If I were the conniving sort who wanted to win over his roommates, I feel like I would have considered it a wild success. I’ll go ahead and consider it that anyway, since I’ve never been accused of being too humble. I had to return home before turning the carcass into soup, but only marginally garbled directions seem to have allowed him to do fair justice to the bird all by his lonesome (and by that, I mean that his erstwhile roommate probably helped lots).
This Sunday was marked by potstickers and sugar cookies – the latter made with part coconut oil as an experiment. Very tasty and quite the prettiest cookies I’ve ever made. I ate too many potstickers two days in a row, forgetting that I meant to save some for the guy, who probably hates to hear of my cooking escapades while he is away. Also I discovered that soy sauce mixed with a bit of vinegar and sugar makes the tangy dipping sauce that I like so much for my potstickers.
Now as before, I am lining up a secondary fit of cooking for my upcoming trip to visit love and college. More dumplings may be in store, or bread or more cookies. I tend to plan on things that I want to eat for my visit, since there never seems to be much food in the apartment. I suppose four guys eat food as quick as they buy it. My aim is to bring and make enough food to feed me and him for the time that I’m there, and leave them something to snack on and think wistfully of me when I return home.
Stressing over Thanksgiving? Hardly. Rather, giddy with excitement and indecision and curiosity: what will I make? Will it turn out awesome or merely good? Will there be leftovers, and if so, will I have to share them? So much to know, so much to look forward to. All holidays should be big food parties, and will be, if I have any say in the matter. Now, what’s for breakfast?
