We co-opted this song from the Flight of the Conchords all night to narrate what the girls were doing. "I've got stinky feet", "I've got a runny nose", "I've got great parents", et cetera. Funny at the time. Not so much now though.
Screwing up meals makes me irate. Cooking, for all its inherent romance and sophistication and excitment, can be an unforgiving wench of a hobby. A royal pain. When it works out, the effect can be sublime (I do believe I've made grilled cheeses that whisked me into a trance like state). Failures, alternately, are the bitterest of let downs, and I normally thrash my culpability around the kitchen - "What's with that damn stove?! Are these shallots from hell? Why is the dog trying to kill me every time I take a step?" I can recognize all too clearly that tipping moment during the process when I begin to careen down a path of inedibility. There have been nights - few, far-between, and thrilling - when I've snatched victory from the jaws of the disposal. When things go ill, though, they usually dip into the catastrophic.
Tonight was unsatisfyingly neither of those. It went bad. I thought I saved it. It turned out mediocre.
First and foremost, I feel let down by the aioli recipe I was using, but partly it was my mistake for remembering aioli as something easier to make than it is. The recipe said to whisk together the egg yolk and some mustard, then slowly add olive oil. Yeah, I did that. However, it didn't mention that, in truth, you truly need to be mixing that stuff on high or whisking it at 1,000 RPM. As a result, it never came together, no matter how hard I tried to salvage it or which combination of swear words I spat into it. Twenty minutes later, I was hunched over what was a garlicky, oily goopy bowl of anti-aioli. Un-aioli.
Since we would, in the best of circumstances, have been eating around 8, I did not even entertain the notion of trying again. Instead I fried the salmon in the oily non-aioli on medium heat. It actually looked alright; I was getting hopeful. After it was done, I laid it on a bed of greens, sprinkled with balsamic vinaigrette, and served with a side of artichokes.
It was close. But I overcooked the salmon...it was dry and lost a bit of taste in the process. Certainly not destined for the trash, but it was almost worse to taste the redemption, then end up settling on purgatory. Bah. Damn you, gods of cookery.
In tot-related news: I almost forgot to pick up the kids today. In a bizarre and inexplicable turn of events, I became so focused on the script I was writing that I completely missed my departure window. By the time I finally checked the time, there was no way I would have made it, but luckily I had Jen around to bail me out, even though she'd just begun relaxing for the first time of the day. She's a lovely person like that.
We made good on yesterday's proclamation and hung out in the front yard today. Lily is flaking a bit on her "Picking Dandelions Makes Daddy Happy" lessons, but we're practicing. She seemed instead to want very badly to pick the neighbor's tulips. She has good taste in flora.
Day seventy nine.
Rerun photos today.
No comments:
Post a Comment