call your boyfriend on the phone to ask him to help you double check your ingredients list, and have a 20 minute discussion of just what the hell a broad bean is and what might be its closest english translation. (decide, without telling him, that you'll just get frozen lima beans and hope they're close enough).
go to the co-op and get way more organic arborio rice than you need, and don't look at the price per pound. try to play off your 'holy crap!' eyes when you see the total ring up at the till.
go to the regular grocery store where all of the veggies are not organic and therefore don't cost a million dollars, but spend a million dollars anyway buying what you think will be enough veggies for two paellas, since you are teaching a girlfriend to make it on saturday and want to do a practice run. get way more veggies than you actually need, even for two paellas. so many veggies that the bleached blonde teenaged asian checker with dangly, sparkly earrings asks you, 'is this for some kind of new diet or something?'
get home and mess around on the internet for a while before putting the groceries away and then thunk yourself on the forehead for forgetting that you'd gotten some yogurt at the co-op too, and now it's been sitting out for an hour.
put all the dishes in the sink and fill it up with soapy water, only to decide that the only thing you really need is the one skillet big enough to serve as a paellera, and now there's no room for it in the sink. wash the skillet in the other side of the sink and forget about the rest of the dishes.
start trimming the artichokes, and realize that you have no idea how to do it since they were out of season during the summer when you were in spain learning how to make paella.
sauté the artichokes (roughly trimmed to what you think must be the appropriate level - but secretly doubting yourself and praying your friends won't choke to death on ... well, the choke).
continue chopping and adding ingredients at random, stirring frequently and periodically adding more salt because it seems to need it. hope you haven't added too much salt.
add a few threads of saffron, and get misty eyed about the trip to morella where you bought it. miss your boyfriend.
keep adding ingredients even though it seems miraculous that anything else will fit in the pan.
add some red wine vinegar because you forgot to get white wine. eye curiously the rice wine in the cupboard for a good long while. decide wisely against it.
burn your lips tasting a red pepper that fell out of the pan while stirring.
cut up a lemon and sit down to sample more than you intended to of your kickass paella.
write a blog about it.
go to bed. finally.
m
go to the co-op and get way more organic arborio rice than you need, and don't look at the price per pound. try to play off your 'holy crap!' eyes when you see the total ring up at the till.
go to the regular grocery store where all of the veggies are not organic and therefore don't cost a million dollars, but spend a million dollars anyway buying what you think will be enough veggies for two paellas, since you are teaching a girlfriend to make it on saturday and want to do a practice run. get way more veggies than you actually need, even for two paellas. so many veggies that the bleached blonde teenaged asian checker with dangly, sparkly earrings asks you, 'is this for some kind of new diet or something?'
get home and mess around on the internet for a while before putting the groceries away and then thunk yourself on the forehead for forgetting that you'd gotten some yogurt at the co-op too, and now it's been sitting out for an hour.
put all the dishes in the sink and fill it up with soapy water, only to decide that the only thing you really need is the one skillet big enough to serve as a paellera, and now there's no room for it in the sink. wash the skillet in the other side of the sink and forget about the rest of the dishes.
start trimming the artichokes, and realize that you have no idea how to do it since they were out of season during the summer when you were in spain learning how to make paella.
sauté the artichokes (roughly trimmed to what you think must be the appropriate level - but secretly doubting yourself and praying your friends won't choke to death on ... well, the choke).
continue chopping and adding ingredients at random, stirring frequently and periodically adding more salt because it seems to need it. hope you haven't added too much salt.
add a few threads of saffron, and get misty eyed about the trip to morella where you bought it. miss your boyfriend.
keep adding ingredients even though it seems miraculous that anything else will fit in the pan.
add some red wine vinegar because you forgot to get white wine. eye curiously the rice wine in the cupboard for a good long while. decide wisely against it.
burn your lips tasting a red pepper that fell out of the pan while stirring.
cut up a lemon and sit down to sample more than you intended to of your kickass paella.
write a blog about it.
go to bed. finally.
m
Comments