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February 15, 2002

Friday Five

Someday, I might be good enough for Blogger Insider, but for now, you'll have to settle for the Friday Five:

1. What was the first thing you ever cooked? The simplest thing to make, ever, has got to be scrambled eggs. Break a couple of white things, beat them, and they turn out yellow. Toss in hot pan. Warm moist eggy goodness. Do too many of them and you get the runs.

2. What's your signature dish? A lazy shrimp scampi or steamed live fish. The first dish started off with a much more complex recipe involving white wine and chopped tomatoes and a roommate in college, but since then it's been reduced to 1) chop up an assload of garlic, 2) peel shrimp, 3) drop half a stick of butter in pan, 4) sautee until its happy, 5) serve over angel hair pasta. If I'm feeling adventurous, I'll kick it up a notch with a random assortment of spices that may include crushed red pepper, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, or Victoria Adams. The latter dish is best done with a live fish, scaled and gutted, with chopped ginger. It is steamed, then doused in soy with chopped scallions. Lastly, dribble over it some hot oil, usually peanut. It's fish at it's sweetest and most natural, short of eating it as sushi. Of course, if you can't stand to see the face of your food when you eat it...

3. Ever had a cooking disaster? (tasted like crap, didn't work, etc.) Describe. I can honestly say that the time I tried to do conch was bad. New ingredient, no recipe. I was just winging it. Ended up with a foul tasting mess of shellfish that was overcooked and rubbery. Tossed that one pretty quick. Damned shame about the wasted pasta, though. It was the last that I had at that time so I had to do something else for dinner. I think I ended up ordering a megaslice from Benny Tudino's.

4. If skill and money were no object, what would make for your dream meal? I'll be damned happy if I could churn out the meal I had at Nobu Next Door last summer. That's the kind of meal that leaves you feeling penniless, but somehow changed forever at the same time. Go for the omakase and splurge on the most exotic one.

5. What are you doing this weekend? This weekend, I'll be flying to Hong Kong, SAR China. I leave just after noon on Saturday and won't arrive until early evening on Sunday. Exciting, eh? That being said, I think I need to run out to the CompUSA to pick up a game for my laptop to amuse myself on the flight.

6. What was your most bizarre meal? Day before I left for home after my first semester Freshman Year of college. The dorms shut off their electricity over the Winter Break, which was 4-5 weeks long to conserve energy, so we were instructed to clear all of our mini-fridges or risk coming back to a very smelly mess. My suitemate, Henry, and I decided we'd try to eat our way out of as much of the food as possible.

  1. Whole Lobster: We started by buying two live lobsters at the Wegmans and ate them boiled whole, with butter. The Wegmans part is important. We walked down. It was a good hour away. We also walked back with lobsters squirming in the grocery bags. Fortunately it was cold enough that they were as if they were in the fridge. Unfortunately, we were both underdressed for the weather. Butter: check.
  2. Spambled Eggs: We opened a tin of SPAM, diced it, and mixed it in with a whole lot of eggs. Eggs: check, SPAM: check.
  3. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches: We smeared peanut butter and concord grape jelly on bread. Bread: check, Jelly: almost (we got through most of it, but had a major sugar high), Peanut Butter: this could keep.
  4. Lo Mein: Someone saw us with our spread and chipped in some food that was left over from a party the previous day. Someone Else's Noodle Dish: check.
  5. Cereal: We ate a lot of cereal with milk. Milk: check, Cereal: we didn't want to just eat milk.

That's not all, but that's all I can remember for now. I'll add on more later when it comes back to me. All told, the meal took us about 8 hours and a lot of episodes of Robotech.

Posted by KinCross at February 15, 2002 09:16 AM

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