just another mangled knee Monday

So I went to my food styling class yesterday and upon getting there realized that the walk had not been the best idea for my knee and decided that I was definitely not walking all the way to my computer graphics class. Food styling rewarded me nicely for the walk though. Today was molecular gastronomy day. We made an amuse bouche (one those bite-size gifts that chefs send restaurant patrons with the menu) that was basically a spoonful of re-imagined shrimp scampi. The other dish was a not-quite Caprese Salad (buffalo mozzarella, San Marzano tomato, basil, and olive oil). Our fake-aprese, my term not the chef’s, was pureed-then-steamed cuttlefish (like a squid with a shell) shaped like a sphere of mozzarella, tomato confit, and of course basil and olive oil. We prepared all the ingredients together and watched the chef plate a serving, and he gave a few of us a chance to construct our own plates. This was mine:

After that, I walked back home with Jack, who was en route to his Italian class. Of course we stopped to grab slices of pizza at Sabrina. When I got home, I immediately took one of those prescribed painkillers and then ended up napping an hour or so.

Later on in the evening, I received a frantic phone call from Aneet and Jess.

Let me put a prologue to this story: The men here love Jess. We don’t know exactly why. Perhaps her warm complexion? Her dark hair? Her Cleopatra eyes? In the past week, I’ve personally seen no less than four complete strangers hit on her, only her, even with the other girls around. One even bought her chocolate (Twix) out of a vending machine.

Anyway, lately the attention has been getting less fun. Tonight Aneet and Jess were apparently being followed around by two shady strangers... who would even wait for them outside whatever store they would enter. Ah, the curse of beauty. (Aneet is Indian, the culture whose women I believe generally have the finest facial features of all. And I already explained Jess’s situation.) They called me from a store a few blocks away and asked me to walk them home. Which I gladly did of course. I limped over there as fast as I could, ready to take on any bad guys. At least this way, my damaged knee would be due than more to a drunk chick. Thankfully no such encounter happened.

I walked them to class after and then had a most pleasant surprise. A phone call from Chad! He’s in London and doing well, and naturally we’re planning visits and possibly spring breaks. This pretty much made up for any rottenness of the day so far.

So when I got home, I decided to give Trattoria Tirovino, the restaurant literally next door, a try. Although I do love standing, particularly while cooking in a kitchen, I decided the flights of stairs and any further kitchen work would make my knee hate me even more. Dinner was excellent, by the way. It’s dangerous having it so near my home.

I spent the rest of the night icing my knee in the living room and watching Giuseppe's Top Gun dvd. He was doing homework and on his computer. And Henk was being European and artistic enough for all of us by painting while drinking red wine.