excellent Easter

Easter Sunday

Nicole and I went to Easter Mass and then got a delicious brunch with some friends. Afterwards, she, Amelia, and I went to Whole Foods. I ended up not buying veal for a few reasons:

• Nicole’s humanitarian objections to it
• it's $25/pound price tag
  
• and mainly because there wasn't enough for my stew.

“Don’t eat no meat??? Oh, that’s okay. I make lamb.”

Ten points if you know what movie that’s from.

Anyway, when Miss Vegetarian and I made it to the cashier, we were playing Price Is Right. (For the record, I would have won if he had bothered to look up the price for cippolini onions instead of just ringing them up as scallions.) Anyway, when the price went over Nicole’s guess, she said “SHIT!” really loud. The poor cashier looked terrified until we explained it wasn't the result anything he did.

Our Easter Potluck Dinner was extremely delicious.

• egg salad tea sandwiches
• salad
• my lamb stew
• corn pudding
• pasta salad
• roasted potatoes
• sweet potato fritters
• miniature brownies
• funfetti cupcakes
• strawberries dipped in chocolate

We watched the end of an America’s Next Top Model marathon. Storey and I had a great experience trying to decipher the ins and outs of female debate, both on and off screen. That segued right into the end of The Sound of Music and an episode of The Girls Next Door. I would never have guessed I’d be in a room with four girls who had such positive review of Hef’s girlfriends and their show.

Speaking of reality, Bravo needs to learn that not every occupation needs its own competitive show. They’re apparently releasing a new haircutting series, which I’ve dubbed Project Top Hair Design.

Anyway, we ended the festivities by dying eggs since the two Jewish girls had never had the fun if messy experience. One of the Christians misspelled “Easter” on her egg by leaving out the T.

Easter Monday

Adrian called me up and we went to the UC for lunch. Black Angus on Rosemary Parmesan Bread sub from Quiznos and “Mexican Pizza” and soft tacos supreme from Taco Bell. I finally figured out of the "Royal Hospital, Panama City Beach" charge that showed up on his VISA. My mom was very worried even though I assured her a $60something hospital charge couldn't have been anything that serious. Apparently Hospital is short for "Hospitality," as in charge-it-to-my-room, as in charge-the-drinks-I'm-buying-at-the-hotel-bar-to-my-room. Zoinks. S'okay, Scooby gang, mystery solved!

I spent happy hour drinking with Conrad at Bruno’s before going to the (actual) Whitney Bank on Carrolton.

I tried to go to Ninja to sit at the sushi bar and grab a quick dinner, but I forgot it was Monday. (Ninja is closed on Mondays.) So I went to Philip Chan’s Asian Cajun Bistro, which was on the walk back. I’d had my doubts and never been, but I figured I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did. Asian Cajun is “marriage of... friendliness and generosity of Asian culture... warmth and sincerity of genuine Southern hospitality.” Now that sounds like bullshit, but they made me a believer. And I hate the term “fusion,” but this place actually is. Basically the restaurant is local ingredients cooked in an expert Chinese way. I guess now I can no longer say there’s no good Chinese food in this city. Chef Chan, who I got to meet briefly, is from Hong Kong, which I consider to be not only the origin of my favorite style of Chinese food but also the Mecca of non-sushi Asian food.

I was apparently not thinking because I forgot that such an authentic restaurant would serve dishes “family style” (as opposed to fake less authentic places like P.F. Chang’s) i.e. massive portions. So I ordered an appetizer, an entrée, and some rice.

While I was waiting, they served me a salad with a dressing that tasted like a sweet faux-kimchi. Awesome. The massive appetizer was your requisite cornmeal fried Louisiana oysters, but then they were wok-sautéed with a sweet peppery sauce with sliced onions (both red and green) and garlic, served with a creamy dipping sauce. The combination of tastes and textures was almost overwhelmingly good. The “num tong” chicken was tender cuts in a Szechwan sauce served over crispy rice noodles and sliced eggplant. The fried rice was also amazing: Shrimp, crawfish, and smoked sausage tossed with eggs and scallions in rice with a gentle touch of curry flavor. The waitress set down the plate and said “Let me know when you need a box.”

I don’t usually admit defeat, but I had to surrender. On a more positive note, my fortune cookie told me “You wield more influence than you know.”

Jenna and Shannon both called me. The former stopped being a mountain-whore (ah, my affection for my friends who graduate early and I miss dearly) to come down and visit, and the latter spent the night in Houston for a free airline voucher. Jenn was tired from the drive, and Shan was MIA. So everyone apparently went to bed, which was good because I was exhausted too. We’re going out tonight.

chill but great night

So today was pretty laidback to recuperate from the past couple of nights. "Becky" and "Andy" hosted another potluck. All-American Night was the theme this time. It was on a smaller-scale and low-key, but the food and company were awesome.

• barbeque chicken drumstics
• deviled eggs
• mac and cheese
• cornbread
• Bud Light
• Sam Adams
• apple pie
• chocolate chip cookies
• flag cake

Then Shannon and I went to go see The Namesake, which was really good and made me want to read the novel. I thought it'd be Meet The Parents meets Bend It Like Beckham, but it was heavier (and in my opinion better) than both. It more about entire lives than a few complicated days/weeks. I also never imagined Kal "Kumar/Taj" Penn in a serious role. T'was amazing. I got emotionally involved.

Kal Penn, Irfan Khan, Sahira Nair, and Tabu as The Ganguli Family

And on a silly note, for you V for Vendetta fans, the domino scene was not CGI like I thought. It took 200 hours of preparation by four experts armed with 22,000 dominoes.

Where'd the weekend go?

Friday was classes then groceries. Then began the back-to-back laser tag nights. Yeah. Apparently when you turn 22 you want to reaffirm your youth, so you decide to play laser tag. Ryanne and Ben, indepedently of each other, both wanted to play laser tag for their birthdays. Friday was Ben's night. We went with Katy&Co. After that I had made a raspberry tiramisu for Tara since she wasn't at Italian Night, so she and Ian came over. They approved. (Personally I prefer the strawberry version, less tart and less sweet. The raspberry version looks better though because it's a burgundy color and the berries require no chopping and distribute more uniformly.)

Shannon came over to have tiramisu also and convinced me to go to Beaux Arts Ball, the architecture party, at the last minute. I didn't have a costume ready. The theme was ConNEXTion. So she wrapped me in packaging tape because tape connects things? Whatever. Beaux Arts was fun. All the architects were drunk as usual.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur: The Boot, J(ai)L Hall, The W Hotel, and then some French people's party somewhere.

Saturday was pretty chill. Laser tag again that night, Ryanne's "party." We had to split up into two groups of four because there weren't enough slots for all eight of us. Stephanie and I were on the red team and were assigned the code names "Cinderella" and "Aladdin." I had a lot of fun shooting the bitchy old couple who made two kids give up their vests and guns 'cause they accidentally let too many people in.

After that was a quick trip to the Big Easy because Lauren was hungry, and I just hung out at home the rest of the night. Mommie Dearest, which I'd never seen, and Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is one of my favorites, were both on TV. MD is a fucked up movie.

Sunday I made "macaroni" (really penne) and cheese from scratch to tide me over until Mexican Night. I'm never going to make the orange crap that comes out of the box again.

Mexican Night was a huge success although apparnetly "Mexican" is synonymous with "dip" because we had at least four of them. But one of them was Stephanie's guacamole, so I was automatically satisfied with our menu. We also had chicken and vegetable fajitas, Mexican lasagne, beans and rice, various forms of corn chips, a cake decorated with a Mexican flag, "Dos Amigos" ice cream (Mexican vanilla and Mexican chocolate), and of course, the strawberry tiramisu that we pretended was Mexican.

Just like Thanksgiving and Italian Night, we all said what we were thankful for (but Mexican things this time.) I guess that went succesffuly and unoffensively.

Some of us stayed after to watch The Oscars, but by the end only Becca, Leah, and I were left. I was happy because all of my predictions (Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, Helen Mirren, Martin Scorsese, Pan's Labyrinth, and THE DEPARTED) won except one.

weekend's off to a great start

Thursday I made lunch for Adrian, and we caught up. For those of you who don't know, he's pledging Sig Ep and is president of their pledge class. And he has a super-single now. Apparently his former roommate moved to another building to be with his girlfriend (and they broke up within three days). I had lunch with Tara and spent my free afternoon doing laundry and studying. Wes and I finally watched the Legend of Zelda: Animated Series he has on DVD, and he lent me the discs so I could finish it. I've watched them all. I made my dish for Italian Night - more on that later - and dropped off a portion for Sarah as thanks for lending me her mixer, but Maddie found it first. Then I went to 80s Night with a bunch of friends and even more were there.

Yesterday after class I slept away the afternoon. Then I went over to Becca's for the ITALIAN POTLUCK DINNER we planned in honor of Giada De Laurentiis, whom we both love. I was impressed with everyone's cooking. The menu:

• two kinds of bruschetta
• salad with parmesan crusted broccoli and cauliflower
• garlic bread
• stuffed mushrooms
• cinnamon gnocchi
• sausage pizza
• two kinds of lasagna
• several kinds of pasta
• chicken parmesan
• and I made a strawberry tiramisu

Also, like we did on Thanksgiving, we went around the room and everyone said what they were thankful for. But this time the things had to be specifically Italian. After dinner, everyone waddled away to various things and some of us hung around, chatted, and drank too much wine. After that, a few of us decided to go out. There was a brief interlude of Nicole walking around Aron quad with a glass of wine and my knife block, looking like a serial killer, while waiting for Will. We all went to my apartment for a bit, and Becca joined us. Nate had woken up, and Nicole had one of my two favorite quotes of the night when she invited him to Bruno's / introduced herself:

"Put your pants on, and let's go! How many guys have I said THAT to??? Oh and my name is Nicole."

On the way to Bruno's, Will had my other favorite quote of the night:

"Well with Top Chef, I can't eat the food... but with Project Runway, I can wear the dresses... So..."

But at least we all agree that Top Design sucks.

I brought out my waterproof cards since last time Nicole and I were at Bruno's (with Carter and Peter even) we ruined a deck playing Kings. This time we ruined the game by not remembering all the rules and by letting two obnoxious drunks play. But it was still fun. After a little Photo Hunt and another round, we called it quits.

No pics yet but here are some screen captures of that dvd.

Princess Zelda, Ganon, and (my hero) Link

the Triforces of Wisdom and of Power

weight-gain Wednesday

Today was pretty much classes and a lot of eating. After my first class. I had lunch after returning my ethics book to the UC. (I dropped the class after staring at the first 300-word discussion topic for five minutes, realizing I would have to do this once a week for the rest of the semester.) More classes. David and I went shopping for Italian Night. My poor roommate almost had an aneurysm in the pasta aisle of Sav-A-Center because of a lack of gnocchi, but thank God we found some. He was in the middle of his own personal hell day/week/month/semester.

I went to the Tulane Big/Little Brother Reunion "Picnic" which ended up indoors with not that many people, but plenty of food was in attendance. Stephanie beat me to it, but [Grown Up] Sarah was still there. She commiserated with my uncertainty of what to do post-graduation and reassured me that "life sucking for a while" is completely normal. Great.

I made dinner because I realized the chicken breasts in the fridge were mine, and I didn't want them to go bad, but when I went over to Stephanie's for the Top Chef finale she gave me an extremely delicious barbeque chicken wrap. How could I say no? And I just had to sample [Roommate] Sarah's soup, which was also awesome.

After that I hurried out to meet up with Rachel to see Babel. I enjoyed it, but I could see why many people wouldn't. It is LONG. Lots of lingering shots. But it has a great cast. AMC Moviewatcher also gave me Wednesday-specific free popcorn, so I had to take it.

And since films seem to have been the focus of the past few days/entries anyway, does anyone who hasn't seen Pan's Labyrinth or who liked it enough to see it again want to go sometime in the near future? I think that's the last flick on my checklist.

Dr. Seuss says: Brad is sad.

Thanksgiving Pre-Game

Warning: This entry is entirely about food.

This weekend has been spectacular.

Friday afternoon was the "Aron Block Party" which basically meant a few hundred pizzas and a few hundred beers. All free.

Right after that was Thank God It's Newcomb which meant free cookie cake, cheese and fruit platters, snowballs, and of course, pizza.

And there was the architecture Thanksgiving/auction thing also, but I was too full to walk over there and eat more.

Last night was the best on-campus dinner ever.

Some friends and I did an early Thanksgiving potluck. We had a thirteen-pound turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, the stuffing, roasted potatoes, sweet potato fries AND sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, four kinds of pies (apple, pecan, chocolate and pumpkin), and wine and beer. Stephanie opened the night with a spinach crab dip appetizer (that felt very "Maryland") and and closed it with hot chocolate "flavored" with mint schnapps. I was the taste-tester and thought the proportions were ideal even though some thought the hot chocolate was a bit strongly flavored.

After that Lauren and I went to Cooter Brown's, which was fun even though my stomach was too full to hold any significant amount of beer. A few friends came and went, but we had fun. Because we were so full, we actually did not get cheese fries even though we felt we should have them for the sake of tradition.

For dinner today, Stephanie suggested Raising Cane's. It was amazing. No surprise there.

As Amelia has quoted me (correctly!) in her away message:

"We should have Thanksgiving every week!"