Right. Chickpea and kale curry was not the dream dinner you were hoping for tonight. And forget getting the kids on board.Kinda seems unfinished, like it needs lamb meatballs or a ring of bologna on top. Believe me. This simple, incredibly easy, meatless, hassleless, exotically savory meal is totally, certifiably delicious.
This is a story about a best friend, a birthday milestone, and vegetables with hummus.
We met working at MTV where our execs loved to stress its casual atmosphere. The dress code according President Tom Freston was no full frontal nudity (funny right?) or the higher up the food chain you move, the closer you can move toward the lips of staffers when you greet them hello and you get stock options too. Truth is that the place was not that casual. When asked what was it like to work at MTV, the response then was, “it’s like dating the most popular guy in high school, he treats you like shit, but at least you’re dating him.”
One year, the execs got all McKinsey on us and reengineered our division, resulting in excessive staffing of specialists to serve clients. With new staff came the need for team building exercises, which takes us to a sulfur-infested inlet near Key West, Florida.
Remember the early years, season two, she falls in love with her cardio patient Denny, cheats his donor qualification and crumbles, we all crumble, when he dies shortly after. An impressive performance made a star out of this girl. Then, well, Dr. Stevens wanted out of the series and not even CPR from Shonda could save her.
One day, a few months back, that kinda ornery actress shows up cooking on tv – happy, homey, aprony — making this pasta that others melted over. I loved the simple ingredients for weeknight possibilities and double McCreamy brie cheese does all the heavy flavor lifting.
For those of you on our holiday card exchange list, I apologize. I’m about to take away the smoke and mirrors, fling open the curtain, break the fourth wall, and reveal the illusion that those smiling subjects, posed ever so gleefully on the front of our holiday cards, are fake. It’s not that we can’t take authentically happy family photos. We just can’t get them to come together within the rushed thirty minute intersection of available time when our daughter’s home from college for an already hectic Thanksgiving weekend and I, despite having three camera lenses, cannot take a focused, marginally-lit photograph. Perhaps the lens is affected by angst in the air.
While waiting at the car wash, I bought a few cookbooks. It only makes sense that the car wash sells coffee table books about midcentury architecture andlemongrass mood candles along with Little Trees car fresheners, f-bomb birthday cards, and Mallo cups. One car wash in town even has a grill & cafe with a signage reading “100% hand wash hot soups lotto scratchers coffee.” Did you think ewe hand washing next to hand cooking or were you more ouch hands by hot soups?
There is nothing I can’t be convinced I need during the thirty-minutes it takes a machine to remove two months of dirt from my car, and such was the case with celebrity chef Michael Symon’s, 5 in 5 cookbook promising recipes with 5 ingredients made in 5 minutes. Question, ifyou have to say celebrity, is he one?
