Food

I usually think I'm a fairly competent person. Fairly competent at the act of living life. Which is why cooking for me is an incredibly humbling experience.

My cooking skills are bad at best, horrible from an objective standard. I was always quite fearful, cooking in Nottingham, as my group tended to select elaborate and complicated dishes to make. My inherent inefficiency meant that practically anything I was assigned took about 4 hours, wiping out my afternoon with nerve-wracking culinary toil. Who can forget the episode where we attempted to grill chicken for an hour on a grill that wasn't actually lit? Brilliant.

My dad is in the Cayman Islands this week, leaving me to fend for myself in regards to food. I decided the lack of preprepared food for a week was a perfect opportunity for me to rise to the challenge and fend for myself. See also, I decided to cook.

So I biked over to Cub the other day and bought some groceries. And yes, I did feel superior for biking.

Last night I attempted to make chicken curry. I figured it was going to be interesting when I realized I made enough rice to feed a small Asian nation for a week. It only got better when it became apparent the rice was woefully undercooked. I splattered hot cooking oil all over myself and the rest of the kitchen attempting to stir fry the chicken. And of course, I ended up with a plethora of cooking implements coated with an impenetrable sealant of burnt rice and curry paste.

Needless to say, it didn't quite taste like the chicken curry that my mind's eye had envisioned when I decided to make it. But all in all, I suppose it could have been worse.

Remembering the wisdom of Mrs. Roorda in my 8th grade F.A.C.S. class, the best thing to do with old rice is to make fried rice. So, that was my burden today. And I must say, it was marginally more successful. I don't have second degree burns all over my forearms, nor did I spend 5 hours scrubbing pans. It did suffer from a lack of fresh vegetables though, and it seemed a titch bland. But life is full of small challenges.

I don't know what I'm going to attempt tomorrow, but I bought some pasta and some Cuban beans and rice. I don't quite think the two go together, so it's looking like pasta. As you can tell, with the pasta and the rice, it's been a carb-tastic week. I'm getting ready for a double century ride this weekend, so you know, it's all good.

That's a lie.