As you may have seen, my pumpkin carving skills are not so great...but they are all natural. This pumpkin with Napoleon Dynamite in it is super cool, but also super stencilled...does that matter? I think it's cheating. But we're talking about pumpkin carving, so who really cares one way or the other?
Yesterday afternoon two neighbors, the boyfriend and I went to Landmark Century Theater and saw Shopgirl.
After the Lake Michigan walk and some down time in the apartment (I finished the Hornby novel I was reading), the boyfriend and I publicly transported ourselves to Logan Square for a pumpkin carving party. Our hostesses offered us homemade apple and pumpkin pies, an addictive salmon dip and other halloweeny treaties. A fellow guest contributed Harry Potter jelly beans which came in this range of flavors (I'm sure I'll miss a few): dirt, earthworm, sardine, grass, earwax, boogers, soap and spaghetti. Not one of the flavors was at all a pina colada type taste experience...I, the lover of all things seafood, had to spit out the sardine one.
When first invited to the party, I decided I would come sans pumpkin...but in the end I didn't. The above pumpkin is mine and is a fairly accurate depiction of all jack-o-lanterns I have ever made...in my entire life.
What else? The other night I watched Runaway Jury due to a long ago recommendation from a friend (who's no patsy) telling me it was far better than the previews made it look. I agree. The boyfriend and I actually had a decent conversation about gun control afterwards. I'm currently listening to holopaw, a band I got from a SAIC friend who had to put all her music on my hard drive in order to re-install software on hers, I like it...you should give it a try.
I may not have a dog, but I do have a job at a doggie daycare place! Woo hoo!
See the lady bug's trail? Pretty cool.
Sticking mostly to my neighborhood and downtown (where school is), I often feel like Chicago isn't all that big a place. But when I saw the views of the cityscape, I remembered what a sprawling and gigantic city Chicago really is...so much to explore, so much to eat, so much and so much.
We ordered a feta cheese tartlett as an appetizer (see above). The boyfriend and I were both expecting something a little more wonton-like but what came instead was good. There was a bit of dressing on each tartlett (which consisted of one slice tomato, one slice boiled egg, one black olive and a chunk of feta cheese) that really made all the different elements come together nicely.
I had the 'Beachcomber's Delight', mussels with a tomato sauce over spaghetti. It was a tad too sweet (they added a 'hint' of brown sugar to the sauce) for my taste, but the mussels were excellent.
The boyfriend had the garden risotto, which I was a little jealous of....in light of not liking my dish as much as I thought I would. Perhaps the lowest-light of the meal was the constant barrage of terrible music. For example, Italian tenors or baritones or maybe they weren't Italian at all, singing songs like Unchained Melody and My Way a)in another language and (more importantly/more hard to takely) b)as if it was opera. We also got to listen to a guy who could only be Harry Connick Junior sing covers of many songs, including those of The Beatles...eek!
I also had an espresso. This place is B.Y.O.B., but doesn't seem to have a corkage fee. I'm not heartily recommending it, but there wasn't anything bad about it either...except the music, that was bad.
After a slightly more rousing episode of my Popular Art and Culture class (we learned all about Japanese pop culture) I met up with the boyfriend for sushi at Indie Cafe. Indie Cafe has both Thai and Japanese cuisine and a pretty nice selection of lunch specials. I had the spicy sushi lunch special: One piece salmon, one piece red snapper and one piece tuna along with three spicy tuna rolls and three spicy salmon rolls. I also had an order of tobikko and was very happy to find that it was a little zebra-like. By this I mean that it consisted of orange tobikko, black tobikko and (my personal favorite) wasabi tobikko all in one piece! The special included miso soup and seaweed salad and cost nine dollars. It was, shall we say, sushi-riffic...or we could not say that at all...except that I just did.
The boyfriend made dinner last night...not for the first time and not for the last...I'm just making it clear that he's not some guy who never cooks, if anything he is totally a guy who cooks. Regardless, he made a Middle Eastern Salad and spaghetti with a tomato clam sauce. Very nice indeed.
Regular beets, yellow beets and brussels sprouts in olive oil, soy sauce, dash of ginger and dash of wasabi powder.
I usually don't eat breakfast...unless it's a Saturday or Sunday in Red Hook, New York. But today I made an exception and fashioned myself some grub. Two fried eggs (one with melted mozzarella), two strips of cooked prosciutto and a whole grain english muffin. Tasty times.
For lunch yesterday I made myself a 'gourmet' wrap. Bit of mayonaise, drab of dijon mustard, two slices brie cheese, one quarter avocado, two slices honey roasted turkey, a few strips of smoked salmon and a smattering of capers. All rolled up and eaten...by me.
Another delightful, albeit smaller, wine night. Our hostess provided a Moroccan rice dish, chips and hummus and yummy chocolate chip cookies.
I've been meaning to post a little snippet on the book I finished a few days back called Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland. This author also wrote Microserfs, an entertaining book about a group of Microsoft employees who defect.
Along with the chicken I made mashed potatoes to feed an army,roasted vegetables (brussels sprouts, baby carrots and broccoli) and a red and yellow beet salad with a goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. Oh, and of course, fresh from the can cranberry sauce.
The show was sold out and when a show is sold out they order a pizza at the beginning of the show. The show attempts to do thirty plays in sixty minutes and last night they succeeded. There is audience participation in that the audience shouts out the numbers of different plays and hope to see them. I'm not doing a very good job describing this whole thing because I have yet to finish my first cup of tea...sorry. Anyways you should go.
After Whole Foods a college buddy, chum or pal (friend might also work...you choose) came on over for a night of fun, food and theater. First we went to Hopleaf, hoping for a hearty bite to eat. The wait at Hopleaf was too long so then we tried another place (wait was twenty minutes) before we ended up at Star Gaze. Star Gaze (according to Centerstage Chicago) is THE lesbian bar to hang out in. We were there before it was crowded and none of the ladies looked funny at the guys. I had a vegetable quesadilla that came with no vegetables. The college friend had a sausage pizza and the boyfriend had fried plantains and a pastelillo.
Oh my goodness the wonders of Whole Foods! Oh my goodness I'm going to roast a chicken for the first time! Oh my goodness I have TWO different colored beets to cook with! Oh my goodness I spent way too much a lot of money! Oh my goodness so did the boyfriend! Oh my goodness Whole Foods is my new dream boat!
