Couch Pomme De Terre

Television is bad for you. It rots your brain and turns it into a gooey paste that will drip out your ears and onto your shoes. It will turn you into a zombie who will sit on the couch and look at the world through
the little bright rectangle hanging on your wall. Television is evil and should be avoided at all costs.

I love television.

It has been more than two years since I last had television. Yesterday a magical man in a white Comcast van traveled from a magical land to my apartment and put a cable into my wall. This cable inexplicably flooded my television screen with bright images. Then the magical Comcast van man handed me a mystical wand with buttons on it and instructed me in the ancient art of "channel surfing."

Now little people live in my television screen and tell me all about how to cook delicious meals, make me laugh at ridiculous situations, send me to various countries to experience other cultures, and a variety of other amazing things. My mystical wand allows me to view other people who are less boring than the people who are already on my screen, or allows me to make them speak louder or more quietly, or sends the people away when I'm tired of them and summons them back when I am bored.

Even people who have long been dead live in this bright rectangle. I can even... oop... hang on - -

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Sorry, Julia Child just showed me how to make a "Gateau in a Cage." Bon Appetit!

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Sometimes its nice to take a break and let your brain get a little squishy.

Bruschetta, Bruschetta, Bruschetta...

What do you do when, due to a recent move, you gain four working stove-top burners and an oven that works?

You use them.

Today I discovered some extremely delicious (and simple) baking recipes. I may have been carried away by all the doughy delicious-ness and made more bread than I can handle. Actually, by the dwindling Italian loaf I think I may need to make some more pretty soon...

I made three different types of bread today - a regular sandwich loaf, an Italian loaf, and biscuits.

The sandwich loaf is simple:

-3 cups white whole wheat flour
-1 to 1.5 cups water
-1 package yeast
-1 tsp. sugar

-Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water, then stir in the flour and knead for about 10 minutes. Let it rise for about 30-45 minutes, punch it down, reshape it and let it rise for another hour. Then bake at 425 for about 30 minutes or until golden brown on top.

-Here's a tip for a nice crunchy crust: if you have an electric stove, spray water out of a spray bottle every couple of minutes for the first 5-10 minutes into the oven below the bread. The steam will help create a crunch-tastic crust.

The Italian loaf is even easier:

-1 teaspoon active dry yeast
-1 teaspoon granulated sugar
-1 cup warm water
-2 1/4 to 2 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
-Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water, then stir in the flour and knead for about 10 minutes. Let it rise for about 30-45 minutes, punch it down and reshape it and let it rise for another hour. Then bake at 425 for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top. Use the same crust secret that I described in the sandwich loaf recipe.

The biscuits are phenomenal:

-1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
-1/4 cup cornstarch
-3/4 teaspoon salt
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-2 teaspoons sugar
-1 to 1 1/4 cups milk or heavy cream, enough to make a cohesive dough

-Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the milk or cream until it forms a dough that shapes easily without falling apart. Then spread it out to an 8-inch round, 3/4 inch tall form and cut out your biscuits as large or small as you want them. Put them in the freezer for 30 minutes (weird, huh. This will help them rise) and then bake them for 20 minutes on 425.

-If you want a more golden biscuit, rub butter on top of them before and after you bake them. I didn't put butter on mine, so they don't have that golden glow.

Yummy goodness.

Ugh... talk about a house that smells great.

I have never made an Italian loaf before. The whole reason I tried it today is because I wanted to make bruschettas for dinner. If you are terrified of making bruschettas because they are sooo fancy and foreign and have great color and such fresh ingredients, then here's a fact you should know: the word bruschetta roughly translates into grilled garlic bread. There, now even your garlic bread can be called a fancy word like bruschetta.

Here's how to make bruschettas that people will break into your house to steal:

-Chop about half a pint of grape tomatoes into quarters (or smaller)
-Chop the same amount of Calamata olives (or black olives, for those afraid of deliciousness) into quarters (or smaller)
-Dice a clove and a half of garlic

-Put all of this in a bowl and cover it generously with basil, oregano, and any other spices you fancy. Then add enough olive oil to make your mixture mix nicely.

-Then cut your Italian bread into slices, brush them with olive oil and heat them in the oven until they are warm, but not browned.

-Remove the bread slices from the oven and top them with your tomato/olive mixture. Then place two thin slices of good, freshly sliced mozzarella on top, just enough to cover the bread. Broil the bruschettas for about a minute (keep a close watch! Things on broil burn easily).

This is the end product:

Then try not to eat an entire loaf's worth of these things, bake another loaf, and eat all of that by making bruschettas.

The Trouble With Tables

Our lives revolve around food. We love food. We love sharing our food with others and we love when others share their food with us.

The only problem is that for the past two years Megs and I have lived in a place that doesn't have a dining room. This put a bit  of a limit on who could come over and share a meal with us ("Hey guys, you wanna come over and try our new stuffed chicken recipe? Yeah.. yeah.. just stand around the house and hold the plate in your hands while simultaneously trying to cut the chicken with a fork and knife. Yeah... on really fancy dishes, too. Oh, your busy... okay.")

But now we have a dining room. The only problem is that have never owned a dining room table. So I searched the internet and the world of craigslist in order to find a dining room table for Megs in time for our anniversary. We really wanted a round table, since it can fit more people and seems to make everyone more accessible in conversation.

I finally found one that was perfect. It wasn't too expensive, it was just the right size, and it was nice and sturdy. When I got in contact with the seller, she acted like I was a crazy person for calling her up and asking about her table. And she definitely didn't want me coming to look at it.

"What exactly do you want to know? Its an oak table, its very sturdy.... its in good condition..." Said the table lady, repeating exactly what was printed on the craigslist description.

"Uh, I actually just want to know when would be a good time to stop by and see the table," I said.

"See the table? Uh, well, uh... what day are you wanting to come and look at it?" Said table lady.

"How about Tuesday, I'm free all day." I said.

"How about in the evening?" Said table lady.

"Great, what time?" I asked.

"In the evening." Said table lady.

"Okay... so about what time is that?" I said.

"In the evening... how about 7:00. That way my husband and I can get home and get settled before you come over to look at the table." Said table lady, emphasizing the fact that she has a husband and that he would be home.

"Call when you are on your way and I will have my husband give you directions." Said table lady, letting me know I'm not going to get any address out of her, just in case I should want to come over, tie her up, kick her dog, and take the table for free.

I waited for three days, thinking about the table and how it would be such a great gift. (We would have such wonderful meals around it. It will look so good in the apartment. I bet breakfast tastes better off of round tables. I bet coffee stays hotter and blacker on oak.) Finally 7:00 pm on Tuesday comes around and I give table lady a call. Her phone is turned off. I wait for 20 minutes... no return call... phone is still off. At this point I'm upset because I want this table to be a surprise for Meghann and I had already concocted a great story for why I was going out so late that night. Now I would have to go back, empty handed, to a wife who was wondering why exactly I had to rush out of the house at 7:00 pm.

At this point I'm sure that the lady thinks I'm a no-good criminal who will steal her great grandmother's jewelry if she even lets me step foot in her house. So, to say the least, I figure she won't sell me the table. I wait for an hour and half and finally tell Megs about my plans to buy her a table and how it didn't work out and how upset I was because it would have been such a good table.

Five minutes later my phone rings. Its the lady's husband. He explains to me that they thought I was coming Wednesday night and that they didn't know I was planning on coming by on Tuesday. He informed me that he could squeeze me in between other people who were looking at the table the following afternoon.

Great. Yay. It's good news because I might possibly still get the table, but I feel like a moron because I ruined the surprise gift. At least table lady doesn't think I'm a no-good, rotten scoundrel.

As I am driving to table guy's house the next day, he calls me to let me know he is going to be a little bit late coming home from the office. So I pull into the nearest shopping center and wait for 30 minutes for table guy to make his way home from work. Finally, he gets home and I head over to his house.

I see the table.

I like the table.

I buy the table.

On my way back home, I drive through snow, hail, rain, snow/rain, hail/snow, and snow/hail/rain with the table in the back of my truck. When I get back to the apartment, I lift this huge, solid oak table, which is soaking wet with ice, off of my truck and onto the pavement. I then proceed to raise, balance, and shuffle my way up three flights of stairs with a massive, solid oak table balancing on my hip bone. By the time I get this hulking, solid oak table up the stairs, my breath has left me and my heart is racing in order to pump blood to my brain so I could register just how stupid it was to lug an incredibly large, solid oak table covered in ice up three flights of stairs all on my own (the farther and farther up the stairs I went, the larger and larger the table seemed to get... it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger... and did I mention it was solid oak?).

I then defied the laws of physics by stuffing a huge round table through a small rectangular door.

Then I collapsed on the floor, wondering if that stupid table was actually necessary.

I am typing this on my very own, round, solid oak dining room table. And I can say that it was very much worth the effort and I believe that it will bring years of joy from the meals that will be shared and the people that will live around it.

But it did come at a price -  primarily, my back.