Thursday, February 22, 2007

Asleep in the Midnight Kitchen

Not really, but that's what someone just asked. I'm wide awake, and there's no sleep in sight. My studio is a disaster, and the kitchen is two steps away from a Chernobyl style meltdown. I'm in full mad-cook mode.

Tomorrow I'm set to serve dinner for forty jocks, to carb-load them before the Swamp Romp. I'm trying to get what I can done today. Or tonight already. On the menu: roasted garbanzos for an appetizer, fingerling potatoes roasted in chicken fat & cracklings, white beans baked with sun-dried tomatoes, watermelon-feta salad, couscous, and chicken avgolemono. Pics and recipes [of what works] will follow eventually.

I had $200 bucks to play, or $5 a person. I splurged on the fingerling potatoes, organic free-range chickens, & sun dried tomatoes. Everything else I'm dong from scratch to keep under budget. So I've been soaking my beans, rendering the fat out of the chicken, making stock, grinding spices, and pretty much just going overboard.

As for the weekend, it was good. I meant to camp on the beach, but by 1pm the first day I was bored. I ended up calling Billy and crashing at his place in Pa`ia. I'm just not the right kind of guy to lie around on the beach all day. Staying with Billy was good, and it looks like he'll be joining me in Jordan, so - yeah! The rest of the weekend, I watched the hippies dance at Makena on Sunday, and though I meant to be a freak with them I just wasn't feeling it. On one hand, I admire the culture they created. On the other hand, they have no rhythm at all. They just get stoned, pound a simple beat on their drums, and do the hippy-dance. I climbed a tree and watched them for hours. It was hypnotic.

And that's all the news for now ... my chicken is calling me. Back to the war zone.

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