Eggplant

Eggplant
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Monday, June 13, 2011

Bad Luck Chuck

I have had the worst.luck.ever. this past weekend. Like, I know I'm unlucky and the worst case scenario almost ALWAYS occurs when I'm involved, but this was ridiculous.

REE-DICK.

Let's set the stage, shall we?

I'm getting married this Saturday. I'm not really stressed about it. Things are done, whatever. The details aren't that big of a deal. Things are going just as planned. Until...

1) An eye infection. If you know me well, you know that I seem to have a skin infection at any point. One time I had an eye infection that caused my entire eye to swell shut and had to go to the emergent care place in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. The dermatologist said I have a staph infection that means whenever I get a cut, I get an infection. I.e. HOLY CANOLI I'M GETTING MARRIED ON SATURDAY AND PAYING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR A PHOTOGRAPHER! WHAT IF IT GETS CRAZY SWOLLEN!?!?!?!

Beyond discussing wearing matching eye patches to the wedding (Matt was ALL for this, btw), I decided to go to the doctor on Friday and get some antibiotics to hopefully move this process along. I can safely say it does not hurt now, but it's still all red and gross looking. Fingers crossed the lid is back to normal by Friday. Please, God...

2) My eye was killing me. And I had to work on the placecards. A terrible combination. I've also never used a hot glue gun.

This is just a recipe for disaster...

I'll spare you the details of my idiocy and give you the dialogue:

Me: Wailing, OW!
Matt (from the bathroom): What's wrong?
Me: I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! IT HURTS!
Matt: Hold on, I'm peeing.
Me: *weeping*

Matt described the scene he saw as if he came upon a forgotten/lost child. There I was SOBBING and holding my hands up in the air. It really hurt, but I think there was a little bit of a catharsis that took place. It felt good to cry, but the burn blisters on my hands were not worth it.

3) I had to travel to a conference at a small college in Iowa. Against my better judgment, I decided to book my room in the dorm rather than at a hotel.

This was a mistake.

I finally arrived at the dorm at 10:45 PM after an exhausting 5 hour drive (where I almost got in 2 car accidents because of crazy Iowan drivers...no offense if you are one), and of COURSE there was no one there to let me in or get my key. Thankfully, this woman happened to walk by the door while I stood there and just happened to have an extra room. Good luck? Well...

Once I got into my room, I remembered how much dorm beds/rooms SUCK, so I decided to just get ready and crawl into bed for what promised to be a fitful and uncomfortable night's sleep (which it was). So I went to the bathroom down the hall and when I came back, I realized the door had locked behind me. With all my stuff in it.

So, here's THIS scene:

Me: Can I use your cellphone?? (frantic)
Stranger in dorm: Why...?
Me: I locked myself out of my room (starting to cry)
Stranger: Yea, you have to be careful about that...
Me:...
Stranger: Who are you planning on calling?
Me: I don't even know...

Eventually, I ended up calling the security and they came and let me in.

4) I spilled all over my khaki pants the next day and had nothing to change into.


This is by far the longest post I've ever written, and interestingly enough, it's all about my bad luck.

So, with that, I'm bidding you all adieu for the next few weeks as I hopefully begin my lucky streak as I get married and travel to Hawaii.

And do lots of this:


Much love to you all, and I PROMISE to return and get back to the regular routine!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Food Disasters of Late

These last few weeks have had less cooking than I would like. Well, scratch that. There has been cooking HAPPENING, but there has not been recipe FOLLOWING, which means we've had some pretty epic crises in the kitchen trying to come up with our own recipes.

Rather than bore you with useless recipes that I have to try and recreate to post on here, I thought I'd just post pictures and describe the scenarios that brought us to these failures.

Matt and I wanted Mac and Cheese. Still had not brought ourselves to using fake cheese, we thought we could trick ourselves into thinking that Chili Mac was just as good. Unfortunately, it was not. This dish includes macaroni noodles, baked beans, fried onions, and scallops. I think there is absolutely ZERO nutritional value in this one.


These little roll-ups were actually modeled after a recipe from a cookbook which will remain nameless. These were just nasty. And once again, the nutritional value was very low. It was like some tomato and chickpea past with a couple strips of swiss chard. Blech.



Since we haven't been following recipes lately, we have also not been shopping for any particular dish at the grocery store. What this results in is a bunch of ingredients that probably shouldn't be put together ending up in one bowl. I'm not sure if this was a chili. a stew, a soup, or a casserole.

And yes, those are the infamous alphabet soup noodles that have inhabited the pantry for almost 6 months now. They just won't go away...



And I saved the best for last.

Maris brought over some phyllo dough to be used for a tart that she was SUPPOSED to make for our royal wedding viewing party. I'm actually pretty thankful she didn't make the tart because we had TONS of food leftover, but maybe if she had used it, we wouldn't have decided to try these phyllo dough pies.

Matt has a thing for anything in pie form. I take that back. Matt has a thing for anything in savory pie form.

See?


But here's what our's looked like...


We filled them up with brussel sprouts and some beans.

They were impossible to eat.

And to be honest, they tasted like paper.


So yea. That's why I've been a little quiet lately. I'm hoping we have a little more time and a higher success rate in the near future.

But I can't make any promises...