The Zadge has always loved cooking and entertaining.
Look, here’s the Zadge at the ripe old age of 8, baking up a batch of cookies under the watchful eye of The Sista and The Brotha:
The photo doesn’t show you the full beauty of the shag that our Baking Wonderkid was sporting back then.
Remember that movie from the 80′s “Tequila Sunrise” starring Mel Gibson (before he came out as a bigoted alcoholic abuser), Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer? Michelle plays the owner of a fancy Italian restaurant, who is wooed by Mel, the ex-con, and Kurt, the cop. Well, the Zadge has always, always dreamed of being Michelle’s character:
Not because of the steamy sex with Mel in a hot tub, although back in the 80′s, the Zadge might have thought that was hot. No, she’s dreamed of owning a restaurant, where she can host dinner parties every night. Although the Zadge’s pretend restaurant would be hipper and more casual than Michelle’s. But she’d still have the hot guys after her.
As a way to indulge her chef-restaurant owner-object of movie stars’ affection-delusions, the Zadge likes to take classes at a local culinary school. Last night, she took one called “Knife Skills,” so the Zadge could impress her dinner party guests with her lightening fast chopping.
The class was from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. and the school provided wine throughout. Although the teacher-chef instructed, everyone in the class participated in chopping, and mire poix-ing, and concasse-ing, and sauteing and saucing the meal that the class would all eat at the end of the night.
Guess who was the first student to draw blood?
Did the Zadge mention the wine?
The chef gave the Zadge a little blue finger condom instead of a Band Aid, which made the Zadge think back on some of the, ahem, more petite men she has known.
The first thing the class made was a delicious minestrone soup, topped off with a basil pesto and grated parm:
And some Blood of the Zadge.
Then the class moved on to the “Chicken Butchery” part of the night:
How pathetic does the Zadge’s poor prone poulet look? Can’t you just hear him saying, “No, not the chick with the bloody blue finger condom!”
The Zadge has to admit that, as a recovering vegetarian, this part of the class grossed out our erstwhile chef. The instructor kept talking about finding the “oysters” of the chicken and some line from “Silence of the Lambs,” which just got the Zadge more grossed out because that is the scariest movie she has ever seen (although when Brad finds The Goop’s head in a box in “Seven” is pretty scary too) and all the Zadge could picture was some poor girl in a pit with chicken skin all over the walls.
The Zadge forgot to take pictures of the rest of the meal which was a Garden Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette, Chicken Potenza, and Fresh Fruit Crostata. Did I mention the wine?
Well, the Zadge had a ball. The food was great, the people in the class were nice and the Chef-Instructor told the Zadge he was impressed with her mad knife skillz.
So today, the Zadge cooked up a big batch of the minestrone at home using her mad skillz and even had the courage to buy a whole bird to try and murder butcher on her own:
As she was taking this photo of Mr. Poor Poulet, the Zadge realized that more than 50% of her fridge was filled with booze-related items. Plus Mr. Poulet and some of his offspring.
Would that satisfy the new Michelle Obama-approved food pyramid?
Your finger condom looks like those rubber booties that they sell for dogs, to protect their feet against the salt on the roads.
(A friend and I were talking about cooking classes today – there’s a Thai cooking class that we’ve been eyeballing.)
I currently own a cool restaurant. We are in the remodeling process complete with huge water leaks and hidden mold.
I will gladly sell this money pit, make me an offer!
Holy crap! That is the cleanest, neatest, most amazingly ocd-arranged fridge I have ever seen. I am soooo envious!
I agree, if my fridge would look that clean and organized, I’ll go to booze and chicken as well!
Looks like so much fun!
–>My husband would marry you just based on what is in your fridge and how it’s organized. Remember, he weighs his meat before making hamburgers so they’re all the same size.
If I were in that cooking class, I would have busted out my Julia Child’s voice.
What Lisa Pie said! Wow! And I happen to think the booze to food ratio is spot on!
That soup looks scrumpt.
And the only fridge I know that looks neater than yours is…well, mine.
And that’s ONLY because right now, there’s one box of Fruity Pebbles in it, one tub of butter and one beer.
And they have their very own shelf.
Apparently I need to go to the store and stop eating out so much, huh? I’m a sad case. I know.
Your fridge is a little Sleeping with the Enemy what with all the labels faced and all…
Your refrigerator is a work of art. I have a “beverage center” in my great room to contain the extensive liquor collection in my home. P.S. no surprise we eat the same Greek yogurt. Addicted!
Wow! What fun! I’ve really wanted to attend a cooking class for awhile – but picky eatingness and food allergyness has me a bit hesitate to sign up (you know, and the whole just went WAY over budget paying for things like lawyers and visas and surgeries).
Zadge, you’re not fooling me.
Your fridge looks so organized and beautiful because there’s essentially NOTHING in it.
Other People’s Fridge’s. I wish that was a weekly magazine.
It appears as though you were cheated. Everyone else in class got gloves and you only got a condom.
At least you have spinach and yogurt in there.