I believe we are agreed when I say that Shabbat is on Friday night. Any takers? Ok, good, no battle on this one. Since it's on Friday night, it invariable takes my entire day to get ready, when I'm celebrating alone. And I celebrate Shabbat alone a lot! You'd think I have no friends or something.
Point is, I decided that this Shabbat, it would be awesome. Balls to the wall cookout fest: real meat, not kosher-dogs; home-made challah; and even some tasty dessert. So Thursday night, around 11pm I go out and buy my ingredients. Minus baking soda, and rolled oats (apparently, Jewel-Osco does not carry rolled oats, which is as fucked up as it gets in my book). I come home, with my shiny new glass mixing bowl, my new measuring cups, tablespoons, my GRATER, and I'm feeling swell.
So I figure I'll make the cake tonight, get it out of the way. I crack my egg, I pour in my oil and brown sugar, and then I scan down the recipe for a "what's next" reminder, when LO--baking soda is needed! I'd missed it when I scanned the thing to make a shopping list. And what's the one thing we don't have in this entire apartment (besides peace, quiet, and over all cleanliness)? you got it, baking soda.
Nothing for it but to pour the whole thing down the sink.
Next morning, I over sleep, as I was supposed to be up at 8, go buy my oats and baking soda, and then get the show on the road. Woke up at 9. I scramble to the store, and I'm back, getting started, only this time, I start with the challah. It's a crazy new recipe for Honey-Oat-Rye-Whole-Wheat-we-swear-it-tastes-good-challah off of Chabad.com. I'm excited. I pour my 3 packets into the warms water, feed it the GALLON of honey it needs (seriously, I used an entire bottle of honey over the course of the day for all the various recipes), and enter roommates 1 and 2 (who I think are sleeping together, btw) because the bathroom's being redone. Suddenly I have to share a cooking surface the size of my face in a kitchen only nominally larger than my butt, with 2 other dudes. They start brushing their teeth and all that crap, and I'm trying to make bread?! It was kinda gross--I mean, couldn't you have asked maintenance to just stop for a second?
But finally I have the kitchen back to myself. And the yeast has gone crazy, and I've mixed all the flours and wet stuff and yeast and rolled oats together, rather fitfully, because the mixture is BIGGER than my BOWL! I start to knead it, and it's so fucking sticky, it's like punching a candy machine or something. I finally get it to form, and I set it to rise in a plastic bucket type thing.
I relax, and start washing the entire kitchen to remove the evidence of my kneading battle, so I can start on the cake.And as I wash the bowl, my pinky glides over the edge, which is apparently BROKEN and I flay the pad of my finger. I want to die now. But I overcome, I heal the wound with a bandaid, and keep cleaning, and then I start over with the cooking.
My cake, was a carrot one. Have you ever grated carrots with the tiny holes on a grater? It's awful. Worst experience of my life. But Abraham, you say, isn't grating easy because the grater stands up? FALSE! My grater is one of those cheap handheld lies down contraptions. So I gave up after two carrots, which mildly impacted the flavor and texture of the cake. I finish mixing, and I put it in the oven.
Again I wash the whole kitchen, this time to keep up appearances.
And then it's back to the bread. which has risen monstrously in my tiny, 3rd-floor-walk-up no-air-conditioning festering-pit of an apartment's kitchen. And it's sticky again. So I try to knead it, by slathering it with flour, and it appears to work. Then I try to braid it, less good, but it looks ok. Then I leave it to rise again.
Bad idea. It rises even worse--there is ZERO shape to this bread. So I just slam it in the oven, praying it will turn it.
It was ok. not the best challah in the world, and definitely far from the prettiest, but it got the job done. I still can't help but wonder at how big it would have grown.
So I go to class, come back, the bread's done, the cake's done, and all I need is the meat. I rush off to Jewel on Howard, buy me some chuck steak, rush to whole foods, buy me some ingredients for teriyaki beef, and come home. I mix all the stuff together (btw it took my entire brand new bottle of soy-sauce. unacceptable) for the marinade, slam the beef in, and then I'm cleaning. I clean my room, the kitchen--3rd time!--and the bathroom. I take a shower, and then I throw that steak puppy into the broiler.
Which is under the oven. Creepy, but cool. 15 minutes later, on the outside, its all done. I leave it in the broiler with the heat off, go to Daven, and then, sit down to a super-fly home cooked shabbat.
Love,
me.
p.s. I am never making that whole-wheat-rolled-oats-rye-honey-3-packets-of-yeast-it'll-be-fine-i-promise-you-love-chabad ever again. the end.
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