World Building

Tonight I got home from work late — really, really late. 9:00 late. Today was Exhibition Night, the end of the Intersession period between New Year’s and the start of the spring semester. All of the Intersession classes focus on physical education or the arts; mine was cooking and nutrition, which sort of straddles the two (especially with the amount of walking we had to do to get to grocery stores, community kitchens and the like).

Our class cooked the food for Exhibition Night, but I didn’t get a chance to take part; I spent the whole day trying to get the class cookbook together, and eventually succeeded after THREE trips back and forth to Kinko’s. (Don’t ask.) Now, I enjoy cooking — it’s a very relaxing experience for me, most of the time — so by the time I got home I was ready to do some playing around in the kitchen for myself.

What transpired over the next hour was a perfect example of WHY I love cooking. The following more-or-less recounts my thoughts and actions in the order they took place.

1.) Look in the fridge for supplies. Hmm, there are those two chicken thighs I’ve been thawing out for a few days; I’d better use them for something now or I’m going to lose them.

2.) Pull out the chicken thighs, rinse, drain, squish out excess moisture. How can I cook these? Well, they’ve got a lot of fat in the skin and dark meat is pretty forgiving of high temperatures; I can sear the outside and then add a sauce and cook on low heat until they cook through. I have that jar of Bombay Simmer Sauce; maybe I’ll use that.

3.) Heat up cast-iron skillet to medium-high. Cover outside of the thighs with a very small amount of safflower oil, black pepper, and kosher salt. Let’s put the skin side down against the pan first; it’s a thick layer of mostly-fat, so it should crisp up pretty nicely when it hits the hot iron.

4.) Put chicken thighs in the pan, skin-side down. After 3-4 minutes … wow, look at that. The fat rendered out of the chicken and is coating most of the bottom of the pan. I’ve got enough hot lipid in there to saute some veggies. What can I use…?

5.) Quick search of the refrigerator and cabinets turns up onion, minced garlic, red peppers, and sliced mushrooms. Oooh. Okay, quickly, chop up half of the onion and throw it in there. (ow ow eyes burning ow) Flip over those chicken breasts, mix up the rendered fat with the onions to saute them nicely. Add the garlic a couple of minutes later; mix. Repeat for the mushrooms next, then the peppers.

6.) By this point a fair amount of moisture has cooked down into the pan, and we’re getting out of saute land and into stewing territory. Time to chop up some tomatoes — and yes, I have two Romas waiting for just such a purpose. (Chop chop chop.) Hmm, that doesn’t look like enough. I’ll add this can of diced tomatoes, too, after I drain out most of the juice into a mug. Mix in tomatoes and cover. Drink tomato juice. (Mmm. Lycopenes.)

7.) Somewhere around this point, I unconsciously shifted from “South Asian” mode to “Italian” mode. Maybe it was the leftover spaghetti waiting in the fridge for something to use with it. Maybe it was the fact that mushrooms and peppers didn’t seem very Bombay-ish. Maybe I just realized subconsciously that I had a jar of pesto I was waiting to try out. Whatever the reason, I put away the Bombay Simmer Sauce and opened up the pesto instead. Two heaping teaspoons, mix, mix … yeah, that looks about right. And I’ve got a ton of pesto left over for future experiments.

8.) Need green veggies. Spinach? Naw, I always do spinach. Hey, I’ve got this steamed broccoli left over! (Chop chop chop. Mix mix.) Cool, that’ll go well with everything else. Need time for this to cook down and for the chicken to finish cooking through; I’ll cover it and check back in 20 minutes. (Sets timer.)

9.) 20 minutes later … Wow, look at all that liquid. Even with all the tomatoes in there, the liquid is … GREEN! Whoa. Okay, gotta reduce this. Turn up the heat. (Bubble bubble bubble) There we go… (mix around, watching while liquid evaporates)

10.) 5 minutes later … Hmm. Okay, most of the excess liquid is gone, but this still isn’t looking much like a pasta sauce. Ahh, yes, my mom’s old trick for thickening sauces: tomato paste! (Opens up a can, mixes it in) MUCH better.

11.) Seasoning, seasoning … the pesto will have added a lot of flavor, but what can I do to spice this up a bit more? Garlic pepper, check. Fresh ground black pepper, check. Oregano, check. … That’s enough, I think. Don’t want a repeat of the Vegetable Beef Soup Incident. (mix mix mix)

12.) That chicken has GOT to get broken up now. Is it done? (Presses in spatula tip, breaks off a piece) Yep, it’s done. (Chops up chicken into small chunks, removes thigh bones, gnaws on thigh bones for excess meat) Ooh, hot hot hot … but TASTY!

13.) Y’know what this still needs? The same thing the world always needs: CHEESE. (Pulls out Parmesan/Romano/Asiago cheese blend, dumps in a liberal amount, mixes up)

14.) Moment of truth. Heat up some spaghetti noodles, spoon the chicken/veggie/pesto/chees

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This strikes me as especially funny after watching Rocky Horror last night.

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Yesterday I was in my favorite Starbucks — by which I mean it is the coffee shop closest to work — and noticed a sign on the window near the door:

SAFE PROTECTED BY
TIME CONTROL DEVICE

Wow, I thought. I knew that Starbucks was a big, powerful corporation and all, but it had never occurred to me that they would — or could — resort to direct manipulation of the space-time continuum in order to protect their profits.

How does it work, I wonder? Does the device freeze time around anyone who attempts to break in to the safe, thus holding them in a temporal bubble until the authorities arrive? Or does the safe itself leapfrog through the timestream, only appearing at set times so that the employees can deposit the store’s earnings? Is the device self-contained, or does it require access to an external power grid? And how great is its area of effect — could the entire store be moved forward and backward in time?

Hmm… maybe that would explain how the staff is so perky in the mornings. Sure, for us it may be a quarter to eight on Monday, but maybe the staff is just coming off of a Sunday afternoon siesta. I wonder if they can “fold” time (a la The Man Who Folded Himself), so they can take advantage of the same piece of time over and over again.  If I could get the same night’s sleep twice in a row, I’d definitely be a lot more chipper.

Hmm … I wonder if Starbucks has any openings in their temporal mechanics department?

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