Rainy cooking

August 20, 2009

Oh my goodness, I am more and more surprised every time I write down the date. I can’t believe that it is almost time to leave, and I am getting depressed.

Yesterday I decided to don my chef’s hat and cook dinner for the family, considering that my mother is now at work all day and doesn’t have much time to prepare everything. However, I had made plans to go out to dinner last night with Jenn and Kristin because it was Kristin’s only day off before my departure. Considering my absence, I decided to make food that I could refrigerate and save for today’s dinner instead.

I first made pizza shells according to my new recipe that I found online from an Italian pizza company. It described the perfect levitation of the bread and the ingredients to make mass quantities of pizza dough. I reduced this recipe to make approximately six shells, and the dough is now waiting in the refrigerator for the pizza making tonight. While I was in the baking mood, I also decided to try a new lasagna recipe that I found in my nonna’s Italian cooking magazine. It was lasagna with different layers of cheese, noodles, sauce, and sautéed vegetables. I decided to improvise the sauce, and I made a few changes to the original recipe. Considering that it was a vegetable-based lasagna, I decided to cook chunks of eggplant into my home-made sauce amongst the other ingredients. In addition, I substituted a vegetable layer of mushrooms for cherry tomatoes, fresh baby spinach and eggplant. I feel that sautéed mushrooms emit too much of their own watery flavoring to accompany the layers of sauce. Anyways, it is all beautifully composed in a circular springboard pan (used to make cheesecakes), and once it is cooked, we can remove the side of the pan to reveal the pretty colored layers of the circular lasagna. I hope it all turns out delicious!

Before tackling my lovely lasagna whim, I needed to go to the store to buy the ingredients. As I arrived in the parking lot of Giant Eagle, it started to rain; perfect! I was driving my nonna’s very old ’92 “white boat” vehicle, and she luckily had an umbrella in the car. I did my shopping, and I was pleased as punch to see a rainstorm monsoon sweeping the Giant Eagle parking lot as I emerged! I couldn’t have been more angry with my luck, and my light-hearted cooking mood was quickly diminishing. Water was cascading down the cement, and I had to brace myself and run towards the white boat, trying to futilely protect my groceries, my leather purse, and my newly-showered and straightened hairdo. In the end, I was completely drenched, as was mostly everything in sight; I threw my belongings into the car that by the way, has no automatic locks. The umbrella was, as always, useless, and I just threw it down in recognition of it being a hindrance to my juggling and the shopping cart that kept rolling away. I actually started laughing at the episode as I was being pummeled by rain. I finally dove into the car and slammed the door. I sat inside looking at my wet face in the mirror of the car, incredulous as to the turn of events; I was soaked.

I drove off in a pissed-off mood over my rotten luck, but I tried to shake it off to preserve my inspired and good-intentioned cooking venture of the day. I tried to bat away annoyance when the rain mitigated as I neared home. I picked up my Nonna to come down to the house to be my co-chef. I changed my wet clothes, threw on an apron, and we cooked up the recipe, finishing as my mom got home from work. I hope my cooking adventure turns out to be delicious tonight.

Robert is all moved into his dorm room up at college, and he sent me pictures in a text message. Mom, dad and I will be riding up to State College tomorrow to visit both Christa and Robert’s living situation for the fall semester, and we will be bringing them home-baked treats and the rest of their belongings . Christa will be doing student teaching for her last-semester, and she is living in a spacious apartment farther away from campus. I am excited to return to the alma mater to see them before I leave and before they begin with their educational duties this year.

I woke up to an unfamiliar silence this morning, and I took my dog on a walk after reading the news. I am a bit anxious now because I have no stabilized lifestyle. This period at home is so strange because it is very transient and unproductive, and I will be returning to a very precarious and unsure situation in Italy. My home feels like my base, but I have no current responsibility attached to this place; this leads me to feel dangerously unattached during this period. I need to mentally prepare myself for my return to Italy, and I pray that I have some luck in finding stabilization, at least until December. For now, all that is definite is my lasagna—I hope.