I'm a bit too affected by certain TV shows.

My pasta carbonara was tasty. Yay!

The next night's spaghetti squash with ground turkey and tomato sauce was also tasty. Huzzah!

The next night's burritos were predictably tasty. Cheers!

The next night, both parents were out of the picture (they traveled away for a 21st anniversary getaway) so I made cauliflower soup with bacon. It was tasty. Whee!

And tonight was dumplings again. Tasty tasty. Wahoo!

I am feeling rather wildly successful with what I have chosen to cook these days. So, in this mood, I am going to tackle a fear: gelatin. I am making panna cotta tomorrow. Just watch. I even bought little ramekins at Goodwill today to mold it. And I'll make a little blueberry sauce to go with it. I anticipate tastiness ahead.

Oh yeah! My sister and I went shopping today! Super fun. I got some shirts, a scarf, a bag (I really needed one that wasn't ripped canvas from Hot Topic), a $2 wiggly butterfly ring, which got me a compliment and then got completely bent out of shape, the aforementioned ramekins, and a pretty teacup to go with my recently received Moste Excellent Elephant Teapot, Whom I Have Named Elwood.

The rest of my money goes to Italy, though. Honest. Well, that and bills.

On Wednesday, a neighbor of ours called me and asked if I could watch/tutor/supervise her kid in the mornings. He's homeschooled like I was, and she just wanted me to supervise his scholarly pursuits so that she could do other things in that time. I of course said YES I WILL and so Thursday and Friday mornings were spent watching Theo, an adorable and endearing and intelligent youth. Also they have chickens, so I get to collect eggs, which is way fun. I need some chickens of my own, clearly. And I make monies, which is how I was able to go shopping this weekend.

Also on Wednesday (and a bit on Thursday), I made my doctors' appointments. I was informed that my chest pains are caused by inflamed cartilage between my ribs (which I sort of knew because that's what my dad told me his were), that my boob-mole removal scar had turned keloid on me, that I'm pretty healthy, that I have a funky mole on my side that needs to get gone, and that my periodic barfy thing is probably a GASTRIC MIGRAINE, and did you even know those existed? I totally didn't. But it makes sense; my sister and my mother both get regular migraines. Why shouldn't I get the vomitous one?

Anyhow, tomorrow I go to church, read at church, and make macarons and panna cotta, because Sunday is the day I am allowed to break the Lenten fast and I intend to make the most of my free reign. Refined sugar, into mah belly!

Saturday's dinner was a delicious batch of meat pies. Oh, I'm so thrilled to have found the perfect pastry crust recipe. It really just makes anything fantastic. And I'm so much more likely to make fancy pastry desserts now that I know I can churn out a reliably phenomenal crust every time.

So. We made meat pies with lamb, they were tasty, people fought over the leftovers. The end!

The next night I made Indian saffron-cardamom rice pudding (kheer) which was also tasty but unloved by my brother, unadventurous youth that he is.

Sunday I called lots of people. I re-contacted my three restaurants, getting a definitive "We're not hiring" from Petros, which, great, now I don't have to think about them anymore, and they were my last choice, and leaving direct messages for the head chefs at the other two, which is farther than I've gotten before. So yay progress! And my mother talked to her friend CT who runs her favorite wine bar and is close with the head chef at Patrick's Side Street Cafe, arguably the best restaurant in town, and he said that working for Patrick would probably be just fine, despite his bipolar and unpredictable nature around his customers. Apparently he's a good guy to work for, and I wouldn't have any trouble getting a recommendation from him or anything, which is what my mom was worried about. He's also definitely the most qualified chef; he trained at the CIA, and I think he was an instructor or a demonstration chef there for a spell. So I'll be dropping off my resume over his soon. And hoping.

I also called my credit card company, because despite following the proper official channels for an address change, I have not received my bill for this month, which is infuriating. I would just like to pay it and be done! But when I called, they hadn't changed my address. So I tried to change the address with the Visa company, but they apparently couldn't take the information from me over the phone; it had to be sent to them from my bank. I changed my address at the Oberlin branch of the Ohio Educational Credit Union, but I needed to have the main office send the info to the Visa company. Which, apparently, they did, after I called and explained. So I'm going to call the Visa company soon to make sure they have the right info and are sending me my bill before it's due sometime in the next week. Pfft. This being a financially responsible adult thing is more trouble than it's worth.

Dinner last night was a fantastic rosemary-clementine roast chicken with root mash and salad. And then I craved dessert but we had nothing (and I'm still on that refined sugar fast) so I used some puff pastry sheets I found in the freezer and made some sort of puff pastry cake layered with a blueberry-maple compote. I also added a spoonful of unsweetened marmalade to the blueberry stuff, which made it so zingy and wonderful. I ate the last chunk for breakfast this morning, albeit sans whipped cream.

Dinner tonight: probably pasta carbonara. We've got all the ingredients, and it's perpetually tasty. I might throw some of the leftover chicken in there too. If I REALLY feel like making it difficult, I'll make my own pasta.

Probably not, though.