Pesto

Running Diary of Meatloaf Dinner Night

This post is dedicated to Kate Murphy.



"From these ingredients, there will be meat loaf."

6:14: I am home, and I have ingredients. Very excited about the meat loaf (meatloaf? I'm unsure). Excited enough that I would be listening to a Meat Loaf CD if I had one. Since I don't, I am going to go ahead and buy "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" on iTunes and that will be the soundtrack for tonight's cooking. As an added bonus, I'll own a song that I would love even if the video DIDN'T prominently feature riding motorcycles in the house. Which this one does.

6:38: Peppers and onions are sauteing with salt and pepper. Garlic will go in momentarily. Meat Loaf song has been purchased and is about to go on the stereo.


"This pan was a Christmas present from Laura."

6:40: Veggies are cooking and smelling nicely as Meat Loaf's awesome voice rocks the apartment. It is shaping up to be a great meal. More of an experience than just a meal.

"Some days I just pray to the Gods of sex and drums and rock n roll." - Meat Loaf

Isn't it the truth. - Me

6:44: A piece of green pepper fell on the floor and I picked it up and ate it under the provisions of the 5-second rule. I spent most of the weekend mopping my floors, so I didn't hesitate. Funny enough, I told Anno earlier today that the kitchen floor was so clean I would allow Lyla to eat off of it (one reason that I should not babysit all that often). A few hours later, there I was...eating off it myself...kind of. Moving on...

6:46: That song is awesome. One Loaf song isn't enough so I've added "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" to my music collection, turned up the volume, and added the garlic.

Side note: I remember having a pretty strong adolescent male reaction to the lady ("Mrs. Loud") who sings with Loaf on "I Would Do Anything..." I have just made a mental note to find the video and see if I still think 1993 Mrs. Loud was way hot.

6:49: What was that about a Cracker Jack box? "Two Out of Three..." may not be as lyrically strong as the last song. Veggies have been transferred to mixing bowl, where they await the ground beef and sausage.

6:57: I'm mixing meatloaf ingredients together and I'm out of Meat Loaf...

6:59: And now the 1977 album "Bat Out of Hell" is downloading to this very computer...

7:01: Oh yeah. So much Meat Loaf.

7:16: Everything's been mixed and ready to press into the pan.

7:18: Going into the pan:



7:22: Ready for the oven.



7:25: It's cooking in the oven. This is minute 1 of 90. So I have some time to upload the pictures I've taken so far, get a new beer, clean my dishes, and keep my eyes on the prize by enjoying my new classic (came out in '77, as did I) rock album...

7:46: Dishes are done. And I am eating cheese for an appetizer because my friend is a cheese salesman and he traveled to NYC last weekend. He is a traveling cheese salesman.



A few cheesy rhymes notwithstanding, this Meat Loaf CD is phenomenal. Rocking, heartbreaking, epically theatrical at times, and all very well sung. Loaf has a cool and distinctive voice.

7:47: An absolutely amazing thing just happened. I was sitting here typing up some notes for this entry and listening to Meat Loaf and watching TV with the sound off. I was watching "Wedding Crashers" because that's what I do whenever "Wedding Crashers" is on, and I looked up and saw Owen Wilson talking to Will Farrell and I realized that what was about to happen was absolutely amazing and I grabbed my camera and snapped this picture just in time:


"MOM! The meat loaf!!! FUCK!"

7:52:

"I can see paradise by the oven light."

7:58: Potato is stabbed and baking.

8:33: Looking good. 20 minutes left for the loaf and the spud. Time to start the spinach.



9:01: It is so good.

Test

Melanie Gras 09

Sorry, Mel. I know it's not cool to make you jealous this early on Melanie Gras.


The happy couple...a king and a queen...




Yeah.



I like how you can see the bubbles.


Looking forward to getting into it for serious tonight!

Yeah, Uh-huh One More Saturday Night

Saturday night was, of course, The World's Shittiest Costume Party, aka Stefan's 31st Birthday Party. I made a run to "Save on 5th" for $3.50 worth of party supplies (black duct tape, $1.50; big cardboard box, $1.99) as well as four light bulbs for $1.99 and a glass jar that holds a candle for 70 cents. You really do save at this place on 5th.

I got home and got to work:

A couple hours and a lot of head-sweat later, I had a perfect, brilliantly shitty guitar made out of a cardboard box, duct tape and nylon rope:


I took it for a quick test drive and was ready to rock, and by rock, I mean party:

Here are the hosts. From right to left, you have Birthday Guy Stefan as a shitty storm trooper and Biz as shitty slave Leia. If this recap leaves you hungry for more photos and commentary from this soon-to-be-legendary event, or if you've always wondered what a detective would like like if he had a dildo for a hand, check out Biz's summary at PrincessPonyPartyAmazing.

A lot of cardboard costume in this shot.

Here, going from left to right, you have Jaime and Jay as shitty David Wright and Wild, Wild West, disrespectively. Get it? She's Will Smith's shittiest movie. This costume operates at a high level.

In addition to shitty beer (it was actually just-fine Bud but, well, you know - this is Park Slope) and wine, mixed drinks named Number 1 and Number 2 were available:

I started with a cup of the Number 1, which was a sweet, beach-oriented drink with banana and coconut flavors. I moved onto the Number 2 which tasted like Long Island Iced Tea and napalm. Then it was on to trusty old Bud Heavy cans for the rest of the night. But I imagine I speak for myself and most of the partygoers when I say that Stefan's and my karaoke performance was the most intoxicating thing anybody served:

"You know where you are?"

"You're in the jungle, baby."

Later in the evening, some costume judging happened and Jay, Jaime and I accounted for 60% of the finalists. We are joined onstage by (right to left) Bad Habit and eventual prize-winner* "Stefan Sux"** (note the devil horns), who each accounted for 20% of the finalists.

* I believe the prize was a shitty cardboard keyboard for some reason.
** I'm not sure it comes across in this picture, but this was a fantastic costume and she was a deserving and grateful winner. She was happy about her prize to the point of being somewhat emotional about it.

Here are the hosts busting out a little karaoke. If it looks like they really know what they're doing, it's probably because they were up late the night before, practicing. The karaoke machine was a three-day rental and if you don't think they got their money's worth out of it, then I don't even know.

I'm not sure if this was in response to a noise complaint or a preemptive measure in anticipation of one, but the karaoke operation was moved inside at some advanced stage of the party. Everyone (everyone) teamed up at one point for a soaring "How's it Gonna Be?" that truly brought down the house (in other words, all of us singers received thunderous applause from and for ourselves).

"(l. to r.): Jay, Angela and Stefan enjoy Late-Night Group Indoor Karaoke."

The party finally broke around 3:30 and I headed home, sat down on my couch, realized I was hungry, and walked to the diner for a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and mozzerella sticks.

Sunday's accomplishments were minimal.

Dark Knight Night

Most of you know that I only go out to the movies about twice a year. Monica (who, if she has been campaigning this week for election as some kind of Social Coordinator, is doing a great job) got a group of eight of us together last night to go see The Dark Knight. My movie recommendation engine (and fellow blogger) Jay had asked previously in the summer if I planned to see anything this season and, when I said that I didn't but was open to a suggestion, told me that this would be the one. Between that and my desire to witness some of the bedlam that was sure to come with opening night of this movie in the city, I gladly accepted Monica's invitation.

I left work, headed up to Times Square, and dropped into Viva Pancho for a couple beers before dinner. Mel C. and her friend Kristen stopped by and I had the bartender take our picture.

"Pre-Pre Partying"

Pancho's is the kind of fancy joint that offers Quick Draw and I played a two-dollar seven-spot card. My winnings are pictured below in their entirety. As you can see, I'm upside-down on my wager.

Can anyone other than Ol' Dad recognize the significance of the numbers visible in this picture of my card? Click the photo to enlarge it.

The next stop was Virgil's for some barbeque. If you look up "six on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest" in a dictionary, you will see a picture of this place. Without question, it scores just on the good side of "average" in every category except for maybe "value" since it's located in Times Square. It was a nice and fun dinner but these guys can't hold the Dinosaur's jock.

Mary makes some adjustments to the foliage in her mint julep, which, predictably, scored a solid "6".

We walked over to the AMC Empire 25 theater at about 7:45 to claim our pre-ordered tickets and start lining up. There was a crowd, and you could tell that something buzz-worthy was going on, but it wasn't quite the zoo that I expected.


The theater had a show starting every 30 minutes and did a pretty good job of keeping people outside of the theater until shortly before each showing started. As someone who had to use the can at around 8:00, I would argue they did a little bit too good a job. I first talked to a ticket-taker, making the case to let me upstairs to use a restroom since there are none in the lobby level. I promised I wouldn't sneak into the 8:30 show, but still wasn't allowed up. I escalated things to a manager, who at first also refused to budge. I wasn't getting anywhere, but I also wasn't going anywhere. I played the "I'm a paying customer. You can't refuse me access to a bathroom!" card, unsuccessfully. Finally, I broke the situation down to its core and simultaneously asked him to put himself in my shoes: "Look. I badly have to take a piss. What would you do if you were me?" He paused, relented, and said that he would ESCORT me upstairs. I got on the escalator and, luckily, he didn't actually follow.

Afterwards, I re-joined my friends on the line. They were starting to get excited:


But probably not as excited as this guy:

If you look closely, you'll see that there are at least four people in this picture taking a picture of the Bat Mobile. What a bunch of losers. Wait...never mind.

I have somewhat weird and unpredictable taste in movies, I was balls hot and uncomfortable in the theater, and so exhausted that I had to fight to stay awake at times even though the movie is visually and aurally spectacular. I don't know much about the Batman series or stories and I didn't get too engaged with the plot of this movie. I felt the same way watching The Dark Knight as I did watching Lawrence of Arabia or the one Lord of the Rings movie I tried: it's quite a feat of film-making and I understand why people who love it think it's awesome, but I didn't find myself enjoying it and I checked my watch fairly often, wondering how much longer it would be until it was over. Beyond that, I'm leaving the reviewing to the professionals, who are pretty unanimous in their praise.

And on that note, I'm off to fashion a shitty Les Paul (the guitar, not the man) out of cardboard.

Week in Review

Sunday: Yardwork. In the morning, the yard didn't look so good. In fact, it looked like something out of a Vietnam War movie:

View from the back patio

From the patio and looking toward the right.

It was quite a jungle. This seems like a good time to mention that my mom recently saved me about $150 in yard care equipment. I told her a couple weeks ago that the hardware store was getting in some rotary lawnmowers and that I was going to buy one and cut down my lawn, which had gotten out of control. Without even seeing my "lawn" she suggested that my tall "lawn" might actually be mostly weeds and that perhaps I could just pull them out. It turns out that I had almost no grass at all, and the weeds came up in big clumps. I have no idea how she knew this. Some kind of motherly intuition, I guess.

I yanked them out as best as I could, and cut back a lot of the branches from my neighbors' trees that were extending over my side of the fence. I bought a hoe (insert your own joke here; no, seriously, it's OK - it never gets old) and turned over all the soil back there. Cleaned my tabletop and swept all the concrete.

Five hours, 96 ounces of water, dozens of bug bites, a good sunburn, and numerous minor cuts and scrapes later, this is how it looked:


Monday: Free New York Philharmonic concert in Prospect Park. This was a great event that Monica put together. She didn't put together the whole concert event, just our friends' outing to the concert event. Beautiful night, stunning sky, and this orchestra is a pretty competent outfit. Wine and a Thermos full of margaritas. Pretzels, hummus, chips, veggies, black bean salsa, dark chocolate, chorizo, cherries, goat cheese, and chocolate espresso beans.

Jesus, what a bunch of yuppies.

Broke out my picnic backpack.

The view from our spot.

Bonus.

We even night-capped it with a couple pints of beer at the bar after the last of the fireworks. Heck of a Monday.

Tuesday:

That's right, strawberry margarita night at the Gordon household. I don't really have much to add.

Wednesday: My stomach wasn't feeling too good in the morning (no correlation to Strawberry Margarita Night, of course) so I stayed home from work. I had Season 1, Disc 1 of The Wire on a DVD from Netflix, which I got around to joining on Sunday as I'd meant to for about four years. After watching the three episodes on the disc, I walked to 7th Ave, opened a video store membership, and rented the next two discs. By the time I called it a night and conceded that the day had really gotten away from me, I'd watched the first eight episodes.

This show was going to disappoint me if it were anything less than the best drama I've ever seen. It's cool that it's living up to my ridiculously high expectations.

Thursday: Best miscellaneous NYC street exchange involving me, so far this month:

Black guy: "WOW! There he is! There the guy who gets all the chicks!"
Me (continuing to walk, nodding): "Ha ha!"
Black guy (louder, as I'm walking away): "HOW DO YOU DO IT?!?"

It seems to be a commonly held belief amongst very slightly crazy black guys that I get "all the ladies." It started with the homeless guy in Georgetown a few years back who looked and sounded exactly like Samuel L. Jackson who swore I got all the "bitches" because "YOU A PRETTY MUTHAFUCKA!" More recently, a dude on the subway came up to me to say I must get all the ladies because of this nice hair. And of course, if you ever grilled with Trevor and me in front of the 187A, you noticed that black people were much more forthcoming with the props for our outstanding year-round grilling operation than were white folks. This led us to the conclusion that "BPLU" - Black People Love Us. If you're not familiar with the excellent blog of the same name, you should be.