Alcoholic Pasta and Fireworks

After such a depressing string of posts, I figure it is time for some accounts of the really fun stuff that has been happening. Things have been getting better since I finished all the graduation stuff and moving but it is easy to just write about the annoying things instead of being entertaining.

So let me tell you about my 4th of July AFTER I wrote the blog post yesterday. After leaving the bookstore where I was using the internet, I went grocery shopping because I had mentioned to my roommate Eva that I going to stay home for the holiday and cook dinner. It had taken me a long time to decide what to cook (because it has been quite awhile since I've had time to do so!) but I finally settled on "You Won't Be Single for Long Vodka-Cream Pasta," a favorite recipe of Frances and Jonathan that I have enjoyed many times at their house. When I called to ask for the recipe, Frances and Jonathan were at a friends BBQ so Frances tried to remember the recipe off the top of her head. Well, it was almost correct but luckily I found the Rachel Ray book with the original recipe at the bookstore and sneakily typed it up on my computer while I was seemingly just using the internet.

Since I had typed the recipe up on my computer, I didn't have it handy to reference at the store. I should have written down the ingredients before hand because inevitably, stuff got forgotten. Two grocery stores later (in addition to the tea shop I started at, the bookstore where I found out about Beth, and several miles of walking between all these places), I got home. By this time it was already late for normal dinner time but Eva had waited so I powered through and started dinner.

The first thing I realized when I started cooking was that I had forgotten to buy the fresh basil that is essential to the recipe. I decided to substitute dry basil this time because I could not face walking anywhere else. The second thing I realized was that it was a really stupid idea to buy a bottle of vodka for this recipe, even though it was on sale, because Eva pointed out later that there are about four different bottles of vodka in the cabinets that I could have used (although I don't think the fruity flavored ones would have worked well). As a result, we now have an inordinate amount of vodka in the house and I don't really drink at the moment. The third thing I realized was that with my plans to make the pasta, corn-on-the-cob, and garlic bread, I was going to have to use all four burners, four pots/pans, and the oven. I tried very hard to not let any of this discourage me.

I started cooking. So far so good - water on its way to boiling, lots of garlic minced up for the bread and sauce, bread cut - not so difficult. I started the corn, prepped the bread, started the pasta water, and nervously began the great vodka-cream pasta sauce. Now it is important to understand that I copied the recipe from the cookbook word for word. However, Rachel Ray has a funny way with words - she doesn't like pressuring the inexperienced cook into measuring things perfectly or staying glued to the timer. I tried very hard to "stick to the recipe" in terms of the order she did things but I had some delays. I had accidently picked up the canned roma tomatoes next to the canned crushed tomatoes at Whole Foods and consequently "crushed" them myself in the blender. Somehow my pasta was already cooked at a point in the sauce recipe BEFORE the direction "simmer until pasta is cooked through." Apparently I was supposed to time them off each other??? So I added the vodka (and tried not to be too particular about the measurement, a la Rachel Ray), and had to guess when it was done simmering. In the meantime, everything else was finished nicely and I got things ready at the table. At an arbitrary time, I tried to taste the sauce to see if it was ready but it was too hot so I just decided it was probably done and I added the pasta.

Eva came out, we served up, and tasted what was supposed to be my masterpiece 4th of July meal, for which I had spent all day planning and shopping. Well. As you may have guessed by the title of this post, the vodka-cream pasta was still a little "strong"... It was very "vodka-y." I went and turned on the stove again to try to cook out some more of the alcohol which probably made the pasta way over cooked but the sauce is probably now less "potent." In addition, Rachel Ray had suggested serving this dish with a good bottle of Chianti so I decided to go all the way and got the wine as well. If you don't understand how much alcohol was probably left in that pasta sauce, let me put it to you this way - Eva remarked that "if you drink a sip of the wine first and then eat the pasta, it doesn't really taste like alcohol anymore....but after a few bites it wears off and you have to drink the wine again..." It was still a tasty meal over all but not quite the same outcome of this recipe when prepared by the fabulous Jonathan and Frances. Maybe the taste was off because of the dried basil. Maybe there weren't enough crushed tomatoes. Or maybe I just put in a little too much vodka. We'll never know but I'm still nicknaming the dish "alcoholic pasta." Eva and I were a little "happy" by the end of the meal but as I pointed out, there was not TOO much vodka in it to begin with - at most we each had half a shot??

After dinner we cleaned up which didn't end up being as horrible as I thought, even though I had to use four pots and pans, multiple bowls, the cutting board, the blender, etc. By the time we finished, it was nearing 9pm and the Evanston fireworks were scheduled to start at 9:15pm. After awhile we started hearing distant booms but when we looked out our third floor window, there were no fireworks in sight. We just figured they were behind the trees and said "oh well, no big deal!" However, half an hour later, I started hearing louder fireworks and looked behind me out the window to see an amazing array of fireworks just above the trees! Apparently the fireworks we heard earlier were from another suburb or something and the Evanston ones started late. The show went on for almost 45 minutes and we could see most of through and over the trees. The best part were these new kind of fireworks (at least we're pretty sure they're new) that do the normal burst but then all the little sparks start moving in seemingly random directions like fireflies or maybe pool balls when you hit them really hard and the bounce all over the place. Eva and I don't remember ever seeing those before so watching them even with an obscured view paid off in the end.

So my day got a lot better, as you can see, even though the shock of Beth's death was with me throughout. However, she was the kind of person who would have gotten a really good laugh out of the alcoholic pasta and other antics. Overall, it turned out to be a good day.