watcha got cooking? #3

dinner 3. another success. . .

miss n came over for dinner.

what’s for dinner?


rogray was hard at work:


but in the end it payed off. . .chicken marsala!!


this is my plate:


and this is me eating it:

It was yummy.

for dessert miss n made. . .wait for it. . .


rice krispie treats!!!


we gobbled them up.


this was a harder meal for rogray because it involved more hands-on cooking and timing but he triumphed. the recipe was from rachael ray's 30 Minute Meals -- i only mention this because i know how much jk loves rachael ray! he doesn't really (she does seem to be getting more irritating with each day) -- but his mom is obsessed with her and wants him to find someone just like her -- which, if you knew him, is an absurd idea.

and to answer jk’s question – despite the rogray’s deep and profound love of chicken (honestly, if I were a chicken I would be long gone by now) he is going to venture out and when we are at my parents cabin this weekend he will make stuffed acorn squash. . . blogging will return next tuesday. . .starting tomorrow we’ll be in the mountains going on some hikes, sipping spiked hot cocoa, playing boggle, scrabble and various card games or watching movies in front of the fireplace. . .

oooh babies i love your ways. . .

these are rogray's twin niece and nephew with their mom, his sister.



they will be in two in december and they are hilarious. and apparently when stacked up, the same size as an adult.

they just got new haircuts -- g:



p just looks like he has dennis the menace hair no matter what you do and it is often sticking straight up in the back but next to uncle rogray his hair looks downright coiffed.



this is what happens when you give them chocolate cake:

g bypasses the cake and eats the fruit on her plate or prefers for you to pretend to eat her hand.



p, however, prefers to eat as much cake as he can shove into his mouth.



look at the joy in his eyes:



he sat like this for at least 5 minutes:



oh god. . .they're so silly. . .we're going to hang out with them on halloween -- they are both going as elmo.

hey good lookin. whatcha got cookin?

when rogray and i first started dating his idea of cooking was shake n' bake with kraft mac n' cheese and green beans on the side. other than that he was all thumbs in the kitchen. i was mildly horrified but i think that has more to do with the fact that he puts relish in his tuna salad more than the shake n' bake.

once we moved in together it became clear that if something was to be prepared for a meal together it would either be made by me or be shake n' bake. . .and that wasn't inherently desirable to either of us. so rogray and i set out to nurture rogray's cooking skills. over the course of the year in l.a. rogray learned to make pasta e fagioli, salmon and salads (he had a slight slicing and chopping problem). the golden age was when we are in our house-sit and we had access to a top notch outdoor grill next to a pool with a hot-tub in the backyard -- best 6 weeks ever! -- and we pretty much grilled everything we ate: zucchini, eggplant, onions, turkey dogs, turkey burgers, chicken, fish -- everything. it was glorious.

but since we were in our last sublet and we have been moving so much there hasn't been that much cooking going on and rogray was feeling like he was never going to get comfortable in the kitchen. so he has set himself an assignment: he will cook a month of dinners -- not dinner every night for a month -- he will cook 30 dinners. so every time we eat in he is in charge of making dinner and he is going to make something new every time.

this means i am his happy taste tester and sated dish washer. and faithful reviewer.

dinner 1: arroz con pollo.



rogray got the recipe out of cook's illustrated and it was absurdly delicious. the chicken was actually falling off the bone and the flavor was big and yummy -- this is definitely going to be something we crave. i was very impressed and gobbled it up not just for diner but lunch the next day. the one flub was that rogray underestimated how long it would take to prepare this so we didn't eat until 9:30 and i had to leave by 9:50 to walk over to koogs' to watch the finale of project runway (side note: whatever to the jeffrey winning -- obviously it was going to be him and it was a let down and predictable so pttttthhh -- uli and laura were amazing. michael was disappointing but i still love him.)

dinner 2: pasta in a spinach and goat cheese sauce with beet salad.



the beet salad was originally supposed to be a dish made with fresh peas, lemon zest and mint but since peas are out of season rogray opted for beets with tasty results -- he even cooked and peeled the beets himself! who needs canned veggies? not this guy!

now before i go on to the pasta let me first say that it had nothing to do with rogray's execution -- he followed the recipe and it ended up being lame -- way too much garlic -- to the point that it burned in my mouth and not enough goat cheese. and also -- it did not make good leftovers so it was a downer all around.

tonight chicken marsala and broccoli with garlic and asiago.

and for the record, i have been know to request rogray's shake n' bake dinner -- i quite like it.

You think you're in the movies

rogray and i were walking down the street the other night and saw this:




it was an eerie and beautiful sight.





then we realized that it was the will smith vampire movie that has such an enormous budget they can afford to shut down washington square park completely...for days. it is an understandable nuisance to many but it is employing acquaintance and lovely choreographer david neumann who, i can say from personal experience is an excellent salsa partner. and the shoot also scored me these three pics -- which i quite like.

movin' on up

rogray and i have been living in a state of perpetual motion for about 14 months now: august 2005 we moved to l.a., moved from sublet 1 into sublet 2 after 6 weeks, moved from sublet 2 to a house-sit after 7 months (not too shabby) and then moved from house-sit to sublet 3* after another 6 weeks only to leave sublet 3 and head back to nyc after another almost 2 months. after our 10 day road trip we crashed at mo & tweak's place for a week and have since moved into our apartment with the help of these guys:



the lumberjack is on the right and c-squared is on the left. c-squared has helped rogray with every one of his moves since college and his generosity extended to me when he came and helped me move my crap into storage with my parents for the big l.a. move -- he's like mother theresa.

we've spent the last 2 weeks turning this:



into this:



unlike noah who reveals pictures of his place when it's all done and looking gorgeous (and clearly his wife is crafty (and i mean that in a making pillows kind of way not a "she's conniving" kind of way even though i've never met her so maybe she is conniving but i doubt it) which i admire because I can't even safety pin my jeans to be even) i like to reveal pictures of my place in a state of not done-ness.

so, as you can see, we need more shelving and we desperately need art on the walls and for my books to get here but the art and the books are in atl with my parents so thatÂ’s going to have to wait. but now it's a livable space and we can have people over for meals and things. and the sparseness doesn't change the love we feel for our cheap, big 1 bedroom in an elevator building with laundry on the 1st floor with heat, water and gas included -- and i'm not going to tell you where we live because i don't want the secret getting out.

now, you may be thinking "how did shaygo and rogray survive all that moving as individuals much less as a couple?" and that is a very good question. and i am not sure i know the answer but i do know there were some breakdowns along the way. let me just say that the fact that rogray can stand to look at me much less claim to still love me proves that I am very lucky and that he is a glutton for punishment.

pretty much the breakdowns in l.a. are a distant memory but for the last: a full-on meltdown while packing the car in broad daylight -- and i mean crying. audibly. while rearranging the trunk. because that's how i roll.

we were doing quite well until we were in the unpacking phase and i freaked out because it "seemed" like there had been no progress made despite the multiple trips to ikea, target and bed, bath, & beyond and the kitchen looking like this:



but now all i feel is relief to be living in our own place with our own stuff and the knowledge that we don't have to move unless we want to -- which we never will because the whole process is exhausting.

*speaking of sublet 3 -- this is the one we are waiting on the deposit from and we decided last night were taking the ho to small claims court because rogray did some creative googling and discovered that she's a scam artist. She posted her place for sublet on craigslist a few days before we were leaving and 4 hours after her post someone posted a beware saying that she's nice in the beginning to gain your trust and then disappears on you and doesn't return your deposit. all i'm saying is: it's fucking on...to be continued.

waiting for tonight!

so i am back temping (couldn't be happier, really. beside myself with joy.) tonight when i get home i am going to upload a bunch of photos and get back to posting on as regular a basis as possible. but i'll leave you with this story in the meantime:

apparently we weren't supposed to move into the building on a saturday but since we had yet to see a lease much less sign one (still haven't btw)and nobody told us that when we handed over the money we didn't know that so we got some minor amounts of crap about it. i just acted all sweet and stuff and people seemed to forgive us -- and for the most part the other tenants couldn't be nicer. it was actually shocking how chatty and upbeat everyone was.

anyway, the next day as rogray and i are up to our necks in boxes and chaos i left to go get us some cleaning supplies (you heard me, i bought stuff to clean our house with and someday i'm gonna use it) and ran into an older woman with quite the brooklyn accent who immediately started admonishing me for moving in on a saturday. it went something like this:

old lady: are you the one who just moved into the building?

me: yes. i'm shaygo.

ol: well, i talked to your husband* yesterday and i told him that the house rules state that nobody can move in on a saturday -- monday trhough friday 8-5 is ok though.

me: i know i know nobodytoldusandwehadn'tseenaleasesowedidn'tknowblahblahblahsame story we told everyone else yesterday we're moved in so at least it's over.

ol: let me show you where the house rules are posted. (turns her granny cart around and takes me to the wall next to the mailboxes.) who'd you rent from (name redacted but she asked if i rented from the racist broker)?

me: yes.

ol: he's a serious bastard.

me: yeah! he is. . .(but i was actually really excited to hear her say this)

ol: who was in your apartment before?

me: i don't know.

ol: oh yeah -- it was that oriental couple. so here are the house rules:noloudmusicaftermidnightnosatellitetvnomovinginonsaturdayblahblahblahblahblah.

at this point i stopped listening because all i could think was that she and i thought the racist broker was a bastard for different reasons obviously.

what can i say -- i guess we're surrounded.

in other news we are still waiting on our security deposit to be returned from our last sublet in l.a. you can read about previous craziness with her here courtesy jk. she is now a month overdue and has avoided our calls and emails so we have gotten our family friend who is a lawyer involved. it's crazy, annoying and a nice chunk of change she has. . .

*normally i would say rogray's my bf but in this case if it seemed that i would be offending her by revealing that so i let it go. . .when i told rogray about the convo he says he never had a conversation with any old lady -- meaning that the lumberjack or c-squared -- rogray's 2 valiant friends who helped us move were blessed with her presentation of the house rules. sorry boys.

it's oh so quiet. . .

why? because rogray and i took the apartment from the racist realtor and are in the process of getting his things from storage at his mom's in Amish Pennsylvania and my stuff out of storage in Jewish Long Island and are moving in starting tommorrow!

posts to look forward to:

cross-country re-cap -- with pictures!

ist week in nyc re-cap -- with pictures!

musings on the amish -- probably no pictures.

a post about my cat and her interactions with mateo, koogs and the hulk -- because she's that loco. maybe a picture of her.

these will happen in between and after trips to target, costco, ikea and anywhere else we can get the three million things we need for our place.

Sendin' out an S.O.S.

does anyone know how to make a blogroll? and also how to install a blog tracker? me no likey html.