Wednesday, May 09, 2007
How many Councillors does it take to make some dinner?
Last night I took advantage of my final night off of the week by doing very little. In honour of the 18th century communication methods which must have frustrated the life out of William Pitt the Younger, I am making very slow progress on William Hague's biography of him. But I managed 50 more pages yesterday evening, in between bouts of Orange Broadband Helpdesk-baiting (my new favourite past-time, although one which is meeting with no success) and dinner ruining.
I decided to create a chicken and gnocchi Italian style treat, but I had forgotten the fact that the elementary laws of physics often conspire to spoil my culinary efforts - in trying to keep the gnocchi edible for longer than a couple of days, I had frozen it. When requiring it to be thawed quickly (the chicken was already on the grill by this point) it was of course frozen solid into a single massive block, far too big for the pan and containing way too much gnocchi even for me. Having attacked the gnocchi brick with a variety of sharp implements (number of pieces of cutlery bent beyond recognition as a result: 2), screeching like a banshee as I raced across the kitchen brandishing carving knives / scissors / even, at one point, a cricket bat, I succeeded only in removing a single piece. I plonked the remainder into the pan, and watched the bottom few cook nicely but remain stubbornly stuck to the frozen rest.
Eventually there was a limited amount of success, and I ensured that most was cooked. Unfortunately I had yet to complicate the already sorry tale with the addition of sauce, approximately 3 gallons of which flowed forth from the container with the merest hint of a tap on the bottom of the pesto jar.
So early visions of a chicken and gnocchi culinary tour de force turned into an ugly mess involving a small portion of chicken which was entirely dwarfed by a mound of gnocchi that could've fed my extended family quite nicely, all of which was swimming in a bath of pesto.
1,424 votes, and I can't even cook my own tea...
Thankfully tonight I have dinner taken care of, courtesy of the good people of Bury Council, who are providing me with sandwiches as part of the new councillor's induction. And I shall report back on that tomorrow.
Rick
I decided to create a chicken and gnocchi Italian style treat, but I had forgotten the fact that the elementary laws of physics often conspire to spoil my culinary efforts - in trying to keep the gnocchi edible for longer than a couple of days, I had frozen it. When requiring it to be thawed quickly (the chicken was already on the grill by this point) it was of course frozen solid into a single massive block, far too big for the pan and containing way too much gnocchi even for me. Having attacked the gnocchi brick with a variety of sharp implements (number of pieces of cutlery bent beyond recognition as a result: 2), screeching like a banshee as I raced across the kitchen brandishing carving knives / scissors / even, at one point, a cricket bat, I succeeded only in removing a single piece. I plonked the remainder into the pan, and watched the bottom few cook nicely but remain stubbornly stuck to the frozen rest.
Eventually there was a limited amount of success, and I ensured that most was cooked. Unfortunately I had yet to complicate the already sorry tale with the addition of sauce, approximately 3 gallons of which flowed forth from the container with the merest hint of a tap on the bottom of the pesto jar.
So early visions of a chicken and gnocchi culinary tour de force turned into an ugly mess involving a small portion of chicken which was entirely dwarfed by a mound of gnocchi that could've fed my extended family quite nicely, all of which was swimming in a bath of pesto.
1,424 votes, and I can't even cook my own tea...
Thankfully tonight I have dinner taken care of, courtesy of the good people of Bury Council, who are providing me with sandwiches as part of the new councillor's induction. And I shall report back on that tomorrow.
Rick
# posted by Richard Baum @ 12:56 
