ack, hack hack hack, the dog days of summer. i found it so hard to work today - the muggy air and all, so, i almost didn't. i've developed a routine that i am learning from kiran....which is, set up experiment, run to dental lounge like a stealth, plop down on couch without resistance, turn on satellite tv...eventually, they all come, everyone submits to the power of the luxurious dental lounge...other times, we escape for coffee and tea. or chocolate bars from the UCC. or escape to angelo's.
anyway, us first years have been doing this thing there each of makes lunch for all the others, one person a week. it's always the same...we sit down to eat, and then someone comes by and their eyes pop at the sheer abundance of food and the intricacy and commitment of it all and goes "WOW.....". it's been so fun, and although i love doing this kind of stuff, i wasn't sure, or didn't think we really would go through with it when we were all talking about it, but everyone's been so geared up for it. it makes me laugh when i think of tom talking in intricate detail about his mulligatoni soup (the differences in using different soup bases, what you can put in it), or kiran enlisting her mom's help for her dishes...we've gone round through everyone, and each time the lunches have become more elaborate and more elaborate...tom first made this spicy jambalaya, which was amazing because i've always wanted to make it but thought it too difficult, and just looking at pictures of jambalaya made my mouth water...then i volunteered to make lunch. i used the holy grail of cooking for business-savvy-stock-trading women, martha stewart's living simple collection. i made this cherry tomato pasta thing i've made before, but when i tasted it the night before i thought it tasted too tomato-y, not as much garlic-infused olive oil and parsley as i would have like, and sort of mini-freaked out. then i thought "to heck with it! i can't do anything about it now save for cooking through the night!" and i went to sleep. well, like most lasagnas and pizza, it tasted much better the next day. i suppose it needed a night of rest and smushing and flavor-melding...the oil mixing with the tomato and lessening its tart flavor, nestling the acids within its chains of carbon, garlic diffusing its whatever-oids through and through... in the morning i baked some garlic bread with cheese, packed up the instant pillsbury cookies from last night (yum yum yum the bst part of a meal in my eyes yum), and trugdged to school with an unspeakable amount of rotini pasta under one arm, everything else in the other...

the following week (i didn't know guys could cook. most of the guys i know don't cook) barry made...geez, for the life of me i can't remember what they're called. pitas stuffed with chicken and veggies with tzatziki (barry's homemade sauce!!!)...with laurie's light and fluffy saffron-scented rice...we've also had laurie's ricotta and spinach cannelloni (with no-boil pasta! how cool is that!), cherry pie from sebatini's (for dessert, not for an entire lunch, as i would have liked), kiran's greek pasta salad and rice and an exotic spinach concoction (with chick peas, tom apparently doesn't like - hates, chick peas)(i love chick peas)(and she thought she couldn't cook), cupcakes...and after tom's mulligatoni soup tomorrow, it'll be my turn again, and i don't know for the life of me what to make. i've been pouring through the naked chef and my milk calendars and the book grassyass and rolo gave me, even on-line martha during incubation times at work, but i don't know what i want to make....it's sometimes difficult to cook for a group of 6...quantity, transportability, viability overnight, taste (in other words, is it edible)...i wonder if 6 orders of harvey's poutine can be passed off as my very own home cookin'....(probably yes)

anyway, if you're not doing anything not this weekend, but next weekend, maybe you want to go to the Revival in toronto...my friend's sister started this magazine (sort of directed an asian people, i guess) called jasmine, and i think they're putting out a launch issue this fall. so next sunday (i think - the 20th? the 19th?) they're having a fundraiser/launch party at revival on college. there's free food and music and a fashion show, all asian-infused, so if you're looking for a boy/girl-friend....this might be your ticket. scores and scores of asian people all gathered in one venue!!!! aaahahahaaa!!! and kat said 2 or 3 hundred are expected to attend. and it takes place in the late afternoon, i'm not sure why. so, you can check out their info or invite on their website (www.jasminemagazine.com, i think) to rsvp (cheaper to get in if you rsvp) or e-mail me and i'll send you the invite.