Monday, November 14, 2005

Get in the kitchen and cook me some pie!!!

You can all start calling me Nigella Lawson, because I am a freaking DOMESTIC GODDESS!!!
We have this thing in my political science class where each week a couple of people are nominated to bring lunch for the whole class. Somehow I let slip that I Can Cook, and so find myself in sole charge of tomorrow's lunch. Which is fine and dandy, but being the perfectionist foody-type person I am, I hate to have pre-made anything. I make everything from scratch, that way I know whats in it. Also, it means I can take the credit for its awesomeness, but thats another story.

So, I have spent about two and half hours of my valuable time (only valuable because I have a research proposal due on Wednesday and readings for tomorrow to do and ten pages of a final paper due next week not because I was going to do anything fun like get drunk or watch telly or talk to my friends or kiss boys or anything) in the kitchen, like the Good Woman that I am.
I made a HUGE pot of chilli, all vegetarian-like because some of my class-mates don't like eating dead things, and its got beans and tomatoes and green peppers and lots of red chilli and just enough garam masala and some onion and some other things that are secret.

Then, I decided that instead of cooking rice or something nice and easy to go with the chilli, I decided that my class needed tortillas.
Incidentally, did you know that flour tortillas and paranthas are virtually indistinguishable? There's your fact for the day, all you need is a few cups of flour, a bit of salt, some oil and warm water, and you have either tasty tortilla action, or Indian flatbread, depending on the occasion.
So, I make up the tortilla mixture (we'll call it tortilla today, because chilli and parantha sounds silly) and started kneading it. And then kept kneading it. And then kneaded it a bit longer. And because it was such a big-arse mixture, it was going to take fricking FOREVER for the gluten to bind, so I stopped and had a wee rest. Then I kneaded some more. (now I have sore stomach muscles, which is a good sign) Then I got sick of playing with the dough, as one does, and decided to cook the little fuckers, whether they liked it or not. They're flour, its not like they're going to stage a mutiny. So, I cut the big fuck-off ball of dough into little tortilla sized pieces all ready to roll, and remembered that I don't have a rolling pin. I do, however, have a jar, which came in very handy. The thing with tortillas though, and especially in cold weather, is that you have to roll them out, and then stretch them, and then roll them again, and then stretch them, and then cook them.
After the first couple, it was all going well, and I began to feel like I was on a roll of sorts, excuse the bad pun. At around tortilla number eight I began to feel the strain, but continued on, knowing that when my classmates got their lunch it would all be worth it. Around tortilla number 14 I was ready to feed my classmates a ball of tortilla dough each. At about tortilla number 17 I began swearing out loud.
I made twenty of the little motherfuckers. TWENTY.

All I can say is that tomorrow in class, if there is a single person who doesn't say "gosh these tortilla are nice, its wonderful to have handmade food" that person will be recieving the patented Claire Smackdown (tm). I don't like to go into details, suffice to say within my "tools of the cooking trade" I have a knife who's blade is nearly a foot long, and which is kept almost surgically sharp.

The good news is that I tasted the chilli and it is Extremely Awesome, so you're all invited to help me eat the leftovers. You have to make your own tortillas though.

EDIT: This just in: Its a hard job keeping everyone happy. I've fixed my links again, in keeping with parochial loyalties. Any more problems please staple them to a frisbee and throw them the way the wind is blowing. They'll get here eventually.