Three Photos

Made dinner on Saturday for our housemate D and our friend F for their birthdays, which were both several weeks ago. Joe made manicotti (from scratch) and a nice big pot of gravy—for all you non-Italians, that’s tomato sauce with meat. It’s taken me quite a while to start referring to tomato sauce as gravy. But it’s only gravy if it has meat in it. In Joe’s case, his gravy is full of pork ribs and sausage. Meatless tomato sauce isn’t gravy, but marinara.

I made an antipasto, which is something I really enjoy doing, mostly because it’s one of the few dishes that I make that requires any kind of artistic presentation, but also because it’s full of all kinds of things that, if you ate them every day would probably kill you, but are OK in moderation. I feel like a real Italian housewife when I prepare an antipasto, and Joe is always impressed with my mozzarella roses.

I called Tutto Italiano (1893 River Street, Hyde Park) a few days in advance to order the ingredients so I could just breeze in Saturday morning and pick up everything. They are very popular and are pretty much busy from the moment they open on Saturday and I really hate having to wait in line. However, even having called ahead so as to avoid a long wait, I still felt rushed Saturday as evinced by my having put my sweater on inside-out. Joe found this very amusing and thought it would be cute to take a picture of the back of my neck showing that I still haven’t learned to dress myself. I must have still been rushing around that evening, my rapid movements causing the only photo of me to come out quite blurry. I liked it.

Mike the drummer was also present. He shaved his beard (as he had warned me he was going to do) even though I told him that I would likely find him irresistible clean-shaven. Indeed, when I answered the door and beheld his boyish beardless face underneath his lovely mop of red hair, I had to resist the impulse to plant one on him on the spot. He’s quite adorable and he now knows that I think so, but he’s sweet and indulges me in my crush. Liberated straight guys are so cool. He also brought a cheesecake that he made himself, which was delicious.