Of cooking and couches

Last night I had a dinner with a small group of friends -- each of us brought a dish. I brought a delicious (if I do say so myself) tabbouleh salad, my mom's recipe. And it reminded me how much I love cooking. How much I MISS cooking. It's not even necessarily that I don't have the time, it's more that the time I do have I tend to spend on the couch in front of the TV. I really love camping out there.

So, in a fabulous combination of two of my favorite things, I've gotten hooked on Fox's Hell's Kitchen. For one thing, it's one of the only shows on that has new episodes during the summer. For another, it features food AND backstabbing. I mean, there's no beating it. Tonight, for instance, the person assigned to pick two teammates to go on the chopping block for elimination made an unlikely decision in saving the guy who was clearly meant to be eliminated. The result was that Chef Ramsay decided to cut Chris, the only one on the show who's actually a professional executive chef. Turns out Ramsay was sick of Chris claiming that he was an expert, and failing to impress, week after week. My money's on Elsie. Ramsay likes her, and she actually works her butt off, even though she has started to crack/freak out a little bit recently. We'll see. She's a good one to root for, anyway -- a mother of six who's giving the chef thing the old college try. Who couldn't rally around that?

On a somewhat related topic, I now have a new place to rest myself while I engage in my favorite activity. When JCA left town, she also left me her couch -- all I needed to do was pick it up. Suffice it to say, picking up a large sectional couch is a lot harder than it sounds. I don't recommend attempting to do it yourself, as I did. It will take you all afternoon and you will quite possibly injure yourself. Nevertheless, I am now the proud owner of four pieces of the prettiest little (um, well, big, actually) leather sectional in Chicago. Thanks, J -- I promise to take care of her :)


Look how pretty she is!