Such a night last night.

Yesterday I took the train out to justincheetah‘s place at about noon and we went to work on putting together dinner for ten – me, Cheetah, rustitobuck, Colin, Datahawk, Posicat, kittylad, linnaeus, Innerwolf, and Skip Ruddertail (a fellow who I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting before, but was quite nice).

The menu was:
“Brie slag” (brie, butter, and brown sugar melted together into a big ol’ puddle – it sounds appalling but was quiet delicious!)
Homemade white bread
Roasted red pepper soup
Rosemary couscous
Sauteed escarole in garlic and bacon
Roasted orange chicken
Chocolate mousse

The plan was to have dinner on the table between 7 and 8 PM. I’ll just pause here for a moment for the giggles in the peanut gallery to subside.

While just about everything came out the way it should, a few minor setbacks (including the kitchen sink getting clogged and needing to be disassembled) pushed dinner time later and later. I believe food was finally on the table by 10, and the kitchen was, well, a disaster to put it politely (as my mom would say “It looked like someone spit at it and missed, and sh*t at it and hit”). After some relaxing after dinner and some quickie plumbing repairs, cleanup was finally wrapped up at around 2 AM. I regret to say I was of little assistance, since I crashed on the sofa for a bit after being plied by Cheetah with some outstanding rums and cognac. After dropping Osiris off, it was a little before 3 AM when we got back to Rusty’s place and I fell into bed. Waking up at 8:15 this morning was just painful.

You’d better believe I’d do it again, though! Cheetah and I work very well in the kitchen together, cooperatively and not getting in each other’s way. It helps that his kitchen has all the toys I’m used to in a kitchen, plus quite a few more. We probably overreached a bit on complexity of the recipes, but that’s part of the fun (yes, as we were planning the menu the phrase “I could make that, but it’s too easy” was actually uttered). Next time I’d throw in some dishes that could be prepared ahead of time to reduce the stress somewhat, though.

So – today, my last day in Chicago before flying out at an unspeakable hour tomorrow morning, I’m having lunch with Barbarian, Chouette, and Ed, then dinner with a small group. It’s definitely going to have to be an early night, particularly considering how little sleep I got last night. If you’re in Chicago and I didn’t get a chance to see you, my apologies! There’s only so much that can be done in a short period of time. With any luck we’ll be able to hang out with all of our friends when we move back up here (as soon as I can find a job up here, that is!)