some guys have all the luck

I never made it to my French Baguette class last week. Instead I got the flu and spent roughly seven glorious days in bed (mostly) consuming gallons of chicken soup, hot tea, and plain old water. Most of the time was spent watching reruns of Undercover Boss and/or Star Wars: The Clone Wars which took place between many fever dream laden naps. I sort of took a break from the cooking shows, sort of.

During that time I entertained myself with the idea of making hand made pasta. I even learned that a decent pasta maker runs roughly $30 on amazon. Somewhere in between that and fever dreams I came to several conclusions. I should first be sure this is something I want to do on a semi regular basis since that's how often I eat the stuff. Nothing tastes better than hand made but preparing the dough is time consuming. It was at this point where I got the bright idea of going native and making Chinese hand pulled noodles. By the time I was back on my feet I had read several hundred versions of the recipe and equally watched as many videos on the subject. I was thoroughly confused as to what was the actual right way. I decided on what seemed to be the most authentic yet simplest version. I was so wrong. Kneading dough for an hour straight proved to be a bit more than I cared to deal with. I see now why so many of the more complex versions of the recipe called for use of a dough maker instead of doing it by hand. Normally not a big deal but its not an additional piece of kitchen hardware I want to carry. Hand made is great but I think I'll make it on special occasions only. At any rate my first attempt wasn't pretty. They were very tasty, but the end result wasn't exactly aesthetically pleasing. I know I'll get better with practice, but will leave the kneading to a dough maker. I mean whilst I'm in my current holding pattern.

Unfortunately the week wasn't without further misfortune for another family member. My niece was involved in an accident which totaled her car and a semi truck. Yes there were injuries, but thankfully nothing fatal. Poor kid was in the middle of finals too. Luckily her dad happened to be working on a project near her campus and was able to be there to help her. Finals are done and she's home for spring break for some much needed R&R.

Still no word from the sanctuary, and I've got about a week and a half left on my junior college application acceptance/denial. Turns out they take up to 21 days to process and not a week as I'd mistakenly thought.