Dinner 16

Order
It's been much, much too long, all you stomachhearts out there. Apologies for the delays, but life sometimes gets out of order and it takes a little time to get the recipes back together. The updates:

1. got a job
2. stopped dating dinner Guest 14/15
3. dinner Guest 5 sent me this amazing text: Omg. Date just cooked me dinner. "Dinner" = "vegetarian sloppy joes." Vegetarian sloppy joes = microwave leftover rice mixed with ketchup on white bread. Plz blog.

Well, everyone makes mistakes, but this stomachheart finally had another dinner to make up for all the lack of good cooking karma that might have been in the world.
A friend from school asked if he could come to dinner and it seemed like a nice, pleasant, not-too-awkward return to this experiment. I guess I forgot that this guy, a loud, hilarious playwright, always has a few tricks up his sleeve. I suggested he bring wine (not knowing that he didn't drink) and instead he brought me a printout of this photo of me. Then when I served the salad, he suggested we eat it last, it's a British thing, and he's from Canada, after all. And moments before we slurped into the chunky tomato soup with blue cheese, he regaled me with stories of family bowel-movement escapades from his childhood. Actually, the thing I like most about Guest 16 is his off-kilter humor and ability to make a joke out of any situation, but be gracious and insightful at the same time. It's sometimes difficult to keep up with him though and I found myself finally getting a joke several minutes after the punch or getting all tongue-tied. When I served the asparagus above, he said, "You must not like me too much, you know what asparagus does?" Took me a second but I realized asparagus makes your come taste really bad. How do I even respond to that? Oops!
By the time we got to the out-of-order salad, I saw the more sensitive side to my Guest. He told me about how he has come to terms with the possibility of being single for the rest of his life. This has always seemed like a scary possibility to me, but he has spent a long time "working on me" and making sure that he could live himself. He realized that if it came to that he would be okay. He is happy with who he is. Basically, YOU are the only person you ultimately have to deal with. He, of course, would like to find someone, like all of us, but feeding our own stomachhearts is the priority.

The Fourth of Stomachheart

Divide and Conquer
I feel like the tradition of the 4th of July is based on some dicey situations and some not so friendly history that this great country has been a part of. Regardless, the present celebration is a time where friends and family get together, grill tons of meat, and watch fire explode in the air. Whatever the history and international relations of our wonderful USA, good outdoors cooking can easily make us forget our problems and bring harmony all over the rooftops.
Sausage, sausage, everywhere.

Well, not exactly. Or at least not for me. My roommate and I decided to have a grill-out on our roof and we each invited all of our friends. This quickly led to my inner-self becoming divided into four chambers of my stomachheart. If you thought I got stressed out about having just one guest over for dinner, imagine 20 guests. I felt divided between:
1)entertaining my friends
2)entertaining my roommate's friends
3)making sure the food was coming along
4)and worrying about paying enough attention to my ongoing Dinner Guest (14 and 15).
Homemade guacamole and bottomless sangria.

I suppose it's not that bad, but when you are the host (or co-host, rather) there is a lot of pressure to make sure all of the above things are mixing and getting along well. There is only so much a host can do, but I feel a responsibility for at least trying to get people to talk to each other because I know that I can't be around to do it all the time. The hardest part is balancing friends and new boyfriends. Admittedly, I am not too good at it. I feel like I either have to ignore my friends (while the boy and I have some private time) or shut the boy out of the conversation because my friends and I go way back and always talk about the same thing: writing.
My first ever strawberry-rhubarb pie. I have craved this for years and finally made the recipe from the classic, Joy of Cooking.

So, by the end of the night, we were all on the roof in the cold, cold, fog, watching the fireworks explode all over the city, and I felt totally uncomfortable and drunk. My friends were on one side chatting, but I wasn't able to say much to them because I was pre-occupied with the boy on the other side who seemed to be in a bad mood and whether I was responsible or not, I definitely felt responsible. He wanted to go downstairs because of the cold and then I ditched my friends entirely. And even the rest of the night with the boy was awkward.
I can't even take the credit for this one. My roommate made this amazing flour-less chocolate cake.

Luckily, there is clean up. I ditched everyone to help my roommate put everything away and wash all the dishes. There is something soothing about cleaning. Not only did I wash away all my anxieties about the day, but I cleaned off all the soot that came off of Mission St. and deposited itself on the furniture, food, dishes, and my body. It may seem impossible, but most things that are divided can be glued back together (maybe sometimes in a different configuration) and washed off.