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.