A Very International Weekend

We (Kev and I) spent most of the weekend in the kitchen, but it feels like we went around the world.  Saturday afternoon was spent making some delicious Rogan Josh with Aromatic Rice, Garbanzo Beans, and Naan (below).  Above is the mise en place that turned into our rogan josh.  Thank you Madhur Jaffrey for your excellent recipes.  And thank you, Food Network, for hammering home the importance of mise en place.  No kitchen panic...just SMOOTH sailin'!

Sunday afternoon was spent making mushroom ravioli.  I LOVE RAVIOLI!!!!!

All of this cooking was pretty exhausting, but here is the good news:

1.  All of the food was GREAT.  Fresh and from scratch (except the chick peas, which were canned).  

2.  Kev and I displayed excellent kitchen teamwork.  It was fun!

3.  Daphne ate it all and loved every bite and kept hugging us and thanking us.  Yes.

4. There are leftovers of everything.  I don't have to go back to the grocery store or plan any meals or do any more real cooking until at least Wednesday.  YES!

So, hooray for India and Italy and their good food.  Totally worth all the work.

Meanwhile, Daphne has suddenly become obsessed with learning how to speak German.  She brought home a vocabulary book from the school library on Friday; and then this morning, Kev dug up this gem (above) from his record collection, and let Dapne listen to it.  It's pretty funny.  Mixed in with "Hello" and "Thank you" and "Where is the bathroom" are other useful phrases like "I wish to make an appointment with Dr. Brown" and "Must I open everything?" and "I cannot open the trunk."  It all sounded like sneezing to me.  Did you know that baby pigs in German are Ferkel?  I am going to insist that Daphne's next stuffed animal be named "Ferkel."

Daphne asked Kevin how many years until middle school when she can take German as a class.  I love her enthusiasm, but I don't know how useful German would be.  Plus, it's really difficult.  And it sounds like sneezing.  I hope she decides to take Spanish.  That seems both easier and more practical.

When I was in high school, I took French.  Completely useless.  I took French because I heard the teacher was cool.  She was!  Her name was Mrs. Parrot, but we all just called her Muh-DAHM.  She had a giant poster of Adam Ant on the wall, and she occasionally gave us cheese.

Then, in my second year, MuhDAHM quit teaching,  and we got a new MuhDAHM who was significantly less cool, but at least sometimes let us listen to Edith Piaf, which I didn't appreciate at the time, because I listened to pretty much only heavy metal back then.  And sometimes Adam Ant. Now, though,  I love Edith Piaf.  

Anyway, aside from knowing what "mise en place" means and appreciating the greatness of Edith Piaf, I am not really seeing many benefits of my three years of French, so I sort of wish I had taken Spanish.  Oh well.  C'est la vie.

The week ahead looks promising.  Tomorrow night I am going to a knitting thing via the Finch that should be a lot of fun.  (Coffee sweaters!!!).   I don't have any appointments this week, and there is no snow-day weather in the forecast, so I should be able to get some things done in the house.  There will be leftover rogan josh and mushroom ravioli for dinner, and it's ALREADY MADE!  And one week from tonight, Sherlock returns!  Good times.

OK, I'm off to watch Chopped now.  Fahrvergnugen!