Adventures in Alex's Apartment
During finals I feel I was diverted from my theme of "life lessons." However, never fear, I plan on returning to this theme once again.
Culinary Lesson: Gas burners are not good for toasting bagels!
I have been traveling across the west coast for the past two weeks. In this time I have seen hippos gnawing each other's ears in the San Diego zoo and rich Beverley Hills women strut the streets like they own the world in LA, but perhaps my favorite site was watching Noel, one of my west coast buddies, try her luck at using a gas burner as a toaster-oven.
However, first some background info: I had just returned from a five day hiking trip with my friend Alex to discover that his roommates had moved out, taking with them EVERYTHING in his apartment. They even took the scrabble board and tupperware!! Even Alex, who had known they were going to move out and had an inkling as to how much of they owned, was shocked. His whole four room apartment was empty. In addition, the bedrooms did not have built in lights so I had to use a headlamp in my room for the whole week I stayed with him.
To top it all off, we were supposed to give a dinner party the next day and Alex did not have plates, glasses, napkins, dish soap, a table, chairs or food!! Just some basic necessities for a party.
Nevertheless, the dinner party went off without any glitches. I bought some plates, Alex Bought some food, his friend Catherine cooked it and brought over some other dinner utensils and we were set! One of the dinner guests, Jen, brought wine and we drank it out of bowls. An improvisation that I think I will repeat purposefully at another party.
Perhaps the greatest lesson here is that friendship does not require material support for it to flourish!
However, eventually the time came for Alex to leave for a Wedding and for me to make it alone in his apartment for the last leg of my trip. For some moral support and company I invited an old friend, Noel, up to stay with me in Alex's apartment the first night he was gone. Well, Noel had not eaten in a LONG time and there was still not much food around. Eventually, we found some old bagels. Actually, I believe Noel persuaded Alex's new roommate to take pitty on her and give he
r some bagels. Either way, once she had food she was happy, but then she wanted the bagel toasted and Alex still had no toaster oven. The real oven would have taken too long, so she decided to toast the bagel on his gas burner. Noel however has a history of burning down convents (partially kidding), so she started recollecting this story and joking around while she was attempting to toast her bagel. Low and behold, the bagel swiftly burst into flames as she spoke. She blew it out and attempted it again on a lower flame, once again the bagel ignited, so she lowered the flame some more. I guess the saying goes: "five times a charm!" because finally, Noel achieved a perfectly gas-burner-toasted bagel. Amazing! However, in the future, we decided that this was not to be attempted at home if at all and safer means would be pursued. Though if you're about to go dancing all night and you haven't eaten in 24hrs, really, what is a girl to do?
Culinary Lesson: Gas burners are not good for toasting bagels!
I have been traveling across the west coast for the past two weeks. In this time I have seen hippos gnawing each other's ears in the San Diego zoo and rich Beverley Hills women strut the streets like they own the world in LA, but perhaps my favorite site was watching Noel, one of my west coast buddies, try her luck at using a gas burner as a toaster-oven.
However, first some background info: I had just returned from a five day hiking trip with my friend Alex to discover that his roommates had moved out, taking with them EVERYTHING in his apartment. They even took the scrabble board and tupperware!! Even Alex, who had known they were going to move out and had an inkling as to how much of they owned, was shocked. His whole four room apartment was empty. In addition, the bedrooms did not have built in lights so I had to use a headlamp in my room for the whole week I stayed with him.
To top it all off, we were supposed to give a dinner party the next day and Alex did not have plates, glasses, napkins, dish soap, a table, chairs or food!! Just some basic necessities for a party.
Nevertheless, the dinner party went off without any glitches. I bought some plates, Alex Bought some food, his friend Catherine cooked it and brought over some other dinner utensils and we were set! One of the dinner guests, Jen, brought wine and we drank it out of bowls. An improvisation that I think I will repeat purposefully at another party.
Perhaps the greatest lesson here is that friendship does not require material support for it to flourish!
However, eventually the time came for Alex to leave for a Wedding and for me to make it alone in his apartment for the last leg of my trip. For some moral support and company I invited an old friend, Noel, up to stay with me in Alex's apartment the first night he was gone. Well, Noel had not eaten in a LONG time and there was still not much food around. Eventually, we found some old bagels. Actually, I believe Noel persuaded Alex's new roommate to take pitty on her and give he
r some bagels. Either way, once she had food she was happy, but then she wanted the bagel toasted and Alex still had no toaster oven. The real oven would have taken too long, so she decided to toast the bagel on his gas burner. Noel however has a history of burning down convents (partially kidding), so she started recollecting this story and joking around while she was attempting to toast her bagel. Low and behold, the bagel swiftly burst into flames as she spoke. She blew it out and attempted it again on a lower flame, once again the bagel ignited, so she lowered the flame some more. I guess the saying goes: "five times a charm!" because finally, Noel achieved a perfectly gas-burner-toasted bagel. Amazing! However, in the future, we decided that this was not to be attempted at home if at all and safer means would be pursued. Though if you're about to go dancing all night and you haven't eaten in 24hrs, really, what is a girl to do?
posted by El @ Thursday, June 01, 2006
1 Comments:
At 1:00 PM, June 03, 2006,
Unknown said…
I was going to go smart-ass and advice that your San Francisco friends not eat yellow snow, but I remembered that (1) San Francisco doesn't get snow, and (2) that seeing from your photo you have actually had some sunshine there. We have been rained out the past few weeks.
Heeeeeeeeelp....!
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