What’s Cookin’?

Deciding what to do on date #3 wasn’t an easy chore.  M-Daddy and I had talked about a “spicy challenge” for a while, so we started to stake out where this throw down could take place.  He didn’t want me to have to drive too far, so I started to scope out restaurants about halfway between our towns.  I turned to Yelp and Urban Spoon, which have always worked out well in the past, but not this time.  The issue wasn’t the number of restaurants or the ratings they received – it was the number of actual reviews that the restaurants had. Sure, a restaurant that has 4 ½ stars looks promising… until you see that there are a whopping 4 reviews.  Let’s see... #1 is probably the owner, #2 is probably the owner’s husband/wife and #3 and #4 are probably friends/relatives of the owner. 

So, after discussing the not-so-hopeful choices on Yelp and Urban Spoon, M-Daddy brought up the fact that I did have a selection of spices at my disposal – maybe he could cook for me.  So we made plans for a nice, casual Saturday date at my house. 

Of course, that first meant that I needed to (somewhat) finish unpacking so there were dishes/pot/pans/table/chairs available for this anticipated meal.  My furniture finally came on Tuesday evening, so I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday unpacking what seemed like an endless pile of boxes. 

I’m happy to report that almost all of my furniture safely made the trip.  The two pieces that sadly didn’t survive were the two armchairs to my dining room set (which, ironically, were the two chairs that I never really liked in the first place - DBE picked those out, not me). My headboard survived, but has a nice chunk taken out of the top, left corner.  My claim has already been filed…  Luckily, the pieces that I was worried about, like a large, glass front china cabinet and a 5’ tall resin Pepe Le Pew (yes, I am a animation art fan) arrived perfectly.  My mom came over to help me unpack and I’m happy to report that pretty much everything except the second bedroom and a little bit of the office was all that was left to do.  It was nice to be able to bring my “hot date” over to a somewhat finished house. ;)

On Saturday morning, I checked out the selection in the fridge – I had some basic veggies and beef on hand and I took a trip to a farmer’s market in the morning for whatever else looked good.  BTW, I must be really spoiled by the SF farmer’s markets because this one was not that impressive.  I found a few things, but nothing to supplement the potential meal.

The city I live in is a network of canals, so I’m glad that M-Daddy had GPS to find the place.  Turns out we’re an hour from each other, but that’s better than being 3000 miles away like we were before. We ended up spending a nice afternoon together, and the answer to the question is yes, he is as good of a cook as he said he was. :)  He perused through the available spices like a pro as he figured out what to make.  We ended up with beef stir fry with veggies and potatoes over rice noodles. He used three different spices in his concoction and it was very yummy.  I opened a nice shiraz and we had some great conversation over a great (and spicy) meal.

Date #3 has come and gone, and now we move forward.  This is already turning out to be a relationship with a little spice, which is always a good thing (*wink*).  Apparently, both of us can handle the heat…