Gnocchi is a no go
I have a confession. It is not really a confession per se, as much as a restatement of the truth. See when you start to do something with frequency, those around you tend to mistake that love for expertise. An example would be that I like to play basketball, but my skills are only useful when I play with Asians shorter than me or the girls basketball team (oh no he didn’t! oh yes i did!). Playing often does not make me a good basketball player. Another example would be that I eat out often, but that does not mean I know where to go find the best (insert here) or that I have smart taste buds. BTW, still cannot tell Milo from Ovaltine in a blind taste test, but I am drinking about one per week to keep my senses sharp. The last example is that just because I like cooking, it does not mean that I can cook worth a lick. This just means that failure does not faze me and I will eat all my failures. That sounds funny. Last night I tried to make gnocchi because it looked so good on Smitten’s Kitchen. From the ordeal, I reaffirmed that I cannot cook. Yay!
My problem started because I had no way of weighing two pounds of potatoes. Sure, I could kind of tell what was two pounds, but what ended up happening was that I had the wrong potato to egg ratio. To off that that, I just added another egg to the recipe. In retrospect, I should have paid more attention in home economics. Oh, did anyone actually take that in high school? Because I did not. The choices were that or study hall aka, surf the web in the library for an hour. Guess which one I picked, but after watching Superbad, I probably should have taken home economics instead.
I think that extra egg made the dough really sticky and difficult to work with. Stupidly, I did not add more flour. You would figure that makes sense.. more potatoes, more eggs, so more flour! Not me. No, I am edumacationly challenged and I forged ahead.
Fearing that the weird proportion gnocchi would taste bad, I had the idea to add other stuff to it to hide the yuckiness. I decided on spinach and roast pork. This again was a poor decision because it did not taste good. Does that ever happen to you? It tastes good in your brain? But in real life? Meh. Actually this ESPN sports talk radio host likes to say something like, “Any time you have a question about a decision, just say it out loud.” His examples would be like, “If I am Michael Vick, I would ask myself, ‘Do I want to sponsor dog fighting?'” See, that is good practice. Next time I will ask myself everything out loud.”
After the spinach and pork gnocchi, I decided to pan fry some in butter and eat it plain with some salt. By that point my stomach had expanded about four folds, and could not sustain anymore food. I could not tell if it was good or not, but it was okay. I need something easier than gnocchi but what else could be simpler?!? And before you make a suggestion, say it out loud… “Danny, I think you can make…” And if it sounds good, drop me a comment. k. thx.
Posted by Danny on April 2, 2008 at 9:15 pm
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