Friday night I saw Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld. Matt really enjoys Seinfeld. I don’t mind the guy, but honestly, I don’t think that his show is the superfantastic fabuloso thing that so many other people feel it is.ÂÂ
That little disclaimer said, I really did enjoy the movie. It’s a documentary about being a standup comedian. It really shows how hard it is to be a successful comedian, and the painful process you have to go through. The film showcased Seinfeld, who’s already big and who is rebuilding his lineup, and a young comedian (Orny Arnold) just about to make it big. They picked the right young comedian to juxtapose Seinfeld, too. That was great casting. The film was also incredibly hard and painful to watch. It’s freakin’ hard work to be a comedian. You have to stand up in front of all of these dumb drunk tools and tell jokes. And there’s always the 3 people in the audience who think they could have been a comedian, and they’ve got their own commentary to add. For someone who’s ever been in front of an audience, it’s a scary scary proposition.ÂÂ
And something else I noticed? Comedian’s eyes are always very very sad. They’re like those porcelain crying clown figurines.
Saturday I woke up early to cook some squash. I was invited to a pre-thanksgiving potluck party, so I wanted to make an exciting and glamorous dish. This is it (from the joy of cooking, and paraphrased):
Quinoa-stuffed Acorn squash
- Bake 3 acorn squash, halved and face down in a baking pan with some water in it, until soft. Let cool.
- Sauté onion in a buttery pan. When golden, add and toast quinoa. Add vegetable broth, cover, and cook about 15 min. (until soft).
- Scoop the insides out of 2 of the squash halves. Mix into cooked quinoa, add toasted hazelnuts/almonds (I used almonds this time, but with hazelnuts it’s so fantastic), fresh parsley, and a bit of parmesan cheese.
- Stuff the other squash halves with the squash-quinoa mixture. Sprinkle more cheese on top and bake until heated through.
So good! So glamorous! So sophisticated!
Quinoa is a really fantastic grain, by the way, it’s got nearly perfect proteins, so it’s a good meat “substitute†and it cooks remarkably fast. Much faster than rice. It’s good, and so texturally pleasing!
Right, so I packed up my double recipe of squashes (acorn and pretty carnival, which turn out to be a sweet squash) into 3 pie pans, and was lucky to catch a ride with Matt to NJ so I didn’t have to brave the every-2-hour bus ride to Nutley. I got there early so I could help out.
The potluck was really fun. The food was fantastic, and the hostess was a sweetie. Really, she’s the mostest. Mostest bestest!
So Friend Doug drove me home afterwards, which was super swell of him, b/c it would have taken hours on the path to the subway combo (ok, not hours, probably just 1.5-2 hours. But we left at 12:30, so it would have been very late getting home!). And then, I went to bed. And I slept until 12:30 the next afternoon. And I got up, and stayed in my PJs all day long. I don’t usually wear the matching PJ set, so that in itself was pretty cool. I threw some laundry in. I sat on the couch. I put in my contacts when John and I settled down to watch a PBS documentary based on the book “Cadillac Desert,†we watched 2 parts of 4. Then John watched the Giants game, and I knit on the couch. (I finished the scarf, and nearly finished stripy surprise item #2!) When the game got tense and I noticed that I was freaking cold, I got up and left John to his own devises, and washed the dishes (mom was right, it really DOES warm you up…).ÂÂ
Michelle got home just after the football game was over, and we watched Moulin Rouge. Now, I don’t know what I was expecting, but it sure as heck wasn’t that. It was fantastic, and weird, and funny, and colorful, but I really didn’t expect it to be like it was.  It was wild!
And after that? It was to bed. Um, not to sleep, but to start and finish a short novel. Terrible habits I’ve got going here with the reading in bed stuff. I think it’s because when I was working so hard I didn’t really get any down time at home, so I got in the habit of reading for a bit in bed. And now I need to break that habit! I have sleep to get.ÂÂ
Right now I’m feeling terribly lightheaded, so I think I’ll leave work a tad bit early. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I do think I’ll feel better on my couch. I’d love to stop by a yarn store on the way home to get some double pointed needles for my mittens, but … it just seems like such an effort to get somewhere. I’ll give it a shot. If I take the knitting bus home I can cut across town to Knitting 321 and then take the 1st Ave. bus the rest of the way home. That’s not so bad!
