catching up with the lunches
Shobhit cooked a lot of food for lunch with his cousin yesterday -- four dishes, and rice, in addition to the fifteen aloo parathas -- and the volume was even larger than necessary when we were surprised to discover they did not bring either of their daughters with them. I really should have asked about that; Shobhit may have altered the menu a little. I even took two different table settings away as soon as Abhishek and Vinaya arrived, at 1:55. (We planned 1:30. I should have known to add half an hour to the expected arrival.)
Shobhit really mixed it up with the dishes he made, too, making all entrée dishes I don't believe he's ever made before: "opo kofta vegetable," as he calls it, or calabash grated, deep fried and served in a tomato base with many other vegetables; "mooli ki booji" (daikon and leaf vegetable); "kaddu" (pumpkin); and "kadhi" (deep fried pakoras in a creamy curry sauce).
Having just four around our table was much more comfortable than six would have been anyway -- all the dishes alone took up a lot of space, what with a dinner plate, a bowl, and a glass for each setting. This way we could have one person for each side of the table. To be perfectly honest with you, although I have no reason to say none of them were cooked well, none of these dishes were particularly my favorite, among those Shobhit has made historically. I think I liked the kadhi the best though. And the aloo parathas, though -- those were fucking phenomenal, as always. In any case, Abhishek and Vinaya were dutifully impressed.
We spent a bit of time before their arrival either cleaning (I vacuumed the entire condo) or cooking the last of it, in particular the parathas. Abhishek and Vinaya only stuck around for about two hours, leaving right around 4:00. It was still good to see them more than just the usual get-together around the holidays, though, and when they left, after we sat in the living room visiting for a while, they brought up doing another picnic like we did once at Gasworks Park (that was in 2015, the day of the Fremont Solstice Parade -- oh yeah: Shobhit and I got in a big fight that day) later this year. It was suggested perhaps we could all go to that this year, but that won't work: this year it's happening the day Shobhit and I will be traveling back from our anniversary trip to Yellowstone National Park. So, another time this late spring or summer, perhaps.
Shobhit and I both strategically did not eat breakfast yesterday. I didn't have dinner either, as I stuffed myself so much with lunch. I did gave two cocktails yesterday, though. My weight was down the tiniest bit this morning. Still just above 150 lbs, which is annoying, but whatever. I'll live. We watched a couple episodes of season seven of Roseanne (one episode that tackled racism was actually pretty impressive, with Roseanne herself having her mind opened to her own biases -- ironically, the kind of thing I'm convinced would not get featured on the current reboot, given Roseanne Barr's wild political turnaround in her later years). I also watched the last three episodes of the latest season of Crashing on HBO Go while Shobhit worked on our taxes.
I packed four different lunches for the week from all that food yesterday, and brought one to work today, but it won't get eaten until tomorrow -- I totally forgot Scott was taking Noah and me out to lunch today. We went to Saigon Deli in the U District.
I had a very tasty bánh mì sandwich (just called "Vietnamese sandwich" on their menu, evidently to make things clearer for dumb Americans?) with tofu. Given that Gabriel was the first person to introduce me to these sandwiches, in Tacoma, several years ago (seven years, to be exact), I was kind of kicking myself, after we had such a hard time finding a place to get food before the Amy Miller standup show in the U District last month. I looked up Saigon Deli's hours on Yelp, and they're open until 9:00. We totally could have gotten dinner there that night! And both quickly and cheaply, no less -- even with the 75¢ surcharge for a fried egg, my sandwich today still cost all of five bucks.
Scott offered to take us out for lunch as a sort of collective "birthday lunch" -- Scott has a birthday in April as well, which has already passed. He won't be available for a lunch during my Birth Week since he'll be at the Burien store preparing for its opening in (hopefully) May. I was looking at my photo archives today though, and it appears I actually haven't managed a Birth Week lunch with Scott since 2015 -- the last year Elin was still here. The only coworker I've managed lunch with during my Birth Week in the intervening years is Sara.
Scott did ask about my Birth Week plans on the drive back, though. The whole excursion, given that it involved driving all the way over to the U District and back, took roughly ninety minutes, which is why I'm posting today's DLU about an hour later than usual.
[posted 1:40 pm]