Hey guys, I kidnapped my friends' apartment and threw a dinner party...

Hi All,

I know its been quite a bit since the last time I wrote, I guess I just got crazy busy for a while. I've been traveling a lot, I think since last time I've made four (?) trips to Houston (1 week of training, 2 weeks of training, 2 action-packed days for the FPSO forum, 2 action packed days (and a weekend) for training for a new project) , one to Ann Arbor for Kschu and Joho's wedding and to see my parents, plus offshore trips and fab yard trips. I've been a busy bee.

Oh yeah! There was also a trip to Boston for MIT recruiting in there. That trip was super great, I got to stay with my friends Sam and Caroline in their new apartment in Boston. I stayed for the weekend at either end of the trip, so I ended up with a much longer time in the northeast than I've had for quite a while. It was also good to see that it is mostly possible to keep up with my new job remotely, so I don't have to feel like long trips are so out of the question.

After a whole week of staying in the hotel/ at S&C's place, I got a little restless to have some of my own domestic agency so I accidentally took over S&C's house and threw a small dinner party. It started with these recipes (which I heartily recommend):

How To Make Gnocci Like an Italian Grandmother

How to Make Pesto Like an Italian Grandmother

I thought I was going to be making a nice dinner for Sam and Caroline to thank them for letting me stay at their place for so long. It also turned out that we had invited my friends Farah, Erin, and Wale for dinner when we were out the night before, so it turned into a gathering. In the end it turned out that Erin and Wale couldn't make it, but that Farah's boyfriend Ben could make it.

The gnocci took pretty much most of the day to make, but most of that was in the making of the dough. If you try making this yourself, something I recommend is making a TON of the dough, because cutting and shaping the gnocci is the least time commitment and you can freeze them.

Here is a picture of the gnocci in-progress:

Hope Everyone is REALLY Hungry!!

 The pesto sauce was the real eye-opener for me. It was soooo easy (much easier than the recipe makes it sound) and the flavor was so much more bold and zesty than the store-bought. I really don't think that I will ever buy pesto sauce again. Plus here is how it looked (PS good picks on the wedding china, S&C):

Am I Right?? Look at that!

 For the purposes of dinner, I also made this appetizer which is based on something I had at Kschu and Joho's rehearsal dinner, basically it is just pieces of fresh mozzarella on skewers alternating with quartered camparii tomatoes. At the rehearsal dinner they were lightly grilled with basil and balsamic dressing. I ran out of time/stove space (the gnocci took up ALL OF THE SPACE OMG) so I just drizzled with balsamic and a little bit of basil and let it sit for a while. They all got eaten (and not all by me while I was stressing about whether the gnocci were going to float or not) so I guess it came out ok. It is hard to go wrong with those two ingredients. Here is another glorious exhibition of the S&C wedding china with an assist from my cookery:

Pre-drizzling, apparently.

Finally, there were lemon bars for dessert. These were from a box. But they were sooo tasty:

Lemon-y Goodness

I like to have a risk thing, a comfort thing, and an easy thing when I cook for people, sort of hedging bets on my cooking talents. There was always the chance that if the gnocci didn't work out, I could just serve the pesto on pasta and at least no one would waste away to nothing.

It seemed to work out though, and it is a dinner that I am proud enough about to write about it on the internet.

Pricer