The cooking gods hate me.
Every now and then I can be a bit lazy. I once went two weeks using paper towels as toilet paper. I’ve worn the same socks four days in a row because I didn’t want to do laundry. I watched a marathon of Chrisley Knows Best because I couldn’t be bothered to change the channel.
This week, the laziness gorilla struck again and forced me to make two poor choices. First, I delayed cooking adventures until Friday night, the night traditionally reserved for Redbull Vodkas, but during March reserved for watching unhealthy amounts of college basketball. Second, since I’d rather be watching basketball than cooking I decided to make a really simple soup, write a really short post about it and get back to the shooty-hoops.
The cooking and basketball gods knew my lazy intentions and they were not pleased.
No one cares about other people’s March Madness brackets. Brackets fall under the same category as children and bowel movements. Everyone’s happy you have them; they just don’t want to hear about it. So I won’t write about any bracket busting or money lost because of those spiteful bouncy orange ball gods. Plus, I’m a University of Missouri basketball fan (19-44 in the past two seasons and zero Final Fours ever) so there’s really no more pain they can put me through anyway.
The cooking gods know how to pack a punch when you don’t pay your proper respects. They were not happy with my lazy attempt to make 30-Minute Pasta e Fagioli (Page 196), a traditional Italian soup where you pretty much throw everything in a pot and let it simmer for a while. Under their angry boot, soup and blood would both be boiling.
It all began with a stark realization. I’ve spent a lot of money on various herbs and spices lately. I’ve had to purchase thyme, bay leaves, parsley, basil and countless other indistinguishable green and yellow dirt flakes. My long-term savings goals have grown to include vacation, buying a house and purchasing spices. As I resigned myself to needing to purchase oregano, I noticed something unexpected.
Do you know what that is? Over there on the left? That’s a spice rack. Sitting next to my goddamn stove. Where I stand and cook every single one of these goddamn recipes. Over the past 3 months I’ve spent more money on spices than David Beckham and almost everything I’ve ever needed has been less than four feet from my face this entire time. I could feel my blood temperature beginning to rise.
Prep work time. Where everything is always perfect and nothing could ever go wrong.
Half of the onion got stuck on my knife. So I applied a little pressure to try to free the blade. Still stuck. More pressure. Still jammed. I pushed a little harder and the knife released. The onion went with it off the cutting board into the air and directly into the trash can across the room like a buzzer beater in one shining March Madness moment.
Appropriate, yet infuriating. Onion basketball was my first curse from the gods. I took out my anger on the poor half of an onion that was left. I don’t think I did it right.
The feelings were stirring inside of me like taco Tuesday on Wednesday morning
Opening cans should not incite rage. I know how to build a number of excellent IKEA furniture solutions; I should be able to open a damn can of tomatoes. I didn’t actually open the tomatoes as much as I used the can opener to transform the can into a mangled lump of razor metal classifiable as a deadly weapon, but not effective at dispensing tomatoes.
The little things on this recipe were adding up fast. After almost losing a hand to my murder can, the ball of anger moved from my chest to my face.
Next, I needed to squeeze the tomatoes to separate them into smaller pieces. The Food Lab warned they might squirt. I didn’t listen. The cooking gods didn’t like that. After the first tomato my favorite shirt looked like a wardrobe piece from a Tarantino film.
So far the cooking gods had demanded in sacrifice half an onion, my favorite shirt and nearly a hand. That’s a high price to pay for soup, which is really just hot water with bits in it. Everything goes in the pot, gets stirred around for a while and then all the liquid goes on top. As it and I both begin to boil over I started to think about what I’d done to anger the cooking gods. I was a faithful servant. Why would they punish me?
The pasta went in and I looked at the final step. Then I knew what I’d done. More importantly, I knew what had to be done to appease their vengeful wrath.
“Stir in the parsley.”
It was time to make amends. I’ve spent a lot of words and time trashing parsley as useless, flavorless and the worst thing to happen since they remade Psycho with Vince Vaughn. If parsley and I could come to an agreement and end this destructive war, I felt we would both be better for it. I stripped the parsley of its stems and I chopped. I chopped like I’d never chopped before. Sparks flew from my knife. Blisters formed on my fingers but I never stopped. I became one with the knife as I just kept chopping. Up and down. Up and down. Then there was nothing. I was alone in time and space. Just me and the parsley in a perfect calm moment.
And so the great Parsley Treaty of 2016 was enacted over a bowl of soup.
The soup tastes good, flavorful and with more substance than your typical water with bits in it. But I don’t think the soup is quite as good as the lesson I’ve learned here. Pay your respects to the gods of your craft and they will reward you. Disregard them, and be prepared to pay the price.
Except the basketball gods—those bastards have screwed me enough.
Recipe: 57/68
Did I do the Dishes: Yes. I am shame.
Craig Cooks Crap 