Strega Nona I am

This week was my turn to cook for "family dinner" and I, unlike Tyler, actually cooked.  This week we had a special guest, my friend Anne.  She wanted to get together and I figured I was already cooking for 3 so what's one more.  We had a delicious salad with blue cheese, candied nuts and dried cherries which could have been a satisfying meal itself.  Then I made a whole wheat pasta with shrimp and broccoli and garlic bread for the main course, which paired well with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.  Now, I'm use to cooking proportions for one and having left overs for lunch the next day, but this was one of the first times I was cooking for 4.  I should know how much pasta grows, especially being half Italian, but I threw a box in the pot and figured I only had a little left in my other box so why not add that too.  I had to add water to the pot twice and felt like Strega Nona.  If you don't know that book but it's on my list of must have's when I have kids.  I wont give it away, but Strega Nona had a magic pasta pot and you can guess the rest...  I didn't even toss half of the pasta with the other ingredients because I cooked so much.  I probably could have fed twelve, not four.  Next time Ill know.  

Dinner was delightful and filled with lots of laughs.  I filled everyone's ears with knowledge of HIV/AIDs since that was what our patho lecture was all about.  My teacher had said the best learning tool is explaining the objectives to non-medical people and that's what I do every once in a while.  My roommates probably want to find the woman who told me that, but they listen anyways.  Matt was always happy to bring the conversations "full circle" and relate it it a conspiracy theory of some sort.  That's his new obsession as of late.  I'm sure Anne was entertained to see what a-day-in-the-life-of was really like.  We ended the meal with some pistachio ice cream which I was virgin to until that night.  It was so amazing that I was craving it in the middle of class the next day.

We topped the night off with Glee's MJ episode which was pretty good.  I liked how they picked some of the less mainstream songs.  I am not a gleek like the other three but was entertained by the song and dance in this episode.  Matt is up for next week and I'm pretty sure the extent of his cooking is in the microwave so it should be interesting.