Saturday, May 8, 2010

Pat's Birthday

Yesterday was Pat's birthday. He invited people over for jumbo slice pizza from Duccini's, milkshakes with Klein's vegan ice cream, and vegan "double downs" (make chicken out of seitan, bread the chicken with bread crumbs, flour, and spices, and, then, deep fry it; fry tempeh bacon in a skillet; make sauce out of vegannaise and horseradish; sprinkle Daiya cheese on one side of two chicken patties; and use the chicken patties as bread, placing the cheese and bacon in the middle), and donuts. His roommate Nolan was in charge of the chicken patties and showed true expertise and skill in making moist seitan with texture mimicking actual chicken. I'm so impressed with his cooking prowess. Jason Toner made the donuts. He can eye the donut dough and tell when it's risen properly. He makes vegan donuts better than any sold by Dunkin' Donuts.

I made a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting for Pat and headed over to his house after work. I got there a bit before Pat, who returned home with a stack of pizza boxes and two hungry roommates, Nolan and Greg. They were joking and talking about chicken as they ate their jumbo slices of pizza. I haven't measured a jumbo slice before, but the pieces are like props in a movie about giants. Each slice is the equivalent of a small pizza in some restaurants. Other people arrived and dove into the pizza. Pat got two full pizzas, which should feed 16 people without any other food offerings, and two containers of pizza fries. The pizza fries were particularly nice for Zack, who has a wheat allergy and can't eat standard pizza dough. On both the pizza and the fries, Duccini's liberally sprinkles Daiya cheese.

I confess that I passed on the double downs. I finished off my jumbo slice and did eat one piece of the fried, seitan chicken. My stomach couldn't have handled a double portion of chicken, plus Daiya, sauce and bacon. I did, however, leave room for a hot Boston Creme donut. I almost burnt my fingers dipping the donut in the glaze after Jason removed it from the deep fryer. I also drank part of a mint milkshake right after I finished my pizza and took a sip of Pat's coffee milkshake as the donuts were being made.

Between the concussion, the nausea from the antibiotics for the Lyme Disease, two mistrials in three weeks, watching my client cry as I was asking for a mistrial, insane boss, getting hassled by two different creepy attorneys in the courthouse for a date, reports of my aunt dying slowly, my cousin who is my family in the area telling me she's probably moving due to getting laid off, my sister acting like I'm not worth talking with half of the time, feeling guilty that I can't take off of work to go to my close friend's birthday party in San Francisco, I don't think I'm handling additional stress well right now. I feel particularly sensitive, which isn't a good place to be in.

Pat's dogs are adorable.

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