Eggs

By 10:10, I had settled down to eat. It had taken me so long to get started on my dinner because I had finally done what I had always do: make pasta.

At first it was a difficult task, with egg flowing everywhere, but in the end, I present to you "Pasta Drying on Dish Rack"

Note the intense use of lines which ultimately converge on my computer as a mixed, potentially distopian future where technology and homemade cooking live paradoxically.

I made egg noodles loosely based on the "Egg Noodles" instructions on the back of the 10 lb bag of Kroger flour I had. However, I added extra flour when I was trying to stop the egg from flowing off the table, so then I added more water and egg and eventually achieved a decent balance. At that point, I had also added some lemon pepper seasoning based on the lemon pepper pasta from Trader Joes (I miss TJ). After then going through the extra steps of rolling it and folding it until all the gluten strands had more or less aligned, I started to thin it out as best as I could with a rolling pin and then cutting it with a knife. 

Above is only half of what I made because the thinning out process took up all of my usable space. I had to divide the above match again when making it alone. The remaining dough is sitting in the fridge for another time (soon). After I got that done, I went back to my bread dough which was rising. Unfortunately it collapsed a lot when I separated it into two loaves so they will probably come out pretty tiny. I realize at this point that I will have to immediately bake my bread though so I will be up for another hour waiting for them to finish. Sigh. Life is full of cooking this summer.

My dinner, if anyone was curious, was two eggs sunny side down, sautee'd tomatoes with butter and rosemary, the larger tip of an avocado, and half a thick tortilla that I had made the previous night (made unfortunately with butter instead of lard as I should have). The remaining tortillas were thin and independently good. I had a hard time achieving a good "cooked" state where it wasn't too chewy but still soft. 

Also a lot of the interns are leaving soon. They're mostly done next week, and I will be finishing up the week afterwards. However, those that live near by are now celebrating ends with their families so it's harder to get people to go out and do things like watch TDKR. I also don't have a car so I don't feel like driving out to Westminster, where there are IMAX versions of TDKR which is apparently a must-see experience according to one of the interns.

How is everyone's summers wrapping up? I will be back in Boston by the week of August 26th. I look forward to seeing you all then.

EDIT/UPDATE: Here's one of the finished bread loaves at 11:35. It has a butter/cracked peppercorn eggwash on top. I used 3 tablespoons of butter across the three by stuffing the ridges (originally slits) with butter. These should be really good. I also added some extra salt and coriander actually to the dough.

PS. The bread totally looks better in real life. The camera's white balance is making it look more brown/muddy than the amazing golden brown it is under these jewel lights (or whatever those are, the longish lights that are like ovals, with a glass nib at the end).

And an actual post about where I am. There have been some wonderful sunsets lately. Here's one from last week that I just had to take a picture of:

This past weekend I also managed to get another intern to go with me in the "early" morning to the Denver Art Museum because it was free. Here's one of the buildings:

And below is the view of the other building from the other other building of the museum, connected by the bridge you see in the lower right corner. I don't have a picture of this other other building because it is gaudy as hell. It's like a legos + skullator/heman mix. 

The other other building has the most extensive Central/South American exhibit I've ever seen. If I get a chance to go back, I will definitely revisit this part. I mainly didn't get that much out of it because at that point, I had been in a museum for almost 4 hours so I couldn't really go on. There was a long lunch break in between where we were hunting for gourmet hot dogs (like made of buffalo/bison, elk, reindeer, etc), side tracked by a first annual bbq fest (4 ribs for 8 bucks!) and instead settled for this kind of retro bar/restaurant that seemed like friendly toast plus 1-2 decades/decades of class. It was also expensive but I got "Irish Breakfast" which involved boudin blanc, noir, and some other stuff. It was not good, but it was kind of a memory trip back to France due to the boudins. However, we then discovered the Denver Performing Arts going back, and then lots of shirtless parcour guys that were apparently doing a photo shoot. There must have been at least 50 guys total. And back to the museum: Here's a picture of a gigantic brick of butter in one of those NA exhibits. I think it was originally about corn. I told the other guy that we'd probably go through that much butter in a semester; it was that big/we go through that much butter. You/us people are scary. 

 Also, there was an exhibit on airports and design and design revolutions or something. I decided that the below picture gave at least some sense of what I would like my super artsy/not-cookie-cutter house to look like:

Basically I like the steel, glass, and wood stain combination. Perhaps even some stained cement because it actually looks amazingly regal based on some pics of a guy who did a DIY on his (parents) house on Reddit.

Okay that's all the pics I have for now. TTYL. ROFLCOPTER. WTFBBQ (learned that one in HS). Or as the French like to say, [lul].