Friday, 6/25/10 – Level 4 Day 10 (Buffet)

I was in the bathroom doing some maintenance scrubbing on my day off when all of a sudden I heard a crack, then a pop, and then the whole building started shaking. I attributed it to the ongoing subway construction they're completing outside of our front door and didn't think twice. Before I could get up off the floor to go yell obscenities at the construction men, the tiles in the shower started to shimmy loose and fall to the bathtub. I grabbed the shower curtain to steady myself yet only broke the pole and pulled it down. The continued shaking caused the fan in the bedroom to fall, and the drywall was peeling and cracking, forming one large crevice down the side of the exterior brick wall…

Well, at least that's what I imagine an earthquake in New York City would be like. In reality, I didn't even know it happened until I read about it in the newspaper the next day – apparently New York City had experienced a 5.0 earthquake, centered in Ontario, in the middle of the day. I do remember feeling a little unsteady yet attributed it to the heat + coffee + lack of sleep. Apparently the island of Manhattan is on the criss-cross of two huge fault lines, and we're 30 years overdue for a huge earthquake. So now I not only have the joy of lying awake at night worried about terrorist attacks on the subway, I can also grow grey hairs worrying about a quake shaking down my 50-story office building.

Speaking of which, I took on a single-day receptionist position at an insurance company downtown which happened to be across the street from that one government agency for which I worked at the beginning of the year. That also means it's located in the heart of Temptation Valley: if you remember from a previous post, I absolutely 100% cannot resist fast food. (I'm not kidding – I know the exact locations of all NYC Burger Kings.) Is it the fond memories of plastic chicken fries and greasy engineered Idaho potatoes? Or maybe it's the fact that I can fill my belly for under $5. It could also be my addiction to carbs and 32 oz Diet Cokes. I erred on the side of caution, bypassing the BK, McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts and stopped in to see my old friends at Chipotle. The answer to your question is no, I don't feel bad about it. I patronize their many fine establishments several times a month, and will always enjoy a burrito twice the size of my fist.

Since I had to work all day Friday, I decided to pop my contacts in at school (as previously mentioned, my glasses do not stay on my face in environments above 75˚F). I have bad astigmatism, so they usually take a few minutes to adjust and settle before I can see clearly. I knew I had encountered a problem when, 45 minutes into class, I still couldn't read the recipe in front of me. I was waving at people I didn't know, looking 1' to the left of anyone talking to me and I did a terrible job of measuring out flour. Sure enough – I had switched my contacts and was wearing the left one in my right eye, and vice versa. It's amazing how much that affects your eyesight, especially for someone with my prescription. Once I was all cleared up (ha ha…get it?) I got to work making the dough for our pita bread, which we'll serve with the marinated grilled legs of lamb and tzatziki sauce gyros (my mouth is watering…). The dough has to rise and double for about 2 hours, so I spent my time finalizing the white wine Italian ice. I had already made the syrup, so I threw it in the blast freezer to get nice and icy, then broke it up with a fork and folded in a bunch of egg whites that were beat to a stiff peak (by hand, baby). It all got blast frozen again, then broken up and put into the regular freezer where it will live until our buffet. Pretty soon the pita dough was ready to go, but there was one more step before it could be rolled into circles and baked: it had to be broken into little individual mounds and left to rise again. Apparently I didn't take the "rise" part into consideration, and packed the little balls all out onto a cookie sheet. In about 15 minutes, the entire cookie sheet was one big pan of fluffy, yeasty dough. Crap…what now? It actually still peeled away pretty nicely, so I was able to slowly distinguish the carefully measured balls. I rolled them out into 6" circles, and then they were put onto a screaming hot pan and baked for four minutes, then flipped and baked for another two. They were removed from the hot pan, and a whole new batch was added. The end result was a crispy, doughy hollow pita that was ready to be packed with some sliced lamb, lettuce, cucumber and doused with sauce. Yowza…not so fast though. These puppies got sealed and frozen, awaiting their debut on Wednesday.

The buffet is just around the corner! Pretty soon we'll be defrosting chickens, whipping up cream cheese sauce, grilling lamb and frying bacon. After that, we'll move on to Family Meal for two weeks…and then we're done with level 4; unbelievably almost done with level 4…can you believe it?? I'm glad I extended my time at Purdue, because this "college" experience is flying by way too fast.