Temporary Obsession
Mining Cultural Ephemera since 2009
I’m all moved in, but my suitemates and I are still going through the stage of our co-habitation where we’re figuring out how each other works. My roommate (hereafter known as D) and I get along great–over the summer we discussed what was and wasn’t okay and resolved to talk things out and be open with one another if something arose. So far, that’s been going good. It’s a little harder with the suitemates (CS and SC), but I think we’re getting there. It’s tough, though–here’s what happened this weekend and why I feel amazing going into the first full week of classes.
I’ve needed to go to Walmart since I moved in. While I brought plenty for the kitchen, as did others, there’s some stuff that we all just forgot and needed to purchase at Walmart. D and I had planned to go after we both woke up. When I got up at 11:30 and left the room to use the restroom before planning my part of the list, CS cornered me, wanting to know if I needed anything from Walmart, as he was going. Half-asleep, I told him I was planning on going, as I needed to get some supplies for dinner that night, since I was cooking. It was agreed that D, CS, myself, and CS’ girlfriend would go together rather than separately so as to not get items twice. CS offered to pay with his credit card, and here is where things began to get a bit frustrating. Actual conversation:
“I get 2% back when I buy groceries. So if we have $100 worth of groceries, I get $2 back”
“I know how percentages work, CS”
I don’t like shopping with CS. D and I are aiming to fix it so it’s only the two of us because of this last time. I make lists for what we need, and adhere as closely to that as possible. CS makes a list as well, but then buys a bunch of stuff besides, raising the total of our communal total (items are separated into “individual” and “communal”–everyone pays for their individual plus their portion of the communal). Of course, despite whether we will be using it/eating something made with it or not, it seems like most of CS’ stuff counts as “communal”. He tried to claim the beer was communal. D and I both informed him that if we weren’t going to be drinking it, we weren’t going to be paying for it. These became part of his individual total along with word from me that if I wanted one (and I probably won’t), that I would gladly pay him for the one I took.
For my first shared meal in the apartment, I wanted to do something that I was familiar with that I knew would go over well, so I made Chicken Tikka Masala with the Masala sauce I brought down with me from Trader Joe’s. The recipe is right on the jar–cook some (preferably Basmati) rice in another pot according to its directions. While that cooks, take about 1 pound of chicken (I used pre-cooked fajita-seasoned strips) and cut it into 1-inch cubes. Place in a pan with the jar of sauce and about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of water and let simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. When done, serve on top of the cooked rice. It’s simple, unpretentious, and really really good (particularly if you add some red pepper flake to the sauce for just a little bit of heat). It went over really well with the group, but CS’ behavior while I was cooking, and while everyone was eating, seemed really rude. Rather than talking about what we were having and talking about the smell coming from the simmering sauce, as most others were, CS was taling instead about what he was doing the next night–steak and a vegetable. He talked about what cut of meat he got (a crappy one, to be honest), how he was going to season it, how his dad could make a cheap cut of meat better than most steakhouses, isn’t it going to be just great. This continues all through dinner, and felt like a slap in the face.
I had a little reason to be concerned. CS and his girlfriend had made cookies that afternoon. Peanut butter blossoms (basically a standard PB cookie with hershey’s kisses in the middle after they’ve baked) are a fairly simple cookie to make, but somehow they screwed up. After 10 minutes in the oven, CS wondered why they hadn’t flattened out. This was blamed on the oven not being the proper temp, but when I asked, they hadn’t pressed down the cookies with a fork beforehand–something I’ve seen in every PB cookie recipe I’ve seen, even for the ones with hershey’s kisses. I suggested this, but apparently I know nothing about baking PB cookies. When the cookies were done, they were okay, but nothing overly special–there wasn’t enough of a peanut butter flavor to them and they seemed a little bland, like more sugar was needed. This was enough to make me wary when CS said he’d be doing breakfast as well, but I agreed to wake up when he said he’d be making them to give him a fair chance.
When I woke up at 9 that morning, I didn’t hear anything going on in the kitchen. I walked out into the dark living room to find that CS was just coming out of his room as well! CS said that breakfast wasn’t going to be made for at least another half hour to an hour since no one was up. This ticked me off, since I usually don’t set my alarm on the weekends and was a bit tired. I crawled back into bed for 30 minutes and joined everyone in the main room of the apartment. Once made, CS’ breakfast sandwiches were good–the eggs were nicely scrambled and the italian sausage was a nice counterpoint that added a little heat/flavor to it. Maybe I had been wrong to judge CS’ cooking skills based on just the cookies. Maybe he was more than just talk.
While D and I played on the Wii that afternoon, CS began to prep the steaks, tenderizing them and coating them with a rub that included meat tenderizer and lemon pepper. I wasn’t really paying attention to how he was doing it or how much rub was going on the flatiron steaks he had bought, as I couldn’t see from where I was sitting. He began to grill them, and the first batch (of two) was soon ready. As they were cooking, I could smell pepper in the air–I was worried, but knew that a peppery flavor is sometimes good on a steak. D’s girlfriend got the first steak since we still had our hands full with the game. After she took a bite, a look came over her. This could not be good.
After finishing the level at hand, I went to grab a steak, which CS was patting with a paper towel to remove excess rub. It didn’t seem like a good sign that, post-cooking, the steaks looked like hamburger patties rather than steaks (although that could have just been the cut he got–a quick wiki search reveals flatiron steaks are cut from the chuck region of the cow). I cut a bite off and put it in my mouth. I nearly spit it out. It was too salty, too peppery, and too lemony–alltogether awful. D’s girlfriend realized this about the same time, and we asked how heavily the steaks had been seasoned. These clearly didn’t need a heavy dry rub like they had been given, and no amount of scraping rub off would help the flavor–the great job of tenderizing CS did made sure the meat was permeated with the flavor. It was all I could do to choke down the steak and veg (which got saturated with the juice from the meat and tasted salty) with a glass of water. CS chose to do something he couldn’t quite remember in an attempt to impress us all and had fallen flat on his face. While it seemed a bit mean to feel this way, the schadenfreude of this after all the disrespect I had been given the night before made up for this.
D, his girlfriend, and I went for a walk that turned into a drive down to Sonic to cleanse our palates with some cherry limeades (note to Sonic: have your free limeade coupons distributed to mailboxes. Leaving a pile outside the ARA leads to students (self included) taking stacks of them to create a never-ending limeade source.) It ended up not helping with the gastrointestinal woes we were suffering as a result of the salty steaks, but at the time, it tasted good, as did the feeling of retribution.
Nick
Awesome story. Good to see CS have to eat his words after all the shit he had talked.