I'm Cooking, Now!

Literally, yes, I am cooking. Considering I no longer buy food OR cook, this is slightly strange. I have spent more time at the grocery store this week than I have in the past three months. Why, you might ask? And so you might!

One of my co-workers decided we need to have a Passover Pot Luck. We have a lot of Jewish people on our Team, and the rest of the group loves to cook. And being in the computer field, we ALL love to eat. Man, we can sniff out a cake at 50 feet! Oh, and the second part of the logic is to practice our recipes on each other instead of our families. How thoughtful, don't you agree? Kill your co-workers, not your relatives. Some people may argue this was thought out backwards, but I won't go there. Oh, wait, I just did. Sorry.

Actually, we just look for excuses to bring in food, and Passover seemed as good as any. And we are being observant, too. We sent out a list of rules, including what foods to avoid (basically grains and anything with leavening). Kinda like a reverse Iron Chef: Go forth and cook but use NONE of the following ... Pretty funny, really. Most of us have spent a little time this week plotting and planning. One of the guys in my aisle was still making it up this evening as I was leaving, "Maybe I'll try ....". Lordy, who knows what we'll get!

I had planned all along to make a sweet dessert-y kugel (like a noodle casserole, but without the noodles), but one of my co-workers announced she was going to bring in a brisket, so she wanted me to make a savory dish, not a sweet one. Bah.

So last night I bought too much stuff since I had no idea what I'd actually be making and I bought stuff for about four different recipes, you know, just in case someone created a 30-hour day and I'd have the time to COOK it all. Not. I also picked up a brisket since all that talk about brisket made me want one LAST night. So I cooked it and made a list of everything I still did not have so I could go to the store again tonight, which I did.

Today my brisket-making co-worker announced her recipe calls for a beer for the liquid. NOT! No beer for Passover! (No soup for you!) So off she ran to look up Passover Beer and she plans to buy some and make it right. Good! We have RULES, people!

Another co-worker had already made 2 casseroles (kugels) for the event (she planned ahead; imagine that) and was contemplating a third, when she realized she was taking the Metro (train) to work and could not figure out how to lug three casseroles with her, so I offered to pick her up so she could cook us more food. Hey, I have my priorities, people! Now all I need to do is remember to pick her up in the morning instead of going on auto-pilot.

And the MOST interesting part of this whole thing? Half of the people in my group are from India. Hmmm ... I wonder what they think of all this.

I have no cards to show you - I'm too busy cooking and washing the fall-out. I ended up making an Onion-Mushroom-Matzoh kugel and also a sweet kugel with farfel, cottage cheese, sour cream, apricot preserves and dried cranberries (cannot find my raisins). It is cheesy and gooooood. Think cheese cake. M-m-m.

Field Trip update: I plan to pack up the remaining Scrap Heap tomorrow or Friday in preparation for the big day on Saturday. #2 is giddy with excitement that she's getting a day to play with her stamps and maybe some other artsy stuff. I still have no idea what we'll be doing, but I hope it involves a reduction of The Heap! And she remembered her blog password and is ready to rebut any statement I may make on my blog. Oh, this could be fun!

Well, I think my casseroles have cooled off enough for me to cover and refrigerate them. Tomorrow - we eat!!! I'll take my camera in case there are any photo ops.