I know: I don’t update this blog enough. I’m sorry. Mostly, it is because I am all blogged out from writing about my other passion here. Also, because I have been moving around a lot recently. Currently, I am living in Providence with David. We moved in on Monday and because we are both “cash poor” we can’t buy food. Thus, tonight, we made gumbo from the canned goods leftover from the tenant before the previous tenant (from 3 years ago!). BUT we don’t have a can opener, which is where my story begins:
I was running across the street to buy a can opener at the bodega when I ran into my upstairs neighborhood for the first time. She was bringing out the trash cans and after introducing ourselves, we agreed that we both liked the Providence trash system, that you must put out two recycling bins for every trashcan meaning to put out our building’s five trash cans we need to put out ten recycling bins, even if there nothing to recycle — it’s great! I continued to the bodega and bought the can opener which managed to puncture a hole in our can of beans before breaking. I returned the can opener to the bodega, where they unfortunately had no others. Hungry, with our beans winking at us, I called my new neighbor (who’s number was on the emergency contact list from our landlord) and left a long, silly message explaining our predicament. She called back, I answered “hello?” She said “that does sounds like a disaster” and brought her can opener downstairs for me to use.
Naturally, I offered to make her cookies in return. She did not think I was serious but was obviously mistaken. However, when we were at Trader Joe’s yesterday we decided to forego butter and eggs (cash poor, as well as a pretension towards veganism; I bought yogurt), so I measured out a 1/3 cup of canola oil. I had used up the sugar I brought with me on Monday so I used the light brown sugar that was left from the previous tenant, a solid brick. I hoped the oil would loosen it up but hard chunks remained. So I added the banana and 4 oz melted chocolate (2 oz Scharffen Berger, 2 oz TJ’s) but nothing could melt those sugar crystals. For no good reason I used pastry flour. Plus a 1/2 teaspoon of old baking soda (also in chunks), 1/2 cup coconut, 1/2 cup Ghiradelli 60% cacao chips (a real ransom note of chocolates), and 1/2 cup walnuts. While they were baking, I invited my neighbor for “banana coconut chocolate chocolate chip walnut cookies.” Luckily, she took a rain check. The resulting cookies were weird, with melted sugar danglers, and too crumbly. I’ll invite her again once we’re fully stocked. The gumbo was delicious.
