At least we’re all in the same boat

Photo by La Zahra

There’s nothing like the perspective an evening of red wine and pasta with your girlfriends can bring. It’s all too easy to feel as if the world is ganging up on you, and that sucky and just generally jank life situations only have a knack for targeting you alone.

Well –not unusually– there is a silver lining to even these bleak moments, and that’s in knowing that my friends are right along there with me. Here I thought everyone else had their act together and they were all heading happily down the road to their dream life. Ah, not so!

Over a pleasant evening of red wine and eggplant parmigiana, we all came to the consensus that we know exactly what we want our lives to look like, but we have absolutely no clue as to how to get there.

Like so many other females in our age group (and thanks in no small part to the visual image management that takes place on Pinterest), my friends and I have often found ourselves making plans for events and situations that are nowhere on the horizon. Oh, but that hasn’t stopped the planning. Sometimes, when so much of life feels like it’s up in the air, it helps to try and fill in the gaps wherever we can, even if it’s just in a lovely, hypothetical sense.

We resolved then and there that we’d have our lives in order in at least two year’s time (just in time for our high school reunion!). It was the kind of sweet, non-threatening goal that helps you get out of bed in the morning with sometimes to look forward to. It helps bide the time in between ladies’ nights.

Learning to Appreciate the Faux Marsala Monday

I won’t be excessively high-brow and say that I don’t find pleasure in an occasional trip to Olive Garden. Yes, on a one-to-ten scale of real Italian food, it’s probably around a 2.3. Yes, it is always packed with families and their loud-mouthed kids or tense teenage couples on cheap first dates. But there are just certain inevitable things about life that we have to learn to make our peace with, things we can never hope to change. And with Olive Garden, I’ve accepted the fact that I shouldn’t go there expecting great ambiance or top notch food. I go for the company.

So it came to pass that this past Monday, on a mixed whim of laziness and a general desire to get out of the apartment, Nick and I trolled down to Olive Garden for a late evening dinner. The place was bursting at the seams when we got there, so we had to bide our time at the bar. Two glasses of red wine for me, and one coke and rum for him later, we were at our table feeling good, smiling a lot, and happily tuning out the turmoil around us.

Stuffed Chicken Marsala

To a cynical eye, this is where the evening turned afoul. To me, this is where I came to fully appreciate the skill that Nick and I have managed to hone when it comes to cooking. He ordered the stuffed chicken marsala (Oven-roasted chicken breast stuffed with Italian cheeses and sun-dried tomatoes, topped with mushrooms and a creamy marsala sauce. Served with garlic parmesan mashed potatoes) while I opted for the good old regular chicken marsala (Sautéed chicken breasts in a savory sauce of mushrooms, garlic and marsala wine. Served with Tuscan potatoes and bell peppers).

Chicken Marsala

His dish came looking fairly good and smelling even better. Mine came looking good and smelling oddly like Teriyaki chicken. First bite proved that my Teriyaki assessment was spot-on. The poor cook at the Manhattan Beach Olive Garden is obviously laboring under the misapprehension that chicken marsala is supposed to be cooked with profuse amounts of ginger. To me and my taste buds, we know better.

Click to see other Dolcini flavors

If I were a more short-tempered person, my night would have gone to pot and there would have been no salvaging it. But my chicken, however gingery it may have been, was still edible. My potatoes (and you know I love my potatoes!) were particularly yum. A third glass of wine, a chocolate mousse with dark chocolate cookie crust dolcini (at left), and the increasingly pink-cheeked company of my Nicholas assured an all-around lovely time.

But I’ve learned my lesson. Olive Garden is good for stuffing your face with bread sticks, downing several glasses of wine, and feeling both in love and oddly cheap at the same time. But for good chicken marsala? I’m afraid I’ll just have to look to my own kitchen from now on. And next time I go to Olive Garden? I’ll just stick to some capellini.

Follow the jump to get our recipe for some tasty, tasty, tasty chicken marsala.

(Re)Reunited, and it Feels So Good

As much as I love my man, I won’t deny that I get a persistent urge for some female contact every now and again. Sure, Nick is there for me to remove spiders from my room in the middle of the night, to go on a hand-holding walk to the market, and all other things with the emotional equivalent of skipping on a beach at sunset.

But for all that love, he’s still a boy. He still laughs when I compulsively shop on eBay. He doesn’t understand why I can’t leave the house in an outfit that looks too similar to something I wore last week. There are just some things that need a lady’s touch.

On my birthday, I proudly reveled in the fact that I was successfully able to fuse two groups of friends with remarkable results. Now, of their own volition, those friends were eager to not only see me again, but to see each other! Thus, I was only too happy to oblige.

As it turns out, we were all overdue for some lady time. There were romantic issues to be discussed. There were the perils of employment to navigate. There was juicy gossip to dish out. So, we dressed to the nines, hopped in our cars, and rendezvoused at one of my tastier haunts: Sompun Thai in Silverlake. This place is a 15 on a 1-to-10 scale of cuteness. It’s located on a tricky bend on Santa Monica Blvd. that, if you’re not paying attention, may cause you to totally bypass your destination. But once inside, tasty delights await.

Seated in the restaurant’s cozy patio, me and my ladies met and ate and loved each other. Garlic chicken…spicy mint noodles…basil and beef…two Singhas…oh my. Whitney and Melisa, I’ve known since elementary school, and Zahra (oh that Zahra!) has been in my life for near ten years now. But one fact that I’ll never stop being grateful for is how we’ve managed to make this transformation from talking about Jumanji and Jurassic Park (or in Zahra’s case, stressing out over who was getting better test scores in Pre-Algebra) to being able to talk and love and embrace each other’s advice as grown women.

I first came to Sompun a few years back, having been introduced to it by my L.A.-savvy uncle over an impromptu lunch with him and Nick. I felt so grown up. We even had beers! It was all a very grown up affair. But bringing Nick into the fold of my family -and having them take me seriously- has been one of my most important quests. By all accounts, I think it’s working. Although, according to my Aunt Irma, her only reservation is that he has a tendency to over-stress when it comes to school. I’m not worried. He always helps de-stress me. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn’t do the same for him?

Sompun played host to a stand-out time that, in my opinion at least, saw me begin my transition from goofy adolescent to a lightly less goofy adult. When asked by my ladies where we ought to go for dinner -Sompun’s glorious food not withstanding- I knew that this had to be the place we went, if for nothing else than me wanting to see another such moment arise.

Missing from the pictures, and I guess my general account of the evening, is lovely Leah, who obligingly played photographer during our little reunion. But her advice is up there with the rest of them, and her presence will be more than welcome at our next love fest.