This afternoon, Rich and I decided that we would spend the rest of the day creating a feast. I would help him pick out the raw ingredients, and pay for half of them, and then after he cooked them, I would help him eat them. A good deal, if you ask me. We started by heading across the street to a deli, so Rich could get something to quench his thirst. An orange & cream soda did the trick.
First Stop: "Fish." A restaurant on Bleecker Street just east of 7th avenue, that happens to also sell fish as if it were a market.
The fish in the display window. This is a chef's idea of window shopping.
Inside, placing the order.
Richard picked out the fish, and the guy cut the meat out of the whole fish as we waited. We got salmon.
Second Stop: Murray's Cheese. It's right down the street from "Fish" on Bleecker. It's an amazing cheese store. It also has many other things Italian.
The place is packed to the gills with good food in raw form.
Before purchasing, they cut a slice of proscuitto for Rich to taste. This is a real market.
Then we rushed home, because Fresh Direct was to show up today! Our first order! And we needed some of this stuff to cook tonight as well. Everything was going according to plan when they showed up. And you can't tip them, which feels weird. They even bring the boxes inside for you. Also feels a little weird. But it was quick, efficient, and on time. Here's what the food looked like, in the boxes, as I found it:
So, as you can see, Rich is now completely inundated with ingreedients to make a feast out of, and he is very happy about this. He gets started in the Kitchen.
Meanwhile, I put the Fresh Direct boxes in the hallway, near the freight elevator. That's where large cardboard boxes are supposed to go. They come by in the freight elevator at least once a day to cart the boxes away.
Rich went all out with the Antipasto presentation this evening. That's because it wasn't just the two of us tonight. We were to have guests. Two people from Rich's narrative film shoot were coming over to see the rough cut of his film. Erin was also coming over to hang out with me because we missed each other and haven't hung out for a LONG time!
The salmon marinates as the asparagus and mushrooms cook.
Richard presented the Salmon with some long scallion, which I think gave it a modern-art kind of look.
Here's Rich and two of his ex-crew members eating. The sauce was excellent, but the fish itself, which we went out of our way to get, was not as good as the Salmon we get nearby at Zeytuna. Go figure. But it was excellent anyway.
Then, of course, Richard fired up the Creme Brule (Lemon) that he had made last night for this occasion.
There's Erin on the left. She had eaten dinner already, so she came to chill.
Then we huddled around Rich's computer screen to see some footage he has laying around from various projects.
Then we moved up to the Lounge on the 24th floor to watch the official Rough Cut of "The Man Who Would Be Baker," Richard's Senior-Year film.
The crew members watched it with a critical eye.
Then we sat around (and gordon layed down on the floor) and critiqued the shit out of Rich's movie. It was extremely productive, and Richard got a lot of good ideas for how to fine-tune the next edit of the movie. It's what a rough cut is for!
On the way back down to the apartment, I passed the fresh direct boxes. They were still there, but they were all folded down and compressed. I've never seen this happen before. Who was in the hallway compressing the boxes? It's a mystery. It gave me a start when I saw it. WEIRD.
Erin and I hung out for a few more hours, having not talked in so many weeks, with so much to catch up about, we talked for hours into the night. It felt like freshman year a little bit, which was nice. She was also very proud of her new slippers, which, she said, she found for $5 in Chinatown. Apparently these are the hot new thing. I've never seen them. But $5 is still great!
While Erin and I talk, Richard gathers a whole bunch of things, including some of the Lemon Creme Brule, and he heads out. His parents are downstairs (at about midnight) in the car, to take him back to Jersey, where he will be spending the weekend. This happens at least once a month.
At one point, Erin is in my kitchen, and she becomes startled by something she sees. She begins laughing and saying "oh, my god." I look closer, and realize she's staring ay my knife set.
I was suprised that she hasn't seen this before. Richard and I did this back when we were Juniors, living at Water Street Dorm. We were missing four knives, and we happened to be simultaneously talking about the four people I don't talk to anymore. [Two college friends, a camp friend, and an ex-girlfriend with whom my relationships had gotten so sour, there was no communication at all, each for different but, I believe, understandable reasons.] And one of us joked that the knives were missing because I embedded them in those four people when I killed them. A violent but comical fantasy. Rich and I had a hearty chuckle. And then I decided that we should label the empty slots for the four people, to explain to all our visitors why we're missing those four knives! And it has since given most of our friends a good laugh, but I think Erin was the last to see them.
By the way:
Kim: Justin's ex-girlfriend. She pretended to be someone else on AIM, and had a 3-week quasi-romance
with me to get information about Justin. Bitch.
Laura: My ex-girlfriend. See Brad. See Jared. If she were my friend, she would not have been a
participant in these incidents. Slut.
Brad: My ex-best-friend. Friends from camp since 1994. Professed his love for Laura 1 month
after she and I broke up, THEN told me he liked her. He then told me that his chance
of dating Laura was more important than our decade-old friendship. He then refused to be my
roommate at Water Street at the last second. Richard switched rooms with him, the Hero
of this story, and that's how Rich and I became close friends. Brad ended up not talking to
Laura weeks later, because, as he said, "You were right about her." He lost us both. Moron.
Jared: College Friend. Dated Laura for weeks without telling me first, while being my suitemate.
Treated Kim as if nothing had happened, knowing full well what she did to me. Prick.
They tell you, on your way into college, that you'll meet new people and make new friends and that it'll be great. And you do, and it is. But... something else generally happens in College. I find, based on the experiences of myself, and most of my friends, that you begin to change your friend standards sometime during those four years. Somewhere along the line, or perhaps, gradually, you begin to get a better sense of who you are. And with that, comes a better sense of what kind of people you want to be friends with. In Middle School and even in High School, friendship had a lot to do with proximity. You tolerated a lot from your friends, because they were the best of who was around. But by College, the need to be friends with as many people as possible subsides. Instead, as your personality and interests become more and more solidified, you begin to value a smaller number of close freinds over a larger number of aquaintances. And with that comes a higher standard by which you expect your friends to treat you. I've always had high friend standards, and I let my friends know it. They should be flattered by it. But some people have stepped on me nonetheless. Everyone makes mistakes. Forgiveness is a part of learning and growing both in a friendship, and as an individual. But when those transgressions involve a violation of trust... then it has gone too far. Trust is the foundation of the bond between two people in any relationship. And all four of the above people, who comically and creully appear on the set of knives in my kitchen have done something to completely undermine my trust in them. And that is why we are beyond "I'm sorry." Because they can utter the words, but I won't trust them to follow through in the future, and the only protection I have, is my ability to disengage them from my life... an unfortunate last resort that I've had to invoke more times than I have cared to. It still hurts to think about friendships that have been lost. But it is important, at least to me, to know, that the friends I have, are friends I can trust. And I believe I can.