Had a few mates round for dinner last night. As ever, we ended up drinking excessive amounts, albeit absorbed by plenty of food.
Have figured out how to make really gorgeous pizza; something that had evaded me until recently. Buy a packet of pizza dough mix. Chuck in some olive oil as well as water. Bake it on foil so it doesn't droop all over the oven (having first shaped it into a pizza base, obviously) . Take it out the oven, turn it over and cover with fresh tomatoes, finely chopped onion, mozarella and then dollop on home made pesto and squidge around the ingredients on top of the pizza until they're all covered in it. Put in oven until the mozarella has melted.
Home made pesto even easier - bung a packet of basil, about 1/4 packet pine nuts, a couple of cloves of garlic and a generous grating of parmesan in the blender. Set it going and add olive oil until it looks about the right thickness.
Also made risotto balls which are ace fun to do. You get to grab handfuls of risotto and (having lobbed mozarella in the middle of them) roll them around in egg and breadcrumbs. It's the grown up equivalent to making mud pies but tastes far nicer.
Cooking aside, I had a fun night. A guy I met recently came over. He's a photographer and has worked with loads of famous people (Michael Jackson, the queen that kind of thing) so had lots of ace stories. Michael Jackson sounds like he's got a great sense of humour, which surprised me. Despite hanging out with celebs and doing the whole glamorous lifestyle thing, the photographer seemed quite happy with dinner and wine in a one bed flat in a not particularly cool part of London, which was nice.
Also had a friend from my university days who's a real sweetie and the world's best cook (except for possibly my stepmum). She's the one who lent me the blowtorch which she felt very guilty about. I told her not to be so stupid and gave her another drink.
And there was another mate/client who I do some sex writing for, so obviously the conversation was smutty for a fair amount of time. Nothing new there, I guess.
This morning, I woke up very hungover so decided to go back to sleep. It worked. I woke up more or less hangover free but very hungry. I forgot to bring out the Ferrero Rocher last night so had them for breakfast (at 3.30pm) with 'melt your teeth' strength coffee and orange juice. Surprisingly good breakfast.
Posted by emilyd at November 16, 2002 04:40 PM