Pesto-list-ious

I am the kind of weirdo who makes to-do lists for her weekends. Why do I, a normally sane person, do this? Well. Personally, I find that seeing things written down makes me feel pressure to do them. I tell myself I make them so I won't forget things--but of course that's not true. I make them because there is only one thing better than seeing every item on a neatly scribed list checked off, and that's making a new list. Should anyone who reads this know of someone specializing in the psychology of list-making, send 'em my name. They need look no further for their next subject. My dad has a saying that has had, it seems, an outsize effect on me; "If it's not on the list, it doesn't get done."  Looking at a list, checked or unchecked, is the sign of someone with things to do, and that's the kind of person I tend to respect.

While this is all well and good for being organized and responsible, I'm starting to learn that you cannot make a list for your life. Part of being alive is forgetting things, being impulsive, making it up as you go. I used my Fourth of July weekend to return to humanity. I'd lost sight, you see, over the past week or two, of what it means to be a person. Being "busy" doesn't mean you have a life--it means you have a job. And telling people you haven't cleaned, read a book, called your college friends, or cooked a meal for yourself because you're too "busy" is no excuse. Making lists can also be an excuse--at least it is for me. After two weeks of not really reading any books, two weeks of an empty fridge and too much takeout/scrounging for food, I'd had enough. I gorged myself this weekend on grocery shopping and books, new and used and borrowed (the books, not the groceries!). You can hunger for a lot of things--for food, for knowledge, for that high, electric note of pure aliveness that you feel when you're about to do something reckless and unplanned. These cannot be sated by listing--only by doing. 

Applying this philosophy to cooking is one of the best things you can do. Instead of being guided by a list, or even a recipe, step on back and just feel. It's what led me to summer's best condiment--pesto.

Shrimply Delicious Chickpea Pancakes

In March, my roommate and I threw our first big dinner party. I'd always wanted to throw a dinner party, and we may have gone a little overboard, seeing as there were twenty people in our large-but-not-really-that-large Brooklyn apartment. It was everything I thought adult life would be; lovely people having witty conversation, delicious food, and of course copious amounts of alcohol.  I fretted for at least two weeks over what kind of food we should serve. For someone who reluctantly acknowledges herself a perfectionist when it comes to these things (hem hem), there is nothing simultaneously more exciting and more nerve-wracking than a dinner party. I think my unhealthy obsession with them stems from my wish to have everyone in my life that I love meet everyone else in my life that I love. To feed them food they will like, to see them meet other people who are just as amazing as they are and just enjoy being, to drink with them...Dinner parties are my version of hedonism. 

When it came time to choose a menu for these twenty lovelies, my roommate wisely encouraged something that would be easy to make in large batches, like lasagna. Instead we went with something only slightly more involved--daal and rice, and chickpea pancakes with cucumber raita. Being hella neurotic (or maybe just a good planner if I'm not being hard on myself), I did a test run of the chickpea pancakes since I'd never made them before, using raw chickpea flour. They were unspeakably delicious, and were inspired by a Mark Bittman recipe (naturally). I had a feeling they would be a dinner party success.

Of course after the test run of dreams, I created a nightmare for myself when I realized 10 minutes into the dinner party that I had bought an insane amount of the wrong kind of chickpea flour. It was toasted, not raw, and so absorbed less of the water and made a flatter, less crispy pancake....fortunately, I was assured they were still pretty damn good. This is me setting things right...and in the process creating a fairly delicious Dara dish.