And now LaughAtlantis is proud to present part two of A Series for Monica...
Pistachios: The Idiocy!
(starring pistachios as pistachios and Joy Begbie as the idiot)
Last year I wanted to do something kinda cool for Easter. I asked some people over and I made some food and we had a pseudo-Easter-y event. One of the things I made was a special appetizer that I got, I think, from a Todd English cookbook. It was grapes wrapped in a layer of blue cheese/cream cheese mixture then rolled in pistachio pieces. So I started a day ahead of time shelling the pistachios and chopping them. You have no idea how hard it is to chop pistachios until you've done it. They squirm and wriggle and don't want to stay under the knife. But I kept plugging away because the recipe sounded awesome. The combination of flavors! Of textures! Tasty goodness!
So I worked and worked, slicing pistachios over and over again. I cut my fingers. Pistachios are really very hard and you have to put a lot of pressure on the knife, so my hand hurt and I was just generally miserable. I finally finished my huge pistachios and was ready to go to bed, knowing that I could do the cheese-and-grape rolling tomorrow. My hand ached too much to do it then. I looked at the recipe, hoowever, and it said I should refrigerate it overnight, so I rolled all those damned grapes in cheese misture and pistachio mixture. It was late and I was really miserable at that point. Just miserable beyond belief. My hands hurt so much.
And then, in the process of cleaning up the kitchen, my eyes came upon... a rolling pin. A rolling pin! All I'd really had to do with the friggin' pistachios was put them in a plastic bag and roll them until they were crushed. That's all. Just that. A rolling pin. No fuss, no muss... just roll.
I had fought the pistachios, fought hard, and I'd won... but the pistachios had the last laugh. Damned pistachios.
I shake my fist at the sky!
(Crap, there might be pistachios up there. I'll put it down now.)