Frustration!

So, these are supposed to be the lazy hazy crazy days of summer, right? Pretty foliage everywhere? Check.

Easy minimalist yummy cooking with fresh ingredients? Check.

Road trips to beautiful locales? Check.
Boozy thirst-quenchers? Check.

Picnics and party food? Check.

So why, oh why, does my Mac refuse to rotate my pictures?

In which Meg attempts Thai food... and turns it into sandwiches.

One weekend, my family was graced by the presence of a nine-year-old girl cousin of mine. Given the extremely finicky palates of children, it was an ill-advised time for me to try to assuage my craving for Thai food by cooking it. Did this stop me? Of course not! When Meg wants Thai food, she wants Thai food, and you can't buy it in my hometown anyway, since we have no Thai restaurants.

Being one of those people who sometimes has multiple cravings at one time, I also wanted bread. So after rummaging up some Thai recipes on the intarwebs and a trip to the grocery store, we were ready to begin our foray into making Thai chicken sandwiches.

Firstly, there was peanut sauce. I took a recipe I found online, and took out and added in flavours as I saw fit. Of course (hindisght is 20/20), I forgot to write it down somwhere findable. There was all-natural peanut butter, honey, coconut milk, and spices, but the rest is anybody's guess.

As you can probably tell from the picture of the peanut sauce, we made our sandwiches custom-ly at the dinner table. There was fried onions, fried cabbage, chicken, and peanut sauce to be had. And, obviously, the bread, which the little cousin and I argued over at first, but then I was nice and conceded.

I'm not complaining, though, since we all got a good meal out of it. And when we ran out of bread and chicken, there was plenty of rice to mix the peanut sauce and veggies with.


Music for this post: "Superhot Lady Cop"by Beau Hall & the magnificent 7 (go here for a listen:http://www.beaurocks.com/)

Weird things to do to a poor defenseless piece of chicken parmesan...

In the beginning, everything was peachy-keen. Mom's chicken parmesan came into this world on a sun-dappled May night, unaware of what lay in store...

That night, my fmaily sat around the table salivating and after a few seconds of shock, we dove in; savouring the fresh, fresh tomatoes, commending Mom's choice of expensive cheese, and chewing a lot (and a bit protectively, but can you blame us?).

However, not all the chicken parmesan was gone by the end of the night. We were pretty cheerful to be having leftovers the next day. The chicken parmesan thought all would be well; it would be consumed the next day with a bit of fanfare. Little did it know...

Lunchtime approacheth. Dad and I clambered home for lunch from our respective places of employ (I miss my cushy government job). The chicken parmesan peeked out from the fridge. We set it on the table and began to assail it.

Dad decided he wanted a salad with the chicken parmesan as a centrepiece. It hadn't planned on spending its final moments on a bed of lettuce, but it could deal with. And then Dad brought out some sliced tomato, which makes sense, but then... mango?! Had he gone mad?! Tropical fruit with an Italian main course? It makes sense if it was gelato for afterwards, but...

This is Mom holding up her and dad's creation in front of some flowers so it looks pretty.

And it got worse...

Poor, poor chicken parmesan had no clue it would find itself between two uncannily shaped pieces of bread. We had a whole-wheat baguette whose slices were the same size as my piece of chicken parmesan. We'd eaten this same baguette with the meal last night, but Dad had refrained from turning the meal into a sandwich like he usually does when there's bread on the table. There fore I considered it my duty as my father's daughter to take the baguette, chicken parmesan, some lettuce, and the fresh tomato sauce from the chicken paremsan to make a sandwich.

YUM. Sorry, chicken parmesan, but it had to be done. I hope you forgive us, wherever you are...