One of the biggest challenges for me this school year was the introduction of cooking. Though I had worked in a few restaurants during high school, I had never actually prepared dinner on a regular basis for myself. The daunting task of creating different meals, seven days a week, had me worried that I might slip in to the "frozen veggies and Mr. Noodles" meal routine after the first few weeks. Fortunately that didn’t happen.
We decided that it would be best to split the week into individual nights where one person would cook for the rest of the house on their night. This worked out quite well, since everyone would attempt to one-up the previous night’s meal, and in turn we never ended up with bland, repeated meals.
With dinner excelling my expectations nightly, the only thing left to complain about was seating accommodations. Our kitchen table doesn’t have any chairs, and topped with the fact that it was, and currently still is, covered in an array of recyclables and cardboard made it very difficult to use it as it was originally intended. Instead we use the two coffee tables and a couch in our living room.
By eating supper in the living room, we are able to catch up on missed TV shows from that week. Supper was eaten in roughly one hour, which allows for 2 episodes of that night’s show to be watched and then it was back to schoolwork or other important things. Sometimes we watch movies.
One Thursday evening, the decision had been made to watch The Fast and the Furious — an odd choice since no one was really into cars. I missed the movie but someone came up with the brilliant idea of watching the remaining two that night.
The movie follows ex-cop Brian, and his buddy Roman, who both needed to clear their names or face lengthy jail time. I don’t remember how, but they managed to convince the government to buy them both really expensive cars, and let them drive around town like maniacs for a good third of the movie.
Eventually they pick up a job with Carter Verone, the movie’s overconfident, full-of-himself bad guy. Deciding to put their driving skills to the test, he has them race out to an impound lot, to pick up a package from a car of his (I won’t spoil what’s in the envelope). The movie had thrown out several good lines by this point, but the best was yet to come! After their race to the middle of nowhere, they return to find that Verone has prepared a meal to welcome them to his group.
What looked to be a crystal cake tray, adorned with a display of colourful grapes was placed on the table before them. Circling the grape centerpiece on the tray was . . . Pizza Pockets. Someone pointed out and yelled: "No way! That guy did not just serve them Pizza Pockets!"
The movie was immediately rewound and paused. Several frozen, screen-staring minutes later, we still couldn’t believe that the richest character in the entire movie had just served his guests a Pizza Pocket platter!
After picking ourselves off the floor from laughing at the high-class meal, we finished the movie, and then preceded to watch "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," a movie that turned out to be much less entertaining than the multi-millionaire’s microwaved calzone display.
We went to bed with dreams that someday, we too might be able to sample such a meal. After a week of good jokes about the platter, it faded from memory.
Fast forward to the present (one week ago).
The house was occupied with schoolwork or the latest episode of Index in the living room, supper was being prepared in the basement (the location of the microwave) since our oven was due for a good cleaning. A yell of triumph came from the downstairs and the chef for the evening entered the room, sporting a large tray, topped with . . . you guessed it: several bunches of grapes, and one dozen Pizza Pockets!
A simultaneous mixture of laughing and cheering came from the room. We had in front of us a supper fit for kings, or rather a certain self-centered movie villain. They were the best Pizza Pockets I have ever had and will ever eat.