The Proof is in the Eggplant

I cooked tonight.  No, really.  I can prove it. 

I cooked tonight.  And not even the type of cooking that requires quotation marks around the word. 

I have several cookbooks, usually excellent dust collectors, and tonight I looked up eggplant in Healthy Cooking for Two (or Just for You) ... [I didn't say this story was without pitiful parts] ... and found Roasted Eggplant Parmesan.

Sounds complicated.

Four ingredients.  SCORE!

Eggplant, olive oil, marinara sauce, and mozzarella.

I have three of those four things! Sweet! This is destiny given my typically barren food supply.  Let's just say, I am not the domestic goddess who keeps "things" on hand in order to "whip" up anything.  I am the reason cookbooks with "four ingredients" in the title exist.  This can happen.  No, this will happen. 

So, I just need the eggplant. I can do that. I can totally do that.  Meijer must have them. Meijer has everything. 

A few minutes later, I'm standing in front of purple weeble-wobbles with wee green hats, pressing, squeezing, generally completely ignorant of how to pick one of these things out.  I guess.

I grab some Parmesan just for fun.

Back home, I cut the eggplant into eight pieces, bake 'em for 20 minutes, then layer them in a pan with the sauce and two kinds of cheese (the oil was for the pan) and pop them back in for another 20 minutes.

Bam! I'm eating something remotely healthy and purple.

That I cooked! I used a knife and the oven!!!

I know!

An Arctic breeze must have blown through Hell tonight.

One Helluva Back-up Plan

[Spoiler Alert - you know - in case you'd be STUNNED to know it works out perfectly.]

Now, I’m used to watching romantic comedies that require the suspension of belief – our modern day fairytales. I get it. You fed us Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty when we were little and, now, as our eyes continue to narrow and the idea of Prince Charming induces an eye-roll as surely as Pavlov’s dog slobbered at the sound of a bell, you think you can simply throw yet another hottie our way and we’ll be mollified.

A hottie named Alex O’Loughlin aka Stan [aka Mick St. John – the hot vampire you tempted us with only to cancel the series Moonlight without warning.]

And representing us in this latest farce? Zoe, owner of a pet store and adorable pooch, played by the hot, happily-married, mother of twins, Jennifer Lopez donning her post-pregnancy body that rivals any 25 year old.

Really?

And, of course, Charming Stan is immediately intrigued with the princess, hunts her down after they meet, pursues her, puts up with … hell … a pregnant-by-someone-else female, who simply could not wait any longer for “the one” so she used some of the money she socked away from her time at an Internet company to buy some sperm … earlier on the day she first met Charming Stan.

Really??

And, hey, score, she gets pregnant with twins on the first try.

<narrowed eyes>

Princess Zoe continually pushes Stan away, having grown to distrust men after her father left when she was little; she’s built walls, this princess. But our Charming Alex, he doesn’t drop her for the ever-present beautiful blond ex-girlfriend who is so obviously still enamored with him. Oh no. He does everything he can think of to convince his love that he is trustworthy; he is long-haul material.

<throws up hands>

REALLY????

Sorry, Jenny. I can only suspend my belief far enough to believe in trainable dragons.

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Oh, BTW, hey you.  Yeah ... you ... Evanston.  I see you.  Every time you visit, every pageload, every click.  I see you and your IP address. 
Just thought you should know.