36.0 The Over-Eager Busboy

Starring Erin & Mike
Filmed on Location in Beautiful Downtown Sellwood
Soundtrack: The Heart of Saturday Night by Tom Waits

“Where the clouds are like headlines on a new front page sky”

7:30 in the morning and we’re still in bed. On Friday, even! No, I will not get up – I’ve been ordered to stay home from work. It’s my furlough day, a popular non-vacation, non-holiday, non-paid weekday utilized by many businesses during our current recession. Streaming it to this 3-day Memorial Day weekend assuages the grief of a thinner paycheck.

8:30 in the morning and we’re still in bed. Eventually, we shuffle to the couch, but lounge in our “cozies” (that stage of dress between pajamas and you-look-fine-we’re-only-going-to-the-supermarket attire) until 2:30.

No furlough for the rain, though. The sky continues pouring it over the curbs like an over-eager busboy refilling your glass after every sip. We remain indoors. Well, except for a quick jaunt to New Seasons for a chocolate-covered old fashioned. As a cold marble of rain plinkos between my shoulder blades, I remember I could be hunched over my keyboard at the office, futilely engaging a non-responsive FTP site. For that, I could even shrug off fists of hail.

Back home, Erin and I wordlessly communicate with our online compatriots. We Facebook (a new verb), Twitter (an old verb, but used in a new way), Wave (see “Twitter”), IM, email, blog, slog, farkle, gazinta… and before you know it, we’re both speaking Yiddish.

Note: the protagonist of my debut novel will be named “Farkle Gazinta”.

But did we waste the day, with all the social networking? Some will say “Yea!” exuberantly. Others, “no”, with nary a glance askance from their Blackberry. Or Droid. Or Tricorder. It’s as if all my Star Trek toys from 1975 were fully operational.

Just like you need a good 8 or so hours of sleep to recharge your body’s battery, you need an occasional 3 to 4 day weekend of laziness to recharge your spirit. I subscribe to Ferris Bueller’s dictum of “Leisure Rules”.

As usual, my ITSK deadline hovered like a swarm of obscenicons in the lowery sky. How fortuitous it fell on my day off! If only my particular “writer’s combination” would unlock my creative side in time! I require a precise trifecta of Inspiration, Articulation and Discipline before I even consider tapping the keys. Of the three, Discipline eludes me most often. Sometimes I write the entire article in my head before I get out of bed in the morning but can’t push myself to the physical third of the job.

Ah, you guys are probably hungry by now. Erin depends on her own trifecta for her recipes, I suppose, but she seems to struggle less with her decisions. Like the other night when we hosted a surprise party for a member of her pre-legendary, semi-fictional band Trifecta. We were expecting seven guests in 2 hours and Erin hadn’t decided what to make for dinner! I left the room to powder my nose and when I returned, Boom! Inspiration had struck! Followed quickly by what I filtered as Articulation and the oh-so-elusive Discipline! We were back from the supermarket in 30 minutes, pre-heating the oven and thawing the frozen spinach.

I don’t recall the party that well, but Erin’s stuffed chicken lingers in my sense memory like a great novel.

I guess if I need to review the surprise party, I could just check my Facebook or Twitter or blog or slog or…

Erin’s Intro: I had about 10 minutes to decide what to cook for a large group of people and NO clue what I was going to make. Panic was setting in. Usually I don’t plan what I’m going to do anyways, but this was a whole new level of procrastinating. (An HNL, if you’re in Trifecta). So I’ve got 5 cookbooks out and I’m flipping frantically through trying to find something that will be nice enough for a dinner party, but easy enough to pull together with limited time. And then, Voila! I found this stuffing recipe. It’s pretty brilliant. I used chicken breasts on the bone, but in the future I’ll most likely do it another way, so I’ll explain both.

Chicken Trifecta

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 Tbs butter, melted
Salt and pepper

The filling:
3oz Cream Cheese, softened
½ Cup grated smoked Gouda
½ package frozen spinach, thawed.
¼ tsp fresh nutmeg

When spinach is thawed, press between two layers of paper towels to remove most of the moisture. Mix all ingredients together. Set aside

Option 1: Using a meat tenderizer, hammer out the chicken breasts until they are about ½ inch thick. Divide the cheese mixture into four even amounts. Put ¼ of the cheese mixture onto half of each flattened chicken breast. Fold the other half over the mixture to close it. Place the chicken packages in a greased baking dish. Brush the breasts with melted butter and season with salt and pepper.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Option 2: Use chicken half breasts on the bone and stuff the mixture under the layer of skin. Brush with butter and season with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.

The “In the Sellwood Kitchen” cast and crew can be contacted at: erinandmike@sellwoodkitchen.com