A New Mani-LOW

So Monday night I went out to see the movie revival of the 70s-era musical Hairspray. It seemed like a reasonable plan for a Monday night. Little did I know, however, that I would end up actually traveling back in time to the actual 1970s. That's right. I was hand-picked to join a select group of New York "fans" for a private concert with the one and only, Barry Manilow.

Ok, okay, ok. So I'm not really a "fanilow." And I wasn't totally hand-picked. It was more like, Barry needed an audience and I needed a funny story to tell on Tuesday.

Going into the concert, the sum of my knowledge of Barry Manilow was that 1) he guest-judged American Idol last year, and 2) in the mid-90's, he and Michael Bolton were often mocked. Leaving the concert, I had learned a few new things: 1) Barry Manilow is very short, 2) So short that I bet he got beaten up a lot in junior high (I sort of wanted to beat him up just looking at him), and 3) Private concerts on Manhattan hotel rooftops aren't so cool when you really couldn't care less about the performer, but you have to pretend like you do - because you're on camera. For national television.

Lesson of the evening? When you have a plan to see a movie, see a movie. Like paper beats rock, revivals beat anachronisms.

If that's a vegetable medley, I'm a monkey.

When it comes to cooking, I am a firm believer in food prep. I am not the world's best cook, but I really enjoy organizing things - almost as much as I enjoy getting things done early so I don't have to bother doing them later. (Precrastination?) Anyway, if I'm going to cook, I'd like to have as much of the intermediate steps done beforehand as possible. The aim is to prepare and freeze as much as you can - so like a Bertoli frozen pasta dinner, all I have to do is throw it in a pan and then eat it. The emphasis is on the eat it.

The result of this philosophy was that I spent this afternoon baking croissants (and then eating them), making (and remaking) spaghetti sauce (to put in mini lasagnas that I'll make and freeze tomorrow), and cutting two large pieces of chicken into a bunch of tinier pieces of chicken. The end goal for this prep work is: spaghetti dinner for tonight, 4 lasagna dinners at a date to be determined, and between 2-3 chicken and broccoli meals at an even later date to be determined.

With any luck, I'll be wearing sweaters again before I do any more prep work. I win!