24 Years on this Earth

Today is my birthday, and I hit 24 years now. I had to come up with an idea to make it slightly different and more interesting than previous ones. The previous plans have always been go to a fancy restaurant and have everyone else pay but the birthday boy. Since it is still Ramadan, I found that eating out for Futoor or Suhoor is not as interesting nor enjoyable as eating back home. I have no idea how this idea came to fruition, but it was decided that I will have my friends meet up at my place where we will cook a three-course meal; with each person taking care of appteizers, main or dessert.

It was decided that we would have two flavors of buffalo wings for appetizers, cooked by no less than the buffalo wing aficionado! Both flavors were really interesting and good, and perhaps better than most (if not all) wings I had in the UAE. Kudos for home-made buffalo wings! The flavor rating for those wings would be 10 out of 10. However, when it came to skill and technique I would give it a 5 out of 10 mainly cause it was simply coated wings that were deepfried, and the sauces were mostly readymade. The negative points were presentation and the fact that there weren’t enough wings to indulge in. Perhaps we should do a buffalo wings indulgence night where we go all out next time.

Next was the main course, which I made. I initially thought of doing gnocchi with a cream sauce. I changed my mind when I knew that making spherical potato pasta pieces would end in failure where the size of each ball would be so different and perhaps not so spherical. I decided to make Okonomiyaki instead, a Japanese pancake/pizza. The ingredients were interesting as it had a lot of cabbage in it (and to my surprise, raw cabbage tasted good as it was slightly sweet and oh-so crisp). Given that this was a Japanese recipe and my track record of always missing the mark when it came to Asian cuisine, it was a partial success (the partial part to come soon).

I made two okonomiyakis. The first one I served to my brother and myself, and the second one (which was a lot thicker and, ehm, undercooked in the center) was served to my two friends & chefs who made the appetizer and dessert. So my okonomiyaki was a success, crispy, cooked and topped with a mixture you can never go wrong with (mayo and Worcestershire/ketchup/soy sauce blend). My brother said that it tasted exactly like the typical refreshment restaurants (a.k.a. Murattabaat) all over the city due to the ketcup/mayo mix. The failed okonomiyaki (which I only knew about on a later date) was somewhat raw and doughy in the middle. However, given that the ingredients are relatively safe eaten raw, I didn’t feel so bad.

Last was the epic Raspberry Cheesecake made by the Mustang-fan with desert Machboos cooking experience and absolutely no dessert experience. The first step of the recipe was a mess, since the butter in the microwave exploded, and splattered all over inside. We had to clean a buttery microwave before even starting the recipe. Next was making the crust. We stuck to old stone-age techniques of hand crushing Digestive biscuits to a fine powder. It took around an entire hour for this step. Now to make matters worse the only pan I had with removable edges was donut shaped, too large and had inside indents on its bottom. We only had enough crust to fill half of the pan and used paper and tape to close the edges. Next was the cheesecake mix, which was too sloppy and did not hold well, but tasted really good.

So how would I rate the cheesecake? Flavor is a 10 out of 10. Initial presentation (if you give a blind eye to the unused half part of the pan) is also a 10 out of 10. However, when the cake was served in plates, presentation falls to 3 out of 10 as everything began muddled. In the end, it was a machboos-like dessert.

We watched a Korean series called “Coma” which is best described as a creepy/thriller series (1 hour episodes, each independent and a total of 6 episodes). We later watched a couple of episodes of Slam Dunk for laughs and the night ended. I was now 24 years old, stuffed with food, and had a kitchen full of a mess. I couldn’t go to sleep with a messy kitchen so I proceeded to clean the kitchen, and only after about an hour did I go to bed. Best part was the next day I didn’t have work since I had an appointment at 10AM in Dubai to follow up on the healing of my eyes. However, this meant leaving at 8 AM to go to Dubai (even though I wouldn’t be driving).