20 Minutes

Manners, you know, they can really put a damper on things when you haven't eaten since lunch nine hours earlier.

Frisee, arugula, radish, avocado, granny smith apple, dried cranberries swished with a simple lemon and olive oil.

I walked in later than usual last night, around 9:45, with the last rotisserie chicken from Fairway proudly in hand.  When I had finally made my way to the new UES location more than six months after their grand opening, I was gravely insulted to find that they had sold out of roasted chickens that night.  I'm still so sore about it that whenever I swing by for a couple groceries when I'm in the neighborhood, it's all I can do to not bring home a roasted bird, even if I don't want chicken that night.  Or even the next.  Principles, people.  Don't ever say I don't have any.

Last night, though, I wanted chicken.  Badly.  I would have happily hunkered down and started ripping through my warm golden chicken with a pair of chopsticks the minute I hung up my coat, but I put that civilized (forgot that I said chopsticks, did you?) plan aside the minute I opened the apartment door and smelled Soeur cooking.  I asked how long it would be before their dinner would be ready.  Twenty minutes before the fish could be plated.

And so I suppressed my animalistic urge to tear off and nosh on a drumstick while standing in the small entryway of the kitchen as two bodies busily cooked and chopped and got their cook on.  I grabbed a sweet little crayola yellow tomato for my pie hole and accepted a glass of wine.  When the first dreadful twenty minutes passed, I helped myself to some cheddar from the cheese board.  And then a cracker.  And then some more cheese.

According to the time stamp on this photo, twenty turned out to be closer to forty-eight.  But no big deal!  A prettily plated salad appeared and quietly took its place to the right of my glass that contained a golden-hued wine that I actually liked.  That's never happened before, me liking a wine!  (Ok, maybe once, late this past fall, a red number from the same vineyard as last night's, according to Soeur.)  The oddest things happen when dinner's served after 10:30.