Sing You Sinners

Last weekend began the first of many, I hope, Saturday night choir rehearsals. The agenda was to be as follows: I go over the Lenin and Lionel's new house and make dinner for the rest of the choir, who then comes over to eat, then practice, then I make dessert, and then we eat dessert. Simple.

Only no gathering is ever simple or blase when you involve Lenin and Lionel.

I got over to their house and began preparations for a basic pasta dinner. Cook the pasta, cut up the various vegetables for the sauce, grate cheese, ect. Simple. But Lenin and Lionel are not used to the amount of food I make in preparation for people. I always expect that the people coming to eat are half-starved teenage boys who are going to devour everything in sight. The problem was their stove was rather small and their pots/pans were also very small. Food was overflowing everywhere. Somehow I managed to keep order. People arrived  - food was enjoyed by all. Rehearsal started. The things took a turn for the interesting.

The small kitchen

During the "rehearsal" process we discovered that the previous tennants had left behind some alcohol. How the guys missed this is beyond me. It was suggested that we help them dispose of said alcohol. Rehearsal got far more exciting.

Pre-wine

Post-wine

Needless to say, it was a great rehearsal. After we had practiced and felt dutifully prepared for Mass the next day, I began making dessert. I was going to try and create baked custard. Now, I had attempted this once before at my own house, with familiar tools and stoves and such. But I felt confident that all would end well. Part of difficultly of baked custard is the actual baking process. You have to put the custard in your "custard cups" (or coffee mugs for the college student), then place the mugs in a oven proof bowl/baking dish and finally - after placing it in the oven - add hot water to the bowl/baking dish. The idea is that the water cooks the custard and not the heat from the oven. So you have to be sure that whatever you put the mugs in (bowl/baking dish) has a high enough rim to reach the approximate height of the custard in the individual cups. Well, as I have previously stated, their stove was small, the pans were equally small. So it is possible that the water was not high enough. That was only one issue. The real concern was when I opened the oven to check on them and it started yelling at me - the oven that is. Yelling is not really the right word. It sounded like someone was snapping very loudly inside the oven. It is possible that the sugar was burning.

"The oven is yelling at me."

Naturally, I was a little worried about this. Solution as offered by the boys: Ignore it and turn the oven temperature up. That may not have been the best idea, but I was under the influence of free wine and may not have been thinking properly. The custard did eventually get eaten - but it did not look as you would expect custard to look. It was, oddly enough, watery. There was literally enough water in each mug that you could have poured it out of the cups. It did not have the smooth consistency you want. All in all - very strange. That, however, did not stop anyone from eating it. It was still quite edible - tasty even - but I have resolved that next time the custard will be beautiful.

The evening continued with more singing - of louder and louder volumes - until I questioned the happiness of their neighbors and it was decided that the party should dissolve. Not an "epic" night by any means, but truly a night to remember.

Enjoying the custard

Singing away

Still singing