Friday stands for ossim.

Friday is always a good day to really push for indulgence. In the case that you over-do it, you have two days to get over it before necessity rears its ugly head, and if you manage to engage fully yet responsibly, you get a good rev on your engine before firing on all cylinders on Saturday. This week, I went for the later.

To fuel the big push into the weekend, I revisited the awesome sandwich that started my work week. Unfortunately, I was out of the padinhas so I had to turn up the ossim knob with the contents. I started with the bacon in the pan just like Monday, but threw in some diced garlic, then some onions, mushrooms and asparagus, adding the eggs just as the onions started to soften. The garlic started to brown a little from being in the pan with just the bacon as it was crisping, emboldening it to a front row player in the mélange. I went with Munster cheese and wrapped the mess into two flour tortillas.
Then I had my daily banana on the walk to work as the burritos cured in my bag, radiating heat through to my lower back as I watched the darkened walls of the 2 flicker by.

I thought I’d try walking through that same tent tunnel and see if my iPod would enhance my breakfast experience yet again. I did get a nice picture of the scene, but the music was a little muddled: Andrew Bird’s “I” into Kanye West’s “Home” which did pump me up for the morning anyway.

Then I thought I’d take advantage of the Green Mountain coffee machine in the lounge on the 1st floor. Today I went for their Sumatran blend with just the regular half and half. It was really putting a beautiful sheen on Friday morning and by 10:30 I thought I’d done enough work to put me close to lunch.

We were still very far from lunch, though. First I had to get through one of the more awkward experiences in temping, the department planning meeting with the department you’ll only be a part of for the next two weeks. It factored into my blournalism, though, because I had a small carton of apple juice. It was packed in one of the short milk-cartons that I most readily associate with a field trip to the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Natural History when I was in 2nd grade. I remember a brown paper bag with a peanut butter and jelly and a small carton of orange juice only partially reconstituted from concentrate and still more like humming bird food than juice. I have such a vivid memory of the way the paper of the carton played into the “flavor” of the “juice.” The two are inseparable facets of that singular potent recall.

When lunch finally did come it was not very impressive, but very comforting. I had Chef Boyardee’s beef ravioli and two slices of white bread with butter. There’s not a lot of room to get poetic with Chef Boyardee products, but I hadn’t had a can of ravioli in months and it felt really good to dig into one of my favorite foods of yore. Perhaps the Kanye song this morning was my iPod’s attempt at foreshadowing.

I’d already had dinner planned for a few days. I was just waiting for a night when I had the time to mess around in the kitchen. I sautéed a link of sweet Italian sausage that I'd taken out of the skin. Once it had rendered some juices into the pan, I reserved it and started browning some bacon and garlic. A lot of people decry the browning of garlic, but I love it. Sure, there are some recipes where you want to avoid it, but this was not that time. Don't be afraid to brown your garlic, children!

After the bacon and garlic were both pretty thoroughly crispy I added some veggies. I went for asparagus, mushrooms, celery and onions. Then I dumped the leftover rice porridge from a few days ago over the vegetables, added some water, dill, sage, black pepper and oregano, gave it a good thorough stirring and let it simmer till the water reduced. Then I added some ricotta cheese, bread crumbs, parmesean cheese and Adobo seasoning.

Once the mixture started to bind, I scooped it out into bowls for my roommate and I. He added a liberal shot of hot sauce to his and was very happy with the result. I opted for more Adobo seasoning. A little extra butter would have been nice too, but not really the healthiest option in a dish that already had copious amounts of olive oil, sausage grease and bacon fat in it. It was one of those meals that demands you devour it. Each spoonful just urges you to shovel another one in so that you can gorge on it. I will definitely make it again, and if this were one of those trendy recipe sites, I'd call this my "Provincial Fried Rice."

This isn't about cute names and stars out of five, though. This is about me writing about all the things I ate the day before because if I don't do it, then who will? Neither am I popular enough to have stalkers watching me eat nor can I afford a ghost writer to recount these tails for you with extra professional flourish. It's just me, for some reason dedicated to recounting the inane in great detail on a daily basis. Enjoy.