Saturday night was not the night on which I would break in the kitchen at my new apartment. That's probably the only time the word "new" will be associated with this apartment - every time a fire engine drives up Dwight, I wonder if it'll be stopping here. Oddly enough, the kitchen was new. It was one of the first things that caught my eye when I first got in that door. The granite countertops and range still adorned with plastic protectors were far more appealing than the big bedroom or airy balcony. But there was no way I was going to get any cooking done. Aimee and I left from Los Angeles at 6 a.m. and got into Berkeley around noon, unloaded box after box, ate late lunch and bought a bed and mattress at Ikea, picked up the rest of my belongings in San Francisco, unloaded those damn boxes, built my bed, then went to sleep. Nowhere in that schedule was there room for going to the market let alone cooking.
The next day, Safeway was the only place I wanted to go. Of course, I had to go back to Ikea to get the desk I wanted the day before but couldn't get because it was out of stock, but I enjoyed my time among the refrigerated cases. I bought with reckless abandon fort two reasons: I had a vehicle with which I could transport my purchases, and my parents gave me a Safeway gift card before I left. Food filled my shopping cart, ideas for meals for the week filled my thoughts.
I bought a rotisserie chicken because it was on sale, and I knew my time in the kitchen would still be limited because of all the minor tasks I had to get done (It never seems done when you move in to a new place, does it?). When I got back and unpacked all of my purchases, I realized I had some taco seasoning left over from last semester, so I decided to make soft tacos with the chicken. The parts that required work were the beans and rice, though those weren't particularly difficult. A little bell pepper and onion here, a little garlic there, and it was done before we knew it. The chicken was even easier - Aimee shredded it off the bones, and I threw it in a pan and after cooking down some of those veggies listed above (They go well in everything, right?) then tossed on the seasoning.
The picture will tell you that we're not entirely settled yet. It was taken on our coffee table, which I'm pretty sure is a patio table given its stone-tiled top, because we don't currently have a dinette set. It's not so terrible - the TV is there, after all, and a fairly comfy couch - but it screams of incompletion. Perhaps that's why it was so satisfying that the dinner plates were so composed, everything in its place: tacos with the proper accoutrements, beans adorning the rice, my fork ready to dig in.
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