Lemon Cake and Italians

So it's been a pretty busy last couple days. I had my hardest day at school, followed by a nice Diwali dinner, and then a trip to Milano to visit Vale and then Venice with Shikha.

Let's start with my hardest day as of yet. I knew getting into it that it would be difficult because we had 3 separate dishes to do in 3 hours--almond cake, lemon cake, and madeleines. And yes, I thought of Sapna Didi the whole time as I was making the lemon cake. So I started off quickly moving around and trying to get everything done, but things really slowed down during the lemon cake. I swear, there's some sort of curse with lemon cake, as I'm sure Sapna didi will agree. We had to cream the butter and sugar, which requires the butter to be at room temperature. So if you start with butter at fridge temperature, you have to work it a lot more and every now and then put it over heat so that it just gets warm enough to beat, but not too warm that it starts melting. Anyway, I don't know if anyone cares, but basically when I tried heating it, it would start melting so I just tried to whisk it vigorously until it got softer. I swear I beat it for at least 25 minutes and finally got somewhere. After that, anytime I made the beating motion, my arms were killing me! So we ended up finishing 10 minutes LATE...which is absolutely terrible. Plus, we didn't even get time to decorate our cakes. And in the process, I burned myself twice. Not really my fault but mostly because everyone was rushing, they'd have their hot trays out and during one of my mad dashes to whisk something or add some ingredient, I would touch the hot tray. The lemon cake tasted good in the end. I'm sure the almond cake would have been good except that I didn't like the dense texture of it. The madeleines were also good, except that the pattern from the pans didn't really show up because apparently I didn't butter the pans well enough.

Ok, enough about school. Now...the weekend! Me, Shikha, and the Merners all went to eat Indian food at a local restaurant dressed in our desi clothes. Even Iain wore his cute sherwani! Then I went to Milano to visit Vale...who decided to completely be a failure friend. I had Dick's phone number and Vale had told me to call him when I get in, so he could tell me their address. I don't know why she didn't just give me the address beforehand. Anyway, obviously they had had a ridiculous party the night before from which they got home at 6 a.m. I landed at 10:45 a.m., called Dick around 6 times and homeboy decided not to pick up. I kind of just sat around at the airport wondering what to do for a good while, then found a computer, hoped that Vale was smart enough to send me their address, then remembered she's an idiot. Finally, Dick called and of course I was expecting Vale on the phone but it wasn't her, but was chirpy and friendly Dick saying sorry and that he can't wait to see me. Vale...not so stupid...knew she should get Dick to call or else I'd yell at her. Haha, by the time I saw her, the anger had worn off. Smart Balls.

Mostly, I walked around the city (it was a gorgeous, sunny day) with Vale, got some great pizza, and then went out with her, Dick, and their friends at night. There ended up being around 5 other I-House people at the party we went to. Crazy! Everyone was speaking Italian most of the time and I felt like a little kid who disturbs their mom, mid conversation. The problem was, because I didn't understand the language at all, I wouldn't realize that Vale was having a conversation, and would randomly start talking to her. She'd turn to me and be like 'hold on' and I'd realize how rude I was being.

Anyway, next part of the weekend...Venice. It was pretty cold, but sunny, so it was still beautiful. Eh..there's so much to write about, but a couple interesting things occurred at one of the bars at night. Somehow the Bangladeshi waiter decided to take me back into the kitchen and I chilled w/ the cooks and they fed me French Onion Soup, after giving me the recipe. Then I asked the owner of the bar for a job working as his pastry chef and initally he said yes, but then said no cuz he couldn't afford it. Then next, I started talking to these people next to us because they had IPhones, and they were from Miami. Somehow I started to talk about America and Iraq to one of them, and obviously didn't realize he was a Republican until halfway through the conversation. Nonetheless, it was interesting giving my opinion and hearing his, since I would never bring up that subject if in a normal state of mind ;-).

Then the last day, I spent walking around Venice on my own because Shikha had already left. It was pretty funny getting awkward reactions to "table for one", but I got used to it and started embracing the solitary existence. Of all places, being alone in Venice is definitely...interesting. I mean, it was funny enough that other than Shikha and I, everyone else at a restaurant was coupled off. Venetians were definitely not used to seeing a tourist alone. That's why a lot of times they'd start talking to me in Italian, assuming I was a local who could be caught dead alone.