Frustrations, music, miracles... and dal

Yesterday was absolutely a day like none other. A friend of mine and I had planned to go to a concert downtown, so after dinner as I was getting ready to leave, I realized that my cell phone had finally kicked the bucket. It's not responding to anything I do--makes no calls, receives no calls... And since we don't have a land line, my cell phone is my contact to the world. So hopefully today we will go to Atlanta (ugh) and not only get new phones, but get new service. We have really needed to switch providers, and my phone giving up on me seems like a pretty clear signal that now is the time.

So I carried Bob's phone on me last night. My friend picked me up. We went to see Vienna Teng, whose music is so unique that I don't know how to describe it. She's been compared to Jewel but I didn't think she was much like Jewel--her music was sort of blues-ish and folksy and alternative at the same time. It really was beautiful. We had a great time. Neither of us had anything to drink at all. Thank goodness.

On the way home from the concert around 11:30, we were driving along downtown and we approached a dark intersection. My poor friend didn't even see the stop sign, so we plowed right through it. We smashed right into the side of an enormous pick-up truck. Something exploded under my friend's hood, and the engine was smoking as we tried to back out of the intersection. Thank God, no one in either car was hurt. It could have been so bad... I'd never been in a wreck before so it was kind of surreal to me. I was trying to call Bob to come pick us up, but then remembered that I had his phone and mine wasn't working. So I couldn't get in touch with him. I ended up calling one of our neighbors at 11:30 at night and asking him to go knock on our apartment door so that I could talk to Bob. Thankfully, our neighbor is the kind of guy who would bend over backward for his friends. So almost an hour after the incident, the police allowed us to leave, and Bob was right there. My poor friend... She felt so bad, but you know, everyone makes mistakes. And in my opinion, this one was not serious because everyone walked away just fine.

Anyway, last night since I was going to the concert I decided not to try and deal with the tempeh (excuses?), so I made this dal instead, which was inspired by a recipe from The Grit Cookbook.



The recipe called for split peas, but I used brown lentils as that is what was in my pantry. They didn't make the soup look very beautiful, but they tasted fine. Basically, I just used a pound of brown lentils, a medium onion, two cloves of garlic, salt, 1/2 tablespoon of curry powder, and a good tablespoon or so of Indian spice (which I mixed up following The Grit's blend). I let it simmer for almost an hour, stirring constantly so that the lentils would not stick and burn, splashing in more water when it got super thick. At the end, I puréed about 2/3 of the dal in the blender, and I left the rest whole because I didn't want it to look like baby food.

The curry dressing, which I drizzled on top, was also a Grit recipe. The only change I made there was, instead of using 3/4 cups of oil (yikes!), I used 1/4 cup oil and replaced the rest with a mixture of 1 tsp. cornstarch to 1/2 water, which I cooked on the stove until it got thick. The dressing tastes really good--spicy and tangy. And there's PLENTY left over. So this, with a simple salad of spinach and cucumbers and more curry dressing, was our simple yet tasty dinner.

Today? Who knows. We may be really busy. I definitely want to get in the kitchen sometime. But we'll have to see.