Dinner Party Days

Since moving into the Union Street Center apartments with my best friend Sarah, I have found myself INCREDIBLY spoiled. While I am happy to keep dirty clothes off of the floor and chew on cardboard flavored microwaveable meals, she is determined to keep the apartment sparkling clean and just happens to have a passion for cooking. School has only been in session for three weeks and I have already lost track of the number of times when I walk through our door after a long day of classes and she says "Dinner will be ready in an hour!"


I'm not discussing ramen, here. When Sarah says dinner, she means DINNER. Some of our memorable meals have included barbecue sauce-smothered chicken legs, stuffed pasta with a delectable cream and shrimp sauce and stuffed burgers. The woman is a domestic goddess. So, when she told me off-hand that she had invited some friends over for dinner, I wasn't too surprised.


I hadn't been expecting a big affair for Sunday dinner, but even I got into the spirit of things. After our friends Will and Chandler accepted Sarah's generous invitation, we straightened out the apartment and Sarah got to cooking. The menu? Corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and other vegetables, served with a specialty mustard sauce (and a side of vegetarian pasta for Will).


By now, Sarah's dedication to the meal made me feel as though I had not contributed enough towards the event, so I decided to try and make a cake with a recipe I had found online. I took a box of Funfetti cake mix and combined it with a pint of vanilla ice cream, three eggs and a cup of water. Five minutes later the cake was in the oven, and an hour later our apartment smelled like vanilla heaven. Will and Chandler arrived for dinner and fun was had by all, until I tried to prepare the cake to be served. It turns out it was a liiiittle moister than I had been expecting, and as I attempted to remove it from the bundt pan the whole thing fell to pieces! Fail cake!


Despite my horrendous failure, we had a fabulous dinner party! Everything was delicious and somehow the Funfetti pile seemed all the more delicious when eaten with out hands. Here's to hoping that we've begun a wonderful new USC apartment tradition: Sunday night "family" dinners!