The Magical Baking Thingee

I don't want to call it a pot, but it's also not a pan. It's a ceramic pie baking thingee that can withstand high heats. I am such a non-baker and abuser of New York restaurants and take out, that I just had to google "pie baking" to learn that I think it's called a pie pan. But it's ceramic so I don't think that is a pan, is it? Who cares?! That is not the point. The point is that this magical pot (as I shall call it) provided two of the best meals I've ever had on Saturday when we used it on the grill. Weird combo, right? Correct, if by weird you actually mean "fucking amazing." Because that is how our food turned out thanks to the magical baking thingee.

Saturday morning, we woke up at the buttcrack in order to hit the road by 7:30a and were driving on 78 when all of a sudden the sky changed and we started driving into some very dark clouds. They quickly turned into drizzle and as we ventured further west, turned into rain, then even further west into full on pouring rain. As I was cranky at having to wake up early on yet another g.d. Saturday, I started to get really mad when I realized that we could

have slept in due to the downpour. I checked the radar on Tim's iphone and sure enough, the forecast called for showers until 2pm and thunderstorms until 8pm which means we would not be able to do anything on the farm. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Witness anger levels skyrocket. I must have said "we really need to check the weather forecast before we wake up early to drive down next time" more than once or twice because Tim finally turned to me and said, "enough. Okay. We'll check the forecast next time." And then I sunk into more darkness and anger because he forced me to eat a banana that tasted like garbage and now I had absolutely no way of working off those excess, unsavory calories. So there I sat, feeling fat and miserable until we got to town.

When we arrived in downtown Frenchtown, it was pouring. Our initial plan had been to get a coffee at the local coffeeshop, Maria's, and then wait out the rain while reading the paper or something like that. But the rain was beyond ridiculous and I didn't feel like even walking 20 feet in it. So back to the farm we headed and Tim was like let's hit the local farm store. I miserably replied "why?" but shut up and went in anyway. He said "let's grill some breakfast" and I grumbled something like "okay" and wandered around, picking up some bacon, eggs, zucchini and bread, without a real plan of what to do with the

m. That's when we saw it. ahhhh. The lights from the heavens shone down on the magical baking thingee and we agreed that it might work to cook eggs on the grill. Oh did it ever!

We took shelter in the barn and lit the grill and cooked the zucchini whole. Then we whisked some eggs in the magical pot, cooked the bacon and then added it altogether into the magical backing thingee in a sort of souffle/ frittata. As soon as the eggs were golden and the bacon a perfect juicy brown, we scooped it onto a piece of olive bread (since we have no plates) and had the most delicious breakfast ever.

After we finished our meal, it was still pouring and since we didn't have anywhere else to be, we just decided to take a nap in the back of the van. We laid down a few mattress pads and dozed for a little while the rain pittered and pattered loudly on the roof. It was very romantic and dreamy. For a minute. Until the flies came. Tim coined them World Class in their ability to annoy. I have to agree. If even an eyelash was exposed, they would hover around it and land on it. We finally outsmarted those little shits by covering ourselves, faces included, with blankets. Ah. Back to the pitter pattering of rain and cozy sleepiness. When we woke up, the rain had stopped and it was back to work. I can't tell you how excited I was to lift those giant steel beams. *more on that later with the special Sunday Recap*

Once the whistle blew, we were both hungry again and thought we'd press our luck and test the magic of the baking thingee one more time. We sliced up a vidalia onion (with a box cutter since we have no knives) and put it in the magical baking thingee with some malbec and some salt and pepper while grilling some steak and asparagus. Probably doesn't sound that exciting does it? I know. But you just have to take my word for it when I say those onions were sprinkled with magic fairy dust or something because they were g.d. delicious. The steak was undeniably good but it wouldn't have been anything without the onion chasers. Damn, that was some good eatin. Thank you, magical baking thingee.