Okay, wow, I am really behind on blogging. You guys, I have so many recipes I’ve cooked recently that I still have to write about! Let’s dooooo this! I’m also going to be posting these out of order of when I cooked them, because I don’t really feel like writing about some stupid dessert right now. Let’s talk about Broccoli and Cheese Soup!

Where we last left off, I had just moved into my beautiful new apartment, and forgive me for bragging, but it’s so beautiful!!! I completely lucked out with this place. It’s perfect for the owner of a massive, massive, idiotic dog. The downside is that it’s in what is more or less a total subway dead zone in Brooklyn, so no one will ever visit me because you have to pack food and water on the subway to keep your energy up for the long journey. ANYWAY. I moved into this place. It’s great.

Wait, can I derail things to update you guys on my job? It’s fun! I like it! Even though I was still doing work from home at 9:30 last night, like some sort of ADULT or something. BOOOOOO. (Full disclosure: While I was working, I was also watching cartoons.) Anyway, the reason I’m talking about this is to say I actually have a full-on FRIEND through work now, which is great, and we now have a lunchtime bet going, which is relevant to this blog post. See? We’re not totally off-topic. But bear with me as I explain.

Being Thankful for Gwyneth

I have returned from Wisconsin, dog in tow, and I could not be happier to have this whole moving process finally, finally completed. But anyway, we can talk about that later. Let’s talk about Thanksgiving!

It goes without saying that, when in the middle of a year-long cooking project, the one day you absolute MUST cook on is Thanksgiving. I feel like that’s in the Constitution somewhere. So before I left New York, I picked out a couple Gwyneth side dishes to contribute to our enormous family meal, relishing the idea of force-feeding my health-food-phobic family Brussels sprouts. If you recall, the last time I cooked for my family, I made cheesy stuffed burgers. This time, I wasn’t going to take it so easy on them.

Breakfast in Chelsea

You guys, I’m two recipes behind on blogging, so it’s time to CATCH UP. Plus it’s Thanksgiving week, and I’ve got a lot of recipes planned to knock out, so let’s hurry up! But first, an update: I started my job last week, and yesterday I moved into an apartment! And they’re both great! And this weekend, after spending Thanksgiving in Wisconsin, Bark Antony and I will be driving back to New York. Country dog moving to the big city! Yikes.

Anyway: Challah French Toast. Still needing to make up for my guilt at taking over Nora’s living room, I told her to pick out a breakfast recipe from the book. She chose challah French toast, of which I wholeheartedly approved. If you saw the picture Gwyneth put next to the recipe, you’d be salivating, too. And I knew the quality of the challah was of the utmost important in this recipe, so we set off to the Chelsea Market in search of high-quality challah.

Roommate-Wooing With Gwyneth

Apartment-hunting in New York City is serious business, practically a full-time job in itself. I’ve heard from friends tales of going to see a prospective sublet, only to find themselves walking up the stairs behind someone toting a checkbook, ready to sign over a deposit on the spot. Before I even arrived in the city I had already experienced a taste of this failure, as two very promising apartments both fell apart over my two-day drive from Portland to Wisconsin. It seemed every time my phone buzzed, it was reporting more bad news. Despondent and prospectless as I arrived in the city last week, I spent hours laboring over my standard email response to Craigslist ads, hoping I could present myself and my dog as two witty, lovable cads no self-respecting roommates could ever pass by. And my work paid off, as I heard back from the vast majority of ads I responded to, but after hearing from one respondent that I was one of EIGHTY potential roommates, I knew I needed a secret weapon. Enter Gwyneth and her Mutti’s Pecan Butterballs.

The Danny/Gwyneth Project: New York Edition

So here we are in New York City. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s been quite the week, what with driving two 16-hour days to get to Wisconsin, sadly leaving my dog behind with my parents (who, I should gratuitously mention, are absolute saints), and arriving in New York on Sunday morning. Since then, I’ve been touring apartments around the city like a lunatic, trying desperately to secure a place to live before I start work next Monday (and expect a forthcoming blog post on how Gwyneth is actually helping me find a place). In the meantime, my friends Nora and Mandy are graciously allowing me to impede on their space and sleep on their couch in Chelsea. To make up for this, I cooked not one, not two, but THREE Gwyneth recipes for dinner recently. Let’s see how my first NYC cooking experience went!

The End of the Project (In Portland)

Well, the time has come for me to leave. I’m just taking a brief break from loading my U-Haul to write about the last Gwyneth recipe I ever cooked in Portland. I have a ton to do before I leave tomorrow, so let’s make this quick! But you know what’s not quick? Tortilla Soup. (Nailed that segue.)

Mooooooving

Guys, I figured I should check in, even though no cooking has been done recently (it’s been all mac and cheese and leftovers and take-out for me all week), what with the impending move.

So here’s a brief update: I leave Portland on Monday. I haven’t packed anything yet. Not a single thing! Whoops. I also don’t have an apartment in New York yet. Uhhhhhh. So things are going well, clearly? Yikes.

I’m trying to keep this blog focused on the project, so I’ll be documenting anything amusing/stressful/whatever about my move (or anything else I feel like writing — maybe a five-act play?) over here: http://dgottleib.tumblr.com/

So bookmark/follow/RSS/anything else over thataways, if you want to be a SUPERFAN. Or, at the very least, if you just want to know what I’m up to if this place goes silent during my drive next week (which it WILL). And if THAT place goes silent, then you know I’ve driven my U-Haul off a cliff.

I do have some leftover vegetable stock in my freezer that I may try to do something with tomorrow after work (my last day!), so maybe we’ll get some good cooking out of me still before I go. Fingers crossed I don’t end up curled up in a cardboard box, sobbing quietly to myself instead.

On that note, if anyone wants to pack up all my stuff and move it all across the country into a nice, clean apartment in NY for me, that would just be fantastic. Thanks in advance!