Ode to Sarah Smith

So dinner started out a bit tragic... but ended up decent!

I found two things that make me a better chef - confidence and pinot noir, and believe it or not, the pinot helps the ol' confidence factor and it works in a happy cycle - the better I feel, the more I drink, the more I drink, the more confident I feel.

So it started at Hannaford yesterday when I bought the ol' pork tenderloin. I kinda thought it would be like the roasts that are tied up with string? Big and loggish? But this thing, labelled "whole pork tenderloin" looked more like an elephant's penis. Long, skinny, pink. I brought it home and thought about it for a while more while searching for a home in my fridge for the thing... it felt too dirty to mix in with the rest of the food in my meat drawer. I wondered how it would look when it was done. It had to change form in the oven or something, right?

I had a recipe that sounded delicious from my college friend, Sarah Smith (not related, unless you trace our lineage back to John Smith... lover of Pocohantas). But when I unwrapped the penis, I started doubting myself. I had Justin run back to the grocery store and buy some thick piece of meat, but after confirming with Sarah that it SHOULD look like a penis (really?) I felt a bit better. (Side note: anyone have a recipe for pork end roast?) Here's the recipe: one pork penis (j/k... it's funny in my own mind only because I'm still drunk), a bag of baby carrots, two cut up potatoes, two jars of sweet and sour sauce. Put all the ingredients in a glass baking dish and dump the sauce over the whole thing. Bake in the oven for an hour, covered, at 375 for an hour.

EASY!

Except apparently, my oven sees tinfoil and just shuts off.

WTF?! Every time I cook something covered with tin foil, it just doesn't cook. Sure enough, I took the loin out an hour later, unwrapped it, and the whole thing looked exactly the same as it had an hour earlier. I texted Sarah in a panic, and she told me to try uncovering and cooking for a half hour.

Sure enough, 30 minutes later the tenderloin was cooked PERFECTLY. It was amazing! The veggies were still a little crunchy, but my crowd liked them better that way anyway.

Oh, did I tell you I was cooking for GUESTS? Like I said, I was drunk. And everything worked out fine. Self-confidence and wine. The perfect recipe.