KZ, Spoon, Birthdays, and Seitan

I have been too busy for life this week! Unfortunately that means I have been too busy for mofo, but I hope to post a couple small ones so that I still total 30 posts this month. Anyway, yesterday was Alex's birthday, which means mine is close to follow... This is the first birthday he's complained about his age, which is good, because I started complaining about mine since I turned 22. So he enjoyed the past five years a little more with the idea in his head that he was still in his youth. Party's over and we're 27 this year. Just kidding, party's not over. We just party'd by staying in and cooking instead of going out and drinking.

I will explain all of this plate in a moments time, but first, we went to see Spoon on Wednesday in Central Park! I have never seen a show in Central Park, so it was nice to see a new venue, and outdoor shows are always fun-- in that people don't blow their joint's smoke directly into your face, they blow it up and the beautiful night air carries some of it away. The rest smells, to me, like stale B.O. but that's over now, so: Spoon. Amazing. The first time I saw them I was a senior in high school, and skipped "spirit night" or some peppy event to go and see them with Alex. It was on their Gimme Fiction tour, but the set was still ripe with tracks from Kill The Moonlight. We saw them two more times between then and now, and have loved every release to date. They Want My Soul has been no different, as we are in love with it and are so glad Spoon continues to drop such real material even after all these years.

We got close, I swear.

Okay, back to food. Alex always requests something meat-and-potatoes-y. He requested it last night and I went to the store thinking, "Okay, how about a cacciatore-style seitan, with capers, peppers..." And he says, "No peppers." And so I am like WTF, why not?! and "What is the seitan supposed to be like?" and he says, "Make it American." And so I had been thrown into loop, where I couldn't visualize my dish, the palate I wanted it to accommodate, and thought, "there's no theme?? What kind of seitan dish follows no path? WHO IS IT VERSUS??"

Under the spell of someone's brief stroke of genius, I decided to press the seitan into breadcrumbs and pan-fry the cutlets, then slice them before plating.

He also said he wanted onion gravy, which is a lengthy process, requiring lot's of not-acquired veggie stock, so I made a caramelized onion ju. What is a ju? Ask someone French. Anyway, this hybrid meal suited it's purpose, as Alex said it was exactly what he wanted. So next time I requested that when he wants this, he ask specifically for Seitan a la KZ.