But hey, in three-game series, at least they had one inning that went really well.

As the World knows, there are no True Believers like Cubs fans.  In the face of all evidence that their Team will be unconscionably miserable year after year after year after year, Cubs fans continue to Believe.  Even when their beloved shortstop boots what should have been an inning-ending double-play ball (jump past the whole Bartman thing to 4:55)–an inning that then saw 7 more runs score*–to ruin their chance of making the World Series for the first time since Noah built the Arc, they still Believe.  They believe, this year will be the year. At the start of every season, no matter how much nothing has changed from the previous season, this will be the year.  There are those that poke fun at Cubs fans, that mock them for clinging to the futile belief that one year–maybe even this year–the Cubs will do something miraculous.  But Cubs fans have always ignored this mockery, keeping the Faith.  One day, it will happen.

And so it was, in the 8th inning of the second game of the series against the Red Sox at Hallowed Fenway Park, on the 52nd day of the season, December 21, 2011, the 17th day of the 2nd month by the Hebrew calendar:  Judgement Day.  The day True Believers would ascend into Heaven, leaving all others to rot in Hell.  On that day, in that inning Cubs fans were lifted to the Heavens as they miraculously watched their team score 8 runs, the Red Sox players–clearly the victims of some form of Divine Intervention–dropping routine balls, finding themselves unable to catch balls thrown by a teammate fifteen feet away, walking in runs, and otherwise pitching like all of the sin from their lives had returned to them in the form of ineptitude, causing them to miss the strike zone repeatedly except for those times when they lobbed it nicely into a location where the Cubs’ batter could smack it.

And Cubs fans around the world–the True Believers–experienced Rapture.

Even if only briefly.  Tonight is Game 3.

* Note:  Game 6 of the NLCS was on October 15, 2003.  The Cubs, having already scored 3 runs of their own, gave up 8 runs in the 8th inning that night.  On May 21, 2011, the Cubs scored 8 runs in the 8th inning, after the Red Sox had scored 3 runs of their own.  The 8th year after 2003 is 2011.  October is the 5th month after May, and the 5th month of the year is, itself, May.  Those two games were exactly 2,775 days apart.  2+7+7+5 = 21.  8 runs in the 8th.  May is the 5th month, and the sum of the difference in days adds up to 21.

Month 5, Day 21, Year 2011.  I’m really surprised no one saw this coming.

Last Sunday was Couscous Shepherd’s Pie–mixed, cooked “tofu chicken,” beans, and other veggies topped with a layer of couscous and then baked–which followed up nicely on my Baked Red Beans and Rice the previous Thursday.  Last night I made Vegetable Pot Pie, which was delicious.  (Hmmm.  I’m only now realizing that I’ve made “pie” two weeks in a row.  I need to branch out.)  It basically consisted of a lot of mushrooms, onions, garlic, vegetable broth, peas, corn, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, and parsnips, all cooked until tender.  Then I dissolved corn starch in water and added it to the vegetables to thicken it.  Put all that in a casserole dish, top it with buttermilk biscuit dough (which was really easy to make) sprinkled with a little fresh dill, and bake it at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.  Really very good.

Oh, and I started everything off with herbed goat cheese stuffed into puff pastry immediately after removing the puffed pastry from the oven.  The hot puffed pastry warmed up the goat cheese nicely.  (I actually had intended to use phyllo dough, but picked up the wrong box from the freezer at the store.  Still, it was yummy.)

So, I’m feeling much better about my Sunday dinners … as is my family.

We went to a small highly recommended, highly expensive, and excessively mediocre French restaurant called Pigalle.  The most economical thing on the menu was a three-course dinner for $40, but there was no vegetarian option.  But I chose it anyway, and had a mango salad, followed by a shrimp and pasta dish, followed by a creme brullee.

The mango salad was interesting, but the grapefruit was too much for it.  The shrimps were batter-fried, and I have never understood why they don’t take the tails off before serving them, especially when the tails are hidden in some kind of batter thing.  The creme brulee was served warm.  The brulee part, of course, has just been blow-torched, but the creme part is supposed to be cold.

So, shrimp.

Wicked, on the other hand, was nothing short of phenomenal.  I love a good musical with a blow-you-away number at the end of the first act.  Dream Girls had it (I’m not goin’), as did Les Mis (1 Day More).  Wicked’s Defying Gravity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g4ekwTd6Ig) is the same kind of thing.  Sensational.

The recipe I made on Thursday was called “Baked Red Beans and Rice.” Never would have guessed that.

Still, I do recall what was in it.

1 1/4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup long-grain rice
1 can dark red kidney beans
2 cups tomato salsa
1 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper

Basically, you mix everything together in a casserole dish, cover it tightly (I used aluminum foil), and bake it at 350 degrees for an hour.  Serve with guacamole and a salad.  Really easy and very good.  Much better than those whole wheat pastas with the soy ricotta cheese.

I just checked the downstairs bathroom, but the cookbook isn’t there either.

We’re going out for dinner in Boston tonight before seeing Wicked.  Another opportunity to order the least expensive thing on the menu–the token vegetarian option.

Huh.  Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Caiola’s.

Anyway, Fiona and I went to Caiola’s last night (I said that part already, didn’t I), and normally both of us would have chosen a steak or the pork shanks (which they were out of, so that really would not have been an option) or some similar type of meat-infused item.  But we’re both doing this plant-based diet right now, and after only one week, neither of us found the meat entries appealing.  I started with a simple house salad, and we both had the risotto with shitake (how odd that spell-check doesn’t like that word) mushrooms.  The other benefit to eating this way is that these were the least expensive items on the menu.

In short, we’ve both already reached a critical stage:  animal-based products simply aren’t that appealing.  I don’t find myself hankering for a juicy steak, and I’d prefer a veggie burger (Fiona doesn’t think these should be called “burgers”) over a hamburger.

Any questions?

Well, at least I imagine it is.  I’ve never done the latter.

I’m making a vegetarian dinner for the family every Sunday evening.  Tonight, I made ravioli with no-cook heirloom tomato sauce, which I got from the Whole Foods iPhone app.  The ravioli was Whole Foods’ Organic Spinach & Cheese Whole Wheat Ravioli, a frozen product that takes very little time to make–boiling the water is the most time-consuming part.

Let’s just say it was not a hit.  The no-cook heirloom tomato sauce actually was pretty good–essentially, tomatoes, spinach, basil, and balsamic vinegar.  The whole wheat pasta, on the other hand, was not terrific.  To be honest, I didn’t mind it that much, but there were others who used words such as “disgusting.”  This typically is not a word one likes to have associated with the food one makes.

I purchased a couple of vegetarian cookbooks at the end of the week.  Perhaps I’ll have more luck with those than with Whole Foods’ iPhone app.

For breakfast this morning, I put a full banana, about six strawberries, and a cup of soy milk in the blender.  The result did not really taste bad, but it was somewhat thick.  Also, it needed to be colder.  I read somewhere that I should freeze the bananas.  That might help.

By the way, I have officially lost 10 pounds since May 16.  That puts me 20% of the way toward my goal.

Oh, and one more thing.  I just told my mom to look at this blog.  Now I really can’t back down.