Spaghetti Squash with Moroccan Spices (Page 581)

• Date: Saturday, January 13, 2007 -- 9:30pm
• Location: Somerville, MA
• Kitchen: Matt's Apartment
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Recipe Rating: C

I picked this one to go with dinner on Saturday because I hadn't had spaghetti squash in a long time. I really disliked this dish though. I didn't even eat the small portion I served myself to start. The squash itself was tasty, and it was cooked nicely (the recipe calls for cooking the squash in the microwave, which worked well), but the Moroccan seasoning was so heavy-handed that it made the dish extremely hard to eat. If you cut all the spice quantities in half you might end up with something delicious, but as it is this recipe is way too strongly spiced. The squash would have tasted vastly superior if it had been coated in a little butter and kosher salt rather than the much too intense Moroccan spices in the recipe. Matt liked the recipe simply because he had never had spaghetti squash before and he loves trying new things. But he agreed that the flavors were a bit overpowering.

Mike's cat is going back to him today, and in honor of her last night in Somerville, she kept me up all night last night! I can't really figure out what was going on -- she had been doing much better. One day she even slept until 6:30am! Last night, though, she was not in the mood to be restful. It is mornings like this that I wish I hadn't given up caffeine a year and a half ago.

When I was young I didn't always sleep as soundly as I do now, especially if I was nervous about something. My mother used to try to calm me down by telling me that laying in bed with my eyes closed was almost as good for me as sleeping. I'm pretty sure that's not true, but nonetheless this morning I stayed in bed as long as possible, not sleeping because the cat was batting me in the face (or meowing and pounding on the door once I finally locked her out), but rather resting with my eyes closed. I have to admit that I do feel more rested now than I did at 4:30am, so maybe there is something to this...

Issy in the cutest cat ever, so I will be sad to see her go, but I am super excited about the idea of sleeping through the night again!