What? Bryce cooks?

Yes, I do. It may come as a surprise to many of you, in particular my sisters, but I enjoy cooking. I'm not very good at it, but I have fun. The main problem is that I often don't have the patience. I've lucked out in that Cathi can cook really well, whereas I can only help her with basic stuff. That being said, I like to challenge myself every once in a while.

About a month ago some friends from school and I went out to eat after one of our tests. The appetizer we had was called Asparagus Phyllo. We all thought it was really good so I decided to make it myself. I finally got around to it on Friday. I tracked down the phyllo dough at the store, had my sister email me the recipe I had looked at a few weeks ago and started to get everything ready only to realize that the dough had to be thawed for 2 hours first. Lame. I didn't want Cathi to know until they were done, so I had to be creative in hiding the dough and finding the time to finish them. I had already hid the asparagus in the fridge, but since I had already cut some of the stalks, I decided to go ahead and eat it before Cathi got home. Just as it finished boiling, she walks in. I had to stand in front of the stove and wait till she left the room to drain the water and put them in a tupperware container. Before she walks back in, I hid them up in one of our cabinets. Once in the kitchen, she actually asked why it was so warm by the stove. I played dumb and got away with it. While we were making dinner, she opened the same cabinet, the one with the asparagus, to pull out some noodles, but fortunately didn't notice the asparagus just sitting there. Then, while she was stirring the noodles, I had to stealthily pull out the phyllo dough I had hidden under some other food in the freezer and place it on top of the fridge. I was pretty surprised she didn't ask what I was doing because she's normally very suspicious of me. After having dinner, she left for a church activity, allowing me time to finally make it.

As for actually making this stuff, working with the phyllo dough wasn't easy but it turned out ok. The rest was easy. All you have to do is cut the asparagus, brush the dough with melted butter and add Parmesan cheese. The dough definitely wasn't cut the straightest it could have been, and I'm sure anyone familiar with working with phyllo would have been laughing at my efforts. I think that was one reason for waiting till Cathi was gone, so I could make it up as I went.

I think I've managed to make this sound cooler than it was, so here's a picture to prove I actually did it. Kim, Kristen, Erin and Ashley, you can now pick your jaws up off the floor. And by the way, Cathi said they were good.