Stove 1, Maddy 0

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit tonight was the first time I've made dinner in the place, and therefor the first time I've used the oven. When we moved in there was a laundry list of things that was wrong with the oven (including a numberless dial on the stove), which I promptly emailed my landlord about with false admirations of a new sparkly over appearing in my life. Shockingly, that didn't happen, instead I got a "new" dial, which today I learned is far from accurate. I'm pretty sure our "handyman" waltzed down to a junk yard and plucked one off some old busted appliance and called it a day. Why I believed for a second the temperatures would be accurate I blame on naiveness and wine.

Needless to say, I discovered this evening you can break a glass pyrex dish in a gas oven, simply by turning the dial all the way up, who'd a thought? Word to the wise, who happen to own a 40 year old gas oven, get an internal thermometer. Minor snafus aside, the meal actually tuned out pretty damn good, mostly due to the fact that it was slathered in butter, but also because it's from a great cookbook which I highly recommend. My mom bought me Alice Waters; In the Green Kitchen, which is a great book to teach you some basic cooking techniques. Honestly the first thing I made out this book (a salsa) I wasn't a huge fan of, but the book more than redeemed itself with this simple recipe:

Baked Rockfish with Lemon and Parsley Butter

Make the lemon butter by combining 1 shallot (minced) with the juice of 1 lemon, and let sit for 10 minutes to macerate. Add chopped parsley, half a stick of butter, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Set aside and bake the rockfish in a shallow pan at 425, being careful that you're not actually baking it at 900 or what ever the hell I did. Bake for 8 minutes, cover in sauce and serve with a simple salad and bread, which you can also slather in your yummy butter. Simple, quick, and delicious.

Oh, and one more thing that makes my new kitchen a billion times better than the old one... THE VIEW!