Back to reality, at least at the dinner table

The dog days of summer are here early—101 today, tomorrow, and the next day. Then blessed relief—down to the mid-90s? That’s relief? Actually, because I don’t go out much and when I do I’m not out for long, it’s not bothering me as much as years when I was working. I remember dreading to get into a hot car when I left the office at the end of the day. I often felt trapped by the heat. Maybe as you age you’re less sensitive to it, but I had the a/c on and the door open tonight and was quite comfortable—until Jacob and Christian came in complaining. We shut the door. But, no, I’m not wasting electricity. I have one of those ceiling-mounted ductless a/c units—is that what they’re called?—that uses only pennies worth of electricity.

I’ve been eating high on the hog—a filet with a huge baked potato last night (and the leftover for lunch today), salmon cakes a couple of nights earlier (and again for lunch), and scallops on risotto one night. A friend on Facebook posted that he wanted to cook scallops and was sent several intriguing recipes. Then he priced scallops and decided gruel sounded just fine.

Tonight, I came off my eating high horse too, though not with gruel. Jacob has been with his Coppell grandparents all week, and Christian went last night for the Coppell fireworks and then brought Jacob home today. So, I fixed a meal that boys would like—sloppy Joe. My sloppy Joe is not like you get in a can. I got the recipe from an old wine cookbook, where it was called, appropriately enough, wine stew. I’ve told this story so often I’m not sure it bears repeating, but Megan asked for the recipe, I sent it, and she fixed it. Her husband tried it, pronounced it good, but said, “It’s not sloppy Joe.” Megan wrote caustically that she guessed she’s the only one who grew up thinking red wine was an essential ingredient of sloppy Joe.

At any rate, both Christian and Jacob love it. I didn’t have hamburger buns, so I put it on hot dog buns. One of my mom’s lessons—make do with what you have. Jacob was a little uncertain, but I toasted the buns, and everything was fine. I bought three ears of corn, which I had to ask Christian to cook because I can’t heat two things at once. Jacob took a couple of bites and then said, “Oh, the braces.” Apparently, he had corn stuck all over his braces.

Still we had a nice family evening, sans Jordan. We all miss her and will be glad when she comes home Tuesday night. I even have a surprise new salad recipe to fix for her. Christian was assigned the dinner, but I’ll snip the green beans I got this weekend and cook those too.

And so we head into July. With hot days and no rain. Have we displeased the gods?