Living room mess to repair a/c unit
If you are a regular follower
of my Thursday “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog, an apology. I didn’t get it
written this week because some kind of nasty stomach bug laid me low, and
writing about food was the last thing I wanted to do. Which is kind of okay,
because before the bug hit, the only thing I had to write about was a column on
sardines (still to come—are you a fan?) and an epic kitchen fail. The two didn’t
seem to belong in one post.
About the fail: I find recipes
in all sorts of places, including culinary cozy mysteries, which are popular
right now. So when the main character in a novel kept whipping up this dish
(actually cooking it long and slow in a crockpot), I had no qualms about
stealing it. (I won’t name the novel because I gave up on it before the end.) One
of the other characters described this as Thanksgiving dinner in one pot. You season
chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put in your pot; dump in a one-lb. box
of prepared turkey dressing and top that with a sauce made of mayonnaise, sour cream,
chicken broth, and water, and top all that with some frozen green beans. Cook
it on high for five hours. I thought it would be perfect for the day when we
have a regular happy hour visitor.
I will confess I made a couple
of mistakes: for chicken broth, I read cream of chicken soup and dumped it in
before I realized my mistake, so later in the cooking process I added a half
cup broth. I can’t see that should have done anything but make it better. But then,
due to uncertain schedules around here, I let it cook too long. Finally ended
up eating alone because this one had a sudden happy hour appointment and that
one had something to do at the school.
I wished for a long cooking
fork (lost in the downsize) to reach down and get to the chicken, but I used a
long wooden spoon. At first, it felt like I was digging into concrete. I ended
up eating dressing with sauce and green beans. Let me say the beans were
delicious—must be the broth. The dressing was sort of crisp/mushy, if there is
such a thing, and not very flavorful. Christian tactfully said later that it
needed more seasoning. I just sent the whole mess into the house for the Burtons
to deal with and haven’t heard a thing since. My guess is that Jordan and Jacob
declined, and Christian ate it. There may still be some in their fridge.
Catastophe #1.
Catastrophe #2 – as I was
closing the patio door last night, I looked down and found the chair next to me
had a big wet spot. Poor Sophie—when you’re the only dog in the house,
suspicion immediately falls on you. I felt of it, sniffed, and determined it
wasn’t Sophie. So I called Jordan because the next possible source was the ceiling-hung
air-conditioning unit above the chair. She came out, determined that the entire
chair was soaked, and began rearranging—the picture came down, chair cushion
and pillow went outside, plastic bags covered the chair, towel, and bowl on the
floor. After all that prep, she turned the unit off. The cottage stayed cool
enough with the bedroom unit all night, but of course I lay awake worrying about
critters eating the cushion. If they did, I would have to have two chairs
totally recovered. They did not, but Sophie barked during the night, something
she rarely does, and I suspect she was scaring off a critter. You learn to
translate dog barks after time, and we do have a resident possum.
So this morning—for far too
long—the repairman has been here. I’m beginning to worry about the bill. He’s
affable, and I’ve now known him for years—can’t tell how many. But none of that
makes him cheap.
I am hoping there is no Catastrophe
#3, unless my stomach bug counts. When your bed keeps calling to you and you have
no enthusiasm for doing anything, your mind wanders off on tangents. Mine began
to assemble a book last night, called “My Scrapbook” (tentative)—a collection of
short stories, poetry, quotes, lyrics, maybe some of my own posts, even hymns
that have meant something to me over the years. It’s barely a work in progress,
but so far it includes Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, Robert Flynn, Elmer
Kelton, and Dorothy Johnson, lyrics by Joan Baez and Neil Diamond, and the
refrain from “We’ve a Story to Tell the Nations.”
For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
and the dawning to noonday bright,
and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth,
the kingdom of love and light.
For some reason, that refrain
has been an ear worm for me for a couple of days—not a bad one. I hear myself
singing along as though I could carry a tune. But I think everyone should have
a scrapbook like that. What and who would be in yours?
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