Taste test

For reasons I don’t fully understand, when someone mentioned last week at church that they would like chili for the light lunch we are having tomorrow after church, I opened my mouth and said I would bring some.

Why? I dunno.

I am very insecure about my ability to fix food that other people will like when they eat it. I fretted about it all week, looked at myriad chili recipes, and finally went back to my old Betty Crocker cookbook.

I made the recipe this morning and put it in the crock pot to simmer so flavors would blend and took a taste.

It was a little flat, so I added some more chili powder. Let it simmer for a while, and then gave Richard a sample. He thought it needed more chili powder. So I added some. Waited an hour or so, took another taste, and added some more chili powder. After another hour I gave Richard another sample, and he thought maybe it needed a little more salt. So I added a teaspoon of salt. We both took a final taste and decided it was good and that I should not mess with it any more.

Then I found onion skin in the last sample I tasted. I thought I had been so careful to remove all of the onion skins.

Richard says, “Don’t worry. If anyone gets an onion skin, they’ll take it out of their mouth and put it on the side of their plate. Not me. If I get one, I’m gonna say really loud “Eeuww. There’s an onion skin in Leilani’s chili.”

God bless him. He always seems to know when humor is helpful.

Doing a Happy Dance and Heaving a Sigh

I am doing the happy dance because one of my favorite blog writers, Ladybird World Mother, has started writing her blog again after going silent after a post in October 2016. And at the bottom of her first offering after all this time she writes “This was written a year ago last October. But I forgot to post it. And so I'm posting it now.”

Well, if she can do it, so can I. I don’t remember when I wrote this–maybe a month ago–but I got distracted before I posted it. Now I feel like I am coming down with another bout of writer’s block, which I am hoping to crash through and thus avoid a widening gap between posts.

The freezing rain started Thursday night, and my car is covered in ice along with everything else. About this time last week (give or take a day), it was raining liquid water. When I got back from town, I had to get something out of the trunk and noticed how easily the dirt came off on my hand.

So I got a pail of hot water with a little ammonia (and I don’t want a lecture about how you are not supposed to use ammonia on a car), grabbed the umbrella, and washed the car in the rain.

It worked out quite well. The dirt came off easily, and I didn’t have to rinse the car when I was done.

My parking spot on the driveway is under a maple tree. On a bright sunshiny morning a few days later, I came out to go to town and discovered my car was covered—and I mean covered—in bird poop with lots of bits and pieces in it. I believe the culprits were a small flock of Cedar Waxwings that has been flitting around eating berries from the cedar trees and buds from the maple tree and whatever else they can find.

I had to wash the windshield right then so I could see out, and I guess I will be washing the car again as soon as the ice melts.