When the temps hit triple digits — 101°, another record — the first thing I think about preparing for dinner is a piping-hot pot of soup. A fragrant chicken soup with chickpeas and vegetables from Melissa Clark, to be specific.
OK, between you and me, I was thinking more along the lines of a jambalaya, or maybe some slow-cooker chipotle-honey chicken tacos.
But when I made the mistake of consulting Herself about the week’s menu, she ordered up salmon with potatoes and asparagus, and the aforementioned soup.
Well, whaddaya gonna do?
We get two dinners out of a pound and a half of salmon, a half-dozen taters, and 12 ounces of asparagus.
And that burly soup serves six to eight, which means we’ll probably be eating it through the weekend. Especially since I made a fresh loaf of whole-wheat bread to keep it company.
Maybe next week I’ll pitch a gazpacho at her. Yeah, that’d be cool. …
It’s quiet around El Rancho Pendejo. Herself races off to the Lab at 5:30 in the a.m. and it’s just Your Humble Narrator and Miss Mia Sopaipilla manning the battlements. Cat’lments. Whatevs.
Sometimes I’m up before The Boss hits the door running, sometimes not. This morning I managed to see her off and then got down to brass tacks, as the kids don’t say anymore.
Miss Mia must be greeted, loved up on, given a second round of food and drink, and her litter box unburdened of its dark freight.
Then the Winter Palace is to be prepared for Her Majesty, after which I may offer myself a little sumpin’-sumpin’: coffee; toast with butter and jam; either oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts or yogurt with granola; an apple or mandarine; a scoop of crunchy almond butter; maybe a mug of tea.
The news is to be scanned but not dwelt upon lest it hamper the digestion.
OK, so I missed a few needles. I blame management.
This morning saw the last slice of bread slide down the rathole so a new loaf was in order, and I set that machinery in motion.
Next I congratulated myself for taking a moment yesterday to rake up the pine needles scattered across the lawn by last Thursday’s window-rattler, with the goal of restarting the irrigation system for a quick spritz this morning, when I noticed our bird feeders were getting low. So I filled those up. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
This short detour threw a slight hitch into my gitalong. The next items on the schedule were exercise and grocery shopping. If I hadn’t stopped to pat myself on the back I could’ve squeezed in a quick trail run before the sprinklers came on (I wanted to be around to make sure nothing had frozen up during our short cold snap).
Running afterward would put me at the grocery noonish, which is not optimal; the amateurs scuttle out of their holes and get in everyone’s way at noon and 5 p.m. I like to do my shopping between 9 and 10, or sometime after 1, when only pro hunter-gatherers are working the aisles and the registers don’t look like The Big I at rush hour.
Thing is, the meal I have planned for tonight is a slow-cooker deal that wants four hours in the pot.
So, yeah. Here I sit, muttering to myself (and to you) while I update my grocery list, avoid the news, and wait to see whether the irrigation system erupts like Vesuvius.
Behold the first loaf from our “new” $40 Toastmaster Bread Box, acquired on eBay. The Wirecutter boyos can keep their $300 Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus with my compliments. Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!
In other news, retirement is proceeding swimmingly. This morning I arose late, ground beans, brewed coffee, made tea, toast, and oatmeal, did the dishes, emptied the litter box, took out the trash, refilled the bird feeders, shooed Herself out the door to chauffeur Herself the Elder to a couple appointments, scratched Miss Mia’s back, and glanced over the news, about which the less said the better.
Soon, the healthful outdoor exercise. Herself and I went for an hourlong run yesterday and nothing hurt any more than it should, so I think my back may have finally realigned itself (knock on wood).
I’ve put more white powder than that up me snout on a weeknight.
I know, I know — don’t tempt the Fates, never let your blog write a check that your ass can’t cash, and so on and so forth.
But sheeeeeyit: You call this “snow?”
The Bread Box is baked.
The appalling lack of precipitation aside, it was not so warm outside today, and not so hot inside, either.
Our $20 garage-sale bread machine seems to have toasted itself after a year of medium-heavy use, churning out a bleak pan of something one might expect to find in the toilet at a dive bar on St. Paddy’s Day if the menu featured a questionable shepherd’s pie and some heavily stepped-on blow.
Thing is, y’see, I have about 20 pounds of Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat flour on hand. So I may be forced to learn how to bake bread the way me forefathers did, only without the dubious advantage of being knee-walking drunk.
The only things missing are the man-bun and the ironic facial hair.
No, not him. I’m talking about the famous Hipster Avocado Toast a la Señor Dog of Albuquerque.
The other day I bought a six-pack of avocados to chop into a rough salsa for a batch of chipotle-honey chicken tacos. This proved to be about four too many, so there you have it. The bread is a robust whole-wheat number from the Toastmaster Bread Box recipe booklet.
It seems a good day to crouch behind the parapets, nibbling tasty bits and dodging dispatches from the Bananas Republic. This just in: GOP sticks fingers in ears and goes “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA,” how the Donks will fuck this up, everybody hates everybody else, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the 24/7 news cycle. Happily, we still have a couple avocados left.
Mad Blog Media 