Skip to main content

Cooking



I think the a big part of cooking successfully is paying attention.  There have been times in my life when I have been really into cooking.  There have also been those times when I am just not that interested and it is easy to get distracted.  Distracted cook = failed dishes.

I remember a time I was in a drug store with my first husband.  I found him looking at greeting cards.  He had one in his hand and his efforts to keep himself from guffawing loudly had his whole body in a kind of concerning tremor.  The card face: I wanted to get you something useful for your birthday. Inside the card: but you already have a smoke detector.

Yeah, so amusing.

I did manage to get through Thanksgiving dinner without burning anything, although the mashed potatoes were not hot enough.  The next day I set of the alarm with burnt toast.

Comments

  1. joehNovember 30, 2017 at 1:31 PM

    Sometimes cooking is just what you do to keep fed, other times it is a passion. I like to be invited to dinner where it is a passion.

    ReplyDelete
  2. RianNovember 30, 2017 at 2:30 PM

    I do love to cook... when time permits. I find cooking to be an art form and like any art, sometime the muse is with you and other times not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaNovember 30, 2017 at 5:01 PM

      I like thinking of it that way -- as an art form.

      Delete
  3. TaborNovember 30, 2017 at 3:09 PM

    When we have cooked as many years as we have, we can't help but screw up now and again. The pie hubby made yesterday had soggy bottom crust, but to his defense I did not supervise and he rarely makes pies!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaNovember 30, 2017 at 5:04 PM

      Ha! The odds sometimes work against me then/the muse lets me down/I have lost the passion.

      Delete
  4. Margaret (Peggy or Peg too)November 30, 2017 at 4:18 PM

    Well we all can't be Mario Batali, chef extraordinaire. A tip for mashed potatoes is to put them in the crock pot on warm with lid and they will be perfect when all is ready to be put on the table. I did that for years. Made them early, put them in the crock pot and when all the other items were ready, put them in a bowl on the table and they were steaming hot and not the least bit dried out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaNovember 30, 2017 at 5:05 PM

      I will keep that tip in mind for the next big meal I cook . . . most likely nest Thanksgiving. I better write it down somewhere!

      Delete
  5. Linda ReederNovember 30, 2017 at 7:53 PM

    I cook because I like to eat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaDecember 2, 2017 at 9:26 AM

      Yes, there is always that. I have known couple who always eat out, but I could never do that.

      Delete
  6. BarbaraNovember 30, 2017 at 11:40 PM

    I am enjoying the kitchen a little more since I moved in with my daughter but I still don't really cook. I put things together. I guess that is good enough until the urge hits me.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousDecember 1, 2017 at 9:37 AM

    I like to cook and invent something new.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaDecember 2, 2017 at 9:29 AM

      And I am sure David appreciates your hobby!

      Delete
  8. Arkansas PattiDecember 1, 2017 at 10:52 AM

    Good to know the love for cooking comes and goes. Right now mine has gone and I feared it might be permanent. Now I have hope.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaDecember 2, 2017 at 9:31 AM

      I have too many hobbies demanding attention, so my focus tends to go in cycles. This time of year, throwing things in a pot with some stock = cooking abowl of soup and that is good enough.

      Delete
  9. SextantDecember 1, 2017 at 11:47 AM

    If your only mishap was cool potatoes, you did quite well. Bask in glory over the successes, and don't sweat cold potatoes. Burnt toast? Wouldn't that be the toaster's fault?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaDecember 2, 2017 at 9:33 AM

      I made a not of the crock pot idea from above.
      I have a temperamental toaster that I know needs watching. Someday I will get around to a replacement.

      Delete
  10. SmitoniusAndSonataDecember 1, 2017 at 12:55 PM

    Someone with a weird sense of humour put a smoke detector very near my toaster . It's probably why I tend to eat oatmeal .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OlgaDecember 2, 2017 at 9:35 AM

      You found an obvious solution although I have been known to leave a pot or a kettle unattended while I go off to do something else.

      Delete

Post a Comment

I appreciate readers' comments so much. You don't even always have to agree with me.

Popular posts from this blog

It's TIme

 It's been a while since I have posted anything and even my reading your posts is falling by the wayside. I am in Florida now. I have a yard where little attention was spent on landscaping for the past years so I am slowly and (somewhat) methodically addressing that. I also volunteer to work at the pollinator garden and the edible garden I helped install at the UU grounds and I took over the volunteer job of cleaning out the overgrown community garden by my neighborhood mailboxes. The neighbor who was doing that got sick and could no longer attend to it. It's a bigger job than I'd thought at first -- not only overgrown with weeds, but the plants that are wanted there are in life and death competition for each others' spaces. And two walks a day, morning and evening, so Levi can keep up with addiction to canine social media and a daily rousing came of stick or ball midday take up another chunk of my time. I have a weekly meditation group that I co-facilitate, and my own ...
10 comments
Read more

New Furniture

 We went shopping for a new couch. I liked this one, the first store we went to. Of course it would be an impulse to buy the first one so we trekked around to other stores -- something we liked more, a better deal? No surprise that we ended up going back to that first store the next day and purchasing that couch for our living room. Also a matching love seat for the den where we watch TV. Because I had replaced my old love seat with two recliners. We couldn't keep three households worth of furniture after all. Well, my recliner was not big enough to accommodate both Levi and me. Poor boy had to watch TV from his bed on the floor. There! This is much better! Spoiled much? The little tail on the floor belongs to his toy squirrel, Buddy. It's like having a toddler with the need to be picking up toys or risk tripping over them. But his very favorite play thing is that bathmat that can be found anywhere but the bathroom floor.
10 comments
Read more

Walking

 I have always been a walker. Now that I have a high energy dog there is no excuse for not getting out there. And the weather is not an interfering factor here. Early morning and early evening are our preferred times so even when it gets hot we should be okay. We can get quite a long walk going around the neighborhood, greeting neighbors out working in their yards or walking their own dogs. But the landscape changes quickly just beyond the confines of the housing developments. It could be described as natural Florida or as sites of future housing developments. I do prefer the first option. And I really enjoy being out in natural areas so I often opt to head to a nature setting. I would have liked to put a picture here. Unfortunately my iPhone has made a unilateral decision. It will no longer be sending my photos to my computer. Why? I have no idea. However, we may be walking along happily enough -- me listening to the birds or trying to identify wildflowers and other plants while L...
10 comments
Read more