Our lawn, that is. From the recent rains, all dormant seeds in our lawn have sprouted up. This has taken two days, an astonishing genesis of life from the dusty dirt of the lawn. I am pleased to see things growing, but wife is worried about the additional work to till this under when we landscape the yard. Well, as that project is coming in the indeterminate future and erosion happens today, I’m glad to have living groundcover. Green is good.
This weekend saw the failure of another item in our kitchen. An appliance? Not quite—a cookie sheet. Such a simple thing, you gasp, how could it go bad. I wondered the same thing. It’s an ubiquitous non-stick cookie sheet that has somehow become pro-stick. I made toffee and shortbread this weekend, both of which have butter as the primary ingredient. This means it’ll never stick to any surface due to the oily buttery goodness, yet somehow the cookie sheet held tight. I ended up shattering four shortbreads trying to scrape them off the pan. Even the toffee stuck, which led me to say, “So long mutha-f#@ah!” and walk the pan out to the trashcan for unceremonial disposal. I have little patience for equipment failures and when it compromises baked goods, I unpack the four-letter words.
Despite the Cookie Sheet Debacle, the weekend was mostly a great success. I managed to get many household projects done including, hold your applause please, the mold remediation painting. My wife is going to put on the finish coat this week while I lie in bed and eat bon bons. I also put up 120 feet of holiday lights on the fence. Now all we need is the kicking cowboy sign from Vegas and we’ll be the envy of the neighborhood. Other miscellaneous tasks including gluing down the entry door sweep, reattaching the rear gate latch, reattaching a fence rail that came loose due to another $#@! equipment failure (10-year outdoor screws that fell short of their promise by nine years and ten months), and finding my wife’s boots buried in a horrifying mess of boxes in the garage. Total success!
This week I have to decide if I’m going to buy another 100 lbs of flour. Do I want to commit to more baking and evening projects? I admit I’m a sucker for change, and unless I keep updating my menu, I’ll get bored cranking out the same breads for customers week after week. Since Thanksgiving I’ve made very little bread, and have enjoyed nights off from the kitchen. Maybe my New Year’s resolution will be to update the entire menu and branch out with new breads. Should I do the walnut goat cheese pumpernickel first or maybe an asiago sage sourdough? I’ve still got my apple moonshine fermenting in the fridge—maybe it’s time to start up the drunken fruit breads. Or just drink the whole bottle and go blind. That’s an option.
Writer, architect, father, husband.