Falling Down on the Job

Sorry, folks! Yesterday Jim forgot his badge for work. He’s no longer working downtown so it was a 45 minute trip to his office, lunch and at least 35 minutes back. Today he had a dentist appt. in town then we had lunch and he went to work around 11:45.

It was one of those days. Hand-wash dishes left over from last night’s dinner, unload dishes from dishwasher, wait ’til Jim’s out of the shower and put in a load of wash, make him breakfast. Jim goes to dentist and I take the Honda to the mechanic, switch cars at dentist where he’ll be an hour longer.

Run home and clean 1/2 of frig, strip bed. Lunch with Jim, groceries and finish cleaning frig, garbage removal. Dog. Laundry, dinner, cleaning. The most poignant moments were cleaning out flowers in Mom’s memory given by Jim’s family. Many of them have died and I picked through and snipped ends and cleaned vases and added more food and water, but they’ll still die in a day or two, a reminder of the life cycle as I’m half a country away from anything that reminds me of her (family and things of sentimental value).

I keep thinking I’ll ask Mom for a recipe or tell her something that happened today. My sister asked if I’d like her handwritten/personally typewritten recipes from the past 50 years and I said I’d take them for safekeeping and find a way to maintain their integrity while making them available to family (scanning, personal cookbook, disc, whatever is best). I think they’re just too painful for her to look at right now so I’ll hang onto them for a while though they belong to all of us “kids.”

Tonight I took chicken breasts with skin and bones and seasoned them with John Henry’s BBQ seasoning rub from E. TX and placed them on the broiler pan. Yes, I placed tin foil on the bottom of the pan and roasted them in a 400 degree oven for about 50 minutes. Same time, I put in peeled Idaho potatoes, thinly sliced by food processor (four small) in a non-stick pan, covered 2/3 of the way with half-and-half and 2% milk, salt and pepper and dotted with butter. When the chicken came out I turned up the oven, moved potatoes to the top shelf and finished them to a brown crust. Jim and I practically fought over the last few! Frozen corn was my veg as I’m trying to clean out the freezer.

Now that the frig is clean I can start working through the veggie drawer. How about curried butternut squash and carrot soup? It poured here this morning and all the roads were flooded, first rain since Ike. It mean’s fall is coming and I can start thinking of soups and stews again. Yippee! Then when I get tired of those, springtime will beckon once again with peas and asparagus.

Did I tell you about the pork loin roast? It was good, but rushed, and could have been better. It was actually better re-heated last night, sliced and in gravy thinned with chicken broth to tame the sweetness of the hard cider that had boiled down until it was nearly a glaze. Served with riced garlic potatoes and greens.