Food, sometimes glorious.

On Sunday we spent much of the day in the basement library, organizing. I tackled books, Charlie did board games. What does it say about me that my books are organized by general genre and then alphabetically by author? I hope it's more of a nod to my bookstore-working days and not yet another facet of my often ridiculed penchant for order. At any rate, there were several piles of books to integrate and some that needed to be re-shelved.

we, ah, really like board games.

It was also quite obvious that another shelf of the room needed to be allocated for games. Charlie went through his piles and picked games that we likely won't play again and removed them, and then tried to make some order out of the chaos. If you are at all into board games, Charlie's friend Scott runs the best site ever. You can research games you might want to buy, buy them used, print out rules in English (we use this feature a lot), and read reviews of gameplay and house rules. You also can make an account and keep track of the games that you have. Later this week I'll be photographing the games we're done with and listing them for sale on the site, which is a great way to not feel bad if you don't love a game you've bought. Just sell it used to someone else!

tasty

In the early afternoon we got hungry and Charlie made one his great scavenged meals. There were crackers, and an apple, and some grueyre, and a riff on one of his best sweet & sour cucumber salads. This one had cucumber, some cherry tomatoes, carrots, thai basil, and toasted almonds. Yummy.

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how can you go wrong with these ingredients?

Yesterday afternoon I got a bug to make a hearty stew. On my way back from the grocery store Charlie called to tell me he had a work dinner thing to go to, but I decided to make it anyway. I put on my apron and some Chopin, watched the rain falling outside, and cooked. I merrily chopped and trimmed and braised and deglazed and stirred and baked and made noodles. I cooked all afternoon and it looked delicious.

Harry looks forward to dinner

I lovingly ladled up my plate, photographed it while composing my "I am such an awesome cook" post in my head, and sat down to eat. And ate two bites and stopped. It wasn't bad, wasn't off, but it was something way worse than a recipe gone wrong. I didn't like it. Somehow all of those flavors that on their own sounded delicious (beef! nicoise olives! orange peel! garlic! red wine!) combined to make something that just didn't taste good to me. I ate a few more bites, gave up, and had a bowl of buttered noodles. Sometimes you succeed with a new recipe, sometimes you fail. Since Charlie won't be home for dinner tonight either, I threw a few handfuls of barley in the pot to thicken it and the chickens are having a feast.

fail.
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I made up for it this morning by having a delicious breakfast. One strong cup of coffee and a one-eyed-jack. Just the thing! Tonight I think I'll stick with something simple for dinner.

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Eggs laid in the coop Monday: 2
Eggs laid in the coop Sunday: 2
Eggs laid in the coop Saturday: 2
Eggs laid in the coop this year: 173