The “E” key on my computer keyboard is nearly worn off. My pots and pans are no longer sitting in the sink, soaking for hours, before I give them a good scrub. I have, for the moment at least, clocked out of the kitchen.
As strange as this may sound, I’ve been so busy testing recipes for the cookbook that most nights, I look up, it’s after 7 p.m., and I’ve not even thought about dinner. Plus, I don’t even want to think about dinner. Or cooking anything at all.
Last Sunday, it was cool – jacket weather, even – but it was time. Time to hop in the car and drive to the Truffaut in Versailles for herbs, which is about a hundred times easier than trying to find a place to park near the Truffaut in the 13th. Last year, someone ate my basil within a week or so of me getting it in the pots, so I really hope that this year’s a bit better, since I use basil probably more than anything, and according to X, more than I should. But I don’t see the problem. I think basil’s wonderful in just about everything.
At one of my cooking classes last month, someone asked me how many pairs of cowboy boots I owned. I really wasn’t sure, but I told her that it wasn’t that many. The next day, I got them out and counted them. As you can see, it’s a small collection of eight. I also have a spare pair at my mom’s house in Texas, but since those aren’t with me now, I think that those would fall into a separate “travel boots” category.
On the second day of Cooking Matters Bloggers Boot Camp in Dallas, we braved the frigid north winds and drove to a nearby Walmart for a quick lesson in how to grocery shop.
On our first day of Cooking Matters Bloggers Boot Camp, after we visited the North Texas Food Bank to get an overview of hunger in Dallas, we hopped on a bus and drove to the Trinity River Mission in Oak Cliff, to see, first-hand, how another North Texas Food Bank-supported program works to help feed kids each day.
Our last exercise at Cooking Matters Bloggers Boot Camp was, appropriately, all of us going through a Cooking Matters cooking course back at the North Texas Food Bank.
Or “Joyeuses Fetes,” as we say here in France. I’m celebrating Christmas this year in the Pays Basque, in the southwest corner of the country, in Biarritz, right on the Atlantic. Can’t say that I’ve ever spent a Christmas holiday waking up to the roar of crashing waves, but it’s something that I could definitely get used to.
