crucible of ennui

 I don’t know why, but I’ve been on the downside streak of bad cooking. The green bean casserole didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I thought that I’d do it from scratch and follow that neat recipe on Good Eats, but the beans were still underdone and kinda crunchy. And the onion topping was mediocre to horrible (depending on whether I’m in the room or not). meh. I’ll try it again for tomorrow night when Glenn gets home and we have our Thanksgiving, but I’m going with those fried onions out of the can by French’s and maybe even getting frozen green beans so I don’t have to clean and prep 2 lbs of fresh beans again. 

Other than that - it’s been a pretty low-key weekend. Kinda boring. Not wanting to do much of anything. I’m not about to brave the malls or any other retail establishment. I’m just in an anti-holiday type of mood, I guess.

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Okay - this was the first book Glenn gave me to read. It took me a while to get into reading it. Once I did, though, I burned through it pretty quickly. My impression was there was a lot of descriptive passages that bogged it down for me. I wanted action and adventure, not tactics and historical context. Wait a minute… I know what you’re thinking… “how can an Arthurian saga be told without including all the history of the period?!?” You would be correct, but at times sentences seemed as long as the chapters… so I found myself skipping a paragraph here and there to get back to the characters in the story. 

I really enjoyed how Mary Stewart portrayed Merlin not as a wizard, but as a very intelligent person who knew how to read people. Absolutely there was mysticism and visions, but there was also fabulous feats of people engineering that makes more sense of Merlin’s enduring legend that just magic alone. 

Book Score: B
Would I recommend?: Yes, depending on the person and their interest in Arthurian legend

It’s almost Thanksgiving again. I feel bad that Glenn has to work again on Thursday, but I am glad that he’ll be home on Saturday and Sunday. I want to make him something really special and yummy to eat… but the last few kitchen experiments have been less than… savory. 

We got a KICK ASS Kitchen Aid mixer and I had to try it out… so I was thinking cookies. I don’t know how, but I misread the ingredients and doubled the butter and the cookies ended up being just greasy crust lining the cookie sheet. Ew. So then I got all pissed off, determined to make the f’n cookies. I swear I triple checked all the amounts, but they still turned out crappy. I just can’t make cookies. Cupcakes - no problem. Muffins - makin’ em in my sleep. But for the life of me, I can’t make cookies.  Or pancakes, but that’s a story for another day.

Seriously. W.T.F.  

Maybe it’s because I don’t add enough love to the recipe. 

Maybe it’s because I cook with spite.