Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 10:39PM
If you're looking for major philosophical and existentially important discussion, then you have come to the right place.
Tonight, the answer to the age-old question above is the egg. An eggshell to be precise, and the chicken came afterward. A few pieces of chicken, some of it raw. These things were in my disposal and the disposal decided not to be at my disposal and therefore came the removal of the eggshell and the chicken, from the disposal.
Putting my hand down the disposal comes pretty close to the top of my grody-things-that-I-never-want-to-do list (Grody? Like, I totally grew up in the '80's, and it was rad; I have the big-bangs pictures to prove it.) so I was none too thrilled when I turned the disposal on and heard a pleasant little hum, but no moving parts or crunching up of food waste. I turned the switch off, and stood there with my heart beating madly for a minute. I wanted to run away, or cry, but I definitely did not want to stick my hand down there.
Like I said, it's grody. Gross, disgusting, foul, germ-filled, nasty, utterly revolting, and yucky. Plus, what if it did some crazy mind-of-its-own thing and turned on? I know the chances of that happening are pretty slim, but what if? Huh? That's scary, man. I like my fingers on my hand, thank you.
I finally put my hand down in there, and poked around, and turned the little food-grinders, and felt all around the sides for anything like a screw or some plastic or some other unfriendly disposal stopper-upper. I came up with nothing. But I did have my fingers.
Bum-mer (I mean, I'm glad I have my fingers...bummer about non-functioning disposal). I don't care so much about not having a disposal...we've lived without one before. The tricky thing is to have a disposal, but not be able to use it. I was so careful cleaning up after dinner not to get food in that side of the sink. I was scraping plates into a plastic strawberry container in order to throw all of the scraps away; I was taken back to Camp where we had a scraper at the table every night who cleaned all the plates off before they were carted away for washing by Cabin # ___ (we took turns each day, for morning and evening meals, Cabins 1-6; I loved Cabin # 1).
And just to throw in a little fun info, here's what else went wacky tonight...
I decided to make a strawberry shortcake for after dinner because I had the strawberries, Mike likes that dessert, I also had the whipping cream, and Eliana was asleep so I thought I had the time. That is a lot of good reasons (those are a lot of good reasons?) for making some shortcake. With fresh strawberries. And homemade whipped cream. Mmmm.
I got the shortcake ready (like a giant biscuit in a round cake pan) and stuck it in the oven with some potatoes, set the timer, and started working on the chicken I was doing for dinner. I cooked the chicken first, not all the way, and then I sliced it so I could put it in a little butter and get it golden and delicious (I like to take food that is relatively low in fat and make it super-fattening, like cook it in butter or eat it with whipped cream made from...well, cream). I did this (chicken in butter thing) recently twice, and the kids loved it. I went to tell the kids it was time to switch turns on the computer, and came back and started rinsing strawberries. Things were going so well! The disposal thing had already happened but I was working around it. Then I realized that I hadn't heard the timer yet, and I checked on the shortcake and it was burnt. I took care of the bottom of that by cutting it off, and the rest was fine, but by the time I did all that, and turned the chicken off, it was dry. Dry like a bone. Like an old, old bone in the desert.
I microwaved some great broccoli, though. Do you know how I know? Eliana ate it.
I was fairly exasperated by the time we were supposed to eat. Somehow we all made it through dinner, even though everyone (well, not Mike and Michaela-they're pretty normal) was in a bit of a mood. And now my kitchen is mostly cleaned up and I am going to tackle the main bathroom we've been using. That floor is in need of a serious can of you-know-what.
Hey, I'm talking about Comet. You know, that stuff that cleans so well.
Because of your thirst for deep, intellectual, challenging, thought-provoking conversation, I'll leave you with this..."pasta" and "tapas" are made up of the same letters. I noticed that the other day on the Pioneer Woman's website where she was talking about her favorite foods while living in L.A.
Aren't you glad you stopped by?
