Multitasking

The not-terribly-picturesque tableau you see above is the top of my stove (known by, I think, elderly women as the "range") on a typical weekend afternoon. I usually spend the first day of any weekend trying to undo the chaos that has entropically overwhelmed the house during the week, and the second day cooking all manner of random foodstuffs to make up for neglecting my family over the course of the previous five days. Particularly during the winter months I hole up in the kitchen, giving myself an excuse to stand next to a hot stove. From left to right you see: the dough for the loaf of whole-wheat bread that's meant for the evening's dinner; a pot of chicken stock for the evening's soup; and a batch of pretzel dough for my second attempt at replicating the soft pretzels one buys from carts and stadium vendors. My house was warm and smelled good all day. I haven't posted in a couple of weeks for no real good reason, but I'm going to try and catch up soon. I have a mental queue of cooking projects, much like a Netflix queue but with food. My projected lineup includes dishes featuring squid and rabbit (not at the same time), something with a moleh sauce (I don't know how to do accents, so that's my phonetic spelling), chicken doro wat (an African dish), etc etc. If you asked my kids, they might consider these things more threats than menus. I apologize for any typos in this post - I was chopping collards for dinner this evening and nearly took my right index finger clean off. Not to get into too much graphic detail, but the fingernail is hacked just about in half. The entire bloody business is now mummified in three foamy "sport" bandages, creating a blunt instrument with which to tap out hy rapier-sharp prose. Hah! (yes, this was a boring post. mea culpa. better ones to follow.)