It has been a long day and I only have 2 hours and 13 minutes before I can lock the door and be done for the day. I sit here wrapped in a blanket of fatigue. Not too unpleasant, my joints ache a little, but much was accomplished today.
Yesterday was tremendously hot and humid, so I arose early and began mowing. I always start with my own back yard for my dog's sake. They followed me, as usual, as I picked up their poop and grabbed a weed here and there. They knew I was getting ready to shave down the grass. They like to watch and get in my way and bark at me and chase one another. I always think of Wall-E when I mow. He loved the freshly mown grass. He would roll in it until he was a nice shade of green. He was the one dog careful to stay out of the path of the mower and would chase the other dogs out of my way. I wonder if the dogs think of him, too.
I mowed my side yard after the back yard and I would normally go on to mow a wide swath around my gardens that border the open fields and on to the apple trees. I couldn't. I was drenched in sweat and out of energy. The air was so thick I found it a struggle to breathe. I knew a cold front was headed our way and went inside to finish some signs and a nice nap. It was too hot for swimmers!!!
HeWho is still not 100% well after his bout of bronchitis was happy to sit and watch TV and answer the occasional visitor to the store while I dozed on my loveseat surrounded by animals. No appetite for either one of us last night and we just grabbed whatever leftovers that appealed to us from the fridge. Went to bed at our normal hour and I am almost embarrassed to report that I slept until 8:58 this morning!
HeWho loves to run errands had already left to take Kevin (aka my wife) to his radiation appointment. I ventured out to a much cooler atmosphere and got to work. I mowed and weeded and mowed some more. Heavy black clouds moved in, then blew over leaving a wonderful cool breeze behind. I had two guys scrubbing the pool and when the phone would stop me I would check on them. I came in to get water for them and me and found the most unlikely event in action. HeWho was at my sink, washing dishes!!
I think this may have happened three other times in the last 15 years! So, as I mowed endlessly, I imagined coming in to a nice clean kitchen. I was pondering food prep for supper. Oh, I knew the dishes would not be put away and the counters would not be wiped. But, it is the thought that counts, right?
When I came in at 1:30 all sweaty and hungry I went to the kitchen. Insert the sound of a needle screeching across a record. The sink was full of cold, dirty dishwater and dirty dishes were still on the counter. Seems I interrupted him when I asked him to set fire to the big burn pile before the front moved in with hoped for rain. So, he stopped what he was doing at the kitchen sink and went outside, set the fire, gossiped a bit with kamper Craig and went back inside and parked himself in front of the TV. My fault. He washed very few dishes. all the utensils were hiding in that nasty dishwater. I drained it and started over and he went to town and got a pizza for our lunch/dinner.
There were a lot of dishes because of the peach cobbler I made on Sunday. The recipe looked amazing. Bourbon Peach Cobbler. The peaches on my tree are at peak ripeness. The recipe called for sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch and bourbon, and peaches. I blanched the peaches and slipped the skins off and sliced them, mixed the ingredients together and stated on the "crust". Flour, salt, baking powder and butter. A lot of butter. In the food processor. It did not look right to me. I checked that recipe 4 times to make sure it did not call for some sort of liquid in that crust. It did not. It did suggest brushing the top with heavy cream and sprinkling sugar on top. I sort of sprinkled the cream, since brushing was not possible.
I regretted not adding a couple of tablespoons of cream to the food processor as I peeked in on the cobbler in the oven. The top was dry and powdery, but I still made my kampers eat it! All that butter would not be wasted! Scoop some ice cream on top and who cares about the lousy crust failure?
One of the items on the counter was the cookie sheet I had slid beneath the cobbler. The juices overflowed and were burnt onto the cookie sheet. Did I really expect HeWho to clean that up?
4 comments:
if I walked in and saw my husband doing the dishes I would creep out as silently as I could, burn pile be damned.
If he only had slipped that cookie sheet in, too. Think how nice that cold, nasty water would smell.
You can't capture lightning in a bottle! If only you'd known before catching HeWho in the act of washing dishes. It doesn't take much to knock the universe off-kilter.
It does seem odd to not have liquid in the crust recipe. I'd say next time just go ahead and add some. I have a cookie sheet in the bottom of my oven too, for spillage, but mine is covered with aluminium foil, so when it gets too much spillage burnt ion I just throw it away and replace with a fresh sheet. I don't bake much these days so I only change the sheet a couple of times a year. Your cobbler sounds delicious.
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