Experiments

Sam watched President Obama’s address this morning at school. Leaving aside all debate, I asked him what he thought of it. “Pretty cool,” he said. So, what did the president say to the kids watching? “Um, he said to…never give up, never surrender.”

(Something tells me that movie made something of an impression on Sam, since he only watched it once or twice, at least a year ago. Or maybe Eric and I have quoted it around him once…or twice…)

Tonight’s dinner is experimental. The boys won’t touch it, I know, so they got orzo with cheese and asparagus; I’m nibbling on the asparagus while I cook a pumpkin saag, based on the Veganomicon recipe, only with chard and slightly different seasonings. Heck, this recipe is just lucky I couldn’t time the roasting of the beets I’m also doing to coincide with the pumpkin’s finishing time, or else there’d be those in there, too. Very experimental. Eric is playing Scrabble tonight, so I’m the only one to witness either the success or epic fail. I’ll have it over the last of the orzo, for purely authentic what-on-earth. I’ve been enjoying The Man Who Ate the World quite a lot, and the desire for the new has seized me – even if I don’t have access to blowfish sperm at my local grocer.

Later…
This might have been better before I added the chard. It was smelling and looking pretty good. Still cooking.

Still later…
No, sir, it isn’t great. The chard is way more, well, “chardy” than spinach would have been “spinachy,” despite my best efforts. My excuse is that the whole reason for the dish is that I had the chard, and it needed to be used before it went bad. Well, it’s been used, and it’s certainly edible, so I guess we’ll call it a success in that respect – if in not many others. If Eric had been here, he could have saved it, I’m sure, but he’d have done it with seeds and other things that aren’t even labeled in their containers, so I wasn’t going to try that route.

Oh, well. Tomorrow’s another day. Gabe’s first day of school, in fact, so I have other reasons to remain optimistic.