Cooking with gas

The owner of my former favorite yarn shop used the line, "cooking with gas" when the needles were flying and the stitches were smooth and orderly. Unfortunately, she had to close her lovely little shop, but left me with great lines and a plentiful yarn stash. And now, here I am, away from home, knitting a new project for a special loved one with beautiful yarn procured from my favorite Minneapolis yarn shop and cooking with gas. Really. After years of electric cooking on the farm, the gas stove is almost as much a treat as a really good yarn. When it's on, it's on. When it's not, it's not. (Is that a Cole Porter song?) At any rate, I have a hearty venison stew simmering on the stove while Evan is shaping the rye loaves to bake for our late dinner. He used Grandma's Wonderful Rye Bread recipe, so our expectations are high. Oh, and for dessert, we still have last night's apple pie.

Alyssa is working out after work and plans to be home around 7:00. Since she's such a gracious hostess, waiting dinner for her is the least we can do. It's not like we're so busy all day that we can't adjust our schedules.

Evan had an 8:00 appointment this morning for lab work and to see the doctor. All is well. We left the BMT Clinic by 9:30 and headed back here where he made himself a little brunch. His morning meds give him a bit of an upset stomach, so waiting to eat makes good sense. After deciding on our day's menu, I left to go to the yarn shop -- it really is wonderful -- and to the coop for a few necessities. (And yes, I do have a yarn stash, but not always the perfect yarn for a certain project. It's just the way it works.) The coop is always busy, which surprises me. Guess that's just the small town coming out. I was looking for popcorn. Plain old popcorn. Evan doesn't like the stuff Alyssa has here, so I thought replacing it would be a pretty easy order to fill. Wrong. The snack section had Paul Newman's microwave popcorn, which is useless here, (Since Alyssa's Barbie's Dream House kitchen will not offer up the space for a microwave and a cutting board, the cutting board wins.), lots of pre-popped, bagged popcorn (organic, of course), but no plain old popcorn in a jar. I suppose I could have found some in the bulk foods aisle, but since the stuff that's here is from the Amish bulk foods store on Blueberry Rd, I figured another bulk popcorn could very well be another bust. So, no popcorn. But the Guacamole organic tortilla chips I bought in error, turned out to be pretty good, so don't worry about anyone fading away up here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes from lack of snacks.

A few years ago, Paul and Karl and I traveled to visit Alyssa in Denver: I kept a journal of that trip. Karl was, at the time, reading an account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Each time I asked him for a contribution for the journal, he said, "rations are adequate and morale is high." That holds true here as well.