A post in which I go through the recipes

Was a pretty quiet day at work today.  Odd that a month that came in like such a lion has settled down to be such a lamb; nice too, by the way. 

We had free lunch, which was burgers, but they had a veggie option available.  That was nice.  So I had a portobello mushroom sammich with chips.  The bun fell apart, but hey, it was free, right?  And I'm behind on lunches this week, so it was good to get one thrown in there.

Tyler was supposed to come see me tonight, but in the end he couldn't come.  It's a shame he doesn't make more money for a job that eats so much of his life. 

I made it home before the rain, but the storm started almost as soon as I got in. 

Eve had been in touch with me Tuesday, because she was going to buy cucumbers, and wanted Grandma Shumate's sweet pickle recipe.  I was supposed to send it to her, but had forgotten all about it.  When she called me today, I promised to go through the recipes as soon as I got home.  When we got home from the Mother's Day trip I had just put them on top of the fridge and hadn't touched them since.  Although I wanted them and I know she wanted me to have them, it just felt wrong to dig through them for some reason.  It felt kind of personal, and kind of like something you would do after someone died.  Maybe I'm superstitious about it on some level.  But since I had promised, I sat down to go through them.

It was surprising, touching, and sad.  Grandma had been a formidable cook, but there were surprisingly few recipes in the collection.  She probably knew most of her go-to recipes by heart, as I do.  There was the usual hodge-podge of clippings, things jotted down on the backs of scrap paper, copies, and a few recipes people had sent her.  Some of them she was probably intending to make and never had.  It was familiar to me because I have recipes scattered hither and yon in my kitchen that fall into the same categories.  It really underlined the transience of life.  She won't ever have a chance to make some of the things she intended to now.  I guess it's kind of a maudlin way to look at it, but it's kind of a metaphor for life.  There are so many things you mean to do, and it seems like there is so much time, and then suddenly there isn't and it's too late. 

I found the pickle recipe, and called Eve because the computer was on the fritz in the storm.  After I read her the recipe, she told me that couldn't be it, but it had to be.  Grandma's pickles are legendary in the family.  They're super-uper-duper sweet, but they are very crisp and there's an underlying bite.  The recipe as she wrote it out was of course incomplete.  I'm sure she learned to make them and just needed notes to help her remember the key steps.  I don't know if I could make anything based on it or not, but after reading it to Eve, I sat down and typed it out verbatim to send to her via email, and told her I would scan the actual written recipe so she could look at what was written.  It will be interesting to see how they turn out.

I made some supper, and fooled around online for a while (mainly because I wanted to play with the new speakers, watching some videos).  After a while the satellite came back up and there was a double-episode of Master Chef on, so I settled in to watch that.  I really love that show, but that Krissi has got to go!  It's almost made me stop watching, because they keep getting your hopes up that she'll leave, but of course they won't take her off.  It's manipulative.  I'm sure there are people tuning in every week just to hate her.  From what they say though, although she's a witch to get along with, she seems to be a pretty good cook.

I found Sabrina and Wendie on Facebook today through a post, and got in touch.  I haven't seen them for a while, and now I'm missing them.  I messaged back and forth with Sabrina for a while when I got in bed tonight.  It was so good to get in touch.  I hope I get to see them soon.