a semi-hard morning

i spent the morning in tears, doing a lot of cutting, followed by some intense scouring of my hands. no, i'm not grieving Old-Testament style. i have been busy in the kitchen all day!


if only i could blog an aroma, i'd share with you the hearty scents filling my home (and probably the hallway outside my door. take that, indian neighbors! for once i've expunged the scent of curry coming from your kitchens!). since the internet wizards have not YET invented a way to share smells via computer, i'll walk you through it.

close your eyes. imagine th-- wait. open your eyes. you have to read in order to make this work. obvi. what was i thinking?

imagine this: first the scent of oregano hits you. a hearty soup is on the stove. as you approach it, though, oregano gives way to cayenne pepper stabbing your nostrils. in a good way, though. my (semi-)homemade lentil soup, flavored with freshly minced garlic and a big bitch of an onion whose nasty stank refuses to leave my fingers, simmers on the stovetop for its third hour.

crack open the oven, and you'll immediately forget all about the vegetable soup. the entire room is suddenly filled with the rich and inviting scent of freshly baked banana nut muffins, my (kinda) own recipe.


if Sandra Lee is the queen of Semi-Homemade, then i'm the king of it. the KING, i tell you! no matter what i'm preparing, no matter how simple or complex the directions on the box or in the recipe book, i always make the recipe my own. in high school, i found ways to transform ramen noodles into a legit pasta dish.

my skills and tastes have matured since then, and today i might, for example, add scallions to boxed white cheddar macaroni and cheese. yeah, i know: bold. italicized, actually. because i say NO, Betty Crocker, i am simply not satisfied with the ingredients you've chosen for these muffins. NO, soup company, i will not allow you to dictate the flavor profile of my soup. MY soup!

a quick aside: i do not appreciate those jelis h8ers out there who call Sandra Lee a lazy booze-hound. i think she's fabulous, and i initially fell in love with her show because she drinks during each episode. further, she's not -- we're not lazy just because we're using the ingredients that mother nature, via Kraft, created for us. we're efficient, and we're realistic. we don't all have the unlimited time in each day to gather our own herbs like Martha S. or Ina G. seem to have.

i wish i could share with you my wonderful semi-homemade muffins and hearty lentil soup. i wish i could warm you up on this frigid winter afternoon; unfortunately, without giving you my address and thereby more or less asking to be raped and burgled (yes, that IS a word), i cannot share this with you.


Shaunice, please come home soon! i won't feel content with my morning or my life until someone tells me that this food is delicious.