The front garden still has some of last fall's pansies hanging on. Iko told me how to press them.

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Burned Offerings

Starve them first. Never, ever serve a meal on time; make them wait. Then, anything you put in front of them will be adored. If it is burned, just explain that you are treating them like royalty, serving them burned offerings. They'll eat it and love it if you only let them get hungry enough.

There was a time, though, when I wasn't so confident about my culinary abilities beyond beans and rice, quite the contrary. I worried over every little thing and very carefully followed all of the instructions in the cookbooks to the letter, measuring and double checking all the ingredients, being very careful to keep the stir occasionally's separate from the stir constantly's. All in all, I did ok, but I do remember a time when I thought my heart would break over a comment on my cooking.

Picture this! I was a young woman (yes, even I was young once) with a new boyfriend that I very much wanted to impress. He was so sophisticated and well, er . .wealthy. This was the first time that he had come to my home for dinner and I was working very hard at it. For dessert, we were to have cheesecake, my first from scratch.

When I had it all concocted, I tasted it and . . it tasted just like cheesecake! It was absolutely delicious so I couldn't wait until it was ready; I scooped a teaspoonful and proudly went in and offered it to my date. He took it in his mouth, promptly spit it out and exclaimed, "That is SWILL!!!!"

I slithered off and cried for a long time.

When the rest of the story came out, though, I didn't feel quite so bad. In the process of preparing dinner, I discovered that I was out of potatoes so I asked him, "Is it ok with you if we have instant potatoes?" Moments later, I gave him a taste of cheesecake, but his taste buds were thinking potatoes so . . .

He made up for it by having three pieces of cheesecake.

Somehow, in my misc. clickings around Internet-land I found Almost a Jester's Journal by Dan Birtcher. The guy is simply amazing, although that intellectual sort of humor is way over my head, I'm sure you, my dear readers, will enjoy his writings immensely.