Ambitious Day Being Betty Crocker

We went to Stern’s to get our wrappers and the owner’s wife, which technically makes her an owner, too, I think for the first time, stopped and chatted with me. This is surprising because she’s a bit intimidating (she doesn’t take any flak from anybody) and sort of scared me. I walked on eggshells around her, and didn’t want to irritate her, but now that I’ve been interacting with her more, we’ve become congenial with one another. I guess I’m sort of in with the boss.

It’s good to be on a name basis because I shop there so often, but also because I need those wrappers regularly, and if they at least know my name, then it maybe makes it more likely that I’ll get them. Finally, they’re really nice people, and I like shopping there, it’s quite the experience. I said I’d bring in some dumplings for them to try.

With that in mind, we had a busy day yesterday. Kudos to the kids for entertaining themselves while dad bit off way more than he could chew, but what else is new? I planned on painting the front entryway and maybe even mowing the lawn, but the kitchen beckoned me. There were dumpling fillings to make, and while I was at it, a ton of baking to do. My thinking was that I could make fillings while the stuff was baking, but of course this didn’t work out.

The plan was to have chili for supper, and you can’t have chili without corn bread. Since I had to bake the cornbread, I figured I’d make R’s raisin bread, and some strawberry pie, which has become a family favorite. Finally, why not throw in some brownies, for good measure. Talk about a whirlwind. For the record, I screwed up the pie crust, but N was astute enough to explain to me what I did wrong and how to avoid it the next time. How cool is that?

My day was delayed by the fact that we had to pick up the dumpling wrappers, and while we were at it, stop at LaValley’s to pick up the paint I’d left there, and then to the Bike Hub to get N’s handlebar grips. It was a beautiful day, so it was nice to be out, but the clock was ticking. Oh yeah, we stopped at Newt’s for ice cream, as well, which was not as nice as Fore-U, but more on that later.

By the time we got home, it was lunchtime. I whipped together a light meal with lots of fruit (no dessert because of the ice cream), and then got to work. I literally worked until supper time, and got none of the things I wanted to outside done. Bummer. However, I did manage to make fillings for three types of dumplings, in addition to all that baking. My inspiration for having a day or two of hell is that it makes our weekends more enjoyable, so we can spend them together and do fun stuff. Talk about taking a bullet for your family.

I made the chicken, veg, and apple fillings, and then the preliminaries for the black bean. I’ll thaw the beef today, and make the fillings on Saturday for our big push on Sunday to make the dumplings. If things work out as well as they did last weekend, we should be done by noon so we can enjoy the rest of the day. Then again, things never work out as they are planned, but that’s what makes life a journey of discovery.

Today will be a bit of a grind, but hopefully not too bad. I may even get around to mowing the lawn, or better yet, splitting some firewood.

Until then, thanks for reading.