Closures & Cooking

I’m not sure “Etc.” is a good closing for a letter, but it should be. I’m gearing up to teach a writing class & tho I won’t be including the seven  parts of a letter, but how to gather your topic into sentences, paragraphs & chapters… So this has made me sensitive to such topics.

Woke from my nap feeling hungry, so enjoyed a bagel with ghee for my non-nutritious dinner. Sometimes ya just gotta – but probably not every night. I used to cook. There was a time when I prepared enough for a football team every night with a super-social first husband & a dishwasher in the apartment. Over years of meal prep incentive dwindling, I am inclined to bread & a cup of coffee at this point. I remember the days of roasts, vegetables, pasta in its various manifestations… I remember Sara Lee cakes for dessert.

A more pleasant memory, it would seem than reality at this time of life. My nutritional intake meter is pretty close to a “none” on any metric scale. Crackers & avocado, check. Peanut butter, check. Pot roast with carrots, potatoes, pearl onions & a side veg, no check.

Food itself has changed. That which I once remember being tasty & satisfying doesn’t cut the mustard when your sense of taste is at about 34% of normal. The nicotine patches are helping, but sometimes instead of flavor or smell, I get odd reactions: the coffee tastes like it has lemon in it, or the food being cooked runs me out of the kitchen with the smell.

I now have two boxes of couscous – which I have not eaten voluntarily ever, – two boxes of rice, two cans of chili beans, 3 chicken tenders (frozen) & a bucket of salad which will likely wind up in soup before the trash, tho that’s not a given, given my current state of gustatory non-electives & a strong failure-to-cook routine running.

What happened here? I need to get Nancy Drew on this one. Maybe I could pay her off in corn muffins (87 cents for the Jiffy boxes at current on-sale market rates.)

Oh, and the alligator? The Linger Lodge serves alligator bites as an appetizer, maybe I …