1. It had been about a week since I'd shopped at Yoke's and Debbie had some parcels to mail, so I covered my face and headed out to the Post Office and then to the store. I liked my shopping list. The items were located in about four spots in the store and I moved as quickly as I could to each spot, slowed down only by the slight amount of time it takes to open produce bags and pop in the items I bought. For fun, I like to note how many others covered their faces. While I was shopping, I was alone. Two people were entering the store as I left with masks on. So far, not a single case of COVID-19 has been reported in Shoshone County.
2. I made one other trip today. We'd received a call from the vet this morning. Charly's ashes were ready to be picked up. I parked in front of Kellogg Pet Medical Center's office and called from my car, knowing that the people working in the office were offering curbside service. Nikki brought out the urn, we transacted my payment, and, before I started up the Sube, Charly's life flashed before my eyes. I remembered her many years of vigor and vitality. I then pictured how determined and brave she was as her mobility diminished over the last several months and how much closer together we grew over the last year.
3. As a gift several years ago, Adrienne gave me a cookbook called Bean by Bean. I wondered if I might turn our leftover vegetarian chili from Sunday into something promising and I found a recipe for a casserole that simply required putting a layer of cornbread over any kind of bean/vegetable/grain mixture a person might have on hand.
I whipped up another batch of vegetarian chili. Last night I used pinto beans. Today I used black beans. I also chopped up two sweet potatoes and cooked them in butter with a moderate amount of cinnamon. I folded the leftover chili and the sweet potatoes into the new batch of chili and once it was cooked and heated through, I topped it with the cornbread batter I had mixed. I kept it all in the Dutch oven, baked it for about 20 minutes or so until the cornbread was golden, and the result was a success. As a compliment to this casserole, Debbie made one of her superb cabbage salads.
As a nightcap this evening, I tried something new for me. I've been mixing gin with triple sec and lemon juice. It's a Chelsea Sidecar. A traditional sidecar is made with cognac or bourbon. I don't have any cognac on hand, so I experimented. I put a small amount of sugar in the bottom of a small glass and mixed it with a few splashes of orange bitters. I put ice in the glass and mixed together brandy and triple sec and stirred it. It was, I suppose, a quasi-Sidecar. At first I thought it was a little too sweet, but as some of the ice melted in the glass and as I drank a little more of it, I enjoyed it more. I think I'll keep fooling around with this cocktail and some variations -- after all, it was, if nothing else, fun.
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