Living and Cooking Solo

           At a book signing back in November at the Julesburg, Colorado Community Library, I happened on a box of cookbooks that the librarian planned to weed.  Cookbooks just happen to me.  By that, I mean I cannot resist the temptation to buy bargain cookbooks that seem to magically appear where least expected.  What can I say?  It’s an addiction that I have tried desperately to break to no avail.  I have looked for a Cookbook Anonymous group but if there are such groups, they stay well hidden.             I also clip recipes and when my friend Rose, http://oldbroadsheet.blogspot.com , recently posted a blog about the collecting of recipes, reading it was like peering into a mirror except I’m not nearly as organized as my dear librarian friend.   My clipped recipes just go into a drawer rarely to surface again for actual use.   Periodically I do after much he...

           Two things I never mastered, knitting and rolling out the perfect piecrust, or even a barely redeemable piecrust.  My motto has always been, “don’t learn to do anything that frustrates you or that you do not want to get stuck doing from that moment on.”  For that reason, I also never learned to scale a fish or dress wild game.  If you were ever married to a hunter/fisher male you understand.             My friend Ada tried with all of her patience to teach me to knit, but I could never get my brain to coordinate with the needles between my fingers.   Ada finally gave up trying to teach me and instead knitted me three Afghans over the years.   The first, crafted of orange and olive green yarns (a hint to its age), continues to be my favorite.   I have tossed this thing over my legs on many a cold, winter night and thrown it in the washing machine more time...

           Most people agree there is a separate, secret dimension for lost socks.  Those of us who perform the task of washing dirty laundry frequently experience the phenomena of pulling only one-half of a pair of socks from the washing machine while feeling sure we placed the entire pair inside prior to turning on the wash cycle.  I save those single socks hoping for the mysterious return of their mates, which rarely happens.  Instead, the survivors of the pairs end up in the ragbag while I ponder a galaxy filled with floating lost socks.             Something similar happens with me when it comes to mushroom brushes.             While not a “shopper” per se, there are two types of stores I gravitate to when forced to stroll through a mall, those with books and those with kitchen gadgets...