Unseasonal corn worm.
It’s been that kind of week. The kind of week when you flush the toilet and it doesn’t work the first time. The kind of week when your browser refuses to work on the day you plan to book your airfare to Europe. The kind of week when you make a carrot and fennel soup from a recipe in the newspaper. You use the freshest of ingredients and the best of milk and the soup is blah, boring, and an unattractive color. By your third bowl of it in three days you steam some beet stems and puree them to add to the soup and that fixes the color issue, but not the taste.
You make one of your favorite breads and one loaf is fine and the other is gummy in the middle. Your mother hangs out three loads of clothes and you look up from a dinner of shrimp diablo and beet greens with cumin, only to find out that it is raining.
You are planning to make a birthday cake. You thought you would get it done today, but the beets you are cooking on the stove release beet-colored steam all over just as you are about to leave the house to catch the bus to get your weekly vegetables. Fortunately, the birthday girl lives far away and you only promised to email her a photo of the cake by Friday midnight.
You didn’t think when you started this blogging gig that you would ever miss a post. That is until you got norovirus in February, which slowed you down for three awful days. You don’t have norovirus now, but you might as well have because it would fit right in with this kind of week. You try to add a new scan of a painting to this apology post and your scanner has apparently lost its ability to communicate with your computer or vice versa.
So what can I say? I’m sorry. Nothing new I have made this week has worked out well yet and I’ve already given out the recipes for the other things we have been eating. I’ll be back in a few days, I expect, perhaps with that cake.
Oh Sharyn! Don’t be sorry – you are one very impressive woman! I hope your week turns around, I can tell you I feel your pain (if you can call it that!). xo from Vancouver!
Thank you, Shira.
You are having a bad week, Sharyn, and I’m sad to hear it. Maybe posting today’s entry will be the turning point and things will return to normal quickly. And, by the way, re-posting a few of your favorite recipes was a good way to get around your current predicament. And with one of them being your shrimp diablo, well, I couldn’t be happier! 🙂
Thanks, John. The shrimp diablo was delicious again.
Hey my friend, chin up and keep smiling! Im sorry you had such a downer of a week – I hope next week will be better!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Thanks, CCU. About the best I can manage is to mutter, “This, too, will pass.”
It sounds like one of those DEEPLY frustrating weeks Sharyn, but as John says, maybe writing it up will help change things around. I had absolutely no thoughts on what blogging really entailed when I started out, it kind of sweeps you in and along, carries you off to somewhere completely unplanned.
And now we have stiff competition for how to cook the spinach tonight – John’s pasta or your cumin. That’s a lovely decision to have to have Sharyn 🙂
Thanks for the compliment, Claire. Our recipes will be here, so it can always be one this week and one next — is this your own spinach?
Yes it is my own spinach, it’s on it’s last legs before it starts to go to seed, so I’m picking bunches of it to pop in all our food at the moment !
Me too a bad week – maybe it’s in the stars…I experience the bad weeks, or days as a reminder of the good weeks or days. We live in a dualistic world where there is no sound without silence – no light without dark…
I wondered about the stars, John. It feels like a giant Mercury retrograde with some interference from Uranus or Saturn, although I know that Mercury is on track. Mars just changed direction though.
I am sending you a sticky-fingered-buttercream-smeared hug from my corner of the universe…
Thank you, Movita. I have an appointment this morning and then I’ll get back to work on figuring out that cake…
So sorry you’ve had a week like that Sharyn. I do hope today begins brighter and sunnier and everything goes your way. That worm looks revolting and reminded me of an incident at a restaurant in Sausalito that was recommended by a ‘foodie’ friend of my husband’s. I ordered a crab sandwich that usually came with fries but I had asked that they substitute with a salad. No salad. Seriously? What kind of restaurant doesn’t have mixed greens. So they gave me steamed vegetables. And a worm. Much like that worm you have in your photo. When I pointed it out to the waiter, he just shrugged. Being the first stop on our trip (we had just landed in the morning) I decided not to make a big deal of it. But honestly? EEW GROSS!
Eva http://kitcheninspirations.wordpress.com
Hi Eva. Thanks for your kind words. Finding a worm in restaurant food is much worse than finding one in an ear of organic corn and the server’s attitude obviously didn’t help. As you can see, I was interested enough in the worm to photograph it last summer. Then I just put it in the compost, trimmed the corn and went on with dinner preparations. It was the best pictorial representation I could find of this kind of week.
You will get back on it I am sure! It is very hard to keep up blogging. I am not one of those organzied bloggers who have some in waiting for when they cannot blog. Sometimes it is best just to take some time off. Can’t wait to see what you do when you get back to cooking and blogging.
Those kinda weeks happen! Not to fret! 🙂 we still love you!
Thank you, Jen. And I’m going to love your pizza — I can just tell by the title in my email box.
Ha! You have no idea! Very sour week at this end as well, but for other reasons altogether which I will not share because I am here now and you made me smile and that is all that matters. The ability to laugh when everything goes wrong is a prized ingredient in the recipe of life. Thank you. Even the corn worm looks good now!
PS: Europe? May I ask where to?
A retreat center in the south of France, Granny, provided I can get myself there. It sounds like a few people have had a tough week this week.
Sounds wonderful and now that the toilet, computer issues, bread and soup are out of the way, I see no reason why there should be anymore trouble. The universe has exhausted its pranks at the Dimmick residence. The cloud has passed. The retreat is well deserved and by gosh it is going to happen. As a Granny, I can voice such commands.
Good that you have such powers, Granny. I’m off to a dreaded meeting this morning — perhaps things will look better after that.
Sometimes we sure do hit those bumps! And I don’t know why when they come, they seem to come in odd clumps! I think I did focus on your booking tix to Europe? That sounds like something to look forward to. Soon? I love that even in your apology post you give me information. You were still trying to revive that soup…adding beets! You are so resourceful, and you keep using what you have. That sets you apart from others, Sharyn! Even on a bad week I love hearing from you!! Hugs for a do-over! Debra
Thanks, Debra. Yes, the European trip is a great treat and luxury. I’ll be going in mid-June for a couple of weeks. I do use what I have because I don’t have anything else. Sometimes that works out better than others…
Sharyn–Everybody deserves a week off now and then. Sorry yours couldn’t be more predictable and planned. But the rest of us ain’t goin’ anywhere, so take a load off. 🙂
Thanks, Laura. Kitchen incidents continue this morning: I tried grinding soaked almonds in the blender instead of the labor-intensive way with a mortar and pestle and got a sticky mess with an uneven texture. Should have known: I’ll be pounding the rest by hand.
Sorry to hear you had such a bad week. Just keep focused on that upcoming trip to Europe, that loaf of your favorite bread that came out right, the fact that you got over that norovirus and the idea that even when you miss a post, your readers are probably still thinking of you. Here’s to next week!
Ah, yes. Well, if I had ever mastered the art of positive thinking this would be easier to do.
Hello Sharyn, what a week you’re having. Blogging can be quite difficult to keep up on a regular basis and the pressure can sometimes take the joy out of it. but please don’t worry. we all love your blog and I personally look forward to it landing in my inbox. I had a run of bad bakes none of which have reached my blog… yet. I was getting so disheartened that I almost stopped but I’m so glad I didn’t! I’m now saving up all the photos of my broken bakes for one mega poor cake display post. I quite enjoy writing about the real stuff and the truth is it doesn’t always come out the way I hoped but I still eat it and laugh about it later 🙂 looking forward to hearing more from you soon x
Oh, you know I’m going to enjoy the poor cake display post because it can happen to us all. I almost think it should be required to talk about failures, mistakes and the like. I ate the last bowl of the misbegotten carrot soup for lunch, so at least that is over now.
What is the saying, “when it rains, it pours”. I’m sorry that you have had a lousy week. I hope things are better next week.
Thank you, Karen. I hope so, too.
Sorry about the string of frustrations. Did you find a corn worm, or is that a metaphor? It’s icky! Wish I had it for the chickens!
No, I took the photo of that corn worm during the summer when I first got my camera. I was fascinated by what it looked like, in a creepy way, and it was the best representation I could find on short notice to illustrate my trials and tribulations. The computer is still acting up, although in a different way. Corn worms don’t save well, or your chickens could have any I find.
True confession: on the last visit to my Mom’s house, we put 2 snails into a container and took them home with us for the chickens. Recycling, in a slimy way.
Now that’s dedication. Next time you come to visit you are welcome to any vermin that you find here. For the chickens, of course.
Ha, I know that kind of week. It’s always a pleasure when the new week rolls around, you can boot the old one out the door and start afresh! Hope things turn around soon! 🙂
Thank you, Charles. I have hopes, too.
Oh, Sharyn, what a dreadful week.. but I do love your honesty! I’m so glad not to see a “blah” recipe all dressed up and posted for us. That happened to me once with a cookie recipe.. beautiful shots.. but the taste.. not worth writing home or here about;) I will hope that you’ve recovered your stamina by the time you read this! xoxo Smidge
Thanks, Smidge. I would never post a recipe for something I didn’t think was worth making — who has the time for bad recipes? I’m so disappointed when things that sound good don’t work out at all. I’m back in the kitchen already, but with no results quite yet. Stay tuned for the next post.
Well.. you’ve got a painting done.. once your computer is syncing again:)
Not so. I was going to post an old one, but I’ll have time to paint tomorrow.
Sharyn – I feel your pain. We all have days or weeks like this. The important thing to remember is that it will pass and we will arrive at a new day. This weeks can very frustrating and sometimes in the gray of a Michigan spring…it feels as though summer sun will never come. But is does. Keep your chin up.
Thanks, Jane. The weather is warmer now and I had fun making pizza this week. For unknown reasons, your comment got caught in my spam filter — I apologize.
Good news is that this week is finally over. I’ve had many a week like yours, so I can understand where you’re coming from.
Thanks. Yeah. A few more things have happened since I wrote that post…
I’m really sorry about your bad week, Sharyn. I can empathize as it’s been a very unsettled spring for us this year with some real bad health issues for my husband, and I don’t seem to be able to get back on a normal blogging schedule, much less up to speed reading everyone else’s posts. I hope this finds you all better, and I read your cake post first, so I know at least things are going right in the kitchen again! Happy weekend!
I’m sorry to hear that your husband is having health problems, Betsy. Sometimes real life takes priority over blogging, as it should. I still feel off my game in the kitchen: the cake, while reliably delicious, took forever to make — the beets wouldn’t cook properly.
Thanks Sharyn…and true, nothing like real life to snap your head around. But, it’s important to keep on keepin’ on as best we all can. I admire you’re persistence both to post when you had so many things go wrong, and to stay with that cake!