Blogger Ate My Blog

Yesterday I composed a post which blogspot ate! It wouldn’t even come back on the recover post thingy. Oh well!
I had flexed my technical wings by putting up a web site for a friend in a day and a half using some kludgey software that someone had recommended to her. We sat for hours banging square pegs into round holes. The template had to be vertical when we needed horizontal, that kind of thing.

I don’t know about you, but I never find the template I’m looking for anywhere, ever. This software (which shall be nameless) offered 40+ templates, and they all sucked. As a former programmer, I like to do everything myself. HTML? No problemo. It probably takes longer, but I am in control. Like in the kitchen: if I want to make baked beans from scratch, I buy and soak the beans and we’re off and running. Pound cake? Separate the eggs and beat the whites into peaks and fold them in.

Soon cooking, which everyone female used to be able to do, is going to be the province of just a few. I made a Mexican dip today. A layer of seasoned refried beans, a layer of seasoned mashed avocado, a layer of sour cream seasoned glop, a layer of cheese, and a nice presentation of tomato, scallion, olives and cilantro on top. Served with blue corn chips. Looked good, tasted good, and took a good amount of time, although no cooking was involved. Chopping, slicing, measuring, mixing, blending, mashing, all the culinary basics. Ten or so spices to be apportioned to the various layers. Onions to chop. The cilantro was my idea. We have a cilantro forest in the garden from last year’s seeds. The Cilantro Forest. Is that a good book title? Where the hell was cilantro 20 years ago when this recipe was published? I love cilantro.

So, doing things from scratch be they web sites or Mexican Dip is a good thing. Short cuts can be okay, too, if you are in survival mode.

Thisbe the fraidy cat came out and took a good long look at our house guest this weekend, and even sat down and relaxed in the living room when said guest was present. Cats and people surprise you.

Enough for now.

Grapeshot