pioneer cuisine 101

there was quite a storm last night which knocked out the power on my block...normally i would find this quite lovely and enjoy the evening in the dark, but the storm itself was short lived and i was right in the middle of trying a new recipe for vegetarian lentil loaf (like meatloaf but with lentils) as it turns out the recipe needed things like a food processor, and a microwave, and low and behold...an oven; all of which were in short supply given the power outage. while i have a gas range and oven there is apparently some sort of emergency shut off that cuts the gas in the event of a power outage...i spent a good portion of the evening squinting in the dark of my kitchen, by candle light trying to make out the recipe. i got it all put together and then waited out the power outage, chatting with my downstairs neighbor and the woman that lives next door...when the power came back on, i trucked back up to my apt to bake said lentil loaf only to find that the oven still did not work...i later came to find out there is some sort of reset button...so i stuck the lentil loaf in the fridge and baked it this morning...it was pretty tasty for all of the drama that went into preparing it if i do say so myself. i don't really envy the pioneers in their culinary attempts. a few hours with the conveniences of a modern kitchen were enough for me. when i was little i, after reading the laura ingles wilder books i decided that a pioneer life was the life for me and attempted one night to do everything by candle light and refused to let anyone in the house do anything contrary to my pioneer ideals...it lasted all of about 10 minutes before everyone in the house got tired of me!

edgar is going to be turning one in a few weeks and he seems to have mellowed into a different little dog...so much so that all day today i have worked myself into a periodic frenzy thinking that he's really sick and that is why he isn't acting crazy...can that be? or is it just that my little guy is growing up? of course...he isn't acting hyperactive so i assume the worst! it can't just be that he's turning into a well adjusted adolescent pooch!

barbecued with friends today, and it was a welcome break and a good time spent with friends...i have missed that for some time.