random thoughts – Day 1,477 – (Tuesday) – surprises

Another month, another book, another Boozy Book Club meeting. And it was good. I finished the book Sunday night, which gave me nearly 48 full hours to forget what I read.

Beer and the book.

There were surprises. The beer menu included a very nice Yorkshire Porter from Queen City Brewery out of Burlington Vermont. Score! The food menu changed and currently doesn’t offer onion rings, one of our book club staple items. No O-rings!?!? But now there are tater tots. We shared fried pickles, sweet potato fries, tater tots, and two flatbread pizzas. In a weird planetary alignment, all eight of us liked the book, All that is Mine I Carry with Me, by William Landay. The story has intrigue, family drama, and courtroom procedures. 

It was drizzling as I came home from downtown, the start of some wet and wild weather in the forecast. I stopped at Family Dollar to check for some squeeze cat treats. The vet office had some and as I’ve been on the countdown to Kiki’s second and final dose of de-wormer, I’ve been trying to butter her up. 

She licked some of the paste at the vet, so it seemed like it was worth a shot. I met her at the top of the stairs and offered some salmon flavored paste on the tip of my finger. She licked it, but when I added more, she wasn’t interested. She arose from her reclining pose and ran down the stairs. I tried again while she was under the table, and she ran away to the living room and hid behind the couch. No surprise there. 

The part of the day before book club was filled with work and all the usual work activities. After work, there was a quick trip to the back yard to check out the plant life that is emerging, during which, I found a bright blue plastic egg in the grass. It felt very light, but I checked it and there was a dollar bill neatly folded and stuffed inside. In all the times I’ve seen the brown cotton-tailed bunnies in the yard, I’ve certainly never found an Easter egg with a dollar, just tiny bunny poop pellets.

In a week that has already felt pretty full so far, there was an attempt at making roasted chick peas. The chick peas were drizzled with olive oil and shaken with paprika, salt, pepper. The recipe called for smoked paprika, but I had only the regular kind, and also called for sumac, but that spice wasn’t in my cabinet and was omitted.  

After 45 minutes in the oven, interrupted at 15-minute increments by shaking the chickpeas on the cookie sheet, they weren’t really crisp like the recipe described. They went back into the oven for a few more minutes and when I opened the oven door to check on things, there was a weird and surprising smell. 

Chick peas and scorched parchment.

It turned out the chick peas still weren’t crispy, but the parchment paper they were on was turning to ash, leading to the immediate end to the roasting process. Oops. Probably won’t be making that exact recipe again, but there are many variations online and maybe the next one will be better.