donutszenmom.com

Just ordered a blender from Amazon. Sorry, Carl. It wasn’t an easy decision, going Amazon. I worked for a decade in independent bookstores, so it hit close to home. But their business model is pretty impressive. And my Prime membership means I pay $75 bucks up front and they second day ship everything I buy in a year. Including Moola Bandha: The Master Key, which I’ve been re-reading.

Anyhow, this all came to pass because, like Vanessa, I found myself starting a practice with the growling of my stomach. Which meant intermittent visions of smoothies went dancing through my head. I have to remember not to putter too much on Sundays. Too much time elapses between morning coffee and finally starting sitting practice/asana practice. It’s not a problem on weekdays, when I get right to practice so I can get to work on time. But on Sundays, it seems luxurious to read and do a few chores before practice. The downside is that I end up hungry — and even more distracting, really, is that my mind has time to get all revved up with the daily business of thinking/planning. Once my mind gets busy, it’s hard to calm it down for the mat.

Anyhow, I wrapped up practice and headed for the kitchen. Rifled through the pantry, looking for the blender. Why is it stowed away in the pantry instead of out on the counter? Because I don’t use it much because it sucks.

I load the blender up with frozen strawberries and blueberries, some soymilk and a blob of vanilla yogurt. Take the whole blender into the back guest room so the noise doesn’t wake The Cop, who worked night shift last night. Hit the “Blend” button and the whole thing makes a hell of a lot of noise. Wait a bit and turn it off. Open it. Lots of whole strawberries and blueberries and some actual blended material on the very edges. Smoosh everything back over the blades and turn it on again. Not so much noise this time. Open it. Lots of whole strawberries and blueberries and perhaps a tiny bit more blended material. The freaking blades in this thing are about two inches up from the bottom of the blender, which means the fruit just goes under the blades. I repeat my attempts to get the blender to actually blend the fruit, but eventually give up and just eat the frozen stuff with a spoon. Quite tasty, yes, and I don’t mind some chunks in my smoothies. But whole strawberries is a bit much.

I await the imminent arrival of my new smoothie maker.

***

Yesterday I made a carrot cake and cream cheese frosting for The Cop. The frosting came out great, the cake was a disaster. Waaaaah! I grated all those stupid carrots by hand! Labor-intensive well beyond my usual slacker cook habits. The cake was rising just fine, then all of a sudden I look in the oven window and the whole thing looks like a 13 x 9 inch cookie. My first thought was that the stove was malfunctioning, which would be tragic because it’s only two years old and I love it.

Then I had the bright idea to check the expiration dates on my baking soda and baking powder. Only a year past expired! Why doesn’t it still work?

This launched a bit of research on the difference between baking soda and baking powder and how they work. Very interesting chemical engineering, if anyone has a taste for that sort of thing. I always thought baking powder was stronger than baking soda, but nope, just the opposite. Who knew?

***

My Gift called from her kitchen last night, where she and her roommate were 1) bleaching My Gift’s short punky hairdo white blonde, 2) using their new rice cooker, and 3) steaming broccoli. The roommate, who is from the Midwest, and who introduced My Gift to cream of mushroom soup casseroles, was cracking open a new package of Velveeta.

“This doesn’t seem like a good idea,” My Gift said, as she inspected the Velveeta box.

You send them away from home, they learn all kinds of crazy things…