Over the last few weeks I did a bunch of cooking, that didn't go so well. This is strange because I used to cook most of the meals. I guess I’m going through an ‘off’ stretch.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to make lasagna. We made the sauce last year and stuck it in the freezer along with packages of shredded cheese. I had a couple of boxes of the noodles in the cupboard. All I had to do was to pick up some ricotta cheese and put it together. Simple right? Well, it should have been simple. I thawed the sauce over the weekend and then one evening after work I pulled everything out and started assembly. First a layer of sauce, then the noodles, then cheese, then sauce, noodles, cheese, and finally a layer of sauce, a bit of parmesan cheese on top and pop it in the oven. I set the timer and turned around to clean up. However the first thing I see are the two cartons of ricotta cheese sitting on the counter, unopened. I looked at the stove, I looked at the ricotta, and I pondered what to do. Now you may know there's an old saying that you can't unscramble an egg. Well, it's equally true that you can't unstack a lasagna. All I could do was toss the ricotta in the freezer for next time, let the concoction bake, and hope for the best.

When it came out I tried a bit. Surprisingly, it’s actually not bad. I mean it looks like lasagna. It smells more or less like lasagne. It even tastes kinda like lasagna. There's just something not quite right, something missing. It’s just a little flat, a little bland. What could it be? Oh yeah, the ricotta. That must be it. Oh well, we ate on it for one dinner, and Marsha was polite. Then I packaged it up in small containers for my lunches. No reason to make her eat my mistake.

Then last weekend we pulled out a package of hamburger. I took half of it and made actual hamburgers. We had some nice Italian rolls for buns and as luck would have it we even had onions and lettuce. I was surprised at this as with my being vegetarian for so long it had been a while since I had made, or for that matter eaten, a real burger. Actually the only ingredient that was missing was tomato. I wanted to pick up a tomato but food karma was not working for me. I first stopped at the store and looked at their tomatoes. I don't think I'm being persnickety. I don't even think my request is unreasonable. I would just like my tomato to look, feel and smell like a tomato. The ones at the store were imported from some...planet somewhere. They looked like tomatoes, I mean they were red, and roughly round. However they smelled like, well, nothing. Not even a generic plant smell. They seemed to have no odour at all, which did not bode well. Then there was the feel of them. A good tomato should be a bit soft. Not mushy but they should have a nice rubberyness. These were like red pool balls. I even double checked the sign to make sure I wasn't in the wax fruit section, but no, unfortunately that's what passes for our grocery store tomatoes at this time of year. No problem I thought, I'll just see if someone has a tomato at the Lantzville Farmers Market. We drove over and were greeted by a huge mostly empty parking lot. Where there are normally over twenty vendors, this time there were about six. It turned out that there had been a bad accident on the highway just north of Lantzville. Then as they were cleaning that up there were two more accidents in the traffic jam. As a result none of the vendors from up island, and apparently that's a majority of them, could make it to the market. At that point I gave up on having a tomato on my burger.

Oh well, they were good anyway.



Then on Monday, Marsha pressured me into making MarlyQ's. Anywhere else in the world they would be Barbecues. Ok that's not true. In some parts of Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri they are called loose meat sandwiches, despite the connotation. But then they do a lot of weird things down there. I asked Marsha if they were called MarlyQ’s because they tasted like Marly’s Ghost. I guess I probably shouldn’t have said that. It’s her sister Marlys’s recipe.

Anyway, whatever they’re called, you make them by browning a mixture of ground beef and onions until done. What qualifies as “done” is left deliberately vague so I cooked the mixture until it no longer resembled anything that could possibly have come from the animal or vegetable kingdoms. Then you add barbecue sauce "until it looks right". This is where I really ran into a problem. You see, I didn't know what "looked right". Twenty years a vegetarian, remember. I had never I had a MarlyQ. I don't think I even had ever seen a MarlyQ. Whenever they were served I’d have a meal of potato salad and smugness. Fortunately that’s all behind me now. So I poured in half a bottle of BBQ sauce, stirred the concoction up and spooned it onto the remaining buns. They weren’t half bad. They looked like something that would grow in a swamp, but they tasted OK.

Then so far this weekend I have managed to mess up both K-D Macaroni and Cheese and Tea, in separate incidents.

<<<<<<>>>>>>>

In other news Marsha is exercising regularly. She’s been going to a deep water aerobics class twice a week. I noticed on Thursday that she carries her phone with her and suggested that she might want to leave it behind. I mean it’s expensive, eminently stealable, and it’s not like she’s going to check e-mail while she’s in the pool. She already doesn’t take her purse, or wallet (except for her drivers license), or her keys (except for the car key). She said no, she wanted it in case she needed to get hold of me. I said OK but I still thought it was a bit silly. Then a few hours later I was awoken by the phone ringing. It was Marsha. I had accidentally locked her out of the house. Well I guess that’ll show me.

I’m also exercising regularly as well. Up till last fall I had been spending a half an hour or so each morning five days a week on the treadmill. Then with everything that happened over the winter I had to put it on hold. A couple of weeks ago though, I started walking again, slower speed than before, and only a couple of times per week. No reason to overdo it. Then last week it all changed. You see walking on the treadmill is boring. You are trudging along and literally not going anywhere. Years ago I started watching half hour videos while I worked out. Then this week I discovered that Megas XLR, a wonderful satire/spoof of all of those Monster Robot/Transformer type shows was available online.
http://www.gogoanime.com/category/megas-xlr
Because of this discovery I’m now working out nearly every morning. It’s nice to start the day laughing.