some things don't change... much

I posted a comment on Johanna's xanga this morning, which then led me to go look at my own old old xanga that I nearly forgot I had. I read through all the posts (like what, 5?) and came across one that literally made me shake with laughter in my pneumatic office chair. I laughed because... well honestly, I don't think my skills have improved all that much in the last 3 years! At least I don't like to cook any more now than I did then. I just *have to* more often. I'm hoping that the old adage, "practice makes perfect" will start to come true in this area sometime soon.

For your reading pleasure, I'm copying the post here:

Cooking Sucks

So I tried to be all "Sally Homemaker" today and make a nice lunch for my parents and brother David as he was working on painting the house.

I got all inspired to be creative by taking canned chili and customizing it by adding tomato paste, chopped onions, grated carrots, and extra chili powder. Looked good, smelled good. To go with it, I made iced tea customized with lemonade and fresh squeezed lemon.

Evidently I made it all too soon; David was not quite at a stopping point. So I set the table all cute and then ran downstairs to my room to check e-mail and stuff. The computer is a vortex. 15 minutes... maybe even a half an hour... later I smelled chili. Burnt chili. I had apparently left the burner "on", resulting in nearly all the beans sticking to the bottom of the pan and that burnt taste to infuse the whole pot. So I try to salvage what I can, and serve it anyway.

20 minutes later I am STILL waiting for David to come in and EAT, gosh darn it. Finally I just start working on something else... then I find myself listening to David saying that he's leaving and will just do a drive-through. Fine... Dad and Mom can still eat the burnt chili. It was then that I noticed the broken tea bag and tea leaves floating beautifully around in the iced tea like a brown snow globe.

Sigh. How does one sign up for Meals On Wheels?

(And we aren't even going to mention my repeated failed attempts at making rice...)

Okay, there is one thing that I've improved on... I can make killer rice now. Anyone want to come over for dinner? We're having rice.