Monday, January 28, 2013

CHASING AWAY THE BLUES

While it does appear that laughter is amazing medicine, and my mood is easier to manage, it is not a cure all. Since my cooking fiasco the other night when I totally tortured that chicken, I have totally redeemed myself as it was necessary to  get back on the horse, so to speak.

On Saturday I woke up, after a fairly poor night of sleep - what I like to call pretend sleep.  While I slept, as tired as I was when I went to bed I woke up even more so!  Still laughing about my kitchen mishap the evening before I gladly and warmly welcomed the day with the smile.

I decided to do two things that day.  One I had been putting off for a while and the other the cooking task.  I finally put all of my son's clothes back in his dresser from when we moved in here in May.  He had been living out of a laundry basket and a pile of clothes on the chair.  As I was the one who removed them from their dresser, and I miss my son, I sorted and folded and put them away.  Now when he comes home things will be somewhat back to normal.

Secondly, I decided it would be a good day to cook the leg of lamb which I had defrosted from a few weeks before.  I love lamb, but it is not something my son will eat.  When he is not around I get to indulge my taste buds and tummy.

Not too familiar with cooking lamb from memory - the proper seasonings do not come to mind at all.  I checked a couple of recipes and stuffed the lamb with fresh garlic to keep the vampires away and made a rub with olive oil, rosemary, sea salt (which I have never used before) and some black pepper.  I let the rub absorb into the meat for twenty minutes while I preheated the oven to 450 for it's twenty minutes before being turned down.

So, I decided to utilize my time, as I had a daytime visit to get to - timing was to be everything.  I quickly dressed and before I went to the store I put the lamb in the oven - 20 minutes - clock is ticking and I walk the four blocks to the store.  I got less than a half a block from the store - halfway over the bridge before I realized I had left without any money!  Tick tock, racing the clock - I phoned my friend +Sunday Brunch and we laugh hysterically as I tell her what I did - more of that laughter!

I raced home, arrived with 11 minutes left on the timer before the oven needed to be turned down, grabbed my money and boogied back up the street, through the park and to the store, trying not to do one of my favourite things - talk to people - and raced back home, arriving to the beep of the timer and turned the oven to the proper temperature.

With 40 minutes left on the lamb, I decided to shower and get ready for my visit at the hospital.  Sunday said she was coming down and I didn't want to cut time too close on either side.  The lamb finished cooking and needed to be tented, and with 10 minutes before my ride arrived, the lamb was resting nicely before I went to my visit.

I had plans as well to go to the Colonial Theater to see an amazing Blues Show later in the day and was planning on taking a rest before the event.  As we all know, plans never work out.  My friend +Mike Pezzo phoned me, and mentioned that he hadn't eaten yet, and I had that delicious lamb waiting to be eaten, so instead of rest I steamed some potatoes, made some delicious gravy and some green beans and cut a couple of nice slices off of the lamb and heated them in the gravy.  It was delicious!





We had backstage access, cuz we know the Arthur Holmes Blues Band, so we arrived a little early to hang in the green room and catch up with the Drummergirl - Bridget, who goes with Dave whom I went to school with and who is a good friend of mine.

They rocked the house, opening for Pappa Chubby, whom I was previously unfamiliar with, but who rocked that guitar like nobody's business!  He  did an amazing rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at the end of his performance.  The night was not over yet and James Montgomery Blues Band jumped on after Pappa Chubby and played the harp like none other!  The night was seemingly over when he came back onstage and spanked us with some serious blues!  After the weeks that I have had, the blues did really a great job of chasing the blues away from me and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Not really to many ways to top an evening like that, but we managed to top it off with homemade banana splits with hot fudge and some chopped walnuts.  All in all an awesome day and evening!


2 comments:

  1. when you laugh your brain changes chemically...

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  2. mary had a little lamb, potatoes, green beans and DARN IT WAS GOOD!

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