Curses be to ya, weathermen!

I hate hate "meteorologists." As many people have noted, if I was as inaccurate and hit or miss as your run of the mill weatherman, I would be fired and never allowed to work again. I canceled my trip to the coast Saturday because it was going to rain "all day" and all night and "don't even THINK about leaving your house without an umbrella."

Because it was still sunny in the morning, I decided to go to Typhoon Lagoon to get some sun, "surf" and sand. I was there til almost 2pm and guess what? NO CLOUDS. NO RAIN. I made excellent progress on my tan, in fact. It started to get cloudy and then guess what? The sun came out again. IT NEVER RAINED. Darker clouds rolled in around 7pm (just in time for it to be dark anyway) but again, no rain. Not a stinking drop. This morning, it's SUNNY. I cannot believe I canceled a perfectly wonderful trip to the coast at a beachside resort and wound up doing absolutely sod all that I wanted to.

On the other hand, I actually cooked for the first time in, I guess, two or three weeks. That's a lie. I cooked last Sunday. But I mean, cooked just for me. I decided to try to get creative and try my hand at creating something entirely new. And the results, I'm happy to report, were very good. I made a cornbread stuffing that was semi-ripped off in inspiration from C's saltimbocca sauce/reduction. What I did was make a very simple pork chop with basic Tuscan flavors - olive oil, fresh rosemary, sea salt and black pepper. I roasted that and focused the complex flavors into the cornbread stuffing. I wanted to make a more traditional southern/soul cornbread dressing which essentially seems to be celery, corn and cornbread stuffing and jazz it up. I took the aforementioned saltimbocca sauce/garnish/whatever did and made it chunkier by a tenth maybe. Instead of using pancetta, I used smokey virigina bacon. Instead of generic white mushrooms for the cornbread dressing, I used finely sliced portabello muchrooms and sauteed them with the chopped bacon (and residual grease - bad I know, but I used only one slice) and olive oil so it crisped up into a meaty flavor (that idea stolen from Artist's Point). Added the onions, garlic, and finely chopped fresh sage and sauteed that til it was just starting to carmelize and added a shot of spanish red wine. Once the alcohol burned off, I mixed the cornbread cubes with a can of cream of celery, fresh chopped rosemary (rosemary, celery and corn are the cajun/southern/soul part) and then the saltimbocca-ish "relish" and tossed it together and baked it.

The flavors married up extremely well and provided a wonderful smoky, natural full accompaniement to the basic roasted pork chop. That one is a keeper. I didn't eat the whole thing because I have a tooth ache. Kim laughed at me when I told her that yesterday. She's convinced I'm inacapable of enjoying myself at any given time. I can't wait to tell Greg about it - he likes to keep up on my dental condition. He thinks I'm having an affair with a dentist and will actually blush when I bring it up. It's quite amusing.

I did get a full night's sleep at long last, which I needed badly. I think being outside, swimming, and then cooking and all that did the trick. I might try to get 2 days off this week after our big pow-wow on Wednesday and go to the coast one of those two days during the week.
Today I'll probably get together with Kim's family and go to a park and see a movie. I should clean the house a bit but I can't be arsed right now.

I just need to get out and spend time with other people. Everyone is out of town this weekend it seems or is busy and I just don't feel like being alone. One of my goals was to get back to the "life" I had before I let everything unnerve me. I had a very happy life personally. I think it's easy when stress enters a situation you start changing things unwittingly and then your stress becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So off to the pool. And then wherever.

Have a Happy Sunday, wherever you all are reading from.