Well, dear souls.....face it.....when you get to be an octogenarian your options for amusing yourself narrow a bit..... The way it works is, first you try to pick something that doesn't hurt, does not require you to cover much ground and doesn't compel you crawl around a lot on your hands and knees.
That is why I got so excited a few weeks ago when I discovered the world of stock options........it allows you to sit at your computer for 24 hours without getting up, especially if you take your laptop into the bathroom and get one of those soft toilet seats to sit on all day. (Incidentally, that new hobby is working out well.....I am learning a lot and am only down about $47.....and by tomorrow I may even be in the black. A blog about that will surely follow soon) However, the markets do close early in our time zone and are not open on the weekends and just how many candlestick charts can a person examine for bullish or bearish flag formations before screaming obscenities and rushing into the street to be run over by a car?......so I really needed another reason to get out of bed in the mornings. Happily a cousin of mine is getting married and I was browsing Bridal Registries for a gift when I was reminded that I had always wanted, of all things, a Crock Pot Slow Cooker thingy and had never treated myself to one...........until now. A real life-changer, I'll tell you.
Hoopty=doo.......I have a new toy for practically no money (I found a great sale bargain) and I have a new reason to spend time in the kitchen assembling fabulous dinners. (I hope). With my very first effort I have learned an important lesson which I could have figured out by myself had I not been so excited. Do not expect the same results from a crock pot that you get with a saute pan. However, if you follow the recipe and put in extra wine the results can be delicious. Hence I had a fabulous bowl of Chicken Marsala for dinner last night and could not stop licking the spoon and the bowl. The sauce, replete with basil, oregano, garlic, cream cheese (?) and lots of marsala, was so good I would have gladly eaten my shoe (or even someone else's shoe) if it were cooked in that sauce. As for the chicken......well, it sure as hell was tender! I can see why these pots are superb for making barbecued pulled pork and beef. Now that I have that lesson learned I am working on a soup which should definitely benefit from long slow cooking.....French Onion Soup with some dry Vermouth and perhaps a slug of Brandy in the 3rd hour. I have my baguettes all ready to top with Parmesan cheese to float on top and will put the little crocks of soup under the broiler before serving/devouring. What a good thing I didn't give all of those French Onion Soup crocks to the Goodwill a few years back.
That whole story just exacerbates one of my problems though..........after spending the last 18 months convincing myself that most of the contents of my kitchen cabinets and drawers will never be used again and might as well be disposed of, here I come up with a use for those damned oven-proof soup crocks which have been taking up a whole shelf in my cupboard for 40 years. Now I undoubtedly will never be able to dispose of anything again. Sigh.
(I do realize that those slow cookers were really invented for the poor unfortunate souls who have to rush off to work in the mornings and needed a way to find dinner all ready for them when they came home. The fact that I am home all of the time doesn't matter one whit.......it is a new skill and I intend to acquire it and enjoy it.)
Now, you will have to excuse me.....I have a few more candlestick charts and 50 day Moving Averages to examine before I prepare my strategy for tomorrow's market opening. Tenks Gott this new hobby has not bankrupted me yet nor has my head exploded spraying the countryside with numbers and strange symbols and abbreviations, but please............ don't stop praying for me.
The New Yorker covers: September 26, 2011
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