Joy the Baker

The kitchen.  It’s where I do a majority of my… standing.  

Standing and staring.

Standing and staring and spreading cream cheese onto Wheat Thins.  

Standing and staring and eating cream cheese and Wheat Thins until I come up with a recipe and post idea.  

If you were a fly on my kitchen wall… well, I wouldn’t like that very much… but you would probably think that a) I have very few brain cells firing with all of the standing and staring I do and b) I have an unhealthy relationship with cream cheese.

You might be right about the brain cells…  I won’t argue that the standing and staring is a strange process.  But the cream cheese?  Yea… I’ll admit I have a bit of a problem with cream cheese and crackers.  I’m trying to break the habit with chick peas and olive oil and mint and parsley.  I think it’s working.  I really think it’s working. 

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Here’s a fun thing to do!  Take a few minutes to close your eyes and imagine yourself as an old person.  I’m not talking about late sixties.  That’s not old yet.  I’m talking about great great grandmother old.. pushing the mid-nineties.

Sounds crazy?  Why would you spend time picturing white hair in bobby pins, shuffling feet and rocking chairs?  I feel like getting old is a luxury.  Not everyone gets to do it, so why not sit and enjoy the thought a bit?

I imagine that I’m the kind of old lady that talks to her over fed cats, and yells across the house to her practically deaf husband.  I hope I’m the kind of old lady who has a piano in the house just so my grandchildren can come over and practice their scales while I shuffle around the kitchen baking them cookies.

I want to be the kind of old lady that always thinks a glass of champagne is a good idea.

I want to be the kind of old lady who always has something out on the living room table for that unexpected guest.  Maybe it’s those soft chalky mints.  Maybe a freshly baked pie.  Maybe it’s these Sweet and Spicy Baked Almonds.  These nuts, my friends, have me daydreaming of old lady times somehow… with a smile on my face.

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