2001: In Yer Dreams
2002: Cold Heartless
Bitch
2003: I Can
Feel it in My Bones
2004: Power
Typing
| SHEILA's BLOG 
See! I knew if I waited long enough he'd finally
throw it for me! |
|
THE CARROT CAPER
15 March 2005
At about 4 p.m. yesterday, I
realized that we had to leave for Walt's office party at about 5:10 and that I perhaps
should start making the carrot dish. The mountain of carrots was so impressive that
I decided to make a photo journal out of it.
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First, I started with five
bunches of carrots that Walt had purchased at the Farmer's Market that morning.
There were more "tops" than bottoms in the bags so the first step was to remove
all the greenery. |
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I washed them all and cut off
the tops. It occurred to me that it was kind of silly washing them when I was just
going to scrape the skin off, but I did it. At this point I was kicking myself for
not just making the traditional pot-luck side dish, green beans with French Onions on top.
I would have been finished by now if I had! |
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Next, I peeled them all.
I had a sizeable pile of peelings in the sink when I finished. I was thinking
that I needed Ned's expertise--it's Ned who usually peels all the potatoes for Christmas
dinner |
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I used my trusty Cuisinart to
begin slicing the carrots. I wouldn't even have considered this job without the
cuisinart. |
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I started to fill a pot with
sliced carrots and suddenly realized that I had many, many, many more peeled carrots than
I needed, so stopped sicing at this point. I will have to find something else to do
with the peeled, unsliced carrots. |
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I set the carrots on the
stove and let boil. The recipe says for 4-5 minutes, but there were so many, it took
about 8 minutes before they were easily pierced with a fork. |
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Now came that cumin I had
trouble finding. I melted butter in the pan, added cumin and the carrots and cooked
a bit longer, then added honey and orange juice. |
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When the carrots were all
finished and transferred to a bowl, ready to take to the party, I looked at the clock and
realized that it was exactly 5:01. There was just enough time to get my shoes on and
meet Walt at the car, ready to go. (It's a good thing I decided not to try to
process all of the carrots!) When
we got to the pot luck, I put them down on the table--next to somebody's bowl of green
bean casserole with french onions on top! |
The perfect end to this story, after
all the work of making the carrot dish, would be to bring home a bowl that was still half
full of carrots, but actually there were almost none left. The best moment was at
the end of the meal when the guest of honor (who is moving to No. Carolina) looked up and
said"who made the carrots? Those were delicious." So I
guess that all the work was worth it after all!
I don't usually like office parties because I get
tongue tied and feel like a bump on a log, but there was a guy there who had made two
posters for the guest of honor and I asked him if he had done it in PhotoShop, which he
had, and we had a nice chat about PhotoShop, so I didn't feel quite so awkward--and people
liked my carrots. I'd call that a successful evening.
Mood
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