For the first time in several years, I’m feeling a bit blocked and need a break. Writing this blog everyday ain’t easy, freaks. In the past several years, since June of 2020, I’ve exclusively worked on novels, so this is all new. Also, I missed a post yesterday. Ugh. Mother’s Day was hectic. I’ve got five goddam mothers in my life. I cooked a pot roast last night for three of them, served with some roasted yams and corn on the cob. Had some amaro and went to bed at 10 last night and woke up at 6:30. Went on a tear, laundry, work out, fed the kid, and then hit some general chores, namely putting the dishes away this morning, all the while, wondering what the hell I’m going to post. I opened the old junk drawer to put away the old two pronged beef fork. No idea what it’s called. A quick google search tells me it’s a…drum roll…two pronged fork. Wow, ok.

And so yeah, I looked in the junk drawer, always a marvel. Everything in there necessary and simultaneously useless. Two steels, one diamond and one inherited. Two can openers, just in case one goes kaput. You’ve gotta have a back up. There’s some butcher’s twine in there…Can’t remember the last time I used that. The guard my microplane should be in, another more useless grater. Poultry shears. A spare gasket for my pressure cooker. Masking tape, Jo’s old cleaver that’s as dull as a stick, a few other items that just take up space.

A few of these things I do actually use often, mostly the bar tools. The hand juicer, the tea strainer, the scale, the peelers, and the digital thermometer. The thermometer is great for roasted chickens and when I heat milk to 195 degrees to make my L-Reuteri oxytocin yogurt (perhaps a post on that in the future). And then of course, the other stuff for shaking up a nice margarita on the day off which brings me to an idea, a post on the future about the proper implements for the home bartender. Hint, you don’t need much.