icarus

Taylor has graciously offered to let me use one of his cameras, the Canon EOS M, instead my little one, so I’ve been trying it out. All of these pictures are of very small things and none of them has anything to do with this post.

We had mini blueberry jelly donuts for breakfast & Gwen ate just as many as I did.

DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON. Local ppl, Independent Grocer on Davie has mesh bags of 6 white mini pumpkins for $3.

I ordered this little ceramic deer from etsy about a million years ago, I’d completely forgotten about it until it arrived in the mail. Now it lives in the glass pyramid that was formerly home to my air plant which spontaneously died this week? Like it was doing great for almost two months, I was taking care of it the way I’d been instructed and then one day it was just all shrivelled up? RIP, air plant (my fern still lives tho).

Miniature wooden bowl, itty-bitty seashells, tiny silver ring from Little Pancakes.

Gwen is super into doing whatever I do, so when I put on a knit hat today she had to put on a knit hat too. This meant I had to get the bag of all last winter’s accessories down, and all morning she’s been treating me too a winter accessories fashion show, including these brown bear crochet ear warmers from Tiny Tangerines. From her digging through all her cold weather gear I’ve learned two things: she needs new snow boots as last year’s are too small (this has not stopped her from wearing them all morning though), and she does not need a new green jacket as last year’s still fits. Of course, I’d forgotten that I saved it and already ordered a new one so that’s cool. I’m not sure if I’ll be returning the new one; the old one is a size three and she’s growing out of that size pretty quickly, the new one (which hasn’t arrived yet) is a four and will fit her all winter.

Dougal folds up very small.

Gwen climbed up and stole the camera off the dresser in my bedroom to take this picture.

Maybe I was just too cocky. Maybe I was feeling overconfident after the cornbread muffins I’d made for the first time the day before turned out so perfect and delicious that Taylor, Gwen and I ate all twelve in one sitting. Maybe Sym’s compliment when I told her we were having homemade mac & cheese for dinner that my “cheese is the fluffiest!” went to my head. idk what it was, but last night dinner got me right in the hubris. I flew too close to the sun and screwed it up to the point of disaster THREE TIMES.

The first disaster was that I wasn’t even supposed to make mac & cheese for dinner, I was going to make salmon. I forgot to take the salmon out of the freezer though, and by 4pm it was still rock hard, leaving me scrambling to find a replacement meal. I decided on this roasted red pepper mac & cheese I’d made before; it always turns out great, I already had the roasted peppers and I knew everyone would eat it. I’d made this particular meal so many times I didn’t even have to think about it, which I guess explains how the second disaster happened.

I forgot the milk. I made my roux, it looked great, and then I just dumped a bunch of shredded cheese right into it? I was like “hmm this cheese hasn’t melted right, let me just check the recipe-OH GOOD LORD.” The recipe calls for three and a half cups of milk and I’d put in precisely zero and zero half cups of milk. I tried to salvage it by adding the milk after buuuuut that didn’t exactly work as the cheese had already formed into weird grainy unmeltable clumps. It was beyond nasty and there was nothing to do but toss the sauce and start over.

This time I measured out the milk in advance so I wouldn’t somehow make the same mistake again. I had Taylor shred all the rest of the cheese* and got ready. One problem: I had no butter left. It was already after 6pm and I really didn’t want to run out to the store so I was like “oh I’ll just use margarine, I’m sure it will turn out.” Well as it turns out, it WON’T turn out. The roux looked alright and I remembered the milk, but when I added the cheese it still didn’t all melt properly no matter how much I stirred. It seemed good enough though, so I poured it over the noodles and peppers and popped it in the oven. When I pulled it out I realized it was disaster number three.

I guess the margarine didn’t form the right cohesive bonds or something, because the sauce was still 100% liquid. Okay not 100% because there were some thicker, cheesy parts stuck to the noodles, but underneath it was all watery with an oily surface. SO GROSS. By this point I was so frustrated I was almost in tears, and was just about to toss the whole thing and send Taylor to get takeout, when I decided to try one last thing: I strained it. I strained the noodles and peppers and cheese and ended up with a colander of edible mac & cheese, and a bowl of REPULSIVE SLOP. Thank goodness I was able to salvage it at the last minute but GOOD GRIEF.

*I couldn’t do it myself because earlier in the day I sprained the middle finger on my right hand while cleaning the bathroom (SOMETHING ONLY I COULD DO) and it was (and still is) super painful. Clearly yesterday was Not My Day.