Good times at the Wing Hing

Today I surprised myself by actually being productive. Not too productive, of course, because despite the fact that I was tired last night, it took me almost 2 hours to fall asleep, have a quick football dream (football dream?), and then I woke up a mere 3 hours later, at 5 am. Jason woke up at 9, and from there it was rush, rush, rush...for at least an hour. Banking, groceries, library, post office, errands...and the fun part is, if you do these things early on a Wednesday morning, you will be joined by throngs of old people who have forgotten the meaning of rush, forgotten the point of the turn signal on their overly large cars, and half the time forgotten why they ever left the house in the first place.

So to reward ourselves for a productive morning we went to the Wing Hing, Cornwall's upscale Chinese buffet (upscale because you sit down to eat). Normally Jason is the king of buffet, so I was quite disappointed in him when he failed to go up for even a third plate. And of course I'm always at least a plate behind because I eat slowly, talk a lot, and get caught up in daydreams more than a normal person should.

At home we put our patio furniture away for the winter (yes, I pouted the whole time), and vaccumed out the car to put in the fall&winter floor mats (yes, I pouted the whole time). Then Jason was off to work, ravioli in tow (ew, Chef Boyarde!) and I was left to the house cleaning that I had been neglecting during my whiny cold days. Three miserable loads of laundry, dusting galore, disinfecting, and I even rearranged the rocks in our serenity pond. Plus, I made green Jello for Jason's lunches while watching Valentino on Oprah. Then, about 5pm, I happened to remember that I only slept for 3 hours the night before, and I had already been up for 12 hours. 12 whole hours. 12 long hours. So I decided that I had done enough, so I sat down to look through the cookbooks I got at the library for potential recipes. I definitely did find some good ones for the crockpot, which are always the most exciting for me. They're like hidden treasures.

I do love my crockpot. My Nanny gave it to me at my bridal shower, and I plugged it in that very week and I have been crockpot mad ever since. Lots of people have them somewhere in their homes, probably in the back of a closet collecting dust. It's a bit archaic, but I think it's high time that the crockpot (or slowcooker, if you will) makes a comeback. It's a nifty little sucker that does all kinds of tricks, but namely: you put some stuff in it in the morning, plug it in, and then at supper time, voila! Dinner is served, hot and perfect every time. When I first got it, my co-worker Silvia was sure I was making the whole thing up. It does sound too good to be true. But it is true!! I have, in the 2 and a half wonderful years my crockpot and I have shared together, amassed quite a collection of recipes. For example, it was through the miracles of crockpottery that I discovered that pork chops are meat! And delicious meat at that!

When I was a kid, we used to get these meat-shaped pieces of blackened tough cardboard, and we would all groan because it was "porkchop" night. You could not bite through these things. Even the dog wouldn't have anything to do with them. They got so dried out in the oven that there was never any meat left, just some severely burned ShakeNBake. Gross. But now when I throw porkchops into the crockpot, out comes this wonderful, tender, fall off the bone meat. Imagine that!

Well, I'm going back to my cookbooks now. Wednesdays are good nights for TV. If you haven't seen it yet, Lost on ABC is really pretty good, and I am very happy to have Party of Five's Charlie back on TV. Then there's Gilmore Girls and Queer Eye, so I'm all set until Jason comes home and finds that I have been asleep on the couch since 8 pm because I only slept 3 hours last night, goddammit. But the good news is, I have recently learned how to program my VCR, so I won't miss anything if I do fall asleep. Happy hump-day!