Despite the fact that the world can’t decide whether it wants to be hot or cold, yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day. I spent most of my time over in the “new” house in Lippincottonia. Le Duke has got me laying the bamboo flooring in the garage apartment and the study. It really isn’t that bad. Except maybe the bending over for hours at a time. That parts kills my back. For some demented reason I take great pleasure in laying flooring. After it’s finished, that is. Perhaps it is because after the flooring is down, the room no longer looks like a job site, but looks like a house. Something. Whatever it is, I won’t be experiencing it for a few weeks. Between filling orders and dealing with the new flooring, my next few months of work are unfolding before my eyes.

I’ve had a few moments of encouragement recently and, because they rocked, I wanted to share them with you. The first came last Thursday, but to get the full picture, we have to go back to the Friday before last. Back Alley Trey called me inquiring about my recipe for Barrio Burritos. He needed to make something “Hispanic” for his Spanish class and teach them how to make it in Spanish. I told him that I didn’t think my burritos actually counted as a Hispanic dish. He assured me that that didn’t matter. So, I set off to make up a recipe. You see, I had to make it up for a number of reasons:

1) I haven’t made Barrio Burritos in over five years.

2) I always sort of winged it when it came to ingredients and preparation.

3) To the best of my recollection I had never actually invented a recipe, written it out, and given it to anyone before.

So, I winged it. I wrote out a recipe and gave it to him. Now we time travel back to this past Thursday. I am cruising around campus running errands for the Letterpress shop and I run into Back Alley Trey. Apparently, he had just finished his speech and asked if I wanted a burrito. It never crossed my mind that he was actually going to make them. I just thought he needed the recipe for the speech. So, I gladly accepted because I was curious about his cooking skills and to see how my recipe translated into food prepared by someone with mysterious cooking skills. The burritos were the bomb in Phantoms, yo. It was so friggin’ encouraging to have my recipe made by someone else and for it to be as good as I remembered. So, I had B.A.T. scan my handwritten recipe and email it to me so that I can be sure to include it in the cookbook.

Now, the second bit of really great encouragement came last night at my make-up tutoring session. I was supposed to tutor last Friday night, but my pupil had a stomach bug, so we rescheduled for last night. Anyways, we were running arithmetic drills and out of no where, he started using the techniques that I taught him last week. He actually learned it and applied it a week later! Hot damn! I taught him something. Man, it was encouraging as all shit. So, after class and work today, I have another lesson. Let’s hope this pace of learning and improvement keeps up.

After tutoring and dinner, I’ve got to got to got to write this week’s article. Then I can go back to reading “Still Life With Woodpecker”. That’s right friends. I have complete my required cookbook work so as to lift the reading ban. Mwhahahahahaaa…..

Well, that’s all for today. I’m off to learn about itty bitty critters and how our bodies fight them. More soon. ~SC