PRIDE GOES BEFORE THE FALL

There may be some truth to that proverb. But don’t panic, good friends. It wasn’t exactly a “fall.” More of a crash, or a scrape...

First the news about the canteloupes. ALL of my vast readership is asking: how was the canteloupe? Well, My Man, The Canteloupe Expert, has this to say: Neither of those we bought on Saturday were as good as the one we had two weeks ago. The half- melon from Brennan’s was tasty, but too firm for his taste. I suspect it would have met his expectations if we had bought a whole one of Brennan’s that we could let it sit out for a couple of days to soften up. The whole melon, the one we bought at Sendik’s, was less firm, but obviously had been picked pretty darned green and had less flavor. That one did sit on our counter for three days, but you can only do so much. So the canteloupe saga will continue.

The good news -- before we get to the part about the crash, or scrape, or whatever it was -- is of all the great, fresh produce I bought at the Farmers' Market on Saturday and the fun I’ve been having trying to decide what to do with it. I hadn’t really gotten back into cooking since our kitchen was demolished last fall, when we were forced to eat out every day for a couple of months. We’ve been eating at home since re-occupying The Now-Most Beautiful Kitchen In Brookfield, but I haven’t really been cooking, if you know what I mean. Tacos, BLT’s, chicken from the deli – no recipes have been in use here in almost a year. It’s like I forgot how.

Then August came, and Brookfield’s weather got miserably muggy and forced me in from my flower gardens and into my cookbooks. I dragged out about 10 of them this week and spent a fabulous afternoon browsing for good corn chowder recipes and chicken salad recipes and fresh tomato recipes to use my market bounty. My idea of a perfect day is spent with a cookbook – and maybe some cheese on the side. I’ve even been known to take a cookbook into the bathtub with me for a long soak. (Not the book – me.) And then there’s www.epicurious.com It’s the coolest web site for people who want to make things with cointreau and cumin and cauliflower and... One just types into the search box “corn chowder” and 72 or 348 recipes show up, plus ratings and reviews by us amateur cooks who have tried them.

So today I made Corn Chowder with Bacon from an Epicurious.com recipe. Wow! Is it delicious, if I do say so myself. And I did say so. The soup is so good, I got to showin’ off and delivering buckets of it to a couple of friends. Now we come to the “Pride goes before the fall” part of the day. At one friend’s house, after telling them how spectacular this soup is and, like a pathetic old sheepdog, lapping up their praise for being such a great and generous cook, I left their house and backed my Prius into a tree. YIKES! Actually I scrapped the danged tree all the way down the side of my car. DOUBLE RATS!

My Prius is the only car I have ever loved. Actually loved. How could I be so consumed with myself as to cause it injury? And, almost immediately my brain said... What will The Man, The Engineer Who Is The Very Manifestation of Caution, what will he think of my carelessness?

Unwilling to face his disappointment, I called The Man’s office during his lunch hour, when I knew he’d be out playing sheepshead. Figured it’s easiest to leave a humble, contrite message with the news. To his great credit - and my great relief-- he wasn’t even concerned enough to call me back! I called him later to see if he had gotten my message. He had. He asked how bad it was. I said it was bad. All he said was, “We’ll have to find a good body shop to repair it.”

Hallelujah!

I married him when I was only 20 years old, and I sure got lucky.