Kitchen-y

I really miss the times when I would spend all day in the kitchen because we were having people over and I wanted to make something elaborate. Often those days would result in other kitchen tasks being done along the way -- a whole head of cauliflower being cleaned and chopped for later use, for example, as long as I was in the kitchen and wielding the knife, or a batch of entirely gratuitous muffins for the next day's breakfast, or a batch of cookies in case the main dessert was not somebody's cup of tea. (Nobody should ever have to suffer mediocre dessert. This is a rule of life. It is also, however, what a good stash of sorbet and ice cream in the freezer is for.)

So...I'm doing some of that today. Not the extra side tasks, and my choices of food have been somewhat influenced by what needs the least help. But the cream pie for with porphyrin's homemade gooseberry preserves is in the fridge, and there has been substantial progress on other fronts. I bought organic cream from a local dairy instead of the usual paper carton kind, for whipping and putting in the pie, and we have an abundance of whipped cream, since I wasn't sure how the volumes would translate. The top of the bottle was clotted solid. It's really lovely cream, and I hope it makes really lovely cream pie. (If it doesn't, hey, we'll have well-adorned peaches or hot cocoa or whatever with the remainder. I don't really have the time or energy to make Guinness gingerbread just to properly set off the cream I've already whipped; we'll have to get more cream once I've made Guinness gingerbread, I guess. Or pumpkin bread. Or both. I love fall so much.)

The rest of the menu is beef stew, broccoli diablo, and biscuits. I've already harvested and cleaned the herbs, prepped the aliums, and done the root veg from a kitchen chair. I'm trying to take frequent breaks. I can already tell tonight's PT is going to be a beast, but I don't care, I need to do this. I'll head down and do some more prep in a few minutes, probably start the stew pot going so it can have a good long simmer.

I'm trying to be careful and not fall on my sword knife, but it's fall here, people, and there's only so much I can do to keep out of the kitchen, vertigo notwithstanding. Not standing with vertigo. Whichever.