and now for the bonus round

So, last night Blogger was being mean (or it might possibly have been Comcast, who apparently felt like last night was a good time to mess up our whole connection) and I couldn't post pictures of dinner or Angst or rice wrapped in grape leaves.  Every Wednesday morning at work, we have a sales meeting where we each share one thing we learned this past week.  You know what I learned this week?

I suck at telling unillustrated stories.

You want me to rant about the squandering of our planet's resources?  Provide an in-depth discourse about why I don't eat honey?  Shame the fast food industry for profiting off of our fast-forward culture and increasing the chances of your average American growing obese?  Shall I regal you with stories of how people have committed petty crimes to violate their parole so they can return to prison just so they don't have to decide between 7 different kinds of bread?  Or how pasta can feed an army of undernourished poor for pennies a serving?

I can do all of that without a single picture (though they make it more fun, you must admit), but tell you a story about pasta with broccoli and new concentrated liquid bouillon and a fuzzy fan?  Nope, can't do it without pictures.  I use the photos as a kind of outline - they remind me where the story is going next.  Without them, I totally lose my train of thought and the entire post derails in mere paragraphs.

So, I've fixed last night's post - feel free to check it out.

Tonight, I made Moroccan Chickpeas and Zucchini from Appetite for Reduction.

In lieu of the prescribed [gross] onion, I sliced up the other half of the huge shallot Mister picked out on our team trip to Whole Foods last week.  In other news, I'm super proud of him for only picking up three things that weren't on the list I gave him for his Superfresh run today.

I was also a bit generous with the "pinch" of cinnamon to be added to the mix.  It came out perfectly, actually, but when I first did it and all I could smell was cinnamon (above 5 cloves of garlic, 1 Tbsp grated ginger, a sliced shallot, cumin, and coriander!), I panicked a little.  See, when the recipe says to add a pinch of something powdery (like cinnamon), I just flip up the top of the spice jar and shake some in - no need to actually "pinch" it with my fingers - you'll never get that off.  Regardless, sometimes I forget how eager cinnamon can be to escape the little plastic jar in which it lives as well as what a pungent little spice it is - a little dab'll do ya, as they say.

Angst was so excited about dinner tonight that I had to put him in the bathroom.  He's getting very vocal in his old age and there comes a point where Mister and I just can't listen to him squeaking while we're talking.  Once we'd finished, I retrieved him and gave him plenty of love.  Fortunately, he likes the bathroom, so he probably just fell asleep and forgot he was stuck...

Or maybe he'll just hate me until I give him breakfast in the morning when he's had a long lonely night to remember how much he loves me and misses me when I'm gone.