The rule of lost things and maintaining cooking faith

Today, we stopped at Target to return a skirt (my wife's, not mine, you weirdos). Target has a dollar section, which really made the kids happy, since they could buy crap for a dollar. I was about to make a crass comment about how junky it was and I discovered some cool Napoleon Dynamite window clings, sticky notes, pencils, etc. But I digress.

Among the $1 crap, they had Hawaiian floral printed dog collars and leashes. We bought one for each dog.

Two days ago, we had tried to take a walk, but couldn't find the dog leashes. Our dogs (like everybody else's') can't talk, but boy did they communicate their disappointment in us. No, they didn't pee all over our house, but they hung their heads and looked at us with their big brown eyes. Sad eyes.

Target, the great place that it is, also had a deal on a stainless BBQ grill, so I'm getting a new grill for Father's Day (funny, I just typoed and wrote Farters Day, hmmm). As we were making room in the back of our car, to get the grill home, we found all kinds of things, including the dog leashes.

This just is another proof of the fact that lost things always reappear when they have been replaced. It happened with our Tivo remote control, too.


Saturday night, I made a dinner from Martha Stewart Magazine. What I made looked very similar to what was pictured in the magazine. However, the shredded pork had almost no flavor. It was dry and bland and very disappointing.

As Heather and I were reviewing the recipe to try to figure out what was wrong, we discovered
that I failed to properly follow the directions. After braising the tenderloin, I was supposed to broil the shredded meat with the braising liquids. I dumped all those out. Fresh cilantro, cumin, onions and chicken stock. All the flavorful things.

Heather was glad that it was me that screwed up. The recipe looked pretty good, if you followed the directions. She was glad that Martha didn't let her down and that she could still trust Martha's recipes.