My mind is mostly blank tonight.

Tried my first recipe from the braising cookbook—cabbage with carrot and onion.  It was good but not spectacular, but how spectacular can cabbage be, right?  I cooked boiled cabbage a few weeks ago that I thought was better.  But this is how starting something new works: the results vary until you become proficient.

“Proficient” now there’s a good word.  But isn’t proficient more of a feeling?  I feel proficient, we think to ourselves when something goes well.  But it’s like a teeter-totter ride, isn’t it: you go up when you feel like you’ve succeeded and you come down when you feel like you haven’t—or haven’t completely succeeded, at least.  And then there is the question of how high you have set the bar for success.  If one makes it a habit of always setting the bar low, well then, I suppose one can feel proficient all the time.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.

God has watered the earth today and last night.  It’s still raining, even now. . . .

That’s how I know I have nothing interesting to say: when I resort to talking about the weather.  Though I must admit, weather is a noble topic with a storied history, especially for the common man and woman.  For my grandfather, who farmed, what the weather did determined if, and how well, he and his family ate.  So the weather was a subject of no “small potatoes” you could say.  Oh Lord, I am reaching, now!

Thoughts are funny things, aren’t they?  They can begin with cabbage and end with potatoes and explore nothing in between of any significance.  But, really, how often do we think about “important” stuff?  Is cabbage important?  Is rain?  Are cooking or trying something new important?  Well, I can say this:  When I’m hungry, cabbage can be quite important!

And with that, I’ll bid you good night and may God bless.

By the way—the images I select to go with these posts are chosen not because they illustrate the topic in any way; I just choose them from the instant images collection because they catch my eye.