And Now For Something Completely Different (again)

Once again, I could blog about something from the list of bloggable topics.

Once again, I'm posting waaay later than I'd originally intended.

And, once again, the day has just gotten completely away from me.

Soooo... to hell with writing-related topics today. I want to blog about cooking.

Well, spices, to be exact.

When my husband and I got engaged, oh so many moons ago, as an engagement gift, my aunt gave me a box of spices from an outfit called Penzey's. I'd never heard of them, and really didn't even know how to cook, but still, I said thank you and, when DH and I moved into our townhouse, I put the jars on the lazy susan in the pantry.

And promptly forgot about them.

Ooops.

Okay, I barely knew how to boil water. We still joke about the first meatloaf I ever made. It was awful. And bland. And hard as a rock. And did I mention it was awful??? I didn't use a recipe. I thought I could do it on my own, remembering how my mom (and my grandfather, who used to live with us and did all the cooking) made it. Ground beef. And breadcrumbs! I know she used breadcrumbs. Milk, too, I think. And that was it.

Well, DH and I sat down to that first meal as a married couple. It was so cute, really, in a saccharine, sickly-sweet kind of way. I sliced it and served it with baked potatoes (because, let's face it, you really can't ruin a baked potato) and vegetable of some sort, I'm sure.

I took a bite.

Oh, the humanity.

It was the worst thing ever - but DH seemed to like it. I thought it was just me. Maybe it needed more salt or pepper or something.

No. Didn't help.

Well, I managed a couple more bites before setting the fork down and saying I couldn't stand it. Then, my husband lets out this sigh, "Oh, thank God." Turns out, he didn't want to hurt my feelings, so he was choking down that awful, lousy, tasteless rock of ground beef. Say it with me, "Awww...."

Well, fast forward to now, I'm a much better cook (although, let's face it, I couldn't have gotten much worse.) And as I learned, I dug out those old spices and began using them. Not bad. I started getting their catalog, and little by little, I've not only gathered quite a collection of spices of all sorts, but I actually use them.

Now, all of my spices come from Penzey's - they've got regular ol' everyday spices, but they've also got the most wonderful blends from all around the world. And I realize this sounds like a huge walking advertisement for them, but I really just love them. So, if you're curious about them, check them out right here.

Alright... tomorrow I'll be back with one of the real blogable topics...