it's been a whirl wind of a week
so much for a slow september

birthday. family gathering. moving. neil young. so much for things going slow while mercury is in retrograde.

you know you are living in the right place when you sleep like a baby through the nights. my new place is incredibly comfortable despite the unpacked boxes and lack of furniture. my kitchen is stocked (and i've already fed friends twice) and most of my clothes are put away. i can find my toothbrush.

i take all of this as a very good sign.

my mom wondered how it is that some people can move and be unpacked that very same day. those must be the people who sorted through their stuff while they packed. me, i just brought it all. the sorting is happening now. there is a garage sale in the future and if not that, a pleasant stocking of the Free Pile over at the 'stab. it's like refreshing the lake with trout. i'll make their fishing fun and fruitful.

WARNING: Highly organized tidbit that might taint your view of me

Stocking the pantry was incredibly fun and either you will agree that it would be a really fun idea or you will roll your eyes at my patheticness. I've gotten both responses so far. And despite the eye roll and the psychological pain and suffering it has caused me (not to mention the effort and eye strain of the eye roller) I will share this information with you and all the voyeuristic world.

I found a pantry-stocking list in several of my cookbooks. I actually chose the the more low-brow list (c'mon, she recommends buying taco shells cough cough and as a respectable Californian and Woman of Color [insert more coughing here] I have to call foul on the premade taco shells; I definitely go with the fresh tortillas) because it seemed like the more accessible and usable list to me. You can use the list too.

The reason for this is because somewhere along the line in my human development I missed the lesson on pantry cooking. Ask any of my exboyfriends (oh god, that is a sentence that never needs to appear in any publication, whether a blog or an at-home secret diary). I never learned how to whip something up from the things that happened to be on hand. I'm a much better restaurant orderer. I am a whiz with a menu. You should see me, even, standing in line at a cafe parsing out the available muchies from a list on a chalk board -- I'm telling you I'm damn good. Damn good. That skill I've aced.

But now it is time to conquer the pantry cooking. And I plan to do so before 2004 comes a knocking on the front door.

But one word about the pantry. I feel guilty using that word. Cubby. Cubby is more like it, though my space has quadruplized times ten. So I will say "pantry" and I want you to know it is more of a cubby so that when you come to visit you don't mock me for my propensity for exaggeration.

First Dinner: Salmon Chowder, Salad, Wine and little chocolatey cookies. Recipe to follow some time this weekend.