Always make sure you have all your ingredients: A cautionary tale

My friend Kathryn is having a turducken dinner (that's a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey) tonight and she's asked that the side dishes be pot luck. So I offered to make my grandmother's traditional mushroom stuffing - which, to be honest, is about the only holiday side dish I know how to make. It's really simple; just fry chopped onion and sliced mushroom in a pan, add chuncks of white bread (about a loaf), a bit of water to make it moist, lots of sage, a small can of mushrooms and, when I can get away with it, some corn (my dad doesn't like corn, so I'm not allowed to add it when we make it at home). Easy, peasy, lemon squeazy, right? Except that when I went to the neareset grocery store, they didn't have any sage. None. I spent about 5 minutes staring at the spice section willing it to appear, but unfortunately I was reminded once again that my will is not strong enough to change the physical material around me. Not yet, anyway.

So I went home to frop everything off (after having a conversation with the cashier about why I always bring my own shopping bag) and headed back out the door. The solution was to take the street car to the Queensway loop where there is a great big Sobeys. On the way, however, I noticed the Red and White grocery store which is closer, so I make a quick amendment to my plans and got off the streetcar...only to be reminded that some grocery stores are not open at 8:30 at night. A 10 minute wait and back on the street car, where I did get off at the Sobeys.

I got what I came for, as well as stuff to make tacos for dinner, and came home. But oh! Once I got cooking, it was like a ballet. Chopping onions while hadnling two pans at once, stiring one pan with a taco in my hand while pouring a glass of iced tea. Spinning around to avoid the bits of taco meat I spilled on the floor. Glorious. And now I have a huge bowl of stuffing to bring to the party. I just hope I added enough sage.

o( )__