What, cooking?

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Yeah, I know what I said. I suggested I would not cook again. Yet as I was cleaning out my goods I found food that could not be thrown and needed attending. As well, my stomach was calling for some of the true foods to which it had become accustomed. I am no chef, mind you. I am a killer. I am a brute. I take pain and give death. This is the truth. Still, a woman showed me love and a little life through her demand of food. In the last bits of my life, I offered her a little of myself in such a fashion. And, so, today, I offered myself a bit of that again, and to her. She declined, I enjoyed.

In my freezer remained two of the three last packages of lamb I purchased this spring. A heart and lamb stew meat, frozen but waiting. I found them several days ago while looking through my freezer at my lady’s request. She wished to know if I happened to have a leg of lamb roast, if I did she would cook it for us. I did, but I also had these packages. I decided to cook these in my own way. When I realized there was plenty for two, with how I decided to cook the meat, I called and asked her to join me. She declined, it seems she lives in exhaustion as I do. In any case, I have made my meal and enjoyed it greatly. There is enough left to enjoy at least another sampling.

Lamb stew, as I figure it should be made: A half an onion (of your choice, though sweet is mine), diced into ¼ inch bits, and several (3) skinned slightly crushed garlic cloves, fried in butter (in a cast iron dutch oven); a nice selection of mushrooms (sliced), cooked in butter after the onions; a nice selection of carrots fried as the others; then, the meats, rolled in flour first (I chose unbleached white general flour), topped generously with dried peppermint and tarragon during the frying, then fried in butter in that same dutch oven; finally, once I removed the meats, I deglazed the dutch oven with my favored cabernet sauvignon, to which I added a fine slab of the finest butter I could find (and which I used in the rest of the process, Lurpak, an impoted Dutch butter). Fine, that actually was not the end. Once I had everything cooked, the deglaze (heavy) settled, and had baked my potatoes for a ½ hour, I put everything back in the dutch oven and set the dutch oven into to oven without a cover at 415 F for ½ hour, I then cooled the oven to 350 F and added the lid for another ½ hour. I then set the dutch oven (still covered) out of the oven for ½ hour and let the potatoes finish to a creamy nature. When this was done, I put a meal amount of the stew into a warmed bowl, added a good (giant considering my nature) fistful of raw fresh spinach into the bowl, put a plate above it and place a potato upon the plate. Once that had cooled for ten minutes, I then prepared the potato my favored way (split, buttered, with sour cream). After the potato was prepared, I added fresh whole whipping cream to my stew, stirred it, and waited another five minutes for the stew to settle, the spinach to finish, the flavors and cream to finish, and the potato to cool.

In the meanwhile, I did consume some of that wine, that which was left over of course, being careful to save enough for a solid sampling during the actual consumption of the meal (along with a glass of milk). Oh, and I did sample some beer as well. The wine pushed my thirst, yet to save some of my wine, I needed to slake that thirst on another course of fluid consumption. One must do what one must. In any case, the meal was a delight. I had wished to share it, however, having more for later is no terrible thing in itself.

Oh, should you ever wish to understand how I see women, life, and much else, watch “The Shootist”. I know it is near my time. I have enough, in a small place, to enjoy what I can of time and love. And, so I will. Further, I know that I am beyond my place and time here. I am going to try to do something here before I go. I will need to speak to my professors and perhaps others in the college, but my time, too, has come. I wish I had the strength for what is to come. I wish I could push on through. But the truth is, my time has come. I might have something exciting left. There might be a few things more to see. There might be a few more people to meet and converse with. But, I know deep inside, my time has come, and gone.