Preheated
The room smelled like underwear fresh out of the microwave.
Today, I made crackers. They were supposed to be Ritz crackers, inspired to cook by a summer rainy day. They turned out tasting like biscuits that gave up the pursuit of being a biscuit and said “ i’ll just be a bad cracker”. By the time the dough was ready to bake, I’d lost interest.
Today I went to the gym, not just any gym. It’s the mother of all gyms, it’s a stationary bike in a room that is preheated to 135 degrees. The room smelled like underwear fresh out of the microwave. Twenty minutes in I remembered I weigh considerably more than the brochure assumes, and my workout ended abruptly.
Today I ironed a chef coat. I preheated my iron, not too hot, and added water to what water was currently already on board. The squeak, creak, and squeal of the ironing board is a next level trigger as my fifteen year old daughter would say. No one gives credit to the task of setting up an ironing board station. It has to be close enough to an outlet but out of the way so you’re not trampled by dogs or children. It took some time, but all things came together with my persistence. Now I have a sore back from the bike ride, rested dough and a pressed coat.
Life now is full of stakes, I’m not just cooking, I’m always pre-heating. Recently my daughter started driving. I gave her my old car, a solid car with no issues. Mysteriously her check engine light came on four days ago. I found out about this obvious bright orange light problem this morning, so while I rested my dough, preheated my oven, booked my sweat cycle room and ironed my chef coat, I also preheated her car so I could diagnose the problem, I did in fact learn today that to check transmission fluid requires you to bring the cars temperature up to a hot engine. This is what I assume is a measure for fluid distribution. I’m not sure. I’m a cook. Not a mechanic and as I type this I’m literally mansplaining it to myself. All things considered, YouTube shared with me the real problem, and thankfully it was only a loose gas cap. Seems easy enough unless you don’t hear the little “click, click” as you tighten.
All things measured, today was a great day, super productive, a learning experience for me in so many ways. Bad cracker-biscuits, what it feels like cycling in a sauna at fifty, ironing laundry and learning about cars from YouTube. I’m headed downstairs to wrap up these adventures. I’m going to preheat the oven, for tonight’s dinner brought to you by rainy day leftover Hoppin John with smoked sausage and homemade cracker biscuits.