Keep it simple Stupid!

Over the years I have learned a great deal by trial and error, predominantly error. Mistakes are great because those are the lessons that you learn best and never forget. Two immediately come to mind. If you fail to pierce Chestnuts when you bake them , they will explode and make the oven impossible to clean. It also traumatizes the feline population. In a similar vein, there is no point in trying to pierce the yolk of an egg, if you want to cook it in the microwave. It doesn’t matter whether you remember this step of not; if the egg explodes it is inedible, if it stays in tact it is also inedible.

In my new life I have learned to simplify my life, lessons and language, to basically use less words. Although I have a tendency to overlook this fundamental.

Junior appears at my side, as I am knee deep in chocolate, making truffles. He sniffs with melodrama and sighs winsomely,
“Ah I can smell it I fink.”
“Good.”
“What you do?”
“I’m making chocolate truffles.”
“I am loving dem. What is dah ‘truffles’?”
“Candy.”
“I love dah candy truffles.”
“No you don’t, they have nuts in them.” He gasps in horror and simultaneously clamps his hands over his mouth.
“I fink I might be liking them anyways.”
“Nope, peanuts are poison remember.” I am cruel to remind him of his screaming mantra.
“Dey are peanut candy truffles?”
‘No. Actually they’re toasted hazelnut ones, but you hate ‘toast’ remember. ‘Toast’ is ‘burning fire’ if I recall correctly.” Too many words! He gasps and clamps again, enveloped in wafts of ganache.
“Peanuts are poison, hazelnuts are…..they are……not da peanuts.”
“They’ll still be ‘bitty.’ Can’t have ‘bitty’ can you, you might melt, or whatever it is you do.”
“I am not melting with dah bits, I am spitting with the bits.”
“Fair enough, I stand corrected.”
“You are not standing you are, what you are? Oh yes, you are slouching.” Deportment is everything!
“Well that’s as maybe, but if you think I’m going to be cleaning up chocolate nutty spit for the next half an hour you’ve go another thing coming my boy!”
“How about dah compromise?”
“Pardon?”
“If I am dah brave one wiv dah bitty hazelnuts, den I will be cleaning up my own spit if dey are poison?”


He is offering to
a] try new food and
b] sterilize the aftermath!

Sounds like a deal to me. High five.