Saturday

I had to make early dinner tonight.

Shake ‘n’ Bake Chicken Bites – but I make my own. It’s my mom’s recipe.

Just put come cornmeal, flour, salt and pepper in a bag, then put cut-up boneless chicken in a scrambled egg and a little cream. Put the chicken in the bag, shake it up, and put it in the over on a cookie sheet. Kids eat ‘em up.

Cooking

The whole cooking thing is a big deal for me because, even though I was raised in the country on a farm, I didn’t want to learn to cook.

“But what if you’ll want to feed yourself?” my mom would say, the practical one.

“I’ll have a microwave,” I’d say. “I’m going to live in the city, you know. You can get all kinds of food there, you know,” I’d say.

“Well, knowing how to cook is an important skill for anyone to know,” my mom would say, with a far away look. “Your daddy is a great cook; he won me over, not just with his big heart and great kissing, but also with pot roasts when we were first going out.”

Around here, Monsieur plans meals and cooks four meals on the weekend, makes grocery lists and asks me what I don’t like to eat. My daddy thought I’d be living on pâté, frog’s legs and snails. I haven’t seen the latter two, and the closest thing I’ve seen to pâté while I have been here is meat loaf, which he calls “terrine de bœuf”.

Monsieur is out doing yard work. We live on about ten acres on the top of a hill, and he is clearing brush and maneuvering fence posts in preparation for what passes for fall around here. It was 108° F. for the high last week, this week has been more merciful with highs in the 80’s. Typical central Texas fall, they say. Ugh. They had lows of 67° F. in Kansas City this week. Apparently in Texas they don’t have seasons, they have spells.

Tonight I am going out with Monsieur, and he has asked me not to call him Monsieur in front of other people in public while we do. It’s going to be hard to remember.

I sincerely hope I get lucky. Maybe if we’re done early we can go somewhere down one of these lonely country roads, and park. And he’ll take me, on the hood of his car. (A girl can dream, right?)

I’ll let ya know. [*Wink*].