The cooking mojo was elsewhere yesterday.

You guys know that I am not into false modesty, but I was not happy with what I pulled out of the oven yesterday, and I sent this email out to the office:

Subject: Apologizing for the brownies

Also apologizing that they are not the chocolate pecan tart for which I signed up; friends from church came over last night, and by the time they left, I was not inclined to run to the store for more chocolate chips.

I baked the brownies in a disposable pan on top of a jelly roll pan, for support. The jelly roll pan warped during baking, and most of the batter ran to one corner of the baking pan. So we have brownies, and we have chocolate adobe. [A co-worker] prevailed upon me not to throw out all the adobe. And [my attorney] says there is no such thing as a bad brownie. I hope he’s right. But these are definitely not up to my standards.

Funny thing is, around 2:30pm there were maybe a dozen brownies left? And when I went home at 4:30, they were all gone, and the disposable pan was on top of the trash.

I am either going to have to invest in a single unrimmed baking sheet, to be used only for supporting disposable pans, or I am going to have to resume using real baking pans when I make brownies. The base of the jelly roll pans (rimmed cookie sheets) expands at a different rate than the sides, and the pan almost invariably skews while baking. Lasagna would be the exception, but a pan of my lasagna weighs a good deal more than a pan of brownie batter.

In other news, I started sneezing yesterday afternoon. So I burned my last half-hour of PT and came home early, had a mug of chicken broth and two slices of toast, and went to bed for several hours. I did call the new guy on my drive home, to tell him that I would not be at the temple last night, on the off-chance that it was not simply allergies. [I have yet to learn how to sneeze reverently. It’s more like the St. Valentines Day Massacre, or the 1812 Overture complete with cannons.] When I awoke several hours later, there was a kind email waiting for me. What a nice guy, is the new guy.

I may or may not go to the temple tonight. That will depend upon how I feel, and any flashes of inspiration that may pop up during the day. In the meantime, I have just popped the third Kenny Wayne Shepherd CD into the Ubiquitous Red Bag, so there is small chance of a boring commute regardless of which direction I drive.

Small but significant progress on Willow’s sock yesterday and in the wee hours of this morning. Life is good. [Ka-choo!]

P.S. Holy cow! I posted this without adding today's reading!

December 16: King Benjamin testified of the coming of the Savior in Mosiah 3:1-12; 20-21.