I borrowed the word for the title of this post from the friend I went to visit.
I am most certainly a member of the Make-Do Nation. Most of my adult life I've lived below poverty level. Where I live, it's actually not as bad as it sounds. Regardless, there are days, sometimes weeks, without cash flow, in which case you learn the value of resourcefulness.
Today was one of those days.
The gas bill was sky high last month which means it's time to switch to the wood stove. My first delema was where to get the wood. My father-in-law pointed me to a pile of scrap wood behind the barn. Today I began sorting, chopping and piling the wood. There is more work to do tomorrow.
Its actually really nice. There's something very comforting about the smell of a wood fire. The heat radiating from the wood stove has a soothing penitrating feel that soaks into your muslces and losens the joints.
My next challenge tonight was dinner. My fridge is looking pretty bare, which sometimes happens near the end of the month. I am out of milk, eggs, butter, and bread. The last of my vegatables are wilting and there is no more chicken. Then I found my birthday Mole in the freezer and left over pie crust.
Mole is my new favorite dish. For my birthday I didn't just want to eat it, I wanted to make it. Its a complax concoction. In fact I think thats what the word mole actually means - "concoction." Most of the ingredients are roasted or toasted seperately Some of them are gounded together, some of them are gounded seperately. It took me most of the day to make. I can't wait to try it again.
I made two mistakes on this first attempt. I've never prepared a whole chicken this way before and I didn't know what to do with the backs. Not wanting to waste it, I tossed it into the dutch over with the rest of the chicken. My mole was riddled with teeny tiny vertibrey. My second mistake was the raisins. I got to that part of the reciepe and thought "Raisins!?" So I left them out. Now I know the add a suddle layer of sweetness that was missing my birthday mole.
Usually I would have used the pie crust to make cinnamon roll cookies, but today I'm our of cinnamon. So, I used the pie crust to make an improvized date pastry with cardomin and sesame seeds. I called it 'delicious', when my daughter asked me what I was making. At first she wasn't going to try it, she thought I put raisins in the delicious. But when I went to put my son to bed, she ate the half that I had left on the plate.
Yes, my daugher complained about the bones, but said she liked the mole anyways. Even though I could taste my mistakes, I could also taste all the other ingredients that went into making the dish, and I remembered the joy I felt in making it.
Just another day at the make-do nation.
(I am a horrible speller and right now my dictionary is missing, so please forgive)
