[Well, not really, not yet, but it's a good song: Mary Chapin Carpenter's "That's Real"]

Some of the reasons I cook:

* because I walked past a restaurant while running errands and was hit by a craving
* to reciprocate a gift
* to comfort the ill
* to channel frustration and rage
* to use up leftover ingredients
* the opportunity to dwell with and on abundance, both in terms of things to cook and options for the CD player (last night: Regine Crespin singing "Nuits d'Ete," Mary Chapin Carpenter (who the BYM insists sounds like Ann Murray), and now the Great British Jazz Band)
* putting off scrubbing the bathtub

What I've cooked over the past two days:

* two quiches (onion-bacon-beetgreens)
* eggs scrambled with milk (left over from emergency quiche augmentation)
* a loaf of cranberry-pecan bread
* a batch of orange-chocolate-spice mufffins
.....which didn't turn out quite right. The birds will be happy, if the dog doesn't hoover up all the crumbs before they get to them.
* cranberry-orange relish
* a slow cooker full of soybeans...
..... some of which got mixed with an aging jar of sun-dried tomatoes and some leftover lemon-pepper chicken
..... some of which got blended with roasted cauliflower for cream of (mostly) cauliflower soup
* spicy stir-fried eggplant
* green salad with chopped liver, tomato, and avocado
* roasted beets, turnips, and carrots

I expect that to do for now, and probably for the rest of the week as well. There are messages to answer, lettering to be done, and that bathtub really does need a good scrubdown.