In hindsight, the only things that I should have been eating in Austin were antacids.
My previous blog detailed the disastrous consequences of colorful gourmet consumption on a girl with a white-washed appetite. If only...if only...my exposure to fine dining had been limited to five-star restaurants but, no...the fancy food followed me home.
Savannah and Lisa were determined to make my stay luxurious with extravagant accommodations and mind-blowing amenities, forgetting, unfortunately, that I am more hobo encampment than Hilton Diamond member.
I am flummoxed whenever people graciously bestow anything upon me...be it compliments, gifts, or acts of kindness. Stop. No. I can't handle it and my face SHOWS it. So it wasn't out of character when my expression froze into place like the rose-shaped ice cube that adorned the carrot margarita that Lisa thrust into my hand as I floated in her darling little back-patio pool. "I can get you something else," she stuttered, shocked, I'm sure, at my lack of social graces. "No-no," I hurriedly assured her, gripping my glass, "This is delightful."
Delightful?
Don't people consume carrots as punishment? Or from fear of going blind? What's next? A Long Island Iced
Tea made of lettuce? A parsnip Paloma? An Alabama Slammer made up of asparagus? No. Just, no.
I was spoiled, non-stop, with bountiful breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
The problem was that I don't typically eat, non-stop, bountiful breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. I usually skip breakfast. I snack for lunch. And...snack for dinner. I also snack between lunch and dinner as well as between dinner and sleep-time. Occasionally, I also sometimes snack between my non-existent breakfast and lunch. Hence, the slim, girlish figure that is the envy of all.
Savannah would greet me each morning as my own personal barista and I would delight in the foam art that she would adorn each steaming offering. She is currently experimenting with a combination of abstract and nouveau styles that really gets my gears spinning. I don't think she could top her first creation, though...her interpretive tribute reflecting the wonders of nature depicting a humpback whale rescuing a seal from a lurking predator. So spoiled did I become from this coffee-inspired art that I almost sent my order back this morning when Sydney Lynn and I were presented with a poor imitation. Sydney, God's own angel, gently reminded me that not everyone is blessed with Savannah's innate talent.
Lisa is a fearless presence in the kitchen. She is not afraid to incorporate
something new...from ingredients to gadgets to techniques. Failure only steels her resolve to succeed. She works intuitively with the system of trial and error...persistently climbing up the culinary ladder with each attempt. Knowing my enthusiastic love of soup dumplings, my talented daughter-in-love was determined to make this complicated dish for me.
Savannah and I, of course, were equally determined to "help" her.
Mind you, the timeless tradition of artfully folding the dumplings dates back hundreds of years, requires a lifetime of practice, and infinite patience. Savannah and I watched about ten seconds of the hour-long Youtube tutorial and confidently declared ourselves "ready-to-go!" Lisa laboriously honed her craft, hunched painfully over her dough, systematically folding petaled curves into place, daintily adding minute drops of water to moisten her canvas as she worked her way around the dumpling. I slopped water onto my dough like I was getting ready to mix mortar. Savannah engineered her own triangular technique. Lisa let us ruin about a half dozen dumplings before she kicked us out of the kitchen.
Savannah took this opportunity to force me to take her previously-threatened air-fryer course. I had declared myself incapable of learning even
one more thing. I was still using a hand-held can opener at home (with varying degrees of success, depending on the day). Unlike Ariel, I was not infatuated with gadgets and gizmos aplenty.
The last microwave that the girls forced on us (Replacing Ol' Sparky) lit up like an airplane runway and had too many buttons. Nevertheless, I stood by respectfully while Savannah wowed me with the wondrous convenience, ease, and crispy features of her air-fryer. My smile was frozen on my face while in my mind I chanted,
Please don't buy me an air-fryer for Christmas. Please don't buy me an air-fryer for Christmas.Lisa's soup dumplings were AMAZING. Have you ever had them? Oh my goodness! A super-fun texture with an explosion of flavor when you bite into them. It. Is. An. Experience. I love them. And her.
So...my poor tummy...a stale snow globe of a vessel that may, on a rare day, experience an isolated sprinkling of salt, just encountered a tornado of tastes, a blizzard of blended ingredients and flavors, followed by a hurricane resulting in crippling heartburn.
Soy worth it.
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