Dinner for One

The kids are gone for a week. This has been the case every other such week this summer. It has been an interesting adjustment to have so much free time on my hands. Well, you know, free time other than the time I sit in front of a computer screen between the hours of 7:30am and 4pm.

The temptation is mostly to spend my time cleaning and organizing and catching up a lot. Laundry, closets, kitchen floors, vacuuming out the car, you know...that stuff. The other temptation is to mope around a little. Sunday night I came home from dropping them off and ate a 1/2 of a bag of bbq sunflower seeds. I sat on my balcony and alternately spit the seeds into a coffee mug and sipped a whisky on the rocks. Maybe two.

Last night I decided to try a little harder.

I came straight home and washed my face. I piled my hair on top of my head and went to work on poached eggs. I'm horrible at poached eggs. I tried no less than 8 of them. Wanna know what the trick is? You have to swirrrrrrrrl the simmering water when you put the egg in!

It's hard to cook for one person. I'm used to cooking for 6. Why bother you know? Just have a sandwich or a bowl of cereal- get over yourself. But I've decided to try hard at least one night while the kids are gone. It can be anything. It can be delicious. I deserve delicious food.

So, my version of "trying hard" last night was the two remaining pieces of cinnamon French bread from Sunday's breakfast- toasted, black forest ham topped with two (finally) perfectly poached eggs, and everything all drowned in hollandaise. Hollandaise is surprisingly easy to make. I've made it a handful of times now. It only has 4 ingredients. Egg yolks, lemon juice, water, and butter. Lots of butter.

Pour a glass of wine. Put your feet up. Enjoy your own company. Hey! I'm kinda fun to hang out with. 

It's not so hard to try hard.

*It was my birthday last Saturday. A big one. I'm trying to find the words to write about that very soon.