March 29, 2005

Leftovers

At work I manage a database...2500 records, I'm not sure how many fields per record, but since each record's report prints out 5 pages, let's call it a boatload. After being out sick for a week I'm behind in verifying the data people have entered, and since I dump the data for paying customers at the end of each quarter (like on Thursday), last Friday I told the staff not to add or edit any records for the rest of the quarter so I could catch up.

Today I noticed that there was a record edited on March 28. I took it to the guy who entered it, and asked what was going on. First he said he hadn't entered anything, because "You said not to." Obviously I did effectively communicate that. So I pulled up the record and showed him the date and his initials (which are typed in, not automatically logged.) Again he said no, he was sure he hadn't entered anything. So I pulled the paper file and lo and behold: the written record of his edits in his handwriting. His explaination: "I must have done it unconsciously."

As a supervisor and as a database manager, this fills me with dread...

And it put me in the mood for comfort food. Usually for me that's a trip to a local restaurant: the Salvadoran place up the street, or the hamburger place, or Italian...someplace with red wine. (I am comforted by polyphenols; what can I say?) But I am mindful of the fact that when the kitchen is torn up I'll be eating out a lot, so I really ought not overdo it now.

So for dinner we had the Easter leftovers, in pie form. Not quiche...pie crust requires a measure of baking talent, and custards are delicate, or so I remember reading in some highbrow cookbook. Nope, I went the Betty Crocker route, which seems more appropriate for using leftover Crock Pot ham cooked in soda.

The "Impossibly Easy" whatever-pie mix is 1/2 a cup of Bisquick, 2/3 cup of milk, and two eggs. Grease a pie plate, put in your leftovers (tonight: diced ham, aspagagus, and shredded swiss cheese), pour the Bisquick/milk/egg over the solids, and bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. And as comfort food goes, this is not bad, especially paired with the leftover pinot noir.

(Oh, and the ham: The universal reaction seems to be skepticism. Honestly, this is what I did: I put a 3 pound ham in the Crock Pot and poured 16 ounces of soda over it, then cooked it on low for about six hours. I've found if an old southern lady tells you how to cook something, you really can't go wrong following her directions. [Well, I did use Coke instead of Pepsi...don't tell her.])

And Elizabeth was pondering why she blogs today. (This is actually all one train of thought, I swear.) I was pondering her pondering, and I had a little flashback to when I was a kid. My mother, and most of the other women in the neighborhood, were stay-at-home moms, as was typical of 1972. In the afternoons we'd go to the park, and while children played, the mothers would sit on benches and talk. I don't know all of what they discussed as I was zooming around on my Big Wheel and playing "What Time is it, Mr. Fox," but I'm guessing it was about their families and stuff that pissed them off and current events and plans for their futures and gossip and what they were making for dinner.

In short, they discussed the stuff we blog about. This is an electronic park bench and we are virtual neighbors.

(Or maybe I'm the virtual wino on the electronic park bench shaking my fist at the sky and mumbling to myself. I won't rule that out either.)

Posted by Nic at March 29, 2005 07:33 PM
Comments

Sounds interesting. Too bad you didn't take a picture of the resulting pie. I, for one, would have liked to have seen how it turned out.

I can read about food for hours, it seems.

Posted by: RP at March 30, 2005 02:30 PM
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