I Spent Two Hours Cooking Today.

That's not a song lyric or a metaphor, an anecdote or segway. I actually just spent, collectively, two hours cooking today.

Now, to preface, I should say that cooking is a hobby in which I partake a substantial amount. I don't make anything that could be considered a "masterpiece," or a unique exercise in culinary art form. Instead, I cook meals and snacks because I prefer it to buying things packaged. Whenever I'm in the kitchen making things they're usually from scratch, with the exception of some canned ingredients or, in today's case, pre-mix.

Lately, my preparations have been increasing in frequency, due in part to my disgusting sleep schedule. I, unfortunately, can no longer sleep in. My internal clock has always been a little haywire. Some months I'll sleep far into the afternoon, others I'll wake up before the rest of my hemisphere. I haven't yet, however, found a way to control this occurrence. I read somewhere (probably a Cracked.com article) that you can control it via your eating habits, but that doesn't seem to help. Typically I don't ingest any material until noon or later, as a personal rule (mostly to keep my weight in check), but doing this hasn't ever altered my sleep schedule. My brain will just rouse me whenever it sees fit. It was a nuisance at first, but I've since learnt to cope in various ways. Making food happens to be one of them.

Submitted for the approval of The Midnight Society, I call this story, "The tale of the botched salsa."

It's safe to say that my favourite, albeit easiest, meal to form is pasta-based. Penne (without the accent because I'm not a Francophony...haha get it?) would have to be my noodle of choice, although traditional spaghetti comes a close second. I have, to date, made several different, large portioned meals using "noodlies", and decided that I ought to take a break, lest I become disenchanted with the ingredient. My grandmother often buys cake mix and other things, leaving them in the cupboard for months to go bad and/or collect dust, unless they're possessed and dance around on the shelf or something. With all this in mind, this morning I made a loaf of pumpkin bread. It would be silly to get into the intricacies of the creation since it was mostly pre-mixed, but it suffices to say it was delicious and perfect. That shit took an hour.

Not to be an egotist or anything.

Then I went to Starbucks. I realize that there's an inherent redundancy in the details of my day, but as someone who rarely leaves his house, these things are tantamount in the story of my existence. I took the long way home, because I was wearing reflective sunglasses; I enjoy people-watching (a story I'll save for another post entirely), and aviators make it really easy to stare at odd-looking individuals without looking like one yourself. But I digress.

When I got home, I still had most of the day to kill. Since I usually spend that time glued to the screen upon which I type these words, I thought it to be a healthy change of scenery to stay away for a while longer. Somehow, my thoughts turned to the plethora of hot peppers my significant other has supplied me with sporadically, to the point where I have so many that I may need to get a second freezer bag for them.

SO I MADE SALSA.

My initial attempt turned out horrid; I used a blender to combine the ingredients in lieu of a food processor. I don't buy kitchenware or machinery when I have what I has thought to be the equivalent sitting there already. To make a long story short, my salsa turned into a congealed mess of vegetable paste that was too spicy to put your nostrils near, let alone allow it clearance into your oesophagus.
Upon second try, sticking closer to the recipe and using one that actually fit the supplies I had with me (canned tomatoes instead of whole fresh ones...the can had been sitting in the furnace room for a few months, I had begun to become concerned that, once someone here got around to using it, it would be a civilization). The process took about an hour and a half totally, and the result is currently sitting in my fridge while the flavours blend. We'll see how this turns out, but I can announce with confidence right now that it looks tasty.