Skip to main content

Perfectionist

Why does it take me an hour to do one thing?

I didn't cross a single item from my to-do list, and in nine minutes I have to go home to make beef pie.

Speaking of perfectionism, I have spent eight years perfecting this recipe.

Amanda's Beef Pie

  • One pound of organic ground beef
  • Nilla wafer pie crust
  • Cheddar slices
  • Beef broth (I use the kind from a box that pours)

Preheat oven according to your pie crust directions. Brown ground beef in a pan, scoop into pie crust with a slotted spoon, draining fat. Don't pre-cook the pie crust. It gets too brown at the edges. Pour beef broth over the ground beef, enough to moisten it thoroughly, not drown. Spread cheddar slices over the top of the pie. Bake for around fifteen minutes, until the pie crust is brown and cheese is melted. It's much better on the reheat, nice and solid.

Things I want to do in my life

  • Become a web designer
  • Publish my writing
  • Become a seamstress
  • Learn to play the erhu

Only four things? I guess so. But to me, those four things are so hard. They require a lot of energy and discipline, especially after a day of work. If I have any new year's resolution it will be to resolve that somehow.

I was so anxious about work today. I didn't know how I was going to titrate my sample. I did it! I only had to ask for help four times. I did 97% of it all by myself. My sample was just exactly the same number as the time zero. Wow. I can't believe I care. I've really got to do something.

Popular posts from this blog

The secret to a happy home

I finished Marion Harland's guide tonight and I wonder ceaselessly at two things. 1. She is so down on America! Even more than I am. She complains of things in which I am so well-steeped I could not see them for what they were. In particular, American style and cookery. It is true that our food, which we count as so much more generous in portion than the overseas counterpart, is as coarse and indecorous as it is plentiful, but as an American woman I cast up my hands and declare I would rather spend my time on something else. She makes an interesting point about American women's fashions. In France women wear what looks good on them, and in America women wears what comes off the manufacturing line in the latest style. It is very conformist, and I have to admit I feel it in myself, for I would be embarrassed to wear something that is "out" even if it flattered me better. 2. Harland's other point I feel clearly from last night's experiences. I looked in my journ...
more &

Sprouts

Sprouts Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde . I am getting sprouts. Hopefully they are carnations. It is such a beautiful spring day. It's good I'm taking the chance to come outside: I have craved a moment to reflect on something beautiful.
more &

Blanche, a re-telling of Snow White

I began this story after reading a collection of short stories by Angela Carter. “Snow White” has always been a favorite tale of mine and I have placed this re-telling in nineteenth-century rural Louisiana. Near Vacherie, Louisiana, there are not only swamps but also old beautiful plantations. Some of them are restored but others are abandoned and ruined. The places I have seen captured my imagination and I combined them with my impression of Snow White as an object of envy and lust. My heroine Blanche is a hard-working girl who longs to be rich and to live in New Orleans, where her father was born. She is threatened constantly by the attention of the rustics who live around her. Her stepmother beats her when she finds Blanche in Jean-Jacques’ arms. When Blanche runs away from home she is beguiled by Philipe de la Roche, who persuades her to live in New Orleans in a fancy house with seven women. Blanche does not realize that the women are prostitutes. The farmer Jean-Jacques, who love...
more &