Stove Hint

Warning!: This isn't too terribly exciting, but for those of you who are curious what we're up to, have at it!
I figured I'd share this gem of a secret that I discovered two nights ago while making supper with the Mr.

So, the Mr. was cutting tomatoes and grating zucchini while I began with the other half of the process.  I eyeballed some oil into the skillet and put it on the stove's burner to heat up, turning it to medium-high.  After about three or four minutes, I decided it was hot enough and could put in the bag of frozen veggies. It should have taken about 8 minutes, at that point, but the broccoli was still frozen.  I  tossed in the next ingredient anyway, and waited a little longer. I mentioned to the Mr. that it was still cold, and that I figured it would just be awhile longer till we'd eat.

WRONG!

He solved the problem for me: I had picked the wrong burner's dial to turn on, so the skillet was just sitting on a cold burner the entire time (about 20 min at that point).  Instead, another burner we weren't using was pretty hot.

At that point, we were able to begin cooking our food "for real".  I am wondering how long it would have taken me to figure that out if I had been cooking by myself.  Oy!!  Nothing ground breaking or catastrophic... At least it was just veggies and precooked chicken, and it all got up to temperature eventually; it just took a little longer than expected.

So there is your lovely kitchen hint from me - if your food ever seems to take just a litttttle too long heating up and your stove is in decent condition, check the dial! =]

A Lesson in Local Dialect

As an addendum to my previous post, about our weekend (here), you might have left that post wondering:
"If the northern DMV was soooo GOOD, then why did you (two, educated, handsome, charming, splendiforous, grown adults) choose to visit the "BAD" metro, inner-city DMV?"

The mister had been told by coworkers that the northern DMV was "okay".  In comparison, when we asked a clerk at the grocery if they had any input on the subject: "..." (The ellipsis is signifying an unending pause.) "..." "The downtown DMV...", she looked around, "it's not so bad".  That should have been our warning, right there.


Turns out, we have plenty of rose colored glasses to go around.  "We'll save time driving there, since it's about 10 miles closer", we reasoned to each other.  We thought that driving 20 miles less round-trip would be worth it. We figured that even if we had to spend extra time there, it would have been equivalent to the extra time we would have spent driving to the northern DMV.

Nope. That's not how it worked.  I am glad to say, from this, we are learning the local dialect:

If something is "okay", that means it is glorious, magnificent, stupendous, and the most fantastic thing ever. If something is "not so bad", that means it is abhorrent, unpleasant, and should be avoided at all costs.

Using these new vocabulary words in a sentence, I can say: The DMV is not so bad, and relaxing at home with Easter candy is an okay way to spend the evening.  =]