Not Even Remotely Food Related

But I just had to gush over our first-ever appliance purchase!  (Do we qualify as grownups now??  Scary thought!)  Behold...Whirlpool Duet Washer and Dryer...high efficiency, large capacity, front-loading wonders of modern engineering.  All wrapped up in a lovely cranberry gloss finish.  Beautiful!!  I love to just look at them...wonder if I will love doing laundry now, or if it will be one more tedious task (albeit beautifully packaged) keeping me from practicing my baking skills?  Only time will tell, but for now, I will bask in the warm ruby glow of the first new appliances we've ever owned.  (I feel like they should be cinnamon-scented or something...maybe I'll write to Whirlpool to suggest it.)

Locked & Loaded

Hello again, dear reader.  (That is, assuming I still have a reader out there somewhere...)  After a long, arduous, painful inter-state move and three weeks at a new job, I have finally returned to my blog in true Riss style, by breaking the oven in our new home.  My first attempt at baking some cookies in KC resulted in disaster, probably deservedly, for I blasphemed the world of Cookiedom by using some store-bought Pillsbury cookie dough rather than making my own from scratch.  Granted, this piece-of-shit oven is likely older than I am, and therefore could really break down at any time, but I of course decided to hasten its demise by putting the door lock on in a misguided attempt to keep small children safe from air and metal heated to a roasty 350 degrees.  I did this during the last minute of the cookies' bake time, and then....locky no worky, and the door was permanently closed.  With the tray of cookies inside.  Our lovely (frugal to a fault) landlady decided a repairman was in order (rather than replacing the ancient stove), and a week later, voila!  One locking mechanism was removed, one oven door was opened, and a tray of overdone, yet remarkably well-preserved cookies was rescued.  (My husband was tempted to eat them despite being a week old...I advised him not to attempt it.)

So...now that our oven is again in (somewhat) working order, I promise to resurrect this blog, phoenix-like (literally...ashes may be involved if I break the damn stove again), and actually start cooking again.  Ooh, I wonder if the onslaught of simultaneous hits will crash the blogger.com servers...ah, the sweet taste of victory.  Which, apparently, tastes like cookie dough, since with the oven locked and unusable for a week, I was forced to eat the remaining cookie dough straight from the package with a spoon.  I was willing to make that sacrifice for your reading pleasure.  Maybe I should subtitle my blog..."Sweet Potatoes:  Welcome to Flavor Country."