grilled cilantro & pistachio pesto shrimp skewers over sauteed kale

You know what I love?  What absolutely delights me in the most unimportant, trivial sort of way, but a way that is completely satisfying in its insignificance? 

I love when I'm waiting in line at the grocery checkout and I spy a thick, glossy food magazine, pick it up and flip through it for two minutes, decide in the millisecond before the cashier totals my order that I simply must own it, and take it home to discover that I'd like to try all of the recipes inside, thanks in part to the incredible photographs accompanying each and every dish contained therein.

That is what I love.

The ultimate impulse buy.

taco truck

I tried loading up on vitamin C.  I tried sipping, slurping & chugging my lemon ginger tea.  I tried talking myself out of it.

But nothing worked.  I got the sniffles and the swollen lymph node thingies, then I got the cough and spent 14 hours in bed.  Sigh.... I got sick.

First I cut my thumb off.  Now I'm feeling like I got run over by a truck.  I'm destined to never cook a meal again... OK, maybe not never.  But definitely not today.

Instead, I've settled for sharing with you my new favorite spice mixture and how I came to love it.

white chicken enchiladas

As I sit down to type this post, a bright blue bandaid covers the tip of my left thumb.  One of those 'fingertip' bandages that didn't exist when I was a kid in constant need of taping up, but has since been the brain child of someone wishing to specialize in bandages for different body parts.  Have you ever used a fingertip bandage?  On first inspection, it looks like an instructional video might be a requirement to work it.  In the case of this particular first aid situation, we found that the bandages stick quite forcefully to themselves but not so well to the skin for which they are meant to protect.  And then there's the color. Puts the entire smurf race to shame.

This bandage went onto said thumb this afternoon when I arrived home from work, having left early.  Leaving early from work happened after an hour of trying to make the bleeding stop, paper towels stained with blood, hand held above the heart.  There was a definite increase in expletive use.  The f-bomb was dropped repeatedly, and the lord may need to change his name at this point, due to an overwhelming use of it in vain.  All of this happened after I succeeded in cutting the tip of my thumb off with a chef's knife while prepping food for my coworkers.

Part of the nail is gone.

Sigh...

So this day has been stressful.  What do I do when I'm stressed?  The same thing that millions of other women living in the developed world do when emotions run high, patience is in short supply, and somebody might get roundhouse kicked Chuck Norris style if I don't get something edible in the next 35 seconds.  I eat.  A lot.