Sunday

Maybe it's obvious but cooking is very similar to making art whereas

ingredients + some magical unknown element = potential for a masterpiece.

That said, I find a bad day in the kitchen as frustrating as a bad day in the studio. On Sunday I failed trying to make jam for the first, maybe second time. Things started out ok.

Somewhere between lemon juice, boiling points, and flavored pectin substitutes my jam turned out as a tart mushy fruit paste. At least I had my mom on skype to make me feel better about things (thanks mom). Ask her, and she'll tell you that I am irrationally irritable about kitchen fails.

Thankfully, the day got better from there. I ventured to the lovely seaside village of Portobello.

new hat

Portobello Beach, 9 PM

Some musicians friends, and ringleaders of the Edinburgh folk music scene, Bill and Sue, had the "kids" over for chili and cornbread and a glass of wine. Now, Sue is the kind of person who probably never has disastrous days in the kitchen. Their home is down a narrow tree-lined street, and is full of homemade tea pots, art all over the walls, instruments all over the floor, delicious concoctions coming from the kitchen all the time, and a stone wall herb garden out back where sea winds blow in from the east.

wee street in Portobello

buddies mike & dave, with bikes and banjos

The chili was superb, and wine always tastes better surrounded by friends, out in backyard herb gardens as the sun sets. Nice evening! I left feeling full and blessed, and altogether better about the whole jam failure.