A Few Quick Notes 155

-Today, as predicted by Environment Canada, was quite warm. As far as I can tell, there wasn't a part of the day during which a full winter coat was needed, and when the sun was out during the middle part of the day things were really quite pleasant. Since that time there has been some deterioration in the form of precipitation, but nothing major.

-As regular readers of this blog will know, for years I have had an inability it cook beans and other legumes in a personally satisfactory manner. Somewhat surprisingly, this does not mean that I have stopped trying. Actually, my culinary efforts have been quite to the contrary, bean dishes spring forth from our fertile kitchen with a surprising rapidity. The problem is that most of these dishes verge on inedibility.

Remarkably, for dinner tonight I managed to make a bean dish that was more than just edible, it was actually tasty.

For some reason I decided that I would try to make chickpea curry. To find out how to do this I slotted both words into a handy Google search box. If I recall correctly I examined only the first entry and found that I had all of the needed ingredients (why go further just to find that I wouldn't be able to make another version of the same thing).

Of course, being me, I decided that I didn't really need to follow the recipe and would rather just use it as a form of guidance.

Within a few minutes I was on my merry way, frying onions and tossing in unmeasured quantities of spices.

One early, though major, modification was to add a chicken breast. This was mainly because I had earlier in the day thawed the piece of meat and felt that it would be best to use it before it spoiled. Also, who wants to eat a meal that doesn't have at least some form of meat?

After allowing the meat, chickpeas, and spices to simmer for some period of time I added a few stalks of celery. I didn't have a particularly good reason for making this addition, but I guess I felt that I should have some fresh vegetables with my meal.

Anyway, after allowing the celery to cook with the rest of the dish for some period of time I served myself a generous portion on top of a bed of rice. Immediately I was surprised to find that it was edible. As I continued to eat I learned that it was not just edible but tasty. Maybe I will have to try this again in the future, or maybe I want to stop cooking beans/legumes on a high note.

-For some reason all of people covered by today's Globe and Mail Obituary section were quite young. If I recall correctly, the oldest individual to be profiled was 67, while one or two were in the 56-57 range. Such a range of ages is much more depressing than the typical coverage of ninety year-olds.