Bad news. The poached fish fell flat. Maybe not exactly flat. It looked good and tasted okay but fell short of greatness. Since many restaurants provide okay taste lacking greatness, why bother cooking at home? We cook to greatness, not less.

Fortunately, the bread and potatoes wowed the diners.

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Last summer, we bought half a cow from the Amish. It’s great meat, no weird stuff, no extra hormones or steroids. All this is sitting in the freezer. Or, some of it is. It seems that last time someone got something out, a package of beef fell out, and stopped the door from closing. All the meat on the door thawed out. Thankfully, what was in the freezer proper stayed frozen.

Still this left us with about twenty pounds of stewing beef that we had to cook right away. So, as we were making our various stews and freezing them, it occurred to me that people don’t do this as often any more.

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The last five pumpkins of the season sit outside our window, orange against brilliant yellow leaves that fell from the sweet maple onto the deck. We grow our own pumpkins, but if we did not, this is the time I’d go pumpkin shopping. The Halloween thing is over and pumpkins are on sale. No one is looking to carve jack o’ lanterns and most folks do not realize they can find food inside the pumpkin; lot’s of food.

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