Life

The more I write on this blog the more I have come to see what one of my passions is. If you have read the majority of these posts you will realize a reoccurring theme, food. I love food. In fact I ride, climb and run more just so I can eat more food. Not only do I adore eating food but I love making it. The other night I got the craving for a chicken pot pie so instead of doing what most people my age do (I am 25) and going and buying a mediocre one, I made one, but alas I just can't bring myself to follow a recipe so started it like they say. I had onions, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, red peppers and chicken broth. Now for the fun stuff, I added turmeric, curry powder, cumin, and cayenne. Essentially I made a curry inspired chicken pot pie.

The cooked chicken with tons of spice

Simmering the broth down

All cooked up and ready for the pastry top

All covered up, doesn't look like a chicken pot pie...yet

The finished product, it was amazing

Then today I got bored after getting frustrated with my van, more about that in a bit, and decided to make desert for supper since my sister was making steaks. So I grabbed my cook book and read the concept behind apple crisp and again apples by themselves are good but add canned peaches from my grandma and some black berries and 'BAM' amazing. I will make one change next time which is to remove the 1/2 cup of brown sugar in favor of a bit of honey, it was a bit too sweet for my taste.

A bit runny but still full of flavor

There is something about cooking that occupies my mind and is very satisfying. It is the creation from many tastes and smells into one amazing dish. It is like life and our experiences. We are not simple just the result of a single event but the culmination of all of our experiences and the way they have changed and steered us to the individuals we are today.

Now enough about food because if I keep writing I will have to go and eat more and since I haven't been biking might not be the best idea, and on to my van. By which I mean the van owned by my sister, my brother and I. We own a 2002 Ford Windstar. Since we have bought this van, the transmission and alternators have gone and been replaced and now a leak. At first we decided it was the water pump. So being the guy I am I was like I can fix that. So I take off the alternator and a whole bunch of other items lift the engine 3 inches. Thats right had to lift the engine to remove the water pump. Once it was out the gasket took another 2 hours of scrapping and gasket remover to come off but being paranoid of a gasket not sealing convinced me it was time well spent. I then reassembles everything put the wheel back on. Oh did I mention I had to take off the passenger side wheel.  Once I added the coolant there it was drip, drip, drip, drip. So story short 15+ hours of work and nothing has been solved. So tomorrow I will wake up AGAIN, done my greasy dirty work clothes and try and figure out what is wrong and if I can't find the source of this leak then it will be fingers crossed bars leaks to the rescue. Well at least until I can get home for Thanksgiving and my dad and I can find the actual source of the problem and fix it for good. Oh and by the way, I can't wait to have a job where I can afford to own all the tools I actually need to make these fixes a lot faster.

The water pump almost ready to go or so I thought.

On the plus side this post really has calmed me down and let me get out a lot of my frustration with the whole event.