The best part.

The best part of mole poblano is how complex it tastes: it has sweetness to it, like a fruit or, yes, probably the chocolate, but a faint bitterness in back of that, and then there's heat, a little, and it's earthy and round.

The best part of mole poblano is that it is more versatile than its usual applications imply: I made enchiladas with it, and the vegetarian ones, with goat cheeses and chopped squash peppers onion mushroom were so good.

The best part of mole poblano is coming to understand the character of those dried peppers: mulato pasilla ancho: torn into pieces and fried, the unbelievable aroma of them frying, then soaking and pulverizing them, their pulp the deep dark basis of the sauce.

The best part of mole poblano is that I made it, that I made it over the course of three days, that it was an ordeal and a process, and that that ordeal, that process, yielded something so completely satisfying.

And that is the end of the mole poblano. At least, the end of the mole poblano posts--I have a lot of the actual mole left.

We baked, we cooked, we plotzed.

I have cooked and/or baked the following over the last week or so:

• butterscotch crescent rolls,
• almond cardamom bread,
• cookies galore,
• almond, pumpkin seed, and cashew brittle,
• caramels,
• spicy cashews with wasabi peas,
• a chocolate souffle cake,
• coconut cupcakes,
• roasted potatoes,
• maple roasted yams,
• roast rosemary pork,
• cauliflower au gratin, twice,
• salads galore,
• steamed broccoli,
• baguette,
• white bean soup with leftover roast pork,
• roasted pumpkin soup, thai-spiced,
• corn muffins,
• more roasted potatoes.

Also, I have cut up

• four pineapples.

Tonight, we had leftovers and may I say,  I could barely heat them up in the microwave properly.  My own soup was a teeny bit on the lukewarm side. I think it's possible I have cooked myself into a corner that I can't even punch my way out of.  (Am I a fighter now? an aging prize fighter/cook that has been cornered by the food itself, and is this an appropriate metaphor? I am so tired I can't even tell. You be the judge.)

Six-word memoir.

"I want this, I want that."

Also:

"I love this, I hate that."

Rosy spin update: not as rosy. Did my students revise anything? Do they know anything more about themselves as writers than they did before we all started this ordeal? Are e-portfolios a tool of the Devil, or merely the handmaidens of Satan?

One more six-word memoir: "I am a terrible, terrible teacher."

Also:

"Make the bad bad writing stop."

Or, and lastly,

"Kill me now. I mean it."

(I will flesh these out at some later date. After I've slept for about a week.)