On Friday I went home during lunch and prepared chili for dinner. I just bought some new spices, and I was looking forward to trying them out. My two choices were chipotle chile powder and jamaican jerk. After careful smelling, the consensus was that these two spices are not to be combined. My dad preferred the chipotle, so I went with that. Before cooking the meat, I heated up some oil with chipotle and minced onions on the skillet. More about that in a minute. I browned the ground sirloin and put it in the crock pot along with 2 cans of black beans, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, a tablespoon of chipotle chile powder, and a tablespoon of generic chili powder. When I got home from work in the evening, the house had a definite smell. The smell was similar to chipotle but kinda bad… sort of a burnt smell. This was not a good sign for the chili. Fortunately, the chili itself smelled fine and tasted great. The best I can guess is that the smell in the kitched was a result of burning some of the spice while I was heating it up on the skillet. Hopefully the smell will fade before too long.
On a different subject, I’ve been thinking about how Valentine’s Day is such a great opportunity to ask someone on a date. The conversation would go something like this:
- Him: So do you have big plans for Valentine’s?
Possibility 1:
- Her: Yeah, I do
- Him: Really? What do you have planned?
- Her: Well, I’ll be going out with my boyfriend to such and such……
Possibility 2:
- Her: No, not really.
- Him: Really? A beautiful girl like you with no date?
- Her: Nope.
- Her: What about you?
- Him: No, I don’t have any plans.
- *awkward silence*
- Him: Want to hang out on Valentine’s? I know this great restaurant…
Either way, you’re better off than you started. In the first possibility, you at least learn more about her. With the second possibility, there is so much upside. First, you don’t have to necessarily call it a date; it’s just spending time together and avoiding being alone on Valentine’s Day. Second, if it does work out, well then it is a date. 🙂 Regardless of the outcome, you leave yourself less exposed than if you asked this any other week; asking someone about their Valentine’s plans is casual conversation, whereas asking them about their Saturday night plans and then suggesting something has no subtlety.
Wondering if it worked? Well, I never got the chance to use this on the person I was hoping to, so I guess we won’t know.