I am, within certain limits, a competent cook, and living alone I don’t get a lot of chance to cook for others. But it has been a crazy couple of weeks, and so I took hastily bought potato chips to a church potluck on Sunday, and then when we had a potluck at work for Kay Rose on Monday, I went in on Food Lion fried chicken along with the rest of the guys (and a few gals).

Tonight is our last Spanish class at Motlow, and we’re supposed to bring food. But I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. I planned to zip by the grocery store and buy the fixings for homemade guacamole, which I love, but most of the avocados at Kroger were nasty (really nasty — they practically collapsed in your hand) and that made me scared of the rest. So I ended up buying bean dip and salsa. I at least tried to get interesting brands, and I have transferred them into plastic containers for serving.

Some years back, Mary Jane Miller had a potluck at her home in Wartrace. It may have been right before she went into the mission field. She didn’t know how much I loved to cook, and when inviting me, she hinted that it would be okay if I wanted to bring chips or soda. That got my dander up — I thought she was implying that men couldn’t cook, although she later said she just knew that I was busy — and I found a recipe for dill bread that I’d been meaning to try. I was determined to show Mary Jane that I could cook after all!

Well, I used the wrong size loaf pan and the loaf flopped over it like some sort of woodland fungus. It tasted fine, but it looked — well, it looked like it had been baked by a bachelor.

Chips and salsa will do tonight.