I mentioned earlier that yesterday was my wife’s birthday. The big gift for her birthday this year was an Epson Stylus Photo R380. Yes, she’s that kind of girl (the kind who likes electronics as gifts) and I’m that kind of guy (who is apt to give electronics as a gift to his wife). She had been talking about getting a new inkjet to be able to print photos. We had one that came “free” with the last Dell laptop I bought but it was utter crap. That’s what you can expect with “free” printers.

Anyway, the new printer is good but I found that it has a color balance problem. I’ve been testing it with a of Ice, the best feline companion we’ve ever had, now deceased. Here’s the problem: Ice is white but appears with a pink hue in the pictures I’ve been printing. So now I’m fiddling with the settings to try to see if I can turn off some “feature” which might be messing with the color balance.

Meh…

I just caught a glimpse of a show called “Divorce Court”. It seems to be some sort of show where people with marital problems air their grievances in front of a judge. Anyway, just as I come across that show I hear the following exchange. I’m paraphrasing but I think I have the gist here.

JUDGE [TO HUSBAND]: she says you like plus-size women, is that true?
HUSBAND: That’s right.
JUDGE: Why do you like plus-size women?
HUSBAND: Well, plus-size women know how to pamper a man. You know… they know how to take care of their man. Thin women don’t know how to cook. Plus-size women know how to cook. I like my food greasy.

And so on and so forth… Basically, the guy likes plus-size women not because he associates obesity with overindulgent eating habits and hopes to benefit from those habits. And thin women don’t know how to cook. Ain’t that charming.

Before anybody gets the bright idea that I spend my days watching “Divorce Court”, I caught a glimpse of it while I was sorting out my recorded episodes of “Kahani Saat Pheron Ki”. That’s a Hindi show I watch to try to keep my Hindi fresh… somehow. Oh alright, it’s a soap opera… but I watch it for educational purposes! I do have some standards.

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday. For the occasion, I shook off my laziness and baked her a lemon meringue pie. It was a semi-success. The taste was perfect. However, the pie crust did not turn out well. I made a special crust because my wife and I wanted her daughter (my step-daughter) to be able to have the pie. She can’t process gluten so the usual kind of crust would not have worked.

So I’ve used a crust recipe we’ve often used in the past for making another kind of pie. That’s the problem, in its original context that crust works perfectly but for a lemon meringue pie, it does not work. When the time came to eat the pie, I found that the lemon filling had weakened the crust. I know the crust was fine before I put the lemon filling in. Lesson learned: don’t use the crust for a heavenly silk pie to make a lemon pie.

I also over-whipped the meringue. Not a disaster by any means but it was so stiff that I could not make any nice waves or peaks on top of the pie. Oh well. Tasty anyway and my wife enjoyed a good home-made pie.