Manic Monday

The storm will make landfall this week. It officially begins with soybean data reviews. And how do I prepare for the onslaught? With a day full to the brim of meetings. One after the other, after the other, after the other. I would have seven meetings in total, some a half hour, most an hour or more. There isn’t a lot to say and I suspect the next weeks will be the same, limited detail about what goes on as I’ll be in meetings or working on the side as a result of said meetings. I’ll try to keep you in tune with what I consumed though, since that is where this run of daily food updates started from back on April 17, 2020. Go and check, I haven’t missed one. Sometimes I’m late in posting them, mostly lately where I’ve had month long delays. You won’t know that though, coming in years later to uncover this mundane retelling of my life. Anyways, breakfast was the usual and then for lunch I felt like I needed to hit the easy button and I only have limited time to stop to eat. I warmed up a couple packages of Great Value branded pad thai. They changed the packaging a few times in the last year, I assume for either upgrades or possibly to cover off supply shortages. Now they’ve messed with the noodles. This change is much more drastic and for me it did not improve the experience. I could understand the packaging and was pretty neutral on that front. This is a step too far, messing the integrity of the dish itself. Not a fan of the alteration.

The afternoon was all meetings, varying from my familiar team to some meet and greet type calls with new people in the US who will cross over with me. Apparently I’ve got the third most experience on our team all of a sudden, for their actual team (US only members) the third most experience is from a guy hired in this calendar year. Let that sink it. The amount of institutional knowledge this company has allowed to walk out the door is astounding. We’re going to have to learn almost everything from the ground up in some areas. I think that is the hope, some kind of rebirth or birth from fire. I don’t know. The afternoon zipped by and I finally said goodbye to the last person close to half five. For dinner I elected to set myself up for lunch for a chunk of the week by whipping up a batch of Tugboat’s Gutfill Gumbo. It has nothing to do with gumbo outside of being spicy. It does fill the guts up though. I made this batch in the traditional way which you can see in the original Tugboat in the Kitchen video. I happened to rewatch that video just now and it’s not good. I should probably re-do it now that I have some better equipment. I guess it wasn’t exactly in the traditional way. I had some leftover shiitake mushrooms from the Family Feast so I opted to fry them up in some oil then chop them a bit and include them. It did add something to the meal, unless you hate mushrooms. Either way, lots of leftovers from this, even after I filled my guts.

The evening was a bit of a blur. Mostly MSF and YouTube. There was some light groaning and discomfort which is what happens when you fill your guts too fast. I’d love to know if you’ve tried this recipe on your side and what you thought. Did you make any “improvements”, what were they and why did you think you could improve on perfection? Let me know in the comments, or to my face if we see each other. Or don’t, whatever works.