Down at the dock

Despite living on my own, I spend a fair amount of time cooking.  I like the creativity, the choppng, the mixing.  I like taking raw ingredients and making something hot and delicious I can savor.  Something simple, like pasta and sauteed veggies and a salad.  Yum.  Most of the time, my culinary creativity is a success.  I'm not a foodie, but I enjoy good food prepared simply and well.  Sometimes, however, my efforts hit rock bottom and I am left with a total mess or something inedible.  On Saturday, February 25, my efforts were in the inedible category.

I had purchased two chickens, BOGO, at Giant Eagle, my local grocer, and roasted both of them.  Easy enough.  I took the meat off the bones, froze most of it, and then made gravy.  My dinner menu called for biscuits, gravy, and some of that good chicken.  Mmmm.  Problem is, I can't find a good biscuit recipe, so on this particular Saturday I gave up my search and used a mix.  Big mistake.  HUGE.  The biscuits were tasteless rounds of awfulness.  No more biscuit mix!

On Sunday after church, I took those failed biscuits to the dock to feed the gulls.  I know I should not feed the birds people food, but it is fun to do once in a while.  I parked near Smuggler's restaurant.  I could see a flock of 50 or so gulls resting at the water's edge, so I grabbed my bag of biscuits and headed for the pier.

The birds saw me (and the bag) approach, and en masse walked over to greet me.  It was the strangest thing; they actually walked over to me.  Evidently I am not the only one to feed the birds!  The gulls and I walked to the water's edge, to be out of the way of traffic, and the birds began to put up a fuss.  Feed me! they seemed to say, so for the next several minutes I tossed crumbs to them as they crowded about me.  The gulls were so close I could have reached down to pick them up.

When I was done, I folded the bag, said to the flock "That's it.  There isn't any more," and began to walk away.  The gulls must have thought I was lying or perhaps needed an escort, because the flock walked me to my car.  One even perched on my car hood and waited for me. "Shoo," I told him before I had reason to wash the car, "shoo!"  The rest of the flock stared at me in silent reproach.  But I drove away without a backwards glance.  I will not be made to feel guilty by a flock of gulls.