I'm almost back to normal.  Ok, as normal as I'll ever be - lol.  Abby-normal as some would say.  By Thursday I was somewhat walking like a real person and my right arm was not totally hurting and I was ready to rejoin the world.  Now, does that mean that I once again was cooking?  Not on your life.  Seems that I took my right-hand woman Steph to Maggiano's for lunch early last week.  We had some business to work on and had been to another apppointment and lunch beckoned.  Now, it seems that they have a special.  Buy one classic pasta and get another free.  That's a deal I can get behind.  Oh, and I managed to have a salad for lunch and have them not "make" the pastas so I could cook them at home. 

Now, the other part to this story is that we've had sugar ants.  The pest folks have been out here twice.  This'll take care of them, they'd say.  No, it didn't.  Turned out when the fellows scraped the siding on the south side of the house they found it'd not been primed with an oil-based primer and the siding was totally soaked.  Ah, no wonder the paint failed in a little over five years - since the neighbors have told us the house was painted right before we bought it.  No wonder I had huge patches peeling off.  Paint doesn't like to adhere to wet surfaces.  So, they tore off the back of my house and have started to put up new siding.  And, the pest control guy showed up for his third visit while they were tearing off the siding.  No wonder the treatments didn't work he says.  Lovely.  Thank you so very little. 

By this week I knew I was close.  An appointment with Dr. Bruce made a big difference.  And, yes, I restrained myself from socking him when he dug into the bad ankle.  After all, he is a great guy and I didn't want to hurt him.  Icing my ankle daily helped.  And, time is my friend - for once :-)

Now, what does that have to do with the price of apples?  I've not been cooking as much as usual because it's hurt to stand.  So, my queue isn't full of current recipes to post.  Many moons ago I promised to show you all my vinegar and oil bottles.  They were all cleaned off the counter for the fellow to spray.  That means I got to take photos as I put them back.  So everyone can have a laugh at my collection.  I know it's a bit over the top.  But, really and truly, I do use all of these. 

So, a quick funny story.  A couple of years ago I had a gal who was helping clean for the big annual client appreciation party we have every January.  She asked me about whether I wanted all the liqueur bottles moved and cleaned.  Pardon me???  They're all in the bar.  Oh, you mean all the vinegar bottles?  The look on her face was priceless.  Someone owns that many bottles of vinegar???

I know, how many kinds of vinegar does one person need?  Well, it depends on how they cook.  For me, it's a case of the more the merrier. 

Here's a partial list of the vinegars I have:
good red wine
cheap red wine
apricot balsamic
honeydew melon balsamic
orange balsamic
raspberry
malt
champagne
rice
tarragon
citrus balsamic
pear
white balsamic
balsamic
sherry wine
herbal wine
big red cranberry
vanilla fig balsamic
lemon balsamic
chocolate balsamic
strawberry balsamic
onion thyme

Ok, on to the oils:
extra virgin olive oil
olive oil
hazelnut
white truffle
black truffle
grapeseed
canola