Homemade chicken and dumplings

       It was made in a Japanese magnetic induction rice cooker to boot...and kept warm by the same machine. In that function it beats a slow cooker, at least to me. And the onions in it include some from Peru, which is still unbelievable to me in this small town in east Tennessee.

            Now this will be a relatively warm fall weather day here locally, and I think the chicken and dumplings are probably more a cooler day meal, but so what. That's the mood I was in, and I did use local grocery store food vice drawing down my stockpile.

            On drawing down a stockpile, one does not want to let anything go to waste, so drawing down the stockpile has good reasons, as long as I get newer inventory to replace it. None of this is rocket science. In the food service industry, it used to be called rotating the stock, and FIFO (first in first out) reigned supreme.

            Now I am thankful that I have public electricity to do all this cooking. The stories about the poor souls who do not have local power because of storm Sandy, nor know what to do without this energy, make me thankful for what I do have.  I even once lived in a canvas tent with a dirt floor where it never got above freezing for more than thirty days, but did OK because I knew what to do, and set my standards low enough. And I did not have electricity in this place in Korea.  And fortunately now (it was not too fun then), I have lived in other such existences elsewhere, too. Hence I really do appreciate what we do have here in east Tennessee. Heck, I live in a metal roofed cottage with wood floors and minimal heat, which is like a champ to me. Now I do wear long johns, kind of like the old days. And there is plenty of wood for the wood stove. And I still don't like cold showers.

            And the aroma from the chicken and dumplings is pretty good today.