I don't know about you, but I have an inordinate amount of piles in my house. Piles that get shifted to various locations depending on the goings on of the household. Typically mail piles are pretty much everywhere unless people are coming over. Then they get shoved into drawers. Which is really bad because bills tend to resurface two months after they're due. I try to throw school piles away but little monsters will go through the trash to rescue them. A friend once told me to make a bin for the crème de la crème of school projects, which I did. Ninety percent of the backpack doesn't make the cut, which works fine for me until someone empties the garbage looking for her drawing which then becomes another pile of bad art.
Then there are old computer parts piles. Books and disks (do they even make disk drives anymore?) to Commodore 64 type machines, computers that I haven't used for 10 years but am afraid to throw away their manuals because who knows when you'll finally get around to selling them on Ebay, right?
Don't even think about kitchen drawer piles. These are the receptacles for anything and everything that doesn't have a home elsewhere. Where else can you find a Polly Pocket shoe and a mini wire whisk? A receipt from 1996 and 200 Bobby pins? A hammer, a headband and that medicine dispenser to the children's Tylenol that I couldn't find last week.
I'm not a hoarder, but I do have problems sorting. Socks with no partners remain in drawers for years. Tupperware lids that haven't seen their mates since last year sit waiting. Piles of bills, piles of notes to myself, piles of "I need this in the next day so I'll leave it in common view," and piles of more piles.
So I get really mad when I walk into my friends' homes and they have NO PILES. NONE. Where are they??? Seriously, how can people be so darn organized? Last week when I was at unnamed friend's house I happened to peek into her kitchen drawer. It had yellow markers in one section, red markers in another and nicely sharpened pencils in the third. Seriously? I couldn't resist. The next drawer had 10 (I counted) medicine dispensers all neatly stacked. No random scissors and nail files mixed in. Totally unfair. And then upstairs in her daughter's room? The Mack Daddy of all OCD displays was in the closet. Six grosgrain ribbons filled with perfectly organized hair bows sorted by color. Bitch.
So this year my New Year's resolution won't be to be organized. It isn't possible. Piles will still appear in and around my house. And if you come over you won't see them unless you try to open a drawer (and can't) or take a look at the guest room closet. It will be to embrace my piles and try to make them straighter as they sit around the house. Which brings me to dinner.
Tonight's dinner is a Pile of Brisket. Because after cooking it for a million hours it didn't exactly stay in one piece. But it's delicious. And who cares if it's in a pile? Just pile it on some rice and you're good to go. This is my absolute most favorite brisket recipe in the world. Your house will smell warm and saucy, so it's great for a super cold night. Stick it in the Crock Pot in the morning before work and move it very far away from anywhere where a dog can get it. It's done in ten hours. The longer you cook it, the better. Slow and Low. That's what we're going for.
This is for all you neat freaks with no piles. Pile this on.
Slow Cooked Pile 'O Brisket
Ingredients:
- One Brisket (Costco ones are great)
- Ketchup (about 2 cups, not that I'm measuring)
- Honey (about a cup)
- One packet onion soup mix
- Soy Sauce (few splashes)
- Garlic (four to five cloves, peeled and sliced in half)
- Worcestershire sauce (few dashes)
Directions:
- Mix up all ingredients.
- Wash and dry brisket.
- Make slits in brisket and place garlic cloves inside slits.
- Season with a sprinkle of S&P.
- Put a little water in the bottom of crock pot.
- Place brisket inside crock pot and cover with sauce. (You can also cook in the oven on 200, covered with foil)
- Cook covered on low for eight to 10 hours.
- Remove and try to slice against the grain. You won't be able to because it's so damn good it's already fallen apart.
- Eat on a pile of white rice.
- Laugh at your friends who have no piles but can't cook brisket.