One of the many ways that Melissa takes care of us is by cooking almost every day. She chooses recipes from a select set of cookbooks, and from a couple of binders filled with scraps of paper containing some of her (and our) favorites that she has collected over many years. These recipes constitute “The Rotation”, which means dishes that are fit for the Butsons to eat. Melissa is adventurous but chooses recipes very carefully, and as a result rejections are rare. Much more common are cases where dishes that initially sounded quite strange (Moroccan cinnamon chicken or quinoa kale chard fritters come to mind) turned out to be among our favorites. One recent culinary experiment that was especially delicious has since been christened “cuffins” or “mookies”, depending on who you ask. Basically these consist of cookie dough baked in muffin pans with a chunk of caramel in the middle. They are dangerously delicious. I’ll post a picture as soon as someone bakes me another batch of them and I get a chance to photograph one before they are all gone. I’m also broadcasting the aroma using the new Smell-O-Vision feature on our website. Everett has taken an interest in cooking as well. He slides his chair from the dining room to the kitchen and stands on it while helping Melissa. The two of them have made several batches of cuffins, most recently to repay the Halligan family for the jungle gym in the back yard.

As a final related note I will add that Everett seems to love stinky cheese almost as much as we do. We attribute this to his early formative experiences in Switzerland and the fact that he was indirectly eating all kinds of cheeses (via breast milk) whether he liked them or not. He really enjoys Roquefort,

which is Grandaddy’s favorite cheese and was the name of his cat when he was a boy. Everett does not yet know about the kerfuffle between the US and France over the cheese: it seems that in the final hours of his presidency George Bush chose to create new problems rather than address any of the numerous, staggeringly large ones he had already caused. To be honest, bringing this to Everett’s attention seems unnecessary.