matter is neither created nor destroyed. i know this.

Spent the day cooking. Not because it's the New Year. No, it's just because I want to work on some projects and I find that cooking every other day sucks up more energy than I wish it did. That said, I'm pretty committed to eating healthy so don't want to start throwing fast meals together because that usually means the nutrition part gets haphazard.

Okay, so I cooked like a demon. All told, I think I've got almost three weeks of meals frozen. Chili, Senate bean soup (that's really what the recipe is called--it's just a ham bone, white northern beans, carrots, onions, garlic, etc.), arroz con pollo y frijoles negros, and corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. The corned beef I didn't freeze because the potatoes get all gross mealy.

Now the reason I'm telling you all this is not just to brag like a self-righteous pioneer. No, I want to talk about weird physics. Stay with me, this shouldn't take long. Okay, sometimes I drive to work in the morning and at the end of the day I get in my car and find I need to adjust the seat. I'm relatively sure I haven't shrunk over the day but I can't figure out how my legs felt comfortable reaching the pedals at 7am but suddenly need to be closer at 5pm.

The corned beef recipe called for 2 teaspoons of peppercorns. This went into a large dutch oven. Two teaspoons is not really that much when it's swimming in a gallon of broth. When I took the corned beef out and dumped the cabbage and potatoes into the hot broth to cook, I didn't add any more seasonings. When everything was cooked and cooled I moved the cabbage and potatoes into two casserole dishes and combined them with the corned beef.

I like the flavor of pepper and cloves and bay leaves. I'm just not interested in biting into any of them. So I started removing them from the dish. Bay leaves and cloves accounted for and plucked out. Here's the weird physics: I am pulling out peppercorns and they just keep coming. Like clowns out of a VW. Like rabbits out of cages. I am looking at a pile of peppercorns that is way greater than the amount I measured into the pot. Where did they all come from? Fucking peppercorns.