My weekend job

Ok, yes, my weekend job does often consist of the same work that the Monday-Friday gig necessitates, but not quite to the extent it used to this time of year.  And really, I like to focus on weekend job requirements like "sleep in" and "catch up on magazines" and "watch excessive amounts of television" and "generally be lazy," all of which I happen to think I'm exceptionally good at. 

Lately, though, I've tacked on an actual job of sorts.  A random, every third weekend or so kind of job that I actually really like doing.  You see, there's this awesome Texan ex-pat living in New York who goes by Homesick Texan and has a fantastic blog and is having a cookbook published next September and through some magic of the emails and interwebs is having me test recipes for the cookbook, which I am insanely excited about.  I can't really tell you anything about the recipes or what I've been making (otherwise the legal-types will come after me, ick), but I requested desserts and baked goods, and that's what I've been getting, and they're amazing.  And dangerous.  Like, need to get this stuff out of the house as soon as possible so I don't consume all of it in one sitting kind of dangerous.

This job doesn't exactly come with an astounding salary...in fact, I'm getting paid bupkis, but I don't care about that at all because I'm having fun in the kitchen and doing something I really love.  My anal nature is great for analyzing each part of the recipe and tweaking and perfecting.  I get to write a little bit AND play in the kitchen.  How do I do this full-time, please?  Oh, I do get a mention in the cookbook and a free copy when it's published, so that's compensation enough for me.

So, in the midst of all this Tex-Mex goodness...one weekend I got all nostalgic and made chicken tacos and guacamole and tomatillo salsa and a dessert experiment in the form of Mexican chocolate pralines, which turned out better than I thought and quite tasty given that there was a minor candy thermometer mishap in the middle of the process.  I really, really love food.

Photo by Lisa Fain at Homesick Texan