Since the weather turned cold and wet, I decided on a warm, spicy breakfast for Sabbath. Dutch babies with hot cinnamon apples over the top. My honey would want whipped cream on his, however, due to sugar inducing hot flashes, I would avoid that. The apples would be sweet enough for me. They were frozen chunks of last year’s Honeycrisp harvest from our backyard tree. Everything had been prepared and precooked yesterday, all I had to do was reheat.

Despite the dishwasher overflowing suds just before going to bed, and having to google how to “reset” it so it would stop flashing and binging loudly, I slept fairly decently. Any night that I only wake up once is decent right now. If I wake up before my dad, I will hesitate to cook anything that smells delicious because I know the smell of food wakes me up, and I try to be considerate. I skimmed the newspaper headlines, stopping once to read about consumers increasing their organic food purchasing, enjoyed each and every comic on the last page. Our old cat came up and trilled for some attention, flopping on the ground with her belly up. With this one, belly up does mean rub my belly. With the other one it means come touch my belly so I can rip your hand to shreds for doing so. I finally turned on the toaster oven to warm up the Dutch baby and went back to the cat. That’s when I smelled it.

It was a cross between stinky shoes and tacos, maybe mixed with a litter box. I checked the old girls back end, since she sometimes has cling-ons after using the box. There was a little one that was quickly remedied with a baby wipe and some vigorous hand washing on my part. Not enough to explain the smell that remained though. I went back in the kitchen and turned on the topping pan. As the smell of cinnamon apples began to fill the air, I moved toward the toaster oven to check the Dutch babies, when it suddenly dawned on me what the smell was.

Last night’s dinner. I had broiled sweet potatoes in that oven last night. Doesn’t sound like that should smell bad? They were coated in cumin, paprika, turmeric salt and oil. If I recall, that smell tends to linger on the toaster oven elements for a couple uses after. Obviously, I like that smell, since the recipe is one repeated often in our home. But when you are expecting a warm, buttery, bread smell, and it has mixed with those strong spices, it does something. Smell plays a huge part in what we eat. If it smells bad, our brains assume it will taste bad too affecting the way we taste it. So I am struggling with the mix of the strong smells. I can smell the cumin, but am tasting apples. I want to smell only cinnamon, but, alas, it is too late for that.

Yummy or yuck? I still can’t decide. Maybe a second piece will help me make that decision! Hope your day is filled with more yummy than yuck!