Good grief, if Pioneer Woman's recipes don't put you in the grave with butter and bacon grease, they will for effort. Gads, I'm exhausted after making her Braised Short Ribs and Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich, which is chopped steak, onions and butter sauce on a hoagie bun.

See, I went ahead and made the short ribs because the date on package said sell by April 1. We'll eat them tomorrow since they're supposed to be better the second day anyway. Plus, after chilling the fat is easier to scrape off. In the middle of browning the ribs I thought, I hope an opened bottle of wine is still good after 3 or 4 months, in the fridge of course. So I had to check stilltasty.com. They said use your opened wine by day 5 or freeze it for cooking later. Okay, so I'm only off by . . . 3 or 4 months minus 5 days. Next I emailed Miss Orcas and asked her mighty opinion, she's good at this stuff. Meanwhile, I went ahead and poured my wine on the ribs and shoved the whole mess in the oven, what else was I going to do? I read what Miss Orcas wrote back while the ribs were cooling on the stove. She's some kind of wine snob, she revealed, and therefore I, the keeper of bottles of ancient opened wine, was asking the wrong person. And she said she wouldn't drink wine after the first day and wouldn't cook with it after the 5 days and to listen to stilltasty. Too late. Now I'm going to Google, How long does wine last before it kills you? I figured it was like vinegar and would last forever. Miss Orcas insists it's all bad in no time. It oxidizes. Well, rats, now I have to eat the ribs anyway. And do check the obits.

Then I made the favorite sandwich because I had the rolls I wanted to use up. The meat was cubed steak and, please, let it not be, but, oh yes, it is brown in the middle on most of the pieces. Looks nothing short of totally repulsive. So I had to go Google, Why is meat brown in the center? It's amazing how many people not only have the same question, but the smarties who have the answer, too. The answers had mainly to do with oxygen (oxygen again, see above paragraph) not getting to the middle of the meat or grocery stores dying the meat or something, don't quote me. Too bad, it's the grossest thing ever, brown in the middle, stinko. The bottom line was, If it looks gray, feels slimy, smells bad, then don't eat it, it's probably spoiling. Really? My solution was to lay it all out on a plate, exposed to air, I mean, some of the surfaces of the meat were brown, too. I have to say, it turned more red when the oxygen could circulate. It didn't feel super slimy (doesn't all meat feel a little wet?) and it didn't seem to smell bad. Well, I ended up using most of the meat. My motto is, When in doubt, don't pout, just listen to your snout and stick to the same route. (Did I seriously just write that?) For dinner it was just my stepson. I said, What'd you have for lunch? Subway, says he. Like I've said multiple times, I have the knack. And so does my stepson.

I love for my darling husband to read these things after the fact. His sandwich was made special, "fresh," after he got home from choir practice, with the, unbeknownst to him, brown meat that had sprung to life again, not peppy life, mind you, but life on a breathing tube, specifically, cubed steak on life support. Stepson and I had the two pieces that were red throughout. Well come on, this is the young man who gave me Chop Wizard for Christmas. (And just so you know, I made Deviled Eggs somewhere between the ribs and the sandwiches. Mike snacked on those before his sandwich and asks, How old are these? The nerve of some people.)

So, like Uncle Pete said, I make a big deal of everything. It would have been easier to just jump in the car and go buy new wine and return the brown meat. Except I didn't have any make-up on. Or any clothes. Well, I had clothes on, but the kind only my four walls are allowed to see.

I see a parallel here, red wine, red (supposedly) meat, old wine, old meat. Oh, pooh!

I am slated for bed within the hour, I cannot go on in my present condition. BTW, the Marlboro Man sandwiches were good, if the meat was past due, you could have fooled me, except for the hideous shade of gray-brown, can't emphasize this enough. I wanted to make PW'S Baked Fudge, but who had anything left after these flaws-in-the-slaws to do that? NOT I said the Little Red KEM!!! Oh yeah, and by the way, my cabbage is also aging in the fridge.

I tell you what, I'm much better at salads, they are such a GIFT.

DTD is here all night goofing off on Facebook. Good for her, she works too hard anyway. She couldn't believe I should be watching a reality TV show, First Love Second Chance. I can't believe it either. But I've watched it for 4 Wednesdays in a row, I've seen everything they have to offer so far.

KEM of the Kolor RED P.S. I just researched opened wine. Everyone is a Super Wine Snob, only one person said she'd keep a bottle for a month for cooking. I think another said that wine ages well opened. We of this If-It-Isn't-Crawling-Use-It persuasion are drastically in the minority. Listen, I don't even know the dif between dry and sweet wine. PW said to use dry. I say, Use what you have and hope for the best.