I still feel naked cooking without a thermometer.

A tip-sensitive digital thermometer.

I usually pack one for travel, but forgot on this latest retreat to Manhattan (the one in Kansas).

Sometimes I’m terrible when I travel: I love and miss my wife, my daughter, am resentful about wasted time and it’s really boring.

Sometimes I suck it up and say what Amy says, it is what it is, and am cheery about it.

This time in the Little Apple, a friend has loaned me his house while he’s away, so I don’t bug the student and his family living in mine.

I’m adjusting well, lotsa sleep, exercise and good food. This is dinner for me, tonight. A whole roast chicken at $0.99/pound, flavored with lime, garlic, mint, rosemary, salt and pepper. Oven roasted corn in the husk (really concentrates the flavors). A non-fat mushroom gravy. Baked potato. Green beans. Amy the Frenchy would say the brie and roasted garlic is dessert (roast about 40 gloves of garlic in the chicken), but I’ll go with the fruit for dessert.

The chicken stock that will be ready tomorrow will be an ideal foundation for a potato-leek soup, I nibble on raw vegetables all day, these leftovers will last days, my farts are outstanding.

At least I’m here alone.

But paranoia made me overcook the chicken (that’s what the gravy is for).

No thermometer.

Bob, your fridge is too cold; my strawberries froze. I adjusted the temperature, and you can make it ridiculously cold again when you return to apparently compensate for the 8,352 times you must open the fridge door daily to keep food from freezing.

And, in addition to the herbs I’ve potted for you, because I like cooking with fresh herbs, you will be left with the best tip-sensitive digital thermometer out there.

As soon as they arrive from Chapman.

Manhattan. Stat. Thermometer.