Deliciousness

Five for Friday
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Five for Friday

Hooray for a few calm minutes in which I can sit and write a blog post! I have been so nonstop gogogo this school year that when I do have a few free moments, I feel certain I am forgetting something. Should I be at an appointment? Should I be picking up Carla for an appointment? Have I made dinner? Probably I could be exercising, but I am choosing to sit in a non-ergonomic position with my laptop on my thighs instead.

Absent-Minded or Mind Is Absent:

Forgetting something important is not, sadly, a hypothetical. This year so far I have already had a very embarrassing memory lapse. Carla had an orthodontist appointment; it was on my calendar; I got a text reminder the day before that I didn’t bother to open because I was already On Top Of It. I remembered to contact her school in advance to let them know I’d be picking her up. I reminded Carla about the appointment the night before and the morning of and reminded her both times that she would need to bring her retainer.

In the car on the way to school that morning, Carla wailed that she’d forgotten her retainer at home! The retainer she needed for the appointment, which was a retainer check. Fine. I will grab it for you, Carla! And yet, on my way to pick her up – like, literally five minutes away from her school – I realized that I, too, had forgotten her retainer at home.

My brain went immediately into project solving mode. Okay! I had arranged to pick her up early, so I would swoop in, grab her, race home, get the retainer, and race back to the orthodontist. If all went well, I might be ten or fifteen minutes late for her appointment. Not ideal. But we could still make it!

I called the orthodontist’s office to let them know the plan. But… no sound of the phone ringing on their end. No sound of the call being connected. I hung up and tried again. Same thing. I pulled up to Carla’s school. No Carla. The whole point of letting the school know in advance that she has an appointment is so that someone will go get her out of class and make sure she’s waiting in the lobby for me when I arrive. I tried the orthodontist again. Same issue. I went inside to get Carla. No one was in the reception office. Shit. I lurked in the lobby for a few minutes until the principal walked by, noticed me, and said he would go find Carla. After he left, Carla’s science teacher walked by and asked if I need help, and I said the principal was looking for Carla, and the science teacher said he would ALSO go look for Carla. I tried the orthodontist again. No answer. Okay, fine – they are having Phone Issues. But! They texted me a reminder the day before the appointment, so presumably I could text them back!

I opened the unread text reminder. Which is when I discovered that I was ALREADY AN HOUR LATE for the appointment. This is, of course, when the principal and science teacher reappeared, Carla in tow. And because they’d already gone to all this trouble of fetching her, I took her out of school even though we had missed her appointment. We went and got fast food for lunch and I brought her back to school. She pretty much thought it was The Best Thing Ever, but I felt (and still feel) like a massive dumbass.

Finger Embellishment:

I painted my nails burgundy in advance of my dressy event. I think they look lovely. How long will the nail color last? Hopefully through the event; I have learned that’s all I can really ask for. By the way, my kid and I got pedicures with my mother-in-law for her birthday, and I did my toes in this version of burgundy, which is so good. I would have bought it if the salon had sold it, but alas they did not.

Listen, I didn’t say I was GOOD at painting my nails. But no one is going to be looking at my old hands closely enough to see the mistakes.

Sandwich Success:

I have been doing The Bare Minimum when it comes to meals this school year. This was all fine and good when I was (not) feeding my own immediate family, but we’ve had houseguests for the past week. I ended up making some Actual Meals, one of which was the balsamic pork I’ve made a million times since my friend served it at her house many years ago. It’s a super easy slow cooker meal the results in shredded pork tenderloin. We serve it with brown rice, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and caramelized onions. (My husband adds diced sundried tomatoes, as well.) It’s delicious and different from most of the lemon- or soy-sauce-based meals I usually gravitate toward.

Because the only pork tenderloins I had in my freezer were a) giant and b) a two pack and c) frozen inextricably together, I had a mountain of shredded pork left over. Fortunately, I thought ahead and also had a ton of caramelized onions leftover. Instead of allowing all the leftovers to languish unused in my fridge until I finally threw them out, I decided to figure out how to repurpose them.

This is what I came up with: a vat of butternut squash soup with a fancy grilled cheese on the side. Sourdough bread, bacon onion jam, provolone cheese, leftover pork on one half, leftover caramelized onions on the other half. DELICIOUS.

I swear this is SO MUCH tastier than my photography skills might indicate.

Homophonic Hiccup:

As a former editor, I am prone to spotting errors in text. I like to think I’ve grown much less judgmental over the years when I come across a spelling, grammar, or usage error. We all make mistakes. Even the finest toothed comb of a copyeditor can overlook a typo. I make errors all the time, simply consult this here weblog for innumerable mistakes. And yet I still have my pet peeves. One of which is GLARING ERRORS in headlines, especially when those headlines come from major publications who should have careful editors on staff. “Lead” being misused as “led” really grates my teeth. Of course, this kind of thing happens, it does. Often I can overlook it; glass houses and all. But sometimes it makes me very grumpy and judge-y. This is one of those times.

You know, on second look, this headline has more issues than just the spelling error.

Little Golden Girls Books:

A dear friend of mine and I have a longstanding joke that I am Dorothy Zbornak and she is Blanche Devereaux from Golden Girls. (Which Golden Girl are you?) So when I saw this post about what the Golden Girls would be reading, I was delighted to see that I have read all three of the books assigned to Dorothy. (Depending on which book the group selects for Engie’s next round of the CBBC, perhaps we are ALL Dorothy????)

We have an action-packed weekend ahead of us. You will not be surprised to learn that I do not want to participate in any action. I want to sit at home with my cat and finish reading my new book (it’s so good and I have no idea where it’s going) and maybe eat another fancy grilled cheese sandwich. Instead, I’m going to go put on my fancy dress and shoes and try to muster up some social energy.

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Three Things Thursday

I am incapable of launching into bullets without some sort of preamble.

New Summer Salad

I made a new-to-me summer salad to take to a friend’s dinner party the other day. A+, delicious, automatic new fave. Of course, because I am incapable of following a recipe as stated, I added blueberries as well. The other slight variations I made, based on recipe comments: I used nectarines instead of peaches, walnuts instead of pinenuts (walnuts are $5.99 at my grocery store; pinenuts are $8.99) (I forgot that I could use pinenuts to make pesto, so maybe I should have shelled out the $8.99), and I added a half teaspoon of honey to the dressing.

Oh! Since I was taking this salad on the road, I had to experiment a little with the best way to keep the nectarines and basil from browning. For the basil, I coated the leaves in a tiny bit of olive oil and gave them a quick chiffonade with a pizza cutter. Then I threw them in a salad bowl with the dry arugula.

For the nectarines, I mixed together two tablespoons of honey and two cups of water, then added the cut nectarines to the mixture for five minutes. After the timer went off, I drained them in a colander, rinsed them with cool water, and laid out them out between two dish towels to dry. Then I popped them into a Tupperware container with the blueberries.

(I found both the honey water and oil coat strategies via multiple sources online, and I was very grateful they worked.)

About five minutes before dinner, I added the dressing to the arugula and basil and tossed everything together until the greens were lightly coated. Then I added half the fruit, nuts, and goat cheese, added a bit more dressing, tossed, and topped with the rest of the fruit, nuts, and goat cheese. It was very tasty and summery and light. I will say that the basil flavor didn’t really pop out at me. I wonder if it all fell to the bottom of the salad bowl? Next time I will do a better job of dispersing the basil throughout.

I was super pleased with how well the nectarines lasted. Here is a photo of them the next morning.  The honey/water combo did not alter their flavor or texture at all.

Hmm. This isn’t the most persuasive photo. I will have to try a before and after at some point. In the meantime, just trust me that they looked and tasted as fresh as the instant I cut them.

Plant Problems

I am feeling some botanical despair. I love plants, and I have accumulated quite a few over the years. But they are not loving their lives, and I feel responsible. I am responsible. They remind me of Heidi, wasting away in Klara Sesemann’s urban mansion, longing for the sun and sky and trees of her grandfather’s alpine cottage. (Why yes, I am reading Heidi to Carla right now.)

Our house is full of windows, and yet it is not particularly sunny. Worse, possibly, is that the areas available for plants are on the north side of the house and get the least light.

I have tried to do my research and buy only plants that supposedly enjoy low light. And yet… they are leggy and/or dead. Even the African violet I bought – which is supposed to thrive in very little light! – is just barely living.

While part of me aches for these poor living things that are trying so valiantly to hang on under my poor care, and wants to nurse them back to health, I have TRIED. I have googled, I have bought special plant food, I have moved them around to different parts of the house, I have repotted several of them. I have babied them, I have left them alone. Nothing is working. Perhaps it is time to replace them? That feels so harsh!!! And also kind of fruitless, because I fear that the replacements will just die anyway.

You know what IS thriving? This mystery plant in my backyard. We had some landscaping work done last fall, moving things around, thinning things out. This space used to hold an enormous hydrangea that was completely overgrown and so old only the very tips were green. We moved some hydrangeas from the front of the house and they seem to be adjusting well to their new home. We also planted a vibirnum in the place where the old hydrangea used to be. Then, this guy showed up.

Wow, two for two on really unhelpful photos today. This plant is approximately four feet tall (so far), has no scent or milky sap, a round stem, multiple stalks coming from the same base, has very gentle fuzz on the leaves and stem, and, from above, has non-serrated leaves with a very pronounced whorled leaf pattern. There are no buds as yet.

I have NO IDEA what it is. It’s acting like a perennial that belongs there, but I have never seen it before. It’s possible that the previous homeowners planted it a long time ago, but then the old hydrangea took over and bullied this guy into submission. Now that the old hydrangea is gone, this little guy can finally shine. This little imaginary scenario, plus some extensive googling, has me thinking it’s a plant and not a weed. My current very non-expert guess is that’s something called an “obedient plant” or some kind of phlox or maybe some kind of aster. I guess we just wait and see if it produces flowers. Unless… do you know what it is?

Physical Therapy Update

I have been seeing a physical therapist twice a week for six weeks for tennis elbow, and just this week I moved to one time a week for the next four weeks. The reduction in pain and the improvement in mobility has been tremendous, and I am so pleased with the experience. Physical therapy is MAGICAL. I mean, it’s also expensive and hard work, but MAGICAL.

It is not, however, a cure. My physical therapist said his goal was for me to see an 80% improvement in pain/mobility. I have zero idea how a person is supposed to quantify such a thing; I still have no idea how to answer the “what is your pain on a scale of 1 to the worst pain you’ve ever experienced” question. But I will say that my arm is greatly improved, to the point that sometimes I don’t even think about it. Sure, I still have some soreness in my elbow. Sometimes I wake up and my arm aches for a while. I definitely still experience pain if I grip something wrong or lift something too heavy or don’t consider the best way to pick something up. But it’s SO MUCH BETTER.

Despite the improvements, it has occurred to me that I may not be able to resume lifting weights for a long time. I miss lifting weights, but I am also not eager to reinjure myself. So I have been dithering a long time about getting some of the same strength training equipment I use at my PT’s office. Two products are currently in my cart: a set of resistance bands with handles and a set of superlong resistance bands. In the office, when I do the exercises the PT prescribes, my arms get pleasantly tired and my muscles feel like they are being challenged. Working with resistance bands really does feel like a workout, even if I’m not sweating buckets or, like, grunting with effort. I am sure I could find some more intense routines online that I could adapt at home.

I’m not really sure why I haven’t just ordered them already. Maybe today.

Obligatory feline
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Giveaway Winner, Mystery Item Identified, Things I’m Making and Planning to Make, Something But Not a Lot

We’ve got a new week and a new month and a new blog post. Thank you for being here.

Giveaway Winner

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the giveaway for Nicole’s debut novel, Inhale, Exhale. Twenty commenters threw their names in the hat, and the winner is…

Stephany! Woo hoo! Your copy will be in the mail asap.

Mystery Item

It took until Saturday for me to remember the mystery item I’d been meaning to order last week. (By the way, I loved Kate’s suggestion that it might be chipotles in adobo, which I’d previously blogged about running out of in a previous post! Good eye, Kate – fortunately, it’s on my grocery list, although my store was completely out of chipotles the last time I looked.) The mystery item was Loop ear plugs. Not a kitchen item AT ALL. I keep meaning to get Carla a pair of these ear plugs because a) I think she could use them during in-class study time, when her teachers discourage the use of headphones and b) I know she could use them when we go to noisy restaurants, which tend to make her feel unbearably overstimulated.

Things I’m Making

Speaking of Carla: she is going through another phase of not being particularly amenable to eating. She eats a decent enough variety of things, I think, but she gravitates toward easy foods which are often less nourishing and/or nutritious than I’d like. I would especially like for her to have easy foods to grab for breakfast a) because she often skips lunch. (We have discussed this with her doctor, we are on top of it, do not worry.), and b) because I want her to be self-sufficient in the mornings.

One food she has been into lately is the Starbucks bacon, gouda, and egg breakfast sandwich, which she gets without the cheese. I am having a strange and intense aversion to Starbucks lately, which isn’t the worst thing for many reasons. But this means I am less open to taking Carla to Starbucks. Also, Starbucks costs money and I am not eager to spend money on fast food breakfast more than once a month (outside of extenuating circumstances). Anyway, this is to say that I gave in once last week and took her to Starbucks for a sandwich with the caveat of using that sandwich as a prototype from which to make our own homemade breakfast sandwiches.

I made these bacon and egg sandwiches on ciabatta bread and froze them. (I added about a quarter cup of cheddar cheese to the egg mixture, because my kid likes cheese mixed in to her scrambled eggs, she just can’t abide it melted on top of things.) The finished product seems a little dry to me (no butter? no mayo?), and Carla has yet to try one, so please cross your fingers on my behalf. I will be quite irritated if she doesn’t eat them. (I eat very few sandwiches and also dislike eggs, so I will not be eating them. Maybe my husband will eat them.)

While I was cutting up the loaf of ciabatta bread, I made a miscalculation and ended up trimming the ends off of all eight sandwiches. Which gave me an excuse to make French toast muffins, a thing that seems delightful and which I have never tried before.

The French toast muffins needed to sit for two hours, so while they were sitting, I made a batch of homemade granola. I love granola, but it’s spendy. This batch called for coconut oil, which I don’t love, but it turned out okay. I used chia seeds, which is what I had on hand (because I purchased them specifically to make granola), but I would like to try adding flax seeds and/or hemp hearts and/or puffed quinoa to future batches. I suspect it will take me a long time to make it through this batch, though – I really only add a few tablespoons to yogurt.

Things I’m Planning to Make

I suppose while I’m making things, I might as well make a meal plan for this week.

Dinners for the Week of February 2-8

  • Slow cooker Mongolian beef: This sounds good and slow cooker meals are always appealing – especially when it’s so enduringly chilly outside.
  • Cream of mushroom soup: This sounds luxurious and warming. I will have to make some sort of protein for my husband to go along with his.
  • Ramen with shrimp and edamame: My husband wanted to try the squiggly noodles from Trader Joe’s, and I am always a fan of ramen with shrimp and some frozen edamame. Easy peasy.
  • Chicken paprikas: Yes. We haven’t had this in a while and it’s the perfect cozy comfort meal for winter.

Something But Not a Lot

In a rather drastic tone change, sometimes I feel so keenly the exhortation to say something that reaches beyond my little cozy corner. I have sat at my computer, many hours and many days, trying to find the words to express my despair and disappointment at the state of the world, to articulate the scale of my love and hope for all of us. Maybe it’s ignorance or delusion or cowardice or all three, but again and again, I find that I don’t know what to say or how to say it. I continue to read and listen to voices stronger and braver and more knowledgeable and more eloquent than I am. (The fragment “Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse” keeps looping through my brain.) I continue to seek out blog posts, fiction, essays, and poetry to make sense of things, to offer comfort, to provide distraction, to inspire, and to organize the complicated tangle of emotions into words.

Today, this poem is resonating with me.

That’s all I have for you today, Internet. Stay warm and be well.