Showdown With the Dreaded Raw Tomato

Raw Tomato Sauce - pg. 265

I love tomatoes. When they are cooked. I love tomato sauce in all its many forms. I love ketchup. I love stewed tomatoes. You name it. Cook a tomato and I love it. Raw tomatoes? Well, that's another story altogether. My mother loved raw tomatoes. My husband loves raw tomatoes. Everyone I know pops raw cherry tomatoes into their mouths like candy. Me? I hate raw tomatoes. I can get them down. Occasionally. But not often and not because I like them. I'll make a face every time. I can't help it.

Do not put raw tomato slices on my burger, my sandwich or my salad. Spare me the cherry tomatoes on the crudite platter. There isn't enough salad dressing and vegetable dip on the planet to drown them. I don't like the taste of raw tomatoes. I don't like the texture of raw tomatoes. In other words, I do not like raw tomatoes.

I have struggled for years, decades even, to learn to like raw tomatoes. Nearly every summer, when we're awash in a sea of garden-ripe gifted tomatoes, I choke a few down in hopes that some divine intervention will occur in my taste buds. No such luck. Ever. Me? I take all those red orbs and turn them into cooked tomato sauce. Look, I even have to steel myself to peel and seed them. It's almost stomach turning. That's how much I hate raw tomatoes.

So there it is on page 265 of TAOSF. My nemesis. My ultimate culinary challenge. Because the things I'm cooking I'm going to have to eat. Page 265, on the left side of the page. Raw Tomato Sauce. WTF??? Why would anyone ever consider dumping chopped up raw tomatoes on top of perfectly good freshly cooked pasta? This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Two pounds of raw tomatoes. Skinned, seeded and whacked up into bits. Add torn (not chopped) basil leaves and plenty of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a shot of Pepper Plant sauce. Cover tightly (why??? will it produce air pollution???) and leave it alone for at least an hour. Boil the best pasta in the pantry. Put the oh-lord-help-me RAW tomato sauce over the pasta, hide it all underneath a huge mound of freshly grated Parmesan and, saints preserve me, eat it. Chase back with plenty of toasted crostini dripping with olive oil.

I made it. I ate it. Raw tomato sauce. It wasn't bad. Not my favorite dish. But, I'd make it again and eat it again. Obviously I agree with Alice that this is a dish for that time of year when tomatoes are at their very best. These were from a friend's garden, so I knew they would be as good as tomatoes ever get. Whatever that is. Randy liked it. There is easily enough sauce for another meal. Oh sigh. Well, whatever. It's done. Another major hurdle cleared.

Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings. Swallow a whole frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse can possibly happen to you for the rest of the day. I have eaten my TAOSF frog.

81 recipes down; 224 to go

Caponata!

Caponata - pg. 304

Alice continues to change my mind about various veggies. I made caponata (you could call it eggplant and tomato stew) to take along to dinner at friends last night. Really good stuff! Friends sent us home with a lot of tomatoes. Yeah! I just made some tomato sauce and now I can make more since I used a lot of the last batch in the caponata. However... I now also have zucchini and yellow summer squash coming out my ears. Ooooph. Can Alice change my attitude toward zucchini? Good luck Alice!

80 recipes completed - a mere 225 recipes yet to make

Ratatouille The Alice Waters Way

Ratatouille - pg. 322

While out with our friends Tom and Marie recently, we planned (or rather Tom planned, since he's that kind of guy) a neighborhood bbq for this afternoon. There are 3 of us couples in the neighborhood who are friends and foodies all. Tom has quite a vegetable garden. I told him that if he'd provide the veggies, I'd make a batch of ratatouille. Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food ratatouille, of course.

Today was the day. I walked over to Tom and Marie's house this morning to get veggies directly from Tom's garden: eggplant, summer squash, and tomatoes. I supplied the sweet peppers, onions, and basil from Trader Joe's.

I've made relatively traditional ratatouille in the past, although it's been a very long time. Alice's approach is different in that she cuts everything into 1/2" dice, cooks the veggies more or less separately, adds a good bit of basil, and then mixes everything together. Since I was making a double batch to feed 9 people with plenty of leftovers, I appreciated this approach. I cut up stuff for an hour, if not more. Then cooked everything (except the tomatoes) separately in a deep 12" skillet, adding the basil bouquet, garlic, salt and crushed chili to the onion and pepper mix. When everything was cooked (except the tomatoes), I mixed it all together and just let the whole thing simmer while I took a shower and got dressed. By then, the tomatoes were well heated through, but not really cooked. Seasoning was adjusted by adding salt, pepper, and our favorite Pepper Plant Sauce (a local product).

I turned the whole thing into a covered cast iron casserole so it stayed warm all the way until dinner time. While I am not a big fan of these summer vegetables, I must admit that this ratatouille was fabulous. I ate a lot of it. There was plenty for everyone who wanted some to take it home with tons left for us. I know from past experience that ratatouille only improves with age so I'm looking forward to leftovers for several days to come. I was delighted with how the different vegetables all retained their own textures and flavors, even having been cut into such small pieces. Ratatouille can easily turn to mush, especially the eggplant. I used Tom's Japanese eggplant which probably helped. And the tomatoes were ripe but still firm.

Now. What the heck do I do with all the excess crook neck yellow squash, tomatoes, hot peppers and Japanese eggplant I still have? Tom sent me home with too much bounty from the garden. Sigh. What a horrible problem to have. (ROFLOL)

79 down - a mere 226 to go

A Triple Play!

Grilled Steak - pg. 153

Cucumber Yogurt Sauce - pg. 232

Grilled Eggplant - pg. 304

A night for experimentation. I've never gotten into grilling outdoors. I think it's a pain. But in the summer, every other recipe you encounter is for grilled something or other. Well, sometime in the not too distant past we got one of those ribbed grill pans to try out for stove-top grilling. It's just a cheap one, but good enough for experiments.

I gave it a whirl tonight, grilling 2 very nice flatiron skirt steaks and some eggplant. The results were pretty good. I may go ahead and invest in a better grill pan now, one of those nice cast iron Lodge numbers, I think. The el-cheapo pan doesn't stand up all that well to the heat required for proper grilling.

With the last dregs of some yogurt and the end of a cucumber I made some cucumber yogurt sauce for the eggplant, but it worked just as well on the steak. With a little garlic pounded in my smaller mortar-and-pestle, and a hefty pinch of cayenne. Even without the required fresh mint, it was pretty yummy.

Otherwise, I recently saw Tilda Swinton in "I Am Love." Visually beautiful if otherwise a bit strange. But what the heck, it was Tilda Swinton. I think she's amazing.

bottom line?

78 down and 227 to go

Corn on the Cob

Corn on the Cob - pg. 301

I know. I know. It's been way too long. Facebook. Blame it all on Facebook. I suppose that's a story for another time. Or, just check out my page there and be done with it.

Believe it or not, Alice has a "recipe", directions really, for Corn on the Cob. Good grief. Even I know how to cook corn on the cob. Even I have done this multiple times in the past. Anyway, we got a couple ears at Saturday farmers market. Randy made pesto and pasta tonight. I "made" corn on the cob.

75 down; 230 to go

I Roasted a Chicken

Roast Chicken - pg. 110

Seriously. I roasted a chicken. I'm not sure I've ever done that before. Seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves. Ya live, ya learn.

Oh yes, it is very good!

74 down; 231 to go

Marinate Those Greens!

Marinated Chard - pg. 216

(This is our front door from the foyer looking out onto the front porch, which has nothing to do with anything, but it cute eye candy. That's a Steve Handelman lantern on the wall.)

We spent the weekend in the Bay Area. Dinner at Ajanta with Scott and Wayne after delivering Scott's quilt to him. Impressionists at the Legion of Honor (and lunch). Ikea, Ethnic Arts (to pick up our 3rd David Marsh end table), Pendragon (one of my favorite bookstores anywhere), and the Oakland Pasta Shop from which we brought home all manner of good stuff, including roasted eggplant salad and bar-be-qued chicken for dinner that night (which was Monday). Grilled liver and onions at Saul's, too, from which I brought home kosher dills (I begged for them; I'm shameless).

So, we've been eating leftovers from that meal and other stuff, and "day old" fresh pasta from the Pasta Shop. And pickles. But last night I nuked fresh eggplant parmesan from Trader Joe's which was wonderful! And made some marinated kale to go with. Alice recommends marinated chard as an appetizer/snack, but says you can prepare any greens that way. I had some kale in the frig, so kale it was. Once again, the results, served warmish, were better than I'd anticipated.

This morning I took Stuart in for his second kitten shots. All his previous foster moms and caretakers were happy to see him and his big feet. This afternoon I joined a health club, which I really need to do. Tonight? Who knows. Oh yes, last night our new book club met for just the second time to discuss Larry Watson's Montanan 1948. Pretty decent group, all things considered.

73 down and a mere 232 to go

New Ingredient; New Appliance

Tomatillo Salsa - pg. 232

Randy and I have just given up on our Cuisinart combination blender and food processor. It's a lousy appliance and is going to the thrift shop, instruction booklet and all. We decided that what we really need is a pretty basic blender, one that actually works well and isn't too much of a pain to clean. Internet research revealed that an awful lot of buyers are loving their Kitchen Aide hand-held blenders, so last night we found one at the local Target and brought it home. (I don't want or need a food processor; I enjoy whacking stuff up with a big, sharp knife.)

A new appliance needs a new ingredient, don't you think? How about tomatillos? I've had tomatillo salsa at Mexican restaurants, but haven't ever cooked with them myself. Alice describes a basic tomatillo salsa: tomatillos, jalapenos, cilantro, garlic and a little salt. Alice recommends a variation that adds a mashed avocado, so I threw one of those in, too. All blended with the new appliance. What a great job it did! Wow! I didn't have to turn the setting up any higher than "1" (it goes from 1 to 9) to blend perfectly in just a few seconds. And I actually had good control over what was going on.

It splashed a little bit, but the minor resulting mess was much, much less than the mess I usually make cleaning the damned blender. The new appliance was extremely easy and fast to clean. The thing I've always hated about traditional blenders is cleaning them. Taking all the pieces apart, washing them, drying them, putting them all back together again. Aargh. Takes twenty times longer than the actual blending. Well, those days are OVER. I'm in love with the hand-held.

So we had tomatillo salsa over Trader Joe's enchiladas (which were disappointing), and on flour tortillas (which were good). Looking forward to tomatillo salsa over chicken, fish, oven-roasted veggies, on corn chips. Maybe it's even time for more quesadillas and nachos. All easy-to-fix stuff that's my idea of good early summer food.

Otherwise? Sewing like a maniac to finish Scott's quilt for his sister. And I've just survived 2.5 days of having a builder here working on the eternal list of "little things" that need adjusting and fixing and touching-up. These guys are wonderful, but I find their presence in my house, when it goes on for days at a time, to be seriously disruptive. Pisses me off. On the other hand, our viga ceilings are looking really spiff now after their year of shrinking since installation. And you wonder why I need chocolate....

72 down; 233 to go

Salad for Dinner

Rocket Salad with Parmesan - pg. 237

Alice loves rocket. In these parts we call it arugula, so I'm not sure how she comes to call it rocket, living as she does only 4 hours drive from here. At farmers market Randy and I nearly always buy the "spicy mix" of lettuce for salads since we love stuff like arugula and spicy mustard greens.

Last week Randy had a bug to make arugula "pesto" which was really good. So, we bought a lot of just plain arugula, enough for his "pesto" and for me to make this salad. Just arugula with a basic vinaigrette, topped with shaved curls of parmesan and toasted walnuts. Okay, I just basically heated the walnuts in my omelette pan on the cook top. What I didn't know before this was the thing about using a vegetable peeler to cut curls of parmesan. Boy, was that slick! Way easier than grating hard cheese.

Saw two movies this weekend: Ironman 2 and Toy Story 3. The first didn't have the sass of the original, but the Toy Story franchise has just gotten better with every installment. As a dedicated Barbie lover and collector, I especially enjoyed the Barbie and Ken subplot in Toy Story 3. Yes, I saw it in 3D. Love 3D. And, I finished John Pipkin's "Woodsburner," part of my library adult summer reading program. "Woodsburner" is historical fiction, based on a fire accidentally set by Thoreau the summer before he went to Walden Pond. The fire nearly destroyed the town of Concord.

71 down; 234 to go

Getting Sauced

Bagna Cauda - pg. 230

This is pretty cool stuff, although served warm. Butter, olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, lemon zest, a pinch of salt, and (wait for it...) 10 anchovy fillets carefully stripped from 5 salt-packed anchovies. Alice must really like playing with her food. Although, pain as it is to fillet those salt-packed anchovies, I read somewhere today that they are bigger and something elser (I can't remember what) than the canned ones. (Is bigger really better?)

Bagna cauda is Piedmontese for warm bath. The warm bath is the olive oil/butter that all the other stuff is in. You use it as a dip, in the traditional manner, but we used it as a sauce over wild Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets and oven roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, red onions, and green beans all cut into pieces about the same size and tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt).

This fish and veggies thing is my current favorite dinner. Put everything on parchment lined baking sheets and stick the whole thing in the oven. The veggies for 15 minutes, then add the fish for another 10-15 minutes, all at 400 degrees. Season and sauce as you wish. Clean up is a breeze. Well, it would be anyway since Randy cleans up when I cook....

Otherwise, I'm enjoying our new kitten, Stuart, who was a gift to my husband for his 60th birthday last week. I want Stuart to be a traveling cat, so we did some errands today and voted in our special election. Currently reading "Woodsburner" by John Pipkin as part of my summer adult library reading program. And spending too much time of Facebook.

70 down; 235 to go

Peach Salsa

Peach Salsa - pg. 231

I know, I know. You can buy the stuff at Trader Joe's. But, I made some. There will be variations in the future. We ate a whole bowl of the stuff tonight on quesadillas. It will be better when I can get better peaches. I still have lots of red onion, jalapenos and cilantro to make tons more. And there is something to be said for fresh, fresh, fresh salsa.

69 down; 236 to go

Getting Back Into the Groove

I'm finally getting back into the groove after bugs and travel. The library now is totally organized, which is a good thing. It's such a pleasant room -- I really enjoy hanging out there. The books are optimally arranged. All the art that needs to be placed and hung is in the little closet so I can take things out and place them, one by one. Our cross and sun collection is hung in the dining area on the big arched wall so that there is plenty of room for the collection to grow. I've order museum putty for pots and baskets and such. I must be a nester, maybe a bird, in some part of me. I feel SO much happier and more productive when my environment is in order.

I really enjoyed our time in Concord last week. I got a whole new view of US history. E.g., what part of "well-ordered militia" don't the gun nuts understand? And, if early Concordians are typical examples, citizens have never trusted their governments and have always hated taxes no matter who was running the show! Of course, they've always wanted what taxes pay for, they've just not wanted to pay for it. They resented having to actually pay for the Revolutionary War almost as much as they resented that tax on tea.... And, I have a renewed interesting in the literature that grew out of Concord, especially since I realized that one of my favorite "shot heard 'round the world" figures, Rev. William Emerson, was the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Connections. It's all about connections.

This morning I'm just catching up with assorted paper pushing and bill paying. Not my favorite thing to do, but part of straightening up my nest nonetheless.

Oh yes. Last night for dinner I made a pasta dish with leftover Simple Tomato Sauce and Trader Joe's spinach-chive linguine. A few bacon pieces scattered on top with chopped parsley and parmesan. Oven-roasted cauliflower, which I absolutely love. A Romaine salad dressed with the leftover honey-mustard sauce from last night's dinner. Nothing new, but nearly all stuff I've learned from TAOSF.

What I've Just Read

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. A short novel about a family caught in a moral dilemma. Which is more important, family loyalty or doing the right thing? The first would be easy. The second is hard and life-changing for everyone involved. Well written. Spare. Reminded me of Annie Proulx whose work I love. A good book. Not a great book, but a good book. I read this for my new book club.

The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross. Winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1977 (google it). Read at Mount Holyoke right before a visit to Concord. Using the research methods of social history, Gross writes an engaging and illuminating story of the lives of ordinary Concordians before, during and immediately after the "shot heard 'round the world" at the North Bridge (the first Patriot shots in the Revolutionary War). Gave me a whole new perspective on a lot of contemporary social and political issues. My favorite Concordian was Rev. William Emerson who is the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which leads us into the great literary history of Concord: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the Alcotts. I loved this book. No soap opera is as good as real life.

Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America by Ellen Chesler. An exhaustive and exhausting bio read on the 50th anniversary of The Pill. Not always an easy read unless you really want tons of detail, but certainly illuminates the life and personality of Sanger. I now very much admire Margaret for her tireless and politically savey fight for the most basic of human rights, the right to control one's own reproductive life. We all owe her a lot.

My Mother Was Wrong About Cauliflower

Roasted Sliced Cauliflower - pg. 299

Oh hell, let's be honest. My mother was wrong about a lot of things; cauliflower was just one of them. She wasn't much of a cook. Then again, she wasn't much of a mother, either. But, I digress. Last night I oven-roasted sliced cauliflower, served with a sprinkling of bread crumbs and chopped parsley. Oh my! Delicious! As long as the oven was on, I roasted the last few asparagus spears still lurking in the frig. And some sweet Italian chicken sausages from Trader Joe's which were mighty tasty with a little mustard smeared on them. Randy made a Romaine salad.

Otherwise, as long as nothing is totally screwed up in my life right now (how unusual is THAT!?), I'm just moving forward with my ever-so-long list of stuff that needs to be done. I like working on that list. Makes me actually believe that I'm accomplishing something. Still, having been around the sun a few times, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. When life is good, I never forget that "this, too, shall pass." Cheery thought, no?

68 recipes completed; 237 to go

Tomato Sauce with Bacon and Onion

Tomato Sauce with Bacon and Onion - pg. 265

I made a batch of Simple Tomato Sauce from fresh tomatoes from farmers market. This is great stuff to have in the frig since it can be the base for all sorts of very quick dinners. Tonight I made a TAOS recipe (sort of) with the sauce and some fancy pancetta from the fancy deli/market in Berkeley. The recipe actually just calls for using fresh tomatoes, but I figured the Simple Sauce would do just as well. While the pancetta was certainly good, rather more ordinary bacon would have been okay, too. I used green garlic in the sauce which made a milder flavor. And, I oven roasted a batch of asparagus for something green on the plate.

Yesterday I volunteered at the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale. Wow! I've found my flora niche, so to speak. I can see that my collection will start mostly with agaves. I love agaves and they will do well here in pots.

Oh yes, I saw a very strange movie yesterday. The Good, the Bad and the Weird. A Korean western set in Manchuria in the 30s with decided Tarantino influences.

Best of all? It's true. The bugs are dead. We've got our house back. Yeah!!

67 down and 238 to go

Alrighty Then...

Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper are gone. So are the wood-boring beetles in the library woodwork. None of this happened quickly or easily. The house is pretty much clean, reorganized and back to normal. Yeah!! As you might imagine, I'm feeling a whole lot better emotionally now. Got a pedicure and a haircut this morning. Yeah!! Went, with Randy, to the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society's annual show and sale this afternoon after a nice Thai lunch. Yeah!!

In the spirit of Alice's very latest cookbook (theme is techniques to learn by heart), I made a no-recipe dinner. Trader Joe's lemon pepper noodles. Bacon. Garlic. Parsley. Olive oil. Parmesan cheese. Tasty and pretty quick.

Do I have anything remarkable to say? Hell no. Only that I love, love, love having my house clean and organized. It means that I can go on to do more productive things with my time. It's the same way I feel about making the bed first thing in the morning. All is right with the world and I can get on to bigger and far more interesting things. Like cook, garden, play with our cats, read, bead, sew. You get the picture.

Life Is Weird, But Peas Are Good

Green Pea and Asparagus Ragout - pg. 316

Clearly, life has been unsettled of late. And I've been depressed about various things. And sidetracked. Between the last new-recipe cooking entry on May 5 and today, I only made sweet tart dough. Which was intended for a lemon tart, but that didn't happen. I ate the dough. Raw. Does that tell you I've been miserable, or at least distracted?

Somewhat better now, although it's been 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Maybe more like 2 and 1/2 steps back. But, I managed to crank out a meal tonight. Just some Trader Joe's chicken sausage ravioli with the very last of the Simple Tomato Sauce. And (ta-dah!) Green Pea and Asparagus Ragout. Tasted good, although I'm not sure I'm much into ragouts -- all that stuff whacked up into little tiny pieces. I guess I like my veggies a bit more chunky. But, it was nice to chaw on fresh green peas and asparagus. Yah good love fresh veggies.

66 down and 239 to go -- must pick up the pace since this pace is pathetic

Up to Our Ears in Animals

Dinner tonight was swell. Chard frittata slices sitting in pools of simple tomato sauce. Oh yum! And there's plenty of frittata leftovers. Maybe for breakfast tomorrow?

For lunch, I made some liver, potatoes and onions. And a blood orange balsamic reduction for the liver. Good grief. Talk about gilding the lily....

Our local bobcat paid us an extended visit this morning. I think it's a girl. She's a doll. We enjoyed watching her so much.

Then our project manager came up with the Ecola bug-killer-guy to investigate what can be done about the wood-boring beetles that are continuing to eat the woodwork in the library. Heat treatment. Which means I have to take EVERYTHING out of the library. And then, of course, put it all back. Oh thrill. These animals I could live without.

There's a lizard in the garage. Cute little guy. But he belongs outside, not in the garage. I think he left this afternoon, but I'm not sure. If he gets into the house, he's cat food. So let's hope he leaves. Soon.

On the way home from our late-afternoon coffee date, I saw our local doe-and-2-fawns. The babies are growing fast, and learning about life around roads very quickly, thank heaven. But still nursing if mom stops for a rest and look around!

After dinner? Lots and lots of swallows showed up. Wow! What a show! Today, life is good.

Quick Catch-Up

Saw a good movie-- The Secret in Their Eyes. Good murder mystery, even though --nah, probably because of the fact that --we know the killer half way through the flick. Argentine; I was surprised how little I needed the subtitles. Won the Oscar this year for best foreign language film. Read a crumby book-- A Reliable Wife. I read it, but don't bother. Believe me. Don't bother. It's a highly unreliable book.

New plant!! Euphorbia tirucalli. It's my new baby. I love this plant. Won it at the raffle at the monthly meeting of the Central Coast Cactus and Succulent Society. Mine was the LAST ticket drawn and I still won the plant I'd had my eyes on from the moment I walked into the room. Yippee!!

All my children have paws, you know. They sent a card and had their dad take me out for breakfast. They got me a cool new octopus-themed apron from Anthropologie. They cuddled with me on the settle at the end of the day to read and enjoy the fireplace.

Haven't cooked anything interesting, but I did have some wonderful Gliddon Point oysters at Pier 46 Saturday. For lunch. That's my idea of lunch. A diet Coke and 6 oysters on the half shell.

Day 89 - Pasta Alla Puttanesca! Ah Naples!

Spicy Tomato Sauce with Capers, Anchovies and Olives - pg. 266

You may recall that I now have a small stash of salt-packed anchovies. Today, I filleted 3 of them. I am now qualified to do brain surgery on goldfish. The things I'm learning to do!

Really, I love this dish. Plenty of garlic, olives, parsley, olive oil, capers. Fishy, spicy, olivey. What's not to love. And since I first had to make up a batch of Simple Tomato Sauce, I now have enough sauce to tackle something else new. It was all pretty easy, too. Even the filleting, although I did tackle that one when I was certain that all the cats were sound, sound asleep this afternoon.

It was a good day for deer sightings. One was nose-pressed-to-the-glass outside the foyer this morning. And this afternoon I saw the first fawns of 2010 -- 2 tiny babies out with their mom. So small! So cute! And just dumb as boards as their mom herded them out of the middle of the street.

I'm taking a break from Homer, reading a rather trashy page-turner from a recent best-seller list. I think the list is called Trashy Page-Turners. Sometimes a reader just has to have a little fun.

65 recipes down and 240 to go (blows me away that I'm cooking all these new things)

Not By Alice Alone

Well, I suppose one COULD live by eating just from TAOSF, but I'm also now working from another new (to me) cookbook: "Healthy Eating: Use the Glycemic Index for Optimal Health." Now THAT'S a title that should send any normal person running in the opposite direction! But the great color photos sucked me in. That, and the fact that I knew this would be a lot of protein and veggie dishes. Plus, these recipes are pretty easy and quick to make for dinner. Seriously, as I thumbed through the book I just wanted to cook and eat everything! It's my kind of food. Alice would approve, I'm sure.

I started tonight with Vietnamese Beef Soup. Had to make a couple substitutions, thus yielding Atascadero-Vietnamese Beef Soup, but we got the basic idea. I don't think I've ever cooked with rice noodles before. It was just delicious! Tasty. Loaded with veggies. A little beef.

My Big Accomplishment for the day was to hang Tibetan prayer flags outside above the garage door. Last fall we hung them between 2 oak trees, but one tree lost a major branch in a storm, thus bringing down the flags. I decided to wait until the winter storms were over before trying again. The project moved ahead nicely, except for the huge bee swarm that came up the draw and past the house in the middle of things. First I heard them. Then I saw them. Then I got into the house, closing the garage door behind me, as fast as I've ever moved before in my entire life. Didn't want to get in their way....

Such is my life these days. Boring, but low-stress. One out of 2 isn't that bad. At least I'm not getting into trouble and not pissing anyone off.

The Iliad

I'm tired. Got up way too early this morning to get out of the house before a crew came to test our house for air leaks. Sort of. More or less. Something like that. We are a test site for all kinds of weird stuff. New passive-solar strawbale house and inability to say "no."

Anyway, last night I finished The Iliad, the first reading in The Lifetime Reading Plan. Yes, it's a good read, if you're into that sort of story. War, murder, pettiness. Great art reaches across centuries and cultures. However, it reminds me once again that mankind is still little more than a power-hungry, egotistical, murderous savage. And that we always have made our gods and goddesses in our own image. We don't know today why "God lets bad things happen to good people." In ancient Greece, even the gods could not control Fate. Same thing. I'm further amazed at the graphic nature of the killing in The Iliad. Makes modern media look nearly tame -- certainly no worse. Maybe The Iliad speaks clearly to us today because we haven't changed one iota since that time, nor has our arts and entertainment. I couldn't care much about any of the characters no matter how hard I tried. Well, I guess I'm a better person for having read The Iliad. We'll see. On to the next item on the list.

Day 88 - Remember Shelling Peas??

Spring Pea Soup - pg. 238

It's been a jillion years since I've shelled peas. I didn't even know you could get them at our local farmers' markets. It was fun to shell peas. Meditative. Getting back in touch with your food and all that. "What do you mean green peas don't come out of plastics bags and cans???" The soup was wonderful. Very Alice. Butter, onions, salt, peas and water. Delicious. I just served it with a loaf of fresh-from-the-machine bread, butter, and olive jam. Oh yes, big dollops of creme fraiche on the soup. Gotta have a little luxury.

This weekend I've been doing the ings. Shopping. Cleaning. Washing. You know the drill. But we did go out for breakfast this morning at a little local cafe that makes great biscuits. Yesterday I checked out the new T. J. Maxx in SLO and found 2 little saucepans, one a Calphalon (my favorites) to replace 2 seriously old and beat-up ones. And saw "The Art of the Steal," a documentary about the sad theft of the Barnes art collection. The more I see money and power in action, the more I hate it. Which reminds me that I'm within 14 pages of wrapping up The Iliad.

64 down; 241 to go

Sew On and Sew Forth

Sewed my brains out today. Finished the back for a large quilt. Made the binding for it. This makes 3 finished tops/backs/bindings in the pile to go to the machine quilter. Sew, I tackled another UFO in my pile which is to make storage bags for all my quilts. Well, that will happen one at a time, but at least I can start with the 3 in the pile. And maybe the 1 of mine that is currently at the quilter's shop. I started one after dinner.

Dinner. Yes. Fish and chips at Pier 46. I love the food there. And I sewed a lot. Did I mention that I sewed a lot?

Leftovers Again

But you'll hear no complaints from me! There was plenty of the bean gratin for dinner tonight. Since we're still in asparagus, I'll go through all the ways Alice teaches to cook them. Tonight? Boiled. Briefly. Then served at room temperature with a blood orange vinaigrette. We had a few pieces of Pier 46's wonderful pickled herring as an appetizer. Is there a cuisine on the planet that doesn't have pickled fish?

Gorgeous here today, although windy and chilly. But the air is crystal clear and you can see forever. Gawd, I love this place. And Randy reports that the Lonesome Turkey who's been hanging around here for the last couple weeks finally has a girlfriend. You go, Guy!

I'm shooting for completing the back for another UFO quilt, which will make it a total of 3 ready to be quilted. Yeah!

Back Is Finished!

Yeah! I have finished the back for The World's Ugliest Quilt! I'm getting these babies finished and in a pile to take to the machine quilter, one by one. She has 2 right now. I have 2 more ready to go in the pile now. And at least 2 more that are very close to ready to add to the pile. I AM the Queen of UFOs!

Photography

Probably no cooking today. Our kitchen designer and her hubby are coming around dinner time to photograph the kitchen and laundry room. They're bringing pizza! I'm so looking forward to seeing John and Jan since it's been way too long.

Otherwise, it's chilly today and alternately cloudy/sunny. Shasta Sue Latte has become my very best friend, hanging out with me at the computer all the time I'm there. I'm combing Maizie and Fannie and Nicholas today since they all need it.

Otherwise, I WILL finish that back for The World's Ugliest Quilt today! I will, I will, I will. As soon as I eat lunch.

I'm within the end of reading The Iliad, too. I guess this is making me a better person, but mostly it just makes me hate war all the more. Pretty deeply rooted in our western culture, isn't it? You'd think we could get past such things, but the growing competition for resources, combined with human population explosion, will ultimately only make things worse.

Day 87 - Beans at Their Best

Cranberry Bean Gratin - pg. 80

Toasted Breadcrumbs - pg. 63

Alice is really into cranberry beans, although I have to admit I don't know why. They are cute, but lose their cuteness when cooked. Alice also prefers that they be fresh, not dried, but I gotta tell ya -- it took me months of searching to finally find them dried, never mind fresh-in-the-shell. They were found in Berkeley, of course, although even then it took a trip to an obnoxiously upscale market to find them. Anyway, the bean gratin, not only vegetarian but also downright vegan, was absolutely delicious. I would make it again and again and again. With other beans. With bits of (gulp) meat. With other veggies tossed in perhaps.

The best part, purely from an emotional point of view, is that the toasted breadcrumbs (well worth the little bit of work) were made from Acme bread brought home from Chez Panisse. We had lunch at the Cafe Saturday, a belated birthday gift from Randy. As we left I mentioned something about seeing where the loaves of bread were stashed in the servery to our busboy. Sweet kid asked if I wanted to take any home since lunch time was over and they had a number of pieces cut up already that would only be (argh!) thrown out. Yes, yes, yes! We bought cheese across the street and had 2 of the bread hunks in our room for dinner later that night. The other 2 hunks I brought home, perfect for breadcrumbs.

Since we're in the heart of the season, I oven-roasted asparagus, too for dinner tonight. We'll be eating a lot of 'em while they are in season. I love 'em cooked that way and it's so easy, it's criminal.

Yup, we're home from a long weekend in Berkeley and San Francisco. Food, as always, was big on the activity list. Dinner at Ajanta, lunch at Chez Panisse, grocery shopping at some fancy market in Rockridge (boy! did we ever score some great hard-to-find stuff!), and lunch at Inka (a totally authentic Peruvian restaurant) in San Francisco.

And we shopped 'til we dropped. We filled up the back of the CRV at a plant sale at the UCBerkeley Botanical Garden. New hiking boots for both of us at REI. A couple of David Marsh end tables for the library, and 1 more ordered for June delivery. Books from Moe's. A food mill and a spiffy red-and-white striped apron from Sur La Table. Then we took the long scenic route home past Pinnacles National Monument, home to 27 California condors, none of which we saw.

Now? Back to real life. It's raining again. It doesn't rain here in April. Heck, it doesn't even rain here in March. But, it's raining. And the lupines still smell like heaven.

63 down; 242 to go

What My Mother Taught Me...

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
'If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.'

2. My mother taught me RELIGION .
'You better pray that this will come out of the carpet.'

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL
'If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week!'

4. My mother taught me LOGIC .
' Because I said so, that's why.'

5.My mother taught me MORE LOGIC .
'If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me.'

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
'Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident.'

7. My mother taught me IRONY.
'Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about.'

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.
'Shut your mouth and eat your supper.'

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM .
'Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!'

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA
'You'll sit there until all that SOUP is gone.'

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER ..
'This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.'

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY
'If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!'

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE .
'I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.'

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
'Stop acting like your father!'

15. My mother taught me about ENVY.
'There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do..'

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
'Just wait until we get home.'

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING .
'You are going to get it when you get home!'

18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
'If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to get stuck that way.'

19. My mother taught me ESP .
'Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?'

20. My mother taught me HUMOR .
'When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me..'

21. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT .
'If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up.'

22. My mother taught me GENETICS.
'You're just like your father.'

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
'Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?'

24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
'When you get to be my age, you'll understand.'

25. And my very favorite:
My mother taught me about JUSTICE
'One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you '

Wildlife at the Hacienda

Since moving into our new house in west Atascadero, we find ourselves surrounded by wildlife. Our area is one of steeply rolling oak woodland hills. Lot sizes run around 3 to 8 acres, and there is still a fair number of undeveloped lots around.

Sooooo-- we are a haven for birds of all kinds, deer, bobcats, coyotes and turkeys. The deer and turkeys and birds we see every day. The carnivores less often, but still regularly. There are certainly a whole lot of other creatures about that we don't see very much. I know we have skunk about. Great horned owls hang out occasionally. I've seen mice. Lots of little lizards sun themselves on the south-side boulders, tantalizing the cats.

Yesterday we watched a new little guy in action. A gopher. Lucky for him he's excavating in an "allowed" area near the lizards' favorite sunning rock. I think he's kinda cute, but I don't really want to get close enough to see for sure. I've heard that the Macabee gopher trap is quite effective, so the little sucker better stay out of our flower garden. He's got acres of allowed ground to tear up as much as he wants.

Cold, windy and rainy again. Dinner was strictly crappy-weather comfort food. Nachos. A bag of corn chips. A can of Cuban-style black beans. A bag of shredded cheese. A container of fresh salsa. I call it dinner, even if Alice Waters would never eat such a thing. God bless Trader Joe's.

My Life's Biggest Disappointment

Is me.

I wish I had leadership qualities. I do not. I wish I didn't piss people off all the time, but I do. There is so much I would like to do, so much I would like to accomplish, but if it means that I have to connect with another living human being to do it, it ain't going to happen. It's so frustrating. I've just never in my whole life been able to put all the pieces and parts together.

This reality doesn't freak me out like it used to. Just makes me sad. Makes me sorry for the waste that I am, wanting to make something somewhere better and unable to do so.

Dinner? Fennel and red pepper gratin. Pan-sauteed fish. Tossed green salad. A little weird all the way around, but it did use up some of those (ugh) leftovers in the frig. For which we are eternally grateful.

Lost in Space

That's how I'm feeling today. Lost in space. Let's see, last night I made oven roasted asparagus and salmon together on the same baking sheet. How easy! How tasty! Thank you, Alice, for teaching me how to do these things.

I'm sewing like a madwoman to finish the ugliest quilt I have ever made. Okay, it will be done. Then I can move on. This sucker is bad looking. Seriously. Someone out there want an ugly quilt????

I watched Rachel Maddow's special while sewing madly-- "The Timothy McVeigh" tapes. About the Oklahoma City bombing. The one thing I can say with certainty: Timothy McVeigh was a very boring person. Very boring. He was just a nothing. The fact that he thought he was really something was just a part of what made him such a boring nothing.

And in the rest of my life I'm feeling confused and adrift where I was recently feeling secure and filled with purpose. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Day 86 - Carrot Puree with Caraway and Cumin

Carrot Puree with Caraway and Cumin - pg. 298

What is so rare as a day with peace. At least peace in my little corner of the world. I love it.

Thursday afternoon I took Roxanne W. Furrperson to the vet for a check-up. In spite of having heart disease, she's doing great. She'll be 12 in August. Here's the good news! After several years of giving her heart medicine compounded in a triple-fish flavor base served on top of wet food twice a day (which gets to be miserably tedious), those nice Greenies people have invented pill pockets for cats. Pop a pill in a pocket (a cat treat in disguise). The cat greedily snarfs up the pill pocket. And the pill is now in the cat. Roxanne, bless her, loves pill pockets. Our lives have just become simplified. I like simple.

Yesterday afternoon Megan and I presented Puff as the pet-of-the-week on Dave Congalton's radio show. Puff was a star. I've never seen a cat so relaxed and confident in Dave's studio. Puff just explored and said hi to everyone. He (yes, Puff's a boy) even rolled over on the floor and asked Dave to rub his tummy. While we on the air. Puff is 10 years old and is a perfect cat for our Seniors for Seniors program, and Puff previously lived with a senior mom. I hope Puff gets a good home and an appropriate home.

This morning Randy and I went to farmers' market and then went shopping for the rest of the pots we need to pot up our cacti and succulents. And potting medium. Compost, perlite, bone meal.

And tonight I actually cooked again! My favorite old stand-by tuna spaghetti. And Alice's Algerian-inspired carrot puree with caraway and cumin. Lacking any fresh lemon juice (poor planning on my part), I added a bit of fruity red vinegar at the end. Muy tasty. I'm getting into this vinegar thing. A whole world of previously undiscovered flavors. There's more to vinegar than salad dressing. Who knew.

In the meantime, I'm working furiously to finish one of my many, many UFOs. This one, a quilt from 1996 for heaven's sake. Very corny. But, the top is very nearly done. Persistence occasionally pays off.

61 down; 244 to go

My New Favorite Cookbook

Although I haven't actually made anything from it yet, Randy brought home from the Smithsonian the coolest cookbook: "One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish: Sustainable Seafood Cookbook." I've shared it with Eric and Tony at Pier 46, my favorite local purveyors of seafood. They're pretty excited about it.

No one's taking me up on my contest offering yet??? Maybe I'll try it on Facebook.

Oh Crap!

And I'm not kidding.

Monday promised to be a long day in any event. Randy out of the house early to take his car in for some work and wouldn't be home until late. Refrigerator repairman scheduled to come in the a.m. Emergency meeting of the NCHS Board at 5 p.m. to discuss a difficult matter. Oh sigh. And then it got a whole lot worse.

How can I make this long story short? Well, after showering and starting a load of laundry, the plumbing suddenly developed a serious problem. Toilets wouldn't flush, sewer gas came up through the kitchen sink, and (gulp) there was suddenly sewage in both downstairs showers, complete with those little floating brown bits. There ensued several panicked calls to our project manager and a panicked rush to the neighbor's house to use their toilet. Back to the house to await the refrigerator repair guy who, bless him, was understanding, supportive, AND fixed the frig!

Now some background information. When we were first beginning to design our house, I had 2 books that were my main design inspiration, my bibles as it were. One was The New Strawbale House by Catherine Wanek. Catherine's photos are inspirational, moving, and just plain gorgeous. I couldn't help but think, "If I ever had a beautiful house that Catherine would come and photograph, I'd just die and go to heaven." As the project moved along, we learned that our builder is a close friend of Catherine's. When Randy and I were last in New Mexico, we stopped in to meet Catherine's husband and mother. Catherine was away at the time, but we enjoyed touring their B&B and Catherine's mom's strawbale house which appears in TNSH.

So, right in the middle of the shit-in-my-showers situation, waiting for the project manager and the septic pumper to arrive, the project manager calls to tell me that Catherine Wanek is in his office and wants to come up to my house, camera in hand. WTF!!?? Fine, just tell her to pee first. Catherine Wanek is coming to photograph my house and I have shit in my showers. Fine.

Well, I can go with the flow. So to speak. Catherine came and photographed. The refrigerator guy did his thing (the frig is now quiet as a church mouse). The pumper arrived. I left the house to get some lunch and find a place to pee. The project manager cleaned up the showers and toilets (bless him, all you gods and goddesses, bless him). Everyone left and I prepared for the meeting.

And we all got through our meeting, successfully. After which I was a puddle. Take-out from Mickie D's. Sewed some when I got home. Randy joined me with his take-out burrito to watch the end of Dancing with the Stars. And I read some Iliad.

This morning Catherine came back to photograph for another few hours. She's a terrific woman. Nicholas, our big white cat, was a very cooperative model throughout the whole photo shoot. He's social and loves being the center of attention. I think that the chance of Nicky NOT being in Catherine's next book is somewhere around zero.

This afternoon I was able to run a couple errands. NCHS got a great first-page above-the-fold article in the last edition of the Paso Robles Press. Two adorable 5-day old kittens, one of whom is Larry. I tracked down a copy of that paper. Then I took 2 quilts to a quilter for quilting. This is a woman I haven't worked with before, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Again, I'm just going with the flow.

Came home, took a nap, and made dinner, which was a variation on the last dish I prepared.

Oh yes! Here's a contest! Randy and I have booked our big fall adventure. Two weeks in one country followed by 1 week in an adjoining country. Any guesses where we're going? Guess right and I'll bring you a special present from one of the countries.

I Still Hate Drama

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Borderline personality disorder. That's the diagnosis. I researched it. Drama queens have borderline personality disorder. Swell. Is there some kind of pill I can slip those people to cure it?

To get my mind off the drama queens in my life, I went to the French film A Prophet. Two and a half hours of subtitles for Farsi, Corsican and French. Maybe more. Hard to tell. It was an interesting bit of entertainment, but totally lacking in characters I could care about. Mostly just a bunch of male drama queens with knives and guns.

We did have fun at the shelter this morning, training staff and then showing a troop of Girl Scouts how to bottle feed tiny kittens. We have a total of 27 of them right now, all out in foster homes. All between the ages of a few days and about 2 weeks. Oh my! I'll be drug into the action soon, I just know it. I'm on the list.

In the meantime, I'm reading The Iliad, but not cooking. Why can't a day be 30 hours long? Why can't I survive on 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night? Why won't the drama queens all go away and pester someone else? Why do I keep griping about them?

I Hate Drama

I hate drama. I've spent the last 2 days dealing with drama. Want details? You won't get 'em. Not from me. That would merely fuel the drama. And I hate drama.

Now we return to our regular boring blog. Randy and I picked up his new aquarium stand today. It's in the back of the CRV and it's heavy. I have no idea how it's going to get upstairs and into his office. Magic? Will it sprout wings and fly? Beats me.

We are surrounded by wildflowers here this spring. There are so many lupines that the scent is nearly overwhelming when I go outdoors. And there is a new batch of little blue things and little white things on the north side of driveway where Randy put out seed. Very cute.

Otherwise, I'm drained and have nothing to share today. We had take-out hamburgers and fries for dinner. I've started The Iliad, with the assistance of Cliff Notes....

Day 85 - Fusilli with Greens and Sausage

Fusilli with Greens and Sausage - pg. 267

Ha! Guess you thought I'd quit my Alice Waters project, eh? No way! I made this dish with penne and kale, which Alice allows. She has a cool idea for using Italian sausage. You remove the sausage from the casings and form it into little meatballs. The dish was good, but hardly news for me since I've always made stuff like this. OTOH, I made it better this time. Didn't make a lot of pasta, just a little. And served the "sauce" over the penne instead of mixing it all together. It all looked quite gourmet and tasted pretty good, too.

Leo was adopted by a family. A man and wife and their teenage daughter. At any given time there are always several cats at NCHS I want to bring home. It's worst right now because we are getting kittens. Newborns with their eyes still closed. I've been visiting some of them nearly every day, especially little Larry. He's white and tabby. His eyes are just opening right now. His foster mom brings Larry and his 3 (so far) buddies in every day when she comes to work so she can continue to feed them every 2 hours. The last little buddy is a tortoiseshell. True to form, she is a total diva.

My Big Adventure today was the search for blankets. You wouldn't think it would be that tough, but it is when you have something specific in mind. I found 'em. Target.

60 recipes completed; a mere 245 to go

I Chickened Out (Chicken Salad, That Is)

Dear Hubby wants to switch cars sometime this week to bring home his new fish tank stand, probably Thursday, so I decided I'd better go do my shopping errands today, since that stuff tends to fill up the back of the CRV.

I found 2 green Adirondack-chair style side tables to put out on the balcony with the wicker chairs. If it ever quits raining. There are 2 end tables that actually go with the wicker chairs, but they will stay inside since the cats like to sleep on their bottom shelves. How could I possibly take away kitties' napping places? Can't do it.

Had to get a whole bunch of stuff from Costco. Kleenex, paper towels, walnuts, soy milk, canned cat food, garbage bags. Great fun stuff, eh? About as exciting as the cat food and kitty litter I brought home at the next stop, Petsmart, where all the guinea pigs were sleeping together in a pile in one of their little houses. So cute.

No time to cook, unfortunately. So I indulged us in one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Costco's Sonoma Chicken Salad. On lettuce. With some slices of orange and grapefruit on the side. Quick, relatively healthy, and tasty. I called it dinner.

Which doesn't directly, but does indirectly, bring me to one of my pet peeves. Why the hell can't people take their bloody shopping carts back to where they belong? These days every parking lot has remote parking stations for carts. Why are 98% of people too damned lazy, narcissistic, rude and stupid to put carts where they belong after they unload their stuff at their cars? Would it kill them? No wonder we're all so damned fat. Just another sign of our collective contempt for our fellow man. Not to mention that loose carts damage landscaping and vehicles, block parking spaces, and just generally pose a safety hazardous for both both drivers and pedestrians. Look, I have a permanent disabled parking placard (which I often, but not always, use) and I can manage to put my empty cart where it belongs every time. If a crip can do it, why can't everyone else?

That's Leo at the top of my post today. Leo got adopted from North County Humane Society this week! Yeah!

Ancient Gratin

This learning-to-cook a la Alice project is starting to pay off. Tonight I made Ancient Gratin, a vegetarian entree of my own invention, based on some potatoes, cauliflower and butternut squash that had to be used up now. I mean NOW. I sliced, floretted, parboiled and layered with some shredded gouda in there somewhere. Salt and pepper. A little cream poured over the top. Convection baked at 375 for 30 minutes. Pressed down with a spatula. Baked for another 10 minutes. Goodness, it was delicious! Randy made a salad to go with.

I sewed all day, making serious progress on the current UFO by figuring out the details of the sashing. Started in 1996 for heaven's sake, it's not a quilt I would ever make today, but I somehow managed to make 36 appliqued heart blocks and this is probably the only hand-applique project I'll ever make, so I'm determined to finish it. You'd laugh to see it. Pink and red, light blue and dark blue, it's all hearts and flowers with that nauseating country feel. It's about one step away from pale blue and dusty rose country geese. Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad. But it does remind me of Texas. Need I say more....

While watching "Dancing with the Stars" (the worst season ever, by the way), I finished hand quilting, primitively, a small wall quilt. Everything except the binding. It, too, is one of those strange things in the UFO pile. Plaid. "Primitive." Lots of buttonhole-stitched applique, depicting the 4 seasons. I remember making one for a small quilt auction, and apparently decided to make one for myself, too. Well, it will go somewhere. Like, somewhere on the planet.

I continue my reading preliminary to the Iliad. Like Cliff Notes. Seriously. Whatever it takes.

Sort of a "Me" Weekend

You celebrate Easter your way; I'll celebrate it mine. Yesterday was a "me" day. Randy and I went to farmers market and stocked up on great spring goodies, including flavorful strawberries and 2 pounds of English peas. The spring stuff is coming on strong now. There is also an ongoing dog obedience class at the same park every Saturday morning. It's such fun to watch for a while. The dogs are just adorable.

Then I took Fannie Foxtail to NCHS's Blessing of the Animals. Our cat care coordinator is an ordained minister and does this wonderful event every year, blessing each and every animal with water from the River Jordan and her loving prayers. Sherry Chapman. That's her. She had me in tears.

After lunch I went into SLO on a major book-shopping trip. I spent quite awhile at our wonderful used book store, Phoenix, getting all my books for an exploration of ancient Greek literature. I'm still reading Durant for historical background. It's beginning, just beginning, to make sense to me. I enjoyed comparing translations at Phoenix, but I'm not going to get hung up about it. I'm looking for readability and will let the scholars worry about the details.

Then I saw a German movie, North Face, that made a big impression on me. I'm a sucker for those mountaineering tragedies. This story was very well told.

Afterwards I found a historical atlas at Barnes & Nobles, and stopped at their Starbuck's for a mocha and cookie before heading home. When I left B&N around 10:30 I encountered a bride and groom walking somewhere. They were very formally dressed and totally gorgeous, although in her strapless gown, I'll bet the bride was freezing. I wished them congratulations. Such a strange thing, but so like SLO.

Today, the weather is icky. Rainy, cold and windy. Bleck. My Big Project (which took only a little while) was to set-up my little "sound system" in my studio. Otherwise I've just picked-up and cleaned-up and read and watched TV and contemplated the universe today. Quite the wasted day. Some days are like that. I guess it's basic housekeeping, basic lifekeeping. Rest, renew and recharge. I'm looking forward to a productive, exciting week. To cooking, to reading, to doing NCHS work and to (hopefully) finish another UFO quilt project.

Finished!

I've been making a quilt for my friend Scott to give to his sister. It has ladybug fabric in the center of variable stars. Said ladybug fabric was the lining of their childhood sleeping bags. The front is finished. The back is finished. The binding is made and ready to go. Yippee!! So now I can take it to the machine quilter, and can then bind it and pass it on to Scott. Yippee!!

Now I can get on with the rest of my jillions of UFOs. (UnFinished prOjects)

Last night I made fried rice for dinner. But I did it correctly and it was really good. Tonight Randy made our old favorite fallback position dinner: tuna spaghetti.

Here I am with the top while it was still in progress. (Photo by Cameron Taylor-Brown)

Clifton Fadiman's "The Lifetime Reading Plan"

Clifton Fadiman was the kind of guy I wish we had more of these days, a witty, intellectual media personality, author, editor, and for awhile, a judge with the Book-of-the-Month Club. All of this just shows my age. I used to actually belong to the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Fadiman wrote "The Lifetime Reading Plan," which I came across a few years ago at a used book sale. I'll quote from the dust jacket: "A stimulating and irresistible guide to one hundred books and authors -- from Homer to Hemingway -- which will help you, over the whole of your lifetime, to understand what the greatest writers of western civilization have thought and felt." I was so intrigued that I decided to tackle the project, although I may not live long enough to finish it.

Before tackling the ancient Greek and Roman writers, I'm brushing up on history of those eras with Will Durant's "The Life of Greece," which is Part II of his epic "The Story of Civilization." It's really entertaining reading. Who knew.

I'm sure this project seems downright quaint in our time, but what the heck. Once you hit age 61 you're pretty downright quaint anyway. I'm having fun.

Where Has Waldo Been?

At the end of last week we took a little spring break trip to the desert, heading south to Anza Borrego State Park near the Salton Sea. The wildflower show promised to be good after a long rainy season with lots of those lazy (relatively) soaks. Well!! In the first place, I am a desert rat through and through. The Sonoran Desert is my favorite place in the world. I lived for years in the Phoenix area and hung out in the desert as much as I could. And I've never seen such a wildflower display as we saw last week at Anza Borrego. Oddly, even the cacti were nearly in full bloom. (Normally they flower later when it's hotter.) Everywhere you looked, everything was flowers, flowers, flowers. And the weather was quite lovely with a nice breeze that kept everything comfortable.

So now we're home and back to real life. The first day home after any trip is always laundry, laundry, laundry, vacuum, vacuum, vacuum (cat fur). Catch up with email, snail mail, phone calls, errands. I'm determined to get our art hung and placed, and the proper switch and outlet plates installed soon, very soon. So I stocked up on the proper hangers and screws yesterday.

Today we had a bit more fun. After plowing through a pile of itty-bitty to-dos, I went to SLO and found 3 pots for 4 of the cacti and succulents we brought home from a desert nursery in Borrego Springs. Randy wants a desert garden on the south-facing balcony, so it shall be. I can get down with that plan. Then Randy and I met at Luna Rustica to see if there was anything there we couldn't live without since they are having a preferred customer sale. Sure enough. We bought a few Talavera-style switchplates and 2 humungous decorative pots for the arched approach to the front porch.

And, I've started a reading program on which I've long planned to embark. I want to read some challenging stuff before I croak. More on that later. Yes, yes. I know. I'm not exactly cooking right now. Live with it. Tomorrow is our 20th wedding anniversary which we will celebrate with a dinner at Villa Creek in Paso Robles. After that? Back to real life in the food department. Which means back to spreading my culinary wings a little farther than before.

Busy Little Bee

Busy, busy week.

Other than trying to unravel this NCHS Facebook tangle (I have half of it solved), I've been working on Scott's quilt. The front is all done except for attaching the borders. The binding is nearly finished. Next is to make the back, send it off to the quilter, and attach the binding.

Monday I hosted the NCHS Board and a friend and consultant, Wendy, who is helping us think like a genuine non-profit Board of Directors. I'd planned to cook dinner for all of us, but ended up ordering pizza instead.

Tonight we ate dinner at the Paso Robles' Chili's. It was Give Back night at Chili's. Anyone bringing in a flyer for the event had 15% of their tab donated to NCHS. Sooooo, I've also been spreading flyers hither and yon all over the place. And emailing links to friends of NCHS asking them to print flyers from our web site and come to dinner. Looked like things went pretty well. I had ribs. Not anywhere near as good as Eddie's, but tasty nonetheless.

And laundry. And planting. And vacuuming cat hair. And emails. And petting cats. And on and on and on.

Cooking has consisted of reheating left-over pizza. I love leftover pizza.

5 Great Volunteer Opportunities at North County Humane Society in Atascadero, California

1. Shop-4-the-Shelter

Working in 2- or 3-hour shifts, pairs or small groups of volunteers pass out “shopping lists” requesting donations from shoppers at grocery and department stores in Atascadero and Paso Robles. The donated items, such as laundry detergent and canned cat food, are used in quantity at the shelter. Events are scheduled 2 Saturdays a month through May and then again in the fall. Great opportunity for couples and families. You’ll get lots of support and lots of personal satisfaction.

Leave a Shop-4-the-Shelter message for Kathleen at 466-5403.

2. Building and Grounds Maintenance

From fix-it projects to landscaping, there is always a need for repairs and maintenance at the shelter in Atascadero. Sometimes there are things that need to be fixed right now, but there is lots of room for individuals to take on projects that they enjoy. With staff and Board members, we often solicit donations of tools and materials. Individuals, couples and families are welcome to take charge of various projects during regular shelter hours, 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Leave a Building and Grounds Maintenance message for Larry or Geoff at 466-5403.

3. Fundraising Events

Work with staff and Board members in small groups or individually to plan and stage various fundraising events and activities. Established events include the Annual Membership Luncheon, K9 for Felines Walk, and quarterly newsletters. We have tons of great ideas planning happy events, but we need volunteers to make them happen. Take responsibility for an entire event or pitch in to help others in a variety of ways. Time commitments are totally variable to fit your schedule. We’re looking to have fun while raising money to help our animal friends. Events will mostly be held in North County.

Call Lisa, Shelley or Sherry at 466-5403 to tell us you’re interested in fundraising events.

4. Pet Point Data Entry

Do you have basic computer skills? We are using a new web-based database program called Pet Point. It’s a fantastic program that is making our lives easier and is making our service to both animals and people far more effective. However, we have a lot of catching up to do in terms of entering existing information about our kitties into the database. We need help! You can work at the shelter in Atascadero during our regular shelter hours, or even at home (although Pet Point is not Mac friendly). Work as much or as little as you would like, and get to know all of our kitties while you’re at it!

Leave a Pet Point Volunteer message for Shelley or Heather at 466-5403.

5. Adopt-a-Pet and Outreach Events

We’d love to step up our adoptions by taking adoptable cats out to 1-day or half-day off-site adoption events. Right now we have no off-site Adopt-a-Pet events scheduled due to lack of volunteers. Adopt-a-Pets require a serious commitment, although they can be scheduled, generally on weekends, in North County according to the volunteers’ schedules and interests. Volunteers need to learn North County Humane Society adoption policies and procedures, must take time to get to know their adoptable cats, and need to be able to take necessary equipment to and from Adopt-a-Pet sites. You will, however, get lots of help and support from staff and Board members. You’ll also get the incredible satisfaction of sending wonderful feline companions off to their forever homes. This is a great volunteer opportunity for couples, families, or small groups of friends who are self-reliant self-starters.

Leave an Adopt-a-Pet message for Shelley, Lisa or Sherry at 466-5403.

Maizie Jane Valentine

I think it was Albert Schweitzer who said something about life's greatest solices being music and cats. Or was it Mark Twain? Or Einstein? Well, something like that. The point being that when you've had a crappy day, a little music and a small- to large-sized cat will make you feel better. This is Maizie Jane Valentine. She's a medium-sized cat. She always makes me feel better.

Maizie's just about the most easy-going cat I've ever known. She came to us as an adult foster and quickly earned a permanent place in our family because she got along with all the other cats from Day One. How often does that happen? She's Ms. Valentine for the heart-shaped spot on the end of her nose. She's Maizie Jane just because it suits her.

Maizie really is a good traveler. She also likes to claim a vacant Pet Taxi as her own private cat cave when one is sitting around the house somewhere. Isn't she lovely?

Yeah, not the greatest day ever. I'm exceptionally aggravated with unknown people who set up North County Humane Society Facebook and MySpace pages, or get them half set up, and then just disappear without leaving login email addresses and passwords behind. They are stabbing NCHS right square in the middle of the back. I've spent the bulk of the day trying to track down these narcissistic brats (which is the nicest thing I can think of to call them). What did NCHS ever do to them to deserve being treated so meanly and cruelly. It's darn near a form of animal cruelty if you ask me. Ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Did I cook? Well, I did saute the rest of those chicken livers and made a balsamic honey vinegar reduction to pour over them. Just for practice. It was good. Maybe life will look better tomorrow.

Vinegar Reduction

Who knew. We drove up to Paso Robles today for lunch and to check out the cat and dog art at the Studios on the Park. (Too delightful!) Oh gosh, while we were at it, why not a little stop at We Olive since Chaparral Gardens is having a special tasting of their wonderful, it turns out, vinegars.

I was inspired. Took home a bottle of Winter Ambrosia. Diced up some butternut squash and minced a shallot. Marinated the squash for an hour or so in a tablespoon of the Ambrosia. Sweated the shallots in olive oil. Then added the squash and 1/3 c. more of Ambrosia. Just let the whole thing sweat or an hour or so. OMG! Tasted like heaven! Served the squash with wild rice and toasted pecans. Impressed hubby with words like "sweated" and "mirepoix." The Ambrosia had just infused the squash with the most wonderful flavors.

And that's my story.

Chicken Livers

Sauteed Chicken Livers - pg. 347

I love liver. It's true. I love liver. Randy hates liver. I repeat: Randy hates liver. I cook and eat liver when Randy is out of town. Randy is out of town. Tonight, I ate liver.

Unfortunately, Alice has no recipes for beef or calves' liver. But she does give directions for sauteed chicken livers. I stopped at one major grocery store Wednesday and GASP! they had no chicken livers! Today I went to another store to get milk and THANK HEAVEN! they had chicken livers. Tonight, I sauteed and feasted on chicken livers. I've been cooking and eating liver in all sorts of ways for decades, but a nice plate of simply sauteed chicken livers was just excellent. I am a happy camper. Randy will be home later tonight. There are still some livers left to cook, but they will be mine, all mine, tomorrow.

Seasonal allergies are hitting me hard again as they do every year. Sigh. Grass pollen. I'm allergic to grass pollen. It makes me feel stiff, achy and tired. I have a routine to fight it. The routine is in full swing. What a PITA.

Wednesday I represented NCHS at a volunteer faire. That was kind of a bust, but I learned some thing about how to pitch NCHS to volunteers. Yesterday I spent the whole day repairing another public-relations problem. NCHS came out the better for it though. And we had our monthly Board meeting. Today I joined Megan at KVEC to talk about our featured cat, Leo, on Dave Congalton's radio show. That was good, too. You can see Leo on my Facebook page. He's a doll. A big orange tabby and white love bug. I'm tempted. I'm tempted.

And today I pissed someone off. Without trying at all. I hate it when that happens. Over-reactions. Drama. Spare me. Life's too short. I need the weekend to rest and heal. And attend to my own concerns. Cook and sew. By the way, with any luck at all the sale of the Los Osos house closed today and the new owners are sleeping there tonight. Yeah!!

59 recipes down; 246 recipes to go

Nicholas Longtail Moose

This is Nicholas Longtail Moose, the only boy kitty of our six resident felines. When Nicky was 5 months old I gave him to my husband Randy as a Christmas present. That was in 2008. Randy loved his gift. The 2 of them are best friends. Nicholas is quite social, making friends with everyone who walks in the front door, so he's a great favorite of visitors and repairmen.

In spite of his looks, Nicky's a 12-pound whoose. He recently went lame and had to go to the vet. The diagnosis? Dermatitis. Good grief. He got a shot of antibiotics and is fine now. (Photo by Cameron Taylor-Brown)

Day 84 - Beans and Squash

White Bean and Butternut Squash Soup - pg. 257

I truly thought this soup would be a bore. Alice's soup recipes generally don't look all that inspiring to me. However, I am bound by my vow to cook everything in the book, The Art of Simple Food. It's an exercise that's good for the soul and the mind.

This is a very simple soup, by Alice standards. Beans, broth, onion and a butternut squash whacked up into pretty small pieces (which is a lot of whacking). Salt, sage and a bay leaf. In "variations" Alice suggests serving the soup over oiled, toasted thick slices of rustic bread. And therein lies the salvation of this simple soup, turning the final dish into yet another delight.

Lately I've been asking Randy to make green salads to go with the dinner entrees. Hearty salads with fruit and nuts, dressed with a basic vinaigrette. I like having him involved and in the kitchen, at least at the end of the cooking.

It's been a busy weekend. We hosted the guest speaker at the weaving guild meeting last week. We now have all the new sitting room furniture in place. Yippee! I've been working on Scott's quilt, working on NCHS stuff, and trying to get more of my life in order (which is a constant struggle). Details? Can't remember.

58 down; 247 to go

Day 83 - I'm Whipped

Whipped Cream - pg. 387

Man, I hate to shock you, but I gotta tell ya the truth. Until a few weeks ago, I had never whipped cream. Seriously. I thought the stuff came out of aerosol cans. Only aerosol cans. I do recall my mother whipping cream a few times, but she performed other culinary desert-type miracles, so that doesn't count. Miracles cannot be performed by us mere mortals after all.

Now I've whipped cream twice and already I'm an expert. I like mine stiff. None of these "soft peaks" for me. And I prefer mine with almond extract. Frankly, I prefer nearly everything with almond extract.

And why, you might ask, was I whipping cream today. Well, we'll have a house guest tonight and tomorrow, so I thought that was a good excuse to take the afternoon off from life and just cook. I've made cream biscuits again. With the whipped cream and fresh raspberries, they will make up raspberry short cake. Why does it have to be strawberries all the time???

I've prepared carrot and parsnip sticks for oven roasted vegetables. Just a simple approach. And I've made a lamb tajine, Moroccan-style lamb stew basically. That will go over a few noodles. What fun!

That's pretty much what I've done today -- cook. Oh yes, I cleaned the house up a bit, too. I think I'm over house cleaning. The Los Osos house sale should close in 9 days. Then I call and hire the cleaning lady for this house. Cleaning the new house has simply lost its charm.

57 recipes down and 248 to go

Day 82 - I Yam What I Yam

Moroccan Sweet Potato Salad - pg. 320

Alice says, "Sweet potatoes and yams are virtually interchangeable in the kitchen." I agree. First I put a yam next to the refrigerator and a sweet potato by the sink. Then I put the sweet potato next to the refrigerator and the yam by the sink. Yup, virtually interchangeable.

Randy showed up in the kitchen at just the right moment and helped me make Moroccan sweet potato salad from a yam. This is one of those recipes that sounds a little weird, but is just excellent, excellent, excellent. And very easy to make. We'll be seeing this one a lot on our table. It will be perfect to take to pot-lucks. I love the citrus-ginger tang of the marinade which nicely soaks into the yam pieces. And it's pretty. I just added some pan-fried chicken with herb butter to the plates for dinner tonight.

Otherwise, while the weather was cold and windy but dry today, I dashed out for major grocery shopping: PetSmart, Costco, Food 4 Less and Trader Joe's. And you know how I'm feeling about shopping these days.... The up side is that I have this terrific 5 pound hunk of lamb leg from Costco. Stew! Lamb stew! With prunes and shallots and almonds. And I have parsnips and carrots for oven roasting. And raspberries and cream.

By the way, Nicky's little paw is just fine. I think he's mostly just a big whuss. Sweet and adorable and a big whuss.

56 recipes made; 249 still in the planning stages

It Was a Monday, Wasn't It?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Laundry. Cat care (Nicky managed a soft-tissue injury to a paw late last night, but seems totally on the mend). Breakfast. Read the paper and do the sudoku. Email, including a long one about NCHS's web site home page. Having gotten the Green Light to spend $$$, it was off to Pier 1 to select furniture for the sitting room with a stop at the shelter on the way to unload Shop 4 the Shelter stuff. Lunch at El Pollo Loco. Wasted the rest of the afternoon. More email. Off to Pier 1 again to purchase and drag home everything but the settee. Dinner at El Pollo Loco. A hot night of Oscar fashion police shows. This is a day? I tell ya, I'm all over shopping for the house and pretty much over shopping in general. And it rained.

Busy, busy, busy...

It occurs to me that my mother-in-law reads this blog pretty regularly. Which means, Mary Anne, that you probably know more about the details of my daily life than does your son.

I've been busy with all the usual stuff. E.g., yesterday afternoon my friend Laurel and I worked a Shop for the Shelter in Paso Robles. This is how the shelter gets much of its basic supplies: paper towels and paper plates, bottles of Dawn, dry and wet cat food, garbage bags, bleach. Even some cash! People are so wonderfully generous in helping us help the animals. The highlight was part of a bottle of green apple Dawn spilling in my car. Not entirely a bad deal, however-- even after cleaning the spill my car smells really good.

The Academy Awards were totally, boringly predictable. Best part was Oprah's introduction of Gaby. Worst part was Sandra Bullock's lipstick. It's all politics, but the gowns are fabulous. I didn't see any real duds this year.

Today I tackled a l-o-n-g overdue project. I unpacked the very last boxes (other than a couple in my studio) and got the sitting room cleaned and organized. What's the sitting room? Well, when you come upstairs, there's a bathroom and my studio to the left and Randy's office to the right. But you can go straight ahead through what is basically a wide hallway to sliding glass doors that go out to a large balcony. That very wide hallway houses our version of a media room. The big screen tube is there and CDs and DVDs and players and speakers and stuff. And a couple chairs that live out on the balcony during good weather. I've been given the green light by the keeper of the financial records to purchase some better furniture for the sitting room. Yeah! In truth, it's the cats who make the most use of the sitting room. Not a bad thing.

It's going to be a busy week! With some sunshine!

Trying to Get Organized and Get Something Accomplished

Doesn't that title just spell out life in general??? Why is it so difficult? Or is it just that I think it's difficult. I don't know. Anyway, here I am, trying to get organized and trying to get something accomplished.

Yesterday was filled with little piddly stuff. Today won't be much better. I did get to a movie yesterday. Crazy Heart. Which isn't anywhere near the movie that A Single Man is. Nor is Jeff Bridges the actor that Colin Firth is. Nor is Bridge's performance anything near what Firth's is in the 2 respective movies. But, Crazy Heart is mass-market stuff, so Bridges will win the Best Actor Oscar. Firth in A Single Man gets you right in the gut. Reminded me of American Beauty. But, it's a loving movie about a closeted gay man trying to get a grip on his life and his heart. Not mass-market stuff. So there you have it. And Avatar should win Best Picture. The Hurt Locker was surely interesting, but I admit that I don't see why it's such a big deal.

Here's something that irritated me about Crazy Heart. Bad enough that the Maggie Gyllenhall character hits the sack with Bad, but I guess she's just dumb enough to do that. (I see herpes and HIV everywhere in this scenario given Bad's sexual habits....) But here's Maggie objecting to Bad's drinking in front of her son, although Bad's constant chain-smoking apparently doesn't concern her a bit. And why does she put up with either habit at all? What's wrong with this picture? Why am I supposed to feel anything for either of these idiots? I don't. Sorry. I don't.

No cooking happening right now. Tonight we'll go out for dinner and a concert. I am, however, getting the odds and ends cleaned out of the frig and that is a very good thing.

Day 81 - Chard and Salmon

Chard with Parmesan - pg. 310

Baked Wild Salmon with Herb Butter - pg. 330

Digging around in the frig early this afternoon, what did I find but-- chard! parmesan! frozen wild salmon! and herb butter! Everything I needed to make 2 new recipes, and an excellent dinner. I'm still not cooking fish quite long enough. I don't want the fish to dry out, so I err on the undercooked side. I'll learn. Gosh, guess I'll have to just bake more fish. Pity, since I think I could eat salmon just about every day. Halibut is good baked, too. And just about any other fish I can think of.

Did I mention that it's still raining? It's still raining. Local reservoirs are still only half full, so I can only gripe a little bit. I don't mind the rain, really. I just miss the sun.

For NCHS I worked on updating our surrender and adoption policies today. I really hope this doesn't get bogged down and that we can move this to completion.

And I'm working on Scott's quilt. It's so much fun to see the overall design coming together.

55 recipes completed; 250 to go

Uneventful Day

Basically, I'm nose-to-the-grindstone making Scott's quilt. Went out for a few errands. Dug in the frig and freezer for dinner tonight. How we can collect so much stuff in the frig and freezer I'll never understand, but here we go again -- dibs and dabs of stuff.

Started with asparagus I bought a couple weeks ago. Peeled and oven roasted. Boy, Alice has sure taught me to step up my game in the asparagus department. I love 'em oven roasted. I love vegetables oven roasted in general.

A skillet dish. Pieces of chicken "tenders" from the freezer. Cooked pasta from the freezer from when I made Alice's cheese and mac and Alice had me cooking way too much pasta. Whole-wheat fusilli. Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn left over from something I made in September when we had company. Santa Fe red chili sauce that Randy made some time ago. And goat cheese left over from making the fava bean and goat cheese spread. It was very good actually. Although, there is still chicken and corn in the freezer and red sauce and goat cheese in the frig. But not as much.

All in all, as I think about dinner tonight, I'm doing a much better job of "shopping" from what's already in the house and creating a really upscale meal. I'm pleased.

And it rained all day.

A Garfield Kind of Monday

Good grief. The day started with a dose of Wisconsin family drama. I'm so glad I live in California. I don't do well with drama. I don't like drama. Thank heaven it was all pretty much resolved by the end of the day. Did I mention that I don't like drama?

Following on that thrill was yet another trip to the title insurance office to sign yet more papers as we try to successfully close escrow on our old house yet again. If it's a pain to sell a house once, believe me it's even a bigger pain to sell it twice.

The weather prediction for today was partly cloudy. Which implies partly sunny. I couldn't find the sunny part. Didn't help my general attitude. So mostly I worked on my friend Scott's quilt. The one for his sister. I find great solice in sewing. Just sewing. In reality, I probably spend more time at the ironing board than the sewing machine while making a quilt, but the whole process is great fun.

Dinner was a reworking of that chili which I didn't like at all. To what was left (which was a lot) I added more tomatoes, more beans, and a lot more seasoning: chili powder, cumin, oregano, garlic and salt. Topped tonight with shredded cheddar (which is also one of those leftovers in the frig). Much, much better tonight. Randy added a salad with greens and fruit. And a wonderful blood orange vinaigrette.

After dinner I had to finish up the family drama, and then worked on the quilt. You've already read about all that. Not every day can rise even to the level of interesting. This one certainly didn't.