Even though it’s getting summer-y. Or maybe because it’s getting summer-y; too much time spent at the WFH office computer feeling like I’m too hot, and I have a headache, and it’s nice outside, “Do I have to do this now?”
Although there was a lot of time this week when it hasn’t been so nice outside – it’s been rainy, which we needed, but still makes it harder to walk and bike.
Monday I had meetings all morning then I biked to the dentist in the afternoon, which I was dreading since my gums have been bleeding more than I think is healthy when I brush. But they said everything looks fine, so that’s done. We had trash panda – leftovers – for dinner, one of the names Roz Chast discovered for eating whatever you can find in the fridge. A couple of slices of pizza, fried rice, and there was just enough meatloaf for one sandwich on the challah buns I thawed.
Tuesday was a bit the same schedule-wise, lots of meetings in the morning and then I was supposed to meet one of the younger librarians who works at Memorial Library, who I’ve only met online, for coffee, at the downtown Colectivo. We’re both from Pittsburgh and wanted to talk about that. It started getting rainy, but I ran out of time to walk downtown, so I biked in my raincoat and took an umbrella and left my bike under cover by the H.C. White building where I work planning to go back and get it the next day. Colectivo’s got limited indoor seating now, so it turned out to be the first time I sat across a table in a public place, inside, with a non-family member, since March 13, 2020.
Last Saturday, after we got back from our Door County vacay, I made scones for a backyard tea party retirement party for one of my iSchool colleagues. Of course since we planned British food – scones and clotted cream, and Pimm’s – we got British weather – rain. Tuesday morning they brought me the last of the clotted cream, and I had it on the last little misshapen currant scone for desk breakfast.
I knew I was going to get a lot of spinach in my first CSA box Thursday, so for dinner we had a spinach omelet to use up the spinach I already had. With bacon and toast. And the last two snickerdoodle ice cream sandwiches that I made on Sunday for dessert when Steve & Heike came over, when we ate lasagna that also had spinach in it.
Wednesday I made Chana Masala (garbanzo bean curry) from this Bon Appetit recipe. I heard the author, Yasmin Khan, on NPR a bit ago. I cooked the garbanzos from dried on Sunday, and I had some cut tomatoes in the fridge, and some cilantro from before vacation that really needed to be used. I made sourdough naan again, too, but only a half recipe so there are only four left in the fridge to eat with the rest of the curry, instead of half a dozen in the freezer.
Thursday when I got home with the first CSA box, I used some of the potatoes & radishes from it to make potato chorizo tacos.
Here’s the filling in my newest Le Creuset pot – the prettier pictures are in the recipe.
Friday we were supposed to have a little neighborhood cocktail gathering in a neighbor’s driveway, but it was too rainy. At 7:00 the AFS rep was coming over for the required home visit, since I think we’re getting a student this fall. With all that going on the plan was fend for yourself, sandwiches, whatevers. I baked some sourdough bread on Thursday (one of the loaves baked in that new Le Creuset), and I bought some sliced meat & cheese at the co-op. There was salad leftover from some night, and I had that, and I made potato salad, using my picnic potato salad recipe, but it came out weird, not enough chewy potato chunks in the midst of the softer elements. The potatoes seemed watery when I peeled them, and I chopped up a few more of the (giant) radishes from CSA, thinking it’d give it more crunch, but it didn’t work. I also made these double decker brownies, and they came out a bit gooey but good, not soupy like my beginning of pandemic bar cookie jinx.
But stuff like the potato salad fail underscores that I just haven’t been feeling very good about myself. Awkward, incompetent, like I can’t do the things I’m supposed to be good at. When we were on Washington Island, I was riding my joy ridin’ bike and it’s a little too big for me, and I felt awkward on it – and bicycle riding is one of the few remaining things where I do feel coordinated, even with my saggy old lady body. So maybe that started it, and the cooking failures are just making it worse.
But hey, hope springs eternal, get on the bike again – off to the kitchen to make spinach casserole and chicken breasts for Saturday dinner. And I’ll haul out the potato salad and maybe it’ll have a better texture after chilling overnight.