Deb's Lunch … and dinner and breakfast too

So here’s the hole in the ceiling:

So I dunno – there’s still a large contigent lobbying me that I need a whole new one. I’m being pulled in two directions – the carpenter says patch – and it could even be real plaster put on by this cool old school lesbian plasterer I met at a 50th birthday party at an incredible 1850s house out in the country, that had been restored lovingingly to gay couple fabulous-ness – so I feel reassured, it’s not so bad when I talk to him. The plumber thinks I should call my insurance agent and see if I can get the job covered on my homeowners – so that’s back to making me feel like it’s very bad.

posted from my iPhone

Celeriac & potato mash with watercress salad

Deborah Madison just did a new book, What We Eat When We Eat Alone. The overall conclusion of the book is that when we eat alone, we don’t have to follow the rules – we can eat what and where we want – standing over the sink, in bed, in front of TV, and we don’t have to wait until everyone is seated take a bite. One thing for me that has been changing as I age is that I can wait and eat later now.  I used to get so hungry at 4:00 p.m., that I tended to spoil my dinner appetite with a late afternoon snack, usually sugary – but I’ve gotten better at waiting for something good to cook. The book talks a lot about the differences between men & women eating alone, how men will eat cheeseburgers twice a day, and women are more prone to eating crackers and cheese and wine at cocktail hour and skipping dinner or having a bowl of ice cream or a cup of cocoa. The book points out the exceptions, though, an American man living in England who said his solo meal is cottage cheese on a rice cake with cucumber and tomato – sounds like something my mom would’ve eaten happily.

In some Mollie Katzen book she had an advice for solitary diners section, where she says that cheese is a snack, but melted cheese is a meal.

What We Eat… also points out that women do more cooking for others and so don’t feel like going to a lot of trouble just for themselves. I agree with the woman quoted who said that any meal that takes half a day to prepare should be shared, but I do like slow cooking something just for me – like programming the oven to have rice pudding ready when I get home. I do know I  have been enjoying keeping my kitchen kind of empty recently and cobbling dinner together with whatever I can find – I like the challenge of making something good from random ingredients.  And the sparseness is nice. I also think there’s something about British food that’s comforting – maybe because of the damp climate – they have a lot of foods that seem just right when you come in chilled.

Tuesday I had Brit-inspired, cobbled-together, dinner – mashed celery root (the very last thing from my CSA box, half the knobby root dredged up from the downstairs fridge where it was sitting, lonely in the veg drawer with just an onion to keep it company, wrapped in a plastic bag, and more than half frozen) and potato, with butter and a spoonful of sour cream, with watercress salad on the side. I mixed grainy mustard, rice vinegar, a pinch of sugar, and walnut oil in a bowl then tossed in the washed cress. But maybe it should have been shared, rather than solo – the cress that I didn’t eat wilted and went down the drain; half the celeriac-potato mash is still in a plastic container in the fridge. Hmm, probably be just right, fried up with an egg the next time I come home hungry.

Here are the “official” shots, from up in the cherry picker.

Humans & grills, forming a peace sign

Peace sign from a little farther back

Peace sign

I’m sitting at the hair salon listening to the singer from 10,000 maniacs – oh Natalie Merchant; only took me 2 hours to recall her name – with a lotta horns behind her, dabbling at my bleeding mouth. I wolfed a slice of toast in between getting home from work and getting in the car to drive here. The crust of the toast stabbed the corner of my mouth and it bled – my mouth that is, not the toast – a shocking amount. It was my home made bread, with Swiss cheese and Siracha, so I still enjoyed the toast despite the blood. I have always been sort of disappointed at how difficult it is to put me off food –  I wish I was a frailer flower, or someone who could just forget to eat – I’m sure I’d be pounds lighter. I almost always eat.

Case in point, I came home from the haircut and enjoyed a light pre-symphony supper of chex mix, tea, and rice pudding. I could blame some of this on a non-drinking boyfriend – but that wouldn’t be very nice. Maybe I should just say it’s because we’re Midwestern hicks. Other, more sophisticated people, would head downtown and have a pre-symphony cocktail at the art museum, but not us. Not tonight, anyhow. The pudding’s from Waitrose, maybe that ups our sophisticate rating just a touch …

Slow baked rice pudding

I know, I know, not so exciting, millions of people’s gots kids on YouTube …. But John got a new camera, and shot this vid of a building that burned down in Milwaukee. It was a pretty popular pizza place, plus the fire blocked off a major road in the city for a few days, and now they say it’s arson.