Nigel Slater’s lemon ice cream – what’s left on Saturday after we all had some. He says to freeze it a plastic container, stirring occasionally, but I broke the lid of one my Tupperwares doing it that way last time – it got stiff from the cold and cracked – so used a metal bowl instead.
Yesterday – Friday – I bailed from work early and just came home. It was the last day of a long grey week. I woke up with intestinal distress, and have been feeling like I have a sinus infection for what seems like forever – tired, headachey, gunk in the back of my throat.
I decided to NOT go to the symphony with Mark, and just laze around the house. I was hoping that maybe Toni would take my ticket, but she wanted a night in too. Mark was no unhappy, since it meant he could walk downtown for the concert.
I made Nigel Slater’s lemon ice cream. It’s whipped cream, purchased (or homemade if you have it) lemon curd, Greek yogurt, and smashed meringues. It’s kind of like this recipe, but from his Kitchen Diaries, from a menu for early May, so seemed appropriate. It’s the one where he says whip the cream short of stiff, so it’s in “slovenly folds”. I discovered that the American Spoon lemon curd I had in the closet was out of date – expiry date was in February of 2013. Not enough to kill you, just enough to not taste very good. It had a funny, cheesy smell when I opened the lid, and tasted only slightly lemony. Good thing I had another jar, of another brand, so I used that, and, with just a spoonful of the out of date stuff, had just enough.
I ate wheat thins and an apple and a big spoonful or peanut butter for dinner. Then I cut up the pint of strawberries that was in the fridge, and made a sauce by mashing up the 12-oz. clamshell of raspberries I got at Trader Schmoes on the way home with 1/2 cup of sugar. So at 8:00, I had lemon ice cream with berry sauce.
My happiness would’ve been complete if Netflix had been working and I could’ve had a Mad Men marathon. I should’ve just gone upstairs and reset the wireless access point. Instead, I did what the Netflix trouble shooting web page told me to do, which was completely power down and then power back up the TV, and found the pink massage ball when I was digging around behind the TV – I guess that’s a bonus. As it was, I watched some of the movie CBGB – it wasn’t good, but it was surprisingly not terrible, and the sound track was good. They used all the original artists, and did not attempt to recreate. Even though kind of miscast, I like Alan Rickman so much that I liked him as Hilly Kristal. Probably the worst was the actress they had do Patti Smith reading Rimbaud and getting booed – she just couldn’t do the true Patti powerful voice that let all the boo-ers know they were the idiots, not her – but they quickly cut to her lip syncing the real Patti doing Because the Night. Then I watched what I think is the last episode of Parenthood, because David Bianculli said it was the best drama on TV, and because Mark recorded it. It was often hard to tell the show from the commercials, as I fast forwarded. Then I watched Deadwood which is in re-runs on HBO.
I went to bed at 11:30 and slept right straight through from when Mark came in at 1:30 all the way to 5:30. Then my eyes opened up at 6:22 and I just couldn’t go back to sleep. But I felt so good from four hours straight that I got up and made coffee cake. I just read this Louise Erdrich story in the New Yorker, about a guy who divorces his wife who snores and marries a woman who sleeps like “a drunk kitten”. When he starts getting enough sleep he is amazed at how great he feels – who needs drugs when there’s sleep. Maybe I’ll get a chance to experience that sometime – I am sure I’d lose some weight if I slept better than I currently do. My normal is waking up every two hours.
Saturday AM coffee cake: prunes, brown sugar, walnuts, all in original recipe; I added lemon glaze
