Till May be out
Thursday, May 7th, 2020 08:11 pm Since they're calling for snowflurries tomorrow, my winter boots are still in the hallway. May snow never sticks around anyway: doesn't get mentioned in the Historical Weather stats, even as 'trace', though I can distinctly remember snow showers that were more than a trace, even in this century. But the unwonted stiffness of the Everything lately has rendered all housework twice as difficult, so I'm in no rush to tidy the whinter wardrobe away. I put the winter coat in the bunker after Sunday's mid-20sC/ low 70sF, only to haul it out again yesterday.
Last Fiesta shop got me some mid-fat hamburger, a rare treat in these wrong-headed days of fat= bad. Wanted to make meatloaf but discovered I don't have a loaf pan, so made my even rarer treat, beef fried rice. This was a recipe my cousin gave me when I first left home. (My mother only taught me to make porkchops, corned beef hash, and lasagna from a box mix.) The recipe is very 70s student: saute onions, then brown hamburger, then add cooked rice (Uncle Ben's quick cooking), pour over enough soy sauce to colour the rice, mix all together. Make a well in the middle, of the rice, melt butter in well, break an egg into the butter, and quickly spread it through the mixture. In my old age I add celery and bok choy to all this, but of course the main taste is soy sauce. No matter. Rice and butter and salt together is my comfort food, and anything made with them not only registers as delicious, it removes my sense of 'full' completely. Which is why I rarely make this.
Today was a 'never get out of pyjamas' day, which I'm allowed occasionally. Accomplishment was to finish the interminable couch book, an examination of courtly love literature from who knows when, that I thought might be amusing but which was either dull (the troubadors) or impenetrable (the philosophy behind the Italian 'sweet new style', which involves unfamiliar definitions of soul, spirit, will, intelligence, and you name it.) Courtly love is pretty recherche at the best of times, and is worse when the author doesn't translate the works he cites. He says he'll translate the Provencal ones, but he figures the reader can manage 12th century French and 13th century Italian themselves. Mh, no.
Last Fiesta shop got me some mid-fat hamburger, a rare treat in these wrong-headed days of fat= bad. Wanted to make meatloaf but discovered I don't have a loaf pan, so made my even rarer treat, beef fried rice. This was a recipe my cousin gave me when I first left home. (My mother only taught me to make porkchops, corned beef hash, and lasagna from a box mix.) The recipe is very 70s student: saute onions, then brown hamburger, then add cooked rice (Uncle Ben's quick cooking), pour over enough soy sauce to colour the rice, mix all together. Make a well in the middle, of the rice, melt butter in well, break an egg into the butter, and quickly spread it through the mixture. In my old age I add celery and bok choy to all this, but of course the main taste is soy sauce. No matter. Rice and butter and salt together is my comfort food, and anything made with them not only registers as delicious, it removes my sense of 'full' completely. Which is why I rarely make this.
Today was a 'never get out of pyjamas' day, which I'm allowed occasionally. Accomplishment was to finish the interminable couch book, an examination of courtly love literature from who knows when, that I thought might be amusing but which was either dull (the troubadors) or impenetrable (the philosophy behind the Italian 'sweet new style', which involves unfamiliar definitions of soul, spirit, will, intelligence, and you name it.) Courtly love is pretty recherche at the best of times, and is worse when the author doesn't translate the works he cites. He says he'll translate the Provencal ones, but he figures the reader can manage 12th century French and 13th century Italian themselves. Mh, no.
