High winds, warm kitchen, important information

The house is harder to keep warm in high winds, drafty, so this was a good day to cook and get a warm kitchen.

And I seem to have got into a frenzy of cooking, what with deciding on Spain on a Fork potato croquettes, to use potatoes, then remembering I had the halibut defrosted in the fridge. 

Then I thought why not both. Lifelong mantra: when in doubt, do everything.

So I had a bunch of things going at once. Nuking potatoes to mash them, frying onions and garlic, grating cheese, mixing spices, panko,  that's the potato things, and grinding almonds, finding the oats, panko again, drying fish, that's the halibut pieces, oiling glass pan likewise. Cooking for one and I need a sous chef, and a dishwasher.

Originally I planned on walnuts, not almonds, for this breading, and found I'd used them up, so I had to use what I had.

And here's lunch. A beautiful piece of halibut with crisp breading, 20 minutes at 400f, in case you wondered. This time and temp cooks the fish and the breading nicely.

The other things are Alberto's recipe, more or less, mashed potatoes (!), grated cheese, egg, scallions, fried onions and garlic, seasoned with cayenne, smoked paprika, turmeric, seasalt, cumin, fried in the onion pan but I didn't wipe out the pan between, because flavor.

This frenzy has yielded several meals, and will mix and match with the soup and bean bread things.

It occurs to me that when I need an afternoon nap, it's after a morning like this.

Elsewhere Meetch (!) discussed names and how they're pronounced. My sister Irene,  EYEreen in the UK became  eyeREEN in Canada, never eyeREENee, despite the name police. She adapted to Canadian ways, Missy. Considering her temperament, it's ironic that her name means peace. Maybe my mom was being aspirational.

Nephew Gerard,  GERud in the UK,  became GerAHRD in Canada. You could tell whether a brit or a Canadian was calling him by how he pronounced his name when he answered!

Me, I'm often addressed as Lisa, don't ask me why. It's a mystery. I occasionally also have a little discussion with people who insist they want to use the full version of Liz, despite my preference.  The long version was my mother, not moi.

We had a lovely neighbor long ago who said she'd never met a PhD before (Handsome Partner) and she really couldn't call him by his first name, nor me by a nickname, not respectful.

She resolved it by referring to us as Betty and Doc! Like an oldtime comic strip. We loved her and everyone knew who she meant, so no harm done.

Today is about keeping warm, after a brisk interlude outside in my bathrobe earlier. I'd stepped out into a high wind, to put out the Freecycle bag and found the steps covered in earth and debris. Probably squirrels digging furiously as they do. 

I couldn't ask my nice Freecycler to step over that mess, so I swept it clean and more or less righted the lavender container plant knocked on its side, wind tearing at me. 

Now I'm up for knitting and reading. Hamish is still on my schedule. I wonder what I'll do after I've read all the Hamish books. 

My days have devolved into:

up early, morning care, breakfast, QiGong, email, blogs, Hamish, cooking, lunch, Hamish, knitting, Downton Abbey YT shorts, afternoon tea, Hamish etc.

On the other hand, it could be worse. And the fish will keep my brain working, at least that's the hope.

And, since gender and ignorance about it keep appearing in our news, here's the Talmud's take on it

Happy day everyone, eat fish. Or something.

This flag display is getting like my sock mending -- more darn than sock. Any more rights threatened and I'll end up with more flags than blog.