And they're off! Also pasta capers

I got the socks and gloves nicely pressed and mailed off, ETA Friday.  Now I'll see what else to knit. I make a lot of items but reserve my knitting group time for the Sock 'n Glove Ministry, or maybe comfort dolls. Probably time to make a little gang of dolls for the children I sent to before, come to think of it.

Today I made a Yeung Man Cooking recipe for pasta, really good. I know I always say this, but he does make reliably interesting food.

It's usually very calming, quietly cutting and sorting and mixing spices. I've ordered smoked paprika because I only have sweet, and often both are needed. But I'm not getting dark soy sauce, since I find Worcestershire subs for it.

This is not as hot as you might think, and it's very good. What he calls two helpings I call four. I like how he adds in the scallions right at the end, so when you eat the pasta, they're still crisp. This is fresh fettuccine, needing only a couple of minutes to cook. I used the purple garlic here, not sure what's the difference in use from the white, up to now. 

Anyway this is a really cheering lunch without too much prep, all on top of the stove.

And, other cheerful news: I think my hip is healing. Two days with very little pain, despite activity including walking, getting up and down stairs, in and out of the car etc.  I'll take it! 

Speaking of which, my doctor recommended a gel to apply, which I sometimes remember. The instructions say after application to wash hands thoroughly. Then it adds "unless you are treating your hands"! Duh, I think.

In other news: I've made a housekeeping change in my blog, removing the anonymous comment option. I kept it for a while because I was hearing from iPad users that they could only post that way. 

However I'm starting to get drive-by type angry or grandstanding  anonymous comments  and, though I think I know the origin, I reluctantly have closed the anonymous function. 

It's not hard to open your own blog to express yourself, so I encourage everyone to do that. Do the work of setting it up, writing, editing, planning, publishing, but, please,  don't expect to come in to my blog to post your lengthy opinions, particularly when they don't relate to the issues in the post. That goes for links without any content explanation.  I don't want to spend energy on them.

I've been building, designing and tending this blog daily since 2008, so I reserve the right to decide the content. That's why I have comment moderation in place.  And it's how we keep this a place of respite, which we need.

We do have a spam issue with comments vanishing into the ether, so if yours doesn't appear, I may not have even seen it, so don't assume I've banned it! I try to respond quickly, though when I do see comments waiting to be moderated. And I try not to be too thin skinned about their content.

I  respond when I'm found to be in the wrong, not a problem,  that's reasonable commenting. I will either correct or expand on the point if I wasn't clear. 

It's better coming from people who read regularly in here, though, rather than unknown people who swoop in to object,  then go away again. 

Happy day everyone, pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous, comme d'habitude!

Indigenous People Day, winterizing the sofa

Sunday evening, late, I winterized the sofa. The white cotton summer quilt is now in the washing machine, and the cozy blanket with knitted afghan is now in action

Fall Me is grateful to Spring Me for conscientiously putting them away laundered instead of saying oh, they'll do. 

That's pretty much it for winterizing, aside from changing the front door curtain from the striped canvas to the red felt. Simple life!

Since at the time of writing it's a holiday (!) my whole life is a holiday, I am wondering how much loafing I can fit in. Probably I'll do some visible mending, because I have socks to fix. And some stitching. And there's an interesting Yeung Man Cooking recipe to try, for which I have all, well most of, the ingredients already. 

I didn't have his exact veggies, also I added in chicken which he wouldn't, and this was great. There's at least one more meal available. I only had a small amount of rice in the house, or there would be more meals.

The sauce was wonderful. I had agave syrup, not maple, scallions not bell peppers, and lemon juice instead of some ingredient I don't know in the sauce. It didn't matter. And there's leftover sauce, for various other food.

Every forkful is a different combo, very interesting. I'm really glad I made that red chili oil a while back. I'll need more soon.

And for reading there's Austen. It may shape up to be a regular day around here.

But since the holiday honors our indigenous peoples, I will pay tribute to the Lenni Lenape, who lived and tended the land I now live on.

I do try to take care of the land, don't spray, don't kill anything I can avoid, don't buy when I can make from what's at hand, all that. Small effects, but good attempts. That includes the mending.

Tatters is offering a series of classes in mending, it's a thing.

Those socks definitely reminded me to get darning.

The Kindle is good for more than reading 

The yarn wasn't as contrasty as I expected. Also my skills are a bit rusty.  And, as you see, 

this hole went around a corner, challenging.

A couple more much smaller holes to fix and I'm set.

My flower garden is done for the year, the containers at least, the foliage tossed among the trees to rot down and feed the earth, containers stacked for next year. Just the little patch of wildflowers from the scattered seeds is still going cheerfully.

Soon I'll switch on the fireplace insert and have a bit of heat for an hour in the morning. Later I'll need to use the house heat, but I hope each year to wait on that. 

Usually late October is the time I have to start actual heat. I like the low cost times of year, to balance the higher ones, this year from heatwaves.

And here's a tribute to dahlias, which I don't currently have but used to

Happy Thanksgiving, Canadian friends, Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, or just plain have a nice Monday. There. Inclusive!

Cookapalooza, leaf, flowers, Clever Girl

Today was mainly about the Yeung Man Cooking dish of jasmine rice, tofu, mushrooms and broccoli, with all kinds of stages, including making an umami seasoning.

At the same time as

I was making a batch of yogurt, which you see on the stove.  This picture series works backwards from the finished meal which was a whole lot more interesting than it looks, back to creating the seasoning.

It involved, aside from the umami seasoning, the surrounding ingredients ground together to a powder, some of the red chili oil you saw me make a while back, hot peppers and soy sauce. 

Tofu is like cannellini beans, bland enough you can go wild with flavoring and it will work. I was missing a few ingredients but I don't think I noticed. I love the steady progression of Will as he stages the dish so everything arrives as planned, flavors in layers you find as you eat.  

It doesn't take as long as you'd think. About 30 minutes including finding the spices and dicing the mushrooms, crumbling the tofu and cooking the rice. 

And things like the red chili oil and umami seasoning last a while. I've found that roast potatoes in red chili oil are an order of magnitude better than in olive oil.

You have to stay alert though, particularly if you get involved in making and timing yogurt at the same time.   But wise people try to keep things simple. I still have to bake the muffins, but maybe Sunday..

The lunch was really good, and did I mention I made chocolate pudding? Too late for a picture, all gone. It was a great contrast to the spicy main dish.

Meanwhile I'm posting things to keep people's spirits up, away from the T person trying to take up all the oxygen.

Here's the latest bunch of flowers

And this lovely leaf. Look at the design, the colors, shape, contrasts.

Happy day everyone, I'm writing postcards, trying to be legible, reading Clever Girl, sitting out drinking tea, watching a silver spot butterfly engrossed in the butterfly bush, hearing a happy birthday party down the street, laughing, singing, little kids running about, I love my neighborhood.

I wouldn't mind this one either

 

After the rain, the bites

A couple of brief trips out to see the flowers between rainstorms, yielded 

Thyme really thriving with heat

Next to it the potatoes coming along 

And the really successful recovery of the curry leaf plant, which had dropped all its branches and I thought it was done for.

Then suddenly it put out new growth and now I have pretty much a new plant. Since I use these leaves in cooking a lot, it's great to have them doing well. This pot comes in and becomes a houseplant in winter.

And finally the zinnias and giant marigolds are getting under way. They were just foliage for ages, but after all, there will be flowers.

Also the mosquito population was late this year and is now all set to devour whatever human is available.  As I can attest.

Since the campaign season is in full swing, and we'll soon know who's the VP pick, here's a handy chart for people in red states who may run into voting obstacles. You need to check the number for your state for accuracy, just in case. Bookmark this if it's useful. 

I'm looking at a new recipe from Yeung Man Cooking, involving chickpeas and rice, mushrooms, tofu and other items. I've added miso tofu and soy sauce, also oyster mushrooms, to my Misfits order this week. 

And I need to make red chili oil. New adventure.  I'll use the long red pepper I got a while back. They're spice (Latin piper), like white or black pepper, not the vegetable type peppers you grow.  English is confusing on this point.

Will's approach seems laborious and complex, many stages, but it's really only about half an hour in real time prep.  And I've had great results every time.  He's plant based, maybe vegan, I don't know the fine points, but he just presents great food without preaching. Quite a relief from vegans who can't stop going on about it.  

People do tend to get evangelistic about food. And a bit specialized. I remember with glee the American friend who told me the local restaurant where I'd had great Indian food wasn't authentic. Unaware that the cooks were Indian and I'd been introduced to it by Indian friends who said it was very much Indian home cooking, not Western restaurant Indian! 

And don't get me started on Chinese restaurant food, tailored to Western tastes, and when you go with Chinese friends, they order real Chinese food,  nothing from the menu!  To each their own, eat what you like, but let's not get all dogmatic about it.  Knowledgeable is good, I love to learn from people who know, but that's not the same as presenting as an arbiter of what's authentic. 

Off my soapbox for a moment, you'll be glad to hear, here's some visual relief

On Olympic news, in case you hadn't seen this yet, just FYI 

Transgender is fine. Using the word  as a slur to damage a great athlete? Not fine. 

The original boxer who brought the storm about has also apologized and said she was hasty, just seeing her Olympic dream go away in a few seconds in the ring with a better athlete, and hugely regretted her words.  

And on a happier note 🎶

Happy birthday to e!! And many many more! Stay safe from Debby, the storm, not Debbie the great Dem candidate

Food and politics

Good food helps arm a person in tough political times.

Misfits arrived yesterday

The celery, carrots, sausage and mushrooms are featuring in today's upcoming vegetable stew, from Yeung Man Cooking on YouTube. I've cooked from him before and liked his style.

So here's my prep for cooking today. Worcestershire instead of soy sauce, broccoli stems instead of peas. Quite a bit of prep, but there will be quite a bit of stew. 

And there was quite a bit of politics yesterday, with Fani Willis crushing, from the witness box, the inept prosecutor trying to show she should be disqualified from the T***p trial because of having a personal life. I hope fervently the judge tosses it.

Then I took part in an online town hall with Rep Jasmine Crockett, a fearless MOC from Texas. There's me!

She's giving me hope. And I rounded off the day with a pod about -- hippos! For national hippo Day. A Spoutible member ran it, and I learned a lot! It was also a perfect contrast to the stressful political attention of the day.

Happy day, everyone, don't pat a hippo, they bite!