Polar vortex, Eastern style, and response

 So here's today around here

Won't last long. Back up to the 30s tomorrow.

Meanwhile,  the chowder is s great response

Really good, if I say it myself. Cod, shrimp and clam. Mostly Misfits, except the small can of clams I picked up on the shopping trip.  Onions, garlic, yellow potato, celery, tomatoes, can of clams plus liquid, fish in for last few minutes. When the shrimp went pink, I declared it done.

This is a pretty easy recipe. When the fish is as good as this, you can't miss. Enough for seven meals for one. Or two for handsome Son!

And my town is opening up a free Covid testing site at a local church next week, run by the hospital down the street.  I think I'll go and get tested just in case.  

The police department sent out emails and tweeted the explanatory vdocument, complete with links which probably weren't ready, because either nothing happens or you get a page of raw code. They do say you can walk in, though, bringing the dox. The link to the patient portal seems to work though, for getting results.

So I'll give them a few days to get it together, then I'll go along. Only five minutes away. 

Meanwhile I canceled my very expensive online order for rapid at home tests. I don't need instant results, not planning parties nor travel, and I do like lab tested results.

I'm feeling fine, but I think it's a good thing to be sure in case quarantine is called for. You just don't know.

Meanwhile the downstairs fabric and stitching Winnowing is done, resulting in a little bag of truly useless tiny fabric scraps, 

quite a few items upstairs with their friends, 

and a drawer of silk and cotton paper pieced shapes. Nothing to donate yet, but I think that will happen upstairs.

Misfits, mysterious ailments and recoveries

Misfits box arrived mid morning, earliest ever, very handy because I plan a soup that needs some of what's in it right away.

That's the good news. The not so good news is that supply issues seem to be hitting Misfits along with a lot of people. Either that or they got out over their skis with their recent expansion.

None of the baking stuff I needed this week was even listed as available, causing a shopping trip yesterday. 

And the blueberries and apples listed weren't available, refund processed. Then today the box came, no pears. So batting zero on fruit and baking. May have to shop again for fruit.

The items that did come are great quality, and some are already waiting to become soup. That cauliflower is just perfect. And the chocolate chips arrived.

So, evening salad became lunch, salad-stuffed pita, 

and there will be soup of the evening, beeeootiful soup, the chowder I mentioned. 

Since I had to shop yesterday, I did get a can of clams, for the cod, shrimp and clam chowder.

Speaking of shopping and supplies, I ordered baking items directly from Bob's Red Mill, and got a shipping notice with this detailed tracking information

About the weird ailments yesterday and recovery, I had a nasty episode of what I think was a vasovagal event, as doctors put it.

Early morning weakness, as I was entering the bathroom, legs wouldn't hold me up, sat down fast, sweaty, anxious, no more detail needed. But this has happened before, usually morning, usually bathroom. It tends to get people panicking into the ER by ambulance and they're fine by the time they arrive. So I concluded despite every new physical thing definitely being Covid THIS time, it wasn't.

Made it back to bed after a few minutes, wondering whether to try to cancel cleaners and errands, then started to feel better. 

After half an hour I was fine, scraping ice off my windshield, out to pick up rx, then groceries, then drop off library books, then, the weather being a bit milder, off to the park to sit in the car in the sun, reading Angela Thirkell. Walk in the afternoon.

It all went fine. It's not always an ominous thing. Best to sit promptly or anyway get near the floor, because you can faint in one of these visitations. And I've run it by my doctor before, in case you're concerned about self diagnosis. 

Oddly, my phone had an electronic version of the same attack. Suddenly too weak to find websites. Error screens everywhere. Tablet was fine. So I spent ages deinstalling and reinstalling various apps, clearing caches, rebooting, changing settings.

Then suddenly it said okay, fine now and everything's working again. Whether it would have happened anyway or it's attributable to my skilled (yeah right) interventions, we may never know.

But right this moment, all we have, all's well. Which is about as much as I think we can ask for.

Happy weekend, blogistas. Yes, I know some of us are men, but the feminine noun is heretofore inclusive around here, just as the masculine was considered inclusive for thousands of years. I just think it's time.  ;)

Birthdays, Christmas prep and clam chowder

This latest birthday, always such a surprise to get another, is working out a treat, what with nice things arriving, and wishes and so on, for days now, I feel like the Queen, except she's more used to it.

Anyway, I have finally grown up to the point where I will allow Christmas decor to happen before the Most Important Day, so here's the total of my splurge.  

 Woven stars for peace showered down on the three creches in there.  And decorations on the ficus, which takes a seasonal job working as a Christmas tree.

This dumpster table is one of the nicest things I ever swiped.  So adaptable.  Side table at Thanksgiving, and now Christmas decor table. It has the extra added attraction that the kitties are not interested in it, saving me many hours of finding and replacing little items that have been played under the sofa. And the Dollivers are not in evidence. Judging from the racket upstairs, they're kneedeep in outfits, looking for their red festive ones, and jewelry, too.

Awaiting the surprise

Handsome Son brought dinner over a couple of nights ago, since he's working the other evenings, a lovely dish of roast chicken breast over noodles in Alfredo sauce.  Dessert was his own home baked, and his own recipe, chocolate chip cookies.  And he made the tea that went with them.  And brought the interesting soft drinks that went with the main course.  It was all a surprise, hence the empty table!

Then today is bitterly cold, high winds, too, very quiet since the reno contractors can't work in this weather, thankfully for them, I expect, so it called for soup.  

Ages since I made clam chowder, though I've had a little can of clams waiting for the mood for ages.  And Roma plum tomatoes from the farm, in the freezer.  And fish bits to make into fish stock in a bag in the freezer.  And potatoes already in the house.  And my homegrown thyme in the freezer. So clam chowder it was.

Like this

The fish stock was the simplest I ever did: just heated up the fish bits in enough water for the soup, boiled the lot, and added it after straining out the fish, flavor surprisingly good.

I did rescue the onions and garlic before they charred.  One of the drawbacks of being the cook and the photographer and the food designer is that you sometimes lose track.

Then, since I don't like soup that is liquid with floating islands of solid food in it, I did blend it a bit, just to change the texture, but not to lose all the interest. I had already taken out the floating tomato skins, but I like to cook with them in place, good flavor there.  So here's the finished Birthday Chowder

 Perfect insulation in this weather, reminds me of what my mom used to refer to as the weather of the  "poor sailors at sea" always making me include them in my prayers at night in winter storms.  We were close to the North Sea, historically a rough and dangerous sea where a lot of local fisherfolk worked their catch, so it was more than theoretical.

So I now have a large container, soup, not fisherfolk, for Handsome Son and me when he next comes over, plus several small ones just for me, in the freezer.

And I have art news, which is also birthday type news, for which you need to consult Art the Beautiful Metaphor.  Last year I gave out virtual gifts to blogistas. But this year, it's a plan.  Seems like a good time to plan for events I will be doing next spring, and this one is new hatched.  Since I will be blogging about it, and offering it in person for free, it's a gift to my township via the library.

But, last for best, here is a marvelous bouquet which appeared this morning at the door, from sister dogonart.  The smell is wonderful, the downstairs all now like summer.  And since it's in a rectangular container, it has two sides.  Here are both

And since I can never resist forcing information on teaching people
see the stripey tulips?  tulips and roses and other flowers were all stripey in the middle ages before they were hybridized and made into solid colors.  

You see them in old tapestries and paintings, and Ronsard mentioned this in his poetry.  And now the taste for them has returned so they're sort of reverse engineering them to get stripes again, and they're lovely.  I hope you're taking good notes, there will be a quiz.