Oof [more to do lists]

Do people often say to you, "I don't know how you do all the things you do!" I hear the phrase a lot, and it annoys me immensely. Probably because I can't think of a good comeback. It should really be something about not having small children or a television, or maybe something about how far behind I am on reading books.

This morning is a good time to point out that all of the doing-of-things can come at a high cost, which scrottie is fond of pointing out. I'm definitely a zombie this morning, and I still have a big pile of ambitions for the day. There are the more routine chores of laundry, bread-baking, yogurt-making, and pancaking (snacks for the week), plus I have a work date with J to work on manuscript writing this afternoon*. In the midst of it all, I need to remember to go in to the lab to check on one cricket. And it would be really nice to actually assemble the conduit hoops so I can bird net the strawberry plants. I have a feeling the last project will get sacrificed. Maybe I can shoehorn it in on a weeknight.

Oh, and it's time to put more paint on the oar. I should photograph that painting as it progresses. It's amazingly ugly right now.

And if I'm going to get a dress for annikusrex's wedding, I'd best be shopping for it some more. I can wear my bridesmaid's dress from my brother's wedding as a fallback, but it would also be really nice to acquire a good spring dress that I could wear for both weddings and tea parties.

When I go through days like these, I spend a lot of time thinking about how much harder everything would be with small children in tow. I bumped into my friend J with his son B at the farmer's market yesterday, and they always drive that point home. B is a wonderful kid, who gets dragged along to all sorts of adult things with his parents, and he really asks for little in return (wanting to show me his progress in a video game, for instance). J and K do a great job of balancing out parenting responsibilities, too. I can tell you what things in my own life would get sacrificed pretty quickly: gas-powered lawnmower, gas-powered vehicle, little/no vegetable gardening, fewer things cooked from scratch (yogurt, bread), one-stop grocery shopping at the big supermarket. But that's not my life, and I don't know if it ever will be. Certainly not in Texas, and if it ever is, hopefully it will be in a place with amazing amenities like public transportation, curbside recycling, sidewalks, and consolidated shopping districts.


*It turns out he too gets depressed and angry when he's spending long hours by himself trying to write. Even introverts need some level of social interaction.

Use it up / use it up / use it up

Things cooked or currently cooking this weekend (so far):

-Mushroom-pepper-cheddar quiche
-Black bean burritos (warm, freshly-cooked lunch - a luxury!)
-Pink-frosted cookies
-Fruit-nut bars
-Pancakes
-Yogurt
-Bread

For the fruit-nut bars, I finally used up a jar of brown rice syrup and some pistachios that have been in the cupboard for over 6 months. Also the rest of the tempered chocolate from the holidays. I used up the rest of a big container of sunflower seeds in the pancakes. I used up leftover pink frosting for the cookies, and the end of a big jug of milk for the yogurt. I was finally able to consolidate down the whole-wheat bread flour after mixing the bread dough. I've been adding the mesquite flour that scrottie gave me to the pancake batter, and it's delicious. Once it runs out I'll start playing around with and using the amaranth flour.

When my friend S moved out of town, she gave me mustard (still working on it), tamari (used up by now), tamarind paste (used up), and wheat gluten. I finally figured out that I can add a tablespoon of wheat gluten PLUS a tablespoon of potato starch to my bread dough and then use 100% whole-wheat flour instead of mixing wheat and white. I don't like the potato starch addition on its own, but interestingly, it adds just the right amount of tenderness in combination with the wheat gluten. Otherwise, my 100% whole-wheat bread tends to be a crumbly chore to eat.

All of the spices now fit on the two spice racks, finally. No more secret spice jar lurking in the back of the cupboard. I still don't know what one does with Szechuan peppercorns, though.

I should use up the last dab of peanut sauce for lunch today, and also the rest of last week's bread. There were delicious heirloom tomatoes for sale at the farmer's market on Saturday, so I'll get to have cheesy toast for the first time in ages!

I still don't know what to do with the umeboshi paste, horseradish, capers, and Vegemite in the fridge.

I got some amazing-looking blue cheese to make more of the delectable butternut squash pizza with blue cheese, walnuts, apples, shallots, mushrooms, and crispy sage.

I need to keep cooking ~1 Indian dish a week, so as to continue eating up the intense mango chutney (the chutney that allowed me to use up a ton of fenugreek and coriander seeds). It's amazingly good, but rich, and there's a LOT of it.

It's not that I dislike having exotic ingredients around to cook with...it's just that I don't need to have ALL of EVERYTHING immediately on hand. I just can't cook and eat that much food when I'm by myself, which means stuff winds up sitting around for too long, to the point where it gets freezer burned and rancid. I'd rather be able to focus on fresh, seasonally-available things.