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Anise Sunday [food, projects]
Feb. 18th, 2024 05:03 pmThis morning, while getting ready to go grocery shopping, I thought of my mom and how she talked about having to recalibrate her cooking and food management after my dad died. She'd been cooking for more than one person for well over 40 years, and it was a major adjustment to figure out how to manage things just for herself.
I go through a food recalibration every time S departs, and I know that his shopping, cooking, and eating habits are also quite different when he's on his own compared to when we're together.
The full recalibration has multiple steps to it, beginning with paring down on certain things stockpiled in the fridge and freezers.
Meanwhile, some time back I accidentally bought instant rice noodles, intended for making Pho, instead of the usual rice noodles I get to make pad thai. Time to clear those out as well, by actually making some Pho.
Lemongrass was $2 for a single 4-inch chunk housed in plastic at the co-op, so I added a stop at the Asian grocery to my shopping itinerary, and got ~15 full stalks for around $2 there, plus a handful of other ingredients as well. We already had some star anise and cinnamon sticks at home.
While bicycling between the co-op and the Asian grocery, not my usual route, I noticed a small thrift store that supports hospital patients at one of our local hospitals.
Once the broth got simmering, I also assembled dough to make almond-anise biscotti, using a recipe from my mom. Something to nibble on in the afternoons, with tea.
The critical weekly housekeeping tasks have also now been accomplished, and the work for the week ahead is starting to loom large in my mind. I did manage to request postponement for jury duty, but have not yet rolled up my sleeves to file tax returns. That project will most likely have to wait until a future weekend.
I need to deal with the boxes of items to get rid of that are on the front porch, and fairly soon I'm hoping to start some tomato seeds. It was cold enough out today that I didn't manage to get myself to work on the chair refinishing project at all. I don't want to sand the chairs indoors, because we don't have a good woodworking filtration setup going in the basement (well, we have NO filtration setup going), and that's a lot of sawdust for the cats to be breathing.
There's never a shortage of projects.
I go through a food recalibration every time S departs, and I know that his shopping, cooking, and eating habits are also quite different when he's on his own compared to when we're together.
The full recalibration has multiple steps to it, beginning with paring down on certain things stockpiled in the fridge and freezers.
Meanwhile, some time back I accidentally bought instant rice noodles, intended for making Pho, instead of the usual rice noodles I get to make pad thai. Time to clear those out as well, by actually making some Pho.
Lemongrass was $2 for a single 4-inch chunk housed in plastic at the co-op, so I added a stop at the Asian grocery to my shopping itinerary, and got ~15 full stalks for around $2 there, plus a handful of other ingredients as well. We already had some star anise and cinnamon sticks at home.
While bicycling between the co-op and the Asian grocery, not my usual route, I noticed a small thrift store that supports hospital patients at one of our local hospitals.
Once the broth got simmering, I also assembled dough to make almond-anise biscotti, using a recipe from my mom. Something to nibble on in the afternoons, with tea.
The critical weekly housekeeping tasks have also now been accomplished, and the work for the week ahead is starting to loom large in my mind. I did manage to request postponement for jury duty, but have not yet rolled up my sleeves to file tax returns. That project will most likely have to wait until a future weekend.
I need to deal with the boxes of items to get rid of that are on the front porch, and fairly soon I'm hoping to start some tomato seeds. It was cold enough out today that I didn't manage to get myself to work on the chair refinishing project at all. I don't want to sand the chairs indoors, because we don't have a good woodworking filtration setup going in the basement (well, we have NO filtration setup going), and that's a lot of sawdust for the cats to be breathing.
There's never a shortage of projects.
