My slight obsession with food in general, delivered boxes of food in particular

 

I'm not sure exactly how it started but a few months ago I subscribed to Every Plate. You probably know about these services -- clients receive each week a box of uncooked, un-prepped food that you turn into a meal for 2 or 4 people in 45 minutes or less. I love them. They are the answer to a prayer I didn't even know I had. 

How do I justify paying someone else to shop for and plan meals? It took a while but I think I have.

Then my daughter gave me a "free" box of food from Martha and Marley, and a friend gave me one for Blue Apron. Then I tried Home Chef and Hello Fresh. So for about 2-3 months we've had these dinners.

I'm in the process of cutting back to just one weekly delivery of 3 meals, which will be Every Plate. The plans are all quite similar except for price and Every Plate is the least expensive. I'm also hooked on giving away "free" boxes of food to friends and family, which the services promote heavily. 

Several friends have used these kits in the past and quit for various reasons, including not wanting to generate so much plastic waste, or not wanting to invest 30-45 minutes chopping and stirring, or simply not willing to pay someone to do what you can do yourself. 

I've justified the expense because I'm spending way less money each month by not going out to dinner or lunch with friends, the meals are so much more interesting than what I've been slapping together and flinging on the table each night, and as a bonus my husband is learning to cook! 42 years married and suddenly he's interested in cooking.

By the way, if any of my readers--all half dozen of you--want to try one of these services, let me know in a comment. I'll get your email and send you a free box (the catch is that you have to pay for shipping, $9, with your credit card so they have your billing info and consider you a client. But you can cancel after the first free box). 

23 more days until that deadbeat is out of DC and I hope he never comes back, although he's threatening to be here on Jan 6 when Pence counts the votes and declares Joe our president. It's been torture to know that he's been sleeping and eating and tweeting just 10 miles from my home. Creepy. I propose that the White House remove everything from his bedroom, fumigate, repaint, and turn it into a storage room. No human should ever sleep in the same room he slept in.

My path

I didn't exactly create this path in my backyard but in a way I did. A stone path has been there for about 20 years, maybe a little less. But over time the stones sank, or they were overgrown, and were sometimes hidden under grass or weeds. So I dug them up, one by one, filled in soil or rocks underneath each one, added a bunch from elsewhere in my yard, and raised them up. I also changed the path's direction in places to avoid shrubs that had grown over the path. I wish I'd taken a before picture.

There are dozens and dozens of such tasks I can do in our backyard, side yard, or front yard. See all that ivy way in the upper left corner surrounding the white door? I should pull all of that down. Spending so much time at home since March I've had lots of time to survey my various overgrown yards and make decisions about what should be done. Mostly cutting back vines. I'm not at all good about follow-through. So doing this path repair was quite fulfilling. I'm now working on thinning out a large patch of forsythia, a shrub I heartily dislike but tolerate. 

Very nervous about the election today. Here's my guess/prediction as of 4:30 pm. Biden can win with either AZ or PA. Trump has to get PA to win.

It's November first twenty twenty

Well we're finally here, almost upon the election. Am I nervous? Yep. By Tuesday I expect to be on high alert, feeling very engaged, on guard, attentive to news updates. Am I over-dramatizing it all? No doubt. 

Almost 4 years ago in the days before Trump was inaugurated I entitled a post The last of my political thoughts until 2020. "Since I seem to be blogging again... I wonder if I can restrain myself from posting about politics. I'm gonna give it a try."

Well, I did give it a try. The result was that I blogged very little in the 4 years of this horrible presidency. I never stopped blogging but too often I started to write and found myself talking about him. Such a waste of everyone's time. So I managed not to talk about him (much) but only by just not blogging at all. I'd like to blog daily. Why not? Or at least regularly. I certainly don't have much to do each day.

Here's my baby granddaughter, yesterday, all 15 pounds of her. She's a 4-month-old delight!

 

 

I thought she was a kitty or a mouse for Halloween but was told that she was a character from the Japanese animated movie My Neighbor Totoro. She attended an outdoor party in the courtyard of their apartment building in Brooklyn. Nice old building with a lot of nice old residents. She was cooed over, at a social distance of course. I'm jealous.

 

I

Trying something different.

It's Wednesday night, September 23, 2020, and I'm here to record that I haven't looked at Twitter for 4 days. This is a big deal in my little life. I've been spending way too much time, either on my phone or on my PC, reading, reading, scrolling, scrolling, checking, checking. I follow strangers, not friends or even acquaintances. I follow people who write about, report on, and talk about national politics. A few politicians, a lot of ex-Trump employees, a lot of news organizations and reporters, pundits and comedians. It's gotten to be too much. And so depressing. Aren't we all just a little depressed as a species right now? Why add Twitter.

I'm hoping to keep up my little boycott. I think I feel a little better today compared to Saturday.

Here's my babe. She's the apple of so many eyes! Three months tomorrow. Unexpectedly, I saw her in person for about an hour on Monday -- long story. It was wonderful. Every minute with her is golden!

Talking things over with mom

Son in law says the conversation was basically "where are those boobs and when can I see them again?"
Note James in window. James and Robert are adjusting very well to baby's presence.

A good reminder.

"To anyone who feels like they “wasted” the time during quarantine because they didn’t write a book or learn a second language or get their bodies in shape, I have good news: Quarantine ain't over, get back inside."
Denzel Washington 7/4/20

And this looks like something I have to try:

Credit: https://leitesculinaria.com/21020/recipes-eggs-in-purgatory.html

Eggs in Purgatory

From Chef Joanne Weir, star of Plates & Places on PBS

With a can of tomatoes and a few eggs, this hearty meal is less than 30 minutes away. Some know the dish as Shakshuka but Italians call it Uova in Purgatorio, or Eggs in Purgatory, and Weir's many travels to the Boot to film her award-winning PBS series inspired her version. “We are kind of in a purgatory now,” Weir says. “This dish is perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner, served along with some focaccia or other rustic bread.” The following recipe serves two.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 ounces of bacon, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
• 1 small red onion, minced
• Pinch of crushed red pepper
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 2 1/2 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 4 large eggs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmigiano cheese
• Toasted bread or focaccia

1. Preheat an oven to 400°F.

2. Warm the olive oil in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat and add the bacon. Cook, stirring occasionally, until very light golden, about 3 minutes.

3. Add the minced onion and crushed red pepper and cook until the onion pieces are soft, about 7 minutes.

4. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute.

5. Add the white wine and reduce by half.

6. Add the tomatoes and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, about 10 minutes.

7. Transfer sauce to an ovenproof baking dish, or cast-iron pan. Make 4 indentations in the sauce. Break the eggs, one at a time into a small bowl, and with the spoon, add 1 egg into each indentation.

8. Place on the top shelf of the oven and cook until the whites of the eggs are firm but the yolks are still runny, about 7 to 10 minutes, or until desired doneness.

9. Season the eggs with salt and pepper.

10. Sprinkle the cheese atop the eggs and serve immediately.

The Evil in the White House

DJT today:

Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!

 

Tim Miller, The Bulwark dot com, today:
"There are only three ways to interpret Trump’s remarks: 1) He is purposefully instigating racial tensions because he believes it will help him politically... 2) He is a racist with no self-control... 3) He is too stupid to realize what he is doing..."

These are some of my many passionflowers. Three or 4 years ago I planted one little cutting from a passionflower vine. Now they are completely out of control. A post on this exciting topic to follow.


 

Dare me?

I'm definitely buying a dozen doughnuts; I've needed an excuse for a long time. And I will definitely make the mask. But the test is whether I'll wear it. Maybe for a walk around the pond, but what I really want to do is wear it in the grocery store.

I'll just leave this here.

How true.

All is well in Brooklyn.

I hope her parents don't object to me posting these pictures. They may have known that I blogged in the past but I'm sure they've forgotten. If it comes up and they ask me to take them down I will. But until then, here they are!

This has been a very long week. Time just stretched and stretched. I don't know understand why but I guess it has something to do with this little babe.

I'd really like to blog more -- about politics, about my garden, about covid, about small things. That's something else I don't understand: if I really want to do it, why don't I? I don't think it's laziness.

I will post this screenshot that makes me very happy.

Red = trump disapproval. Black = trump approval.

She with the beautiful name

She'll be one day old later today.
I am, as expected, in love.

She seems healthy, despite being in the NICU. I haven't had an update since about noon today, over 6 hours ago. But mom and dad have had almost no sleep for 2 days so I shouldn't expect to hear anything right away. I guess. This is all so new.
My daughter's first and probably only, or so they said at one time.
I’m not particularly superstitious but maybe if I post this I’ll get a text or a call.

Praying mantises being born

Every year praying mantises build their nests around my front yard. I've been watching this nest for 2 months and finally saw the birth. What looks like a huge bunch of bananas are hundreds of tiny babies. They crawl out of itty bitty holes in the nest and using, apparently, some web-like material hang together until each one crawls over the others and finds his or her way off to a big life of eating mosquitoes and other bugs. In a few months the big ones will be peeking in my front window taunting my cats.

Stolen from Twitter: Fake Melania, meets Diane Arbus, meets Kubrick

My lettuce!

Small things amuse me these days. Facebook finally paid off. I saw that putting the remains of a lettuce head in water will give you a new head of lettuce. This picture was taken yesterday when the new leaves were 2 1/4 inches tall at about 3 PM. Right now (11 AM) they are 2 3/4 inches tall. I also planted lettuce seeds this year. We'll see how they do if warm weather ever comes to the DC area. Right now we've swapped weather with the PNW. Generally I'm just fine with that, hating the hot, humid DC springs and summers as I do. But come on--my seeds need the heat!

My hellebores.