I’m going to use this post to make an attempt at journal-ling, anyways. Since I haven’t posted for about a week, I thought I’d go back and try to come up with one thing from each day. Or maybe something I cooked. I suspect what is going to happen is some days will have more than one thing, and others nothing. Read on to see.
Friday November 15 we went to Chicago for a symphony. I had a hankering for jambon beurre, so we went to Publican Quality Meats, and got one of theirs. The bread and the butter and the cheese all tasted good to me, just what I wanted. I picked a lot of the ham out of my sandwich, though, because it looked greyish, although I am pretty sure that’s because they don’t use nitrates in their cure. But, since we got there pretty much right at opening, I couldn’t get over thinking that we got the frst couple slices off the meat since the day before and it had been too exposed to air overnight and got grey.
When we got home, we watched the Great British Baking Show, and Netflix hung. At first we thought it was because too many people were watching baking, but realized it was the Mike Tyson fight.
John & Megan’s TV in their new house waiting for the fight
Saturday, November 16 I volunteered at the indoor farmers market. I biked there, Mark came to meet me, and we shopped. I biked home with our purchases and then went to Costco and Willy Street for the stuff like milk and bananas that you can’t get at the farmers market. We had a Madison symphony that evening and John and Megan arrived before we left. They went over to Al & Emma’s to eat Thai and see John & Al’s dad Jeff, who had arrived from California on Wednesday night. So I only made a half batch of kimchi & squash mac & cheese. I got a big jar of kimchi at Costco that was a kind recommended by Bon Appetit. The squash was already baked so it really melted into the sauce.
Saturday morning it was cold enough for the cats to reclaim one of their winter spots. But warm enough for me to bike to the market.
Costco Kimchi
I tried to do the NYT puzzle during intermission at the symphony and only got the first two rows. I was trying to come up with Marvel characters instead of football teams and totally didn’t get Go ___
failed puzzle
Sunday November 17 was Jasper’s Two Fast, checkered flag birthday at Al & Emma’s in the morning. I went for a walk with Maria and her dog Clover in the afternoon. And we had apple crisp with custard sauce, and ice cream, for our Sunday dessert.
Monday November 18 was the official start of cookie season. I made the dough in the morning (got to my volunteer gig at the library late but oh well) and had baked 303 jam stars by about 10:30PM.
Tuesday November 19 was Jasper’s actual second birthday, but I did not celebrate with him that day. I had an eye doctor appointment and was relieved to find out that my blurred vision while driving is not because I have some kind of nasal sinus cancer, it’s because my right eye has actually gotten worse by a whole point. Could be cataracts forming, could just be age. But then I felt like my vision was too blurry to drive to yoga, so I skipped it. Came home and looked at Warby Parker frames but did not commit and then went out to McFarland to order new cushions for the sun room love seat, replacing the ones that we got with the house, that must be more than 25 years old. Vaguely Southwest pattern, all the rage in the ’90s. And as you can see above, they have been the backdrop to many, many cookie shots. I feel guilty about getting someone else to make them when I could do it myself, and fretting about the money, but I guess in this case, given the time of year, I’ll have the cushions made and I will stick to cookies. Which also leads to one of my reflections of the week, which is that lots of things in my house are getting really old and I should think more about replacing them. I guess. I mean as long as it’s still working I tend to not want to replace whatever it is – Mark’s the one that leads the crusade for new furniture, etc.
Wednesday November 20 was a Jasper day and after he went home, we had breakfast for dinner. And aside from mixing up a batch of lebkuchen dough to age overnight, I didn’t do any more cookie baking. But more on lebkuchen in a minute.
Thursday November 21 I volunteered at the food pantry in the morning and the library in the afternoon. And baked two kinds of lebkuchen. Once again I ignored my note stuck in the pages of the December 1994 Gourmet where the best lebkuchen recipe is, warning myself to not F’around with other recipes. I was once again seduced by a nice sounding recipe that resulted in cakey lebkuchen, instead of the better chewy ones.
Here’s the good ones, cut up on Thursday night.
The only lebkuchen recipe I should ever use
After I baked and glazed both kinds of lebkuchen, cakey and chewy, and cut up the chewy ones, I observed Dad’s 26th jahrzeit. I poured myself a gin with lemon and ice (fishing the ice out from around the big tray of jam stars in the freezer) and went upstairs to watch Slow Horses.
On my way home from the library I made a special detour to the corner store to buy a $6 box Triscuits, so I could have Triscuits and spreadable cheese with my gin, but since it was after dinner (we had corn chowder) I was too full. Jumping ahead to Friday I had the Triscuits and cheese with a bowl of chowder and an apple for lunch instead.
Friday November 22 Friday morning Susan and I went to the gym, and then I came home and cut up the cakey lebkuchen. I tried to decorate some of them with almonds and they got a bit messy.
messy cakey lebkuchen
They look a bit better cut up
I left the almonds off some
OK so that’s Friday. I am supposed to bake the Biberli tonight – we shall see. I might opt for collapsing on the couch and watching British Baking.
And there’re a couple of things I can’t assign to days, like the conversation Susan and I had via Facebook comments on cabbage rose vs. kale flowers. It started because of this pic, that I also posted on Insta, and so Facebook. And it was my blog banner before the jam stars took over.
But there is a breed of roses that are called cabbage roses
Even if kale flowers look more the part
And of course, all week I’ve been coming across and reading online both hopeful and dire predictions about the Trump presidency.
Robert Reich is hopeful. I am now following him on Bluesky. You can follow me there, too. So far I’m just kinda mirroring Insta posts, though.
Also on Bluesky I read a much more dire prediction written by someone who is living in Amsterdam, who has a trans child still living in the US. I can’t find it again though. Their handle was something like stroopwafelled but of course that only gets you stroopwafels to buy and eat. Probably for the best.
And Becca Lee, the Haunted Librarian, on Substack is also encouraging.
Screenshot
And my weight is up – only a little – but my blood pressure is down. Probably just cancel each other out.
Hmm, not sure how the journal thing has been as an experiment. I feel there’s lots of little things I observed over the week that I could potentially have written about in an enlightening way. Of course I can’t remember them now. And not enough pictures of food.