Self care on a winter weekend

 Bitter cold and windy, even the sunshine is not tempting me out.  But it's a good time to catch up on things I promised myself to cook.  Here are some of the frozen sweet potato gnocchi, and a couple of hot Italian sausages, plus while I was running a hot oven, heads of garlic roasting to make a garlic spread

The gnocchi were frozen uncooked, so they have to do the diving into boiling water phase first, before they go into a 400F oven to roast for about 20 minutes. I just plunged them in still frozen, made no difference. Sausage was frozen, just thawed enough to skin them, then same oven, same period.

The garlic needed about 20 minutes more, still in a hot oven, doused liberally with olive oil.  When it's cool, I'll squeeze out the softened garlic, great for a spread.  You can use this all over the place, specially good for garlic bread.

 

And here's lunch.  Also another helping of same for tomorrow.

 

 And everywhere is evidence of my industry, now doing humble duty in the kitchen.  Left a painted tote bag, I made a lot of these at one time, and taught other people how to, great fun.  Stuffed with my hand-knitted face cloths now relegated to be kitchen and floor cloths, but sturdy? you can't wear them out.  I made them in order to try out new stitch patterns as well as to have useful things.  On the right is the bag I wove years ago, using a pattern from the Weaving without a Loom book, and still holding up after much use, now stuffed with kitchen cloths.  I don't use paper in the kitchen, but I do use a lot of cloths.

Some blessed soul has suddenly started uploading some of my favorite books in audio form on YouTube.  Here's a Georgette Heyer. And they have excellent readers, who understand the text and the humor and where the  emphasis should go.  Which is more than I can say for a lot of the audiobooks on the library apps, which are strictly amateur night at the Bijou.  This book accompanied today's spinning, plying and cooking.

Onward, new reading on my Kindle, Lisa See never fails when I'm wondering what would be nice to read next.  And since I got it via the library app which lets me download onto my Kindle, not onto a device with a refreshing screen, which gives me migraine, all the better.

 So I guess I'm set.  Keep warm, if this applies!  Find your snowshovel, that's advice to me, since it's outside in the storage closet, and I may need it to dig the door open..

Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella

 Do you know that old carol?  We learned it at school.  It's about bringing lighted torches, to see the stable and visit with the baby in the manger.  Here's an elf all ready to make his way there.

And reading is gripping this Tonstant Weader (Dorothy Parker, in case you're not familiar), with yet another Maisie Dobbs, on Kindle via my library app

She's in Gibraltar at the time of the Spanish Civil war, intrigue, murder, spying, her own grief to deal with, a very exciting and moving read.  Guernica features.  In fact I had to stop there this morning, overcome by that.  The huge Picasso masterwork based on that atrocity was almost too much to deal with. I saw it in Washington, I believe. I think it's now housed in the UN building.

I knew Spanish people, refugees from Franco's Spain, outlawed by his regime, when I was a kid in England. Along with all the Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and later Hungarians.  The Spaniards were from Barcelona, an outpost of anti Franco resistance.  They couldn't return until he died.

 Of atrocities, the surprise attack by Italian and German bombers on Guernica, the deliberate slaughter and complete destruction of a small unprotected Spanish  town with women and children out in the marketplace, clearly visible to the bombers, in a supposedly neutral country, ranks as one of the many unforgivable. After I recover, I'll continue reading.

And here's the second part of the Shanghai Girls novel, thank you Ellen, for mentioning it, or I might not have realized there was another part.  This is gripping enough that when I started reading yesterday morning, I put my breakfast toast into the toaster oven, and completely forgot it, so there was a nice piece of buttered charcoal for breakfast.

Here, Joy, the daughter in the Shanghai Girls book, goes to China in a quixotic mission to find her real father, having suddenly found out the person she thought was her mother is her aunt, and the person she thought was her father was no relation, though he cared for her as his own.  And Pearl, one of the Shanghai Girls, her aunt, not her mother, goes in search of her, risking the dangers of red China and the chances of never being able to return.  Neither of them has any idea what China has become, since the American newspapers were anti Communist  propaganda more than news at that time.

Then, in better news, today was the day of the Great Pickup of The Holiday Box Lunch at the town hall.  And it turned out to be very good indeed, well organized, freezing cold Recreation Dept staff out there in the parking lot, checking, running, picking lunches, delivering to drivers, all very cheerful despite the bitter cold and threat of snow.

I've already emailed a huge thank you to all of them.  The police department has undertaken to deliver meals to any seniors who can't get in to pick up, sometime this afternoon. The meals were handed over hot, and only needed a bit of reheating once I got home.  I had thought about doing another errand before I went home but changed my mind, which is good, because the weather changed dramatically.

Veggie lasagna, from a good local caterer, enough for two meals for the likes of me,   As you see, tomorrow's lunch on the left, today's on the right.

And a chocolate chip cookie!  My tax dollars well spent today, anyway. Very happy senior here.

 And as I was almost home, the snow, forecast for today, was just starting.  Home before it got underway.

This afternoon is about being under a warm blankie, reading Maisie and maybe Joy, too.

Second Friday since the last misfits box...means another one is here

 But first, it seems to be time to be in touch with Santa, as this little elf  is demonstrating today in the Advent Calendar

And since there's no knowing exactly when my Misfits box will arrive, tracking telling me it was loaded hours ago at their depot about ten minutes from here, I thought I'd better observe Action Stations.  

 

I find I was lucky in my choice of time to start with Misfits, since I get a delivery every two weeks, and it conveniently was not Thanksgiving week, and will not be Christmas week, either.  So I don't get any interruption in service, as they say.  I hadn't thought about this at the time.

Meanwhile, since I was in the kitchen anyway, I made a big pot of pumpkin, carrot and cashew soup, with plenty of nutmeg, a bit of curry powder, and a dash of lemon.

Which eventually became this, and very nice it was, too.

And when I'm not reading Olive and Mabel,  I'm into another Lisa See, very readable, even if hard to cope with at times, but she's a terrific storyteller. Two sisters who grow up fairly affluent and unthinking in Shanghai, where they earn money modeling for an advertising artist, until their lives come to a crashing halt when their father loses his entire property, and they are more or less traded to his creditor as wives to his sons.  Much complication follows, including the Japanese invasion and some scenes I felt I had to read, because historically this sort of thing did happen, but I was glad to move on from.  They eventually get to San Francisco, and that's where I'm up to.  It's unputdownable.

Then over lunch, there was a presentation from Amherst, which Emily Dickinson fans know as the home territory of the poet and a lot of history.  This was a series of slide presentations from four well prepared people, who know their stuff.  The Emily Dickinson Museum click here to see more, does a lot of these Zoom deals;  the material is usually very good indeed, and the technical knowhow of the academic presenters friendly, but not always on top of it.

Today there were a few, um, you're muted, Dr. Blank, no,  you're still muted.  Can you take over the screen now, thank you?  and a few muttered oops, mixed the buttons up, in the background.  But it is usually really good, and with none of the fake slickness you get in documentary type work.

I think of this as Zoom Without Tears, since all I have to do it click on the link and watch and listen.  No need to sit right in the right place, adjust my lighting so I look a little less like I've been dead a couple of days, and find and fix my sound levels. It's very restful.

This one examined the Dickinson family's relations to the College, which one of them founded, at terrible cost to himself, and their relation  to the town, the Civil War, race relations, immigration, flower pressing always gets in, she did a lot of it, and her college coursework. It was a lovely program, and I think may be found on their website, you could check at that link.

Then finally, the Misfits box arrived and did not disappoint.  This week it's top-heavy with fruit, enough for my daily intake for two weeks, urgent need.  The lettuce and Roma tomatoes and celery are all involved in tonight's supper.  The chocolaten, some ferociously dark stuff, with seasalt, is a little treat for Handsome Son, the dark chocolate lover.

And here's my supper, coming to the table shortly. I have a whole range of apple varieties, and I forget which this is, I took off the label, but it's crisp and juicy, even if anonymous.

So that's a quiet Friday around here.  Also I did some spinning in case I ran out of things to attend to..