Odd that even though it's many years since I worked in jobs where Sunday was the end of the weekend, in fact more of my life, in art and the petcare business, has been seven day working weeks, I still feel sundayish.
Yesterday I finally got around to making a date nut loaf. I've been thinking about it for years, and finally had fresh dates and walnuts, so I did it.
There's an exciting part where you boil water, dates, sugar and butter then add baking soda. The recipe says move the pan off the heat before adding the soda. You discover that it's because there's a sudden burst of foam, very dramatic, so who knows if you didn't move the pan, the foam might engulf the kitchen.
And, since there's nuts and fruit and wholewheat flour, it's breakfast. Or, as here
a late night snack.
Handsome Son, Gary and another friend had made short work of the banana bread, so I once again needed a little something in the house. I did put a couple of slices of this loaf in the freezer for handsome Son's next visit, as an insurance against running out.
And I did manage to knit the second lacy cuff
So I haven't lost the skill after all. And I have plans for more experiments along these lines, to keep sock knitting interesting.
I checked my library for any of Steve's summer reading list, hardly any writers I'd read, reserved a couple of Tana French, and borrowed the nearest Bragg I could, which is this, now ready on my Kindle for my outdoor reading pleasure.
It combines a recommended writer I'd never read, and home cooking as well as memoir, so I can't go far wrong.
Speaking of combining, here's a terrific artist whose paintings are executed on teabags.
This one is doubly domestic, because it's about laundry day. Definitely doubling down.
And let's leave with a bit of hope
Nature flowers even when people do terrible things to each other. The attacks on the earth as well as the people on the battlefields of WW1 resulted in the poppy fields of Flanders.
Wise nature survives
Good to remember humbly on Memorial Day weekend. Little children in Texas, people in eastern Ukraine, died this week in different battles they never asked for. So many lives have now fallen into before and after. So much grief. Not a time for barbecues and bargains.
