third time's the charm

Third day in a row that I've engaged in significant cooking. I'm realizing that I like doing it, just not while anyone else is there.

dinner club reunion

Our old dinner club got together for the first time in years. Wine, cheese, bread, salmon two ways (smoked with creme fraiche and sous vide with homemade quick pickled onions, broiled crispy skin), truffled mac and cheese, grilled and smoked corn on the cob, smoked filet mignon on English muffins broiled with cheddar cheese and topped with truffled arugula and sous vide poached egg, Humphrey Slocombe ice cream (Secret Breakfast, Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, and Peanut Butter Curry), and assorted Japanese KitKats. Good friends, good food, good times. I think we're going to reboot and reconvene every two or three months.

no reheating necessary

The warm lentils and cold sunchoke pickles went well with the fish yesterday, and today they were good as a cold dish without the fish, straight out of the fridge. Sunchoke pickles may be my new thing for a while.

two in a row

Decided to cook again tonight. Sous vide sole (this time with garlic and olive oil), lentils with chorizo, and sous vide sunchoke quick pickles. Let's see how this turns out.

hep hep hooray

Blood test came back, and I'm already fully immune to both Hep A and Hep B for the rest of my life, so no more shots needed for those. I'd probably know this if I'd kept better records of my vaccinations in the past, but now I know, no more shots for hep, ever.

ask and receive

Noticed that the sous vide circulator that I bought at a discount was even more discounted. I planned to quietly fume, but Boyfriend asked if I was going to ask for a credit. I screwed up my courage and set aside my embarrassment and sent an email asking if they price match, and lo and behold, I got an email back saying I'll get a credit for the difference! Much more effective than fuming.

ange can cook

Between free food at work and a boyfriend who likes cooking, I rarely motivate myself to make anything beyond the most basic stuff to eat. Today, I decided to cook! On a weeknight! Three dishes! Sous vide sole with dill and butter, sauteed sugar snap peas with mint and feta, and roasted sunchokes with truffle salt. I'm kind of proud of myself.

free shots

Went to the clinic at work today to get some shots in preparation for Namibia. Got three, plus a blood draw and two prescriptions, and it turns out that because it was all preventative care, there wasn't even a copay. So then I went to the allergist for my fourth shot and fifth needle of the day. Free shots!

number one

As much as I hated being required to get good grades, I sometimes miss the uncomplicated clarity that good grades gave. An A said, "you're doing well." Anything else said, "try harder." It's hard to get that kind of clear message once you're out of school. So when you reach the number one position in your FitBit rankings, it's a sweet little taste of the uncomplicated past, when it was so easy to know where you stood in relationship to the world.

long weekend

We're taking most of our vacation as long trips this year, so we aren't taking a lot of random days off for long weekends, so I love when we have one built in, because that extra day makes a weekend feel amazingly long.

chorizo

Chorizo is so delicious. Turkey chorizo isn't even that bad for you, and freezes in small portions for convenient use.

climber

The conference last week and then a lazy weekend totally killed my FitBit step count, but now I'll get to watch them go up again.

back for seconds

Apparently ten hours of sleep wasn't enough, and I was also in need of a two hour nap.

experimentation

We tried making abalone three ways (raw, smoked, sous vide), with varying success but lots of fun.

it's people

Met some interesting people at a conference this week, spent time with my sister's family and a college friend, then had a law school friend over for a night.

rekindled

I've hit my weight target, so can back off that a bit and spend more time on books, which have taken a bit of a backseat these past few months. That pile of seven library books is looking delicious!

make up

When you sleep ten hours after a few nights in a row of sleeping 5-6 hours.

aspirations

I spend so much time aspiring to be someone different, some better iteration of me that is less like me, that it comes as a pleasant shock when a coworker says that she aspires to be more like me.

everyday victories

I may have found the perfect sweatpants. Can't say for sure until they've gone through a few washes, but this is an amazing possibility, given my fondness for lounging around the house in comfy pants.

today

Called mom. Saw a dog that looked like she could have been Fiver's younger sister. Returned a bunch of stuff. Made brownies. Read more of this gorgeous book. Ate junk food and played games at a friend's house. Confirmed plans to reconvene our old dinner club for a reunion in a few weeks.

oh the possibilities

Finally got around to getting a sous vide circulator, with a discount, free shipping, and no tax! Now we just have to decide what to make first. So many foods, so little time...

wfh

Working from home on a sunny Friday is so great. I can wake up late but still start work early. Sweatpants are a given. The house is silent, other than birdsong and the washing machine. I can make as many faces and snide comments as I want, without judgment from the sleeping dogs. And eventually, when the workday is over, I'm instantly home and ready for the weekend.

mirror mirror

Trying on clothes is so much fun when you're the size you want to be. Even though I'm a total jeans girl, I admit that dresses are kind of fun once in a while. I've got two candidates balled up at the bottom of my closet (so that I can see if they'll travel well). May the best dress win.

box of chocolates

One of the benefits of keeping a long queue of books to read is that by the time I get to some of them, I have no recollection of what they're about or why they got added to the queue in the first place. You never know what you're going to get, and sometimes, every once in a while, it's an unexpectedly delicious one. There's nothing quite like reading the first few pages of a mystery book, loving it, and realizing that there are another 600 pages to devour.

just breathe

It still periodically boggles my mind that I can breathe through both nostrils, thanks to several years of allergy shots. Breathing just never gets old.

lost and found

Lost my driver's license while walking Henry yesterday. Found it today in the parking lot we walk through at the end of our walks. Whew.