Oh my goodness, it’s cold. The snow that fell on Seattle last night is mostly still here, which is unusual in my (limited) experience. Factor in the wind and the perceived temperature has been below 20 degrees F all day, which is about where it’s forecast to be for the next week to ten days. I’m very much not looking forward to standing at the bus stop for our rides to and from school tomorrow. Cold weather is good, however, for appreciating the work that went into food storage over the summer. I spent time this evening pouring over cookbooks …
I have a new favorite quote: Despite all our pretensions, we still are totally dependent on six inches of top soil and the fact that it rained. — Confucius So the economy is falling apart, retailers are starting the post-holiday sales before the holidays in hopes that they actually make some money, the Toys for Tots warehouse is empty, food banks have slim pickings, the American auto industry wants a bailout (Who’s next?!?! Is this the new consequence for making poor business choices, begging for taxpayer funds so that a failed business doesn’t actually have to fail? When the corporations …
I don’t think I like grief. It’s unpredictable, illogical. If somehow my eyes don’t burn, my stomach hurts instead, and if I’m actually having a moment of physical peace, I’m uneasy in my mind because I simply don’t know what to do. This wasn’t supposed to affect me like this. It’s not like there was a car accident, something swift and sudden, leaving us all shocked. This went on for years, longer than even the doctors thought it would. We said goodbye by degrees, brain cell by disappearing brain cell, always a one-way conversation, over and over and over again. …
Just finished reading Michael Pollan‘s excellent memo to President-elect Obama regarding the state of American agriculture. An excellent overview of the problems of the current intensive methods of “farming”, if that word can be used for monocultures of corn, CAFOs, manure lagoons, feeding antibiotics to cattle as a matter of routine, food irradiation, a process that requires an average of 10 petroleum-based calories of energy to produce one calorie of mass-produced “food”. What was on your dinner plate tonight? Do you know how much oil it took to get it there? But even better than the overview of what’s wrong, …
We watched election returns at a friend’s house and heard most of Seattle burst into cheers just before The Daily Show signed off with the announcement that Obama had won. For a moment, I thought it was just The Daily Show being funny, since sometimes I find it hard to tell when they are being serious. But when we switched to a “real” news station, it was all about the win. I don’t miss the nail-biting cliff-hanger at all. We watched McCain’s speech and were generally impressed. And we watched Obama’s speech – twice – and I teared up – …
I have eaten the last of the caramels made by my grandfather. I think I made the last batch last three years, sneaking them one at a time out of the freezer. But they are gone now. I may go into withdrawals at any moment. To add to my list of things for the kitchen: candy thermometer and marble slabs and a stainless pot of sufficient size. Maybe one of those neat double handled knives Mom has… which could be useful for cutting large cheeses as well. I still need the 16 or 20 quart stainless pot for cheese making, …