i am not in charge here people

Meh. That’s how I feel today. Just. meh.

Ladies and gentlemen: I have a Homemade Christmas spreadsheet. Now I need to fill in the blank spots and start making. There are materials to buy. There are things to design and execute. It’s an impressive list, imho, and if I manage to pull it off I will officially feel like a rock star.

In other rock star news, my kitchen has been producing some outfreakingstanding stuff. Sunday night I roasted brussels sprouts in bacon fat and balsamic. I made pan fried chicken with PAN SAUCE. The next night I roasted a butternut squash (Did you know if you roast some garlic cloves in the little hole along with the squash not only will your squash taste of delicious sweet roasted garlic goodness, but you can then put the roasted garlic goodness into your soup? Deborah Madison done taught me that little trick.) and made soup with my leftover veggie stock, some VT maple syrup, cayenne, and cinnamon. That ruled. I also had leftover PAN SAUCE so I made some orecchiette and tossed that all together. That ruled. Last night I roasted cauliflower and leeks and made beef stew with leftover pot roast from the freezer and homemade beef stock and topped it with steamed broccoli. That ruled the most.

The market is dwindling. The farm I get my lettuce from informed me this was the last day for lettuce as everything else froze which is a huge bummer. I suspect I bought the last round of green beans for the season today as well. I’m happy to have the cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and squash, but Dec 2 is looming. I always get in a funk at the end of market season. I’m hoping my new obsession with stock will get me through. And Crane Dance. I want to marry Crane Dance Farms and have their delicious meat babies.

I’m 20ish pages from the end of Angle of Repose by Stegner. Yeesh. Clunky book. I cannot believe this book won the Pulitzer. The characters are flat. The structure is contrived. The story is okay, but it just ain’t enough. Next up is A Wrinkle in Time (Peter’s choice) and I just ordered the new Lydia Davis translation of Madame Bovary. Which I should read before winter hits else I fear I’ll be back where I was with Anna Karenina. Those were some dark days.

So, we have the interwebs in our home now. I gotta tell you I’m underwhelmed. I forget that it’s there a lot of the time. I’ll be happier when I buy my own laptop I think, but I fear we’ll end up “watching a movie” together only to have us both buried in facebook or something. I have enjoyed having it available for cooking purposes and I know I’ll enjoy it for writing, but the interwebs?

Meh.