This must be why I crave pasta

Recently, someone told me they were surprised that I had a sense of humor. Hmm. I guess they have not been around me very much. There are times in my life I am quite serious and intellectual. Then there are times in my life I am just “downright stupid.” There have been those days when I wake up singing a children’s song like If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands or I love pumpernickel, pumpernickel bread. Those years of listening to Barney songs are embedded deep in my memory. When I laugh, I feel myself open up and it allows me a moment to get out of my head and to get creative. Some of my most inspirational moments have happened when I just did not care or when I was not concerned about getting it right. Tonight was one of them. I had been having this kind of mental block and not feeling especially creative. The only thing I was craving was pasta. Hmm, perhaps that was in part because Tuesday was National Pasta Day.
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It’s like riding a bike.

After about six years of eating a vegetarian diet, Zoë came home from running errands to tell me she had a cheeseburger. Well, it was not quite that simple. All the vegetarian protein options I could come up with tasted like nothing, not even cardboard. Being on chemo, she needed lots of protein. A cheeseburger tasted good, not great, but at least it had some taste. So now, I am blowing the dust off my recipes and my meat cooking skills. She made this decision just in time for Thanksgiving. So once again, I made our annual turkey along with a vegetarian option to contribute to our open house potluck dinner where we always have far more food then one needs. Once again, I decided to brine the turkey.
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