Take a bite

These are the best gluten-free cookies I've tasted and are the second-best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made, only surpassed by the Cook's Illustrated "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe that they published in 2009 and that I haven't yet tried to reproduce with gluten-free flour. 

So many gluten-free recipes fail in the texture department, but not these babies: they are chewy and gooey and wonderful. These are cookies I would make even if I wasn't avoiding gluten. And they are way easier and faster to make than my #1 recipe which involves brown butter and lots of steps. 

These cookies are made with 100% almond flour--no obscure superfine brown rice flour that can only be purchased online or xanthan gum required. And if your grocery store is out of wheat flour during the pandemic, they might just have plenty of almond flour!

A few things I have learned making these:

1. Monitor the color near the end of the cooking time closely. Nuts can go from golden to burnt very quickly so I set the timer for a few minutes less than I think they'll need and then check them every minute or so (usually rotating the pan so that any hot spots in the oven don't make them brown unevenly) until they are golden.

2. These are easier to make if you use weight rather than volume to measure your ingredients (this goes for a lot of gluten-free recipes because weight is much more specific if you are making substitutions). If you don't have a digital scale, this is a good and affordable one. I put volume estimates in the recipe for people who don't have a scale.

3. Shaping and freezing the dough balls leads to a better texture than baking right after you make the dough. If you do bake them right after you make the dough, they'll spread a lot more and won't be as chewy, more of a crumbly-crispy cookie and if that's your ideal, then go for it; just be sure to reduce the baking time by a few minutes. I prefer chocolate chip cookies with a little gooeyness in the center. Freezing the dough means adding a few minutes of cooking time but I think it's worth it and it means that you will probably have a supply of ready-to-go dough if you are having a crummy day and need a little pick me up. Reach in the freezer and grab three dough balls and in about 20 minutes (5 minutes to preheat the oven, 15 minutes baking time) your day is a little better:

Ahhh. Cookie-therapy on a tray.

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from a recipe by Erin Jeanne McDowell

300 grams almond flour (about 2 3/4 C)

3/4 t kosher salt

1/2 t baking soda

140 grams butter at room temp (10 T or 1.25 sticks)

110 grams light brown sugar (about 1/2 C)

100 grams white sugar (about 1/2 C)

1 large egg

2 t vanilla extract

300 grams (10 oz) chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips (I prefer hand chopped because then you get the little flecks of chocolate throughout the cookie, but I've also made them with commercial chips and they are fine.) The volume varies widely with these because it depends on your chip/chunk size. 10 oz of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips, which are a little bigger than standard chips, is about 1 1/2 C

flaky sea salt. 

In a bowl, combine the almond flour, salt and baking soda. 

Cream the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix. Scrape down the bowl if needed.

Add the almond flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined. Add the chocolate chunks/chips until evenly distributed. 

Scoop about 2T sized balls (I used a heaping tablespoon as a scoop), roll in your hands to make a ball and then flatten to about 1/2" thick. Place on parchment and then freeze.

When it's time to bake, preheat your oven to 350, set the desired number of dough balls on a parchment or silpat lined sheet, sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt, and bake for about 15 minutes. I set the timer for 10 minutes and then check (somewhat obsessively) for the last few minutes to rotate pans for even browning and to make sure the almond flour doesn't burn. You might need to add a few minutes depending on your dough ball size. One time I was a little generous making them and they took about 18 minutes total, another time they were more modestly sized and were done at about 14 minutes.

Sourdough antics

Quarantine-brain and the fact that I stopped wearing a watch about 3 weeks ago means I really don't remember how long ago I began "building" my gluten free sourdough starter, but earlier this week I was able to give it a try and made one batch (two loaves) of gluten free sourdough bread from Aran Goyoaga's lovely cookbook, Canelle et Vanille. 

Ta Da! Pretty decent for a first attempt.

The recipe uses the technique of Jim Lahey's famous no-knead bread (baking in a pre-heated cast iron dutch oven) with a gf starter Goyoaga teaches you how to build day by day, and dough ingredients that she has tweaked to get gf bread that does a decent job of replicating the flavor and texture of regular bread. 

I don't think my starter is particularly robust which may be due to the fact that it is early spring here and my house is cold. I finally figured out that I should be leaving it in the oven with the light on after feeding it, and that caused the bubbling to become a little more energetic. But, like me these days, my starter is maybe a little sluggish, a little sleepy, a little what-the-fuck-do-you-want-from-me surly. That's ok; it still worked out and got me a good-enough rise and produced a loaf with a good-enough crumb (we are all about good-enough, these days). The crust of this bread is truly spectacular: crackling and deeply flavorful.

 

Why yes, that is the correct ratio of Irish butter to bread, thank you for asking.

There were a number of ingredients that I had to track down to make this. Thankfully, the general panic to purchase regular wheat flour that has emptied supermarket shelves has not spread to the GF baking section so (for locals, at Arbor Farms) I was able to get my hands on the sorghum flour, psyllium husk and potato starch that I didn't have in the house. I couldn't find gf oat flour so I ended up dumping some gf oats in the food processor and blitzing them to a chunky powder. The resulting oat flour probably wasn't as fine as the commercial stuff or a flour made in a high powered Vitamix, but I think it worked well enough and the oat flavor is really nice. I find stuff made with just brown or white rice flour to be pretty flavorless so the oats (and probably the sorghum?) give the resulting bread a depth and "toasty-ness" that is lacking in a lot of gf recipes.

Next time I make this I'll do the following things differently: 

1. I'll only make a half a batch. I only own one cast iron dutch oven (do people really have two of these heavy behemoths in their kitchens?) and the second loaf that I made in a covered ceramic pot wasn't quite as nice. Maybe I'll go back to two at a time in the summer when I'll want to limit how often I turn on the oven for a long bake. But for now, I'd rather have one really good loaf at a time.

2. I might invest in a banneton proofing basket. I used a metal colander lined with a rice-flour dusted tea towel and it worked ok, but the bottom of the colander is kind of flat and I think contributed to the top of my bread not doming quite as much. 

3. I'll probably try and bake it for another 10-15 minutes, to make sure that the moisture in the interior has a little more time to dry out. Lots of gf bread recipes end up a little "gummy" on the inside and that can be because they haven't been baked long enough (apparently over-proofing can also contribute to this). I don't know if you can tell from the above photo, but right in the center of the bread the crumb is a little too sticky.

All in all, I'm pleased with the results and I am enjoying having bread (and particularly toast) as a part of my life again.

Just some really lovely things

Today I don't have enough to say about any one thing, so I'm sharing a few lovely things that I've discovered.

I loved reading this (edited) twitter thread about a hypothetical Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan murder mystery series. I would watch this in a heartbeat.

If you or someone you live with is feeling crafty and restless, check out the tutorials on Creativebug. If you have an AADL library card, you can get free access to the whole site via this link. I had fun reviving old embroidery skills on a pair of jeans that needed some mending (and now have decorative mending!) using videos from the woman who does the dropcloth samplers that I've long admired. I might dabble around a little with some watercolors later.

I've found a new podcast that I adore: Marlon and Jake Read Dead People. Booker Prize winning author Marlon James and his editor, Jake Morrissey, have wonderful conversations about books by dead people. No living authors are included because they are brutally honest in their opinions and criticism. It is heaven for English majors, or really, anyone who loves books. They just finished the first season so you can binge listen (and then maybe get a digital copy of some of the books.)

Yes, like everyone else cooped up at home with a bag of flour, I am planning to make sourdough. I'm using brown rice flour and instructions from this lovely gluten free cookbook that I ordered from Bookbound at the start of this confinement. I'm on day 4 of building my starter and I think that baking day will be day 7 or thereabouts.

Go little yeasties! Go!

This Thursday evening you will find me on my couch streaming the National Theater Live production of One Man, Two Govnors starting James Cordon which they are airing on YouTube. I saw it when it was playing in the theater and it is the perfect choice for these times: deeply ridiculous and farcical with one of the best-natured stars you can hope to watch. It will only be available for one week starting on April 2 (there will be a different play available the following week) so set aside the time to watch it and laugh.

Book Give Away: Round 2

Round two of the great shelf clean-off continues with two of my favorite categories, Contemporary Fiction and Fantasy/Speculative Fiction. This time I got kind of excited and put little annotations next to the titles below the photos because I have loved all these books at one time or another and don't really want to shut up about them even though I want the shelf space back. 

Locals, let me know if you want any of these and we'll work out how to get them to you. If a title has been crossed off, it has been claimed.

Contemporary Fiction
Top to bottom:
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley: a Scandanavian-style epic written in clean, clear prose; you can lose yourself in this world
Hard Laughter by Anne Lamott: I think this was Lamott's first novel, semi-autobiographical, definitely before she was sober/found Jesus
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: possibly one of the most beautiful books I've read about a father
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields; a compelling story of one woman's life from 1905-the late 1980s with surprising lightness and bursts of humor
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich; the book where so many of Erdrich's recurring cast of amazing characters were introduced, on the North Dakota reservation where many of her books are set
Postcards by E. Annie Proulx; a sad but exquisite story of two brothers in New England
The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro; a collection by one of the best short-story writers, most set in Canada
The Hill Bachelors by William Trevor; a collection by one of the other best short-story writers, most set in Ireland or UK
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter; a retelling of Midsummer Night's Dream set in Ann Arbor
Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith; not fiction, but essays by the whip-smart novelist, and many of the essays are about fiction

Fantasy/Speculative Fiction
Top to bottom:
Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor: probably technically YA, fierce fairies and talking crows, together battling an invading evil darkness
Foundling by D.M. Cornish: Fantastic world-building, the first book in a series, the kind of book that has an 100+ page "explicarium" with a dictionary of terms, maps, and drawings which you either love or hate; I love that kind of stuff
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell: Mitchell's first book with linked narratives; if you liked Cloud Atlas, you will probably like this
Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell: a little more intimate (one character, rather than linked stories) but still weird in a beautiful Mitchell way
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell: a head-spinning plot, both witty and strange
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: a fantasy novel by one of my favorite Science Fiction authors, excellent world building

Book Give Away: Round 1

With the libraries closed and plenty of people I know facing financial stress, I'm starting the book re-distribution project. Today we have some food-related books and YA fiction. All of these were good enough to take up residence on a shelf in my home for a period of time, but I don't plan to reread them.

Here's the deal: if you are local, let me know if you want a book or books, either in the comments or via the contact me in the right side bar. I will try to update this post with the books that have been claimed crossed off so you know what is still available. Anything no one wants will go into a bin to be delivered to the Friends of the AADL Bookshop once it is safe to donate again.

No, I won't mail these to you. I walk (a lot; don't assume you live too far away. I once decided to walk home to Evanston from the Art Institute of Chicago which is something like 13+ miles. It was a great walk) and can drop them off at your residence and then you should either set them somewhere for 3+ days or wipe them down with disinfectant. If you want a lot of books (fine with me, I want to liberate my space for more new books) then I'll find a time when I'm driving to run an errand and am in your vicinity and will drop them off. If I know you and am comfortable giving out my address to you, I can leave them on my porch for you to pick up.

And if you are feeling really guilty about getting books for free (don't. There's enough shit to feel bad about right now, free books should not be one of them) and have the means, please support one of our local bookstores by buying yourself a gift certificate to use at a later date. Here's the link to Literati and here's the link for Bookbound. See, you're giving yourself something to look forward to!

Food Related Books

From top to bottom:
The Michigan Gardner's Companion by Rita C. Henehan
The Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden by David Hirsch
Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads by Bernard Clayton, Jr.
Field of Greens by Annie Somerville
Put 'Em Up: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook by Sherri Brooks Vinton
A Well-Seasoned Appetite by Molly O'Neill
Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day by Roy Finamore

YA Fiction:

From top to bottom:
Let it Snow (3 novellas) by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Paper Towns by John Green
Chime by Franny Billingsley
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Blood Red Road by Moira Young

A Project

Now that we're in shelter-in-place mode, I need a project to keep me from driving everyone and myself crazy. I've been practicing the restricted movement/social distancing behavior for the week before the governor's declaration without a significant project and mostly it was going ok: I like the challenge of the stash-busting the freezer, the pantry and my yarn. I let the kids sleep in. I took lots of long walks (the dog is very tired.) But then on Sunday something snapped, I got really squirrelly and agitated and I couldn't get myself to stop checking the news every ten minutes. Even a 4.5 mile walk, time with the Tudors, knitting, tea and making gluten-free pecan sandies (decent, but not earthshaking) did little to dent how I was feeling. So yesterday I decided I need a project to direct my energy towards and decided that I will paint my office.

My office is blue and I am sick of it. I have about 3/4 of a gallon of cream paint leftover from when I painted the living room last year. It's probably not enough for two coats so I'll be scrounging around in the basement, looking for primer/other light colored paint to use for a first coat. The cream stuff has good coverage so hopefully, once I've prepped the walls, one coat will do it.

But before I can get to painting, I'm tackling the bookshelves which have long been a disorganized dumping ground. I'm going through, shelf by shelf, and culling the books that we don't want to read again. The big bonus of this is I have a LOT of books to give away and many of them are excellent reads (just not books I/we plan to read again.) So I'll be posting those and if you would like some of them and are local, I'll try to get them to you. Anything that isn't requested will go to the Friends of the Library bookshop once it is safe to donate materials again.

Here are three of the ten shelves in my office that I culled and dusted and are ready to be tarped for painting.  Look! On the middle shelf there is even room for NEW books!

 And here are two that still need some (ahem) significant attention. Lots of crap to wade through, organize and recycle.

I already cleared my desk which has never been so clean:

But the real challenge in getting this room ready to be painted is the fact that I share this office with my youngest child whose desk looks like this:

There are layers of crap/treasures to be excavated and organized and it is going to take some serious nagging and threats to torch the whole damn pile to get child-participation to happen. There used to be a little cleared space in the middle where computer work could take place, but since we had to purchase a laptop for the kid to be able to complete schoolwork this year, the desktop is mostly neglected and the whole space has devolved into a shit-hole dumping ground.

Wish me luck.

Eat the damn salad

This is my favorite salad. You should eat it.

I kind of feel like stopping there because it has been an exhausting day full of the void of no one knowing what they should do (other than stay home) and so wandering from space to space, starting one thing, putting it down, picking something else up and then feeling restless after 15 minutes, turning the tv on, turning it off. You get the idea.

The dog has been on four long walks today. The dog is tired.

It's not that I didn't have the time to make something interesting and elaborate for dinner tonight. I didn't have the brain.

Back to the salad: it's crunchy, salty, sweet, has a little protein from the walnuts and feta and is made with stuff that is available year-round in Michigan so no reliance on perfect produce. It makes me happy every time I eat it.

Guess what I'm having for dinner tonight?

Kate's favorite salad
in per person quantities

about 1/2 a small apple, Pink Lady is my favorite
1 scallion, sliced
1 stalk of celery, sliced
about 1/4 C of walnuts
about 2 T crumbled feta
some lettuce (you can use whatever you've got. I've made it with everything under the sun including arugula and iceberg lettuce. Because of the sweetness of the apples, punchy greens are pretty nice here.)
optional--some shredded cabbage, green or red, doesn't matter
optional--a few sliced radishes
optional--some chopped parsley

Pile it all on a plate and drizzle on your favorite vinaigrette, or really whatever you like on your salads.

Interlude, with carbohydrates

I interrupt my freezer-and-pantry-and-bookshelf clearing routine for a little interlude featuring everyone's favorite food group, carbohydrates.

Last night I made the oven-fried chicken I mentioned yesterday and greens, cheese grits for me and for the gluten eaters, I made these biscuits:

They are Kenji Lopez-Alt's Buttermilk Biscuits from Serious Eats and are super easy and hard to screw up. The only changes I made to his recipe was to use soured milk (1/2 C milk and 2 t vinegar mixed together and left to sit for 10 minutes) for the buttermilk and I cut them in squares rather than using a biscuit cutter to make circles because then there's no waste and no need to re-roll scraps of dough. The recipe made nine sizable square biscuits and since there are only three left, I think that means that the three humans I made them for approved of the recipe.

This morning I decided to continue the carb celebration and made my new favorite thing, buckwheat pancakes.

These babies (recipe below) are gluten-free using half buckwheat flour and half Namaste gluten free flour blend. I chucked in a few shriveled blueberries I found in the fridge that no one is likely to eat fresh then topped them with a little Irish butter and a drizzle of maple syrup.

Which leads me to a little discussion about GF flours; while most grocery stores are out of wheat flour, there are likely still GF flours on the shelf. Yesterday I went to Arbor Farms to get groceries for me and for my parents. I hadn't been to a store in a week and I was curious and nervous about what I'd find out there. The place was not ravaged and didn't look like a scene from the apocalypse.* They were, however, out of wheat flour. But there were plenty of gluten-free flours on the shelf and since I have time on my hands to experiment and bake right now, I stocked up on some. If you want to bake and don't have any wheat flour and can't buy any until the supply chain balances out again, give some of these a try. (Avoid King Arthur's gluten free flour mix, though. That stuff is gritty!)

Buckwheat Pancakes

1 and 1/4 C milk
1 T vinegar
1 egg
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 C buckwheat flour
1/2 C other flour: if you aren't GF, then use all purpose. I used Namaste GF perfect flour blend.
2 t sugar
1/4 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
canola oil for the pan

Start by souring your milk: stir the vinegar into the milk and set aside for 10 minutes to get it to sour (if you have buttermilk in the house, use that instead of the milk and vinegar).
In a medium bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
Combine the soured milk, egg and vanilla and use a whisk or fork to get the egg distributed well. Dump the wet stuff into the dry stuff and mix until there aren't any more dry bits. Then walk away for 10 minutes (that'll give the acid from the sour milk and the leavening ingredients time to react and thicken your batter. If you make the pancakes right after combining the wet and dry ingredients they'll be much thinner. Ask me how I know...)
Heat up your pan, add a little canola oil and then drop 1/4 C sized blobs in and cook as usual (look for bubbles to form on the surface, then flip.)
Serve with butter and whatever you like on your pancakes: maple syrup that has been warmed up with some frozen blueberries is lovely, but I also like these with just a slice of sharp cheddar cheese on top.

I got 8 hearty pancakes out of this recipe. If you don't have an audience to eat them all at once, then refrigerate the leftovers and they can be reheated in a toaster oven or microwave in the coming days. Waking up to pre-made pancakes is a really nice way to start the day.


*A big plug for shopping at Arbor Farms (probably also holds true for other small markets, but I haven't visited any): the cashier changed gloves between each order, the place was pretty empty so no standing in line with tons of other people and they had a pretty decent supply of foods that I hear are running low elsewhere. I saw sliced bread from Avalon bakery, plenty of olive oil on the shelves and it looked like the De Cecco brand dried pasta had just been restocked because the shelves were full. There were a few things that you could tell had been impacted: the canned soup section was decimated and there wasn't the normal selection in the chicken section (I usually make the oven-fried chicken with all thighs but they were out of those so we did it with a cut up whole chicken and it still worked great.) There was plenty of good stuff in stock if you are able to be flexible. Best of all I didn't feel like a massive ball of stress from the experience of shopping there.

Stashbusting

In this time of forced confinement, I'm trying to use what I have and that leads to multi-obsession/genre STASHBUSTING. I'm covering yarn, food and books in this post so if one of my obsessions doesn't interest you, scroll on down to the one that does.

Yarn
I started Ankestrick's Simple Something sweater because it looked like a great stashbuster. Then I realized I don't actually have a huge stash of yarn because I work in a yarn store so have pretty amazing access to whatever yarn I want whenever I want it (living the dream, people!) In my defense, I am using two skeins of legit stashed yarn and one of them was the inspiration for the project: a cream and pink and beige skein of sock yarn that my lovely employer, Spun, commissioned from a dyer based on our pets.

 Here's a photo of the inspiration: Molly, the pink-nosed pitbull, 65 lb lap-dog and major snuggle bug

My Molly skein has been sitting around, waiting for me to do something with it. In my many years of knitting, I've made about five pairs of socks and while I get the appeal--portable, finite, warm feet--I never caught the bug. I really like knitting sweaters (and yes, I now give away sweaters. I don't need any more sweaters. But I still want to knit them.)  The construction of this sweater is very simple: doubled sock yarn makes for a heavy worsted weight sweater with top down/raglan construction. The fun is in deciding which colors to use and when to change one or both of the strands; someone on Ravelry called it "painting with yarn" and that seems an apt description. There are some bold, wild examples of this sweater on Ravelry that I admire, but I decided to stick with a quiet color palette, mostly just riffing off the colors of the original Molly skein and another gray stashed sock yarn (label long gone; I think I bought it in Germany where sock yarn is sold in grocery stores) while bringing in a little purple and light green. There are also lots of little scraps of left-over fingering weight yarn from past projects that I'm using as accents and it's very satisfying to see a stripe of green and remember a shawl I made last year.

I ended up purchasing four skeins of yarn to add to the Molly and the mystery gray stash skein: I bought them at Spun (which is offering free local delivery and free shipping while the store is closed). Two of them are from local dyer Fiberstory and they are her Fave sock yarn in the colors Crocus (cream with purple speckles) and Cake (a very subtle cream/pink/yellow). And there are two grayish based yarns, one is Fig & Posy Fiber Co.'s Simple Sock in Abalone and the other is Neighborhood Fiber Co.'s Studio Sock in Earnest Shaw.


Food
The freezer clean-out continues and is a little terrifying. I found a packet of totally freezer burned sausages and now the dog has a couple of days of really good Kong fillings. She's pretty happy about this process.

I also found some pre-formed turkey burgers that Brian bought during one semester of particularly hectic family schedules during which none of our dinner times lined up and individuals were regularly scrounging for something that resembled real-food. He thought these fit the bill. The fact that they were ignored by everyone and shoved to the back corner of the freezer means that he was wrong.

Last night I took out four of the individual patties (lightly freezer burned at the edges), defrosted them, crumbled them up and made Curried Ground Turkey with Potatoes. I make real Indian food pretty often and I warn you, this dish is not that. But it is kinda nice and comforting on a cold rainy day. I made brown rice and raita to go with it. Brian and I ate it happily and the other two human residents at this fine establishment tolerated it: one picked out the peas and the tomatoes, the other picked out the potatoes. They are weird and a pain-in-the-ass but I love them.

I also found a frozen pack of Trader Joe's puff pastry that was bought for some appetizer idea that never got made (I think it was supposed to be rolled up with brie and cranberries and then the event I was going to bring it to was rescheduled and I never made it.) So I tried making palmiers with it to give the gluten-eaters an afternoon treat and it was a total disaster. I've never used TJ's puff pastry before but wow, that stuff sucks. I've made my own puff pastry (a labor intensive project, but not a bad one if you have time and want to try your hand at laminated dough) and this stuff does not even closely approximate it: puff pastry that doesn't puff is just tough, greasy dough. The younger child ate two of the resulting palmiers (because grease and sugar count as major food groups for this age bracket) and then I threw the rest away. Disappointing, but at least I'm not wasting freezer space on an inferior product.

I started rummaging around in the pantry and I found a whole container of grits hiding behind the sugar containers which were probably purchased after some trip down south and then promptly forgotten. So I made myself cheese grits topped with a good splash of hot sauce:

Ugly, but tasty! And gluten free!

I'll make these again as a side-dish to go along with oven-fried chicken (here's a great recipe) and greens.

Books
I'm really trying to read The Mirror and the Light slowly but oh god it's so good and hard not to gobble it down and I'm going to be really sad when it ends. So I'm queuing up Ocean Voung's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Christmas gift!) for when I finish spending time with the Tudors (they are such a weaselly lot but oh how I love them). I tend to feel panicky if I don't have at least one book lined up to look forward to and no-one needs a panicky Kate right now, or really, let's be honest, ever. 

Since I have time, I also decided to make a little room on my bookshelves for new stuff so in the coming days I will post pictures of books I own that I don't plan to re-read and which will be looking for a new home. I will attempt to get my kids to engage in a similar project which would liberate space on their shelves and provide a broader range of genres/topics/ages. If you are local and want one of them, I can drop one (or more!) off at your house. I love our local bookstores Literati, Bookbound and Nicola's and will try to support them to the best of my budget's ability during this period but I know that isn't an option for everyone so if one of my books would make you happy, please ask for it (while the library is closed another resource is the free ebooks and audiobooks that can be checked out from Overdrive with your library card.) And now I'm actually looking forward to what I would normally describe as a chore: it'll be like visiting with old friends who I haven't seen in a long time. Since I can't sit down with real friends at the moment, my book friends will serve as a nice substitute. 

Waking up! Welcome back!

I'm waking up this long-dormant blog because in this time of COVID-19 intentional social isolating I find (despite my intense introversion) that I still crave conversation. So let's wake up together and keep each other sane! For today, I'd love to hear about:

1. what you are reading
2. what you are cooking

I'll start:
1. It could not have arrived at a better time: Hilary Mantel's final book in the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. (The link will take you to one of my local bookstores; support your local folks if you can particularly when their storefronts are closed.) It is 757 pages of intricate Tudor historical fiction requiring me to regularly refresh my memory of who exactly had claims to the throne and looking up family trees from the War of the Roses onward to see how they are leveraging their claims. I am happy as a pig in shit reading this. 

For levity (because I can't spend every moment of my day with murderous Tudors without starting to consider keeping a knife in my doublet/jacket pocket), I'm listening to another Terry Pratchett Discworld audiobook read by the amazing Stephen Briggs. Thud! is the one I'm currently listening to with The Truth waiting in the wings for when I finish. (The link takes you to the digital library download where you can request it. I assume it is probably also available if you have an audible subscription. Unfortunately, with the library closed getting it on CD isn't an option right now, but normally they do have a decent supply of Pratchett books). It is truly a sanity saver to still have more Discworld books to read--there are 47!--even after years of enjoying them.

2. On the cooking front, I'm doing some freezer and pantry clearing-out which, let's face it, really needed to be done. Yesterday I pulled a pound of freezer-burned ground pork out and made some great rice noodles w/pork, tofu, peanuts and cilantro (no one could tell in that format that the meat was less than ideal), served with celery and cucumber salad (chop them up and toss them together with a spoonful of chili crisp, a little tamari, rice vinegar and a pinch of sugar). Tonight, we're having roasted pork loin (because apparently I stash pork in my freezer? I don't even really like pork...) and roasted cauliflower with this coconut tumeric relish and a salad. I haven't tried the relish before but it sounds promising and the picky eaters in my house can skip it and just eat beige food.

And I've been baking. I gave up gluten about 6 weeks ago (and I feel so much better) so I'm experimenting with gluten-free recipes and have come across some really good ones (there is a NYTimes almond-flour chocolate chip cookie recipe that is amazing but sadly is also behind a paywall...) And I'm trying to teach my helpless-in-the-kitchen children to bake their favorites with all the regular wheat flour we still have on hand. So far, my strategy for dealing with grumpy teenagers has been to a) throw a brownie or cookie at them and then b) make them go for a walk with me. It probably won't work for the length of our shelter-in-place behavior, but it's working for now so I'm not going to knock it.

I'd love to hear what you are up to!