Friday in the rain...

It's a been a monsoon out there. Easing up for now, but not sure for how long. 48 degrees and rain makes for a messy stay-at-home-in-the-house kind of day. A perfect day for baking bread. And catching up, as my internet connection has been very spotty, at best, for several days.

And so, my house smells like the corner bakery and I am in flannels and sweats and big socks...enjoying the quiet solitude. Thinking how good a nice stew would be for supper, with thick slices of warm buttered bread alongside. I could make a Jamaican pork stew with sweet potatoes and onions and garlic and celery in it. Not too spicy, but certainly with a little jerk seasoning in it. I have some tomatoes and okra too I could throw in there. That sounds like a good idea. I have some packages of boneless pork country ribs in the freezer that would make a nice base, if I cube them and simmer in the electric skillet for a few hours they will be melt-in-your-mouth tender. Are you hungry yet? lol.. I even have some brown rice from the sweet and sour chicken I made a few nights ago when my sister was here. Sometimes I like these stews over rice..makes a nutrious and satisfying meal.

A woman named Rashanna (who I have lost and cannot find again) taught me years ago how to cook brown rice that (when you're poor) is almost a meal in itself. You brown the raw rice in oil with chopped onion and fresh garlic and celery. You add basil and black pepper and simmer it until the rice is cooked. Browning the rice really brings out the lovely nutty taste. You can add bits of whatever you want to it...leftover cooked chicken or tofu or anything. That's how I cook it most of the time. So, thanks! Rashanna Smith...maybe someday she'll google her name and find me. We lived in Clearlake, CA at the same time back in the 70's. She had moved there from Calistoga, back when it was a little nothing town, surrounded by wineries.

The bread is about 15 minutes away from being done. And so you know that my lunch will be a cup of tea and a slice of warm buttered bread...lol

I was supposed to go hear Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) speak today at 2. My neighbor and I were going. I started feeling a little punky yesterday and hated to tell her I couldn't go--she was so excited about seeing him. Then I thought, I'll just suck it up anyway...go to the amphitheater in the pouring rain and deal with it. Then she called me early this morning with news that her mother had fallen and broke her hand and was getting 27 stitches in her head and she wouldnn't be able to go with me. So...once again...God does for me what I cannot/will not do for myself. I am fighting off whatever crud has been going around and I don't need to sit out in the rain. The older I get, the more careful I have to be about not getting pneumonia.

Just finished a delightful book by a woman named Martha Cooley. It's called Thirty Three Swoons. About the perfume business and Russian theater history and love and family. Absolutely wonderful...and I read the whole thing yesterday.


I have had a busy busy week, and needed to stay home and recuperate the past couple of days. Glad I can do that today...and not be jumping out of my skin, like it used to be. Soft sounds of jazz on the stereo, a little lunch, and kitties laying in my lap...

It doesn't get any better than this....


Namaste.