how i spent my day

i made some food. never you mind why. i think best, pray best by cooking. i can't help it.

i got up this morning, checked my email, finished my reading for today's book group - i will add here parenthetically that this is not out of neglect, but by design. my memory isn't very reliable, so if i want to be a part of the discussion in a way that suggests that i have read the book i have to read the portion we are discussing the same day we discuss it.

uh, anyway. i cooked yesterday, too, so a lot of what happened today was just the end of yesterday's cooking, but i'll try to put it in some kind of order.

no, nevermind, i can't. i think at one point i had six things going at once.

so i cooked. i did a load of laundry. i made lunch for cr and me (because in order for me to make myself a lunch i have to have enough stuff so that it just goes easier if i can share, because i'm not willing to have the same lunch that many days in a row). i packed my lunch and the goodies i brought to share at the book group, as well as a little something for the pastor and the secretary -the pastor because i subscribe to the old and charming custom of the pastor's share, and the secretary because, well, she's the secretary and i KNOW who it is that pulls my fat out of the fire when something happens like i'm sick and am all out of cold medicine and i need soup and english muffins. i live twenty minutes out of town, but she makes sure stuff happens.

still following me?

good.

so i made a few things. and then after book group i made a few more things and packed them up to share (after eating a half dozen teeny little quiches) and went to choir practice and then a rehearsal and now i'm home.

today i ran my dishwasher four times.

here's my list of things i made yesterday and today, or finished yesterday or today, since i had to start making both the salt lox and the ginger ale five days ago.

today’s menu:

black olive tapenade
fresh mozzarella (made today!)

salt lox

savory zucchini bread
sweet potato dinner rolls

teeny little vegetable quiches

mini oat pies
constant comment tea cookies
mascarpone brownies

and of course, because i didn't have enough to do, i took the leftover beet syrup from making the candied beet slices last week and boiled it up to about 250 degrees and poured it into a pan to make a lovely deep red candy.

my feet kind of hurt now and i'm tired. tomorrow i may or may not cook something; i got started on all of this stuff because i was looking for a recipe to make for the weekend and i managed to forget to buy two of the ingredients but on the way i performed the culinary equivalent of "oh, look! a squirrel!" and accidentally made a truckload of other things, but it was all good because i think i'm the only one in the book group who never made a table setting and instead decided to bring snacks to share every week.

i hope nobody minded.