More Stuff About Angels and Food

Gainesville

Deep in the throes of me book. Don't know why I'm in such a rush to get through it-- it's the last of a trilogy, and I'll no doubt be bereft for awhile after it's over.

Bill recently made an indirect request for "one of your hearty soups," so yesterday I obliged by making the triple batch of Beef Stuff. That process takes about five hours, but is the basis for the much loved 20-Minute Tuscan Soup, and two other recipes that don't get made much anymore, being carb-intensive. I now have the other two batches ready for the freezer, where they become solid brown gold, aces in the hole for future desperation miracles.

And while in this make-ahead mode, I noted Leanne has finally come out with a Low Carb version of her Mega-Menu Mailer with the less-daunting add-on of instructions for meat-specific batches. And unless you're reading FL messages, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. Let's just say it's like home-made freezer meals. Of course, I'll need to make room in the freezer before undertaking any of these.

Tonight's dinner should have been easy, but things seemed to go wrong and I blew the timing badly. Lamb chops (parts overdone, parts underdone), blanched broccoli and cauliflower (water took way too long to come to a boil) and Bill's new favorite dish, Mushrooms, Bacon, and Sun Dried Tomatoes (got done too soon, and some of it ended up on the floor when I knocked off a spatula). Can't win 'em all.

Realized in the afternoon I'd forgotten to get mushrooms Monday, so made a flying trip to Publix. Also picked up a half gallon of Jack Daniels, as Bill continues on his Manhattan kick. I don't mind the rigamaroli it takes to make them, except for the frakkin' maraschino cherries. They're so sticky, and instantly stain the counter top.

Many loads of laundry done. Basic routines in hand. Somewhere I must find the will to get myself into the library and take up the management of the comics collection.

How nice to have a spring with newly planted bulbs to look forward to! Those four Springs in Maryland were so magical, and I feel so lucky to have experienced them.

I remember that trip mentioned in Chris' letter you transcribed a few days ago. That was the Trip of the Two Angels, something I should write up some day. I have notes from it in my old journals, I think, or else in a letter to A.J. Coincidentally, I came across this quote tonight in the book I'm reading:

There are days which are the carnival of the year. The angels assume flesh and repeatedly become visible. The imagination of the gods is excited and rushes on every side into forms.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yes. It was just like that.