More food

Today I made a turnip, radish, and carrot salad


and my first flan, which looked great when it was done


but less great when I took it out of the pan. Tasted exactly right, though!

Recent cooking

Here is a mushroom and peas pulao that was good but didn't turn out quite right:


An easy and tasty ravioli with clam sauce dish:


And last but certainly not least, some delicious snickerdoodles:

Worse

Worse than the provocations of lust are the deprecations of equanimity.

How does your head feel? (Berrigan)

What I'm trying to say is that if an experience is / proposed to me—I don't have any particular interest / in it—Any more than anything else. I'm interested in / anything. Like I could walk out the door right now and go some / where else. I don't have any center in that sense...I don't feel / a necessity for being a mature person in this world. I mean / all the grown-ups in the world, they're just playing house, all / poets know that. How does your head feel? How I feel is / what I think.

Ted Berrigan, from "Around the Fire"

Zebra cake

Here is the zebra cake I baked yesterday:

National Poem In Your Pocket Day

So today was National Poem In Your Pocket Day. Since I didn't go anywhere today where I could have shared a poem, I will share it here:

        Make It Count

Hear the number songs,
the calculated stanzas
that measure and model
the modern strange:

borrow those rhythms
for vivid verse equations.

The wealthy and the elite

People aspire to wealth themselves, even those furthest from it, so "wealthy" used as an epithet doesn't wound; however, few strive any longer to be elite, so an accusation that one is "elitist" bites with a particularly resentful venom.

Recent food

Tuesday I made sumac-and-parsley tilapia with garden cabbage

and lemon custard cakes.


Yesterday I made onion rings (this recipe was not at all what I was looking for)

and chocolate chip cookies. (An experimental result indicates that adding marshmallows to chocolate chip cookies is a bad idea.)

Consensus

Consensus is always provisional.

Foolishness

The greatest foolishness is to expect consistency from people.

Recent food

Tried a new chicken recipe the other night, "spicy supercrunchy" fried chicken (it was neither):



And tonight, Italian Easter Pie (it's excellent...will be making this again):

Revelation

Revelation is only worth as much as its provenance.

Ladder-backed woodpecker

This morning, my ash-throated flycatcher was back. It was evidently looking for a fight, as it repeatedly attacked its reflection in a window. As I was watching it, a woodpecker flew up and did its rat-a-tat on the wooden wall below the flycatcher's window. I believe it must have been a ladder-backed woodpecker.

Reaction

Conditioning is the arbiter of reaction; reason, just the newest and weakest emotion.

Birdwatching

I saw an ash-throated flycatcher this morning. It has a very distinctive call compared to the other birds around here.

More food pics

Friday
Lemon-poppyseed cookies.


Thursday
Creamy mashed broccoflower, adapted from here (it turned out a little TOO creamy...I think I'd try the food processor next time rather than the blender).

Recent food

Three desserts: brownies (not from scratch), coconut-pineapple macaroons, and blondies.


Shrimp and cabbage lo mein.

Worthwhile institutions

My life has never been improved directly or indirectly by the efforts or existence of any church. The same cannot be said of schools, libraries, hospitals and laboratories.

Suspense

Suspense, not absence, is the greatest aphrodisiac.