Back to daily life—sort of

 

Jordan and Jacob ready for Breakfast at Brennan's

Life is hard!

My Fort Worth family will be home today after several days in New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. Christian is a Baylor alum and remains hugely involved, so I know he’ll be happy about last night’s game. But of course I have my reservations about them having gone to a bowl game with the omicron variant so infectious, though Jordan assured me proof of vaccination was required for entrance to the stadium. I don’t see that as foolproof. (A friend last night persisted in saying they were at a superspreader.) Still, they will quarantine away from me for the five days the CDC recommends, and I will ask them to follow CDC guidelines and wear masks for an additional five days.

Sophie and I are just fine and were warm enough and almost cozy last night. She keeps wanting to go outside and doesn’t understand when I tell her it’s very cold out there. But she comes back in quickly, which means a lot of up and down for me.

While the Burtons are gone, I’ve been fixing myself things I love and they won’t eat—salmon cakes, a baked egg with spinach, ham salad. And I’ll continue cooking just for myself for the next week. It’s not a problem, because I have a list of menu items for just such an occasion—egg salad, tuna casserole, quick spanakopita (Greek friends would think it a travesty), and various leftovers in the freezer.

In addition, friends must think I’m wasting away for they brought me wonderful meals. Neighbor Mary sent over an entire generous serving of their New Year’s Day luncheon—ribs from a crown roast of pork with gravy, homemade applesauce, sauerkraut (I love it!), and two kinds of cake. It will be my Sunday dinner tonight, though I know there will be leftovers of the leftovers. And longtime friend Kathie arrived last night with a quart jar of homemade split pea soup. She knows I love it and my family won’t touch it. Christian will want some of my black-eyed peas and cornbread, however. I’m not sure how we’ll work things out to pass from house to cottage and the other way without exposure, but we will.

I have work on my desk, as always, but I’m also reading an interesting book: Laura Shapiro’s What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food that Tells Their Stories. Her choice of women is eclectic to say the least, and I wonder if it was not dictated more by materials available to her than by her thesis. At times I thought she chose her thesis and fit the women into it, rather than letting the thesis grow organically out of her findings. Still it is interesting reading. The women are Dorothy Wordsworth (poet William’s fragile sister), Rosa Lewis (turn-of-the-century chef and owner of The Cavendish Hotel in London), Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym, and Helen Gurley Brown. So far I’ve read the Wordsworth piece (interesting but I’m not a follower of the romantic poets so it was of minimal interest). Then I skipped to Helen Gurley Brown, who I knew next-to-nothing about except Cosmopolitan. My goodness! She was incredibly shallow. The most important things to her seemed to be marrying a rich husband and staying thin. Her food choices were inconsistent and sometimes silly. Now I’m reading about Eleanor Roosevelt whose personal life always makes me sad. I have no interest in Pym and certainly not Braun, so I’ll skip them, but Rosa Lewis intrigues me.

The most interesting piece so far is the afterword in which Shapiro talks about her own food challenges. As a new bride (and a vegetarian), she was whisked off to a year in India where her husband was studying, and she suddenly realized she was responsible for every meal. It wasn’t India that was the challenge, she writes, it was marriage. Her tone is light, her observations astute, and it was fun to read, if not wholly enlightening about food.

Happy eating, happy reading! Two things that make life really good—and today they‘re both mine! Yours too, I hope.

 

When do you really start the new year?

 

When Sophie was home with Christian in the main house, 
she kept watch out the front door for any lurking dangers.
Christian labeled this, "Our security system takes a break."
Soph knows one place she is not allowed is that gold couch.

Some people claim that the gap between Christmas and New Year’s is the perfect time to cut yourself some slack, take it easy. January 2 you can once again set the world on fire. But for now, read several books, watch a lot of movies, treat yourself to that second glass of wine after dinner. Most times I would say, “Have long lunches in your favorite restaurant,” but with the omicron variant spreading so quickly, I think I’ll leave that out.

For me, though, the lax period extends from about Thanksgiving to Christmas. I’m wrapped up (pun intended) in Christmas planning and preparations—buying gifts and wrapping them, cooking for gifts, planning meals (most of my meal planning comes to naught because my daughters take over kitchen duties and generally ignore my suggestions; when I said recently that I missed the cooking, Colin suggested that I could be the wise consultant; soon enough Jordan wanted to know how to tell if her egg casserole was done and I told her to stick a silver knife in it—does that qualify as wisdom? But I digress.

After Christmas, I am energized rather than experiencing the letdown that many do. Having not done much serious work for over a month, I am full of ambition and goals.  This year is no different. My goals aren’t exactly New Year’s resolutions—those come in a whole different category about being a better friend, being less judgmental, thing like that. But it’s my work plans I’m thinking of now. At present, I have two projects as many of you know—another Irene mystery to finish (“The End” is a long way away, as I’ve just begun) and the Helen Corbitt book. I think I’ve decided that Corbitt will be my priority, at least to get fifty pages done and to focus on interesting a publisher. Those are goals that will develop slowly—for instance I am waiting to hear from the archivist who has Corbitt’s papers and since she’s with an academic institution, I figure she’s on vacation until classes resume. So I’ll fill my days with re-readng what I have on Irene. But I really hate to juggle two projects at the same time.

Today I played catch-up, paying bills, answering emails, ordering some things—all stuff that I had put aside during the week I was in Austin. Yes, I had my computer, but there are some things that are just easier done at home with my big-screen monitor and my files close at hand. Too, I need to straighten my desk: I am having a very few people in for a come-and-go open house this weekend (one can’t have a large guest list in a 600-square-foot cottage) and I need to make sure the cottage sparkles. Cleaning my desk is a big part of that. Jordan has cleared some surfaces to the point that I am wondering how I can live and cook in this space between now and Saturday!

In a bit of related trivia, Jordan went to the grocery this morning with my list in her hand. My list included a two-lb. piece of boneless ham—I know, I know, bone-in is so much better and the boneless is scraps welded together with who knows what—but I simply wanted it to dice and stir into black-eyed peas. I now have two 2-lb. boneless hams. I foresee ham in our future meals and am welcoming great recipe suggestions.

I’ve thought about my expectations, other than ham dinners, for 2022 with some puzzlement. Everywhere I see the hope that 2022 will be better than the previous two years, but I am leery of the omicron variant and can foresee another surge strong enough to send us back into at least voluntary quarantine. When Covid-19 first hit, I didn’t know anyone who had it. Gradually that changed—some of my family got it, a few friends. Still I was isolated and felt remote from it. Not so now—several close friends and/or their families have come down with the omicron variant. I am more alarmed than I like because I read that in heathy people who have been vaccinated and boosted, it should be mild, but the jury is still out on the elderly (ahem! That’s me!) and the immune-compromised (that’s one son and one son-in-law plus one close friend).

Other than an abundance of caution and the fact that Mercury will be in retrograde a lot of the time (I never understand that, but I know it’s not good), I do think 2022 will be a good year, and I have high hopes for it. How about you?