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It's what's for supper:
White bean and roasted tomato stew
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Even
for a quarantine day, this one started off badly. For one thing I got up an
hour earlier than I meant to and that makes for a long day. I’ve never figured
out how to set the clock next to my bed, so I always have to calculate that if
it says it’s 6:57, it’s really 7:57. This morning I must have misread 5:57 for
6:57. (I must get Christian of Jacob to fix that for me—Jordan can’t figure it
out either.) I did think it was unusually dark outside, but I saw the patio was
wet and reasoned it was cloudy.
So
there I was up, reading the day’s news and mail while drinking my tea, when the
eight o’clock segment of TODAY came on. Wait a minute! It should have been the
third hour, the one that starts at nine. Nope, my computer confirmed that it
was only eight.
Then
our new neighbor decided to power wash something, presumably the large deck in
his back yard. Only he didn’t have one of those hand-held power washers like we
have which only spit out a small stream. He rented some kind of commercial thing
that came with a separate remote generator. I left out the key adjective—it was
a noisy generator. And it went on for about an hour. Annoying is the word that
comes to mind.
Then I
was trying to send my monthly column to Lone Star Literary Life. Took me three
times before I remembered to attach the darn thing after I wrote an email. If
you don’t subscribe to that, you might want to look into it. A free newsletter
about Texas and books.
The
good thing that happened was I discovered what I was doing wrong about
Blogger.com. I thought they had changed the format, and if I’d known who to
complain to, I would have. Last night I could not figure out how to post
my blog. Finally, nearing midnight I gave up and went to bed. This morning,
first thing, I found a link that said, “Return to conventional Blogger.” And
there it was—the screen I am familiar with.
So by nine
o’clock, I had posted my blog for the night before, gotten past the glitches of
the early morning and had the whole day before me. So what did I do? I wasted
the time. I was like Alice following all those rabbit holes. Eleven came and
went, and I still hadn’t done my thousand words for the day. I won’t labor you
with details, but I did finally write my words.
I also
came to a conclusion. I have not been carving out enough time to read. Perhaps
it’s my ongoing feeling that I must speak out about the situation in our
country or maybe my relatively new obsession with writing the novel I’m working
on. Then again, it may be just sheer laziness and the need to nap. At any rate,
my TBR (to be read) list is growing out of bounds. I resolved to make more time.
Right now I’m reading Provence 1970 by Luke Barr, nephew of food writer
MFK Fisher. It is about the year when major figures in American cookery—Julia Child,
MFK Fisher, Richard Olney, editor Judith Jones, James Beard, and others--came
together in Provence and realized that they must turn their sights from France
to America, from the old traditional to new ways with food. It was time to look
at American food. I’m enjoying it, and today I’ve spent quite a bit of time
reading.
And
this evening, I spent time cooking a recipe I’ve wanted to try for some time, a
stew of roasted tomatoes and cannelloni or white kidney beans. I ate in
solitary splendor, as the Burtons had gone to a front-lawn, distanced supper
with neighbors. My dinner was good—the first time I’d fixed it, and next time I’d
cut back a bit on garlic and salt (both may be the problem of halving a recipe)
and I might add grated Pecorino or Parmesan over the top. But It was good, and
I enjoyed it. I have enough left over for lunch, and then the remains will go
into the freezer for a soup pot.
So now
I’m watching the second installment of the PBS special on the George W. Bush
presidency. Tonight, with focus on the Iraq War, it brings up a whole lot of
anger that I’d like to leave behind me.
