November 2022

November 2022 is a perfect example of social media being a curation and not the entirety of the experience.

My household caught a non-Covid illness and it was a real bear. Even Bunny was on the couch for a week and then spent another working from home because he wasn’t well enough to go into the office. We both had a cough that lasted the rest of the month.

One of the biggest frustrations I have while sick is not having the brain cells or the energy to work through my watchlist or TBR stack. I did manage to finally watch “The Northman,” which I absolutely loved. I’d heard really mixed reviews but I adore the way Eggers portrays historically-based folktales. It was a solid win for me and I’m so looking forward to a rewatch. Book-wise, I made “Underworld” my End-of-the-Year read; it’s 800+ pages and I’m about halfway there. The Holidays are always full-tilt-boogie no matter how hard I try to get ahead of things and stay as chill as possible.

Bunny and I were well enough to get a plan together for Thanksgiving. When we don’t travel, we like to take the opportunity to try a new recipe, something a little labor intensive so you still get the experience of the holiday without lying to yourself about how awful turkey is as a main protein. (I am vehemently anti-turkey. Please put any other bird on the table, if you must. Just not turkey, I beg you.) This year I wanted to make Locro and I was so excited to cook it that you’d swear I was a child waiting for Santa’s arrival.

Day of? Everything that could go wrong did. The only pot big enough wouldn’t go on the glass stovetop (it’s a fire/melting hazard) but the induction burner I had shuts itself off after temperatures get too high so I’d have to take the stew off and let the burner cool down. One of the most perplexing things was that even with this goofy system, the stew simmered for hours and yet after 8 full hours, the dried hominy was still hard as a rock and they’d been soaked a day ahead of time.

I gave up and Bunny made chicken nuggets and mozzarella sticks and we vowed to try to make it work tomorrow. But you can guess what happened, can’t you? Though it looked hydrated enough, the stew was just concentrated enough that very bottom scorched but I didn’t feel it in time when I was stirring so I distributed the newly formed charcoal throughout. Ruined. Unsalvageable. And the damned hominy never softened.

The whole thing is very funny now. And I did end up making some really beautiful golden hominy weeks later which kind of made up for that boggling experience.

Other highlights include: finally being healthy enough to leave the house (boosted and masked obviously) to attend a maker’s market downtown where I got a funny sticker and an adorable mushroom water color. I completed my yearly watch of “Thankskilling” which is truly an abomination but it’s tradition and there aren’t many Thanksgiving-centered horror movies to choose from. Bunny finally got out to my favorite ramen spot and you know I had to have an ‘egg salad sando on milk bread.’

And just like that? December slid in sideways.