Well, damn.

Barbara Mertz is dead.

So, by extension, are Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels.

I never met her; but she was good friends with good friends of mine, and for a while I was very good friends with a number of her novels. I stopped reading the Peabodys because annoying little boy was annoying, but people tell me I should have persevered. I have been thinking of revisiting, as I think we have them all on the shelves hereabouts. [Memo to universe: please to stop doing this? I am a very happy rereader; I do not need nor want the trigger of the author's death. I'd sooner be paying tribute to the book alone.]

Kitchen diary, catching up...

Probably, if I want to create any kind of an actually, y'know, useful record of my kitchenating, I should remember to update it every now and then.

Like, now?

So: Monday night the yogis came as usual, and brought a passel of Australians with them. Not all of whom were actually Australian, but hey: it's a label, not a legal classification. Vance won't quibble.

So I cooked Chinese, as I had leftover pork and long beans. And fresh pork and sugar snap peas and bok choy (but I forgot the bok choy, as it happens). I made Chaz'z Chinese pork (scroll down to the end of that link, for a brief description from long ago), and pork in black bean chilli sauce, and old man long beans, and I forget what-all else, but people ate everything.

Tuesday I had beef and broccoli, and I wanted to do something not-Chinese with it; so I stir-fried it regardless, but with cream and mustard rather than soy and ginger, and we ate it with lemon-and-garlic roast potatoes.

Wednesday we were in the city, so I had a whole day without cooking; but I made up for that by shopping the Ferry building, as I usually do. Mushrooms and pasta and walnut oil: that's practically a meal in itself.

Yesterday we wanted comfort, so I may've made a chilli. Which we may be eating again tonight. I am aware - dimly - that one man's comfort food may not necessarily be one woman's, but she gets the cruciferous vegetables she needs, alongside. And smoothies in the morning: we are investigating smoothies. People, do you have favourite smoothie recipes? We are very much open to suggestions here. I've barely reached beyond chucking handfuls of fruit into the blender. Which is no bad thing in and of itself, but there must be more better different approaches.

In news of other posts, over on Book View Cafe I consider the ineffable question of macaroni cheese: does it or does it not have an "and" in the middle of it? Or a mushroom?

Now I must shop for cruciferous vegetation. Here too I might be open to suggestion, for I am skilled but limited. No Merry Man, me: greensward is not my natural home.