Good news, bad news

Good news: my Thermapen is here! It is red! It says the temperature of my fingertip is 86°F at the surface! (I suppose I could dig the tip of the probe into one of my open cuts to learn the temperature further down, but - nah.)

Bad news: the seasoning on my* cast-iron skillet seems to have broken down, suddenly and inexplicably, after two years of busy care. Internet, I am distress.

Good news: this is the perfect excuse reason to buy some pork backfat and render it down for lard; nothing seasons cast iron better than a long slow rendering.

Bad news: to no one's surprise except perhaps my doctor's**, I have "significantly elevated" levels of the bad cholesterol. I am supposed to be avoiding animal fats. That is ... not going so well, thus far (he murmured, eyeing the homemade pork scratchings on his desk). The rendering of lard would probably not help. (Lardy cake! I could bake lardy cake! With my new Thermapen to help!)

Ahem. Giving up smoking was easy; giving up drink would be easy, compared to this. Those are one decision, that the mind can interlock with. Changing my diet would be a dozen decisions a day every day, always going against what I want. And I don't wanna.


*All right, it was Karen's first, and CA is a community-property state so I guess technically at best it is ours; but some rights develop like seasoning with usage. And husband and wife is one batterie de cuisine, it says so right here in my bible, so.

**He doesn't know me very well yet.

An eternal verity, with variations

Because it is four in the afternoon and I am an Englishman abroad, of course I am brewing tea.

Because I am also what the people I am writing about would undoubtedly have called an Orientalist (eww, I know - but make allowances for me, I am engaged in an Edwardian imperialist mindset*), this is not your classic Anglo-Indian black tea with milk or lemon. I really only like Chinese teas these days. This is Imperial White, and I wish I had a pot and cup good enough to live up to it.

Because I have a new Thermapen, I note that the water went in at 187°F, rather than the 175° that would be ideal.

Isn't this interesting...?


*It's really interesting, actually. I am kind of pretending to be my grandfather.