Weekend accomplishements
We don't have today off from work, although we may have a day or two off in the middle of the week if they wind up closing the office due to the low temperatures. The deep south just doesn't have the infrastructure in place to deal with ice; for one thing, in this climate you can't store giant bags of salt in some warehouse on the off chance you'll need it once every two or three years. It would just keep sucking moisture out of the air until it turned into rocks. (The concept of hygroscopy has become a familiar one after a decade in the food sciences industry.)
Saturday I made eggs and toast, then got in the shower right after because I needed to go to the post office and it's only open until noon on Saturdays. I did that, Michael's, Rouses, then swung through the Sonic drive-through to get a sack of corndogs to give everyone for lunch. I need to clean my bedroom, but I didn't feel motivated to do that, so I spent the afternoon doing cross stitch and watching Mr. Organ, another bonkers-ass documentary by New Zealand journalist David Farrier. New Zealand sure has a lot of weirdos for such a small country. Or maybe that's part of why they do.
David made chicken sandwiches for dinner that are supposedly a dupe for something on the menu at Texas Roadhouse. No one in the family has ever eaten there so I can't vouch for the authenticity, but they were good. After dinner I watched more Mr. Mercedes, which I'm not loving. I don't mind when plot points are changed in adaptations from novels, but they're getting the psychology of the characters all wrong.
I also started reading Stephen King's Holly this weekend, so these are characters I'm thinking about currently, especially Holly Gibney. I veer between thinking King is saying something about different generations of Americans, and telling myself I've taken too many edibles and I'm overthinking it. Well, but that's art, right? It's subjective and your interpretation means as much as anything that was intended by the artist. Honestly, I have like an entire PhD thesis in me about King's relationship to Generation X and vice versa.
Sunday I made maple bacon doughnuts for breakfast.
I used the King Arthur Flour recipe for baked doughnuts. I'd been thinking of these all week, partly because the sour cream cookies I made last week were very nutmeg-heavy, and so are these; partly because I read something about the usual dullwitted slobbering nazis calling for a boycott of King Arthur Baking because they have a DEI department and sponsor a contest for minority-owned bakeries. (It's also worker-owned, which they would no doubt also hate if they knew about it.) I'm sure it will be as successful as their boycotts of Keurig and Nike and various "woke" Star Wars movies were.
I changed/washed the bedsheets, watched Dateline, and did a load of laundry and two of towels. I made dessert, and I made some stuffed mushrooms for lunch because I had extra; David had asked me to buy 8 oz. of cremini and they were on sale 2 for $4. I just used what we had on hand, stuffing them with a combination of grated parmesan and seasoned bread crumbs and topping each with a little piece of swiss cheese. There wasn't a lot of dinner prep, so I spent most of the afternoon reading and drinking wine and moving loads of laundry along.
Supper was the sticky miso chicken and butternut squash from Donna Hay's Everyday Fresh.
I don't recall that I've ever made butternut squash before, but this dish is really easy. You let the chicken marinate while you slice the squash thin and roast it for 20 minutes, throw the chicken on top, roast another 20 minutes. I bought a jalapeño cheese bread to serve with it.
Dessert was the pecan dainties from Baking Yesteryear.
They're kind of like if pralines and meringues had a baby. And I got to use my cookie scoops again.
After supper I watched the premiere of True Detective: Night Country. I need to watch it again, my only real reaction to it was "that was weird". It felt more like supernatural horror than any of the other 3 seasons; Pizzolatto's stories always flirted with that element, but the big bads always turned out to be corrupt institutions. This season has a different writer, which is maybe why it got the subtitle treatment. Pizzolatto seems to have gotten entirely sucked into the world of screenplays and TV production, I wonder if he'll ever write a novel again. Shame, I really liked Galveston.
Saturday I made eggs and toast, then got in the shower right after because I needed to go to the post office and it's only open until noon on Saturdays. I did that, Michael's, Rouses, then swung through the Sonic drive-through to get a sack of corndogs to give everyone for lunch. I need to clean my bedroom, but I didn't feel motivated to do that, so I spent the afternoon doing cross stitch and watching Mr. Organ, another bonkers-ass documentary by New Zealand journalist David Farrier. New Zealand sure has a lot of weirdos for such a small country. Or maybe that's part of why they do.
David made chicken sandwiches for dinner that are supposedly a dupe for something on the menu at Texas Roadhouse. No one in the family has ever eaten there so I can't vouch for the authenticity, but they were good. After dinner I watched more Mr. Mercedes, which I'm not loving. I don't mind when plot points are changed in adaptations from novels, but they're getting the psychology of the characters all wrong.
I also started reading Stephen King's Holly this weekend, so these are characters I'm thinking about currently, especially Holly Gibney. I veer between thinking King is saying something about different generations of Americans, and telling myself I've taken too many edibles and I'm overthinking it. Well, but that's art, right? It's subjective and your interpretation means as much as anything that was intended by the artist. Honestly, I have like an entire PhD thesis in me about King's relationship to Generation X and vice versa.
Sunday I made maple bacon doughnuts for breakfast.
I used the King Arthur Flour recipe for baked doughnuts. I'd been thinking of these all week, partly because the sour cream cookies I made last week were very nutmeg-heavy, and so are these; partly because I read something about the usual dullwitted slobbering nazis calling for a boycott of King Arthur Baking because they have a DEI department and sponsor a contest for minority-owned bakeries. (It's also worker-owned, which they would no doubt also hate if they knew about it.) I'm sure it will be as successful as their boycotts of Keurig and Nike and various "woke" Star Wars movies were.
I changed/washed the bedsheets, watched Dateline, and did a load of laundry and two of towels. I made dessert, and I made some stuffed mushrooms for lunch because I had extra; David had asked me to buy 8 oz. of cremini and they were on sale 2 for $4. I just used what we had on hand, stuffing them with a combination of grated parmesan and seasoned bread crumbs and topping each with a little piece of swiss cheese. There wasn't a lot of dinner prep, so I spent most of the afternoon reading and drinking wine and moving loads of laundry along.
Supper was the sticky miso chicken and butternut squash from Donna Hay's Everyday Fresh.
I don't recall that I've ever made butternut squash before, but this dish is really easy. You let the chicken marinate while you slice the squash thin and roast it for 20 minutes, throw the chicken on top, roast another 20 minutes. I bought a jalapeño cheese bread to serve with it.
Dessert was the pecan dainties from Baking Yesteryear.
They're kind of like if pralines and meringues had a baby. And I got to use my cookie scoops again.
After supper I watched the premiere of True Detective: Night Country. I need to watch it again, my only real reaction to it was "that was weird". It felt more like supernatural horror than any of the other 3 seasons; Pizzolatto's stories always flirted with that element, but the big bads always turned out to be corrupt institutions. This season has a different writer, which is maybe why it got the subtitle treatment. Pizzolatto seems to have gotten entirely sucked into the world of screenplays and TV production, I wonder if he'll ever write a novel again. Shame, I really liked Galveston.