Thursday, December 17, 2020

Gratitudes & things that are making me happy

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• The wonderful sweetness of roasted leeks

• Discovering sliced Tokyo turnips as a vehicle for hummus 

• The combination of wintry light, clear skies, and fresh winds we get at this time of year in the Bay Area

• Going outside around dusk (paler colors, colder air) to get some last fresh air for the night and reminisce about other early-winter days in years past and places distant. 

• Putting my girlfriend’s extra duvet on the bed and feeling nicely buried at bedtime 

• Sleep socks 

• Vacation from work. A staycation, of course, the longest chunk of time I’ve had off work since August 2019, and specifically, a reading staycation. I spent the week leading up to it ordering books and arranging library holds so as to be entirely ensconced in books, and sleep, for the duration of the week. 

• Relatedly, going back to the LIBRARY (even if only for curbside pickup) 

• Continuing to bake bread every week or so 

• Tea forgotten, but remembered when it is exactly the right temperature

• Finding, and racing through, a single novel containing three of my favorite book ingredients: San Francisco, ballet, and Antarctica (Up to This Pointe, by Jennifer Longo)

• Reading a Rapunzel retelling and realizing what a fitting fairy tale it is for the shelter-in-place era (Bitter Greens, by Kate Forsyth)

6 comments:

  1. Tokyo turnips!! I usually use those for veggie stock (as a substitute for regular turnips, which is what I grew up using) but I've never tried them with hummus. Will do so asap!

    Also, I am with you re: appreciation for roasted leeks and libraries. I went to the library for the first time all year this past Saturday and couldn't believe how much I loved being there. It was a delight.

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    1. I hope you like the combination too! I have actually pretty much only eaten them raw...their flavor and texture are so pleasant unaltered to me. Myself, I've never made stock but it's on a bucket list of mine somewhere.

      There is no feeling like returning, is there. The library here has signs that say, "Welcome back, we've missed you," and it made me slightly emotional.

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    2. Tried the turnips with a very simple miso/honey dressing. Delicious! I'll make a batch of hummus this week and try it with that too. Stock is a bit of a pain tbh (takes forever), but I make mine with mostly vegetable scraps so it helps me feel less wasteful/better about the prospect of minding a pot of stock for a few hours.

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    3. Now *I* need to make a miso/honey dressing!

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  2. I just went to the library (also pickup) for the first time since LAST December - a year- and it felt so magical and thrilling, like, wow, I can't believe I get to just, tell you what books I want, and voila. Free books! (I'd made it a goal this year to only read books I already owned, thus the no visiting earlier in the year either.) A true joy.

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    1. It's a heck of a thing, is a library <3

      I tried to do that after Shelter in Place started! But I was grazing from Little Free Libraries and occasionally borrowing books...I realized that the books I buy are only a small subsection of the books I want to read (typically rather serious and/or out of print), and I was missing the rest of the pie. I've read so much more since getting back in the library groove.

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