pantry cooking

dinner last night was foraged; i ended up with something good, but boy do i need groceries...

i used the last onion in the house, also the last carrot, and the last 2 potatoes. also the last 4 mushrooms (not quite as critical to have; though i'm already out of garlic...). sautee. added the less-than-half-pound of tofu left after making miso friday, also a bunch of red-stemmed swiss chard chopped up. let that cook while checking email. add some white pepper, then eggs, to ostensibly turn it into a frittatta. yum.

but before i cook anything tonight, a stop at a supermarket. (i can't believe how out of veggies i am- i think all i have left in the fridge is some brussels sprouts.)

end of obligatory food entry.

(i can't wait until i can use the other dial-up again, the one without the banner ads...)

btw, good as it was, hanging out at the diesel just isn't the same w/o zzbottom....

sky and ice

it's mostly cloudy now; it doesn't look like there could've been any sort of dawn other than the slow creeping of grey light allowing the browns and greys of winter to be distinguished.

but this morning i woke up early. and i could see at the edge of the dark blue-gray cloud blanket, the brightening in the east to bright light yellow.
and as i drove to work, there were other rents in the clouds, showing brightening blue above, more yellow in the east. i got in ridiculously early, logged on to the work machine, then looked out the window to find the underside of all those heavy, colonial blue clouds garishly bright pink, almost red, with the rising sun. it lasted only 15-20 minutes, but was incredibly beautiful. i need to get up early more often. there's something about the quietness of a dawn seen by so few that's special.

driving to the diesel last night, i notice there are still frozen waterfalls on the (slight) cliffs facing north on rte 2. yes, it was in the 50s yesterday (and warm on monday, too), but they were still there. i'm always fascinated by them; they look like action caught abruptly, rather than a slow winding down. and i thought of other fun forms of ice, the thin crackly kind that forms on top of small puddles when the temperature drops quickly and is wonderful to shatter as i walk along; the thicker kind at the edge of the street that is part ice and part compressed snow that is usually an overhang over the side of the road that takes much effort and occasional jumping up and down to break the edge off of, like a calving iceberg; the smoothness of ice on a pond, not the perfect groomed sheen of a rink, but still solid enough to skate on, the metallic whisper of skates on ice in the cold air without machines or music booming.

to say nothing of the different kinds of snow...

must've woken up on the lyrical side of the bed...