Well, heck

DH missed his train, and thusly wouldn't arrive in time for dinner, but those ribs weren't  going to marinate forever. So, I cooked them right up to the point of transfer from oven to grill, made the sauce right up to the final reduction, and will finish everything up tomorrow. Mostly-vegetarian moi is certainly not going to park in front of 3 pounds of ribs solo! Instead, I ate most of the roasted asparagus I'd made as our side, a random hunk of avocado with tomatoes and random roast turkey all dressed with aged Balsamic, and some leftover Brillat-Savarin (because what the heck?! I worked my tail off in Pilates this morning) with these fab hazelnut wafers I've come to love (despite their heft price tag). Have you seen Delia's crackers? Hazelnut and fig, almond and something, pumpkin seed and something...I get mine at, wait for it, Whole Foods. They are a stellar cracker, on their own or with a scrumptious but simultaneously simple cheese. Anyway, all that + wine made me happy, and later, I'll have a little wedge of torta della nonna, half of which I foisted on friends today. I'm sure you know I could eat the whole thing, but I do not want to, so... foist I did. It hit the spot but not completely, so next time I will make it with a ricotta-based filling rather than an egg custard one. Don't get me wrong. This version was solid, but I did think that traditionally, ricotta played a starring role and as such was slightly mystified by Frances' (Mayes) omission of it. Mario (Batali) calls for ricotta. I trust him more, despite my devotion to Frances, but I did not have the energy last night to also make ricotta; last night was really one hell of a cooking marathon. You'd have thought I was going to give birth ASAP and was nesting to beat sixty.

I swear y'all, when Tom asked me to marry him I immediately said yes but pretty much right afterwards made it clear that I do NOT iron and did NOT ever intend to do so. Therefore, he would have to do it himself or make enough to afford a dry cleaner. He seemed to understand and to this day has never asked me to iron anything. Blessed man. Truly, I make it worse. You only thought it was wrinkled; just wait till I have a crack at it. Horrible chore. But, when extremely pregnant with Oliver, I just knew he was going to come early. I told my parents I really thought they should get the heck up here. I told Tom, stop traveling. In the meantime, I ironed our guest room duvet. Who's kidding? Seriously, I gave birth to Oliver not 5 days later. You see? Nesting!

Quote of the morning

This was in the weekly newsletter from J's school, a wonderful Quaker institution whose values totally speak to me. I feel inordinately grateful that J is a student there, and I could not agree more with the attitude expressed in Swayne's quote (below) which, as you'll see, was published in 1959! What is happening to this country, or at least to the parts "led" by the Rightists who are walking us back rather than forward, as ardently and quickly as possible? "Because there is a great diversity of opinion on the problems of the resurrection and immortality, and since Quakerism takes no formal stand on any of them, it becomes the function of religious education to present as fully as possible all points of view and reasons therefor, and allow each individual to form his own conclusion from the evidence presented. No person can do this adequately who has been allowed to see and understand only one side of the picture. It is especially important that children be given a secure foundation of faith in such a way as to leave the doors of their mind open..."

-Amelia W. Swayne, from The Observance of Easter, published in 1959

Amen, sister!

Thoughts of the morning

While cleaning up the war-zone that is my home this morning, I had two thoughts: 1) Why is there a not insignificant round of diaper rash cream on my carpet? and 2) Silly Bandz are like the dust bunnies of childrens' fad items. They breed and you can never really get rid of them.