Political nonsense, pasta, kale, writing...

Only 23 District Court nominees have been filibustered in the history of our country, and 20 of those have been since Obama took office. Who sees the tectonic shift there? Just sayin. Glad the filibuster rule has been changed. To what a majority really is. Which is not a "super-majority."

In food words, I was uninspired tonight. Tuckered out to beat sixty. Slayed by verbiage and retellings and all sorts of lexical onslaught. I'm utterly serious. My respite today was a wonderful conference call with my writing group. They are such an exceptional bunch of women, and I feel repeatedly grateful to have met them. Before and after that 75 minutes, however? =CRAZYtown talking. So by dinnertime, I could do nothing more than pour a glass of wine and stare blankly into an open fridge. When I was too chilled to hold the door open any longer, I swung it shut and simply stood.

A memory of glorious golden Roma tomato sauce awoke in the deepest recesses of my mind, and I ambled out to my garage chest freezer to locate the stash. Aah!! Some pappardelle here, a kale salad there. Dinner was served.

FM haul, and we met Alice, as in Waters

Ol and I eagerly braved sub-30s temps this morning to head down to Dupont for the farmers market. He was lured by the promise of eclairs at Bonaparte -"Ol, I really think this constitutes 'cold enough for eclair stability'"- while I wanted beets, apples and Brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving dishes. First stop: Bonaparte.

"Do you have eclairs today?" "Mais, oui!"

Ol beamed and I ordered two because he doesn't like to share even a bite of his, and really, I can't blame him.

Then to Eco Friendly where I was chagrined to find them out of ground turkey BUT did pick up a small container of freshly rendered schmaltz. Bellissimo! And then to Twin Springs Fruit Farm for a huge variety of crisp apples, and finally to our favorite spot, New Morning Farm (an organic vegetable farm from PA), to see Grace and the crew and get all the rest of our goodies. I bought two stalks of these Brussels sprouts and while exclaiming over them was surprised when Ol asked, "that's how they come? You don't make them?" I was baffled and reminded him that all veggies grow rather than are made. He responded, "but then do you make them?" Huh? We were just not understanding each other so I moved on to the basket of beets.

On our way back to the car, we made a wildly enthusiastic detour to the farm whose name I can never remember but really like because I SPIED SUNCHOKES. Oh, praise the sunchoke season. I am giddy.

And then Ol was really cold and wanting his eclair so I said, "now we're really going to go to the car," but then y'all, we passed a book signing and I was curious and sweet jesus, it was Alice Waters herself. She was bundled to about 4x her actual size and was being such a good sport despite the truly frigid morning. In all honesty, I have never been off my head about Chez Panisse or the Waters dynasty, but I do admire all Alice does on behalf of food policy, activism, her Edible Schoolyard projects, local and clean eating, so we ambled over, and I just had to buy her lovely book. Because Ol is the greatest sous chef, I asked her to inscribe it to him too. He smiled radiantly at her, and she told him she was going to put a heart by his name for good measure. At this point he was aglow, and I swear that momentarily, the eclair disappeared from his mind. Is this darling?!

Reiki, collard cobbler, garlic bread and more

Last night, T went to a hockey game with pals, and, feeling the worst of Ol's spell was behind us, I took a full Ambien at 8:45p and tucked in to an awesome night. I even left T's jammies on the stairs, and lovingly suggested he sleep in the basement and get a good one. Just before nodding off, I enthusiastically agreed to meet my trainer this morning. She and I do like to text. My dream was not to be. At 12:30a, Ol woke up calling about a booger and need for water. Apparently, a fever had both come and broken, and his sheets, pillow and PJs were drenched. We changed everything, and I wobbly-walked back to bed. At 5:30a, he called out again, and this time the bed was wet for a different reason. People, please. We changed him and I moved him in with me. He kept trying to talk about going to Disney World; my pleas to wait until morning fell on deaf ears.

As you might imagine, I have not felt fantastic today (understatement alert), was nonetheless a champ at the gym, put together this gorgeous collard green cobbler, some Louisiana garlic bread and some Jezebel sauce, and gratefully went to a Reiki session at my yoga studio. A local Reiki master offers wildly reduced-rate sessions two or three times a year so that her trainees can get more practice. I attend whenever possible as it is the ultimate in relaxation and restoration. Seriously, y'all, there is really SO much to be said about Eastern healing treatments. Don't even get me going about acupuncture; it is incredible!