I made, I ate, I conquered (almost)

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I am telling y'all, this eggplant dish is the cat's meow for me. Frig. I just ate 75% of it for dinner. Plus wine. Love this Fiano! I never got around to the zucchini salad but that's OK. There's always tomorrow. I am slightly intimidated by, but mostly excited about, the amount of cooking/baking I plan to do before Saturday. We'll see where the energy runs out but I have high hopes for good recipes, good pictures and a lot of fun.

Friends, I am trying to be understanding about the absurdity that is Congress, about the desire to be the bigger man, to actually be a mature professional, but I am, at heart, really feeling disappointed by Obama. What was that ridiculous letter-writing cockfight over the scheduling of his speech? Crying Tan Man is a ballsy a-hole whose mother clearly never taught him to respect authority figures, even those with whom he disagrees, and Angry Mannequin Cantor is just so self-righteous that I can't get over it: was he elected to take care of himself, or some constituents who really need it? Bonkers Michele is never going to get gas back down to $2/gallon; on the contrary, we NEED a gas tax and to make myriad other sacrifices, and Obama needs to be giving us the heavy hand of love about why and how. Crazy Coyote Shooting Texas Mannequin Perry is a dangerous, not-real-bright, xenophobic ideologue, and hopefully his flame will burn out before he can inflict the same "TX Miracle" on everyone that he has down there. His economic and sex-education policies leave a little something to be desired! I wish there was a 'sarcasm' emoticon.

I'm off to bed. What a day! Happy eating, cooking, sleeping to you all!

No bread, delicious leftovers, yes to radishes, moving article

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I did not feel the smart thing to do when tired was to embark on bread-making: kneading, yeast-rising, lack of experience...These things together ultimately sounded like a bad plan. So, I cooked some fun pasta, enjoyed it with the meatballs and also roasted the radishes like I'd said I would a week ago. They aren't stand out, but I find them comforting and satisfying and pretty, for that matter. I put them in an oven-proof skillet with some slivered garlic, 1.5 T butter cut in small pieces, some brown sugar, salt, pepper and also a shake of that coriander sugar (thanks again, C) and cooked until a giving crunch remained.

Did anyone read this article today? It is staggering to think of anyone making $6 an hour and being expected to make ends meet. That's a lot less than minimum wage! Why are we so unwilling to take care of folks who are willing to work so hard? Good god, this is sobering.