Is Mercury to blame?

Parts of today were nice, others were extremely trying but what was consistent was my awful clumsiness. Good grief. While making the preserved lemons earlier, I sliced my left index finger pretty badly; this is the same finger that required 7 stitches when I cut it last time. Ok, whatever, bring on the band-aids. Then, in going in for a hug with O, my fingernail scratched his chin to the point where it leaked a tiny bit of blood. AWFUL. He took it better than I did. About half an hour ago, I was unloading the dishwasher when my funny bone grazed a wine glass I'd literally just set on the counter- whoosh! Smithereens. And then, while removing the first batch of scones for Ol's class from the oven just now, I ripped my slightly healed finger cut open on the cooling rack and the blood started flowing. Again. Back to the band-aids. A friend today mentioned that everyone she knew was having a rough time, and I said that I'd had a few quite stressful days myself. Her reasoning: Mercury is in retrograde which apparently makes everything go to hell. We're also coming up on the Ides of March, and we know how well that turned out for Caesar. I am not much of an astrologer or a superstitious one, but for now I think I'll put down the knives and make dinner without them.

Lunch with preserved lemons

This was such a treat. I mandolined a small zucchini as well as a big chunk of the green Luobo radish from the FM on Sunday. Then I cut two celery stalks on the diagonal, slivered 1/2 a shallot, added a big handful of chopped dried cherries and freshly shelled pecans and sauced the whole thing in a Greek yogurt-crème fraîche-preserved lemon-celery seed dressing. Oliver and I ate the whole thing together!

Preserved lemons, the easy way

I once tried to make preserved lemons the traditional way- stuff a bunch of them into a jar, pack salt all around and let sit for weeks. It was not a roaring success and ultimately, huge amounts of everything went to waste. I then discovered preserved lemons on the olive bar at Whole Foods; it is beyond convenient to be able to buy one at a time and that is most often what I do. However, when I don't have one of those in the fridge or when I've overbought lemons in a citrusy zeal, I make my own preserved lemons, the quick and easy way. I'm making one now. Yum! Easy! And they add so much to recipes. See All the Rest in Em-i-lis Recipes if you want to make one too!