Ricotta, stewed prunes, Bluebells and kumquats, bath fail

Oh, spring, how do you energize me. This morning's gray drizzle and an epically funny bath fail have given way to a glorious day. I was finally able to plant my mint and marjoram and uncover my basil, fennel, Bluebells and other carefully lidded treasures. They are all aglow now, happily drying out and warming up in the sunshine. Nutmeg is playing with all the abandon a cat on a leash can muster; I do feel terribly for him. He races gleefully after bugs, feathers, anything that appears to scoot, and though he reaches some before the leash length gives out, at other times he's foiled in a dramatic, whiplash way. If I weren't so worried that he'd either never come home or be hit by a car, I'd let him roam free. But we have feral cats in the alley, maniac drivers on the extremely nearby busy roads, and I just adore him entirely too much to risk a feline sayonara.

After dropping the boys off, I went to the market to stock up on stuff for us and the plethora of catering gigs, big and small, in my near future. Since, I've made ricotta, stewed prunes (don't judge; these are amazing in all their orange- and cinnamon-scented glory! If that's not enough of a draw, Molly Wizenberg provided the recipe so obviously it's foolproof!) and am about to embark on candied kumquats. An enormous pile of three types of freshly washed and spun kale is drying on the counter, and the open doors and windows are letting springy vibes wash away the remaining inside cold of winter.

PS- while at the market, I was thrilled to see that this Friday is the annual One Day mango sale. You do not want to miss this, not least because Ataulfo, aka champagne, mangoes are THE best. Canners out there, you should most definitely go nuts. Mango jam, mango chutney, etc. Yee-haw! Non-canners, you should still get excited too: grill your mangoes, make mango/amaretto/vanilla ice cream sundaes, craft some mango salsa for fish, eat them plain, make mango honey mustard, cook yogurt chicken with mangoes.....

How, you might still be wondering, does one experience an epic bath fail? Well, there are two ways.

One, you endure a mudbath in Calistoga, CA. Disgusting. Tom and I chose this activity during our first trip together, to Napa many moons ago. We had been dating all of four months, thought this might be a nice change of pace from wine tasting, got into our respective baths and immediately felt like pigs in styes and got out. Yuk.

Secondly, and this happened this morning, you realize while at the market just how dirty you feel. I passed the fancy, made-in-house bath salt area and was transported to a clean, aromatic world as I trailed my nose slowly over the bins of seductively "flavored" salt scrubs. I sprung for a bit of the rosemary-lavender one, visions of a relaxing, leisurely, exfoliative soak hurrying me home. I drew my bath, the dial turned decidedly to hot, looked with horror at my unkempt legs and felt doubly glad I'd bought the scrub.

I dropped gratefully into my tub, shampooed and conditioned my hair and got to work on depilation and exfoliation. At that point, the water started to feel a bit cooler than I hoped. I turned the cold completely off and enthusiastically commenced scrubbing. People, this scrub should perhaps be renamed bath soak; it's a tad aggressive for a scrub. I think I lost a layer of skin over my whole body. I was smooth, so there's that. Concurrently, the hot water quit. Just quit, and I still had conditioner to rinse out of my hair. I hate cold baths like I hate winter in March. Neither is right. And suddenly, my languid tub felt like a vat of chilly challenge. I have never rinsed so quickly or flung myself into a towel with such need.

That, my friends, is a bath fail!

Biscuits and chili

Tonight's dinner was delicious, but I admit to hoping that it serves as a final goodbye to temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Today was downright cold which made my indoor MHD that much cozier, but...spring needs to spring. ASAP. I've got sandals and shorts to wear, sundresses and tank tops, floppy hats and flip flops too. I want to get my Vitamin D from actual rays of sunlight rather than gummy Ds in my bathroom. My VegTrug plants looked at me in a fairly accusatory fashion today, as if wondering "why would she so loving plant us and then subject us to freezing rain?!" It's a reasonable question little ones! In any case, Jack is about to test for his red belt in Tae Kwon Do so I took him to a penultimate practice session tonight and when we finally got home I was thrilled to remember a bag of chili verde waiting in frozen repose in my garage chest freezer. A quick thaw would make for such a warming dinner! I have been DYING to make biscuits, knew they'd pair winningly with the chili and had just enough cream left to make a 1x recipe. Though I wish they'd puffed more -I fear I overworked the gluten- they were very tasty and, as I'd suspected, were a tremendous addition to dinner. I used this recipe from the recent NY Times Dining section. Next time I'm going to try a different recipe, just cuz.

Aren't the flaky layers of good biscuits irresistible? I love, LOVE a good biscuit, especially when smeared with cream cheese and pepper jelly, fresh jam or dunked into something wonderful, like tonight's chili. I have yet to take a picture of this chili that doesn't too closely resemble something gross, but imagine turkey, tomatillos, pounds of peppers, etc. It's marvelous.

The news was so stultifyingly reguarly both yesterday and today. Just violence, horror, silly Congressmen and natural disasters for the love. Maybe the MH 370 black box has been found though?

Mental Health Days

Throughout the yeas since I graduated from college, I've called in a "Mental Health Day" once every six months or so. During my career days, I'd call in sick; since, I just pick a weekday with little to nothing scheduled, play my MHD card and stay home, getting my house in order in both the literal and figurative senses. I find these staycations both necessary and restorative. Today, a rainy and gray one, is just such a day. Having burned the candle at both ends all last week and weekend, and unable to look at the month-old pile of unfolded napkins draped over a railing in my dining room for one second longer, I purposefully did not put on a bra or brush my teeth before bringing the boys to school; this double-whammy of not-terribly-appropriate-beyond-home would surely keep me committed to returning home post haste after drop-off. And indeed it did.

So far, I have done and folded laundry and those pesky napkins; cleaned the kitchen; finally sorted and tossed much of an insane pile of crap, aka not critical mail/papers/drawings/hopeful lists/etc; taken a nap with Nutmeg; finally put away the last of the suitcases from spring break; and started in on de-pilling and -pethairing the 95% of my sweaters that are being packed away today. I've still not brushed my teeth or changed my outfit, and frankly, my slobby state feels awesome.

The soft patter of the constant drizzle outside is soothing, and because we spent so much time outside during this past very beautiful weekend, I feel no sadness that I can't be in my yard today.

One thing I noticed in CA was how utterly off the hamster wheel I felt. Surely this was in part because I was, but it's also because the pace does seem slower out there, at least in the beachy communities we called home for a week. It was as if I'd gone all amnesiac about regular life which A) made for a hell of a vacation, and B) reminded me that maybe a MHD was a bit overdue.

And so here I am, back on the couch after a half-hour cleaning sweaters and playing with the Nut. He's licking his paws next to me, Percy is hiding in the basement because I keep making him go outside to pee (hey- it's my couch otherwise) and he detests rain, and my halcyon abode is serenity, messy serenity, at its loveliest.