The Last 96 Hours

Friday started off with drizzly skies and wackiness. The boy participated in 24 Hours of LeMons.  Per the website: "Endurance racing for $500 cars. It's not just an oxymoron; it's a breeding ground for morons." That sums it up perfectly. I volunteered to snap photos on track day, the day where all the participants dress up and put on a little show for the judges as they're getting their cars inspected. The boy's team decided to go with their Volvo's Swedish vibe - they were the Swedish Bobsled Team. They started out ringing cowbells in their tracksuits, then they stripped down to spandex for the judges.

The boy stenciled the Swedish flag theme on the spandex, and he also modified the suits with his sewing machine. Creepily, those spandex suits originally covered the whole body: fingers, head (no mouth or eye holes), and feet. I am dreading the types of advertisements that are going to be coming our way now that he had these shipped to our house. He cut the head part off so they could see, a plus for someone driving really fast on a race track.

The cats and dogs stayed home, much to the annoyance of Mingus. You can see his thin, black mustache in this picture. I think it makes him look French.

After reading The Art of Eating In, I have begun to cook more dinners at home. Although I do love going out to eat, so many times the stuff I'm eating is stuff I can make myself, is made from meat and produce from who knows where, and doesn't blow me away. When I do eat at a restaurant that fits my personal food philosophy, that place tends to be more of a special occasion place where dinner should last at least a couple of hours, and it's hard to spare a couple of hours during a weekday.

The boy thought the premise of the book was totally stupid since there are a fair number of Americans who have to eat in daily because they have no other choice if they wish to eat at all. (I should back up a step and say that the book is about a twenty-something woman in NYC who gives up eating restaurant food, including take-out, for 2 years.) But, that book wasn't about that. The author does know that she's coming from a privileged perspective, and her reasons for not eating out were more from an environmental standpoint. The point that stuck with me, though, was that it takes a different rhythm to cook dinner each and every night, but that rhythm can be relaxing once it is internalized. When I thought about our eating out habit, the time it takes us to decide where we are going, drive to said restaurant, wait for the meal, and come back home is really more time than whipping something together and cleaning up.

So, since I had a bit of time this weekend and I had home cooked meals on my mind, I made yet another breakfast custard, this time with leftover bacon grease, green onions, 3 types of mushrooms (crimini, king oyster, and blue oyster mushrooms), and magic cheese. I'll spare you a picture since all the custards look the same. I also made a 4 bean (chickpeas, black lentils, split green peas, split yellow peas) and kale soup, a loaf of bread, and for dessert and future snacking, some coconut mochi cake with a spiked whipped cream. This time, I made the whipped cream with Makers Mark. As I bake more, I'm becoming less dependent on recipes, which in turn means I bake even more. This can become dangerous!

 

Oh, one more thing for those of you who are part of the Knitted Furmiliation forum on Ravelry. Are you interested in a KAL or CAL? If so, pipe in! So far, I think only 1 person has read the thread because the forum hasn't been active in quite some time. I was also toying with the idea of a mystery cat hat KAL...