approximately reverse-chronological

Have done several things recently of which I was proud & wanted to post. This off-the-cuff post shall have to do them justice.

I cooked a lot tonight, finally making the tofu & cauli Korma I've been planning. Added brown rice and dal for *lots of lunches*. I'm wondering if Indian cooking is something I might want to practice more. I certainly like eating it. Would need several new spices. (Got turmeric already.) Pre-mixed concentrates + yogurt are a great assist!

Had a check-up dr appointment. Go me! Add that to my relatively recent dentist appointment for taking-care-of-myself combo points.

Went to Somerville Open Studios. Liked lots of what I saw. Especially liked the weather. Frustratingly, the one thing I liked the best of all was ridiculously over-priced. I had fully expected the Kari Zinser abstract to be out-of-reach, but in reality it was so overpriced that I couldn't even enjoy imaginarily owning it... in my imaginary $2M Modern house. muchabstracted is a good S.O.S. partner.

I regret not realizing that the MIT Open Labs were a Saturday-only thing, or I would have done S.O.S. on Sunday. Once again I might end up skipping all the Science Festival events -- but I like knowing they exist. And I might take my folks to something this Saturday, when they are in town.

Speaking of my folks coming to Boston, and I am unreasonably pleased that with their help I can bring a vegan "gouda" cheese to a Gouda-focused cheese-tasting I'm attending. Whole Foods doesn't carry this, but home home-town Cornucopia does! Thornes & Northampton comes thru! I read good reviews of Sheese online, and ever since tasting Chicago Soy Dairy at last VFF, I am willing to re-consider the possibility of palatable non-dairy cheeses.

Feels like it was just barely Passover. I was very proud of Jonathon & my house/kitchen cleaning. For the first time in years, I hadn't left town for seders with a "last bit of kashering" awaiting my return. It was really all converted! And we did a fabulous job of eating down what we owned, so almost all that was left really is bulk or long-term stuff. (Then ironically we had practically no need to cook at all. But I did cook one night (and I know Jonathon made some simple stuff another). An impromptu late-night dinner party for 4! And it was tasty!)
I can't count j's coming to the dinner as an "accomplishment" to be proud of, but it did make me glad.

And if I add "things I'm glad of" to this re-cap, I need to mention our dinner at Buona Vita in Arlington Center. Fabulous. I'd been keeping this place in mind for over a year, and it lived up to all my anticipation.

Last thing for this pride list was a project I picked up while at home for Passover. I think I solved my parents' perennial Passover problem of countertop-covers. Most of the work was just realizing a better material existed! Then I made it happen. With Jonathon's company, I bought some nice clear acrylic. Then I laid out and cut it/had it cut to size. (I started out using a scoring tool, but swapped to essentially melting the edges with a power-drill sanding attachment. That was fun.) I didn't get replacements for all the counter-covers, but specifically the area around the sink which is the highly-visible, greatly-used, and least-suited to cardboard due to wetness.
Ima participated in dropping off the part that needed professional U-shaped cutting. And Abba took ownership of trimming to size a piece of (nice n cheap) corrugated plastic for the microwave nook.
I think the new covers look gorgeous -- and they are going to be much more sanitary, too. Why didn't we think of this years ago? BOTH Abba & Ima seem excited, which pleases me a lot.

Lots to do; lots being done.