Serene of the Oakland Serenes

[also posted to serenecooking]

I forgot to mention one of the great things that happened on mom's visit. I made kneidlach soup for her, as I often do, and she had no corrections to make! Now, the significance of this may not be clear to anyone else, but mom knows that I want her to tell me when I've got something "off" in one of her recipes, because I want to get my childhood foods right. This time, she just kept telling me how good it was.

If you've met my mom, you know she's not shy about offering criticism. I think I may have made the perfect kneidlach soup. Too bad I didn't measure when I made the kneidlachs, but I think I have the texture down perfectly by sight, so we'll see how that goes next time.

I did most of the cooking while she was here, and she appeared to love it all. That makes me happy. She ate a LOT. She even put on a couple of pounds (which of course prompted her to give up bread on the last day here and go all Atkins on me, but hey, after that, I made her a mushroom omelet that she couldn't stop raving about, so all is well and I really really am not going to try to talk my mother out of her crazy food stuff. It's pretty much engrained by age 69, I'd say).

1) It was Mom Food Night: Lovely lasagna dinner (well, lasagna, salad with roasted tomatoes and balsamic vinegar, fresh sourdough bread, roasted elephant garlic, steamed broccoli, and homemade ice cream -- thanks for the excellent machine, klwalton!) with tracytreefrog, berkeleyfarm, sogwife, and someotherguy. (Charlotte, you left your wine. If you'll drink it or cook with it, I can take it by your place.) And I managed to get everyone to take a hunk of lasagna home, so there's not quite as much lurking in the fridge as there might be otherwise. That was some good shit, but then a recipe that starts out with 4 pounds of meat and 4 pounds of cheese kinda has something going for it from the get-go, huh?

2) Caught up with an old friend (misanthropoid, do you remember Jake from the old listserv?) and that was just lovely. We always manage to pick up where we left off, and there's a lot of love there.

3) Gonna do some experimenting with my diet, starting tomorrow. If I decide to write about it here (may or may not), I'll likely create an opt-in filter.

4) My kitchen looks like something exploded in there. It may take me a full day to get it clean again. It was totally worth it.

5) Once again, I am faced with a bunch of plans for the weekend, and a possibility that I'll blow off some or all of them. Such is life.

Hope everyone out there in LJ Land is doing well. I'll try to catch up with your doings tomorrow. Today was all about the lasagna. :-)