Why not any excuse for chocolate? And really why not any excuse for love?

Yesterday Xopher and I went to a Scottish pub. On the left is ‘skirlie’. It’s… brace yourself… oatmeal for dinner. Our Scottish friends have found a way to have oatmeal for dinner. I’m in love.

Some spherical squash I grew.

How I duz it:

Wash the kale

Rip it off the stems into bite-size pieces

Put in a big pot

Add 1/4 cup water

Add 1 T olive oil

Add 1/4 t Better than Boullion chicken

Put on stove on high

Dissolve the Better than Boullion

When the water gets going, turn it to low

Use tongs and smush and stir the leaves which will wilt as they make contact with the pot bottom

When all are wilted, remove from heat

Add 1 T vinegar (balsamic or apple cider)

Munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch

I like it hot

I like it cold

I like it in the pot

It never gets old

Life blessing #542: I like something so healthy

And God created zucchini fritters.

I also have a decent amount of salad, and soon will be string beans. But for now… zucchini.

Turkey loaf from an Oprah cookbook. Farmer’s market taters. My first zucchini!

How did I make this great dinner? Well, it helped that I declined a 6 PM meeting that I didn’t really need to be part of. This past weekend being so awesome has really convinced me to Step Away more. We had some serious issues to work through last week, but I’m tired of needing to act like our hair is on fire at all times. I want a 9-5 job.

Home after 3 days away. Slipping back into my life like a warm bath of oatmeal.

I offered to bring Xopher home some dark chocolate coconut halva, then forgot to go back and pick it up when he said yeah. Oh well he said, they probably ship. I said, they probably sell it here. There’s really not a hell of a lot you can’t get here anymore, but I still always feel the urge to bring Xopher home some little souvenir.

Winter is just effing relentless. We are very bored. We drove, what, two, three hours yesterday just to be in a slightly different place. Wantastegok.

The meal we had at T. J. Buckley’s of Brattleboro was worth a drive even further than that. I do not think you can dine like this anywhere in the Burlington area. It’s a tiny place. “Located in a restored 1925 dining car,” you can peer over at the one-man-band making your meal. And I did – my scallop dish was so phenomenal, I kept looking over my shoulder, saying, “Really? Really?” As in, this came out of that one guy and that little room right there? Somehow if there were a closed door and an undisclosed number of people and gadgets, it would be more believable. Oh gosh, I’m hungry just remembering it. I kept getting notes of vanilla. If there was vanilla in it, they didn’t disclose.

Oh, understand that prices were through the roof, and justifiably so. I’m so glad we went, though.

I’m feeling lots of negativity lately. But I want this to be a more positive space. A beer might help.