Muscle Tone and the Ginger Fairy in Everyday Ramblings

Welcome to my yoga studio, aka the living area in the apartment I have now been in for 12 years. When I teach, it is right next to this area, the rug was a bit cleaner back then. Now, of course there is a mask hanging on the inside doorknob.

A whole bunch of people have broken leases and hightailed it out of here in the last two months. It feels like a huge percentage of the population is on the move right now. This includes the couple on the ground floor around the corner up the hill with the elaborate bird feeder array. They had everything, a hummingbird feeder, a suet feeder, a seed feeder, a bird bath and so on; it was all gone this morning and the blinds are drawn.

Not that I am already not finding everything disconcerting these days, but this news shook my little world a bit. They always got way more birds than I do so I am curious about how this will play out. I know I have more squirrels already.

Speaking of bird watching and reality distraction, Diego went to the vet yesterday for his follow-up exam and labs. I tell you, that is one happy vet, and you can totally understand it, she thought it might be cancer and here he is responding well to the B-12 shots and the steroid.

His weight is almost back to normal and she says the most encouraging thing is that his muscle tone has returned. She emailed me today and we are going to keep him on a lower dose, and we don’t have to go back for six months! Yay!

Oh, and I can ditch the hypoallergenic diet too and feed him premium but normal food. He likes this idea very much.

When we were at the tail end of our walk on Saturday, I asked what kind of cookies might appeal to my companions next. The consensus was something chocolate and maybe with some spice. I mentioned Kes and I had made the Gingery Brownie Crinkle Cookies last year from the New York Times early in our cookie baking extravaganza.

There was enthusiastic assent to a reprise baking episode, so I made up a grocery list. It calls for both fresh ginger and candied ginger slices. And three kinds of chocolate. Did anybody say rich?

As we are in the highest level of lockdown, I am not going to the store, so I ordered all this stuff for delivery. The tiny young woman shopper with the bright red Dodge Challenger power car looked all over the store but no candied ginger was to be found. She did buy me a lot of fresh ginger though, so I was going to investigate making some. Apparently one can.

In correspondence with Charity in the meantime I mentioned that there also were no bananas in the store yesterday and the lack of candied ginger.

This afternoon as I was roasting cauliflower steaks with a little parmesan, she rang my doorbell and left a big batch of organic bananas and a little container of yummy crystalized ginger. She went to three stores to find it!!!

Kes suggested that I had clearly had a visit from the ginger fairy.

(I just hope she doesn’t get Covid from this… but she was in her own car by herself and the stores here really are following the mask and hand sanitizer protocols. Nobody is getting sick from shopping.) She wanted to do it, she gets restless and with the gym closed again… She gets the first batch of fresh cookies.

After the cauliflower I make a Lemon-Spice Visiting Cake, which is more like a loaf you slice. It is a little different, the lemon and cardamom flavors go well together but it is a little dry. Tomorrow I will heat up a piece and put a little tiny bit of butter on it.

I have baby Bok Choy and chard and potatoes to cook too, just in case you might get the impression I am living on sweets.

Oh, and along with the Brownie Cookies ahead, I am also going to make Lemon Curd for the first time. You need to make it in a “non-reactive” pan. I live alone. The one copper bottomed saucepan I use has got to be about 45 years old.

So, I splurged and bought a small Zwilling Clad X 3 saucepan that came today.

Very exciting. This will be an inheritance item. Along with my hands free Simple Human kitchen garbage can. :)

I can’t wait to try it during the unfolding prospect of many rainy days ahead.

Last updated December 09, 2020