Political nonsense, pasta, kale, writing...

Only 23 District Court nominees have been filibustered in the history of our country, and 20 of those have been since Obama took office. Who sees the tectonic shift there? Just sayin. Glad the filibuster rule has been changed. To what a majority really is. Which is not a "super-majority."

In food words, I was uninspired tonight. Tuckered out to beat sixty. Slayed by verbiage and retellings and all sorts of lexical onslaught. I'm utterly serious. My respite today was a wonderful conference call with my writing group. They are such an exceptional bunch of women, and I feel repeatedly grateful to have met them. Before and after that 75 minutes, however? =CRAZYtown talking. So by dinnertime, I could do nothing more than pour a glass of wine and stare blankly into an open fridge. When I was too chilled to hold the door open any longer, I swung it shut and simply stood.

A memory of glorious golden Roma tomato sauce awoke in the deepest recesses of my mind, and I ambled out to my garage chest freezer to locate the stash. Aah!! Some pappardelle here, a kale salad there. Dinner was served.

Recap, dinner

Ok, here's the scoop: you should definitely whisk together crème fraîche and Dijon mustard, slather it over well-salted, best-quality chicken breasts, toss a couple lardons on top and oven roast until done. I mean, really, that was awesome. Divine! Memorable!

In the meantime, I heated my Lodge, fried some thick-cut bacon and then seared quickly blanched and then halved Brussels sprouts in the drippings and with the bacon chunks. Also, I haphazardly stretched some thawed puff pastry into a rimmed baking sheet, oiled and truffle-salted it, tossed slivered dried Mission figs/slivered shallots/crumbled blue cheese over that and baked until done. These were great sides. And with the Pinot I'd grabbed when I found my cellar was without white? Well, that was the creme.

People, why is Michele Bachmann still talking? Planned Parenthood is the "LensCrafters of Big Abortion"? Really? There are just no comments that can either explain or dignify that ludicrousness.

Nasty night leads to better things

Y'all, last night was the absolute worst. A pox on that flu shot! I woke up at 2:00 am on the precipice of full-scale puke, feverishly chilly, shaking and sweating concurrently. For nearly two hours, I just huddled under my comforter, shivering and increasingly wet and trying not to bother T. I think my chills woke him up though because he offered to get Advil, and I said "yes, please." It helped some, and I got back to sleep for a couple hours. When I awoke, I felt as if I were on another planet, and good god almighty, you should have seen my hair. I looked like a wilting Medusa. Ugly!

A few hours later, a good pal came over so I could teach her how to make Nanny's cranberry sauce. It was so nice to spend time together in such a way, not least because we talked without being interrupted the whole time. After she left, I made my own batch and then boogied to school to help sketch the background set for the second grade play. My adobe buildings were better than my forest. Fortunately, my friend, C, was there too, and her pines were totally redemptive. At one point I looked at us, spread out on huge, bright blue, taped-together paper, and thought bemusedly, "we are two very well-educated women, and here we are on a floor, sketching a Native American backdrop at 2pm on a Thursday and kinda stressing about proportion and scale." You just never know where life will take you. It was fun frankly.

Back home, and Ol and I made vanilla fig scones for a breakfast I'm hosting tomorrow. I need to get on the cherry-spelt scone bandwagon too, but first there is the pasta (made the dough an hour ago) I need to roll out and the underlying nausea (still!) with which I must deal.

Who joins me in a shout-out to the Senate for passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act today?? Finally, it is illegal to discriminate when hiring on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. And we've got marriage equality in IL! Yee-haw!

**PS- now taking orders for holiday-time Cranberry Sauce!