Buckwheat Harvest Tart

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Yesterday as I was walking home from lab in the middle of the day to put my laundry in the dryer (the most ordinary of ordinary things), I saw her.

Or, well, perhaps she saw me because when our eyes met I got the feeling that she had been watching, observing from a distance, as we closed the distance between us, while I hadn’t really been paying attention.

We nodded. A quick “hey” as we strode by in that awkward way of people who don’t really know each other, and yet.  Do.

But really, what do you say to the woman who tried to save your father’s life.  But didn’t.

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Barley Risotto with Butternut Squash and Gruyere

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I watched the presidential debate on Wednesday with a bowl of risotto in my lap, a Republican on my right, and a Democrat on my left.  Ready to have my mostly-made-up mind blown by the opposing side, fully expecting that The.Boy. and my roommate’s boyfriend would be at each others’ throats momentarily, with political propaganda spewing forth from their mouths (and hopefully not their fists, seeing as how I was sitting between them, directly in the line of fire).

I was excited for Jim Lehrer to ask intelligent, probing questions that would force the candidates to come clean about these vague and mercurial “plans” that they keep saying they have.

For them to really dig into each other in a totally unprofessional way.

For someone to mispronounce the word “nuclear”.

And instead all I got were obviously made up stories about potential voters they met along the campaign trail, who oh so fortuitously just happened to be from swing states, and who just happened to fit picture perfectly into the point that they were trying to make and the same old non-specific statements and lies that they’ve been propagating throughout the entire campaign season.

I hate to say it.  But I miss Joe the Plumber.

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Pumpkin Almond Cake with Almond Butter Frosting

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While dating a lawyer does not exactly give me the right to go on a search and arrest spree without a warrant…when I went through every bag of flour, grains, and beans in my kitchen (and trust me, there were many) on Tuesday night, utterly convinced that they were harboring illegal and thoroughly unwanted immigrants, I would just like to state, for the record, that I had reasonable suspicion.  So there.

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Asian Sesame Tofu with Braised Winter Squash and Green Beans

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I never realized how much cooking was like an endurance sport until I took two weeks off from it to sit in a hospital and eat thoroughly mediocre eggplant parm sandwiches (the only vegetarian sandwich that my relatives could dream up)…and then had absolutely zero wrist strength when I came back.

Really.  You don’t realize how much muscle tone you build up in your forearm, wrist, and fingers from chopping at least three times a day until it’s gone and you’re left with half a cut up kabocha squash and palm cramps.

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Curried Carrot Soup with Roasted Pepitas

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You either live or you die.

That’s what my father would shrug and say to the friends and family members who came to visit him during his final days in the hospital.  And in a way.  He was right.

In truth, we are all gambling with borrowed time whether we know it or not – even simply crossing the street is fraught with what ifs and maybes, no matter how many times we look both ways. But in a way that so few of us are given the opportunity to be, he was fully conscious of the chances he was taking.  Of just how fully he was putting his life in fate’s hands.

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Recipe: For Disaster

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I always thought I could blog through anything.  But when your father is diagnosed with metastatic cancer and is told that he has days to live, the whole world changes.

The possibilities of what could be, what might have been, what should have been.  All shift.

Suffice it to say, this wasn’t the plan.  We have too much life left to live together.  He has an aisle to walk me down and grandbabies to hold.   He is supposed to try to force me to go back to eating meat at least six million times.  And it’s just. Not. Fair.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but rest assured I will be.  He is so proud of this little place on the internet that I’ve created.  And the last thing he would ever want me to do is stop.

Until then….

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