Bella Tuscany

This cold pretty well laid me low for the past week, but I'm starting to get back to normal now.

One of the books I finished during that time was Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes. I'm pretty sure it was sent to me by my aunt several years ago when she also sent me Mayes' first book on Tuscany, Under the Tuscan Sun. I think I enjoyed this book even more than the first one.

In this book she writes about the time she and her husband spent in Italy when they took their sabbaticals together and thus were able to spend a far longer amount of time there than usual. While reading of their activities there -- day trips to see other towns, stopping by farms to pick up fresh ricotta, spending a few days in Sicily at Easter, etc. -- I thought how wonderful it would be if my husband and I could rent a place in Tuscany for six months or so, possibly even a year, if we're not too decrepit by the time he retires. But then I remembered we have a dog and a cat who are so young we'll surely be decrepit by the time they're no longer with us ... if we even live that long.

The struggle to eat healthy foods

I felt better today than I expected to feel. Maybe the Alka Seltzer, orange juice and chicken soup did some good.

Our daughter tries to keep us up to date on healthy foods. She was the first to tell us about the dangers of transfats which have now been removed from most of the foods sold, I believe. And now she's warning us about genetically modified foods and telling us we should watch out for corn or corn syrup in anything unless it's organic.

My husband eats instant Quaker grits for breakfast most mornings. I can find organic grits, but I can't find instant organic grits.

Above are a couple of items I picked up at the organic store in Pittsburgh when we were there a couple of weeks ago. We didn't have much time to look around that day, but I'd like to go back and buy more things to try.

Just as I feared

I woke up this morning with my husband's cold ... sore throat and chills. I don't know yet whether it's going to get worse. I'm taking Alka Seltzer Plus and hoping for the best.

Cute zine

Last September I read some zines my daughter had ordered from a girl named Katie who lives in the Philadelphia area and writes about yard and rummage sales she goes to with her mother. I liked them so much that my daughter gave me some for Christmas. Katie's website is www.thelalatheory.com and she also sells her zines on Etsy.

The table of shoes had a few good items on it but none were as sweet and pretty as these pristine leather pumps in a size 6. Forest green, with a pointy toe and a slender but not-high heel. They're from the 80s and have clearly been worn once at the most; they're perfect. At first I went into denial and danced around cramming my size 6.5-7 feet into them, then tried to convince myself it wouldn't be a big deal if my toes hurt constantly every time I wore them. But no, I remembered, such suffering is unnecessary. I could still take the little shoes home with me, I didn't have to leave them there - when things are this perfect I can't just leave them - and maybe even get some money for them.

75% off!

Yesterday I stopped at Kmart to pick up a chicken and a few veggies. I had no thought of buying Christmas cards until I saw these marked down to $1.50 a box. I hope in December I'll remember where I put them.

Birthday

Today is my mother's 86th birthday, although her birth certificate says she's 87. Back in 1924, the doctor who delivered her in January was still used to writing 1923, and that's the date he put on her birth certificate.

Mirepoix

I had heard about this method and began using it to start soups quite recently, but I didn't know what it was called. Now I know it's called mirepoix. It's finely chopped onion, carrot and celery with a ratio of twice as much onion as carrot and celery.

I let it cook in olive oil for as long as possible before adding the other soup ingredients. I chop it finely as in the bottom photo, but I see that it's sometimes chopped roughly as in the top photo.

However, I've found that while I usually don't mind chopping vegetables, all the fine chopping is a bit much. It might be time to think about getting a food processor, maybe just a small one, for jobs like this.

Northbridge Rectory

I enjoyed this novel written by Angela Thirkell in 1941. In spite of its grim war background, the book is lighthearted, humorous and full of the entertaining idiosyncracies of the villagers who are doing their utmost to contribute to the war effort.

The Rector's wife, Verena Villars, is the main character and a thoroughly likeable woman.

"I wish I could be rude," she said plaintively to Miss Pemberton. "It doesn't seem fair for everyone else to do the rudeness and us to do the putting up with it."

"You could be rude," said Miss Pemberton, "extraordinarily rude. But those people wouldn't know you were rude, they would only think you were being ordinary. And you would feel so horrid afterwards that it wouldn't be worth it. There is no way of communicating with them, none at all."

Inevitably

And of course it figures, doesn't it, that after all the Christmas hubbub and all the snow my husband would come down with a terrible cold that I'm very likely to get?

Angela Thirkell

In her novel, Northbridge Rectory, she has a pretty good description of Christmas.

Christmas, so long looming over everyone's head, finally surged up, buried everyone alive and ebbed away, leaving its victims distinctly cross.

Snow all week

No relief in sight. But it could be worse.

Thrift Shops

Last year I became aware of some of the bargains thrift shops have to offer by browsing through them with my daughter who has been a thrift shopper for several years. Most recently I've been paying attention to the books and almost always find a book or two I can't pass up.

January

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you .... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."

~ Ruth Stout

Christmas is over

Time for it all to be packed away again.

It might be a good New Year's resolution to organize the pantry.