Tuesday afternoon ramble

Being able to work from home is a blessing and a curse; when you're sick, it means you don't have to go in... but it also means you can work without going in. I had enough to do that I felt the need to work. But I didn't feel the need to stick out the day just because I came in, so I signed off early, and now I have time for a ramble.

Before I start rambling about food, because you know I'm going to, I want to ramble about my cat. She was the only reason I even considered going in today--it's freezing out (and then some, and windy), I have a sore throat that hasn't gone away, our external meeting got canceled, and I brought work home last night figuring I might not feel that much better. And yet, I was determined to get my butt out of the house this morning, because Gracie wouldn't stop pestering me. Thankfully, she gave up at around 8am, in time for me to decide not to go in.

Anyway, food. You're probably not wondering whether I managed to stay macrobiotic on my business trip, but I'm going to tell you anyway (short answer: no). I did manage to avoid dairy except for a small amount that found itself in my tamale (I love a tamale--and they even have the husks and special cornmeal at the Latin-Asian markets--but apparently you need specialized equipment). Anyway, I asked if they'd hold the cheese, the waitress said they would, but there was some inside. But who cares? I'm not concerned about minuscule amounts (then again, that is a luxury because I'm not allergic). I did have white flour--in the form of a tortilla--twice. It's the southwest--what are you going to do?

What else can I tell you? I didn't sleep well, because Mountain Time is treacherous. It's just enough that you feel it, but small enough that you don't think you need to do anything about it--so you stay up, thinking you'll be able to sleep in past 4AM. But you can't, so you turn on the TV and watch the mostly predatory infomercials. Although I'm teetering on the brink of spending $160 on the steam mop. But I managed to function, and I caught up on Harper's, which isn't as bad as the beginning of each issue leads you to believe. I ordered it on account of a surplus of usable frequent flier miles and have ignored it ever since it started arriving, but I'm glad I had a reason to pick it up. I'm trying to find Tea Obreht's piece on vampires for you, but the linked reading will have to do.

But I digress. Of course, I have more to say about food. Consider this a 'macrobiotics--how is it going?' check-in:
-if I miss anything, it's eggs. I had a couple while I was away, and I remembered how much I liked them. I guess if I care enough I could go out and get uber-happy eggs, but I'm not really inspired. They're kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
-the cheese, in contrast, added nothing to anything. At first when I started asking people to hold the cheese on my burrito, I thought I might be missing out, but the burritos were incredibly flavorful as they were. The cheese didn't do anything for the tamale.
-we went to one restaurant that was amazing in every way, and you know that is the case when they have good vegetables. Even decent restaurants can be guilty of boiling the $hit out of veggies and piling them on a plate, but these were thinly sliced and perfectly cooked--I think in a little bit of wine.
-I've been making a lot of soup to deal with my sore throat. I still love wakame, but I can tell you that I do not love kombu. I don't hate it, but I just don't see the point.
-I made a lovely barley "risotto" from one of the new cookbooks and discovered that hulled barley tastes a bit better than pearled and takes no longer to cook (but is harder to find in traditional supermarkets). I'm going to try the lentil-but loaf this weekend.
-Oh, and my disgust for McDonald's is once again personal: I'm sick of picking up McDonald's debris from my front lawn every day. Can they be held legally responsible for the litter that their consumers throw around?

Alright, nap time. I'll leave you with Ezra Klein's reason to stop worrying about the Hudson ruling or how we'll learn to love the individual mandate.