Archives for posts with tag: Sharyn Dimmick
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Dear Madge (a Letter to My Deceased Mother)

November 30, 2025 //
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Dear Madge,

My Thanksgiving dinner was two days late this year. I got a virus a week before Thanksgiving and was not well enough to shop and do food prep. My neighbor Eileen, who lives just around the corner, suggested that she could take me to Grocery Outlet on Wednesday morning and we could have dinner on Saturday, so that’s what we did.

Prices have gone up. The “free” turkey that you get with purchases required $125.00 of spending at Grocery Outlet and $150.00 at Safeway. And some things on my list were not on the shelves at all — maple syrup, for instance.

Friday morning I was standing in the kitchen, noticing how well the fast burner on my stove browned onions. I knew you would be pleased. I actually had to turn off the heat for awhile while I chopped celery and grated carrots.

I learned a new trick for roasting chestnuts: after you cut the cross in the shell, you soak them in water for an hour before roasting them. Oh. You and I didn’t know that. It worked like a charm.

What I really miss, Mom, is your kitchen: the zinc-lined bread drawer, the bread boards, the double ovens, the cooler, all of those big low cabinets and drawers. You and Stan the carpenter did a great job of designing a practical working space.

It’s all gone now. The people Bryan sold the house to took out many desirable things, converted closets to bathrooms, ruined the bay window in the breakfast room to make a deck (handy for the chilly Kensington summers). We were fortunate to live in that well-designed house for so long.

I was tired on Saturday morning because your cat Onyx jumped over my head at 2:45 AM. She came here to live with me this month. Surprisingly, at fifteen and a half she still goes up and down the stairs — I feed her in my bedroom, but she likes to supervise the opening of the can, which happens in the kitchen. When she woke me, I realized that I was hot and that the hallway outside my door was hot.

I had tried out the heat in the kitchen and adjoining dining room for the first time on Friday, anticipating dinner guests who would expect me to heat my house. I knew I had turned the heat off, but it was clear that it had been blasting away. Basically, the control knob malfunctioned: it turned, but it didn’t make contact with the mechanism that controls the temperature. I wrenched it off again, hoping that I had been successful (The vent was so hot that I couldn’t tell if it was still on).

I went back to bed after 3:00 AM, but could not get back to sleep. I forced myself down to the kitchen at 8:15 AM where it was still warm enough to go barefoot. Usually it is about 45 degrees in there this time of year, good for rolling out pastry.

Then I just worked: I stuffed the turkey and put it in the oven, pulled the neck out and started a stock pot with vegetable scraps. I made Grandma’s roll dough and your pie crust, pumpkin pie filling, cranberries. I trimmed and poked yams. I trimmed Brussels sprouts and cut crosses in the bottom.

My neighbor Eileen arrived when I had reached the point of utter exhaustion and was functioning on determination and willpower. She had a workman in tow (Her husband begged off because he is currently subject to coughing fits). Dave the workman brought the glass top from the old breakfast room table up from the garage, unwrapped it, cleaned it up, and set it on its pedestal. I had dragged up the pedestal and chairs on Thursday.

I don’t love it in my dining room — it’s too big for the space, especially the chairs — but I had to have a table in place for holiday entertaining so it will stay there at least until January 6th. Kelly, my friend and former landlady, is coming for pie and coffee in the next few days and she will appreciate having a chair at a table. I eat in my bedroom and on the front porch a lot.

Anyway, the food was delicious — all the things we usually made, except salad: working alone I can’t make a salad on Thanksgiving Day. I had thought to make a kale salad with lemon-tahini dressing because it improves as it sits, but I didn’t have the energy to make it on Friday, or the time to make it on Saturday. I asked Eileen to carve the turkey and to mash and season the potatoes because I was decanting dressing, making gravy, shaping rolls. I had her make after dinner coffee, too, while I whipped the cream.

Thank you for teaching me to cook this good, basic Midwestern food. I still enjoy cooking it and eating it and sharing it with others. Eileen pitched in to do a lot of the clean-up — she’s much more careful about wrapping food than I am. I sent her home with food for her husband, packed into my cake pans and then I had a hot soaking bath.

Onyx is enjoying a small dish of turkey scraps every day. She would like a bigger dish of them, or perhaps for me to serve them more frequently, but i don’t want her to develop digestive problems. She is much more vocal than she used to be: she runs through her repertory of yowls and howls and complaints every morning when she wants to be served breakfast earlier than I wish to get up, but she’s basically a good kitty and has largely adapted to life in this house. She hides in the bedroom closet if she hears a stranger on the stairs. She still roly-polys occasionally and I sing her little Onyx songs (“If i Were an Onyx,” “Rock-a-bye, Onyx,” and “Roly Poly, Onyx little cat girl”). She is definitely a survivor cat.

I don’t know what else to say. I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you and all of those holiday dinners we made together and thinking of your mother’s eagle eye when I was peeling and de-eying potatoes. Today I enjoyed a breakfast of pie, coffee and rolls and started listening to Christmas music. My house has wide window sills so I will scavenge greenery and put up birds and ornaments.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Sharyn

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Categories grocery shopping, home cooking, seasonal recipes

“What’s in the cupboard” baked oatmeal

November 7, 2025 //
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I like to make baked oatmeal. I make stove-top oatmeal too, but I like having breakfast made ahead for those mornings when I don’t want to fuss with anything beyond feeding the cat and making coffee.

The last time I made baked oatmeal I looked up a basic recipe that used four eggs because I only had four eggs left in the house. I flavored it like a carrot cake, adding to the oats, milk, eggs, soda, salt and baking powder, maple syrup, grated carrots, coconut, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and walnuts. It was delicious.

I was going to make it again, but as I was gathering ingredients my eye fell on a jar of apple butter (I have two from a baking box I used to subscribe to, alas put out of business by tariff shenanigans). It sounded like a good thing to add to baked oatmeal and already contained cinnamon and cloves.

When I opened the jar, I found the darkest apple butter I had ever seen, the color of a cup of strong coffee. I mixed it in with 2 and 1/2 cups of milk, four eggs, half a cup of maple syrup. I added freshly ground cardamom, ground ginger — forgot I had fresh ginger in the freezer — a teaspoon of soda, a teaspoon of baking powder, a scant teaspoon of salt. I added all this to four cups of rolled oats in a big bowl and then added a cup of raisins, a cup of chopped walnuts and three finely grated carrots — I like sneaking vegetables into breakfast.

I buttered a thirteen by nine oblong pan and poured the oatmeal mix into it. I had the oven on to 375 F because I was baking a salmon fillet on a bed of roast vegetables. I took my dinner out of the oven and reduced the heat to 350 F, letting the oatmeal sit on the counter to absorb liquids while I ate. After I wrapped my leftover salmon in foil and refrigerated it, I popped the oats into the oven and started doing dishes.

About thirty-five minutes later, I opened the oven. The baked oatmeal was very dark brown, raisins visible on the top. I took a table knife and scooped out a bit from one corner. The result was nice and moist from the apple butter and the taste reminded me of gingerbread, although there was no molasses or brown sugar in the mix. It must have been the long-caramelized apples.

Throwing preserves or other spreads into baked oatmeal is a good way to use them up should you find yourself with a lingering jar or a flavor that you don’t usually buy. Ditto for syrups, or even the liquid from canned fruit. To make a 13 x 9 pan of baked oatmeal, I use 2 and 1/2 cups of whole milk and 1/2 cup of maple syrup or honey for a total of three cups liquid, but you can use any kind of “milk” you like, or substitute fruit juices or syrups. Part of the fun is figuring out what flavors complement each other.

I cut a square of baked oatmeal every morning. It doesn’t need anything — you can pick it up in your hand and nibble on it — but I like to nuke it in a bowl with a fresh splash of milk for a warming breakfast on a cold morning.

Do you make baked oatmeal? What is your favorite flavor?

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Categories breakfast food, frugal eating, home cooking

Where did the sweet corn come from? Plus an amazing bread pudding.

May 9, 2025 //
2

I went to the farmers market today, as I do almost every Saturday, but I went to Safeway first because I needed tissues and dishwashing liquid and jarred salsa. I vaguely remembered that there was something on special that I wanted, so I cruised the produce section, and there it was: fresh corn, five ears for five bucks. I checked to make sure it had been grown in the U.S. — I don’t believe in importing produce from Mexico.

I last ate fresh corn in October, so I bought five ears and started thinking about what I would make with it, starting with pizza and pasta. I bought a small jar of sun-dried tomatoes to go with the corn. By next year I will be growing and drying cherry tomatoes again once I have a yard of my own.

The new crop in the market today was asparagus. I don’t like asparagus, so I passed it by. But there was a potato farmer so I bought a bag of red potatoes to supplement all of the spring greens: arugula, spring mix, bok choy, radishes. I’ve been eating radish greens lately, sauteed with pasta or in eggs, so I bypassed the bunches of turnips as well.

I picked up a dozen farm fresh eggs, brown and blue. For those of you keeping track, they cost eight dollars, so you can still eat an egg-based meal for two bucks.

I made pizza for lunch with pesto, mozzarella, an ear of fresh corn, feta and some sun-dried tomatoes. While it baked I made a salad of spring mix, arugula and a sliced radish. Then I had not one, but two modest slices of my chocolate beet cake with sour cream frosting, my reward for carrying a heavy backpack all morning.

Tonight I’ll probably eat pasta with Italian sausage, feta, lime, sun-dried tomatoes and more corn. I might throw in bell peppers, bok choy or arugula if I want more greens.

After lunch I found an old Facebook post of mine from today’s date. When I lived in California I bought strawberries, apricots, peaches and artichokes on May 3rd. Sigh. One of Kelly’s friends brought me a basket of strawberries yesterday and they are delicious, but stone fruit is a long way off and I don’t know if we get artichokes in western Washington at all. Two of the things I miss most about my native state is the variety of fresh produce available year-round and the quality of that produce. Here, however, we have utterly beautiful autumns with turning trees and springs full of lilacs, peonies and rhododendrons.

I started researching trees for a home orchard again: I don’t have a house and yard yet, but I will, and I will want to start some trees as soon as I can so that I will be harvesting my own peaches and figs again in a few years.

This morning I turned my gift of strawberries into strawberry cornmeal griddle cakes. I have been making this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for several years (My former partner loved strawberries).

Since I started this post, I have been completing cooking projects: I candied all of the orange peels I had saved in the freezer. I used a vegan vanilla cake mix to make cupcakes and frosted them with some of my leftover sour cream chocolate frosting.

This morning, I needed breakfast because I finished the strawberry pancakes yesterday. I had some milk that is on the verge of turning that I needed to use. I remembered that I had some bread in the freezer. I pulled out the bread, which turned out to be part of a loaf of challah. Good. I would use it to make a breakfast bread pudding with candied orange peel.

I turned the oven on to 350 degrees. I cubed the bread and chopped up orange peel. And then inspiration struck: what if I incorporated the last of my leftover sour cream chocolate frosting? Chocolate-orange breakfast bread pudding was born.

I made it the usual way: put the cubed bread in a bowl. I added the frosting to the bread before beating the eggs in the frosting bowl so as to dislodge all of the bits of frosting and incorporate them into the eggs. I added the eggs to the bread and frosting.

Then I made a mistake: I know to scald milk for bread pudding, but I skipped that step and just poured the milk over the bread, frosting and eggs. I added vanilla.

Then I tasted the custard — don’t do this if you are afraid of raw eggs — I needed to see how sweet it was since I don’t usually put frosting in bread pudding. I added a scant 1/3 cup of sugar and stirred everything together.

The result of my mistake is that my pudding resisted setting. After half an hour, I stirred the top layer back in to absorb more liquid and continued to bake the pudding. Because I did not scald the milk, my bread pudding took nearly an hour and forty-five minutes to bake. But it did finally set.

And OMG is it delicious! I am not normally a chocolate for breakfast fan, but the richness of the sour cream frosting and the chocolate and orange flavors are marvelous.

I didn’t measure the milk. I used three extra-large eggs because that is what I had. The bread was about a third of a loaf of challah. I would guess there was about a cup of frosting — maybe a generous cup. Candied orange peel to taste. 1/3 cup added sugar. A generous splash of vanilla. If you want a better guideline for proportions or ratios, consult an actual recipe for bread pudding — I usually just throw it together free-hand. Tassajara Bread Book has a good recipe for breakfast bread pudding But do yourself a favor and scald the milk! It will save you time and energy.

Stay tuned for next week’s adventures.

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Categories breakfast food, frugal eating, home cooking, Uncategorized

Seasonal Eating in Western Washington

April 27, 2025 //
2

My weekly trip to the farmers market is always an adventure: what will there be in the last week of April? After decades of farmers market shopping, farm box subscriptions and growing my own food in California, I had a pretty good idea what to expect in the markets there. I knew homegrown cherry tomatoes might be ripe on June 30, or Fourth of July and sweet corn would soon follow, but I have lived two states to the north for less than a year and do not know what to expect.

I’ll adjust, but I am not adjusted. The days have gotten long here and cavalcades of flowers are blooming: bulbs and shrubs and flowering trees: peonies, iris, tulips, lilacs, rhododendrons, cherries and plums. And yet the food crops are stubbornly behind sunny California or even foggy coastal California.

I got excited on Friday because the market newsletter had said there would be strawberries this week. I packed empty glass containers to carry them home in and got to the market just as it opened to be sure to get some.

I didn’t see any strawberries when I walked through the market. I stopped to buy radishes and spring salad mix and a loaf of whole wheat sourdough. I walked through a second time. No strawberries.

I stopped by the market booth. “The newsletter said you would have strawberries this week. Did the vendor not come?”

The woman in the booth looked at me.

“Strawberry plants,” she said, naming the vendor.

Oh.

I spotted some rhubarb. Perhaps it was dreaming of strawberries like I was.

I did not buy any rhubarb this week. Once, in an effort to try everything in a market, I bought a bunch of rhubarb and made all kinds of things with it. You can read about those experiments here. I may get so I crave rhubarb in the spring after a few years in Washington, but I am not there yet.

There are no root crops in the market except radishes. Where are the carrots, the spring beets, the new potatoes?

On my way out, I bought arugula with my last six dollars. I’ll be eating both salads and cooked greens this week: spring salad mix, arugula, radish greens, bok choy and the last of some savoy cabbage I bought some weeks back. The arugula farmer had cauliflower, but I do not like cauliflower (If I want some, I can get some next week).

Once home I cooked my last two beets: I will eat those in salads this week with walnuts, feta, various greens and a vinaigrette with pomegranate molasses (I found pomegranate molasses at the health food store this week and am delighted to have it).

I am beginning to long for fresh fruit. I have blood oranges, oranges, lemons and limes. I have frozen blueberries. I have canned sour pie cherries. I have dried cranberries and dried cherries and dates. I eat all of these things. If I were in California I would be feasting on strawberries by now. I can make wonderful cherry pie out of canned sour cherries. I can make candied orange peel and eat it in oatmeal with dates and cinnamon. I have jams and apple butter as well. I can make do.

The truth is I am tired of winter eating. I am glad of spring salads. And I wonder what we will have to eat next week in western Washington.

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Categories frugal eating, salads, seasonal recipes, Uncategorized

What Do You Really Need to Be Happy?

April 11, 2025 //
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The Trump tariffs have just been imposed, then paused, then changed. The stock market is tanking. All of us stand to lose something or many things in a completely unnecessary crisis.

I don’t know about you, but for me this seems like a good time to think about what I really want, what I value, what makes me happy from day to day. What things do I need to have in my life?

I’ll answer the questions — for me. You can answer the questions for you. We are all different: just like you may not want to eat or cook the things that I cook and my grocery list might be vastly different from yours, what it takes to make you happy will not necessarily be what will make me happy. Farmers markets make me happy. Restaurants and cafes I like make me happy, although I have been to few restaurants or cafes in the last seven months. Still, I like to be within reach of them, even for a rare celebration.

Off the top of my head. I like good quality things. I would rather have fewer things of excellent quality than lots of cheap or poorly-made things. I can dial back on variety if I like what I have. For example, I have kind of a uniform for everyday dressing. I’ve worn it for years. My basics are 100% cotton black jeans, preferably in a classic boot cut, crew neck long-sleeved 100% cotton shirts, cashmere sweaters (Yes, I know they are expensive, but I buy them on sale or at thrift stores, I hand-wash them and I mend them myself. I like them because they are light and warm). Fleece vests in bright colors and black. These are harder to find than they used to be and I know that fleece is controversial. Again, I like it because it is light and warm and bright. Also, I adore vests, particularly vests with pockets. Cotton socks and underwear because I prefer natural fabrics. I will mend and darn socks and underwear to keep them going. And I like hats. I buy wool berets. My summer hats are not as durable: I favor spangled caps and have two, both mended.

Shoes are expensive for me: I am hard on shoes and I have an odd gait from cerebral palsy. My favorite shoes as of last summer are these shoes from Stumble Stuff. They lasted nine months. I just bought my second pair before the tariffs arrived. I’ve bought other styles from this company, but these are the most durable. My other go-to pair of shoes are snow boots that I bought from Lands End some years back: they are good for rain, snow and rough terrain. They fit perfectly and I have kept them going by having them re-heeled and soled periodically. I own more dress shoes than I may need for the rest of my life because I bought them on sale when a local shoe store discounted them: they are all Joseph Seibel mary janes in black or tan. I love colored leather shoes (red, blue, turquoise, purple), but they are not usually on sale.

Anyway, wardrobe aside, what I need for a good life are means of communication: paper and pens, stamps, a phone, a laptop. I buy refurbished laptops and phones from Apple because I am a Mac user. I do not need the latest of anything to be happy. I like fountain pens, but good, cheap ones are no longer available (I grew up with Shaeffer cartridge pens) so I have gone to Pilot G-2 refillable pens for now. Unfortunately, Pilot is based in Japan, so the price for refills may go up soon. My notebook of choice has been the Blueline A9 for years. They were $10.95 last time I bought a stack and the manufacturer’s website says they are $13.35 now. Um, not sure what I’ll do about that: I like sturdy, hardbound notebooks and Blueline uses recycled content, which I also like.

I need books to be happy, books I have read and books I haven’t read. I own a lot of books, most currently in storage, but I have a library card as well. I make use of Little Free Libraries. I buy books at library sales. Sometimes, when I can afford it, or when I need it for a class I’m teaching, I buy a new book.

I need music to be happy. I attend a few musical Zooms each month. I try to remember to listen to music at a time when my listening diet is mostly political news. I am energized at protests when musicians sing or play or drum to keep us going, give us energy. When I am happiest, I sing. When I listen in silence, there is always a song in my head, which my former partner called “the internal jukebox” (We would ask each other, “What’s on the jukebox?”). I have a large collection of music that I have put on my laptop and I make use of YouTube to look for music.

I also own musical instruments: a piano, a Celtic harp, a recorder, a couple of acoustic guitars. Right now I have just one guitar with me, but one guitar is all I need to practice, to play, to arrange songs. I used to be a busker.

And I need a musical community, people who love the music I love (or at least a portion of it — nobody will love everything I do). Since the pandemic, I have been missing opportunities to play live music with other people. Since I left my home town I have not had opportunities to hear live music. I am hoping that these things will change once I am permanently settled.

Good food, communications equipment, books, music, community. What else? I left my cat Onyx in California during my long transition. I hope to reunite with her, possibly this summer.

I need a permanent, stable place to live. Because of an inheritance, I am hoping to buy such a place with a door I can close, a yard I can garden in, fruit trees, room for my books and music, a place for guests to sleep. For now I am living in a lovely temporary furnished rental and, for now, that is enough. But once I have a home of my own I can redeem my books, records, CDs, furniture, and kitchen equipment from storage.

I need to be surrounded by beauty, to look on a pleasing aspect, to live in well-proportioned rooms, however few they might be. I need to be in water: ocean water, river water, pool water, bath water. I need to live among trees.

I need my country to be a country of liberty and justice for all, freedom of expression, religion, assembly, due process. And right now it is failing badly.

What about you? What do you need to be happy?

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Categories Uncategorized

Frugality and Eating, Week Eight

April 4, 2025 //
2

I thought I had started this week’s post, but I can’t find a draft. I start the post on Saturday because Saturday is farmers market day. I’m still buying and eating Brussels sprouts and kale each week. Will I always eat Brussels sprouts and kale? No. When will I stop buying Brussels sprouts and kale? When there are other things at the market to buy. Today there was purple sprouting broccoli — I didn’t know what I would do with that so I didn’t buy any. Total spending: $17.00. I didn’t buy a treat today and I’m doing less cooking and eating the same things over and over because I’ve been busy with protests.

When I got home, I made kale salad with lemon-tahini dressing and ate shortcake and tea.

Saturday breakfast: baked French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, mixed berry shortcake, black tea; dinner: pasta with Brussels sprouts and pesto.

Sunday I had a Zoom meeting after breakfast and went to a noon protest: I carried a bag of crackers, cheese, dried cranberries and almonds with me, but did not eat it there. I stopped off at the health food store on the way home for staples: half and half, frozen blueberries and dried sour cherries. Total spending: $23.04 Sunday breakfast: baked French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: crackers, smoked cheddar, cranberries, almonds, kale salad, mixed berry shortcake, black tea; dinner: homemade bean burrito with salsa and sour cream.

Monday breakfast: French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza with arrabiata sauce, kalamata olives, roasted peppers and Italian sausage. After Monday lunch I wanted to use some shortcake biscuits, so I made them into faux scones with cream and jam: I split a shortcake and put it in the oven that was warm from baking the pizza. Then I whipped plain cream. I spread the warm shortcake with lingonberry jam and topped it with whipped cream. There is a controversy whether you apply the jam or cream first to a scone (or faux scone). I like the jam on the bottom — if you put the cream on the bottom of a warm pastry, it melts. I like biting through the cool cream into the jam and biscuity base. I wanted something different for dinner tonight, so I sauteed half of an Italian sausage, some orange bell pepper and scallions and added a couple of scrambled eggs. I ate that wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla with a dash of Cholula and followed it up with an orange — breakfast for dinner, always an option if you like breakfast food.

Tuesday breakfast: last of the baked French toast with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza, black tea; snack: shortbread with jam and cream; dinner: refried beans, salsa, corn tortillas.

Wednesday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza, black tea, pumpkin blondie. I wasn’t hungry at dinner, so I just ate some almonds and dried sour cherries.

Thursday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza; snack: shortbread with jam and cream, black tea; dinner: pasta with pesto and Brussels sprouts; snack: chocolate.

Thursday I stopped at Grocery Outlet for some basic supplies. Here’s what I bought: a gallon of whole milk ($3.99) five pounds of all purpose flour ($2.49), salami ($9.99), pizza crusts ($3.79), pasta ($2.38), lemons ($2.76), canned pumpkin ($3.79), canned sour cherries ($3.98) and toilet paper ($5.99). Total for groceries: $33.68.

Friday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pizza (arrabiata sauce, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers and salami), black tea, coffee shortbread; dinner: pasta with pesto and Brussels sprouts; snack: candied almonds.

Another frugal week starts tomorrow with a visit to the farmers market, and a Hands Off protest and then I will tackle a new topic: in hard times What Do You Need to Be Happy?

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Categories frugal eating, home cooking, Uncategorized

Frugality and Eating, Week 7

March 28, 2025 //
0

I began my week of frugal eating on Saturday morning with coffee and baked French toast with blueberries to fuel me for a trip to the farmers market. Breakfast is one of the meals I reliably cook for myself: I am a morning person — by dinner time I often do not care what I eat. The other thing I will almost always do is make a bowl of salad every time I run out of it: because I have been eating kale salad, which is pretty much indestructible no matter how long it sits around, I usually make salad twice a week.

By Thursday last week I was out of greens and jonesing for them, so I bought two bunches of kale and one bag of Brussels sprouts. Total spent: $17.00. I had just run out of eggs, so I picked up a dozen farm fresh eggs for $7.00. Lastly, I stopped by Pane D’Amore bakery for my new Saturday lunch treat: a slice of focaccia and a chocolate-walnut cookie for $7.25 — I am particularly liking food-to-go on these busy Saturdays of demonstrations. On days other than Saturdays, I am likely to pack up salami, cheese, crackers, containers of homemade kale salad, nuts and/or oranges to keep me fueled while I stand in public spaces holding signs.

I was out all morning — at the bank, at the market, at Hollywood Beach for a native American water blessing ceremony and march. Once home, I ate my focaccia before running off to the library sale. The focaccia is filling and I rested and napped most of the afternoon and evening. I don’t like to eat heavily in the evening, so I nuked a bowl of Brussels sprouts, added a spoonful of pesto, followed that with a homemade pumpkin blondie for dessert and called that dinner.

Saturday meals: Breakfast: cardamom French toast with frozen blueberries, coffee; lunch: focaccia; dinner: Brussels sprouts with pesto, pumpkin blondie.

Sunday meals: Breakfast: homemade pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; Lunch: leftover homemade pizza with pesto, kalamata olives, roasted peppers; black tea with evaporated milk; Dinner: kale salad with feta, dried cherries, roasted almonds and lemon-tahini dressing.

Monday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza, half chocolate walnut cookie, black tea with evaporated milk; dinner: whole wheat burrito with refried beans, salsa and sour cream.

Tuesday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza with arrabiata sauce, feta, kalamata olives and roasted peppers, black tea, pumpkin blondie; dinner: burrito; snack: dried cherries, roasted almonds.

Wednesday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries; lunch: Brussels sprouts with pesto, homemade pizza, pumpkin blondie, green tea; dinner: homemade burrito; snacks: chocolate with nuts, roasted almonds, dried cherries.

Thursday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, roasted strawberry shortcake*, black tea; dinner: pizza, kale salad, whole wheat tortilla.

Friday breakfast: pumpkin pancakes with blueberries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, homemade pizza, roasted strawberry shortcake, black tea; dinner: pasta with Brussels sprouts and pesto.

* If you should find yourself with underripe strawberries, you can cut them up, sprinkle them with a bit of sugar and roast them in a 350-degree oven to concentrate their flavor. You lose the raw character, but they taste better. I made the shortcake biscuits with 2 and 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of rolled oats, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter 3/4 cup evaporated milk, a pinch of salt and 2 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Total weekly food spending: $31.25, including my Saturday lunch treat.

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Categories desserts, frugal eating, grocery shopping, home cooking, Uncategorized

Call for Writing Practice Students: Spring Quarter 2025

March 23, 2025 //
2

Dear Readers,

As some of you know, I teach writing practice, a way of writing developed by Natalie Goldberg based on zen practice. In 2021 Natalie named me a dharma heir and I teach in her tradition after nearly twenty years of in-person retreats with her, serving as a teaching assistant in more than one of her online Shambhala courses, and attending online retreats with her.

In May 2021, at the request of some of Natalie’s online students, I formed an online writing practice group called the Monday AM Practice Group, named for my time slot in Pacific time. The Monday AM Practice group is still going: we will be starting our Spring Quarter on April 7, 2025. Spring dates are April 7, 14, 21, and 28, May 12 and 19, and June 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30. We meet on Zoom from 9:00 to 10:30 AM Pacific time.

We begin each class with ten minutes of silent zen-style meditation, returning to the root of writing practice. Then I provide writing topics and we write together and read aloud to each other.

One of the things about writing practice groups than other forms of writing groups is that we don’t comment on each other’s writing: we don’t voice our opinions or give feedback on what we hear read. Instead, we give the writer/reader infinite space to say what she/he/they need to say: our job is to listen, to witness what is said silently, to be as fully present as we can for the voice of the writer/reader.

Being in a group where there are no comments on your work can be disconcerting, but it frees you to say whatever you have to say without fear of others’ disapproval and it frees you to explore the content of your own mind.

The Monday AM Practice Group opens for new members at the beginning of each term and then closes to promote safety and cohesion. New members need to commit to attending each scheduled session for the duration of the term, unless you clear an absence with me in advance. This helps members of the group know that you will be present for them.

This group generally consists of somewhere between ten and twelve students, although there have been as many as eighteen in the past.

Spring Quarter 2025 is an 11-week quarter, offered for $275.00 USD, which works out to $25.00 per class period. In addition to class time you get a written summary each week of each class, which includes suggested homework assignments (generally five topic suggestions) and access to me for questions via email.

Payment can be made via PayPal (the easiest option for non-U.S. residents) or by personal check. You may pay for the entire quarter in a lump sum, or make three monthly payments. Payment for Spring Quarter will be due on April 1, 2025 by noon Pacific time. For those opting for the installment plan, your first payment of $100.00 USD will be due on April 1.

If you have questions for me, please use the comments field below. Thank you.

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Categories writing practice

Frugality and Eating, Week 5-6ish

March 22, 2025 //
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I promised I would talk a little about creativity this week. Here goes: to create something you need to have a problem to solve, something you want to do. And then you have to make a decision to do it with what you have on hand. This is important: while it is nice to have a fine musical instrument or the best pigments or some other luxury (and there is something to having decent or even excellent materials), the creativity does not come from the excellence of your materials, it comes from your decision to bring something into being, which is generally because you want something.

For instance, back in 2018, I had an emotional response to the United States administration separating children from their parents at the southern border. My experience as a former MFT told me that this would be traumatic for the families and children. I wanted to say something about it. But more than that, I wanted to sing something about it because songs carry emotional weight and evoke emotional responses.

So I started imagining what a woman would say who was walking to the U.S. border. The song starts:

I walked a long way, longer than you know.
I walked a long way, carrying my pain and fear.
I walked a long way -- I had nowhere else to go.
I walked a long way to get here.

I knew I wanted to sing it in both English and Spanish to reach Spanish-speakers. Fortunately, I studied Spanish in high school and college. I found a local poet to help me put my English words into Spanish in a way that I could fit them into the tune. I hired my partner at the time, Mr. Johnny Harper, to produce both English and Spanish versions. I booked studio time. I hired back-up singers and a piano player and, through trial and error, I built the arrangement I wanted.

Then, as I have done with almost all of my recording projects I painted a watercolor album cover painting. I had to adjust the painting many times to get the color intensity I wanted. I had to photograph it and have it photographed many times to get the photos to reflect the colors of the painting. All the time I was shooting for something, aiming for something that I wanted.

The cooks among you are perhaps wondering what this has to do with frugal eating. It has everything to do with it. The ingredients I buy at the farmers market or Safeway or grocery outlet are the beginning of my creativity in the kitchen. I am guided by ingredients and by what I like to eat. For instance, I like home fries and I hate hash browns. This is an easy choice: I don’t make hash browns and avoid them in restaurants because I don’t like them — I turn potatoes into other things. If I didn’t like potatoes at all, I wouldn’t buy them.

So what did I buy this week? The farmer with the sweet potatoes comes to the market once a month, so I bought several sweet potatoes. The other vegetable vendor had savoy cabbage today — I bought some because at this time in the year it is wonderful to have a new vegetable to cook with. Then I bought a mixed bag of roasting vegetables, mostly to get carrots and Brussels sprouts, and two bags of kale because kale is still what is available for salads and I don’t mind it if I smother it in tahini, garlic and lemon juice. The sweet potatoes cost $11.50 and the other veggies cost $27.92. Big spender today.

I have another busy weekend and I needed to hurry back home quickly, so I bought myself an extravagant lunch of vegetarian focaccia and a chocolate-walnut cookie from Pane D’Amore bakery. That might just become my weekly lunch treat. Both items were excellent and I enjoyed the break from constant cooking. That set me back $7.25.

I don’t know yet what I’ll make with my ingredients, or when I’ll buy more. I still have borscht, bread, and kale salad from last week, so I won’t have to cook tonight. Saturday dinner: kale salad, leftover pasta. Snack: chocolate-covered nuts

Sunday breakfast: pumpkin polenta (polenta cooked in milk with half a cup of pumpkin puree, sweet spices and maple syrup, coffee; lunch: kale salad, dinner: sweet potato with salsa and sour cream; snack: chocolate-covered nuts

Monday breakfast: pumpkin polenta, coffee; lunch: kale salad, borscht, leftover fried potatoes, muffin; dinner: bread with cheese, roasted peppers, salami, Brussels sprouts with pesto; Snack: bread and jam

Here endeth the daily recitation of what I bought and ate last week: last Thursday, midway through this post, my laptop died. It took six days to replace it and have data transferred from the old to the new, interrupting my daily recording of what I ate and spent. I did spend $85.28 at Grocery Outlet on March 14, where I restocked on citrus, celery, bell peppers, green onions, garlic, chicken broth, whole wheat flour, pasta, pasta sauce, chicken meatballs, crackers, whole wheat tortillas, evaporated milk and sour cream. I also bought strawberries and whipping cream because it’s spring (probably should have waited longer on the strawberries, which looked good, but lacked flavor: I folded a few of them into a batch of strawberry cornmeal pancakes, which I ate with newly-purchased raspberry syrup and frozen blueberries). Total spent on food for the days covered by this post: $159.92.

Pretty soon I am going to go to the kitchen for Saturday’s breakfast of baked French toast: I made it yesterday with eggs, milk, sugar, butter, and a loaf of sliced cardamom-orange bread that I bought at Sluy’s Bakery in Poulsbo for $8.24 when I was in Poulsbo seeing to data transfer. During my day-long excursion there I bought pizza and salad for lunch for $12.02, hot chocolate and cappuccino to keep me going for $11.06, and a pecan roll for $2.20. I also brought food with me, which I ate for dinner: kale salad, salami, cheese and whole wheat crackers.

After breakfast I will go to the farmers market and start a new post covering what I buy this week. Or not: I started these frugal eating posts because I thought people would find it helpful to know how to eat well on little money, but maybe all of you already know how to do that, or maybe you all still have plenty to eat on. If you’d like me to continue the Frugal Eating posts, please leave me a comment.

P.S. “The Border Song” is still available on CD.

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Categories frugal eating, home cooking, Uncategorized

Frugality and Eating, Week 4

March 7, 2025 //
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It’s Saturday, March 1, 2025, which means it’s farmers market day. Before I left the house, I had a helping of breakfast bread pudding with frozen blueberries and my standard cup of freshly ground dark roast decaf coffee with half and half. I brought with me some water, some roasted almonds and an orange because I planned to join a march after my jaunt to the market.

On the way to the market I mailed a gift grocery check for $200.00 from a friend to my credit union and stopped at the bank to get $40.00. I still had $13.59 in cash left from last Saturday. I didn’t expect the $200 check and was grateful to get it: it means I could pay my storage charges today and still buy food to supplement what I already have in the house.

Today I bought two bags of kale for $10.00 and a mixed bag of potatoes, beets, carrots and Brussels sprouts for $16.00. I also bought a thick slab of vegetarian focaccia to eat at the demonstration for $4.00 — this turned out to be a great value, full of tomatoes, artichoke hearts and kalamata olives, Mediterranean flavors that I have missed this winter. Total spent: $30.00.

I spent two hours on the street, holding my sign, singing lustily, and walking from the downtown assembly point to the courthouse with hundreds of people who gathered in support of our National Parks Service. The best sign I saw played off the “Fire Danger” indicator: It said “Being Fired Danger” with the needle in the red for “extreme danger.”

When I got home I put my groceries away and ran a hot bath with Epsom salts: my hips and feet ached from too much standing, but I like being out in the streets with like-minded people and I will be there whenever I can.

Cooking tip of the week: on the days and times you have energy, do some food prep or cooking so that you will have food ready for when you are tired or busy. Right now I have one more serving salad, one serving of bread pudding and a bowl of cooked ziti waiting in the fridge. And Sunday morning, right after breakfast I grated carrots and one beet that will go into the next batch of carrot-tahini muffins (I really like them — can you tell?), and then I continued grating beets, carrots and Brussels sprouts that will go into a pot of borscht. And then I mixed up some whole wheat bread dough and put it in the fridge for a slow rise: when I get back into the kitchen I will coordinate making the muffins, making a pizza for lunch, baking the bread and assembling the soup.

Saturday lunch: part one, on the go: focaccia; part two: Brussels sprout salad (at 4 PM). Snack: black tea with milk, dark chocolate almond. Dinner: baked potato with sour cream and black pepper, pan-fried and steamed Italian sausage and Brussels sprouts. I finished the potato, but only half of the sausage and sprouts — I’ll recycle them as pizza toppings later this week.

Sunday cooking, part two: when I went back to the kitchen I took the bread dough out of the fridge, and began preheating the oven to 425 F while I assembled the soup: crumbled up mushrooms, chicken broth, salt, pepper, garlic, grated vegetables and water. While that simmered, I made the muffin batter. I popped the muffins into the oven and ate soup and leftover salad while they baked, plus put on a kettle for tea. When the muffins came out, I made the tea and let it steep while I put together a quick pizza. While the pizza baked I ate a muffin and drank my tea.

Reducing the oven to 400 F, I transferred the muffins from the muffin tin to a bowl and re-greased the muffin tin for clover leaf rolls. You shape them by rolling three small balls of dough for each muffin cup. I also greased a pie tin to hold a round loaf made from the remaining dough.

Next I needed something to do while the rolls rose in the pans. I grabbed a bag of kale and pulled the leaves into pieces, discarding the stems. When that was done, the rolls were ready for the oven, so I put them in, leaving the loaf to rise on top of the stove. While the rolls baked I made salad dressing out of my remaining tahini — in the tahini jar. When the rolls came out, I put the loaf in the oven and went upstairs to rest.

So, in part of one day I produced most of what I will eat this week: soup, salad, pizza, muffins, rolls, bread, salad dressing. And then I came along after dinner and made what I’m calling “Mounds bar pudding” for dessert: I combined half a can of coconut milk with vanilla and about two tablespoons of powdered sugar, whipped it to blend it and poured some over a bowl of chocolate pudding. If I had had coconut flakes, I would have sprinkled them on top.

Monday breakfast: muffin, home fries, coffee; lunch: borscht, kale salad, whole wheat roll; dinner: Brussels sprout salad, pizza, whole wheat roll, muffin; snacks: whole wheat roll, chocolate, Bengal Spice tea. Spending: $10.03 for tahini and half and half.

Tuesday breakfast: muffin, home fries, coffee; lunch: pizza, kale salad, whole wheat roll; snack: hot cocoa, whole wheat roll, chocolate-covered nuts; dinner: pasta with chicken meatballs, marinara and shredded kale.

Wednesday breakfast: muffin, home fries, homemade mocha; lunch: kale salad, pasta, whole wheat roll; snack: chocolate, shortbread, tea; dinner: borscht, whole wheat roll. Spending: $3.99 one gallon of whole milk.

Thursday breakfast: muffin, home fries, coffee; lunch: kale salad, pasta, whole wheat roll; dinner: pizza, orange segments; snacks: tea, shortbread, roasted almonds, “Mounds bar pudding.”

Friday breakfast: muffin, home fries, coffee; lunch: borscht, kale salad, whole wheat roll; snacks: black tea, chocolate, muffin; dinner: pasta with meat balls, “Mounds bar pudding” with raw almonds.

Total food spending this week: $44.02

Next week, in addition to telling you what I eat and spend on food, I’ll write a bit about creativity.

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Categories cooking, grocery shopping, home cooking, philosophy, Uncategorized
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