At least you have the past—I needed more than that

[sovay]

I had a rough night and very little sleep, but several nice things happened in the course of the day.

I had a bagel with sturgeon for lunch. It was accidentally made with cream cheese instead of its proper butter, but it was substantial and decadent all the same. I can't remember the last time I had smoked sturgeon. I think I was in New York. This one came from Mamaleh's. I want another one—with butter—soon.

I Zoomed with the mongeese, otherwise known as my godchild and their age-mate houseguest from the UK. They share the kind of high-explosive energy that caused me and selkie to start humming "20 Tons of TNT." Once they left the conversation, I heard faint noises filtering through the screen that I thought were artifacts until I was informed the youth were experimenting with musical instruments in the basement.

I made spice krinkles from The Essential New York Times Cookbook (2021) with my mother. They turn out to trace to a late eighteenth, early nineteenth century recipe that I would love to see the original of—the current form is heavy on the molasses, the cinnamon and ginger and cloves, and the dusting of white sugar on top that cracks magmatically in the baking. They looked ridiculous in the oven and tasted just as good out of it. I took a picture because they came out so beautifully that I started laughing.

Late in the evening there was a scarcity of cat litter and I found myself inside a supermarket for the first time since last spring. I wouldn't call it a nice thing exactly, but I was successful in my quest and took the opportunity to collect a number of staples for the human side of the household as well as a couple of treats. The experience of browsing up and down the aisles was sufficiently unfamiliar as to feel, especially at night under the Kubrick fluorescence, almost science-fictionally unreal. I miss museums. I miss bookstores. I miss eating in restaurants. I miss movies in theaters. I miss walking through cities without thinking about it. It is not enough to want to pretend that everything is normal again.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Those spice cookies are beautiful--super cracks! (Now if you had a glistening icing, you could put it between those cracks as a kind of kintsugi.)

I'm glad for the good things in your day.

[yhlee]

*support support* Yay for good things! Those cookies look super photogenic and delicious.

[selkie]

Litter of mongeese, going cheap. Perfect for running your niece through the neighborhood. Or the Olympiad.

I am going to make those cookies as soon as I can think to measure things.

[sholio]

Those cookies look amazing. 10/10, would eat.

[minoanmiss]

Those are lovely cookies, and also I want so many pleasures of life back. I hear you.

I also have a question for you. I'm going to make stickers out of this ancient poem written about in The Guardian a little while ago:

"“Λέγουσιν They say / ἃ θέλουσιν What they like / λεγέτωσαν Let them say it / οὐ μέλι μοι I don’t care / σὺ φίλι με Go on, love me / συνφέρι σοι It does you good.”

I'm trying to decide if I want to keep the Greek or just use the English text, so I thought I would ask a wise and handsome Classicist. So what do you think? :)

[cmcmck]

These look so good!

[thisbluespirit]

I am glad there were nice things and hope that there will also be more sleep as well tomorrow! Er, today, probably. Whenever!

[gwynnega]

Those cookies look spectacular!

[ethelmay]

I haven't checked the recipe line by line, but it looks very like my family's molasses cookies. I sometimes make them rolled in raw sugar, but it was plain granulated back in the day. My grandmother made a quite different kind, small, soft, humped, and iced, which I don't have the recipe for. My mother said they were too much trouble and disappeared even faster, so we had those only at Grandma's.