finished first: Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl

I liked her first book, "Tender at the Bone", and I was actually searching for her latest, "Garlic & Sapphires", which details her life as a New York Times food critic. This book takes place in-between, in which her first marriage falls apart, her father passes away, and she gets to go to China. It's really hard to describe how much it hurt when I read that she was not just going to China, but she was going to Taishan, or as the Chinese dude corrects her, "Toi San". (However, if you were actually saying it in the dialect, it would be "Hoi San".) I was like, fuck, she's going to where my parents are from. It would have been right after the Revolution, and she probably went nowhere near my actual village.

So that part was kind of hard to read. The other part that was difficult to read was when she and her husband decided to adopt, and they had to give back the baby to the mother. She fights really hard to keep the baby, even though deep down she probably knows the right thing to do was to let her go.

Throughout the entire novel, food is a constant - defining seduction, comfort, security. She includes several recipes for foods she made while either working out her emotions, or atoning for her perceived sins, or for wallowing.

waiting for time to pass

I have the day off today, but it's not for fun - I have a couple of doctors' appointments today, and apparently no doctors are ever open on weekends.

Things I pondered this week:

How the hell am I going to cook the giant zucchini my mom gave to me last week? It is about a foot long and five inches wide. I am not exaggerating. She's been giving various giant zucchinis from her garden, and I am seriously starting to run out of ways to cook them. I've baked, roasted, grilled, fried, stir-fried, etc. And I really need to make us eat this one this week, otherwise it'll just go bad, and I'd hate to waste fresh food.

Mark and I have been trying to plan our meals - 1. to eat better, 2. to force ourselves to cook, 3. to save more money. It worked okay the first week, but we're running into some snags. The most annoying being - Mark hates leftovers, and he hates having the same thing twice in a row - like if we have Chinese food for dinner, he doesn't want it again the next night, even if it's not leftovers. He needs novelty, even though he's not necessarily a picky eater. The other thing I'm running into is that we're not eating enough of the groceries we get for the week. We always seem to want to eat whatever's not in the kitchen. Yesterday I caved and we ordered take-out, because I didn't eat lunch until nearly 2 o'clock, and that led to me being cranky and not wanting to cook. We're trying.

If you're in the Bay Area, you should pick up this week's SF Bay Guardian, because it's their food issue, and they have a pull-out magazine listing a bunch of different places to eat at. In their weird foods section, they recommended Yank Sing and said, "When's the last time you had chicken feet?" To which I thought, "Wusses! I ate that two weeks ago!"

Watched Project Runway last night. I *heart* Michael. You can look here for the Fashion Week presentations. Some of them did swimsuits this time, and yes, there is proof that Uli can design something other than halter dresses. I hated Jeffrey's. Laura's was pretty but boring.

Anyway, time for me to head out.