75 days ago I linked to two snow clearing articles and still, there’s weather on my mind. MEC discontinued a pant I liked… a perfect cotton-linen blend, drawstring closure, straight leg and I haven’t found the perfect replacement. Linen is either too frumpy or the pant legs are 3/4 length which defeats the bug bite/sun protection purpose. Then again, the weather has been quite cool… jeans might be a better choice. This article is about a different discontinued pant but it’s an entertaining read!
TikTok got me interested in making dal. This week, we'll be trying Melissa Clark’s Sweet Potato Dhal with Coconut. Recomendo recently linked to this “king of dal” recipe, which suggests using beluga lentils and making your own garam masala. I consider that an aspirational dal I’ll eventually get to. For now, I’ll be happy just to get to where Melissa Clark was in 2017. She wrote “As you can probably tell from the three dhal recipes in this chapter, I’ve fallen in love with making dhals” (Dinner; Changing the Game, p. 235).
Our most recent vegetarian supper success were Soy and Lentil Burritos from Anita Stewart’s Canada cookbook. Christian didn’t miss the ground turkey. This website calls them “Chipotle Lentil”. Given we are pale prairie folk, you can imagine nary a fiery spice entered our version.
I’m pretty sure it was Oliver Burkeman who said hobbies should be something you do that you’re slightly embarrassed about, but I can’t find a quote. (His Four-Thousand Weeks is quotable at length, but that is the subject of another blog post). A hobby defined as such is exactly how I think of drawing… and yet, I can’t tell you how delightful it is to be “trying to find (your) way to the back of the sketchbook” as Ian Fennelly said on the Sneaky Art podcast. Listening to artists talk about their work with Nishant Jain, the host, is like opening a window onto a new world. Discovering artists and drawing, just to see if you can make the lines look, each time incrementally more, like the thing you are looking at.
That’s where it’s at: food and a hobby. Should we tie this up with a reference to weather again? Here’s a picture I took last week in which I spotted a piece of rainbow. I didn’t know they did that… that they abandoned their arc form and could deliver a lopsided slice.
