A seething mass of turgid drama.

This week's Resolution Recipe: Salmon and Soy Cakes.
"When you have lemons, make lemonade. When you have cooked salmon, make salmon cakes."
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This week's Resolution Recipe: Pepperocini Pot Roast... For Science!
"This is my take on Mississipi pot roast. The pepperocini season the meat, and their brine adds a little bit of vinegar tang."
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This week's Resolution Recipe: Mortadella Cookies.
Medieval mortadella sausage is 1) not emulsified; 2) does not contain pistachios. But this is a thoroughly modern cookie recipe that (spoilers!) looks quite like its target. Pics on FB in the Saluminati group if you're interested.
( Lengthy instructions, but surprisingly quick and easy )

This week's Resolution Recipe: Tunisian Orange-Almond Cake.
"Breadcrumbs, used in place of flour, give this Tunisian-style cake a delightful texture."
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I've been fighting a cold (and losing). Not major, but a dry cough and now some congestion. Last night I took cough syrup, and when I woke myself up with a bout of coughing, the wife persuaded me to take an additional half dose since it had clearly worn off. This meant that I was slow getting up - which I knew was likely to be the case, but was probably a good tradeoff for not sitting up in bed coughing for a few hours.

Anyway, I moved slowly enough that I actually missed the backup bus that gets me into the office slightly early instead of significantly early. (shrug) Then I discovered that the wife had borrowed my transit card and not put it back. One upside to missing that bus: I had plenty of time to walk the block back to the house and get the card.

In other news, a couple years ago I bought a single malt advent calendar. It was great fun and I even bought a bottle of one afterwards. I didn't repeat last year but I did this year, and apparently that was a mistake -- I am still enjoying the 1 oz bottles, but I have fallen a week behind with the cold and general malaise and I may not go back to it until January. This goes in the file of "do not repeat unless/until you are genuinely excited about it".

This week's Resolution Recipe: Seupa Vapellenentse (Savoy Cabbage Soup.)
"Like French onion soup went skiing in the Alps and came back heartier."
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Ten points for correctly placing the post title.

This week's Resolution Recipe: Steamed Clams in Black Bean Sauce.
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This week's Resolution Recipe: Kefta Tagine (Moroccan Meatball Stew).
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Yesterday the wife and I went for a hike in Marin. We didn't get to the waterfall that the trail was supposed to lead to, but we had a great walk in the redwoods that always rejuvenates me. Plus some fantasizing about houses along a creek and surrounded by said redwoods. I would completely be in my happy place if we lived there.

Dinner out was at a Fronch-Californian-Japanese restaurant we've been to before. We keep going back because it punches above its price point in quality, and since we're usually seated at the long bar where they plate we get dinner and a show. Last night was a dinner with a Mendocino winemaker and the place was completely booked - which good for them. Dinner was excellent as usual, though the rich food did interfere with my sleep as I expected. And I'm going to eat lightly today...

Miss Beatrice is unhappy with the restoration of circadian rhythm time - aka "roll back from jet lag time" - because it means her food dish rotates an hour later. So she's been running all over the bed trying to get us up. That combined with the cool-and-rainy morning meant I got up ten minutes later than usual. I decided to skip my morning coffee so I could get out of the house on time.

And then the bus was five minutes late.