Everything's all white

Dear family and friends,

It sometimes feels a little weird to write this blog, because it records none of the unpleasant or downright bad things that are happening all around us to friends and family—to say nothing of people in the world at large. So I would like to send up a hopeful, loving thought for all of our dear ones who are having problems with health—or anything else. That's vague enough, but some of you know who I mean.

Yesterday morning I made Ilona's son's girlfriend's polenta recipe as well as I could, and I think it came out very well, considering the lack of all the ingredients I needed: I used the roll of ready-made polenta, which happened to contain wild mushroom essence (not a bad thing). I would have made the polenta from scratch (I keep a bag of cornmeal in the freezer), but I wanted everything to be as simple as possible.

I cut the polenta roll into circles and placed them in a lightly olive-oiled 10 x 10 Pyrex pan. I emptied about the last third of a bag of chopped frozen onions into an olive-oiled frying pan and let it toast lightly until all the moisture had been eliminated and the little pieces were beginning to brown lightly. This is almost as good as cut-up fresh onion, and a lot easier.

Next I scrambled 2 eggs with a little water, mixed in the lightly browned onions, a little pepper, some red pepper too, for the heat that the original recipe added in a totally different way. I gave only a little shake of the red-pepper jar, because we don't like a lot of hot.

The scrambled eggs topped the polenta, and on top of that some very nice cheddar cheese. Can't use too much cheese. That of course is not in the original recipe, but cheese never hurts (except for those on low cholesterol diets, of course). Pop in oven, and when everything is nice and toasty, about 30 min. at 350, enjoy! Merwin liked this and I did too.

While polenta was working its way through the kitchen and our stomachs, I was also making soup. In the freezer, I found a container of non-meat vegetable base for soup, mostly shredded beets it looked like (labels would help when I put things away). I defrosted this, added a half quart of low-salt potato soup, and a lot of lentils. I had to thin this later with an additional 2 cups of stock. It simmered away all day long. I served it with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, as in the Turkish restaurant we go to, but my soup, though good, was not as good as theirs.

Merwin insisted on snow-blowing the driveway and walk, and then shoveling where the snow-blower can't reach. All this makes me a little nervous. He does exercise regularly, so it's not as if he is going out there and exerting himself in a sudden burst. He enjoys doing this. Rather laste in the process a couple of teenagers came by to shovel, but it was too late. I told them, "Come early next time!"

Most of the day though was spent looking out at the beautiful snow, sitting at my desk, working on my essay. Merwin pulled me away from it to watch Thoroughly Modern Millie, which somehow I had never seen. It was very silly, and Merwin could not take it and left to go back to his work. I was hooked, however, enjoying the hokey plot and the singing and dancing. The upshot was that I was back in the study after midnight, checking out some new ideas for the essay. I have to add, change, adjust as I think of new ideas. Wow, it gets more complicated—but I hope better.

We are going into the City today, to the Philharmonic, hopeful that the City has cleared up the snow at Lincoln Center. We will meet Naomi there and return home this evening, not too late. It's another one of those lovely plans that are fun to think of for days in advance.

I hope this will be a good day for all of us.

Love,
Bernice