Weekly Update - July 15, 2022

Here we are in the middle of July and thus the middle of summer in my book. My sympathies for my friends in Arizona who are starting back to school this Monday. It's just not right.

• If you subscribe or read the Bon Appetit magazine, you need to make the turmeric-dill fish tacos that is in this month's issue. It's what we had for dinner tonight and they are extremely tasty. We have no leftovers. It is a kind of cha ca/taco mash-up. (Actually you don't need the magazine because I just did a little searching for you: Turmeric-Dill Fish Tacos You're welcome.)
• If you are wondering what cha ca is, I'll tell you about it. It is a northern Vietnamese dish which is one of my favorites. On our second trip to Vietnam, we went to a cha ca restaurant in Hanoi. There are several of these restaurants and I have no idea what the name of the one we went to was. They all serve one thing: cha ca, which is catfish cooked with turmeric, dill, and green onions served on rice noodles with various toppings. We got to the restaurant and went upstairs to the second floor which was packed with tables. It is not... cool inside. This is because first it is Vietnam in early summer and because each table has a very hot brazier on it where the fish is cooked. All you do is tell the waiter how many servings and order your beverages. Our excessively small amount of Vietnamese could handle this task. The waiter then heats up your brazier and tosses the fish on along with the dill and green onions. Once the fish is cooked, you are given the noodles and toppings and everyone adds to their own bowl from the common dishes on the table. Those of us who have been to Vietnam all keep running lists of meals we need to go have again and this is on all of ours. I can make it at home, but while close, it is never quite the same.
• I am growing borage in the garden for the first time. Isn't it cool looking?

But other than the bees loving it and it being cool to look at, what do I do with it?!

• In other garden news, my cucumbers and dill are doing extremely poorly this year and I don't know why. This is not good news as I was planning on making more than a few quarts of dill pickles this year for my pickle loving children.
• Y. has rediscovered that she loves doing counted cross stitch. She found an old project that she had started but never finished and spent the last couple of days working on it. She has done an extremely good job.

I have now helped her find another project to work on and she has made a start on it.

• H. has discovered the craft section of the library and recently had checked out several books on lettering. Here is her most recent project which she plans on giving to a friend at her gardening group.

Writing that out made me tear up a little bit, I realized. There are so many things H. does these days that we just take for granted, but ten years ago, when she first came home, I had serious doubts how much she would ever be able to accomplish. I didn't know if she would ever be able to figure out how to entertain herself, to have the ability to choose things for herself, to understand what books were for and to be interested in them, to be able to read, heck, to be interested in anything. Sometimes I am broadsided with surprise by where she is now.

• G. and L. have spent the last few days cleaning their room. (It needed it. Desperately.) L.'s desk area in the dormer space was not cleaned, though. I was told the L. "couldn't make use of her creative genius in a clean space." Well, who can argue with that?
• The new list of classes for fall that are being offered at Fine Line Creative Arts Center is out. There are more than a few classes I would really like to take, but I'm afraid the realities of time and budget are going to curtail that. I am going to have to pick and choose and that will be sad.
• These are candy cane zinnias that I started from seed. They make me happy every time I walk by them. 

• I have too many books checked out from the library that I want to read, so end up reading a little bit from one and then a little bit from another. I need to be a little more organized, I think, or they'll all come due and I won't have finished any of them.
• The oven we ordered is in transit according to the tracking number we were given. It cannot come too soon. Everyone is becoming rather desperate for baked goods and when I am planning dinners the only things that sound good require an oven. I've lost track, but I think we are heading into week three or four without one. 

And now I'm going to go read one of those books that are piled around my room.