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Dismember the gourd

Behold, we have news:

Oz is a grandpa. He kept checking the blog back around that last weekend in October, but I am a bad blogger anymore. Not that he needed me to tell him, he just wanted to read what I had to say about it.

And I say, The baby is cute. And when he got fussy, Oz handed him back to his parents and we cleared out. Not having had any kids myself, I feel like I've totally cheated, skipping straight to grandparenthood like this. And I get to keep my figure too, as my neighbor pointed out.

I am still employed and I'm coming to you from Real Job Land, aka Alexandria. How long can this last? This evening, on the train from Richmond, an attack of paranoia about convinced me that they'll be firing me any day now. We've finished the most intensive part of the training and now we're working. It's okay so far. I'm wondering if I'll get bored with it once I get good at it. In the meantime, the steady paycheck thing is pretty cool.

Due to time constraints, my main creative outlet these days is cooking. I make up lunches to take to work. Since I discovered the amazing benefits of a high protein lunch (You can stay awake all afternoon!), I have been experimenting with beans and rice. How many different ways can I prepare it? Quite a lot, I'm finding.

This weekend I got to flex some different culinary muscles. At the natural food store we found a Japanese gourd (kabocha) and a huge pile of end-of-season sweet Italian peppers in all the beautiful colors: red, orange, yellow, green, and all the variations therebetween. We made kabocha simmered in dashi, sake, and a bit of soy sauce. I don't think we got quite the flavor that I recall from Japan, partly because the American kabocha was somewhat thinner-walled than the Japanese kabocha we enjoyed on our last trip, and probably also because our broth is missing some secret ingredient (like a vastly greater quantity of sodium). Still, it's about as good as I'm going to get on this side of the Pacific. Then I cooked the peppers into a sweet summery pasta sauce with herbs, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and marsala. So delicious and probably the last we'll get of that till next August.

Of late, I have not had enough time to goof off with my camera. I'd probably get put on a terror watch list for photographing the area where I work. It's dark by the time I get home. I don't have that much stuff in my apartment to photograph.

I suppose I should further explore the modeling potential in the produce section and the gutters of my neighborhood.