The List: April 2015

April is my birthday month and always an interesting time for taking stock of my life. I spent the month having a mini existential crisis ("What am I doing with my life?"), catching up with old friends who call/e-mail with birthday wishes and consoling myself that age is just a number and the best is yet to come. Meanwhile, many of my quilter friends are decades older than me and when I tell them how old I am, they swat me away, saying, "Oh sugar, you're only a baby. Just you wait."

This was also a whirlwind month for us. V was out of the country most of this month. And now I'm off to Africa for a few weeks for work. One Hot Stove might be pretty quiet over the next month or so, but I wanted to leave you all with a little round-up of the highlights of this month.

Cooking: I got turnips again in last week's veggie box and since two readers suggested that I make turnip sambar, that's just what I made. This right here is officially my favorite way of eating turnips now. The turnips soaked up the tamarind and spice and were just perfect.

To go with the turnip sambar, I made some sautéed cabbage- tender and juicy, it is a great rice substitute to my taste. With a dollop of ghee, it made for a most satisfying meal.

Baking: Carrot cake. I used this recipe from The Kitchn, halved it and made it in an 8 inch round pan, and made a lighter frosting with much less sugar. Carrot cake and Spring, they just go together so well.

Reading a lot of random magazines and only a few actual books- On Immunity by Eula Biss, The Kitchn Cookbook by Sara Kate Gillingham and Faith Durand and Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids by Laura Markham.

Watching intense documentaries on Netflix: Touching the Void- an incredible tale of mountaineering and survival, Dear Zachary- a documentary tribute by the filmmaker to his murdered friend, Into the Abyss about a death penalty case in Texas.

I also watched a couple of movies (again, movies that everyone else on planet Earth has seen years ago)- Groundhog Day and Bridget Jones' Diary- both were good fun, and Dirty Dancing- I've loved that last dance scene and song forever but finally saw the whole movie.

A friend recommended Smilla's Sense of Snow so I watched it, and thought it was full of atmosphere but with the most absurd plot. And my all-time favorite show is now on Netflix- M*A*S*H- and that makes me so happy.

Laughing at Lila and Duncan. Our gentle giant puppy Duncan has finally stopped growing. I think. He was 95 lbs in January, 95 lbs of pure goofy sweetness. He loves little kids, he loves people, he loves other dogs, he even loves cats. And people love him- we can't take him anywhere without people stopping to coo over him.

Duncan is big enough that he feels like he can get away with anything. I caught him sitting on my bed atop the freshly laundered sheets and yelled at him to get off. Lila heard me, marched into the room and said, "Mama, you yelled at Dunkie and that hurts his feelings. Please can you ask him nicely? Try again." So not only do I have an over-sized dog who won't listen to me, but I have a over-sized dog who won't listen to me and who has his own spokesperson.

Lila is at the age (3) where kids are highly entertaining. Lila is in a hurry to grow up. She can't wait to be 5 years old like the cool older kids in her class. She asked me, "Mama, when I am 5 years old, can I drink coffee, use markers and wear a bra?" I told her she could do one of those three things, but she can't use markers till she's 10.

They teach her all kinds of things in preschool. Lila came home talking about Abraham Lincoln. Who's Abraham Lincoln, I asked her. "He's the cutest president of the United States".

Tell me what you're been eating, reading, watching and laughing at. 

I will be back to the blog in a few weeks, when I return from Kenya- my first trip to Africa. Wish me luck!