Since regaining my ability to stand, I’ve been cooking like mad. Nothing particularly special, just food. Chicken with Penzey’s Bicentennial Rub. Dill potato salad with creole mustard and lots of celery. Buttermilk coffee cake. Oatmeal pancakes. Brussels sprouts. Salad. Steamed broccoli. Buttermilk biscuits. Miscellaneous fritattas.

This has led into some experimentation with common foods that I really should know what to do with but don’t. Last night was baked trout with lemon and rosemary. Good, but should have done a bit of time under the broiler to crisp up just a tad. I also finally got around to rhubarb, which I’ve been meaning to do ever since I first really noticed it at a market in Edinburgh five years ago. I don’t remember seeing it so much in Arkansas, but I’m not sure if it really isn’t so available there because the heat sets in so early or if I just wasn’t paying attention. Whatever, it exists up here, and I made a rhubarb and strawberry compote a few days back. Lovely over yoghurt. I bought more of it today to play with, since the season is so short.

What else? There’s the Adventures in Grains Initiative. I’ve generally bought reasonably healthy breakfast cereals, but lately got irked by the costs and the oils and sweeteners on the ingredient lists. And then I got my hands on a copy of Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Cafe — not a book I would ever have bought on my own, but Bakerina recommended it, and I’ve already made about five things from it in the two weeks since it arrived. There’s an extensive section on breakfast grains. The great thing about most of them is that you can make a large batch, refrigerate it, and then heat up portions in the morning. (This is the only way I can make this whole-grain thing work, since there’s no way I can bring myself to cook a pot of something for an hour or so on any morning.) So far I’ve finished off my box of steel-cut oats, done several days of polenta, and am now in the midst of anooshavoor, a barley and apricot porridge sweetened with apple juice.

What else? We’re working on spring cleaning, which involves more clearing than usual since the house got so out of sorts while I was stuck in bed and Mister Boyfriend was spending all his non-school time taking care of me. I repotted all the carnivores today (with the exception of the cobra lily). The flytrap has its own pot now so it can hibernate in a closet next winter. The one original round-leaved sundew had eight surviving babies before it died, which I have repotted in two pots in the hope of finally getting some sundews to my mother. My other sundews*, which came in a two-inch pot last fall, have now subdivided into four plants that take up an eight-inch oblong pot. They’re blooming their lavendar blooms, which are so pretty that I hate to lop them off even though I know they’re draining the plant.

What else? Rainy. 50's. Chili on the stove. The ankle is better every day.

*Not round-leaved. Not king sundews. I haven’t figured out what they are, but I know what they’re not.