Tour de squash

From the site reluctantgourmet.com:

Squash was introduced to the colonists by our native Indians when they first arrived in America. In fact, there is evidence that squash was eaten in South America more than 2,000 years ago. The English name for squash comes from the Narragansett Indian word askutasquash, which means green-raw-unripe, which was the way the Naragansetts ate it.

I don't know if it's a little-documented side effect of medication I've been taking, or if it's just what my body needs and I'm listening a bit better, but I have been craving squash. Since Christmas Eve or thereabouts when there was a big bowl of buttery peppery bright orange mashed-up butternut squash with the buffet-style family dinner. I looked at it that night, and I thought, "I want that. I want a lot of that."

Then on New Year's Eve I had baked acorn squash. It was just the thing. And I thought, you know, there are so many kinds of winter / hard squash, and I encountered so many in a previous career but didn't eat them very often, I want to sample every available kind. I want to have squash for dinner and lunch a few times a week.

So here are the squash(es) (see, I'm not even sure whether the plural of squash is squashes, or just squash--and I don't know anyone who speaks Naragansett) I have consumed in 2008:

Acorn (technically not 2008, though I had a bite of some on January 4)
Spaghetti

Butternut
Kabocha
Delicata
Red Kuri

So, you may ask, what's the favorite? They're all tasty, and the spaghetti squash is unique, but maybe the good ol' butternut is my favorite. The traditional mashed-up-with-butter (or olive oil), salt and pepper way is good, but baked, chopped into cubes and fried to garnish lentil soup was really good too.

Run, Forrest, Run!

I'm definitely not running right now. Still walking pretty slowly with assorted props. I'm already more than a bit weary of wearing this brace. The novelty of it has worn off and I'm feeling a bit like poor little Forrest Gump. (Special thanks to somebody who recently suggested there was a resemblance, too.) My goal for the coming week is to be able to unlock (i.e. bend) the brace when I walk. I'm not supposed to do that yet, nor does it feel like I should. My leg muscles can't quite hold me steady. Before my second physical therapy session last week I was lamenting the sudden dramatic loss of muscle strength in my right quad and hamstring. Amazing how quick it goes. But then the PT gave me quite a boost in pointing out that, unlike many people a week out of knee surgery, I actually have visible muscle tone (at least in my quad--my hamstring muscle currently just sort of flops, but it's then it's been through a lot). He also said I'm on or ahead of schedule with my range of motion.

So the moral of the story, if anybody reading this is anticipating knee surgery, is: get on your bike and ride. As much as you can. Up the biggest hills you can manage (understanding that not everybody has a 'Karla'). I don't think I realized how helpful it would turn out to be. Not just good fun exercise.

I made it through a whole day yesterday without any Norco. Before that I was down to half a pill every 24 hours. Looks like I can manage alright with just Vitamin I and ice at this point. Good progress. I also have a fridge and freezer loaded with ready-to-eat food. Mom left me with a big pot of chili frozen into meal-sized portions, which I'm enjoying for lunch with my Sunday football today, and my friend H left a lasagna I'm going to bake for dinner...wanna come over?

Going to work tomorrow. Don't know if I'll stay the whole day but I'm ready to give it a try. Our office manager will pick me up bright and early at 8:30.

Juniper Lake

Went camping here last weekend.
Climbed Mt. Harkness and turned around. [When you click this link, Mt. Shasta appears in the photo.]

Made new friends. (Well, I didn't catch her name, exactly...but she was such a dear.)



On Saturday night,
watched the sun set behind Mt. Lassen.


Paid attention to detail. (Really, click on that link, I had no idea the picture was that big.)

Not shown: the sky full of stars, or the view from the middle of the lake as I paddled across in the neighbors' kayak (a couple from Marin County who go camping at this lake every year around this time), or those neighbors and their exclamations of delight over the smoked sturgeon and brie with green peppercorns I shared with them, or the beautiful guitar playing and singing of neighbors on the other side of my campsite. Just all around a nice place to live (but for the lack of any kind of modern plumbing) for two days. Far enough up a washboard road from town that I felt quite motivated to eat whatever it was I brought and / or participate in community cooking ventures. On Saturday night I contributed Annie's Shells & Cheddar and a pot of fresh broccoli simmered with garlic, and the kayak neighbors had hotdogs and grilled chicken and chocolate chip cookies. Good deal all-around. Later I went over to play some music with the other neighbors, who seemed not so much the hotdog eating types, but they were adventurous and willing to try the fair trade organic coconut curry chocolate bar I bought at the Co-op. It helps to speak a couple different languages when one goes camping. I speak hotdog, vegetarian, and numerous dialects of chocolate. To name a few.

The Evils of Peer Pressure

Up here in Westport with some friends and friend's sister's family. Eight-year-old nephew B last night announced, with wry grin, "I want to see Emily try the Bertie Botts," or something to that effect. Referring to some unique jellybeans produced by Jelly Belly on behalf of the Harry Potter empire. Now it may not normally seem like such a throwing down of a gauntlet to challenge someone to jellybean tasting, except that these particular beans came in flavors of Sausage, Earwax, Vomit, Earthworms, Soap, Rotten Egg, Dirt, Boogers, and Black Pepper. As it turns out we all sat around the table (three kids, and three "adults") and passed the box around. Of the five flavors I tried I was able to chew and swallow three; one I had to spit out, and one I chewed once tentatively and then swallowed whole like a pill with a Dr. Pepper chaser. I will say additionally that I did not get around to trying the Earwax, Soap, Black Pepper, or Dirt (I figured dirt would be redundant after the Earthworm anyway.)

I think the point of these ill-favored beans, or a point, is to laugh hilariously at other people's reactions to eating them, and then to be laughed at in turn. It's [s]not like anyone is eating them against his / her will and doesn't therefore deserve to be laughed at when they make a horrible nasty face at the oddly realistic flavor of Earthworms. Not that any of us really know what earthworms taste like, of course. But they can't be all that much worse. Just less sugary.

Pigskin: a new fragrance for women

I have observed a phenomenon whenever I mention football playing or football practice in "mixed" company...the male half of the other couple will scrape his toe on the ground and say to me, "well, if you ever want to toss a football around...." I had no idea that this urge / need was nearly as universal as it appears to be. We can scarcely step outside, football in tow, without some guy drooling and asking us please, will we throw to him?

Okay I'm exaggerating just a tiny bit but not really that much. I had a moment of vague concern that the late-30-something guy who asked me to throw the ball to him today was going to try to run off with it and I'd have to perform an open-field tackle, a skill I'm still struggling with at practice. Maybe some guy stealing my football would be just the thing to send me over the edge into the kind of full-throttle hit I'm supposed to do. My coaches have astutely observed that I seem to have a little mental block about hitting. Or a medium-sized block.

We ate bison steaks for dinner tonight and my prayer on the food was that some spirit of the bison would be with me that I might charge fearlessly at my opponents with GREAT momentum. I don't know if a bison would typically be interested in doing this but I imagine once they get to runnin' they don't stop for nothing no how.