Entry tags:
bao and bows
Among the items and services I donated to this year's auction at my church, the offer to read sonnets didn't spark any interest, but the winner of the three-month subscription for homemade bao prevailed over other bidders by their willingness to pay more than $125 for the goods. I delivered carrot and mushroom bao to them last month; today's batch was pork:
I worked Sunday night and until 1 a.m. today to clear enough of the decks to take today off, both so I could deliver the bao freshly steamed and to give myself room for rebalancing life with ghosts old and new. My mother would have been 77 today. My Aunt Cherry died this morning. I downloaded Marissa's Grief, as Faithful as my Hound to listen to later.
I have made more batches of bao this year than in any other. I have delivered them to households dealing with COVID-19 and with bereavement, as well as just sharing with friends and colleagues because I was able to. My mom taught me a hack: when you don't have time or energy to make the dough from scratch, Pillsbury Grands or the equivalent will do. As with pie crust, I can taste the difference, so I make my own when I can, but it eases my mind (which in turn adds ease to my prep) to have backup options in the fridge.
That said, I very recently learned that the Quakers are organizing against General Mills/Pillsbury, and that others are on board (see Ora Wise's plans in the Grub Street survey of people at MeMe's).
Both my boss and my financial planner called me this morning at 10 a.m. The call from my financial planner was, well, planned - we needed to touch base about my IRA, and doing so on Mom's birthday was appropriate. We discussed the election, and I was like, "My dude, democracy isn't safe yet." Speaking of which, here are a couple of currently active groups:
https://thecivicscenter.org/
https://postcardstovoters.org/2020/11/15/234/
Current reading includes Kenny Lao's Hey There, Dumpling!. I forget where I read that one should eat dumplings on the first day of winter solstice for good luck (although my intermittent reading pile also currently includes Carolyn Phillips's All Under Heaven), but there are worse invitations to fortune one could extend . . .

I worked Sunday night and until 1 a.m. today to clear enough of the decks to take today off, both so I could deliver the bao freshly steamed and to give myself room for rebalancing life with ghosts old and new. My mother would have been 77 today. My Aunt Cherry died this morning. I downloaded Marissa's Grief, as Faithful as my Hound to listen to later.
I have made more batches of bao this year than in any other. I have delivered them to households dealing with COVID-19 and with bereavement, as well as just sharing with friends and colleagues because I was able to. My mom taught me a hack: when you don't have time or energy to make the dough from scratch, Pillsbury Grands or the equivalent will do. As with pie crust, I can taste the difference, so I make my own when I can, but it eases my mind (which in turn adds ease to my prep) to have backup options in the fridge.
That said, I very recently learned that the Quakers are organizing against General Mills/Pillsbury, and that others are on board (see Ora Wise's plans in the Grub Street survey of people at MeMe's).
Both my boss and my financial planner called me this morning at 10 a.m. The call from my financial planner was, well, planned - we needed to touch base about my IRA, and doing so on Mom's birthday was appropriate. We discussed the election, and I was like, "My dude, democracy isn't safe yet." Speaking of which, here are a couple of currently active groups:
https://thecivicscenter.org/
https://postcardstovoters.org/2020/11/15/234/
Current reading includes Kenny Lao's Hey There, Dumpling!. I forget where I read that one should eat dumplings on the first day of winter solstice for good luck (although my intermittent reading pile also currently includes Carolyn Phillips's All Under Heaven), but there are worse invitations to fortune one could extend . . .
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