Sitting Quietly at Home

Last week, not feeling quite my best, but not out and out sick, I sat quietly at home for longer than I have in a long time. From waking to sleeping, I stayed put. Some reading was done--Francis Hogson Burnett exotica, *Square Meals,* where in I found a recipe for a fig-and-crystallized ginger spread for tea sandwiches that I think would be good to try. I'm not huge meat eater, but a pot roast sounded intriguing. As has been pointed out by L.A. writers of note, few dishes are quite as cravenly exotic as a nice pot roast out here. To be fair though-- there is very little call to eat pot roast in this mild and balmy climate. There are reasons why seal blubber is not craved in Miami, and Inuits live quite nicely thank you without an endless supply of mangoes. But as the false chill of the June Gloom sets in, I dream of the savourous warm brown smells of a roast.

I finished reading Verne's *Around the World in Eighty Days* too. The part where they sped across the prairie in a wind driven sledge was particularly exciting--I have a degree of familiarity with the area described. Sometimes I really miss Nebraska. It was a far more mystical and alluring spot than plenty of people might think. Willa Cather could not have come from anywhere else.