The Carrot or the Stick

The week has flown by, but it’s going well. We had a long power outage on Sunday due to a tree around the corner from us getting blown over in the wind, but after that things have gone smoothly.

Thanksgiving break is so close…I ordered Thanksgiving Dinner for us from Treehouse and got the dinner for 4. I’m going to supplement with a few extra dishes (roasted vegetables, cranberry sauce) and then we will have some Thanksgiving leftovers and save a bit more cooking. I’m excited to have a few days off from hearing Zoom Violin!

This weekend is a bit busy as I’m teaching an improvisation class AND doing a studio recital. Next week is a well deserved break!

I did some more canning on Tuesday. I made pickled cranberries for the upcoming holidays and I made a cherry almond jam recipe with frozen cherries I’d gotten over the summer. (Originally fresh). The jam is delicious—two of the jars didn’t seal so I have been having to eat it already.

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We are trying a meal box from Purple Carrot this week—I got it for free from a friend. Purple Carrot is a vegan meal delivery service, where they deliver the ingredients and you have to cook. We aren’t vegan (I eat seafood and dairy and eggs, but try to avoid most other meat products) but we enjoy eating vegan meals (hence the Thanksgiving meal). I made one meal last night and it was nice. Was it as good as Blue Apron? Not so far, but I actually think the meal I made was the least appetizing looking one (I chose it because it looked easiest) so we will see how the other two add up. I was a little concerned that there was very little added salt and pepper in the instructions and it didn’t use up an entire can of beans it provided and told you to save them, so I went ahead and added them. It seemed like from the directions they thought people might be limiting their calories more…I suppose people might eat vegan to be healthier, but I see it as more of an environmental and sustainable choice. I don’t think 500 calories is a good amount for a dinner for an adult, so I added some salt and used all the beans.

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It was called something like Tomato Gratin with Farro. It was tasty!

The news has been quite disheartening lately. It seems very few people are willing to continue making any sort of sacrifice to save lives. I am particularly frustrated at our lack of government help: it seems somewhat obvious that what we really need to do right now is pay people to stay home, and instead we are just shaming college students for not wanting to stay isolated in a dorm room.  I feel like everybody else is pretty much living life normally and complaining about things being online while the death toll mounts, and they warn us that hospitals will be overrun. I know over the summer we did a few things, but we really tried to analyze the risk involved, and currently the community spread of this virus is out of control, and you have to assume that you or anybody you run into might have it.

On a brighter note:

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If I’m stuck at home (and technically I’m not, I could be going to concerts, restaurants, and weddings) at least I’m stuck with these guys. Aren’t they the cutest?