Self Care, Sanity, and Einkorn Thumbprint Cookies by Dorothy Grant

169 thoughts on “Self Care, Sanity, and Einkorn Thumbprint Cookies by Dorothy Grant”

1. Dorothy, wonderful! When I discovered the unprocessed pain and grief that my body held, I learned how to take care of my body, specifically. Movement, outdoor play, the joys of the wilderness are necessary for me to stay sane, and thrive.

   Excellent post.

2. I’ll second the recommendation for _Arsenal of Hope_. As someone who is around folks with PTS, it gave me some ideas for better reading of situations beyond “this person is starting to twitch. Should I be concerned?” and ways to reduce other people’s stress loads. As a writer with characters who seem to accumulate PTS, it helped me see what I had gotten right. And what could be closer to right. I will neither confirm nor deny a few “so that’s why I did/do that” moments as well.

   Butter and fats to slow sugar absorption, slow and fast acting sugars . . . sounds like a winner to me!

   1. And I will third the reccomendation.

      Mine wasn’t a soldier, but a civilian kid trapped in a war zone. Not everything applies, but an awful lot does. Enough that it’s been the single most helpful resourse in twenty years.

      1. Yeah, and like the very best of books by a subject matter expert, it’s packed with enough information that going back and reading it over a month after the first time, I’m picking up things I missed the first time.

         That, and my love and I have had some, ah, interesting conversations between now and then, that mean there are different things to consider from the first time through, because people are ever-changing, growing, and learning.

3. Yes, Mom…

   I’ll admit that after reading this, I feel a sudden urge to go upstairs and clean my room, then do my homework (at the picnic table outside, so that I will get sun and fresh air while doing it).

   1. I need to finish painting patio furniture, so I can work outside.
      Yes, I need to paint it. paint is powdering off. Colorado sun.

      1. Frankly, if I didn’t get many comments to this post because people got off the net and made their life better… I’d count that as a win.

         1. I fished out in the wilderness all day yesterday. I need some time to recover and purchase new lures. 🙂

            1. Stop feeding the fish lures. They can’t digest them. Unless you have some kind of mutant sturgeon-catfish hybrids.

               1. It’s the frickin’ rock people that infest the stream bottoms. Suckers take great delight in bending my treble hooks beyond belief.

                  I think the fish just watch and giggle. At least, they were yesterday. 🙂 I saw them. Demons.

                  1. My father always used to say if you could see the fish, then you weren’t going to catch them. On the other hand, he never agreed with snagging, netting, or dynamiting them either.

                     1. My maternal grandfather “called” fish. With a hand crank telephone. Put wires into water, turn crank, scoop up shocked fish. No boom to alert fish-n-game, no fishing gear to raise suspicions.

                        Or so I’m told. *ahem* According to rumor.

                        1. It might be evil (for various values of desperate), but it’s a damned good idea!

                           I’ll have to pass on the cookies. $SPOUSE is celiac/allergic to gluten, and I’m a quarter-step behind her on that path. (Had to give up on the shop-made salsas at the taqueria, because one of the sous-chefs uses H&R flour rather than cornstarch. My personal reaction to an overdose of gluten is best left undescribed. I’ve had worse pain (now–PT started today with evaluation), but it’s well worth avoiding. Cleanup is a pain, too.

                           If I get creative, I’ll look at the Bette Hagman books and see what $SPOUSE would do for sugar substitutes for a similar recipe. (Yeah, another issue.)

         2. I’m always looking for good thumbprint cookie recipes. 🙂

            And my office works with a lot of vets with PTSD, so double plus.

            Then the encouragement to get outside.

            So much goodness.

            1. The aardvark also approves of the recipe.

               1. He does note that you probably want to check that your flour comes from this universe first.

                  1. A good point. Ordering einkorn and getting einhorn could be awkward. The return freight rates are appalling.

                     1. Worse, actual einkorn has — interdimensional differences. However, the aardvark says that mis-universed cookies can be safely disposed of if you use the universe identifier.

         3. I try to get out for an hour walk down the road and back every day if the weather isn’t too bad. Not during plowing, not during torrential downpours, and not when my sneakers stick to melted asphalt.

4. How are you doing? Oh, don’t tell me you’re fine. I’m a woman; I know full well just how vast and unhappy the spectrum of “fine” can be.

   Then why would I give up such a widely useful word?

   1. my answer is “I guess I can’t complain”

      1. That’s my old man’s line too.

         “Can complain. Well I could, but it wouldn’t do any good.”

         1. “Not looking up at the grass. Can’t complain.” Sometimes shorten it. “Not dead. Can’t complain.”

            Gets the funniest looks.

            1. Or, “Any day above ground is a good one.”

            2. “When I look at the grass and see green shoots rather than brown roots, it’s a good day.”

               1. “Looking at the top of the grass. It is a good day.”

                  The joy of all these varieties? What can others do but agree?

                  1. “I’m alive, which beats the alternative, most days.”

         2. I always say, “I can complain, but no one listens, just makes me feel better”

            1. “No one listen to Zathras.”

      2. My response to “Can’t complain” is often, “Why? Is it forbidden?”

      3. My Italian grandmother-in-law’s answer was “No use complain.”

      4. “Pretty good,” Think I used that one the day after the gallbladder came out.

      5. I have a one-word answer that covers the ground without gratuitously giving away any personal information: “Tolerable.”
         ~

         1. “Hangin’ in there.” Which also includes the unspoken warning that if pressed for details, I might provide them.

            1. Well, my Dad upon hearing “How are you” was known to give a long list of phony problems.

               Of course, he did this when asked by somebody who knew him and his crazy sense of humor. (Oh yes, I get it naturally.) 😀

         2. Got asked that question after the first Quest For Primers since February. Since I was wearing the knee brace (Therapist said it needs to be worn outside. Arggh.) and had Igor’s own limp, my one-work response was “Better”. They got the point.

      6. I answer “Vertical!” and see who notices.

   2. When she says ‘Fine’ you should look for something to do outdoors.

      In another county.

   3. Fair to partly cloud.

   4. Still pissing off the people who wish I was dead.

   5. I always have my mother’s “Fair to middlin’ ” or my co-worker’s “Better than I deserve” I tend to stick with “alive and well” – which typically elicits laughter, but my personal favorite is “Fine as frog’s hair”

      1. “Middlin fair” is one that (around here, in some circles) raises an eyebrow. When you drop down to fair, they start to worry.

         [Cotton grades. Fair is “not so good”, middlin fair is “pretty good.”]

   6. I honestly wish “How are you” weren’t a big part of traditional American greetings. I usually get stuck between not wanting to answer the question and not wanting to lie. It’s a personal pet peeve.

      1. Well, Dad would give a humorous answer to “How are you”. 😉

5. Yep, sunlight every day’s good.
   Local, interior Alaska joke:
   Lawyer asks defendant: “Please tell the court sir, where were you the night of 7 November-5 January?”

   1. Which is why Dan turned down really good job in Alaska early oughts. I’d end up dead. Seriously.

      1. Take the same principles as cryosleep slower than light starships, but in reverse.

         Spend 100% of your time in a tanning bed.

   2. Yeah, winter in Fairbanks was the several-month night I discovered that I actually need sunlight for my mental health. Okay, not quite true, but I do remember shuffling out on solstice to watch the sun rise, and set, in about 15 minutes of weak sunlight. Jack Vance may have a bloated red sun over his dying earth, but that day left a permanent impression in my psyche.

      And the friend who was visiting and wasn’t quite sure why this was such a big deal, well, the look on his face when I turned to go inside and unscrewed the lid on the coffee that had been fresh-brewed right before sun-up, and tossed the dregs in the air to rain down as a fine brown mist of crystal shards, drifting away in the slight breeze…

      I did not adapt near as well as my friend Ritchie, who would proclaim with glee every year from Kaktovik the evening he finally conquered the sun for the year.

      1. I grew up in Anchorage, and after visiting for several weeks this February and March realized that I do not miss Alaska winter at all. On the other hand, I can still go to sleep with all the lights on because that’s what you do in the summer whether you want to or not.

      2. Kaktovik, Barter Island,first time I saw a thousand plus caribou hear was there in the mid sixties.

         1. Sigh, typo king O’Neil, Herd, not hear.

            1. You heard the herd?

               1. Yep, I heard the herd right after I’d seen the saw.

   3. I gather that sunlight without night can be too much of a good thing, although I am loath to accept the testimony of Northern Exposure as conclusive.

      Not the clip I was seeking but it is a useful substitute.
      ~

      1. I couldn’t stand that show. I watched the pilot and in five minutes they got three easily-checked details about Alaska wrong, and I turned it off and never watched it again.

         1. Three (easily checked) details wrong in the first five minutes? That sounds like an rare high accuracy level for network television!
            ~

6. Oh, wonderful. JBP reference, and a hat tip to the vile Red Skull comic that tried to malign him. The family has raised over 100k for charity by selling Hail Lobster stickers and gear. I purchased the sticker. It’s hilarious.

   Add in a line from the Princess Bride and that just makes my day. Plus cookie recipes!

   1. One thing I appreciate about this crowd is that I can toss out references left and right, and y’all will get them without explanation. Everyone gets a laugh out of one or two, even if it’s not the same ones as the person snickering to themselves further down the chain.

   2. As you wish.

7. I have had good luck with einkorn as well, and have noticed (with interest) that it doesn’t give me the energy and mood rush-and-crash that modern flour does. I’ve never tried to make bread with it, but I use it in all my baked goods. I love it in brownies particularly, since brownies have almost no flour in them already.

   1. I tried it and found you need to be careful about hydration. It goes from dough to batter in a heartbeat and is very sticky. I mix it with hard, bread flour but you can do it alone. It makes a beautiful golden loaf with a lot of flavor. I’ve also used it to make soda bread and it worked really, really well. Given how soft it is, baguettes would probably come out well too. haven’t done that myself but a I think it would work. For cakes and such, British recipes would work since their all purpose flour is so much softer than ours.

      Sorry, I have a bread problem. My mother always said my last meal request would be for crusty bread with butter.

      1. I like bread too, but I am pretty content with rice as a starch.

         I wish I had more oat flour recipes, though. I like oats, and making cookies with oat flour might be interesting.

         1. My mother used to make oat cakes, they were sort of like floppy tortillas. Delicious hot with butter. Left lots of crumbs since the dough had very little fat.

            My wife did some experimenting with oat flour as opposed to oat meal. The taste is distinctive and she didn’t really like it. I didn’t mind so much.

            1. Oat cakes sound delicious, actually. o_o

               1. Pulled my mother’s recipe file. I suspect these came from Mrs Lalor who cooked for my grandmother since they’re not in my mother’s handwriting. They were for a solid fuel range using cast iron griddles so I’ve adapted them to the way I saw my mother make them. My mother wasn’t much of a cook but she enjoyed the old Irish breads and the only way to get them was to make them.

                  In this country she used McCanns Irish pinhead oats, not quick oats. Bobs red mill steel cut oats would probably work. I’ve made both recipes but don’t really have the knack. tasted good though.

                  Oat cakes
                  3/4 cup fine oats, 1 1/2 cup flour, 1 tsp dry yeast (the original recipe just said barm), 1 tsp salt, 1 egg, 2 tbsp buttermilk, 21/2 cups water.

                  Soak the oatmeal overnight, strain but keep the water. next day, make a batter thin enough to drop of the spoon but not too runny. Let rise for 1 1/2 hours. Cook on a griddle, slowly. They should be thin. Serve with butter or bacon.

                  These cakes along with proper bacon are delicious.

                  She also had a bannock recipe that worked best over a fire with a griddle, but she did it in the stove. they have a thing in Ireland that looks like a vertical trivet designed for cooking these.

                  3 cups fine oatmeal, 2 tsp salt, 3 tbsp bacon fat, 2 cups boiling water.

                  mix the water, fat and salt, pour over oatmeal and let sit overnight. press into a lightly greased, rimmed 1/4 sheet pan or, if you’re good at it I’m not , a half sheet pan. It should be very thin. Toast it very slowly at 265 F for three hours. you’re really drying it out rather than cooking it, fast cooking ruins oat cake. Beak into wedges and serve with good butter or fresh cream cheese, cultured if you can get it. It also works well with blue cheeses. You can use butter or lard instead of the bacon fat.

         2. I MISS potatoes. Potatoes and corn are the only carbs I care for, really.

            1. Potatoes are delicious, and yet I don’t cook much with them either. I’m not sure why? It doesn’t occur to me, I guess. We are mostly a rice-eating household.

               I used to eat a lot lower-carb, and then I ended up in surgery and now I’m having to figure out how to eat lighter, without getting overly starchy. It’s tiresome. All the ‘eat like this to be healthy!’ advice assumes an entire set of digestive organs. -_-

               1. I can’t because carbs. And carbs give me eczema and stuff.

                  1. It is funny, and a little sad, how all these dietary issues make it harder for us to break bread together, isn’t it? Sharing food is such a reliable way to bond that when someone can’t, it’s like a slap.

                     I wish there was a good solution for that. It makes serious problems in social situations that I don’t see a lot of people talking about.

                     1. I forget which movie it was, where a hungry character was asked to break bread with/by another… and the scene was breaking bread apart, ending with the other character telling someone “get this broken bread out of here” – and there had been no eating, of course.

                        1. “Wholly Moses!”
                           And if you never saw it, well, you didn’t miss much.

                     2. *Rueful nod of agreement.* People get really frigid when you say you can go out to the restaurant with them, but you can’t eat anything there. They suddenly don’t want you to go, and all social interactions go to heck from there.

                     3. In our Tiny Town, we try to do the dance of “which restaurant is okay?” before-hand, and sometimes the simple dinner expands to look like a buffet, just to make sure the gluten-free stuff is there, and/or nut-free. Which isn’t a hassle, because dinner can expand to look like a buffet just on “food is love!” and “I found shiny, share the shiny!”

                        Because, it can feel mighty uncomfortable on both sides if someone can’t be fed, and someone can’t eat what’s being fed.

      2. I do einkorn sourdough bread.

         1. That sounds delicious. Lots of interesting flavors and the long leaven should give good texture. lots of holes given the soft flour. I start a sourdough starter every couple of years but don’t stick to it. When I’m baking often, I use a levain, but usually just yeast or at most a biga.

            Recently I’ve been doing brown soda bread because we managed to get some real buttermilk. Yum. I bet the eikorn would work there too because Irish flour is very soft.

8. Our Hostess has noted the higher than average conservative gay men she knows, and also the high number of furies hanging out here.

   What I haven’t seen mention of (probably has been, just before my time) is the apparent sheer number of Goths.

   (yeah yeah I know; it is actually a 99.6% Odd population, odding in different ways)

   1. Well, there was a (brief) period when I was considering becoming an office monk…

   2. Furries, though I suspect there are more than a few latent Furies as well.

      1. How does ‘identifies as Bolo, Necron, Dalek, or one of Saberhagen’s Berserkers’ count?

         Asking for a friend.

         XD

         1. Around here? Perfectly normal.

            1. Versatile, too.

         2. I think I’ve posted this quote here before, but it never hurts to do so again:

            “They may have Claymores and Dragons, but we have Bolos and Ogres!”

         3. Sounds well within the range of “normal” for this crew.

      2. Well, every woman as a “bit” of a Fury in them.

         Why do you think “The Female Is The Most Dangerous Of The Species” came about. [Nervous Grin]

         1. They failed to kill the last man that attacked them and he escaped to tell the tale.

            1. “failed to kill”?

               Nope, they wanted somebody to survive. 😈

               1. They understand the problem of “then who tells the stories?”.

         2. “When you’re lying there wounded on Afghanistan’s plains/And the women come out to cut what remains…”

            1. Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your God as a soldier

      3. I’m a guy. Can’t be a fury. While I don’t mind sporting the total black clothing bit, I really don’t fit with goth. I think I have more of an affinity to Pan, Hermes, and Apollo.

         https://brainfall.com/quizzes/which-demigod-are-you/result/21jt5l9/
         Interesting.
         You are a child of Apollo, the god of music, arts, knowledge, sun, light, plague, and archery. Extremely popular, you would make a great celebrity. You might be a little self-absorbed at times, but you’re fun to be around!
         Alternatives are: Child of Hermes, Artemis, or Dionysus.

         1. I live in central Florida. Takes a whole lot of commitment to wear black all the time down here.

            1. AH, but I don’t mind the night.

   3. Akshully, Huns were not /real/ Goths

      (Yeah, I couldn’t resist.)

      And the number of furries/goths/weeaboos/martial artists/professionals is not /that/ high compared to the expected value.

      1. No, but a whole lot of “Huns” were ethnically Goths.

         1. Atilla is a gothic word, means dad, or old fella or something similar.

   4. I was a bit surprised to find out it wasn’t just me here.

      1. About half my friends, half of my “adopted” writer kiddies.
         I’m not. Never much saw the point. But whatever y’all do.

         1. I’m in it for the music and the dancing and the clothes and the sexxxy deth chix. 😀 Unlike so many others, it was never an angsty teenage phase for me. I’d been into New Wave and synthpop in college, and then when I was 22 I saw the video for Sisters of Mercy “This Corrosion” on MTV and it was like I had an epiphany.

            A lot of the goth aesthetic I can appreciate but have little interest in. People know I’m a goth and that I DIY and sew, and they say things like “your house must be so elegant” — I tell them that no, actually my house looks like a library threw up on an IKEA showroom. On a good day, when building materials aren’t stacked in the hall and the bed is made.

            And dark poetry and all that? Pfft, whatever. Stop pretending that gloomy is attractive and take your black-wearing ass outside and enjoy life fer chrissakes.

            1. I tell them that no, actually my house looks like a library threw up on an IKEA showroom. On a good day, when building materials aren’t stacked in the hall and the bed is made.

               Ah! I know and live this aesthetic! I make sure that the building materials stay out of the walking path though.

               1. I hit Home Desperate for various items and thought I’d take a look at 7/16″ OSB prices. I was shocked when it hit $30 a sheet, but today’s $61/sheet (for 7 freaking 16ths OSB) is a tad crazed. I saw plywood cheaper than that–probably 1/2″, maybe CDX–but I’m sooooooo glad to have finished the necessary construction projects last year.

                  OTOH, 2 x 4 prices are merely expensive. Somewhere between 80 and 100% higher than last year, not 6X or so.

                  (Remembers stash of 5/8″ OSB and sighs in relief.)

                  1. A 2x4x8′ at my local HD is $7.96. In 2019 it was more like $2.96.

                     Looks like I’m putting off my kitchen bumpout for another year. All the building materials currently inhabiting my hall are for the cleanup and renovation of my master-bedroom-to-be: trims/moldings, electrical boxes, etc. The drywall-for-patching and flooring have already gone in and either weren’t too jacked up or were bought ages ago.

               2. A reminder about not trying to pronounce furniture names at IKEA:

                  

                  1. I never had much interest in Ikea even before I learned about their labor practices during WWII.
                     ~

         2. Orbiting in the outermost fringes here. A lot of early music exposure was goth-adjacent, even if to me that is just “normal music”. And the color black has a clear advantage over most others in that where normally you have to put effort into making colors look good, with black you have to put effort into making it look bad.

            Sexy Death Chixors of course have their advantages. At least so long as they are still recognizable as human (see above about making black look bad).

            1. My music is 10 years older than I, because of brother.

               1. The siblings I helped raise all love 80s music.

                  1. I was doing the grocery shopping the other day and caught “Safety Dance” on the Muzac … and couldn’t help thinking that it would be nice for a group protest in Washington DC.

                     S-s-s-s A-a-a-a F-f-f-f E-e-e-e T-t-t-t Y-y-y-y
                     Safe, dance!
                     We can dance if we want to.
                     We can leave your friends behind.
                     Cause’ your friends don’t dance,
                     and if they don’t dance, well they’re
                     no friends of mine.
                     I say, we can go where we want to.
                     A place where they will never mask.
                     And we can act like we come from out of this world!
                     Tell the real one kiss my ass.
                     We can dance.
                     We can dance if we want to.
                     We can leave your friends behind.
                     Cause’ your friends don’t dance,
                     and if they don’t dance, well they’re
                     no friends of mine. …
                     ~

                     1. I now want to do this. HARD.

         3. I was the angsty teenager, but I had reasons, and I didn’t wear black (but I would have, if I’d been buying my own clothes.) Once I got into college? I went to the Goth side, then eased away for a while when I was flying. Among other things, any oil-based cosmetic reacts very, very badly to pure oxygen. The last thing you want during a decompression/rapid descent emergency is your face catching fire under your O2 mask. (Lip balms are especially bad.) I got back into the music/culture side of the scene a few years ago, but there’s not much of a club scene around here, plus I like keeping my hearing, what’s left of it. 🙂

            1. Oh definitely. I’m an eldergoth and I have the tinnitus to prove it.

            2. I also was the angst teen. I also had reasons.

         4. Hung out online with some, until they got “woke”. Before that, they seemed fairly smart. But when they throw a tantrum over a line like, “Specifying *A* color for which lives matters is the same as playing Global Thermonuclear War – it has the exact same winning move.” Well, they’ve self-declared a bad case of thought-absence.

         5. Pretty much typical headbanger here.

   5. Actually I think most of the females here keep their need for vengeance quite in check.

      1. huh?

         Oh, the typo, heh.

         1. It took a second to realize what you actually meant. For a moment my brain went “Wait, what? I’m hanging out with a bunch of man-hunting vengeance demons?”

            I mean, I know Sarah and Fox can get pretty heated when they get into arguments but I didn’t know it was THAT bad. 😛

   6. the high number of furies hanging out here

      Ancient Greek avatars of revenge? Man, this place is getting rough. 😛

      1. Last to the typo party.
         Interesting sci-fiish idea: In any sufficiently crowded language, single letters make a huge difference. Actually, this is a property of any sufficiently efficient coding scheme: The more efficient it gets, the less damage tolerant. If you want your language to be compact, but also fit enough comments into the namespace, then you start getting collisions.

9. I’ve been experimenting with einkorn, too, and now I want to make those cookies. But could I substitute vanilla for the lemon?

   1. You could definitely try it! I’d keep the liquid proportions the same, as einkorn is more finicky about liquid ratios than modern wheat, but otherwise, sounds like a great experiment. Let me know how it comes out!

      1. You know, if you didn’t worry too much about the springing part making the design pop, you could probably do a nice einkorn springerle without the designs. I mean, it is a baking powder cookie anyway. And the recipe is very low water compared to most cookies.

10. Um… You ‘could’ make us a few, ya know… And yes, explosive decompressions are ‘fun’ for versions of fun, especially when you finally comfortable under your station because of the warm floorboards, and drifted off to sleep for the transit home… The bottom tray of the station HURTS when you smack it jumping up… sigh

    1. Bring cookies next time, got it. Do buttery cookies count as buttering up my beta readers?

       1. Make them in the shape of the Greek letter?

11. I’m not fine. Best described as course, probably

    1. Not Fine, Also not Howard. But generally on course?

       1. Besser or Palma?

          1. Don’t know if you’d Palma, but if you did you might need some medical attention to get Besser.

    2. I’m “as well as can be expected”. 😀

       1. I got low expectations (~_^)
          I’m a bit more course than usual. The zipper on my riding suit was a bit tight over the less than slim waistline. Tighter than it has been. Gotta move more and eat less.

12. Yeah. Yesterday afternoon was a very nice day out, so I ended up bringing my laptop out to the backyard and working there for a while. It was only about an hour or so, but it was relaxing, and I was able to get a lot more work than usual done.

    It was nice.

    1. Local City had serious amounts of smoke, but I had an appointment with the dentist. Nice air conditioning, balancing the not-so-fun in the chair. Seems the need for anesthesia for the front teeth is a) highly variable, and b) quite high for me. Not sure how many times I needed Moar ‘caine! before the last of the problem teeth came out.

       OTOH, I’m tolerating the partial reasonably well.

13. Regular/daily training-exercise is a good thing. Even better when at least some is done outside in the sunlight and fresh air.
    I generally try to split the difference between outdoor hill runs an kettlebell work/PT. On bad days (weather wise) I’ll go Into the gym.
    And being good to yourself, eating and sleeping right is important

14. Too lazy too make cookies, and it would take me less time to eat them than make them.

    Now, sunshine is another thing. Have always chosen being outside over inside. Bonus to get enjoyable exercise while being out. For me it’s yardwork, smacking golf balls, or the odd walk on the beach while mind-singing John Denver’s “Sunshine”.

15. Rhubarb sauce is REALLY good on pork… to where I buy pork just to go with the spring hyper-production from my rhubarb patch. Much better combo than applesauce!

    Also, if einkorn is helpful, try also emmer wheat (another that’s low gluten).

    1. I will do a pork loin roast in a crock pot with a generous helping of orange marmalade, soy sauce, and garlic. Let it go for about eight hours, strip off the fat cap, then shred the meat and put it back in the cooking liquid for another half hour or so. Been asked to make it for dinner parties several times.

16. Crunch for a couple projects at the day job.

    Doing a bit better on the self care. Got out of the house yesterday when I was stalled out on work. Got some more sleep last night.

    Any day one isn’t fitted for a coffin or a straight jacket could be a lot worse. 🙂

17. Please to keep in mind that “Self Care” does not correlate with “Self Abuse.” Please find somebody you love and who requites your love to abuse you.
    ~

    1. Reminds me a line form a song about alternate engergy sources, from some otherwise forgotten TV show (more documentary or such, not pur entertainment… for most.) old enough that the end pushed “gassified coal” as the saviour. “..but atomic self-abusion, stunts the growth of fusion.”

18. I linked to this AND copied the recipe. Hopefully, that will be sufficient not to forget about it. Aside from using up package mixes (so they don’t need to be packed), baking is on hiatus until after the move is complete.
    Remote Buyers Agreement signed today. Local Sellers Agreement next week.

19. “by the time you realize that you are a complete wreck, well, you’re a burned-out complete wreck”

    This is warely a worry with wallabies as we’re wonderfully wesilient — it says so right o the label, wight after “warm wash wecommended” and “do not bleach.”
    ~

20. Count me as another goth who loves the sun. (“What the hell are you doing in Seattle then?” Seattle has four-count’em-four seasons and the summers are actually very sunny. Also it’s pretty temperate, neither super freezing in winter nor baking in summer.)

    As I’ve gotten older and de-acclimatized from growing up in Alaska I’ve noticed that I get SAD more and more each winter. However, since Covid I’ve been taking a lot of Vitamin D and it wasn’t as bad this time.

    1. To a first approximation everyone is severely deficient in D3.

       1. “How come you almost never get sick?” “I work nights in MN. I take D3 supplements as a matter of course. Turns out that’s a Good Idea.” I do still get sick, but my *feeling it* is rare. And my downtime is usually short.

          1. I started taking it early last year for reasons of obviousness.

             I *ought* to have had a yearly cold by now. Instead I’ve had a few times of feeling like the earliest stirrings of a cold but not quite sure, which goes away in a day or two.

21. I finally gave in to it– and took melatonin for two nights. I felt better. Last night I didn’t and I’ve had a low-grade headache most of the day. Some of this sleep deprivation is because the machine wakes me up every 2-3 hours about 3 times a night. It was already 90 degrees here so my sun will have to be much earlier in the morning. I have decided to watch less news. The stress is too much. Anyway, thanks for the reminders.

    1. We don’t watch the news and haven’t for years. I have a news app on my Surface that I look over every morning and read one or two stories and that’s it. As long as I have a general idea of what’s going on, I’m good. And, morning sun is the best.

    2. Dropping “the news” does wonders. And be aware that the dose-response curve for melatonin curves DOWN with higher doses for many.

       1. Yea– which is why I don’t do it more than a couple times a week.

22. Oh, hey, TIL that one of Jesus’ lesser known titles is “Mountain of Cheesemaking” (Mons caseatus) or “Mountain of Dairy Products” (Oros tetyromenon).

    Basically, the LXX translator decided to translate the meaning of Bashan in Psalm 67/68, which is something along the lines of “makes food.” (Possibly wheat-growing.) And since everyone knows from other Bible verses that there are bulls and cows of Bashan, LXX guy decided that it meant “makes lots of milk, butter, and cheese.” So the verse was put down as “The mountain of God, a mountain of fat;” (ie, butter) “the mountain of dairymaking, a mountain of fat.”

    And since the Hebrew talked about Bashan being “a mountain of many peaks,” the Old Latin translators sorta made a joke and translated it as “a mountain of breasts,” meaning “a mountain of udders,” which in Latin implies a wealth of nourishment. (So it went, “The mountain of God, a mountain of udders, a mountain of cheesemaking, a mountain of udders.”)

    Anyhoo, there’s a lot of stuff in Apponius about various fertile things being symbolic of Jesus the Bridegroom, following on the example of the apple tree in Song of Songs. And Jesus being the Mountain of Cheesemaking is one of them.

    1. So what you’re saying is, “blessed are the cheesemakers” wasn’t too far off the mark?

       1. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

       2. Pinky: Naaaaaarf!

       3. Always look on the bright side of life!

       4. Also, the basis for the hymn, “What a friend we have in Cheeses.”
          ~

       5. Well, promising a land flowing with milk and honey does suggest dairy products.

          1. Dunno – it could be almond milk.
             ~

    2. LOL

23. With unicorn?! Oh… einKorn, not einHorn. Ne-ver mind.

    1. LOL

    2. I busted out laughing at a tourist pamphlet in Germany that had been translated with Otto, as well as having a typo in the German version. Crops grown in the area were dinkel, rye, and unicorn. Oops!

       1. ROFL.

24. Great posts today, unencumbered by intellectual speculation. Hope I don’t ruin it.

    I make my own cheese when I can get free milk. Tried the wheat flour substitutes with little success so I’m sticking with wheat. These things work for me:

    White kidney bean powder. A spoonful before eating starch blocks the amylase enzyme that converts starch to sugar, leaving undigested fiber and gas. It’s also very nutritious, even if you do lose a few picky friends.
    Sucralose and erythritol for sweeteners.
    Chitosan (ground shellfish shells) supposedly soaks up fat. The Vietnamese are the thinnest, healthiest people I have ever known. They eat platefuls of raw greens and shrimp with the shells still on. (Crunchy but you get used to it.) Chitosan capsules or a spoonful of the powder before eating fatty foods.
    Skullcap capsule at night — no more sleep problems!

    Gave up alcohol — been a couple of years now; never felt better. Lost 50 lbs. Quit smoking too but I do enjoy vaping. Shun sugar. Lo carb, lots of raw veggies.

    1. I use xylitol for day to day sweetening (mostly in my coffee, and in Calmer Half’s cuppa), but when it comes to sweets, I am inclined to skip the pretense of healthy and acknowledge it’s bad for me, and I’m going to enjoy it, and then not have it anymore.

       …although I do a good keto brownie recipe, but that’s because sometimes, a lady needs chocolate in quantity, and the point of the exercise is to make life better for the household. Heh. Why do I suspect the next time I make that, and type raptures to the joys of capitalism and chocolate, Our Beloved Hostess is going to clear her throat and demand I write it up again as a guest post, with recipe included?

       1. Xylitol is extremely toxic to dogs. Even small amounts of xylitol can cause hypoglycemia, seizures, liver failure or even death. So I try to avoid it since my JackChi roommate is accustomed to sharing my meals. I think that the kitties are OK. So what about us humans? Erythritol has a lower glycemic index.

          Trung Nguyen makes their G7 3 in 1 instant with xylitol — world’s finest. Their instant coffee is an extract rather than a powdered brew. Not easy to find in the US — Austin Vietnamese supermarket had it sometimes.

          I forgot to mention that I segregate my day into “fat” and “lean” — eat some Chitosan during bacon time, saving lean time for the fat soluble vitamins in more “healthy” food.

          Writing, flying and guns are good companions. My Dallas business partner Steve did the latter 2, but made money instead of writing. Ever run into him?

25. Grab this recipe off Epicurious and save it so you never have to go back to that site again. This is the best cookie I’ve ever eaten! It’s got oatmeal, chocolate chips, and peanut butter. (Search for joses oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookies also takes you there). For low effort sugar and carbs the humble Scotcheroos can’t be beat.

    https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/joses-oatmeal-peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies-11797

26. So, interesting thing. A lot of people who react badly to wheat products in the last 10 years or so aren’t actually gluten intolerant. They are reacting to the RoundUp being sprayed on the wheat to force the field to ripen all at once for easier harvesting. My family discovered this because my father had a 40 gallon drum of hard winter wheat that is older than I am, and dates from long and long before the spraying began. Many people who had previously thought they were gluten intolerant could eat his homemade bread without issue, so it was the artificially introduced chemicals that they were reacting to, not the gluten.

27. Reblogged this on Head Noises and commented:
    All Dorthy’s post is worth reading, but here’s the recipe:

    Einkorn Thumbprint Cookies

    1 stick butter

    1/4 cup sugar (52 grams)

    1 egg yolk

    1.5 teaspoons lemon juice

    1.25 cups all-purpose einkorn flour (145 grams)

    1/2 tsp salt

    jam (or marmalade for more awesome!)

    1. Preheat oven to 350

    2. Slap some parchment paper on a baking tray

    3. In a large bowl, stick the butter in the microwave to soften. Mine half-melted, and came out fine.

    4. Cream/Mix the butter and sugar together, then add in egg yolk, lemon juice, and salt. Mix until smooth.

    5. Break out the kitchen scale and tap in flour if you do weight. This stuff is finicky enough about moisture I actually do that. Otherwise, scoop and dump the flour and whisk it all together (or use a mixer; whatever floats your boat. These are not supposed to be stressful to make.)

    6. Grab a spoon and dust your hands with einkorn flour, then start rolling the dough into balls. At the size I rolled, just under ping-pong sized, I got 11 cookies. Remember they are going to be smashed, and then spread further while cooking, so leave space. Re-flour your hands frequently to prevent sticky dough sticking.

    7. Keeping your thumb dusted, make a… thumbprint. Or a cross. Or whatever design kicks over your gigglebox, as long as it doesn’t make the bottom of the jamwell too thin for cookie integrity.

    8. Spoon jam into the depression, in quantities just small enough it won’t overflow.

    9. Bake for 12-19 minutes, until golden brown. If you like tiny cookies, 12 will do. If you like large cookies, just keep careful eye on ’em once past 14 minutes.

    10. When you pull them out, set the timer for 8 minutes, and do not, no matter how tempting, give in to poking the cookies before it goes off. You just pulled boiling sugar out of the oven, and it’ll stick like napalm to the roof of your mouth with great burnination if you don’t let it cool!

    11. When cool enough, grab a drinkable and enjoy!

    If you were hoping for a calorie or carb count, you’re missing the point of having fun. Make your treats actually treats, and don’t detract the joy by worrying about it!

28. c4c

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