Inside the Little Plastic Castle

Spent a lovely long weekend in Up North in Rhinelander. Tragically, the air quality was unhealthy for sensitive groups so I couldn't swim. I hate this timeline.

We cooked up a storm, including a strawberry crumble to die for, based on Nigella Lawson's recipe made GF on the fly.

I spent most of my time chatting with great friends and admiring beautiful clouds. So lovely I didn't take any pictures!

I'm giving myself comment amnesty, so feel free to drop pointers to your DW in the comments.

• MyGuy makes BLTs twice a year. He sets aside three strips of crispy bacon for my delectation. This week I went wild: gluten-free buckwheat crackers generously slathered with creamy simple peanut butter and then crowned with bacon bits. It was a party in my mouth! All the textures, lots of tasty fat, lots much crunch.
• Oatly Chocolate Dessert is pretty damn wonderful. Oat milk brings a creamy mouth feel very close to milk. The chocolate is not as dark as I’d love, but being able to eat ice cream without starting a war in my guts is excellent.
• Another sky picture! Brown prairie, bare trees, rolling hills dominated by medium blue sky with five contrail artifacts and low clouds coming in from the south. Indian Lake Park, Dane Co, Wisconsin — 10 December 2020 — 50 degrees F ( inside the cut )

I need a lot of salt and protein in my diet. Several years of experimentation yields this recipe. I switch between tofu and turkey cutlets as my protein. ( 608 words )

1. Do you mostly prepare your meals at home or do you eat out more?

Mostly at home for two good reasons: I have dietary restrictions, and MyGuy's cooking is great!

2. Is there a time of day when you are more likely to buy food already prepared?

If I've missed lunch and it's after 2pm

3. What is your average weekly grocery bill? What is your total restaurant/fast food bill for an average week?

For two people, $190 week for groceries, $29 for eating out.

4. What is your favorite meal to prepare at home?

Breakfast: sweated onions and greens plus 20g of protein (Greek yogurt, turkey burger, chicken thighs, sautéed fish or liver)

5. What is your favorite meal to order in a restaurant?

Sushi, or fancy risotto, or ceviche, or pakora, or I'll eat anything I can eat that's too much work to make at home.

Sunday I rolled to the Gulf Coast YMCA branch. The water was deliciously warm at 85°. I neglected to bring my flippers, so only swam 8 lengths in my allotted time, but that's why I exercise to time, not distance.

The pool may be filled with filtered sea water: it's certainly soft enough.

I streamed the first half hour of the final Sherlock to my massive disappointment. As always, plaidadder nails it

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I think that I may fairly make two postulata:

• 1) Whatever about series 5, this episode was designed to be the last episode of Sherlock that Moffat and Gatiss would make.
• 2) It should be.

http://plaidadder.tumblr.com/post/155952044114/the-perfect-metaphor-the-final-problem-and-the

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We walked over Mississippi Sound on the 2 mile bridge connecting Biloxi and Ocean Springs. The view, the sun, the breeze, were exhilarating. My traditional direct attention to the water photo memorializes one stop:

Home to nap, and finish The Final Problem. Wow, that was terrible. (As with most Sherlock canon, there were a handful of wonderful moments, but...thank god for fanfic. I heartily recommend all of plaidadder's.)

We then drove back to Biloxi to assess what was where. The beachside road is furnished with a wide array of architecture: brick Waffle Houses; massive casinos; 1940s apartment buildings; humble 900 sq ft shotgun houses, Frank Gehry's typically bizarre Ohr-O'Keefe Museum, and the Biloxi Visitor's Center, a majestic three-story former mansion.

In my brief time here, I've seen scores of historical markers, displays, websites, pamphlets. Based solely on the ones I've seen, the only people on the Gulf Coast have been the immigrant waves of French, English, Spanish, and "Americans." Africans aren't mentioned anywhere. This is what it looks like to be written out of the narrative.

The third Monday in January has officially been "Robert E Lee's Birthday" in Mississippi, until this year. Twitter shaming played a part in the Biloxi City Council voting unanimously to bring the holiday in line with the Federal designation of Martin Luther King's Birthday.

We finished our day with a promising but ultimately dull meal at Mosaic. MyGuy liked his pulled-pork quesadilla. My ceviche & rice-stuffed portobello was tasty, but not enough to write home about, although I seem to have done so.

Time to swim!

Better living with upper respiratory infections

Gluten Free Pie Crusting: An Observational Study