I've got nothing to do today but smile

In case the two people still reading this blog were worried, here's some assurance that I am just fine:



Or maybe that causes more concern? I suppose the correlate to the kitchen keeping me calm is that the activity ramps up there considerably when I am stressed.

But you guys, I was so happy tonight by the time I completed the above pictured. I've written before about my fixation on making pasta sauce properly from scratch. And while I often continue to miss San Francisco like a phantom limb, one wonderful thing about my current place of residence is the abundance of produce. Not only can I easily secure all manner of very reasonably priced and locally grown produce at the farmer's market, but also various friends of mine will occasionally surprise me with some crop from their garden.

Yesterday, KS reminded me that she has been trying to unload tomatoes on me for the past three days. People, I am supposed to be doing all sorts of other things right now. I could give you a nice list of at least 5 high-priority-super-important-your-future-depends-on-it tasks on which I should be focusing. And I don't even eat tomatoes. I know, I am a weirdo, but I have never been fond of the texture of raw tomatoes. As I have (slightly, somewhat, very barely) matured, I have been able to force myself to be civil and gulp down chopped tomatoes in a salad or sandwich if pressed. But I really do not care for it.

But you guys, when someone gives you free goods from their garden, you just don't refuse. So it was I came into the possession of a bag of tomatoes slightly past their prime. Only one thing to do really. By good fortune, one of my favorite go-to food bloggers just happened to have whipped up a batch of sauce recently, and I used her recipe for a good basic idea. I remain horrible at following recipes to the dot- some things will never change.

By the time I was finished making the sauce, it was way past dinner. But whatever, I have sauce, and it tastes good, the way fresh sauce should. Tomorrow I am making focaccia, and there is a fragrant little bowl of olive oil steeping rosemary and garlic to give it a little extra punch. And it occurs to me that I am back to what feels right to me again. I know there are other things I ought to be doing, but honestly, occasionally, I need a little break from the full-on medical immersion that choosing this path has entailed. Maybe I do not belong in the most high-powered residency programs in the country, and maybe that is just fine. I belong somewhere that does not try to quell or discourage my desire to occasionally spend an evening squeezing all the seeds out of tomatoes.