StephanieL

I'm in the second-to-last group here in CA, and N is in the last group. We'll be biding our time for a while.

Not these, though someone we know did make the hand pies. The ravioli and Eastern European dumplings are straight from the shop. :-)

Don't apologize at all. We have a lot of premade frozen things ready in the freezer for when we don't want to cook.

Rogue Brewing's Pineapple Party Punch: what you get if you mix a hazy IPA with a pina colada, and take away most of the latter's sickly sweetness. Very hop-forward, like many hazy IPAs, and clocking in at 8.4% ABV.

Everything sounds fancy in French.

My folks are set at Bayshore Hospital now, thank goodness.

ANOTHER Hall-of-Famer.

The piece of meat was pretty fatty, so N put the drippings through the fat separator so we didn't end up with greasy gravy. Last night's dinner was pizza beans made with RG Royal Coronas and homemade tomato sauce.

My parents' original appointment was in Hackensack too.

My parents in NJ, who are both 77 years old, had a vaccine appointment for 2/2, then it got cancelled. Apparently, that particular hospital got a glitch in their reservations system, opening up to a wider population than it had planned for (ie, just healthcare workers). So they registered with the state and who knows when they're going to get vaccinated.

--Roasted lamb breast with N's mixture of herbs and spices that she put together, and two types of sauce: one made from the defatted lamb drippings and one based on brown mustard & parsley --Pan-roasted sweet potatoes --Oven-roasted carrots and parsnips --To drink: Rogue Brewing's Combat Wombat --For dessert: the remains of a peppermint crisp tart made by a fellow South African

When you squeeze and can 8 cups of Meyer lemon juice, it only makes sense to save a little bit for a post-canning cocktail. In this case, a Tom Collins, with the soda water added to the shaker after the other ingredients had been shaken but before straining.

Oh good--this means the ones we didn't turn into canned lemon juice yesterday will do just fine in the garage, especially once it starts to cool down later this week.

It's really good. We had a couple of slices when it came, then put the rest in the freezer because we're currently making our way through another big dessert.

Another RTBC: getting 5 gallons of Meyer lemons for free from someone on Nextdoor, made even better by the fact that I thought I was getting regular lemons. It may sound like a luxury, but if you have a fruit tree or two here having way more fruit than you could ever use is a common problem. In San Jose, there are gleaning services that will harvest your extra fruit (including any that grow very high up on the tree) and distribute it to food banks.