StephanieL

Lower back pain flare-up. I injured my back years ago and I get these flare-ups from time to time.

One Battle After Another. Hoo boy was that intense. I'm glad I saw it at home so that I could take pause breaks. I was going to see Marty Supreme in the theater, but I think I'm going to need the same kind of breaks.

If you're ever in SF, Comstock Saloon will do that for you.

First female Black America's Test Kitchen presenter. She'd been battling ovarian cancer for a long time. https://www.wbur.org/news/2026/01/07/chef-food-stylist-elle-simone-scott-dies

At 78. I think this leaves Bill Kreutzmann as the last surviving original Grateful Dead member.

The Crux Cocktail: equal parts brandy, triple sec, Dubonnet Rouge (didn't have--I used Cinzano Rosso), and lemon juice, shaken over ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass.

Leave it to Laszlo to provide a bit of sanity.

All my parents' doctors seem to be retiring. The nerve.

Our local paper's Sunday food section had a story on seasonal dark beers that include a couple of recipes, one of which was for roasted pork loin and vegetables that used dunkel in the cooking liquid. I asked N to make it since Sunday was another dreary day. While the recipe could use a few tweaks (e.g., using pearl onions instead of quartered yellow onions in the veggie mix), overall it's really good, with a flavorful rub that incorporates spicy German mustard. N experimented with sourdough spatzle, but that came out a little gummy.

Wet wet and more wet. Getting a bit monotonous.

For my most recent birthday, my father gave me a gift card to La Fromagerie, a cheese & sandwich shop with 3 branches in SF. We happened to be near the Marina store, so I bought a dry Norman cider (small bottle) and the following French cheeses, which we sampled this afternoon along with an American-made Fontina with Herbes de Provence: Camembert Fermier: absolutely in top form. While it's made with pasteurized rather than raw milk, it still has the gorgeous mushroom taste and beautiful rind. I'd suspected it was the cause of the funky smell in the cooler bag (and the car, and the refrigerator), but I think the culprit was... Délice des Deux-Sèvres, a small, ash-coated goat cheese. Very creamy pate. N remarked that it appears I like aged goat cheeses better than fresh ones, and she's probably right. Beaufort Alpages: a really nice Alpine raw-milk cheese, firm but not in the crumbly state. $47.99/lb, though. Bleu d'Auvergne: a cheese made for port, this is a brawny, powerhouse blue, possibly a bit too intense. Another raw-milk cheese. We'll probably have the rest with one of our new muscadine jellies. I have enough on the card to get one of their sandwiches and possibly a pastry for a lunch someday--they're a short bus ride from my office.

On my urging, N has revived her sourdough starter. She's made one loaf so far, which came out a little gummy but otherwise tasted good. So far, the discard has gone into English muffins and possibly the best gingerbread I've ever had.

On HBO Max, Happy and You Know It, about people who make children's music for a living, including Beyonce's former bass player and the guy who was the lead singer & guitarist for The Presidents of the United States of America.

We were gifted a jar of muscadine jelly and a jar of (probably homemade) scuppernong jelly. I've never had anything made with scuppernongs, so this will be a real treat.

Going to make the Extremadura BEP from the latest Rancho Gordo newsletter, without chorizo. We have tree kale growing in the garden that we can use for the greens.