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Charred broccoli and carrots with cumin, coriander and smoked paprika. Bluefish with rosemary/chive mayonnaise (could've used a couple more minutes under the broiler). Potato salad.

Today we are concerned with color, so dinner is olive drab. Schav with watercress, and dal with chard. Very pleased with both. Chopping up the watercress would have made it easier to eat, but also less pretty. I erred on the side of pretty.

I finally found a 1lb, $5.99 bag of King Arthur at Essex Market, and thanks for the tip re Baker's Authority. I don't know where I'd put a 50lb bag, though. Maybe I'll get a big trash can and put it out on the balcony, like my dad did when he started buying high gluten flour to make bagels and had to buy 100lbs at a time (that was the minimum, back in the day).

I still eat out of cartons sometimes. I don't see the point of moving soup or lo mein to a bowl, unless I'm planning on saving some of it. And transferring an order of chirashi from container to plate is just gonna mess it up.

Now there's an idea. Or a line of barware. Sippy cups for the kids. I should try to get Alison Roman to mock me, for publicity.

Horseradish and/or wasabi would likely be a positive addition. And/or hot sauce, judiciously applied. I love tomato water, and don't want to overwhelm it.

Vodka, tomato water, pickled chard stem, dash of brine. It's either called a Byproduct, or an Anemic Mary. I am now drinking my leftovers, instead of eating them. It's not very good. Needs salt. Also acid. Actually, it may not need to exist at all, but I hate to waste tomato water.

I still can't find bread flour anywhere, so I got some 00 flour and made pizza from the Roberta's recipe for the first time (I usually use Leahy's). I was worried the dough would be hard to work with, 'cause it's so wet, but I floured up good and things went fine. Just a basic pie - tomatoes, white mushrooms and one leftover morel, mozzarella from Valley Shepherd, oregano, parm. I didn't refrigerate it overnight, but I think I will next time, to see if I can get it to puff up more.

I think I asked one of the Greenmarket vendors to put a little assortment of potatoes together for me (since shoppers aren't allowed to choose their own any more). And I put off eating the purple ones 'til last, because, yes, they are weird.

Squid stuffed with chard, mushrooms and breadcrumbs. And watercress soup. Which is a weird color, 'cause the only potatoes I had were purple.

Yes, of course. I guess the good news doesn't look as bombshell-y to me as the bad news.

Well, there's a couple bombshells at the end, one of which is not good at all. Anyway, I do miss bars, but not as much as I would have thought, before.

Today is better than yesterday. Morels, scallops, asparagus and potatoes from Union Square Greenmarket. Chives and thyme from my wind-battered balcony. I also learned a valuable lesson, which is that despite what the internet tells you, you cannot make an approximation of heavy cream by whipping milk into melted butter. But you can make a lump of unmelted butter sitting in a pool of milk. #themoreyouknow

A while back I took a shot at making hand rolls, and they turned out pretty well, which made me think I could probably make maki if I felt like it. Not so much! I tried my hand at an avocado roll with some spring garlic / ginger sauce (the Momofuku thing, only different). So what went wrong, you ask? 1) I got nervous that my sushi rice was too salty and vinegary, so I added another portion of plain rice, and then it wasn't salty or vinegary enough. 2) I don't know what the hell kind of nori I have in the house, but it is ALL WRONG, in that it is too stiff and also perforated (wtf?). I brushed it with water to make it more pliable. 3) I don't have a bamboo mat, so I used a dishtowel and saran wrap, which is something of a problem, but more importantly, I am apparently not a natural at this rolling thing. So I ended up with a loose, shaggy cylinder that threatened to fall apart if you looked at it wrong. I ate it, it tasted fine, but the whole affair was kind of demoralizing, so much so that I followed this sad excuse for a meal by poaching a piece of bluefish and eating it with some fennel pesto I made yesterday, which is not also very good, and looks like a mess of oily green hair. I'm not in the best mood.

Maybe they're watching it for the articles.