For Later

Put off for now
Spring dreaming about cooking to come. I hesitate to buy new ingredients at this point. Our pantry is out of canned chickpeas, which nixed the first two. They both use tahini which is what I'd like to finish up. Guess I better go buy eggplant, parsley and lemon so I can baba ghanoush it up. 

Lentil and Chickpea Salad with Feta and Tahini, Smitten. Calls for green puy lentils, small red onion, handful of cilantro or Italian parsley.

Carrot Salad with Tahini, Crisped Chickpeas and Salted Pistachios, Smitten. 

Easy Gan Bian Si Ji Dou (Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans), Serious Eats.  

Coffee Creme Caramel, Hiroko's Recipes. I found this when trying to nail down the microwaved cake recipe. Looks like a fun site with Meat Free Monday suggestions. 

Sublime name
Daughter of Huey 'Piano' Smith - Acquelyn Donsereaux. Recently retired nurse now serving on the nursing school board in NOLA. Known as Nurse Ackie, I wish her all the best. I learned about her and her marvelous name thanks to the mention in this Language Hat post. 

Break it down
Compost container for kitchen, recommended by K.B. Spangler: Stainless steel gallon jug. ABQ composting, info here from the library system, will be a whole new game. One option I just read about is Bokashi, fermenting in a sealed container rather than composting outside. Sounds super stinky! But then the resulting slime has to be buried to finish breaking down, which doesn't appeal to me. I don't think I want to be a worm rancher but that is another option instead of trying to keep an outdoor pile damp enough in the desert conditions.  

Avernal
Malignant, poisonous. A new word for me from an Elizabeth Bishop poem. The dictionary definition here doesn't include the story that the vapors from the poisonous lake were strong enough to kill birds flying over it. Really good essay on EB here, I didn't know anything about her beyond admiring the "One Art" poem. The author uses "alcohol use disorder" where I would have expected "alcoholism". I think I like that. Near the end is this piercing phrase "Bishop commemorates the tricky art of living in a body". Quote from Ernie Hilbert in the Poetry Foundation bio of EB, "...her poems are balanced like Alexander Calder mobiles, turning so subtly as to seem almost still at first, every element, every weight of meaning and song, poised flawlessly against the next." Wowww.