The beauty of Thai chili peppers. Last night I made Thai chili sauce --- basically just peppers, vinegar, water, honey (the recipe called for sugar, but I used honey to taste) and salt --- to go with a Thai red curry, consisting of ground turkey and vegetables, served in bowls over a bed of cauliflower rice. You could quite easily do the exact same thing with stir-fried crispy tofu --- the main thing is the sauce, which is easy. Red curry paste is one fridge staple I'm never without. Just a spoonful in coconut milk (another staple in my house) makes a sauce, and it is delicious. I did use fish sauce in my curry, but a vegetarian could substitute soy sauce/tamari/aminos, and it would be fine. A simple red curry that you make yourself is a nice way to get the flavors of Thai cuisine without the peanuts which are so often a feature of that cuisine.
Anyway, this was a really good dinner, and I had the remains for breakfast.
Today so far I have:
*not celebrated the memorial of Sts. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus by doing housework
*done an 8-minute whole-body workout
*walked the dog
*washed my hair
*started and made substantial progress on a Substack essay for Thursday
*worked on revisions to a poem
*played Mah Jong as well as my usual New York Times games
Tonight is the first meeting of my Gawain Poet class --- I'm looking forward to it! Yesterday I read "St. Erkenwald," another poem putatively by the same 14th-century poet, in preparation. The plot of St. Erkenwald is that it's the 7th century, they're building St. Paul's Cathedral, and they find a miraculously incorrupt corpse beneath the foundations of the original pagan temple on the site. They call in Erkenwald, the bishop, who interrogates the corpse about who he is, what kind of life he led and --- most importantly, where he is in the hereafter, heaven or hell. The corpse, beginning to speak, replies that he is a pagan magistrate who lived with as much virtue and integrity as a pagan could have done, deprived of the knowledge of Christ, whom he now --- though exiled from paradise --- recognizes as savior of the world. Ultimately, in literary history's only recorded case of posthumous baptism, he is admitted to heaven and goes there happily.
It's a good time. And it'll be fun to read through Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and at least one other work attributed to the same poet in the 8 weeks of this course.
I was also happy to see that the seller has shipped my new-to-me/very-discounted Wool& Brooklyn dress. It should arrive on Friday, and I'm eager to try it on.
In fact, wearing today . . .
*Wool& Brooklyn dress (S/Long) in Pacific, bought May 2023, last worn July 16 in Nova Scotia. Wears in 2025: 10
*Secondhand Xero Z-Trek sandals, year 1 of wear
I am curious to compare the fit of this dress (which I think is actually a hair larger than its Beetroot counterpart) with the Medium Regular dress I've just bought secondhand. It is occurring to me that more blousiness in the bodice and fullness in the skirt could be a very good thing. Although I washed it by hand and line-dried it, this dress is feeling a little drawn-in right now, not draping quite as nicely as it did when I wore it June 21. Or maybe --- and this is entirely possible --- it's me. Either way, I will be interested to see how this other dress fits.
Welp, back to work.