We had a little cluster of holidays a few weeks ago.
The first one was Chinese New Year, changing from the Year of the Rat to the Year of the Ox. It's not an event with a lot of personal significance for either of us, but we did order takeout from a local Chinese restaurant that we hadn't been to before. It's right at the end of our usual walk, along a nearby trail, so we'd seen the place quite a bit. It's kind of convenient because it takes them about 20 minutes to prepare the food, and it's about a 20 minute walk from our place. It had to be takeout, because at the time we were still in lockdown, although I think we would still likely just get takeout, even though we've since gone back to the red zone.
For Valentine's Day we didn't do too much. I made lasagna, and Lee-Anne made Caesar salad and garlic bread.
Some foods taste good but they aren't photogenic. My usual go-to example for that is lasagna, but this doesn't look too shabby, if I do say so myself. The candle lighting, and being surrounded by better-looking foods probably helps.
During the first wave of the pandemic, I was trying to reduce my diet to staple foods, but I also wanted to use everything in my cupboards. I had a package of lasagna noodles, which is good for two three-layer lasagnas. My first one was a three-cheese blend of ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan. It was good, but the amount of cheese that went into it astonished me. When you're not used to cooking something, it opens you to rude awakenings like this.
So I used almost all my cheese, but I needed to use the rest of the noodles. I remembered hearing somewhere that some people don't use cheese at all, substituting it with a bechamel sauce. So I learned how to do that, and it was okay... but it would have been better with cheese.
But the bechamel reminded me of the cheese sauce on a croque madame that I'd had when me and Lee-Anne were visiting one of my Toronto aunts. With this data, I was sure that if I combined what went right with each of the lasagnas I'd made, I could make a superior version. At the time, me and Lee-Anne were distanced because of the pandemic, but I told her that when we reunited, I would make this superior lasagna. I never got around to it though, until this Valentine's Day.
So I combined the three-cheese blend with the bechamel to create a cheese sauce, and this was the result. I think it was pretty good, but I'm not going to post the recipe to Gryphood, because I don't know if I would go through the effort of recreating it. I have a simpler lasagna recipe now.
Probably more interesting than learning how to make lasagna, is that me and Lee-Anne were in a panel for a Valentine's-themed session for people with albinism. We, along with three other couples, answered questions about our relationship. While someone else on the panel was in a relationship with someone with pigment, I was the only pigmented person in the Zoom session. It's a funny feeling, being a minority in a room full of people who are one 17,000th of the population. They call people like me "pigmentos".
The people running the session were friends of Lee-Anne's from NOAH (National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation).
And then for Family Day I didn't do much. Called home, and me, my mother and my brother just caught up a little. No real established traditions yet for a holiday so young.
I'm reviving my reviews blog. Since one of my goals was to read at least six pieces of fiction this year, I figured I could do a review of each of them. This review is for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.
My background in blogging is rooted in book reviews. I actually had a blog on another site before this one, way back when I was a teenager, and most of it was me talking about books. It's never been my most popular content, though.
So I'm trying something new. I thought maybe the fact that my reviews are full of spoilers might turn some people off, who might want to hear my recommendation without having the plot ruined. So now I'm including a no-spoiler review before my full review. The no-spoiler review is also a little more brief, because I know I can ramble on. So check it out if you like:
https://gryphonsreviews.blogspot.com/2021/02/book-review-amazing-maurice-and-his.html
My reviews are so unpopular, in fact, that of my five blogs, it's the only one with fewer views than posts. That is, until recently when my cannabis strain review recently got an influx of hits. Turns out one of Lee-Anne's brothers tattled on me to his mom for smoking cannabis over two years ago after it had been legalized.
https://gryphonsreviews.blogspot.com/2019/01/cannabis-strains.html
That review also has a link to my two other posts with my reaction to Canada's legalization of cannabis.
I won't say the brother's name, but it fittingly rhymes with "nark"
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