Post scan celebrations

The banana ice cream is done.  With plenty of chocolate sauce left, we indeed decided to make strawberry ice cream to go with it.  Yet another David Leibovitz recipe, with sour cream to balance the sweetness of the strawberries.  We've been busy enough that we still haven't gotten around to eating any of it.  Don't worry, I'm still eating plenty, although my weight seems fairly reliably dependent on the time of my cycle rather than going up as I continue to eat and eat and eat.  It's kind of weird; I feel like I've regressed to high school and I have the metabolism of a teenage boy.

Is this blog evolving into dual tracks for both cancer and food?  Is that weird?  Will I need some title like Cooking and Cancer?  Tasty Treats and Tumors?  Munchies and Malignancies?  (Okay, those are all kind of bad...)  Do I need to start including things besides desserts for it to be a food blog?  Like describing the lovely dinner we had to celebrate the good news of the scan, which featured a frisee salad topped with a poached egg (my first experimentation with poaching an egg); some warmed chevre with chives on baguette slices; and a crisp white wine.  The salad recipe came from our latest cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters.  I'm not sure given where we live and what kind of food we're into how we've gone so long without an Alice Waters cookbook.  We're quite fond of it already, and have started to follow Dylan's lead by referring to it with just a single word, "Alice".  As we also are doing for "Julia" (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child); and "Joy" (The Joy of Cooking).  We bought the book at the plant sale at the Edible Schoolyard, rather than through Amazon.  Which meant we spent nearly twice as much (list price), but it was a fundraiser, so at least the money is going to a good cause, and not a somewhat evil company.  And our copy is autographed.  And while we were there we managed to capture this absolutely adorable picture of Dylan.

But I digress.  I was pondering food blogs.  I suppose if I really wanted to write a food blog I'd need to type in recipes.  That sounds hard.

Back to the primary topic, I continue to feel well, and am thoroughly enjoying this week 3.  I've been shopping for some new cycling gear -- right now I'm looking for a helmet and shoes.  Shopping for shoes is always a bit of a pain for me because my feet are so narrow (B width), so most shoes don't come anywhere close to fitting me.  Right now it's especially tricky because I can only try on new shoes during the later part of my cycle.  During week 1 I'm too full of excess water weight, and I can't really trust how new shoes feel.  So if I don't make a decision in a few days, I'll have to wait a little while.

I was complaining about my lingering cold for quite some time.  I supposed I never really announced that I had decided eventually that it was gone.  Or at least gone enough -- there are still some occasionally cold like symptoms, but I think I had those even before I got the cold.

And the hoarseness of my voice has substantially decreased.  But I still need to take it a little bit easy on my throat.

Back to the topic of celebrations and week 3 enjoyments, there's another couple that we periodically do babysitting swaps with.  So last night Lorien and I had a bit of a date night, going out to a few bars for fancy cocktails.  By bike.  It was fun.  It had been a long time since I had gone biking at night.  Time to recharge a lot of the batteries for my lights.

Today featured not one, but two barbeques.  Both birthday parties.  Although there was a substantial age difference (42 years) between the celebrants of both parties.  The second party featured eclipse viewing.  Some pictures are below.

The eclipse around peak, projected via telescope.  We were a few hours drive from the region of totality; had I realized the relative closeness a few days earlier than I did, perhaps I would have made plans to be there.  But this was still pretty good.

 

Reflections of the crescent sun near the peak of the eclipse

Tomorrow night features more cocktails -- I'm meeting my friend Heather at Bourbon and Branch in SF.  And Tuesday Lorien and I are celebrating our anniversary a bit early with a lunch at Chez Panisse.  We decided it was better to celebrate during week 3 than on our actual anniversary date (May 28), which falls during week 1.  The actual day wouldn't have been very practical for a restaurant outing anyway, as it's on Memorial Day this year.  Maybe we'll have a picnic that day.

Then on Wednesday my clock starts over again, with chemo round 5.