Something New, Something Old (plus shopping!)

Dear Caitlin,

I woke up early this morning to get in a short run. After getting back and showering off, I decided to sit out on our front porch with a cup of tea and my book, and I watched as what would become the day-long rain began. I was glad I got out when I did!

Unfortunately, I still had to face the rain, as I had several errands and shopping planned for today. My errands were mundane (post office, bank, supermarket), but my shopping was very successful. First, check out these great clothes I got from the Gap!

Best thing of all: they were all on sale! With my extra birthday coupon discount, this came to $50 altogether. What a steal!

I also stopped by your old stomping ground, Target. I was looking for some little things I wanted to get for Toronto; one that I’m especially excited about are these little containers for my desk stuff and my medicine cabinet. Here they are open:

And here they are closed:

So convenient! And space-saving! I am very excited, as I’m sure you can tell.

But anyway, on to food matters. I didn’t eat anything until I came back from all this shopping, so when I got home I decided to treat myself to one of the new goodies I picked up at the supermarket on the way back:

Yep, I finally got around to trying Oikos yogurt. I know you’ve tried this before and I forget what you thought of it; I decided to go for the vanilla flavor, since I can barely stomach regular plain yogurt, much less plain Greek yogurt. But I liked this Oikos! I did decide to throw in some add-ins just for fun, however, though I don’t think it really needed them:

That’s wheat germ, flax seed meal, and granola in there! I’m not sure if I’ll buy more at this point, as I only picked up this one pack along with a few O’Soy packs that I’ll go through first. But we’ll see…

Dinner tonight—at least my part of it—was something old, VeganDad’s excellent Malaysian Sweet & Sour Tofu. The sauce came out really well tonight I thought, but I totally screwed up the tofu. I don’t know if I didn’t heat the oil high enough (I didn’t have a candy thermometer or anything) or if I was using the wrong sort of pot or what, but the batter did not stay on the tofu at all this time! Hrumph. Still delicious, though, and I think my family liked it, too.

My mom contributed what I’m calling a Japanese Eggplant Stew: a mix of eggplant, mushrooms, and green beans in a shiitake dashi. Very interesting taste, especially with the dashi; I liked it!

And that was today! Right now, I’m trying to decide whether the list of things I would do for a Klondike bar includes walking to the kitchen and opening the freezer. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Until we eat again,

Willie