February 2025
Plums, Presidents and Potatoes
A close friend of mine is from South America. The other night, we were chatting on the internet and she asked how I was feeling.
“Plum tuckered.”
She hadn’t heard this quirky American way of saying “exhausted” before and posited “oohhhh, because plums are... like old looking.”
Never let one to let ego get in the way of a bit, I said that from now on, when I was tired, I would tell her that I was feeling like an old plum.
I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. I have an open document on my laptop for notes for what will go into this newsletter and I added that story a bit ago. Maybe I just meant to say that I feel like an old plum at the moment. I’m cold a lot and writing on top of my day job is great but also a lot.
That, and apparently I can’t see anymore. I did not know this. I needed to renew my drivers license at some point and went in yesterday.
The document part was minimally daunting.
Then came the eye test.
When I looked into the box, my first instinct was to ask the DMV lady to make the type a little bigger.
Wait, no.
I couldn’t see. Like, at all. I apparently have been driving for a long time, my vision slowly declining.
Needless to say, they took my license and I saw an eye doctor that afternoon. I put in an order for driving glasses from an overnight glasses place that took three more days because I failed the eye test on a Saturday.
I’ve never liked Nora Ephron and strongly suspect her of damaging Democracy at one point. She made a chunk of her career about women aging and the associated insecurities. I have no intention of starting that kind of thing now. But that I’m going to have progressive lenses does hit pretty hard. They will be my everyday glasses require a special old lady prescription that will take a couple of weeks. To make myself feel better, I picked out frames like a pair I saw on Meryl Streep one time.
If I’m going to be an old lady, I know which old lady I want to be.
* * *
My romance of the month was “Presidential” by Lola Keeley which is in some senses a retelling of the 1990’s Romantic Comedy “The American President.” A big improvement it has over the prior movie is that Annette Benning played an environmental lobbyist and there was the implication that the president pushed through the bill to please her. In “Presidential,” the first female president’s son has a heart condition and the other romantic lead is a heart surgeon. While the surgeon does have opinions about health care, it isn’t so much a politics book as a “women in power end up in complicated situations, especially when they fall in love” book. I liked it and it appreciated that it got into the President’s job on a more complex level. I love that stuff.
* * *
I’ve got a recipe here from XvNot15, whom I know from fanfic. As Helena would say “For our friends in America, note that it uses British measurements:”
Creamy Potatoes au gratin:
6 medium/largish sized floury potatoes (maris piper) thinly sliced
1 white or yellow onion finely sliced
75g butter
3-4 tbs flour
165g Philly garlic and herb cream cheese (or plain cream cheese and add garlic granules to taste)
250 -300g grated sharp cheddar cheese
500ml milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Preheat oven to 200C (180C if fan assisted)
2. Wash and slice potatoes and onion thinly and keep in two bowls till assembly.
3. Melt the butter, then sprinkle in the flour, stirring to make a smooth roux, (if you want your sauce thicker you can add a bit more flour to make the roux thicker.)
4. Gradually add the milk stirring to smoothly combine with the roux, then add the cream cheese and stir in till melted and smooth.
5. Put aside about 25g of the grated cheddar for later. Then stir remaining grated cheese into the sauce. Continue stirring until smooth and melted.
6. Assemble in a large deep baking or casserole dish lightly greased with butter.
Pour a thin layer of the cheese sauce in the dish. Then cover bottom with layer of potatoes, scatter some onion on that, salt and pepper and pour more sauce over the layer. Repeat until a final layer of potatoes only, cover with remaining sauce then sprinkle reserved cheddar over the top.
7. Bake for 45-60 minutes until potatoes are tender.
