Weekly Update July 12 - 19
The Week
I now have a full time job. I always had a full time job in theory during the quarantine but since my promotion, I now have legit full-time-to-be-at-my-desk-for-the-majority-of-time kind of job. 90% of that statement is fantastic because it’s great to be engaged with a team, have deadlines and learn new skills but 10% of me is bummed since now I have responsibilities like being at my desk the majority of the time. Now I’m putting in 8-9 hours a day into my work so I don’t have time to make trips to asian markets, try new extravagant recipes or even laundry at times which makes my new weekly routine rather boring.
The real pity about the combination of a quarantine and my new position is that I didn’t have enough time to plan a proper birthday celebration for Mr. Mustang who turned 34 this week. Mr. Mustang isn’t big on large parties anyways but I could still tell that he was bummed that he couldn’t celebrate even with his closest friends so I tried to lift his spirits with a top notch meal. His birthday shares the same day as Bastille Day so I took a french approach to his dinner and made a pan seared sole with a beurre blanc sauce. To drink, we shared a bottle of french wine and for dessert, enjoyed some lovely madeleines. I completely blanked on taking a picture of the meal because Mr. Mustang and I devoured it without realizing what we had done.
Saturday/Sunday
About damn time it got warm and not just mildly warm but summer warm. There was a brief weekend in May that reached over 80 degrees but June dipped into the low 60s to mid 50s at one point which made me feel that summer was never coming. The joke goes that summer doesn’t officially start until July 5th in the PNW however it seems this year it started even later. On Saturday, I went into full cooking mode and stood for 9+ hours making a dish that I’ve been postponing for months - homemade baos. I had tons of vegetables in the fridge but nearly all of them were on the verge of turning bad and used the opportunity to make dumplings. The process is long and repetitive but the rewards I hope will be worth it - in my labors I made four different types of bao: pork, vegetable, shrimp and red bean. Every dumpling went into a ziploc bag and was thrown in the freezer to be taken out when I feel too lazy to cook something fresh for dinner. In total, I made slightly over 100 dumplings and can’t wait to break them out in the coming weeks. In between proofing the dough for the bao, I spent time prepping for our Sunday picnic on the water making marinated olives, sliced up pieces of smoked white cheddar and other charcuterie goodies.
In my attempt to convince Mr. Mustang that we should be in the market to buy a boat this year, he agreed to multiple boat rental outings as a way to see if we would enjoy this new potential lifestyle. Our most recent voyage was this past Sunday onboard a 2016 Bayliner Element with a few friends and an impressive charcuterie board spread with chilled Rose wine. The weather was absolutely perfect this time around with a gentle sun and comfortable temperatures hovering in the high 70s. It seems that a lot of other boat owners had the same thought because both Lake Union and Washington were BUSY. Due to the increased boat traffic, the majority of time on the water was spent finding an open space near UW to float and having a few glasses of wine while catching up.
I’ve only been on the water a few times so far this summer and one thing became apparently clear during our latest voyage - I can’t fully enjoy myself on the lake. Because I’m the only one licensed to operate a boat, I’m the one responsible for everyone’s well being and safety. That means I can’t indulge in much (if any) wine and while in conversation with my friends, 10% of my attention is spent observing traffic on the water to make sure we’re not in danger of collisions. I love hosting parties at our condo and am a social butterfly on land but that’s because the risk to myself or my guests are extremely low. When captaining a boat, I don’t have that luxury to let my guard down and relax because I am in constant sentry mode of my surroundings and it kind of sucks.
I still enjoy going on the water and hope that we do end up buying a boat but I also hope that Mr. Mustang will get his boating license as well so he can help shoulder the responsibilities.
Next Week’s Menu:
Monday: Lemon Pepper Chicken with roasted broccoli
Tuesday: Baked Tilapia and roasted carrots
Wednesday: Jjapaguri
Thursday: Seared Mahi Mahi with mashed sweet potatoes
Friday: BBQ Shrimp and a tossed salad
