This is really just a post to let you know I’m still around. I had a lingering cold that was keeping me from eating or cooking much, and also I’ve been letting this other, slightly nerdy, completely non-food-related project I’ve been working on take over my life. I created a database and wrote a web-based data entry system to input all of the definitions I’ve been looking up in the OED for words that I’ve been marking as I read various novels. It’s also acting as a book journal and I’ve been transferring years of written (albeit somewhat spotty) documentation of the (apparently hundreds) of books I’ve read. But enough about that. (Unless you really want to know things like the average length of a word I look up in the OED is 8.2 letters. Or that 35% of the books I’ve read since August were American. Or that 68% of the times I’ve come across the word “ineluctable” it’s been in a British book.)

Anyway, food. I’m not doing well with it right now, hence my lack of posts. I’ve been testing recipes for Peter Reinhart, but other than that, I haven’t even been eating much, which is unusual for the perpetually hungry Renae. I thought my cold was on the wane today and decided to try a recipe in one of my new cookbooks, Vegan Planet. Three-Way Sesame Tofu with Spicy Broccoli sounded perfect, considering I had all the ingredients and it looked fast and easy to make. Sadly, it all went pears. (That’s strange Aussie slang for “bad”, according to my Aussie friend, who I will be visiting in a few weeks!) I don’t think it was the recipe, though, I think it was me. First of all, I think I have weird taste buds. I find sesame seeds bitter. Does anyone else? I like them in small quantities, but en masse they are no good. And tahini by itself is disgusting for the same reason. So why I thought the idea of dredging tofu in tahini and then encrusting it in a cup of sesame seeds was a good idea is beyond me. And it was very messy. The sesame seeds got all wet and sticky and clumped together. Then I pan-fried them and that was also a mess. Then I tasted a piece and found it bitter and awful (and that’s despite the fact that I added uncalled-for agave nectar to the tahini sauce!). Not wanting to waste tofu (you get a bit attached to it when you’ve made it from scratch), I then rubbed most of the sesame seeds off each piece of tofu, dumped it all back in the frying pan with the already-steamed broccoli, inexplicably poured a little orange juice over it all and fried it with some hot pepper flakes. It was somewhat tolerable in this form, but I wasn’t happy with it. Mark surfaced and said he’d eat all of it, however, and since I hadn’t made a grain or any other accompaniment (too busy with another Peter Reinhart test recipe), it really only was enough for one person anyway.

So here was Mark’s dinner tonight:

He added hot sauce and salt and said it was great.

And here was my dinner:

(Here is the recipe for my dinner.)

Not a very helpful post, I’m afraid, but I figured I’d better post something before you forgot about me! Not all of my meals are successes, you see. I’m feeling better now, though, so hopefully I’ll have some new – and good – recipes up soon!