I'm still here, just reluctant to post about anything without the photos to go with it. (Well, and still quite busy, too, but that may go without saying.) I thought I might try to start posting my Sunday meal plans, though, as I think it will be nice to be able to see the rhythms of what we eat. Here's this week's outlook:

- Butternut squash galette, to be made with expensive frozen storebought puff pastry made with real butter
- Celery root gratin and garlicky greens
- Red rice and black beans
- Rice croquettes with greens again
- Eggplant and chickpea stew with accompaniment to be named later (fried eggs, perhaps)
- Spinach and lemon soup

...to be consumed in whatever order I decide to present them. The odds are decent that at least one dish will wind up getting bumped to the following week, in the case that we, say, eat at a friend's house, or become so slothful that I decide even these easy options are overwhelming, and make veggie burgers or something instead.

The work of Sunday's cooking has been to: prep the greens; make the gratin -- especially beautiful this time, with slices of fat farmer's market carrots, soaked dried mushrooms, and chopped celery leaves as well as white slices of celeriac; bake a squash and make the baked flesh into a rough puree; make the garlicky, creamy (thanks to a spoonful of tahini) eggplant and chickpea recipe, which produces a truly impressive quantity of food; and whip up a batch of "Mexican" rice in the rice cooker. I have a lot to say, by the way, about this rice and its many virtues, so stay tuned.