Kitchen re-entry

- Faithful standby of soba noodles, shredded cabbage, raw cubed tofu, roasted sweet potato chunks, and peanut sauce.
- I've never, ever cared for chocolate chip cookies before but I kind of can't stop making Kim Boyce's whole wheat version.
- Strawberry jam from a Blue Chair recipe but instead of rose geranium flowers I used chopped basil at the end. I'm finding most of the Blue Chair recipes too sweet for my taste. (The flavour combinations and processes are still inspiring, though I might in future separate the macerated strawberries from the syrup and boil down the syrup almost to the gelling point rather than cooking the fruit along with - to get any kind of set I have to cook things much longer than the recipes call for - going to blame that on not using a proper preserving 'kettle' as they instruct.)
- Really awesome corn and tomato salad that I looooooooved last summer and whose source I cannot recall - basically, saute some spring onions in olive oil til soft, add some just-off-the-cob corn, cook til warm, add chopped tomatoes and basil and salt and pepper, take of heat, wolf down.

Read a couple Karin Slaughters recently, stellar character development even though the bad guy is usually pretty obvious. I do dislike how thriller writers these days seem to feel a need to up the gore factor - serial killers with obscure fetishes don't actually make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, ordinary people who convince themselves that they must take a life do. Also, why are all the mutilated bodies described in such detail those of women? Also, gobbling up the newest Thomas Perry. Elizabeth Waring FTW!