It's presumptuous, really, to expect anyone to read my blog, also crazy. A blog is NOT like a diary, far far from it. People used to write diaries as totally private expressions, unless there was a mentor, priest, or parent to vet them. Some of the original diaries were assigned and supervised spiritual exercises or daily reports. Louisa May Alcott's mother used to read her daughter's diaries and write comments in them, too. But most diarists guarded their privacy and some even developed codes so that their entries could not be deciphered. Of course, the famous diarist, Pepys, comes to mind with his code, quite easily broken. But Beatrix Potter had a trickier one to keep her parents from invading her privacy. I'm just saying all this because the attitude is so different now. Blogs are public diaries. A day without a blog is like a day without sunshine. Is that true? I treat mine like a writing assignment - oops - so I suppose my readers, if any, are like Louisa May Alcott's mom, ready to critique what i have said. Is that what comments are for? I'll have to think about that. I have not signed on to Facebook, I don't Twitter or Tweet; people have put me on LInk but I don't want to be chained down. So why am I writing a blog? I think because I want to prime the pump. Go to the well.

My blogging was getting too close to my book. I'm writing and learning and thinking every day, coming along. I actually lifted a blog from a few weeks back because I needed an illustration for a point I was making for my book. It's not plagiarism when it was mine in the first place, is it? So it's okay for me to borrow from a blog but not to siphon off my thoughts to a blog when I still need them fresh and unfiltered for the book. Have to keep them separate. There are things I want to write about, comment on, report to the blog, but I have to hold back. So this morning - a few minutes ago - I figured out what I could write about and keep blog and book separate. Food. Even isolated and pared down as I am here - and happy about it, with no maverick activities or stray thoughts , I still have to plan, shop, cook and eat. My time here is limited so I can't stock up a lot. I have to eat wisely and stay healthy. I have to find food that I can cook quickly and that tastes good. I have promised myself to eat fish for a week when I get home because, as you might expect in a place so far from oceans, there is no fresh fish and the frozen fish is all breaded or pre-fried. I have to run out of supplies neatly without leaving a lot behind. Oh, and be frugal. Well, I can do that. I'm the leftover queen. My first cookbook was about leftovers. One reviewer said of it that a person could save $1000 a year using it. Maybe so, but it needs a lot of tweaking now. We change in our eating habits as we change in everything else. I used too much fat, cream sauce, sugar, trans-fat, and refined carbohydrates, as they're called now. And I didn't have enough vegetables, not like today. Vegetables are the best thing on Canada's Food Rules. Do you eat 5 to 7 fruits and veggies a day? That's the ideal but you can add more. Oh dear, I didn't mean this to become a lecture. I was going to rhapsodize about delicious foods I have known. How do you feel about chocolate? I don't bake any more, haven't made a chocolate cake for a quarter of a century at least., but a little dark chocolate daily is good for you: peace of mind, memory, comfort., all good. I'll shorten this by telling you my four basic food groups: 1) chocolate, 2) garlic, 3) champagne, and 4) broccoli . There. Good blog.