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.