Writing is Better than Not Writing

Doing something, even badly, is much better than not doing it at all (as the wise Jim Munroe once wrote on his blog), because something is better than nothing.

Anyway, if like me you agree that (specifically) writing is better than not writing, go ahead and sign up for NaNoWriMo ([inter]National Novel Writing Month). It's starting tomorrow. Oh my. November somehow seemed further away than that.

Right now my "do something badly" thing is going to be blogging. And as The Artist's Way reminds people, it's normal that you're bad in the beginning. Later you could get good.

view from above

Every once in a while it occurs to me I might not always live where I do now. For some reason yesterday I was tempted to open the window and just look outside, and then I took this picture. In case someone comes across it later and says, so that's what it looked like (although admittedly this picture isn't a crystal clear view). Still, I like the color of the sky and the silhouette of the building and trees.

**

The blogging hiatus was due to an internet hiatus, which in turn was the fault of a phone line hiatus. None of which were my idea. But it wasn't a bad thing, all things considered.

I Made Gnocchi

And my sister said it "tasted like the real thing."

Gnocchi is kind of like ravioli, but with potatoes.

First you mash up potatoes, add flour until it becomes dough, then roll it until it's really thin (1 cm, if you can - I couldn't), divide these rolled ropes into 2 cm bits, then either freeze for later boiling or boil at once.

Pretty labor-intensive, or at least time consuming, not a bad thing in Ramadan.

Because we have so much food in the fridge, and I'm worried it'll all go bad, I've been trying to think of things to make with it, so the gnocchi was me dealing with the potatoes. Some the food is already cooked up, but there are lots of excess raw ingredients: courgettes, carrots, chickpeas, tomatoes, half a pumpkin, an open can of sprouts, eggplants, lettuce, red and yellow peppers, cauliflower, beans, and some mangoes and grapes that I think already went bad.

Today I made mint sauce and chickpea soup.

The mint sauce looks scary but I'm pretty sure the chickpea soup will be alright.

Little Lines

Day 20 of Ramadan, and I can hear the traffic raging from my window. Traffic is like the cold; you're happy to be indoors where you can avoid it at a distance. Especially in Ramadan in Cairo.

**

The picture is of the cover of my journal. Drawing those little lines is really good for passing the time.