The good news: my dentist was able to put my crown back on the tooth, though it needed some reshaping (she thinks I might have bitten it when it came off).

The bad news: she found a possible crack in the tooth and has referred me to an endodontist for evaluation and a possible root canal – that’ll happen next Thursday morning. If the tooth can be saved, I’ll have to get a new crown (this one was at least 20 years old and wearing thin).

The best news: Santa Clara County opened up its COVID-19 vaccination enrollment system to residents over 65 (except those who use Kaiser or Palo Alto Medical Foundation primary doctors). I was able to get us appointments for next Thursday evening – it’s going to be a busy day!

The tasty news: The New York Times published a One Pot Meals section in February, 2020. It was in the edition that arrived on the day we returned from our Costa Rica/Panama trip. I saved it, even though we weren’t doing a lot of cooking at the time; we’ve finally started using some of the recipes. Tonight’s new recipe was Tomato-Poached Fish With Chile Oil and Herbs, and, even though I didn’t quite follow the recipe correctly (I left the garlic and shallots in the pan instead of saving them for the end, and my timing with the red pepper flakes was wrong, too), it came out pretty good – certainly worth trying again.

I thought today was going to be another day where I had to struggle to find anything interesting to write about (let’s face it, after 315 days of sheltering-in-place, it’s just life!). We didn’t make any new recipes; we didn’t go anywhere unusual; we did order a case of wine and a new camera (from different stores, of course!), but, as I said, “it’s just life”.

And then, just before my Toastmasters meeting started, I felt something odd in my mouth. I don’t know what had happened, but a moment later, I pulled a slightly-used crown out of my mouth.

I excused myself from the meeting and called my dentist’s office. I have an appointment at 11:30am tomorrow.

It’s just life.

It was another quiet day – we managed to get two good walks in before the rains came. And I started working on photos from our Costa Rica/Panama trip last February. And met with my successor as District 101 Statistician to go through more of the code he’ll be inheriting. And made fish for lunch and pesto for dinner.

As I said, quiet.

We made Pomegranate Chicken again tonight, this time with skinless, boneless chicken thighs instead of the skin-on, bone-in thighs in the recipe. It was faster (30 minutes of cooking time rather than 45) and easier (because I could put the meat and vegetables in at the same time instead of staging them) and just as tasty, so we’ll do it that way from now on.

Other than that, there wasn’t much to talk about, and it’s late, so I’ll stop!

Another new-to-us recipe today, Pan-Fried Trout with Rosemary, Lemon, and Capers. The trout we got was too big to fit in the All-Clad skillet, so I couldn’t use the induction cooktop, but I coped. And I’d make the recipe again – it was pretty easy and quite tasty.

This evening, I made Skillet Summer Vegetable Lasagna again, this time using the induction cooktop. I am beginning to think that it would be smarter to use the “cook power” settings than the “temperature” settings, at least for something that calls for simmering. Using the temperature setting results in long periods where the induction coils are off and nothing seems to be happening (even if the liquid actually is pretty hot). In contrast, the cook power settings keep the induction coils on the whole time. Despite the confusion, we were happy with the results.

We got a little rain today – not enough to make a dent in the drought, but enough to warrant breaking out raincoats for our walks. It’s a start!

Shabbat Shalom!