The Shir Hadash Men’s Club has an annual Latke and Comedy dinner; members are asked to bring six or more latkes, and the club also orders sandwiches. It’s a fun event, even if it’s not diet-safe.

The last time we had the event in person was 2019; I brought Trader Joe’s frozen latkes which I had heated in the oven. They were pretty blah, if I do say so myself.

But that was before the pandemic, before I did much cooking, and before I owned an All-Clad skillet. So I decided to bring Trader Joe’s frozen latkes again, but this time, I’d pan-fry them!

They fit perfectly in my 12-inch skillet.

I followed the directions faithfully, but the latkes lost their integrity when I turned them.

I brought them anyway. They did not win the popularity contest.

I’m hoping to do better next year – advice welcome!

I spend a lot of time working at the laptop on my kitchen desk; it’s where I do most of my email, some of my photo editing, and far too much of my social media. It’s open almost all the time, except on days (like today) when our housecleaner is here – closing the laptop is part of our pre-cleaning cleanup.

Usually, I open the laptop almost as soon as we get back home, but I didn’t do that today. Nor did I open it during lunch preparation. Nor after our post-lunch walk.

Instead, I sat down at the computer in the office to catch up with Quicken; it had been a couple of months, so there was a lot of work to do. Something about being in a different place discouraged me from opening Facebook, Mastodon, my RSS reader, or even my email. I finished all of what I’d planned to do for the whole day in the 90 minutes I had before we started making dinner.

I think I should close the laptop more often.