Every day feels more normal, even though it isn’t.

Diane stayed home and planted scallions that we regrew from roots while I made a fast trip to the Farmers’ Market for fish, strawberries, corn, carrots, and tomatoes (not all of those were on the list when I left the house, but they looked good!).

Then we attended the Shir Hadash Congregational Meeting on Zoom; it went smoothly and was far better attended than the typical in-person meeting. No bagels, though.

I bought the carrots to use in a recipe for Chicken, Broccoli, and Cashew Stir-Fry that we’d cut out of Prevention magazine many years ago and had never made (we have a lot of recipes that we’ve cut out and never made). It came out pretty well and was fairly easy; I’d make it again.

And the weather was very pleasant today – we took a walk soon after lunch, when I would expect it to be far too hot to go out on a normal day in June. I managed to close all three rings on my Apple Watch every day this week, which is more unusual than I’d like.

One of the things I really look forward to in late fall is the departure of pumpkin spice and the arrival of peppermint. And the thing I look forward to most of all is the arrival of peppermint bark.

I am, in general, not a fan of white chocolate. I agree with Sandra Boynton who said “Only a true purist would argue that white chocolate does not constitute real chocolate, since it is made from cocoa butter and sugar, lacking only the chocolate liquor. The same purist might argue that fructose and water don’t constitute real orange juice.” But I make an exception when it comes to peppermint bark – the white chocolate is a nice complement to the real chocolate and the peppermint.

Most years, I buy two or three boxes from Trader Joe’s and possibly one box from someone else, and it’s all gone soon after New Year’s. In 2019, the purchasing pattern was the same, but the consumption pattern was different.

The first box went fairly quickly (helped, no doubt, by our son’s being with us at Thanksgiving), but then I slowed down. They say that the first bite of a dessert is the best, and I took that idea to heart – instead of having one official serving of bark (half a square, 220 calories), I’d break the square into 9 or even 16 pieces and have one or two of them a day. And I wouldn’t even have bark every day.

I finally finished the last piece today (I far preferred the Trader Joe’s over the experimental box from Sur la Table, in case you’re keeping score). I think it was better a couple of months ago, but it was still worth having – and I’ll be looking forward to its return in November.