Not too bad a day – but very idle.

There were things I meant to do outdoors: but it was stormy, and I stayed in. There were things I meant to do indoors, but they didn’t work out, for complicated reasons. The weather is calmer this evening.

That Big Bad Moth got at the pocket square in the night – I won’t let that happen again. I picked up all the stitches, but it didn’t look very healthy. Nothing is harder to put right than garter stitch. I love Matt very dearly, so I started again. I think I’m nearly back to where I was at this time yesterday, which shows how little I have been knitting lately. I’ll press ahead.

The kimchi doesn’t look very lively yet. I expect better tomorrow. You may well be right, Tamar, that I have never previously tasted it before fermentation. The cabbage in kimchi is “Chinese leaf” here, “Napa cabbage” with you, and doesn’t have a strong cabbage-y taste.

When I was in the supermarket with C. on Sunday, buying odds and ends for the kimchi (radishes, pears), I found the first Jerusalem artichokes of the season, and am about to have a delicious soup for my supper. I get a bulletin from the New Yorker every morning – today it included a very interesting list of the best cookery books of the year, all strange to me except for the latest edition of Joy of Cooking.

Yet last year’s unbeatable “Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat” was American.

It is very odd, this General Election. I feel as if there is an avalanche about to slide down the hill, or a volcano about to erupt. I can’t believe that we’ll be better off on Friday, whatever happens.

Reading

I am almost embarrassed to tell you that I have finished “Starve Acre” – scary to the last. There were three or four places where I raised an eyebrow at the omniscient author’s grammar. The characters were all educated – it’s not that there was meant to be a hint at condescension. A missing editor, I fear.

But I need to get my teeth into a novel again, soon. I must get back to “Rachel Ray”.