This and that

 

Somehow this cute little Tete-a-Tete daffodil not only survived, but the bulbs managed to slowly naturalize, despite all my hacking and digging in the garden beds. 

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things...

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Today is Ash Wednesday, my friends, and the beginning of six weeks of Lent before Easter. 

Ash Wednesday, by Karl Spitzweg

The morning after Carnival, when the pleasure and excess comes to an abrupt end. You can almost feel his headachy regret, or maybe he is contemplating penitence.  

Many Christians still give up meat (or something they like to do) for Lent. Maybe I will give up complaining. Ha ha.

Speaking of meat, we should all eat less for obvious reasons. 

 

Not to be preachy, but I made this delicious vegetarian pizza last night from scratch-- cherry tomatoes, peppers, onions and salty, sun-cured olives, which taste like pepperoni.

 

I finally found a simple pizza dough recipe in the NYT cooking section, and ditched the awful chemical tasting Trader Joe refrigerated dough that I've bought for years. 

 

This recipe has only 4 ingredients (yeast, flour, salt, oil) which is unusual for the NYT, where they love complicated recipes. Yeast dough is a bit of work, but it makes a double batch, so half goes in the freezer for later. 

 

After some trial and error, I'm getting the hang of my new oven.