Saturday would have been my mom’s 61st birthday.

At first, I wasn’t going to put a number to the birthday; she wouldn’t have wanted me to if she were still alive. When I first started putting together this post in my head (what – don’t y’all do the same thing?), I was thinking of putting down something like “50-mumblesomethingth” birthday. Then I realized I wasn’t actually sure what the number would be, so I did the math. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me last year when she would have hit one of the birthdays that end in a zero.

I can’t imagine my mom being 61. Not that it’s that old or anything, but I just can’t imagine it. I mean, I know she was getting older the entire time I was growing up, but it just never seemed like it. To me, she was always just Mom, somehow eternally ageless. Older than me, sure, but without a specific number applying. Probably helps that even up to the end, even after rounds of chemo and radiation and the ravages of cancer, she still looked good; she could easily have passed for at least five years younger, if not more. And it’s not just me thinking that – I’ve heard the same from others who didn’t look at her through a daughter’s eyes.

I wish I didn’t have to try and imagine my mom being 61. I wish she were here, so I could see for myself that my mom would still be ageless in my eyes. I’ll have to settle for her being ageless in my memories.

In the last year or so, I've become more adventurous in the kitchen. Part of the reason is I've been inspired by Tom, part of it has been necessity. And in New Zealand they just don't eat out as much as we do in the States, so there's a bit of "When in Rome..." to it, too.

There's nothing quite like having a limited supply of groceries to work with. I may have precious little counter space in my kitchen, but I do have a pantry that has typically been pretty well stocked. But when you're traveling and have to carry your groceries with you, you get good at keeping things to a pretty bare minimum. Even when I settled in Christchurch and was living in a house, I still didn't have that much space to keep things, plus I didn't want to stock up too much since I knew it would only be for a couple of months.

Not all my experiments have been successful - I don't recommend tuna and ramen noodles, for example, even with the addition of Thai Sweet Chili Sauce - but nothing has been inedible (so far). And a couple of things have been downright tasty, such as when I tossed some bacon in with my stir fry 'cause I needed to use it before it got too old and realized it was good. Or earlier this week when I went on a bit of a fridge/pantry raid and put together a chicken and lentil soup for lunch. It probably would have been even better if there had been leftovers, but I polished it off in one sitting.

I finally got a gig freelancing which starts in a bit over a week (hooray!), so I won't have as much time on my hands as I've had the last several months, but I think I'll still stick to cooking at home rather than eating out so much.