Too hot to write

Fourth day of 90 degree heat. Desperately praying for rain and less heat. We don't have an air conditioner.

The heat has prevented me from continuing with Nikita's (wool) sweater, especially since I had to rip it all back when I realized that the back wasn't wide enough. I have, however, continued to cook and read, and sometimes both. I recently tested a lovely coffeecake recipe for Leite's Culinaria, and made a yummy Zucchini and White Bean Soup from Lidia's Family Table. I was really happy that Igor and his mom liked the bean soup because I can use it as a base for all sorts of dishes. I'm trying to build up a cooking repertoire so that I don't have to rely on recipes, which ironically has gotten me looking at a bunch of cookbook writers cited by the fantastic cookbook editor, Judith Jones (thank goodness for libraries!): Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen, Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking, Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, Edna Lewis' The Taste of Country Cooking, and Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Roden's work is the most fascinating; Lidia Bastianich's book may be the most practical for day-to-day cooking.

As for reading, I just finished His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. What a fantastic story! It's been a long time since I got lost in a narrative; I finished the trilogy in a little over a week. This set of books is much deeper than the Harry Potter series. The most striking aspect is how more overtly heretical it is: God is portrayed as a imbecilic gathering of consciousness; the Church (presumably Catholic) is portrayed as the defender of ignorance.

Next book: How Would a Patriot Act?

Meanwhile, Nikita's vocabulary is still jumping by leaps and bounds, in both Russian and English. He's also starting to count (one, two, devit - Russian word for "nine") and stringing together two-word phrases that make more sense than "Bart Pippitz". He's developing socially as well: he now enjoys storytime at the library, sitting still in the circle and being well-behaved with the other toddlers (no screaming unless the other screams first). And yesterday, he started sitting on the potty on his own initiative! Nothing came out, and he later peed on Galina's couch, but it's a start!