"Homemade" Pizza

Boy, Trader Joe's really does make it easy sometimes. Today I bought their ready-to-bake pizza dough, pizza sauce, organic mozzarella, and sliced mushrooms. After Rebecca went to bed, I simply rolled out the dough, added the sauce, cheese, and mushrooms, threw in some Morningstar tofu crumbles and leftover broccoli, and put it in the oven for 12 minutes. I like that so many products at Trader Joe's boast "no artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives."

This pizza is the first meal I've made at home in a while - we've been out of town for 8 days, hanging out with dear friends outside Boston and then visiting Smith College in Northampton where I did some research for the diss. We did a bit of cooking in Northampton - including a lovely spinach frittata out of one of James Beard's cook books that I will have to try again soon. I also fell in love with a new recipe for yogurt sorbet, drank a glass of wine every night and read a great book while there. I am going to try to keep this drinking, reading and cooking up as a recipe for more happiness;)

In other news, we're still experimenting with Rebecca's diet. She did not do well with the carrots, and applesauce is still not appealing to her, but she's gladly accepted peas, pears, bananas (finally) and sweet potatoes, along with a few kinds of cereal and some flat rice crackers. I'm using this baby cook book for inspiration, and I will try butternut squash next.

She turns seven months old in two days and I can't believe she's so big already. She's been waving lately, getting on all fours but not yet crawling, and I think (hope!) that she recently said "ma". She still thinks books are chewing toys, and she likes to dance when I play tunes on youtube. Her naps are still not on a "schedule" but I'm more okay with it now. Tonight I sang to her a bit and played with her feet before bed and it was the sweetest part of my day.

Otherwise I'm back to working on the dissertation. With gusto! I haven't written this much since before I gave birth, and, well, it's about time. Here's some dissertation humor for you: A few months ago I thought it would be wonderful to interview the doctor who ran the first clinical trial of the birth control pill in Puerto Rico. Well, what do you know - Harvard thought so too and did so through one of their oral history projects in 1987. I wound up reading the transcript at Smith, which has helped me start off a new chapter.

Anyway, that's all my news these days. To anyone out there reading, I hope you have a lovely night, and here is a recent photo of Rebecca as she was eating a cracker: