The latest on the Blogger Aid cookbook

I'm just too excited for words. The BloggerAid Changing the Face of Famine cookbook with my Spinach-Mushroom Lasagna recipe (hint, hint) is in the final stages of development. Right now, we are deciding on a cover and the designs are wonderful. Even though we are donating all the proceeds from the cookbook to the WFP School Lunch Program, that doesn't eliminate printing costs. We can donate the recipes, the editing, the typesetting and such, but we do have to pay for the cost of printing.
The Cookbook People donated some software as a prize and they will donate $20 for each of us BloggerAid CtFF folks who mention The Cookbook People in our blog. If you've ever thought it might be nice to make up a cookbook of the family recipes, check out The Cookbook People. They offer software to create the cookbooks, binders and lovely recipe boxes. I have a dear niece who is forever calling me for a chicken recipe I made up for her a few years ago. Might be a good idea to create a cookbook for her.
By the way, the chicken recipe she keeps forgetting:

Saute chicken breasts in olive oil (may be a mix of olive oil and butter). When the chicken is browned and almost cooked through, add about 2 Tbs. fresh thyme and 1/4 c. decent white wine. When the chicken reaches appropriate doneness on a meat thermometer and the wine has reduced a bit, add 2 Tbs. of cream cheese (or neufachatel for lower calories). Salt and pepper to taste.

My niece has fallen into a habit of making this every time she cooks dinner for a new fellow, so I always know when there is a new semi-serious boyfriend because she calls me for the recipe.

Getting back to our new normal

I've been neglecting this blog lately. I apologize and promise that there is at least one great restaurant review coming and a cookbook to review as soon as I get back in the kitchen for real.
There is no small amount of personal irony that, while our elected representatives are deliberating over or obstructing health care reform, my husband and I have been learning just how many issues there are to be reformed in the health care arena. My husband has Stage 2 follicular b-cell lymphoma. It is amazing how many processes are involved in the diagnosis and staging process! And it is frightening how many places along the way that things can go wrong in terms of health insurance! There was a snafu or mis-communication or something that meant we had no referral to the surgeon who did the biopsies. We are still waiting to see if the insurance will cover both the in-office biopsies and the surgical biopsy.
Looking on the positive side, Robert's lymphoma is a relatively easy one. He has no sign of the disease either below the diaphragm or in the bone marrow. He will have 6 rounds of chemo, three weeks apart; a PET scan and at least two more doses of Rituxan (one of those miraculous new anti-body treatments"), before the next new normal of 4 weekly rounds of Rituxan every 6 months thereafter as a maintenance treatment.
Now that he has started chemo, there will be, we hope, fewer trips running from doctor to doctor and procedure to procedure and I will get back to blogging and cooking.
Thank you to those who have offered prayers and positive thoughts in this past couple of months.