Disaster does gourmet (no knitting)

photo from Monty's Old Brick Tavern

It's been one of those weeks (months? years?) at work when I just can't seem to get out of my own way.  Which makes getting things done difficult.  No one else seems to want to get out of my way either, so that complicates things a bit more.  While "because I said so" worked about 75% of the time for my mother, it really, really doesn't work at work.

To make me feel better, we went out to eat at a quiet little local bistro-ey, tavern-ey place.  The building is brick, the wood floors creak comfortingly, the lighting is just right, and the staff are friendly.  I had flank steak with chopped green olives, roast fingerling potatoes with blue cheese and shallots, and roasted tomato.  I don't know what they put into the chopped olives, but I could have eaten a plate of just the olives, they were so good.  As it was, they went wonderfully with the steak and the tomato.  The potatoes? They're a starch, and starch and I have a lifetime relationship of dependency (entirely on my side).  The food was great, the serving size was reasonable, the beer was good.  A panacea, the atmosphere and my meal worked wonders.   Thank you Monty's!

Packing our...

stuff. I looked it up in a dictionary - and discovered that some definitions resonate more than others. We're buying a home at the end of the month, which means packing up eight years of apartment living. Very small apartment living. Which does not stop you from gathering stuff. And stuffing your stuff.
These definitions are so apt:

noun
-material of some unspecified kind
-worthless things or matter
-inward character, qualities, or capabilities (made of strong stuff)
-slang. any kind of drug, esp. an illicit one*

verb
-to fill (a receptacle), esp. by packing the contents closely together; cram full
-to fill (an aperture, cavity, etc.) by forcing something into it**
-to clutter or fill (the mind) with facts, details, etc***

*I never really thought of creative supplies, books and bundt pans as "illicit", but after contemplating our box to stuff ratio, I'm willing to admit that we may very well have a "stuff" problem in some areas. Especially books. Which I need to breathe. Apparently.

**Forcing matter into aperatures. Take everything you own and pretend it's a jigsaw puzzle. With multiple possible solutions. Attempting to solve it leads you to the conclusion that booze (as matter) also fits into your face (cavity). Which may or may not help with packing, but certainly helps with creativity.

***As far as a cluttered and filled mind - we're there. Without a doubt. Seldom in your day-to-day will you find your life and that of complete strangers mashed together into a legal goulash. But buying a house opens new vistas. Their financial issues suddenly become my financial issues, and we have to work it out together. I find I am suddenly much more organized than I want to be (this is strictly panic driven), and I believe I have used every scrap of good manners my parents ever tried to impart to me (they'd be so proud). Together, the Better Half and I have become some kind of lingo translating, paper work resolving machine. Which means our heads are full of the comedy of errors that is our current housing market and its components. We have become quite skilled at hurrying up to wait. And following up phone calls with clarifying emails or vice versa. And signing our names on some seriously grown up paperwork (while trying not to look at the total dollar amount and think about how long 30 years is).

It's a cute house. It's also warm and dry and light. And, for the first time in years, we will have room to host a lot of people we love in amongst our stuff. So taking the field against our own collected belongings (a little like arguing with yourself in the mirror), will definitely have some casualties, but will ultimately be well worth it.

Lies my siblings never believed

"They call him the Boogey Man because if you pick your nose, he comes and gets you in your sleep. You'd better hope you snore - he hates that. It may be the only thing that saves you."

"You fell out of the sled. To you, it may have looked like I slid down the hill backwards and ran over you (my baby sister, who I was supposed to be watching for this very reason), but you're crying over your split lip. Which is clearly impairing not only your judgment, but your entire memory of the last 60 seconds. Of course, as the oldest, I know what really happened." (You can confuse a traumatized baby sister with this, but not her tattle tale brother, aka the middle child. He actually let me lie to my mother, and then ratted me out... leaving me just enough rope to hang myself on that one.)

"I'm going to tell Mom, and she's gonna be sooo mad... You know she hates it when you throw your underwear and it gets hung on the doorbell chimes. It'll probably get ugly. Nice knowing you." (Mom did not care where the underwear ended up - she had other things to worry about, and if you wanted to humiliate yourself, go to it!)

"You're not allowed in my room. I don't go in your room, do I?!" (Said the girl who knew where all the Christmas presents were hidden)

"Because I said so."

"Quit turning the lights off on me! Every time you do that Mom and Dad have to pay 7 cents! You already owe them almost a quarter!" (The two siblings learned their 7 times tables quickly that year)

"Naw, seriously, black jelly beans are the best ones. I'll give you mine, and take those yucky red ones off your hands." (Substitute "yucky red ones" for any of the good Halloween candy.)

"I would never cheat at a board game! You're four years younger than me, I'm not that insecure!" (My six year old brother beat me at Clue shortly after I said that. This particular story is a family treasure - at least to my parents.)

How much is too much?

I'd really rather not, but for some reason, I've been thinking a lot about what it means that I write and post to this blog. It gets complicated by so many factors. Personal space, privacy, having a voice...

Since becoming a blogger, my digestion of other blogs has grown exponentially. I study the ones I enjoy, and I do sometimes revisit blogs I don't like, to study those too. I lurk, and read comments, and chew on someone's writing style... all the while fully realizing how absolutely subjective this interaction is. And then I ponder subjectivity.

Sounding-board style communication, validation, a chance to give your opinions and experiences a moment in the sun, blogs serve many purposes. After reading a particularly wince-worthy blog post some months ago, I began to wonder... When does my purpose, my need to have a voice become a privacy issue, maybe a personal ethics issue? Blogs are a fascinating adventure in principles and conscience, whether we're reading them or writing them.

For some reason, personal life issues presented lightly and salted with humor and sarcasm usually sit well with me. ("Really?" you say... "I would never have guessed that after reading this blog!") The moment squishy introspection and deeply personal emotion starts, I navigate away. Far away. Things like hostile family drama (who doesn't have that?),topics like unrequited love, and blatant cries for validation make me wary. Partially for personal reasons... but mostly because they're on the web. World wide internet. Googleable. If you post it, people will find it.

Oh sure, I pour my little heart out from time to time in a completely open, naive and selfish fashion. But I do it on paper. The internet not only gives us the ability to write about ourselves (or others), but to find out if other people are writing about us. And if they are? Well, I know how I feel about that.

With my own writing, I have this horror that someone will assume I was writing about them (either correctly or incorrectly). I think it's human nature (and my own personal tendency) to exaggerate from time to time for the sake of a good story, and I would want the earth to swallow me up if I ever wrote something that crossed that magic ethical line I've drawn for myself. My rule is, if it's someone's real life... tread carefully. I often remind myself that stories are by their very nature biased by the teller, and that there is always more to a story than a narrator is capable of representing. Even in the wildest work of fiction, you must choose angles to represent. In fiction, you're setting the scene as you'd like it - in real life, it can come across as judgmental and narrow.

This is my personal squeamishness, mind you. I'm picky about autobiography. There's a thin line for me between telling a personal story, and invading other people's privacy. An example - there is an author I just can not bring myself to read because her fiction smacks of badly disguised personal life. Additionally, her non-fiction spells out quite clearly her issues with the people in her life, and that rubs me the wrong way. Aren't I doing the same thing here? Perhaps. I can't quite tell you why it's different.

This has all been at the back of my mind since I started posting here. I stumbled across a blog recently that fanned the coals of these questions into flames, so I did some web research. It's a can of worms, for sure. In addition to the privacy issues I had in mind, the discussions about a Blogger's Code of Ethics adds journalistic values and advertising ethics to the mix.

These just skim the surface of a more academic discussion, but here are some interesting food-for-thought links on privacy issues:
Blog Survey: Expectations of Privacy and Accountability
This 2004 survey has some interesting stats on bloggers' disclosure about themselves and others.
Blogging Down Privacy Rights
A brief discussion of legal issues in regards to ethics and privacy in the blogosphere, and the "do unto others" school of thought.
A Tale of Two Bloggers
A great comparison of how two blogs with similar topics can impinge on people's privacy in very different ways.

The Bathroom?! Seriously?

Things found in the bathroom of my office building that should not be there:

Drink containers. Left perched on the TP dispenser. Straw and all. Blech. Please tell me you don't come back to get these.

A toy poodle. Apparently the leash was looped over the hook inside the stall door - the dog was almost hung when the owner opened the door without removing the leash first. This owner talked with the dog while in the stall. Very unsettling. Even more unsettling was the lack of even a flicker of response from the poodle. Probably too morose about being tied up in the lav yet again.

Your cell phone conversation. I am the person next to you who flushes the toilet three times. I do it because I'm incredibly annoyed that you are so unable to function without your celly buddies that you must take them to the loo with you. I know that those flushes echo in that cavernous bathroom, and I do it just to make sure the person you're talking to knows exactly where you've taken them. I know YOU won't notice, but I always hope they will, and that they'll mind enough to hang up on you.

A list of "who is hot" on the stall door. Please, there are a million "James" and "Bills", with nary a last name listed. "Professor D" is not very revealing either. Way to live on the wild side with the bathroom graffiti. Protecting the innocent perhaps? I'm not sure how to feel about the person who wrote "Me", but I'll admit it made me laugh.

Paper problems. What difficulties could you possibly have with toilet paper that would cause you to strew a million shredded pieces of it all over the floor like some nesting hamster? Or pull a Hansel and Gretel and trail miles of it around the bathroom? Also, with the trash can right beside you... why is your sodden mass of paper towel balled up in the drain of the sink?

Warming up - Granola

The weather here the last few days has been miserably wet and cold. In fall, when daylight is already beginning to make itself scarce, storms turn a day to perpetual twilight. Don't picture nice twinkly evening light when I say "twilight", picture daylight like dirty, wet concrete - dank and grey. There's been just enough wind to drive the cold into your skin. Blech.

I'm fighting back. With granola. A hugenormous batch of granola. The oven makes my kitchen toasty, and it smells almost as good as pie when it's baking. I stumbled upon an online recipe with good proportions and altered it beyond all recognition to become one of my favorite breakfasts. Here it is:

Suit Yourself Granola

This granola is lovely with milk or greek yoghurt. During cold weather, I add a bit of water or applesauce and reheat it - homemade hot granola is worlds better than hot cereal packets!

5 cups rolled oats (I use a combo of rolled oats, barley/wheat/rye flakes, ground flax seed - whatever strikes my fancy from the bulk section)
4 Tbs. vegetable oil (I've used canola oil too, since it's supposed to be better for you)
3/4 cup honey (or a mix of your sweetners of choice - honey, agave and maple syrup all work wonderfully)
3-4 cups of dried fruits and nuts (pecans, almond slivers, sunflower seeds, cranberries, apricots, cherries) Chopped or unchopped is up to you - size does affect how the nuts roast.

Measure your oats and grains into a large bowl - stirring can be messy, so allow yourself some extra room in your bowl choice. I add the ground flaxseed later in the process, as it tends to sift to the bottom of the bowl when mixed with the other dry ingredients.

Heat the oil and sweetener in a saucepan over medium heat. Different sweeteners respond differently to heat - watch carefully so as not to burn the sugars. You want the sweetener to dissolve and mix with the oil. Add spices to this liquid mixture if you'd like. Pour warm liquid mixture over the dry grains, and stir in thoroughly. Once everything seems evenly coated, add the ground flax seed - it will stick to the other grains now.At this point, I like to let my granola sit and stew in its own juices a bit - from a few hours to overnight (well covered). But you can spring right into baking if you'd like. There's a slight difference in texture and flavor - each method tastes great, but I notice a difference.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


Stir nuts into the unbaked granola. Spread granola onto cookie sheets (I use one or two cookie sheets at a time, depending on how efficient I feel like being), and bake in the oven for 10 minute intervals. I stir the granola at least every ten minutes, and find that it takes 20-30 minutes for each batch. Baking time can be very dependent on the grains and nuts I've used. I use quite a bit of flax seed, and that tends to toast up easily, so I watch the color of the baking granola carefully, and set my timer for smaller increments if need be. Watch the edges - they tend to brown more quickly.

Mix any dried fruits into your granola after it comes out of the oven - preferably while it's still warm. I once made the mistake of baking a batch with dried fruit in it - the dried apricots were too chewy, and I almost cracked a tooth on the cranberries!

This recipe has proved to be quite forgiving. It doubles and triples nicely, and I am able to play with a combination of sweeteners. This last batch was a mix of the last of my agave and some local honey. I've used agave alone (it has a low glycemic index), as well as with maple syrup. The finished granola stores well in an airtight container, for a few weeks. I eat a lot of it, so it's not around for long.

A Happy New Year

Firefighter, Cat Herder, Magician

Ever have one of those weeks at work when nothing you planned to do can be addressed because you are so busy putting out fires? When your efforts at being part of a sane approach are trampled by the feet of organizational chaos? When the rules seem to change at whim?

If I wrote a recruitment posting, and included a more accurate (and certainly more colorful) description of the job I do, it would look like this:

Looking for Other Duties as Assigned, in a Small and Driven unit within an Traditional Heirarchy that finds itself transitioning to Corporitization?

Spend, play with, reorganize, spit polish and lament over miniscule resources. Alternately appreciate or get bushwacked by new business practices while managing this little pantry of goodies and those it feeds. Snake charming, firefighting, mind reading, and scrapbooking skills a plus.

Extra Special Other Duties may include (but are not limited to): musical chairs/desks/you name it, preventing a kitchen fire by emptying almost a loaf's worth of bread crumbs from the office toaster, General of the supply closet - sometimes commanding recon missions to local hallways for freebies, knowing the answer to the question "How do We say what We say?" and other pithy inquiries, corralling innumerable moving parts to get one small thing accomplished. Rodeo experience, cat herding, thermodynamics and gourmet cooking skills desired, unlimited patience and naive impression that it can't get worse required.

Join us in a diverse environment of unique and quirky people with individualized working styles. Free yourself from organization and method, savoring your role as a purely reactionary member of the workforce, and become one with the Now, or as we like to call it, the "What Now".

lunch on the porch

Reading: The Wild Places by Robert MacFarlane. Beautifully written.
Eating: Butternut Squash Gnocchi
In the glass: Orange/carrot juice to chase away this cold

* sniffle * hack *

Why are all my comfort foods the same color? Seriously, I ask myself this every time I get sick. I end up craving custard, or rice pudding, teas heavy with milk and honey, toast with butter, soups rich with chicken fat and lemon juice, heated apple juice with honey and a shot of citrus... Is anyone else like this? Why don't I get a hankering for red? Or spicy foods? Why does beige food make me (a person who loves color) feel warm and cosseted?

I've been battling this cold for days, and telling myself that it's just allergies, but it's making itself known in full force today. Maybe you're familiar with that weird euphoria you get when you have a lot to do at work and there are pestilent forces frolicking in your system. Today was not the day to make major decisions, or to use the office shredder. I hope I didn't do either...

I am looking forward to the corn chowder I'll pull out of the freezer tonight. I used homemade chicken stock, so it's rich and fatty. I'll add a bit of cream and some lemon to the broth once it's heated, and I have some leftover rolls to warm in the oven. I'll try to home cook my way to health. It will be a beige meal, but if that's what my germ addled brain decides I want, I'm not going to argue with it!

Photo credit M'soft Clipart

Wanted: Fairy Godmother

Wouldn't it be nice to come home and find that your dirty laundry and dishes, your scuffed and dirty floor, and your stray detritus had magically cleaned themselves and returned to their places? I know it doesn't happen, but honestly, I would be a changed woman if it did.

We've had a long two weeks (well, a year really) of goodbyes. Several friends have moved away. Far away. Spend-a-lot-of-money-to-see-them away. London, Texas, Oregon. Email doesn't quite cut it, and we are not fans of the phone. I realized this week that we've been having send off parties and last-time-to-____ gatherings for a year now.

The most recent rash of festivities was for Ethan, who moved to Portland, Oregon after ten years of being my neighbor and twenty years of being practically another sibling. We are incredibly excited for him - it's a great community to move to and will fuel his artistic life. We're excited for us too - what a cool place to visit. We're also trying to figure out what to do with ourselves now that there are so many spaces that fun people used to occupy... Which means, in all honesty, that we're sitting in our apartment wondering why the dirty leavings of our daily life won't just up and wash themselves, the brats. And we're staring at each other with the glazed look couples use when they're too tired to invest in conversation beyond the words "what?" "nope" and "uh-huh".

Pitiful huh? We have other friends, and they are pretty cool. But they're an hour or more away, and it takes some planning because somehow, when we weren't looking, we all went and became adults with lives. It really gets in the way. I'm still trying to figure out how to make playing the point of my adult life without coming across as some nut with responsibility and commitment issues. If I were say, a river otter, none of this would be a problem. But that's as likely as my dishes and clothes pulling a Disney moment and becoming pleasantly animated and dutiful.

Cookbook find

At a used bookstore I promise I'll take Heather to next time she's here, I found a real treasure. The American Woman's Cook Book with a green frosted vinyl style cover, published in 1940. Eight hundred and fifteen pages of advice and recipes, with labeled thumb indents for each section.

As much as I'd love to, I won't quote from it extensively because you can download it yourself, kitschy pictures and all.


On the sticks: we won't even talk about it, since these sticks haven't clicked in some time.

In the glass: water as an antidote for the Brewer's Fest we were at yesterday. There is a chocolate vanilla beer from Montreal that I am going to hunt down next time we're there. Thick, rich, cold heaven in a glass.

Under the needle: Using up ribbon and scrap fabric for lanyards for our various sets of keys. I feel like I'm at summer camp, but they stitch up quickly and the colors are loud enough it should take real effort to misplace them. Or so I hope.

Pie update: Successfully made my mother's apple sheet pie for a big 4th of July celebration. A little bit of crushed cereal sprinkled on the bottom crust soaks up the juice nicely, and the pieces can be picked up in your hand for easy eating. Pie Fest 2008 planning is in the works! A friend I've known for more than half my life, is moving to Portland, OR at the end of the summer. We'll be having a pieluck dinner in his honor.

Baking therapy

On an average day, I find myself juggling (despite my childless, apartmented existence) a handful of issues that blur the lines between work and not-work. I can't tell anymore what's my baggage, and what's someone else's baggage dumped in my lap. Whether it's family, friends or coworkers, it aaalll adds up. Good jugglers make it seem like their hands just graze objects that are inherently airborne. I am not always a good juggler, sometimes treating issues like they were mosquitos, cream pies, or rotten tomatoes.

Generally, there's some kind of crash, and serious readjustment has to be scheduled. In this rural state where town is two streets, and the weather isn't always conducive to going out to play, I resort to complex kitchen behavior. It wears me out, but if I want to banish annoyances from my mind, AND there's good food when I'm done, it's just fine.

Bless a fresh hot roll from the oven with a pat of butter tucked into it. Bless my grandmother for her bread machine that makes that (and two dozen other rolls) possible with only 10 minutes of actual work on my part. No one cares whether your dough was kneaded by hand or by machine when you pull rolls out of their oven from being rewarmed. They decide to invite you over again very soon, they roll their eyes heavenward, they remember their own grandmothers.

Thanks be for the solid thump of a maple rolling pin as it lands. Picked up at an antique shop for a song by my mother, and oiled and babied by my father before it came to me at Christmas. It's sturdy and can cowboy up to wrangle pie dough like nobody's business. It sets a good example that I try to live up to...

Digital schmigital. I prefer my chicken timer and its little anticipatory ticks, like soft chicken clucks. Its ring sounds very much like the old rotary telephone at my folk's house when I was a kid. I have a digital timer, but it's more bossy than helpful, and gets used during lunch break to let me know when it's time to put my book down and walk back up the hill to work. My chicken sits on my stove top and does her thing in a most comforting manner.

Chicken pot pie... roasted chicken and vegetables, creamy gravy and a sour cream pie crust baked in my big cast iron skillet. The recipe from Cook's Illustrated is the best I've ever tried. When I am feeling pretty darn sorry for myself, this pot pie makes it all okay - both the labor and the eating of it.

I don't know how Steve feels about the general frenzy of flour and potholders in our teeny kitchen. I know he eats the outcomes quite happily. He is kind enough to go back to the store when I do something smart like pour half baked pumpkin pie all over the kitchen floor, and he often cuts butter into flour for pie crust or biscuits. His skills at "disposing of" baked goods that are cosmetically challenged are unparalleled. There is nothing quite like the impromptu (and sympathetic) sous chef.

I was sent home, but it was just hype

We were sent home today, with a tornado threat looming. I walk to work, and was not relishing an unwilling Mary Poppins routine (we heard that the winds might be 60-80 miles an hour). It's not my typical style to flee at the first hint of weather, but I was the first one out the door, hustling home in rain and thunder. I made it to the apartment just as the rain really started to dump, and packed up anything that might blow around on our porch. Called my better half to let him know where I was, and then sat down to watch the onset of a big whopper storm. Just in time for the sun to peek out. Honestly.

I'm not so excited about tornadoes, but I do like a good crack-boom thunderstorm. It's been so oppressively hot here, I was ready for that nastiness to go out with a bang. Nothin' doin'. I'm disappointed actually, and now rather out of sorts... I don't know what it means that that inspired me to blog, but here I am.

New pies tried: White Russian Pie (w/ bourbon and coffee brandy), White Chocolate Pie with raspberry sauce, Peaches and Cream Pie. Also a Derby Pie made by someone else, that was like liquid chocolate chip cookie - all sugar, very good.

Books I have open: Shogun (again), The New Good Cake Book, Green Housekeeping

Projects on the sticks: a felted carrot and that darn mohair wrap I just can't seem to finish

How I'm trying not to freak out about the economy: Growing a few of our own herbs and veg, making our own laundry detergent (from the Simple Dollar blog, great stuff!), stocking up on the basics when I can afford them (flour, rice), trying not to lose sight of the forest for all the green marketed trees

After-work beverage of choice: Otter Creek's Otter San - Japanese style beer brewed with sake yeast

The Comfort of Common Sense

I may have to revert back to my old practice of not reading the news. The headlines add up and overwhelm me these days, and while I remind myself that the media sensationalizes, the basic facts of poverty, disaster and political foolishness remain. Obsessive red tape and policy shroud our lives to such a degree that we stop functioning like human(itarian) beings. I see this increasingly at my workplace, as well as in the operations of government, where humans in crisis take place below political posturing and ego.

I had an instance today that sent me home for lunch in tears of frustration. How could something so simple be made to be so complicated? There are days when I can feel a chain of frustration, weariness and anger being forged one link at a time. Each link is a discomfited employee, and today felt heavy with the weight of all of them. Call it an administration out of touch with employees, an organization struggling to modernize practices... as much as the employees would like to sort things out in a reasonable way, we end up being a terrible burden to each other as we manage the daily confusion and fallout from administrative decisions. Days like this make a lunch break a time of readjustment.

I go home for lunch when I can, and I always have a book waiting for me, if not a sunny stoop and some good leftovers. Today I continued the Essays of E.B. White. White is the author of Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, The Trumpeter Swan, not to mention the revisionist of The Elements of Style (Strunk & White), and a superb essayist. The book of essays I'm reading range from the 50's to the 70's. While I may take a hiatus from the news, I'm certainly don't want to bury my head in the sand. I'd rather spend my time reading the well voiced, reasonable and quiet outrage of White as he writes about exactly the issues we struggle with fifty years later. Polluted soil and polluted food, the death of passenger trains, disarmament, the ways of politicians... White comforts me with common sense, even as he writes about his prescient frustrations with the world. His reflections are sometimes laments, sometimes acceptance, often nostalgic, always wry - a combination that soothes my wounded spirit, makes me feel a sense of companionship in this world. I find myself thinking of his gift with words throughout the day, and it braces me. Like a good friend who sympathizes without sacrificing honesty, he does not patronize, is not over familiar, and shares enough of himself to establish trust and empathy.

Charlotte's Web was always my favorite book as a child, and I am thrilled to have rediscovered this author that so engaged me so many years ago. Once this book of essays is read, I have two more like it on my shelf... and I certainly won't hesitate to add his children's books to my reading list to further my free therapy. His contexts are just as captivating as his subjects, fictional or otherwise. You read it in his sketches of New York City, and the animal doings on his farm in Maine. As much as White wonders about the state of things, he is also full of wonderment.

Work rhymes with jerk

I have that stressed out at myself feeling. Not mad at myself, stressed out at myself. There's something I should have done lurking around every corner, and all I can do is expect it. It's that time of year in academia when students cry, faculty fizzle, and paperwork and chaos reign supreme. For staff it's like watching a roller coaster ride knowing there's a barfer in the front seat.

Some of this is a result of too many things to do in my particular role. Some of it is that it's "normal" to feel that way this time of year as the curtains of academic and fiscal year crash closed (shoot whoever came up with that schedule please). Quite often my "something I should have done" is really someone else's last minute remembrance of something that needs to get done. Pronto. And those kinds of things generally fall within my job of "other duties as assigned". I should have business cards with that as my title... not a good investment since I've discovered that the best use for business cards is making lists on the backs. Nice, small, manageable, pocketable lists.

Anyway, I feel jangly and incompetent. No matter how much I catch up, there's a new confusion waiting to pounce... and it makes me feel like I'm not doing my job. I'm paranoid that it makes me look to others like I'm not doing my job. And then I get stressed out at myself... which leads to a growly stressed out stomach... which you probably shouldn't feed ice cream to, even though you are really craving something creamy, sugary and comforting.

Bugger.

dammit dammit dammit

Ever put together a nice long spreadsheet of numbers in Excel that you've pulled from other worksheets, moved things around, totalled different columns for different purposes... inserted the totals from that sheet into a larger calculation... only to find (by freak chance) that an equation was wrong?

Number of curse words = COUNT of people you've already shown your incorrect figures to
Degree of stupidity = SUM of total screwed up subtotals
Reminding myself I'm only human = also being thankful that today is Friday and my boss and coworker have the weekend to try to forget what a twit I am

Erg. Time for a Friday-style beverage.

Holiday baking stress

When I talked to my mother last week, something possessed me to volunteer to make everything but the ham for Easter dinner. We're not really a get-dressed-to-go-to-church bunch, and Dad's a chocoholic, so the holiday is pretty much about food and springtime in our family. So... spring eats would be things like asparagus, mom's lemon meringue pie and sweet, fluffy rolls like my grandmother always makes. And bacon. My aunt swears that there is very little that can't be improved by the addition of bacon.

Please note that I named other people in relation to some of the food choices. That's because these are items I have never made. I've never had to, mom and/or her mother always has. My mother is gluten-free, so that makes baking interesting at times. It generally means two pies (one with gluten free crust, which has it's own special challenges). I was confident I could juggle all of this noooo problem. Which isn't untrue... I can generally pull off family catering, but the no problem part should never be an assumption. I do it to myself every time, despite the "Abort Mission" faces my Better Half makes when he hears me rattle off menu selections and available time frame. "Don't worry" I say "it will be fine". It usually is... often with his help.

I had pie dough in the fridge leftover from a pie fit a few days earlier, and figured I could just use it for my lemon meringue. This is the point where I found out that pie dough really needs to be used the next day (not the day after the next day), and that I was completely unprepared for the rigors of pre-baking the shell. Don't laugh, it stressed me out! When I saw my first attempt, I shuddered... butter should never be applied towards something so nasty. Frankencrust met trash can in a matter of seconds. I bought a "pie chain" recently, for exactly this kind of thing, to keep the bottom crust from bubbling up. Wasted my money... not big enough, not heavy enough, and the sides slid down like a pair of queen sized pantyhose on a toddler. I now know that a pie plate full of good ol' dried beans would have been fine. Steve helped me mix up fresh dough, and I used that lame pie chain and another pie plate to force the crust to keep its shape, and it worked. Lemon filling from scratch... no problem. Meringue? Completely intimidating. I broiled it just before we left the house, and to my great relief, it was lovely. A nice high mound of fluffy sugar. We packed it carefully, and it was transported without event. Only to find out, when we pulled it out for dessert that meringue shrinks. A lot. I even piled it right to the crust, hoping to anchor it a bit. My mother tried to console me by admitting that she always has that problem no matter what she does. But the image of beautiful meringue skating around the lemon filling committed me to some research on this subject (anyone have any tricks?).

Rolls. One of those things that seem easy to make until you actually think about how much time it takes to let things rise. I didn't realize what a family tradition dinner rolls were for me until I found myself stressing out about whether or not these would be able to meet the expectation of our collective tastebuds, conditioned after years to Gram's parker house rolls. Thanks go to my other grandmother for the gift of her bread machine! On the dough setting it kneaded the rolls for me, and the recipe I used gave me very simple shaping instructions. A relief to my ugly-crust traumatized brain. They turned out quite well actually. Not the same of course, but I will definitely make them again.

Very rarely am I worried about trying new recipes. I usually dive right in, and grumble about the results later. But this time, it felt like I had the ghosts of the bakers in my life peeking over my shoulder. Worse, they were joined by the ghosts of those accustomed to eating their baking! I'm pretty conscious about family tradition, particularly when it comes to food, so I was a little surprised to discover this anxiety in myself. It really was fine, and the bacon in the scalloped potatoes was heavenly... and I just may have finally learned not to be such a smarty pants about my baking.

Weird Pie the First

It could have been a disaster to blog about, but it wasn't. I made an Avocado Pie last week. Think key lime but creamier. Crumb crust (store bought, not Heather's homemade yummy crumb crust), sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, egg yolks, lime juice and a mashed avocado. The recipe called for lemon juice, but never one to follow any instructions to a T... I'll try the lemon next time, as the lime dominated the pie and I'm not sure that was the intent. Once out of the oven, I poured on the sweetened sour cream topping and chilled it. It was pretty good! There was a bit of greeny avocado flavor and the creaminess of the fruit held through baking. The sour cream top was a nice contrast. It was a pretty pie, the avocado baked to a nice light green color - the same green people seem to want key lime to be, and I sprinkled lime zest on the white top.

The recipe came from a book called Blue Ribbon Pies, which takes recipes from state, county and local fairs. Most recipes are quite simple, with few ingredients. I may have to try the Southern Buttermilk Lemon Pie, or the Zucchini Pie next. The latter promises to taste like apple crisp!

Dairy and fiber is good for you

Work and weather have been challenging and draining lately. It's February in Vermont after all, so of course this is unavoidable. Flower shows bloom all through New England this time of year, and resorts sell weekend getaways to desperate yankees by using words like "hot tub" and "relax". Anything that seems the antithesis of slush or rock salt or snow shovels becomes what we all crave.

The sky was a gorgeous blue today, and waking up to sunshine was a nice change. Before I got too hopeful, the flaky d.j. on the radio warned me of subzero windchill temps. Instead of throwing an all out "I want spring now" temper tantrum, I sighed and packed my bag for a day without a walk home for lunch.

What does one bring to work with them to create a fake lunchtime getaway (when one is used to a five minute walk and then the peace and quiet of her favorite chair, a book, and good leftovers)? The recent Saveur magazine, chock full of butter, and the mohair shawl I'm working on. I have always been a firm believer in butter from my first plate of starch. I was further convinced of it's charms when I called my mother after a failed pie crust attempt (my first) - she immediately guessed that I'd tried to substitute margarine. "Throw it away" she said "start again, use butter". I did, and I've not batted an eye at not-butter for baking ever since. I'm the daughter of a woman raised on a dairy farm, it can't be helped. The mohair was from my mother too, and it was high time I got it on and off some needles. While I'd be trapped in my office, I did look forward to the good company of creamy reading and floaty fiber in my fingers.

It was a horribly drudgish morning, so I took an early lunch. At the appointed hour, I moved my chair into the sunny patch in my office, put my back to the door and my feet on the desk. I slurped down butternut squash soup while reading about the de-vilification of butter and it's return to the table (hallelujah!), and sat with a pile of whispery and warm mohair in my lap. Something about the soft click of needles blocks out the sounds of jammed copiers and coworkers talking at each other. It was lovely. At home tonight, I remember my lunch hour more than the rest of my blurred day, which is more than I'd hoped for.