Hot Water Bath

2008-03-15T09:06:00.002-04:00

We have a problem with horizontality around here and have for some time. To wit:

and

The primary symptom is that any given horizontal surface is almost continually covered in an intractable coating of junk consisting of paper, small toys, errant earrings, nuts, bolts, grass seeds (true!), and goodness knows what else. We have it bad in our house and as much as I'd like to blame the 200+ year old domicile's lack of storage I know that the truth lies elsewhere. Namely, with me.

I feel kind of out of my league in this online spring cleaning program I'm following - some of these women really rock the housekeeping thing, whereas I'm kind of the kid in the basement with a dime store guitar singing Jukebox Hero into a floor lamp "microphone" while they're selling out Madison Square Garden (precisely what the song is about, diluting my point somewhat). I am the Cherry Cherry to their Neil Diamond. In keeping with my lack of skill I'm not spring cleaning rooms, turning my attention instead to neglected bits of square footage. Mine are small accomplishments, but they're come upon honestly.

Last night I completely denuded the living room tables, dusted and oiled them. Yes I did! I know homekeeping experts are mixed in their opinions of oiling wood furniture and I (not an expert) come down on the side of pro. The oil smells nice and some of my tables are older than I (remnants from a time when furniture was still make by hands rather than machines and wasn't intended for replacement every 10 years) and have survived oiling all this time so I have no hesitation. A bit of lemon oil and an old cloth diaper go a long way to putting things right.

The oil was just the beginning. All that stuff on the tables? Put away.. Well, mostly. Some of the papers ended up on my desk, which requires a horizontality treatment of its own which is unlikely to happen today. The broken play necklace has been glued, the wallet-size photos put into my new wallet, the flyers about the pre-school rummage sale put into my purse for when we venture out, the library books gathered and placed into two of the coffee table cubbies, etc., etc., etc.. Away.

2008-03-13T20:25:00.003-04:00

I will sum up my quietude of late with seven words: Brainiac's doctor has ordered a chest x-ray.

She is merely being cautious in light of his history and none of us is particularly worried but the directive is indicative of the general state of affairs around here. Between what looks like a mild (but still) secondary infection for him, an on-pins-and-needles situation for me and the general schedule-busting mayhem that comes with spring break we're all a bit spent. As I type this it's nearly a quarter to nine at night - the first night in three that I've been awake to see this time tick-tock past. That I'm still up and energetic enough to start a load of laundry and cruise the blogs a bit, I'd say that things are looking up.

None of this is to say that I haven't managed the odd burst of household productivity. The children's au pair turned 25 years old on Monday night and we celebrated with this:

O.K., you know, that doesn't look so hot all big and blown up on my screen like that. Trust me when I tell you that it was really quite yummy. Yummy makes up for a number of aesthetic issues, yes?

The essential idea came from Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook, after the blog of the same name. Because I can never leave anything alone I made some changes to the core recipe, gilded the lily a bit and ended up with what seemed like the very essence of indulgence.

Instead of Clotilde's pate sable I used a regular old American-style pie crust - I had no time for a learning curve and knew my recipe to be perfectly acceptable. Over the crust which had been baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, I poured a caramel of dark brown sugar (the original recipe called for light brown sugar). This was allowed to set for several hours.

Over top the caramel is a bittersweet ganache made with heavy cream and nine ounces of dar-ar-ar-ar-ark chocolate. After that set I topped the whole thing with sweetened whipped cream. The original recipe doesn't call for such tarting (ha!) up, but I don't need heavy cream just sitting about the house begging to take a swim in my coffee.

You can see from the pictures that this tart/pie was strictly amateur hour. Unlike the wildly talented Clotilde I will not be offered a book deal on the basis of my capacity for turning out delicious and beautiful confections. It was wonderful to eat, though, smooth and creamy and just sweet enough between the caramel and whipped cream. The very dark chocolate added a deep note that kept the whole thing from being too cloying. Best of all, the celebrating recipient loved it as I hoped that she would.

2008-02-29T20:50:00.006-05:00

(Note: The date on this post isn't right. It's March 6, not February 29. I'm curious as to how this happened, but not nearly enough to actually figure it out. It is what it is.)

I wish I was making it up when I tell you that Brainiac has me watching, as I type, a television show about runways. Runways! I am so going to retaliate with a show about, I don't know, sewing for dollhouses or balloon sculptures or something. Runways! Honestly.

We've had a little bit of spring feeling in the past few days - a most welcome development. I know it can't last, of course. Our date of last frost is still some weeks away and anything can happen. Even so I'm definitely feeling springy, with all that such a feeling brings with it. I'm sketching (and re-sketching and) the garden plan, double-checking the supply of canning jars and lids and, most unbelievably to just about everyone who lives with me, doing all these nesty spring cleaning type jobs.

Starting small, of course. I don't want to hurt myself with sudden cleaning moves to which my body is most unaccustomed. I'm gearing up for a major meme-type collaborative effort but, again, have no wish to rush into anything. I'm all about the ramp-up here at Hot Water Bath and the little cleaning-like project that's given me the most satisfaction so far is organizing the living room bookshelf.

I don't actually have a before pic of the bookshelf but trust me when I say that its condition didn't exactly illustrate the message I deep-down wanted to send: that two grown-up people with a teensy amount of au courant taste if not quite a matching budget (hence the prefab faux cherry model bought at a discount from a big box store because the packaging was damaged). We've gone from three shelves crammed with workbooks, scraps of paper festooned with the phone number of long-forgotten need and goodness knows what keeping the bottom doors from closing (possibilities: a large bag with a number of plastic coins mimicking various denominations of U.S. currency, a tin of long since dried markers, a white board with a faded clock face).

But now! Now we have this:

O.K. I can see in this shot that the Girl's little pink bible has fallen in back of the Uncle Sam bank. Whatever. It's so much better than it was and I'm not going to fret about a little imperfection. The important thing is that without all the junk and not-often-used miscellanea we can see that which we truly value - pictures of people important to us, heirlooms and books that see frequent reference (I'm amused to note that The Book of Common Prayer ended up on top of one of Brainiac's books about Scotch).

Like I said, I'm starting small. In this case, though, small seems quite large, indeed.

2008-02-27T04:40:00.003-05:00

Did you ever read these weekly Works for Me Wednesday (WFMW) lists? There's nothing I love better than a tip (or two or three) to make my life easier so I've been really attracted to them lately. It's like reading Heloise on steroids and I've learned everything from how to hand sew button holes (good for the button hole challenged me) to ideas for new songs to sing to the kids on long car trips to how to buy a properly fitting bra. Really, it's like having a couple hundred BFFs who can't wait to e-mail or call with their latest great ideas.

I've actually been tossing around a few canning-related WMFW tips but figured I could wait until gardening and canning season are at hand, to keep things topical and all. Then I had an experience driving home from my parents' last week that I've been talking about since then with all the moms I know and it seemed like a pretty good topic. So here goes, my first Works for Me Wednesday tip, from my house to yours.

The kids and I take a few car trips a year without Brainiac. For this reason (and because our cars are always wretchedly old specimens - no in-car movies here!) we've always carried AAA. The expense has proven useful over the years and, whenever I'm tempted to drop the coverage, I'm reminded of being on the Beltway pulled over, pregnant and in the rain, with a flat. Or the time that I drove over some big old construction bolt and lost a tire. And just last week I had my front driver's side tire changed just a couple miles from the Lehigh Tunnel - there was a two-inch bulge in the sidewall that developed after I hit the Mother of All Potholes and immediately knew that I could not drive my babies another mile with that tire. (At this point I'd love to say that my tip is that I learned to change my own tires, but no.)

It's with this backdrop that I make my little WFMW offering to the world: Make sure you have an operational spare tire, and if at all possible keep a full-size spare. If you don't have a working spare, AAA can't help you. So even a "donut" spare is a good idea and I'm a little surprised at how many people I found in a short, totally unscientific survey that don't keep even this minimal solution around.

A full-size spare is helpful because not only can you resume your driving at a normal speed and with normal conditions, but because it buys you some time in having to get a new tire. Since I resent automotive-related expenditures of just about any kind and the need to purchase new tires always seems to come just when I have something more fun I'd like to do, having the full-size tire as a back-up can give us some breathing room to complete the trip without seeing the inside of an tire dealership, shop for price or gather the money from the budget without worry.

In a WFMW nutshell: Keep a full-size spare if you can (or make sure your donut is workable if you can't).

2008-02-24T20:39:00.002-05:00

A week of escapist reading has informed me that I am not alone in my rather low level of enthusiasm for February. To wit:

“February, and all I have ever known it to mean, brings with it a touch of dread to the mornings.”

Sylvia Jorrin. Sylvia's Farm. Bloomsbury, 2004

And then there's this:

"“After a stressful deadline in February – that bleak month when Ann Arbor hibernates and people hurry, hunched over in sky jackets through the dark – I decided to reward myself with a good meal.”

Jenni Ferrari-Adler. Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant Riverhead Books, 2007.

This, not from a published work, touched me the most deeply:

“I hate February.”

The pre-school director, a friend and fellow sufferer.

But that, as they say, is enough of that. With the last of this wretched month within grasp and March preparing its entrance, I am ready to pack up the entire experience of these last three or so weeks into my Big Box of Denial to be shoved into the top shelf of the closet on the third floor in that room that really creeps me out. In other words, I am done.

I have to confess, things are looking up. I was away with the kids for a few days and arrived home to a package that had come all the way from England. I'd no idea what it could have been and was delighted with a surprise from French Knots.

Isn't that just the most darling thing? I've been all organizey about my laundry lately, so this is right up my alley and just so sweet. Plus, she enclosed a chocolate bar - a chocolate bar which I did not share with anyone. Yippee!

As if that weren't enough cheering, the good folks at Fresh Preserving (the home of Ball canning) read my sad little confession that I don't own a copy of of classic Ball Blue Book and graciously sent me one, accompanied by some freezer jam containers and pectin. Now, I can't say what thrills me more - that these nice folks really are nice or that I can now say I've had my very own bloggy moment of having been noticed. Perhaps it's a little of both. Because I'm never satisfied, I asked if I could maybe interview one of the Fresh Preserving canning experts. With some luck and planning, that'll come in late March or April just as garden planting starts.

With these not-so-little sparks of happiness I'm definitely ready to stow that Big Box of Denial. March may come in like a lion, but you won't hear me complaining.

2008-02-14T21:39:00.004-05:00

My father often dismissed the entire month of February as too cold, too messy, too bothersome a month (for someone who lives in Buffalo year-round, this is saying something). I've always been a bit amused by his feelings and never quite understood them. Why, February has Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl, Candlemas, Ground Hog Day (fun!) and, more recently, the Girl's birthday. What's not to love? Myself, I'd always pegged April as the cruelest month, teasing bits of spring in between hard frosts and frigid nights and then, of course, J. died in April (and K. and C., all within two weeks of each other), hardening me against the entire month forever.

As I get older, though, I'm coming around to my father's point of view. Looking back over my journals I can see that he may well have been onto something all this time. Most of the truly painful events that I've felt the need to record over the past several years have fallen in February. A baby born still, a job loss, illnesses both severe and mild, dissolution of a marriage, scary tests and scarier results - all in the shortest month of the year. That February brings ice storms in my part of the world suddenly seems very appropriate, our very own Narnian "always winter" in one neat, 28(9)-day package.

It seems right to me this year that Lent covers most of February. Reflecting in this time of repentance I know I have much correct and also much to forgive. Perhaps this year with the reminder of the peace that passeth all understanding I can put the darkness of an unkind month behind me and everyone who has shared my bleak days. Perhaps I will be able to keep the words of a traditional Anglican blessing that I have always found beautiful even closer to my heart. "Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make this earthly pilgrimage with us. So, be swift to love. Make haste to do kindness. Shower abundant hospitality on friend and stranger. Walk in justice that you might follow the path of truth and love. And may the One who comes to us unbidden who for our lives was broken and who guides us into wholeness and holiness of life be among you and remain with you always."

Perhaps. I may even start liking April again.

2008-02-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

Sue responded to my onomatopoeia post with a note wondering if I had been having a migraine. I don't actually know much about migraine headaches - my own kinda, sorta, we don't really know what's wrong with you diagnosis is that I get cluster headaches. One of the hallmarks of clusters is that one might have several in a given period of time followed by time headache-free. Mine, assuming they are cluster headaches (which seems to be the best guess), are unusual because they include the flashes of light and often nauseate me - two things more characteristic of migraines - and they can last more than 15 hours. I was lucky because from the time I became pregnant with the Boy up until about a year ago I rarely suffered from headaches of any kind. I seem to be in a cluster now and, although it's not the worst I've experienced, it's still kicking my butt. Badly.

With the backdrop of feeling frazzled from a newly dissipated headache (the pain is gone, but the general rattledness associated is the gift that keeps on giving) coupled with arriving home later than expected this afternoon meant that my planned dinner of pasta shells with crab and peas (in cream sauce - yum) wasn't going to happen. So here I was, late, with the kids in smash!boom! mode and no thought what to do about feeding them. I managed to pull it off and after dinner it occurred to me that my own personal methods for dealing with these kinds of situations might be useful to someone else.

Tonight I ended up making a crustless quiche of five eggs, half a small onion, a cup of frozen peas, a few ounces of leftover ham (diced), a chopped carrot, a bit of shredded manchego cheese and half a cup of flour. All of this mixed together and baked at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes did the trick for an entree, served with brown rice simmered in beef broth, mashed sweet potatoes (roasted over the weekend and stored in the fridge against just this kind of need) with cinnamon. My total hands-on time was well under 30 minutes and I felt fairly pleased with myself when all was on the table and with only a slight amount of trauma on my part.

Crustless quiches are a great choice for busy cooks - eggs, a bit of flour and pretty much whatever else you like are all you need. I've used kale, chard, mushrooms, olives, parsnips, broccoli, all kinds of cheeses and even salsa. Not only are crustless quiches delicious, but they have the added virtue of using up bits of leftovers that aren't enough for anything else.

I try not to feed my family too much in the way of pasta, but do rely on two forms for those days when I'm really pressed. Angel hair, orzo and couscous each cook up very quickly and take on all kinds of diced or chopped veggies easily (I like to include a bit of sauteed garlic and onion, too). A light sauce of chicken broth thickened with cream and warmed through makes a nice topping that comes together easily.

One of the chief benefits of doing as much canning as I do is that there are a number of products in my repertoire that amount in reality to nothing more than homemade convenience foods. Having roasted tomato sauce, applesauce, mixed pickles and more on hand means that, when push comes to shove, there is something that can be relied upon to dress up a quickly produced and more humble offering. Scrambled eggs with applesauce isn't an unheard of dinner plate around here and nor is a lightly seasoned roasted chicken breast with mixed pickle and fruit salad. Knowing I have a cupboard full of ready-to-go foods made by me with ingredients that I either grew, picked or purchased in season is the ultimate in dinner planning.

With these simple meal solutions generally at hand I can cope with just about anything come the dinner hour, whether it be a headache, a late meeting or just your standard-issue energetic offspring bouncing around the kitchen demanding to know "is dinner ready yet?"

2008-02-09T20:29:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting here on our very uncomfortable futon, shivering, with a cup of tangerine-mint tea by my side hoping against hope that I'm not coming down with round 2 of the noro virus that's sweeping through town. The cats are asleep on my feet so at least part of me is toasty. I simply cannot be sick - I've got Sunday school tomorrow (note to self: find bag of feathers for discussion of the Holy Spirit) and all the get-ready-for-the-week stuff that goes on Sunday afternoons. Besides, if I'm going to be sick I insist it be on a work day.

It's precisely these kinds of days - cool gray and feeling unwell - that turn my mind to garden plans. Anyone whose ever bought so much as a ball of twine from a garden supply firm finds themselves buried in catalogs this time of year and I am no exception. Inevitably, I fill out order forms with all kinds of exotic flora - achilliea!, Liatris spicata - and just as inevitably end up doing the same old thing. I have neither the time nor the inclination to coddle a lot of decorative gardens, however much they're appreciated, so the usual purchases of bulkpack impatiens, petunias and alyssum usually suffice while any growing from seed happens in the vegetable patch (beans, zucchini, radishes and so on - all reliable workhorses).

This year I'd like to try something new, something not enabled by the mere completely filled-out order form, something that requires more heart and less cash. But what? I'm tempted in a thousand directions by three books intended to introduce children to the joys of gardening. Turns out they're just as handy for stuck-in-a-rut adults.

Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy includes some very clever ideas for gardening with children, emphasizing plants that grow quickly and produce some "consumable" result - bathing with an herbal blend, making musical instruments from gourds, and so on. I've made bean pole tee pees before but her sunflower house variation is so sweet and so much of the kind of summer magic I'd like my kids to remember that I literally started hopping up and down in my seat, eager to begin sketching out just how to do it. Lovejoy's directions for growing potatoes in galvanized buckets is nothing short of miraculous - I've read how easy it is to grow potatoes but every direction I've ever ready left me scratching my head, wondering what "magic happens here" was left out. Lovejoy is clear and concise and perfectly understandable.

The Children's Kitchen Garden by Georgeann and Ethel Brennan is a more traditional garden book, less moonbeams-and-magic than Roots. It's charm to me is that it describes an actual garden, grown by actual children - no theory, in other words. The bulk of the text discusses the requirements of a host of vegetables and herbs and the included recipes could be well understood by children older than, say, six or seven (with grown-up help).

The Enchanted Gardening Book by Alice Herck rounds out my current garden inspirations. The projects are more basic than those in Roots and it includes much less practical information than Kitchen Garden - it's magic is that it seems to call to an older time, when people did such things as make rose petal beads, when they memorized poems at the behest of the governess, and give tea parties using real china for dolls and teddy bears. I'd love to know more about the author and her motivation for producing this lovely, nostalgic book but neither Google nor authorsearch turn up anything.

With these three books by my chairside I am motivated to do things differently at last. I don't need more seeds, I realize. I've already got bean seeds for tee pees and sunflower seeds for a house (with pumpkin - I have those seeds, too - furniture). I've already got seeds for 4 O'clocks and snow peas and Easter Egg radishes and patty pan squash - not to mention everything I need to make sure that the cherry tomatoes grow within reach of snacking kids' hands or that there are ample paths between rows of strawberries. All I needed was to see what I already have in a new light, the garden equivalent of those people who will come rearrange your furniture, showing you the new decorating options you were too hidebound to see (or, my favorite, those fashion experts who come to your house to show you new ways to wear your own clothes).

Like with so many things in life, what I needed was exactly the same as what I already have. Funny how that works out.

2008-02-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

One of the questions I receive most often concerns where I find the recipes I use for jams and pickles. With more and more attention being paid to seasonal enjoyment of locally-grown produce there is also a great interest in preserving whatever excess is available. This makes a great deal of sense to me and I have often declared that my interest in canning and other methods of preservation have less to do with saving money than it does with having better - in every sense - products for the money I do spend. My pickles don't contain artificial food coloring, my jams are free of high-fructose (or any) corn syrup, and my mushrooms aren't processed a world away from my own kitchen. None of these variables guarantee perfect food every time, of course, and that I truly enjoy the time involved is an excellent bonus.

Since I've begun chronicling my canning adventures (way back in 2002), I've seen a marked increase in interest in canning among people who may not have ever before considered it. In exploring that interest, the first question is often what do I need. The second question is what do I make? I insist to all comers that we ain't doin' your Grandma's canning here, but if this is food preservation for a modern cook with modern sensibilities, were are the good recipes?

Very good, basic recipes can be found in every box of pectin and on every carton of jars. These tend to be very straightforward - strawberry jam, dill pickles and so on - and consist of just a few steps. These days I've pretty much left pectin behind in favor of other types of jams (I don't make much jelly of any kind) but I still maintain that a new canner could do worse than to buy a box, read the insert, give it a go and see what happens. Once you've more or less got the hang of the recipes that come with your gear, you can branch out a bit.

The mother of all canning books surely is the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I don't actually own one myself, but I've had a bash at a read and it really is very comprehensive. The recipes are meticulously prepared and cover just about every type of product one could conceivably produce. It's a little heavy on old-fashioned varieties for my taste (and really heavy on the much-avoided sweet-and-sour stuff) although one could certainly do worse to start out.

I adore Edon Waycott's Preserving the Taste, which is sadly out of print. The blueberry marmalade is a standard in my kitchen, as is her marinated mushrooms. Ms. Waycott specializes in providing jams to restaurants in southern California and so she uses a number of fruits not available to me, but I don't hold this against her because her text very clearly demonstrates how to use what you have to make something truly delicious.

Another out of print gem is Helen Witty's Fancy Pantry. I Google Mrs. Witty from time to time hoping to find that she - or a fellow fan - has put together an omnibus website, but no. Anyway, from jerk sauce to hot sauce to melba sauce, Fancy Pantry offers some kind of nibble or condiment for ever imaginable occasion and scores of little treats to enhance even the plainest, most workaday meals. I can't recommend it enough.

If the abundant creativity of Waycott and Witty don't tempt you, look to the classics Stocking Up and Putting Food By. How the authors of these books manage to keep updating and keeping new editions coming, I'll never know, but they do and I am forever grateful. Beginning with the science of food preservation and ending with recipes for a nice selection of outputs, neither will steer you wrong and both should have a place on a canner's shelf.

Then there are the surprises, the sources you couldn't predict and which in my experience provide the neatest little recipe treasures. Community cookbooks often hold a jam recipe or two and these can often be relied on quite seriously - no one submits a bad recipe to the preschool cookbook committee, do they? And last year my girlfriends and I decided to use the last of the blackberries and peaches to sort of wing a jam, just to minimize waste and leftovers. The result was incredible and something that I only serve very, very special guests. Not all experiments work so well - my flirtation with Orangina jelly never panned out (and, truthfully, the whole idea kind of amazes me - what was I thinking? I can only blame the fact that I was pregnant at the time) but I'm still thinking that beer jelly holds interesting promise.

So you never know. Start somewhere, master the basics and develop a sense of what can be done safely and then...well, just about anything is possible. I hope that when you develop that killer jam or noteworthy pickle you come back to share the news with me.

2008-02-03T20:58:00.002-05:00

I battled a headache for much of the morning today. I say battled not out of any sense of drama (although goodness knows I surely posses such a thing, in generous amounts) but because all my usual remedies - caffeine, protein, hiding in a dark and silent room, copious OTC pain relief - did little to diminish the pain.

While huddled in my dark bedroom whimpering like a puppy, I wondered why my kids' love of onomatopoeia rises in direct proportion to any pain I might be experiencing. The first twinges behind my right eyeball bring an immediate need for a toy earth mover to back up across the family room (beep, beep, beeeeeeeeep). By the time little silver flashes cross my field of vision, an ambulance speeds its way to an emergency at the domino run (oooooh-waaaaah, oooooh-waaaaaah). When I'm ready to weep, tears falling in unison with the pulsing in my temple, there is inevitably a Lego tower in need of demolition (petchoooom!). It is a most vexing phenomenon and something I find really odd - I swear that the little ambulance never sees any action unless I am about to take a drill to my head, a la Maximilian Cohen.

Anyway, all is quiet now and it turns out all I needed was a little time and the distraction of the first nice-ish day this year. We had the kids run around in the mud a bit and managed to soak up some vitamin D conversion rays ourselves, coming inside just in time to whip up a few snackies and sit down to the ~~big~~ pretty dang boring game.

Among the treats turned out post-headache were a batch of wings inspired by the Crock Pot Blogger Lady's sweet and spicy wings. Being from the greater metropolitan Buffalo, New York area as I am, I find the idea of "sweet and spicy" wings sort of, well, icky. But! It was her method that intrigued me. Wings can be tricky and there are all sorts of opportunities for failure - they may be soggy, chewy, too hot (as in no flavor, just heat) and so on. And? Word to the uninformed: there are no "flavors" of Buffalo wings. Buffalo wings are the flavor. Sweet, spicy, teriyaki, whatever, sure. They're your flavors. But please, don't ever let me hear you talk about all the kinds of Buffalo wings you ate at happy hour. Good?

Moving on, then. The original recipe came from, of all places, the Semi-Homemade corner of the universe and I have to give props where props are due: this is a really clever method of preparing the wings and solves a lot of the problems home wing-makers have long faced.
(Totally unrelated aside: As I type this, the NFL has ruled that one more play must be run to complete the Super Bowl. Bill "Not A Cool Guy" Belichick has left the field, having apparently realized somewhat belatedly that no amount of creative rule interpretation can guarantee a championship team. Yes, it sucks to be 35 seconds away from a perfect season and have it blown to pieces. Really, though? Walking away like that before the game is truly over? My four year-old manages better sportsmanship.)

What was that about moving on? Yes - solving problems. The whole broiling the wings before a nice long soak in the sauce is a lovely alternative to frying or broiling alone. Frying at home is messy and broiling alone deprives the wings of depth of flavor. I broiled my wings in a single layer for about 20 minutes at a fairly high setting and then put them and the sauce in the crock on low for a couple hours. After this treatment, the wings were crazy tender but a leeeetle soft in the skin for me. A second 15-minute broil (on low this time) solved that problem nicely and a toss in a bit of the leftover sauce made an excellent batch, good enough even for this hardened Buffalo born-and-bred wing snob.

But what about the sauce? Simple. One part unsalted butter to three parts Frank's Red Hot, with a tiny splash of white vinegar for additional added kick and a smidge of ground black pepper just for fun. The good people at Frank's make a pre-mixed wing sauce that may be lovely, but homemade is easy and tasty so why not make it fresh? Oh, and also? Tabasco sauce, another fine peppery product, is great for many applications but isn't the best choice for your Buffalo wing needs. Other sauces, maybe, but not the Buffalo.

Now that my headache is gone, the game over and the wine glass empty while the work week looms it's time to call a it a day. Sweet dreams, everyone.

2008-01-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

I'm here, just a bit overtaken by events. Should be back this weekend, probably Sunday after the Girl's birthday party and the resolution of a small amount of familial drama.

And then? I want to talk about All Recipes a bit, gelatin desserts, my favorite canning books and why I want 2008 to be the Year of the Dinner Party.

2008-01-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

This woman has much more ambition than I. Much more. She has resolved, in that New Yearsy kind of way, to use her slow cooker every day and post the results every day. Stunt blogging can be really fun and interesting (see also: the original Julie/Julia Project) or boring and sanctimonious (see also: No Impact Man). This has some potential, I think, for hitting me in a few interesting spots: cooking, family, money, creativity, etc., etc., etc. I like that she, so far at least, uses real food (marshmallows for the sweet potato casserole notwithstanding) and seems to avoid cream 'o whatnot condensed soups and the like. Definitely some possibilities there.

Finding the blog was good timing since I have been trying hard to cuddle up to my own slow cooker without much success and if it weren't for tonight's modest triumph with a sausage and potato experiment, I might have abandoned the thing altogether. It truly is amazing how one can throw some quartered red potatoes, a diced onion, a few sausage links and a bit of veggie broth into a ceramic pot and come home to a dinner that's, more or less, completely prepared.

Of course, after nearly six years of blogging (six years!) I'm still wretched about remembering to take pictures of things. Trust me, though, it was actually kind of yummy and not at all the sort of shredded-meat-with-soft-carrots thing that I've well mastered and come to dread. Yes, I'd say the slow cooker thing is looking up.

2008-01-05T13:17:00.001-05:00

New and experienced canners alike can be confused on the subject of gear. After all, newbies are new and the experienced among us can become hidebound by familiar methods. Home canning as we know it today hasn't been around so very long, after all, and it is just as influenced by science and technology as anything else. Methods change (witness new USDA recommendations for tomato processing times), as does fashion - you don't see much in the way of watermelon rind pickles these daysbut I get more hits for tomatilla salsa than anything else.

When someone asks me for recommendations for getting started with canning, I try to keep things simple and few in number. There are hacks and homespun ways to get around almost all of them, but I think that they're better accomplished by confident canners and do suggest that new enthusiasts stick to at least a minimal complement.

First: jars. I recommend Ball (or -type) canning jars. There are other varieties of jars but these are likely to be the most recognizable to those of us in the U.S. They are strong, will last for years with proper treatment (save a few losses here and there) and can also be used in the freezer. They take a two-part "dome" lid, the rings of which can be used over and over again (in fact, the you only need the rings to set the seal - once a jar is sealed you can take the ring off and store the jar without it, using the ring on the next jar to be processed).

For my money, the best canning kettle is one intended for canning. You can buy them with the rack included, and replacement racks are available. I've had my kettle for eight or nine years now and I'm ready to purchase a new rack. It is possible to use a spaghetti pot and wrap your jars in tea towels for cushioning but, even though I myself have done so (for quarter-pint jars) it's not the kind of thing that I think that newbies ought to do. If you already have a pot that will fit the rack dimensions, by all means spring for just the rack.

Then there are the little things, like a jar lifter, funnel, sterlizing rack, and magnetic lid lifter. Of all of these, I only bother with the jar lifter (although I often use folded towels instead) and funnel. The lifter is useful for righting tipped jars or fishing jars out of the kettle if the filled rack is too heavy to lift and a funnel is very good for filling jars without making a mess of the rims, which could interfere with the seal. A canning funnel is sized just right for Ball-type jars, too, and worth the expense in my opinion. The others...bah. Not worth it to me, but your mileage may vary. Once you have an idea of the kids of things you like to make, specialty stuff like cherry pitters and apple corers and food mills enter the picture. Hold off of these at the very beginning or borrow them unless you know for 100% certain you're going to want them and consume the products to which they contribute.

You can buy kits of various kinds that incorporate some or all of this gear. There are several online providers, as well, or you can check your old-timey hardware store. I routinely by lids at our locally-owned hardware place and I've been known to zip into the much-dreaded Wal-Mart in a pinch (although it seems to me that they are selling less in the way of reusable gear and more in the way of canning seasoning mixes). Several supermarkets in my area carry lids, rings and jars in their housewares aisles, too.

Like many hobbies, even practical ones, the start-up costs for canning aren't a trifle. I'm not sure I really save money through canning, although I'm pretty confident that I'm able to produce very high quality products for an excellent cost, not considering the intangibles of being able to deal with lots of homegrown or otherwise inexpensive produce. Since I use my jars for freezer storage, too, I think that helps me avoid food waste as well. Once people find out that you're canning, you will likely receive lots of jars - for some reason people have them in their basements a lot - and I've scored a few from Craig's List and FreeCycle. I buy lids all year 'round to avoid a large outlay in July through September - more of a psychological help than a real financial one.

If you're just starting out, it may be worth pitching in with friends for the gear and a few dozen jars and sharing the work of your first canning sessions. Sharing the work of chopping and boiling and mashing is a great way to learn and until you know if you'll be canning year 'round or wanting to produce a lot of your family's food in this way, you may as well go co-op on the equipment.

Next time, I'll make my website and book recommendations, and talk a bit about how to get one's hands on stuff to can.

2008-01-04T19:33:00.000-05:00

Now that the Christmas decorations are, more or less, put away for the next 11 months and we're all struggling to remember to write '08 on our checks, let's talk about resolutions. Not *my* resolutions, mind, but yours. You know, the ones that you actually made a few months back rather than those from just the other day (perhaps forgotten already) and which involved getting organized for this year's gardening and canning seasons. I know that there must be lots of these resolutions out there because I see the referrals which read along the lines of "is it too late to start a garden" (in August, in the northeast of the U.S.) or "making strawberry jam at home when strawberries out of season" (in October) or even "what canning equipment do I really need" (this one and its varients happen all the time). Now that the garden catalogs are starting to arrive - I don't know about you, but I find these infinitely more tempting than any pre-Christmas gifty catalogs - we've got a good time to talk about the whys and wherefores of the whole business.

Gardening and canning are, of course, two entirely separate activities although they have a significant overlap for some people. Then there are related topics like dehydrating and freezing and u-pick and subsets such as container gardening and vertical gardening and seed saving and on and on. So what I thought I'd do is sort of lay out my system, the equipment I use and how I organize things and then try and get a bit of a conversation going about your methods and maybe we can all share a bit and come away with more info than we started with. Sound good? I'm not an expert in these matters, but someone needs to go first and seeing as this is my blog it may as well be me.

I'll start with canning and other food preservation stuff, because for me this part drives the gardening (for others the reverse may be true). In the coming week I'll touch on canning equipment, garden prep and how I choose what to grow, and some of my favorite garden and canning hacks.

Freezing: Our regular old top-of-the-fridge freezer holds the day-to-day stuff like yeast, unflavored gelatin, meats I intend to use within two or so weeks, roasted garlic, and gallon ziplocks of corn kernals, green peppers and peas. Our stand-alone freezer keeps flours, farm- and bulk-purchased meats, some bulk baking supplies, broths, tea and coffee, and veggies frozen for the longer-term (green beans, bell peppers, peas, cut and sauteed mushrooms, among others).

In addition to the freezers themselves, I use (and reuse and reuse and...) a good number of ziplock-type freezer bags and glass canning jars (be sure to leave expansion room in the jars, otherwise they WILL crack). For the jars, a cleaned used flat lid can be used inside a ring - you never want to reuse a flat lid when canning but I routinely use them for freezing purposes where the seal isn't as important as just keeping air away from the food.

Freezer season starts in the spring, when I start to mash up strawberries for frozen puree. By the time strawberry season ends I try to have several quart bags of puree for muffins, waffles and smoothies. Then we move onto cherries, blueberries and raspberries - each of these can be individually frozen on a cookie sheet before sweeping into a freezer bag for storage. Cherries do well if you can pit them (a cherry pitter is one of my few specialty kitchen gear possessions) but it's not necessary.

By the time I'm well into fruits, veggie freezing begins. Shallots can be peeled and stored in a large Mason jar and trimmed snow peas are easy to freeze. Corn is sheared off the cob and frozen on a cookie sheet before storage in a gallon freezer bag (it's then a simple matter to pull a cup or two out of the bag for cornbread or chili or whatever) while other ears are quickly simmered and then cut in half for freezing on the cob (the kids love this), peppers are cored and sliced, green beans trimmed and cut. Hot peppers are sliced before freezing. Roasted eggplant puree, smooshed pumpkin and shredded zucchini round out the freezer storage.

Dryer: The dryer is a new addition to my food preservation repertoire, one that I'm rapidly coming to appreciate. This year we dried cherry and plum tomatoes, cherries and apples. They've been very useful for quick preparation (one appetizer I adore: dried cherry tomatoes rehydrated in warm balsalmic vinegar and skewered with slices of chorizo and cubes of manchego cheese - bliss!) and products I'm hoping to continue this year. It would be cool to experiment with dried corn and mushrooms, so they're on my list as well.

Canning: At the moment, I focus strictly on water bath processing. This method is suitable only for food products with an acidity sufficient to render them safe for storage, a concept that is constantly evolving as the natures of food items change along with our understanding of food-borne pathogens. I've written before about my approach to risk management in this area - some will not agree with my take on, say, tomatoes. I'm o.k. with that. Differing thoughts on risk management will result in differing canning lists, too.

I usually have three or four kinds of jam on hand (strawberry, blueberry, peach and mango are favorites), as well as crushed tomatoes and roasted tomato sauce. Pickles include dilly beans and carrots, marinated mushrooms, kosher dills, jalapenos and occasionally brussels sprouts. Then there are sauces and condiments: tomato and tomatillo salsa, jerk sauce for marinades, chocolate sauce and preserved lemons. Fruit products include applesauce, pear sauce, whole cherries and diced peaches.

This is about it in terms of that I try to "put up", as they used to say. Things are slow right now with only jerk and chocolate sauce and preserved lemons to pay attention to. Then there'll be a break for garden prep (which I'll cover in an upcoming post) before the strawberries come in, after which things move faster and faster until September and October when I'm a quivering mess of tomato- and apple-based canning stress.

No matter how busy I get, though, I don't seem to be able to make "enough" of anything. This time of year I look around on the shelves and realize that we're out of so much already - and I don't like it. My own resolution is to try and do more - to not crash out on the sofa after six consecutive nights of canning crushed tomatoes, to go for the seventh and eighth and ninth if I can and the tomatoes are available. I resolve to not sleep in on Saturday mornings in August when corn is abundant at the farm market, knowing that come February I'll want it for chili and cornbread to warm a long, dark night.

2008-01-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year, Internet friends. I hope that 2008 brings us all health and peace most of all. A few smiles, too, of course but mostly health and peace.

I spent yesterday, the final day of 2007, doing more or less two things. I turned 39 years old and I attended my grandmother's wedding.

My grandmother's first wedding took place when she was seventeen years old and the celebration was enabled in good part by the pooling of ration coupons amongst friends and her intended's eight older siblings. My mother was born within a year while her father was, as they said at the time, somewhere in Europe. She'd be nearly three years old before he father came home and the newlyweds would be together again.

I was a child when my grandfather died and I'd be surprised if my youngest sister has any memories of him at all. For most of my life, my grandmother insisted she would never remarry, that she liked her independence and hard-won ability to look after herself. There would be a few gentlemen friends to squire her to the movies or to the diner for supper, and the occasional fancy dress reunion of this or that warship but in the main she was on her own and abundantly available to her four children, eleven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.

And then she met (on a blind date) a man she not only would consent to marry, but offer her consent with such an alacrity that fairly shocked the entire family. Shocked we may have been, but we were all there present and quite literally cheering her on.

Very shortly after the ceremony the groom's son bundled up his young daughter and prepared to hurry back to his wife, who was too close to giving birth to travel safely or comfortably. He'd received a call that her contractions had begun in earnest and predicted that perhaps the time was near. With this is mind I shared with my grandmother and her new husband at my own leave-taking, some hours later, my realization that they would soon be jointly the grandparents of thirteen grandchildren ranging in age from infancy to 39.

Today I tried to explain to the Boy that very few children get to attend their great-grandmother's wedding, a notion that he of course couldn't quite grasp. I went on to tell him how lucky we are that she is so healthy and active and independent. "But Mommy," he said, "She's very pretty and not very old at all. Why wouldn't she be active?" His sister chimed in with the conviction that the bride must really be a princess and I saw that it must be true what is sometimes said about the very old and the very young, that the circle of age comes 'round on itself so that those who are truly left out of an understanding of life and love are those in the middle. The 39 year olds, for example.

2007-12-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

Back in September when I first started thinking about clothes and my wardrobe and what I might like to do about my increasing dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs I was wary of the possibility of doing what I thought as too much thinking about the subject. I didn't want to become one of those women, those whom I have judged in the past to be over concerned with appearances or expenditures, who (I assumed) didn't dress to please themselves or those closest to them but rather other women in some vast public fashion show where only the rich and the beautiful (two things I am not) survive and the rules are rigged that way deliberately.

And then I got over myself and remembered that women (and men, now that I think more on it) have been adorning themselves since time immemorial. Berries crushed for the juice to be used on lips or cheeks, henna, kohl, and all manner of oils and salves served our ancient sisters in the same way that anything from Sephora serves us and I don't doubt that as soon as someone figured out a way to get a new dye color by smashing an as-yet unsmashed plant that a new color flax or wool or whatever became all the rage in the village.

Thus rationalizing my newly emerging interest in my own appearance, I pressed on to find an extraordinary trove of resources to inform my thinking. I haven't come to any real conclusions yet about what to change or how to change it, although I am taking ongoing inspiration from, in no particular order:

1) House Art Journal: Regina Doman writes on many subjects, including how she organized her wardrobe to satisfy the requirements of her busy life with "just" 35 thrifted components. Regina's and my needs aren't really similar, but I am excited about the possibility of applying a true, intentional, mindful organization to my closet. Using Mrs. Doman's categories as a springboard, I'm tossing around the idea of using four for myself: dressy/festive, church/professional, outings/casual, and (in a nod to one of the Boy's favorite television shows) Dirty Jobs.

2) Bombshell Beauty: A chatty blog taking the position that enjoying beauty and fashion needn't be the sole province of the slender (or rich). The sensibility is one younger than I might desire for myself and I like that it teaches me that throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away. Bombshell Beauty mixes things up in a way that I find interesting and informative.

3) Fat Chic pulls no punches when it comes to plus size fashion, beauty and health. With advice for handling retailers, researchers and even family who would treat the curvy crowd as lesser citizens, Diana Rajchel urges women to be more than the culture would have them be. Ms. Rajchel actively strives to build up micro-businesses and artisans, something I find really cool. Say no to cookie cutter dressing!

4) Fussypants: Fussypants is a very popular blogger of whom I have only recently heard. She has contests, she gives away prizes, she's amusing and la la la, but what I found truly astonishing is her Fight the Frump series. Now, I don't love it all (and people who know me well will now precisely the bits I don't care for) but mostly the series is a nice kick in the pants for girls like me who are more inclined to wear something because it's clean than for any other reason. Sure, I'm no longer young and have an alarmingly high-numbered birthday bearing down on me but I've still got some fight in me and I'm going to use it against the Frump.

5) Wardrobe Refashion: Now this, I love. Wardrobe Refashioners take a pledge that for the duration of a pre-determined time frame (three, six or twelve months, I think) they will not purchase off-the-rack clothing but instead provide "new" items to their wardrobes by making from scratch or "re-fashioning" existing garments. Some of the participants are inspirational hardcore sewers whose creations send me into fits of awe, others are working their way through as I would - tentatively and perhaps with a little frustration. Reading their accounts of refashioning has prompted me to look at some of my own wardrobe duds in a new light and I am hatching plans to take the sleeves of one shirt and the bodice of another to create something I might wear out of two things that I categorically won't but which I am too cheap to throw away.

These are the women I've adopted as karmic sisters in my own closet-related battles. Hipsters, goth chicks, religiously devout moms, girls-about town...and me. Despite our outward appearances and the ways in which we lead our lives it seems to me that we are closer under the skin by our attention to what we wear on the outside of it and I have learned much from each of them.

2007-12-15T09:54:00.000-05:00

Point 1) I just slid a "peppermint" cake (half red velvet, half white, swirled together) into the oven - the proper three layers now possible through the rummage-sale acquisition of a third (and fourth) nine-inch cake pan - and the kids are watching a rapidly failing VHS* copy of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas**. I ought to be, I don't know, cleaning or something, but instead I'm here while trying to wrap my head around today's marketing list (peanut butter - not the good no preservative kind, it's for cookies - sour cream, graham crackers, frozen spinach, cider and something else that I'm sure to forget.

Point 2) "I need to remember to take a crow bar to church tomorrow," mused Brainiac last night. Now that has got to be one of the funniest things anyone has ever said to me. What on earth?

Point 3) My parents are, as I type this, preparing to attend one of the White House Christmas parties. Now, I'm not what you'd call a fan of the current administration (come to think of it, I can't recall being a fan of any administration but I'm hard to please like that), but I surely would love to take a gander at the gingerbread White House. I saw one being made on Food TV last year and - wow - is that cool. Anyway, this is special for my parents and I'm happy for them. Hope the Secret Service remembers to count the spoons when they leave 'cause my mom has a thing for spoons and who knows what she might hide about her person. Kidding! Kidding! My mom is a very moral and upstanding citizen. Ask anyone. You - with the earpiece - I'm talking to you. Don't touch my mom.

Point 4) I had hoped to make a batch of both jerk sauce and chocolate sauce but have come to realize that my personal sanity and overall well-being hinges closely on waiting until after Christmas. Things like jerk sauce are great winter-time canning projects since they rely much less heavily on warm-season ingredients. And then there's marmalade which can be made with all kind of winter citrus. So if you, like I, have not yet put away the canning kettle there's no real reason to go to the trouble now. Might as well leave it out and make up a batch of something or other when you have a less-than busy moment.

Point 5) My last post shared some of our Advent traditions. What I didn't talk about is one tradition that I've decided to cancel, at least for this year - the new pajamas for Christmas Eve thing. My kids don't need pajamas and buying some anyway would require a shopping trip I don't intend to make. We're a little light on hand-me-down, thrifted and clearance pajamas for warmer weather, though, so maybe I'll revisit this as an, I don't know, Easter tradition or something. Another key part of mothering sanity is, in my opinion, knowing when to let go of something that at first blush seemed unletgoable.
*My parents for years had one of those huge console-type stereos. For most of my childhood the stereo cabinet served as storage for candles, crayons and random household flotsam because the turntable rarely worked, except at Christmas. Yep, our own Christmas miracle. Turns out that my adult household experiences a similar technology-related holiday phenomenon in our VCR, which only works reliably at Christmas to show not only Emmet Otter but also a Finnish production entitled Santa and the Magic Drum which involves a Shaman who wants to be an elf. Those Finns, now they have themselves some Christmas spirit. Shamans! Indeed.

**Did you know there's, like, heated controversy over the DVD offerings of Emmet Otter? It never fails to amaze me the things over which otherwise rational people will argue.

2007-12-12T20:20:00.000-05:00

We've had such a delightful couple of weeks around here that I'm fairly tempted to pinch myself. Sure, there's been the usual frustrations, kid shenanigans, sniffles and forgotten trash days, but in the main we've all been all frolicky and festive and I have to say it's rather nice.

I'm not super dogmatic on the point of holiday traditions, but I am finding as the children get older that having a very few provide a nice framework on which they can base their own developing sense of observance.

(By the way, don't hold the red eyes above against me. My kids don't really have the eyes of Satan spawn, merely a mom who can never remember from one shot to the next what to do about them.)

We have the little Advent tree I mentioned in a previous post, where every day one kid (they take turns with some minor scuffling which I now regard as part of tradition) chooses an ornament from a little cabinet and places it on the lighted tree. There are teeny ballet shoes and mittens and wreaths and toy soldiers and it's darling. The last ornament is always a star, and this year the Boy suggested that he and his sister hang it together so they could both have the pleasure of marking Christmas Eve, a proposal that made my heart grow three sizes.

And I do an Advent thing with my vast and varied selection of Christmas books, consisting of everything from A Child's Christmas in Wales to Merry Christmas, Rugrats!" (as yet unread, mercifully). Every night the child who did not choose an ornament for the tree chooses a pre-bedtime story. Among my favorites is The Baker's Dozen, which I (not so) discretely encourage for the night of December 6, St. Nicholas' Day. Even if I don't manage to get my way on this point, it'll come up during the month and I know we'll enjoy the book whenever it's turn arises. Some of our collection belonged to my father in his childhood and I feel honored that my own children enjoy these same stories. It an extraordinary privilege to experience that kind of continuity, one that I hope I am able to encourage them to appreciate.

And then there's the cookie baking. Every year I urge each and every Hot Water Bath visitor to make haste to Christmas Baking and this year will prove no exception. As a bonus you can read, in addition to wonderful recipes for all manner of confection (the recipe for gingerbread is hands-down the finest I have ever used), stories of my Baking Disasters that I have submitted over the years. This year I will attempt zimsterne, cinnamon stars, after being put off forever by Sue's description of the dough as "sticky". This year, I say, is finally the year of the zimsterne.
I adore Christmas cookies and love sharing them with friend, acquaintance and stranger alike. I like the fancy pants fussy kind and the homey ones made with marshmallows or chocolate kisses, the crisp and the chewy, the iced and the plain. I love them all and have yet to meet a cookie that I could not embrace as perfect.

So while many of us here in the northeast U.S. await tomorrow's freezing rain and sleet my heart remains warm.

2007-12-06T20:23:00.000-05:00

Among the crudest responses one can make in civil discourse is to say, when confronted with dissent, "Oh, but I didn't mean it that way."

Crude, inelegant, and just not all that bright. And yet.

Oh, but I didn't mean it like that. I heard from two pals, one in an e-mail and one in a comment, shortly after making my last post, each expressing an appreciation for Advent in such a way that made me reread my post and think, "Egads! I've left out a few nouns or verbs or perhaps even an entire paragraph somewhere."

I don't know what went wrong only that something did, for I adore Advent in ways large and small and regret falling down so thoroughly on the job of defending the honor of a season I find so pleasing.

Onward.

2007-11-29T20:29:00.000-05:00

There hasn't been all that much going on lately. A typical case of blogger's block for someone who is even less interested in writing about my atypically quiet life than you are in reading about it. It's all been very workaday around here and, frankly, kind of nice in that regard.

I'm enjoying the calm mostly because I know it will not last. Brainiac is doing a spot of travel next week, the social calendar is filling up in a very agreeable way with lots of Advent, Christmas and New Years fun and there's nothing like a solid month of baking and crafting to put a smile on my face. And then there's the gingerbread party and the church craft fair, the preschool Barnes & Noble night and, my favorite, the Sunday afternoon carols and lessons at church. Lovely stuff, all, but nothing that could ever be described as restful.

A colleague jokingly accused me of undermining the team by responding, when asked, that "[my] shopping" is nearly complete. On the one hand, of course, being "finished her shopping" smacks of rushing the season and focusing on the materialistic. I take a different view that sees the month of December as properly being shopping-free, focusing instead on the actual liturgical and spiritual aspects of both Advent and Christmas. By planning ahead I am now free to focus entirely on the giving as opposed to the buying. Plus, Christmas falls at the same time every year, it's not like one cannot plan, right?

Truthfully, I'm not all that bothered (well, not much - see below) about the whole Christmas present thing. It's the memorial of a birthday and we give presents on birthdays. Makes perfect sense to me. What I don't get is the whole presents for Advent thing. Advent is about waiting and hope and gathering excitement over the wonders that are unfolding. And, if can stretch the birthday idea further, we don't give presents to a kid every day for a month while she waits for her birthday now, do we?

There's not much waiting and gathering excitement when there's a present every day leading up to Christmas. (Aside: I am not meaning to pick on this particular blogger, not at all. Her project has turned out beautifully. She's also just the first link that turned up when I googled "advent boxes" - I'm actually impressed that she made them, when commercial versions are popping up everywhere.) We use both an Advent wreath and a small tree that is dressed one ornament at a time throughout December leading up to Christmas. Neither these are particularly necessary either, of course, although they do certainly add to that feeling of anticipation. I've seen the Advent calendars that reveal a chocolates behind their numbered drawers and one year was badly tempted by Playmobil's Advent Calendar (which, I suppose could technically be used year after year if one doesn't have the kind of child who would abscond with all the pieces to integrate into the Lego space station set up he's built in his bedroom). Anyway. My point is that Christmas is the present and lots of piddly (or not so piddly - jewelry?) presents leading up to the day kind of dilute that meaning.

Ah, well. Since I'm on a tear with my cranky old self I should probably just get off my chest the conviction that anyone who believes that his partner needs to be thrilled by the holiday presentation of expensive sparklies and/or automobiles or she will not be happy - neither with him nor the relationship - needs to have drilled into his brain that said partner will likely not be happy in the presence of those things, either. I mean, they're nice and all, pretty to have around and I'm all for them, generally-speaking, but their happiness-inducing qualities are small and very temporary. I just feel so terribly bad for the male of the species this time of year - the full court press from jewelry and car sellers is just so relentless. Relentless.

2007-11-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

I believe there is a word for the phenomenon where one learns a new word and subsequently hears that word all over the place. Not that people are suddenly using the word to reinforce one's advancing vocabulary, of course. As they say (to wildly mix a metaphor), when the student is ready the teacher appears - so now all those helpful word-saying people are like the teacher.

Interestingly, I've recently become very aware of all the things about which I've just learned but to which the entire world evidently beat me. This is always happening to me - I am the one at the cocktail party who says something like, "Oh! Did you hear that Al Gore has made some kind of film about the weather?" - not unlike your dear but befuddled great-aunt, the one who can't keep up with the Thanksgiving dinner conversation and in the middle of your nephew's explanation of his first grade art-music-gym rotation shouts, "Who went to prison" just having caught up on the bit about your cousin's wife from hours prior.

The latest parties at which my arrival has been delayed:

1) Beverley Nichols' entire body of garden and kitchen memoir. Nichols was an incredibly prolific writer whose witty takes on everything from roses to parliament are worth staying home to read. In my enthusiasm for Garden Open Today I sent an excited e-mail to a friend with a recommendation and an offer to send my own copy only to receive a "duh, Marsha" in return, along with snippets of messages which I'd apparently received well into the past that made not of the book's popularity among gardeners. Seems like everyone has made Mr. Nichols' acqaintance but me.

2) We've started a new thing we call "family movie night" and once or twice a month we all pile onto the futon with a bowl of popcorn (eating in the family room? Mom's done craaaaaazeeeee) and watch a, well, family movie. Making liberal use of Gnovies I've been able to "discover" new movies in the way that only a person who hasn't set foot in a cinema in six-plus years can. Virtually my entire family and most of my circle of friends were astonished to learn that I had not, until recently, ever heard of National Treasure which was a blockbuster of some note quite a while back. It was a really fun film. Total nonsense, of course, but nothing that I (a dedicated devotee of suspending disbelief wherever possible - and even sometimes when it's not) couldn't eagerly embrace.

3) I'd always wondered how the needlepoint bloggers 'round about the web made such cool designs on "blanks" (plain napkins, shirts, pillowcases, or whatever). I made a comment to a friend expressing my total admiration that someone could, say, cross-stitch a three-tone lilac onto a linen handkerchief. How could such a thing be possible, I wondered. How could I have been born so utterly deficient in spacial skills that this is completely beyond me? "Uh, Marsha," said A., eyes a-rolling, "You may want to google iron-on needlepoint transfers." So I did and now I know and am deeply relieved that I have not been denied some kind of handcraft skill bestowed upon the rest of the world. I am also now the proud owner of several iron-on cross-stitch alphabets.

4) Just this week I fell in ~~love~~ strong like with a slow cooker. A few key changes around the Hot Water Bath homestead meant that dinner times have lately started to become somewhat lacking in leisure and taste. That my sisters have been singing the praises of slow cookers for years did nothing to sway me to adding one to my own kitchen until faced with either making nice with our changing schedules or starting a diet comprised exclusively of stir-fry. I'm a little disappointed with the "pour in a can of cream of whatnot soup" recipes that are out there but my own experiments have been successful enough that my (again, late) enthusiasm earned me yet more eye rolling and "duh, Marsha" from the other moms at preschool drop-off.

For my next trick, I think I'll call my mom and tell her about this great new television show I've discovered. They take a two teams of people and put them at some remote location, where they compete in all kind of immunity challenges and stuff. It's really neat!

2007-11-14T21:49:00.001-05:00

Still here, just a little cranky and perhaps a wee bit fluish.

Back soon with tales of my new slow cooker (yes, I caved), treating my windows, pumpkin butter v. 2, non-killer toys, how I know that I don't have a big mouth, and the search for a piano.

2007-10-31T20:42:00.000-04:00

Applesauce is simultaneously an ideal project for a novice canner and also a very bad idea for a novice canner. One the one hand, there's only one ingredient (that would be apples) and no tricky timing issues like with jam or jelly. On the other hand you need, in addition to a canning kettle and jars and such, a large pot for cooking the cored* apples, a large bowl into which the softened apples with be ground, a food mill with which to actually grind them**, another bowl for dumping the spent skins out of the food mill and another smaller pot for simmering the lids and rings. Then there are little enhancements like a corer, measuring cup and cutting board, although an argument can be made that the corer isn't strictly necessary. Applesauce also makes a mess - bits of apple get everywhere - much more so than crushing tomatoes, in my experience, and you can easily give yourself a terrible burn with the hot apple flying around.

It's the part about one ingredient that gets new canners, though, and frequently a newbie cannot restrain herself from the idea of heading out to the nearest u-pick orchard and loading up on a bushel or two***. After all, is there anyone who doesn't love applesauce? Moms give it by the ton to kids, very few people are allergic to apples, it can be used by the calorie-conscious as a substitute for any number of things in baking and a bowl of warm with a bit of cinnamon is the very essence of autumn. Plus, since commercial sauce now includes more often than not the much-dreaded high fructose corn syrup or some crazy coloring agent the DIY approach is totally rational.

The process (other than the mess and resulting dishes) is simple: Core* your apples and put them in a large pot (I did half a bushel at a time, each resulting in 10 pints) with about an inch of water. Cover and heat on high, watching closely for scorching. Scorched apples are nobody's friend. Once the apples begin to soften, lower the heat and allow to get pretty gosh darn mushy. When the apples are pretty uniformly soft - and some will have begun to fall apart - remove from heat. Position your food mill over a large bowl and grind away, scooping apples from the pot into the grinder CAREFULLY using a measuring cup. When each scoop is ground down to skins, dump into another bowl and repeat until all the apples are processed. Here, if you wish, you can add a bit of cinnamon or even some of those red hot candies but it's not at all necessary - fresh applesauce is yummy completely on its own. Ladle the sauce into prepared, sterilized jars leaving 3/4 inch of headspace, seal and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes (for pints) or 20 minutes (for quarts). After processing, cool on a rack or folded tea towel - any jars that didn't seal can go in the fridge for more immediate use.

That's it. It took a while and made a mess, but you've just made applesauce and are a hero in many quarters.

* I have an apple corer that removes a half-inch diameter chunk from the apple center. Some people use a fancy contraption that cores and slices the apples all at once. A colleague explained to me that she doesn't bother coring, she just slices the apples in half and cooks them, relying on the food mill to take care of seeds and such. I asked if she's ever had a problem with seeds in the apple sauce and she doesn't. As I really don't enjoy coring apples at all I may consider this approach next year.

** You don't need a food mill if you just want to make the occasional batch of sauce to, say, go with dinner or as a treat for the kids. To make a single-batch, core and peel an apple per person and slice it into a saucepan with just a bit of water. Cook them down in the same fashion as the larger batch and when uniformly soft, pour them into a bowl and smash with a fork. Add cinnamon if you like and there you have a very respectable and easy side dish to go along with pork (traditionally) or just about anything else you can imagine.

*** I use "seconds" - apples that are perfectly good but not quite as ready for their close-up - at half the price of "firsts". A bushel of seconds cost me $22.00 and resulted in 20 pints of applesauce and 6 half-pints of spiced apples, not a huge savings off of retail but a very large savings on what economists call "the intangibles". Your friendly orchardist will have signs letting you know what varieties are good for which uses. For saucing I use a combination that gives me lots of different flavors blended together. My mom likes jonamacs (I think this is what they're called) for the pinky hue they lend to the resulting product. My sauce is the more standard beige but tasty nonetheless.

2007-10-29T20:20:00.000-04:00

"Uh, Hon," began Brainiac as I peeled veggies for last night's dinner, "There will be a frost tonight. Would you like me to pick the remaining peppers? T'would be a shame to lose them."

I mumbled a distracted sure and expressed my belief that I didn't really think that there were all that many peppers left in the garden, that certainly somewhere in the haze of applesauce and pumpkins and whatever else it is that I've been doing I managed to get them all. Whatever, I thought as I poured milk over a casserole of flour and sliced potatoes, if there's a few more we can dry them for pepper flakes for pizzas and pastas. Or maybe I can cover them in chocolate like I saw in that commercial for...what is that commercial for, anyway? No matter. Peppers, fine, whatever.

I was wrong.

This is what Brainiac brought into me. I guess you could say that that it was a pretty good year for just about every kind of pepper that we ever thought of growing. Can we agree to describe this as an embarrassment of peppers? We will dry some, I think - a few the old-fashioned way of stringing them through their stems and hanging in a window and more in the dehydrator OUTSIDE in the mudroom (you know that oft-repeated warning about not wiping one's eyes or lips or nose just after handling hot peppers? Well, drying something in a machine means quickly removing the water and transferring that moisture into the air. YOU DO NOT WANT SPICY WATER RELEASED INTO YOUR HOUSEHOLD AIR for breathing and walking around in. Seriously. Ouch.)

I may also make a bit of hot pepper jam. As a rule, I don't care for spicy-sweet combinations but pepper jam has a nostalgic hook for me in that my paternal grandmother used to make a batch here and there and always remembered to send a jar "back east" in her Christmas box. With a bit of cream cheese on a cracker and a sprig of cilantro, pepper jam makes a nice canape and can serve as a bit of a pick-me-up for an otherwise plain grilled steak. Although it's not something I'd want in the same quantities as, say, strawberry jam, a couple of jars would be nice to keep around. Especially since, clearly, I've got the peppers to spare.

2007-10-26T16:07:00.001-04:00

Regretably, Outlander was checked out (all six copies) when Brainiac went to the library for me. In its stead he brought me something called Blackthorne Cottage wherein the heroine inherits from a kindly employer a tumbledown cottage in a small (quaint, natch) English village where she sets about to correct some sort of problem vexing the Vicar's property committee while (whilst?) also falling in love with the estate agent who wishes to purchases the house from her for less than its value and whose motives, alas, may not be entirely pure. Or something like that.

Luckily, the cool grey rainy-ness we're expecting over the next several days makes for the perfect environment in which to settle in with exactly this sort of book. With it, Shirley Valentine in from Netflix, and the task of producing a large number of Halloween-themed cupcakes for various kid events set before me I figure I'm in for a very cozy, restorative weekend. My original plan for tomorrow included running around to various purveyors of I don't remember what and a schlep up to Ikea, but no. Plan B, now in effect, dictates going nowhere, buying nothing, resting lots. Better, I think.

Mad props go out today to Jenn who suggested the best use yet for the embarassing excess of green tomatoes hanging out on my kitchen table: chopping and freezing them for use in curries. Ding Ding Ding - I think we have a winner. I've been putting off making the mincemeat because I couldn't really see anyone enjoying it outside of my own satisfaction in making something different (to us) and conquering a new recipe and it seemed like such a waste of food, energy and time to create what might well have been successful only in the abstract. So I am taking Jenn's suggestion and chopping/freezing is exactly what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it tonight - to most of the tomatoes, anyway. Coincidentally, I planned on a curry for tonight's dinner but it never once occured to me to include the tomatoes but you can bet at least a couple will make it into the pot. Fab. Thanks, Jenn.