Disposable masks, disposable gowns, and disposable gloves are mounted on the door. The five feet betweeen the hallway door and my friend are called the Isolation Area. It's where I cover my breath and hands so that my presence, intended to bring comfort (to me? to her?), is denuded of its power to harm.
I hope.
"He's vent-dependent", I say at work, reviewing the paperwork of someone I don't know and clinically assessing that individual's need for attendant care and other services.
"She's on a ventilator", I say, with some level of amazement that this really happens to people who were walking around and breathing just fine last week. The respiratory therapist says he needs to clean out the vent tubing and "you can stay if you wish, but, well, some people faint." I have nothing to prove and literally turn my back on my friend. I don't like the symbolism of it, but I don't have great choices. Picking the least-bad of all choices has been rather the hallmark of this entire journey.
We, as a profession, are all about promoting and supporting independence. Driving is more independent than being driven. Being driven somewhere is more independent than being home-bound. Cooking is more independent than being cooked for and eating by mouth is more independent than a feeding tube.
And on a ventilator - Jesus, you can't even decide when to switch from "inhale" to "exhale." Of course, being heavily sedated, that's not an issue for her right now.
"She has a lower-level spinal injury so she has good use of her arms" I say at work, thinking this is really pretty good news.
"They can't say how much use she'll have of that arm," I hear in the hospital. And I wonder how she'll cook and if she'll play tennis again.
In the State Capitol, as I often am for work, I hear that X% (I wrote it down somewhere) of nursing home residents have no one to speak for their wishes in an emergency.
Twice this week I've walked past the bed of a man who has had no visitors that I'm aware of.
Isolation Area.
Showing posts with label Observation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Observation. Show all posts
Friday, March 12, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
Why Fish? Why Seven? Why Now?
Maybe it's my stage in life, maybe it's having lost my grandfather last month. For whatever reason I'm really feeling Italian lately - and not in a nasty, stereotypical "Jersey Shore" kinda way.
Hearing no other ideas from the household peanut gallery it was time for a somewhat-traditional Italian Christmas Eve. My 80-something grandmother (she was married to her two-years-younger second husband for years before he found out her age, so I'm not telling) seemed to be a good source of info, so I gave her a call from the car.
[Side story - both of my grandparents could not - simply could not - understand this "being allergic to shellfish" business. As if I made it up. As if God would exempt me for the sake of heritage. As if it were some trendy malady and I'd hopped on the bandwagon. Remember the scene in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" when everyone freaked out about the boyfriend being vegetarian, and the aunt said "It's OK! I'll make lamb." That, but "shrimp."]
Me: I'm picking up fish for dinner tonight. What side dishes are traditional?
Grandmother: It's the Feast of the Seven Fishes. That's a lot of food, Steph. Who had room for side dishes?
Me: Fair enough. So what did y'all used to have?
Grandmother: Smelts. Shrimp, of course. Usually some tuna. Baccala*, which your aunt adored. My father loved spaghetti with anchovies, or sardines - you're probably not going to make that one, I guess. And he always had to have scungilli (eel). You could do something easy, like flounder. And of course we had all the other stuff that goes with it.
Me, fingers crossed: Other stuff?
Grandmother: You know, the vegetables.
Me, finally getting somewhere: Really? What did you have?
Grandmother, thinking.... : The usual stuff. Potatoes, I guess. Nothing fancy.
Sigh.
The DeKalb Farmer's Market is an amazing, thriving, international foodie paradise with a lot of things I've never heard of and can't pronounce and would love to try. And on Christmas Eve, if you were in the fish section then chances were good your last name ends with a vowel. An immediate community bonded; there was recipe talk, antipasto ideas, complaints about Aunt Rose, Aunt Mary, Uncle Sal, etc.
I will, at some point, post the recipe I made up for dinner tonight. I'm going to enter it in a contest, and to be eligible it has to be unpublished (yes, even on my own blog).
And the answer to the questions.... why fish, and why seven? It appears no one knows for certain. There is a theory that the idea comes from the Seven Hills of Rome - um, there's fish in them thar hills?? I don't get it. There is another that it's rooted in the traditions of Catholicism, which I don't understand well enough to detail.
This much I do know. Whether your December tradition is calamari or grilled pork or take-out, tradition matters. My grandmother's memories of her own childhood holidays, then sharing them with her children and grandchildren, are giving her comfort now. My grandfather's two biggest concerns with me were that I would forget I was Italian and/or turn Republican. And he may have considered those the same thing, Rudy Giuliani nonwithstanding.
The fish was on the table. And it was, if I say so myself, pretty darn good. And steamed veggies on the side - nothing fancy.
*Baccala is salted cod. Starting at least four days prior to serving it has to be soaked - with the water changed every six hours - to get the salt out. One of my friends once said it was something you would take to war as a physical weapon, a threat, and - if absolutely necessary - food.
Hearing no other ideas from the household peanut gallery it was time for a somewhat-traditional Italian Christmas Eve. My 80-something grandmother (she was married to her two-years-younger second husband for years before he found out her age, so I'm not telling) seemed to be a good source of info, so I gave her a call from the car.
[Side story - both of my grandparents could not - simply could not - understand this "being allergic to shellfish" business. As if I made it up. As if God would exempt me for the sake of heritage. As if it were some trendy malady and I'd hopped on the bandwagon. Remember the scene in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" when everyone freaked out about the boyfriend being vegetarian, and the aunt said "It's OK! I'll make lamb." That, but "shrimp."]
Me: I'm picking up fish for dinner tonight. What side dishes are traditional?
Grandmother: It's the Feast of the Seven Fishes. That's a lot of food, Steph. Who had room for side dishes?
Me: Fair enough. So what did y'all used to have?
Grandmother: Smelts. Shrimp, of course. Usually some tuna. Baccala*, which your aunt adored. My father loved spaghetti with anchovies, or sardines - you're probably not going to make that one, I guess. And he always had to have scungilli (eel). You could do something easy, like flounder. And of course we had all the other stuff that goes with it.
Me, fingers crossed: Other stuff?
Grandmother: You know, the vegetables.
Me, finally getting somewhere: Really? What did you have?
Grandmother, thinking.... : The usual stuff. Potatoes, I guess. Nothing fancy.
Sigh.
The DeKalb Farmer's Market is an amazing, thriving, international foodie paradise with a lot of things I've never heard of and can't pronounce and would love to try. And on Christmas Eve, if you were in the fish section then chances were good your last name ends with a vowel. An immediate community bonded; there was recipe talk, antipasto ideas, complaints about Aunt Rose, Aunt Mary, Uncle Sal, etc.
I will, at some point, post the recipe I made up for dinner tonight. I'm going to enter it in a contest, and to be eligible it has to be unpublished (yes, even on my own blog).
And the answer to the questions.... why fish, and why seven? It appears no one knows for certain. There is a theory that the idea comes from the Seven Hills of Rome - um, there's fish in them thar hills?? I don't get it. There is another that it's rooted in the traditions of Catholicism, which I don't understand well enough to detail.
This much I do know. Whether your December tradition is calamari or grilled pork or take-out, tradition matters. My grandmother's memories of her own childhood holidays, then sharing them with her children and grandchildren, are giving her comfort now. My grandfather's two biggest concerns with me were that I would forget I was Italian and/or turn Republican. And he may have considered those the same thing, Rudy Giuliani nonwithstanding.
The fish was on the table. And it was, if I say so myself, pretty darn good. And steamed veggies on the side - nothing fancy.
*Baccala is salted cod. Starting at least four days prior to serving it has to be soaked - with the water changed every six hours - to get the salt out. One of my friends once said it was something you would take to war as a physical weapon, a threat, and - if absolutely necessary - food.
Friday, November 6, 2009
What's In Store
What does "November" mean? For starters, it means that the Christmas displays in the stores are looking tired and dusty after being up for the past 3 months.
For another, people start to reminisce about the year that isn't finished yet. Something about a crispness in the air makes people nostalgic for two weeks ago.
And of course, the predictions for 2010 start rolling in. Eater.com - and I love the name of that site and can't believe I just found it - has released their foodie predictions for 2010.
"More creative snacky things" - YAY! I adore snacky things! 2010 sounds fantabulous already. [settles happily into sofa]
"Sharing is the key" - yeah, Sweetie. Slide a li'l of the cheesey dip and other snacky-treats right here. That's the ticket.
"People are looking for edibles they can trust" - um, is this new? Not in this house, it isn't.
"Fried chicken is the new pork belly" - the hell? Will people trade in fried chicken futures on the stock market (or whatever)?
Oh, good heavens - I just read the description under this little factoid and it used the words "undercooked pork fat." Let's go back to "creative snacky things", shall we?
"Putting in good additives instead of taking out nasty ones" - new healthy benefits to cocktails? You have my attention.
Buzzwords for 2010: Neapolitan pizza (oooohhh, yes!). Lamb riblets (are they small lamb ribs? Small lambs?). Made-to-order ice cream (they already sell "dark chocolate with more chocolate," don't they?). Backyard and rooftop beehives (intentionally? Are the bees plotting against us?). Chefs turned butchers (if you really want a big sharp knife in your hand, best to direct that energy toward being a butcher).
Hmmm.... made-to-order ice cream....
For another, people start to reminisce about the year that isn't finished yet. Something about a crispness in the air makes people nostalgic for two weeks ago.
And of course, the predictions for 2010 start rolling in. Eater.com - and I love the name of that site and can't believe I just found it - has released their foodie predictions for 2010.
"More creative snacky things" - YAY! I adore snacky things! 2010 sounds fantabulous already. [settles happily into sofa]
"Sharing is the key" - yeah, Sweetie. Slide a li'l of the cheesey dip and other snacky-treats right here. That's the ticket.
"People are looking for edibles they can trust" - um, is this new? Not in this house, it isn't.
"Fried chicken is the new pork belly" - the hell? Will people trade in fried chicken futures on the stock market (or whatever)?
Oh, good heavens - I just read the description under this little factoid and it used the words "undercooked pork fat." Let's go back to "creative snacky things", shall we?
"Putting in good additives instead of taking out nasty ones" - new healthy benefits to cocktails? You have my attention.
Buzzwords for 2010: Neapolitan pizza (oooohhh, yes!). Lamb riblets (are they small lamb ribs? Small lambs?). Made-to-order ice cream (they already sell "dark chocolate with more chocolate," don't they?). Backyard and rooftop beehives (intentionally? Are the bees plotting against us?). Chefs turned butchers (if you really want a big sharp knife in your hand, best to direct that energy toward being a butcher).
Hmmm.... made-to-order ice cream....
Friday, October 30, 2009
Urban Fairy Tale
Nothing makes you feel older than seeing the incoming rain and immediately thinking about its effects on your arthritis. I nearly checked myself in at the Sunrise Assisted Living Center up the street after work. Mmmm, pudding...
And then I started to wonder, will I be able to do crafts when I'm really living in one of those places? Crafts seem to be big there. And I can't do them now.
Since my doctor's office is too swine flu'ed up to work me in (and I don't much care to bring my otherwise-healthy self into a lobby-sized petri dish of flu germs, anyway) I turned to the Knower of All (Google) to see how I could help myself out. The anti-inflammatory diet helps (even more so when I stay on it), the yoga and swimming help, but it's time for a new arrow in the quiver.
Know what the first piece of specialized equipment to pop up was? I shit you not, it was a gun with a palm trigger instead of a regular, finger-pulled trigger.
Yup. Think on that for a minute.
So now I'm imagining some sort of terrifyingly simple and deadly Fisher Price-like contraption with a little button that says "shoot" or "fire" or whatever. I don't have issues with mature, responsible gun ownership. But if you're unsteady with the hands, I've got to wonder why why WHY you'd be shooting a gun, and who thinks that's a market that really needs to be tapped.
I mean, I wanted something along the lines of scissors and paintbrushes and a way to get the !@#$!ing gas cap off without pliers. But I guess "everyday activity" means different things to different people.
And the corollary to this, of course, is that I work with the disability community and I know people who do the most amazing things despite significant physical barriers. And I'm all "WAAAAAH, my hands are crampy!" They really are. OY, the rain!
Like today, for instance. A woman at the train station, in a wheelchair, was having a rough time of it - including her shoe falling off. Her upper body movements were not easily controlled, and she was going to need some help.
So I walked over and asked if she'd like a hand. Even with the hat and the new haircut and the scarf, I knew that smile. "K____? Is that you?" I asked. She said yes and we had a few minutes to chat.
Then I put her shoe back on her foot and we both left to start our weekends.
So even in the heart of downtown at rush hour, it's possible to play Cinderella and recover a lost shoe. These crappy hands are good for something after all.
And then I started to wonder, will I be able to do crafts when I'm really living in one of those places? Crafts seem to be big there. And I can't do them now.
Since my doctor's office is too swine flu'ed up to work me in (and I don't much care to bring my otherwise-healthy self into a lobby-sized petri dish of flu germs, anyway) I turned to the Knower of All (Google) to see how I could help myself out. The anti-inflammatory diet helps (even more so when I stay on it), the yoga and swimming help, but it's time for a new arrow in the quiver.
Know what the first piece of specialized equipment to pop up was? I shit you not, it was a gun with a palm trigger instead of a regular, finger-pulled trigger.
Yup. Think on that for a minute.
So now I'm imagining some sort of terrifyingly simple and deadly Fisher Price-like contraption with a little button that says "shoot" or "fire" or whatever. I don't have issues with mature, responsible gun ownership. But if you're unsteady with the hands, I've got to wonder why why WHY you'd be shooting a gun, and who thinks that's a market that really needs to be tapped.
I mean, I wanted something along the lines of scissors and paintbrushes and a way to get the !@#$!ing gas cap off without pliers. But I guess "everyday activity" means different things to different people.
And the corollary to this, of course, is that I work with the disability community and I know people who do the most amazing things despite significant physical barriers. And I'm all "WAAAAAH, my hands are crampy!" They really are. OY, the rain!
Like today, for instance. A woman at the train station, in a wheelchair, was having a rough time of it - including her shoe falling off. Her upper body movements were not easily controlled, and she was going to need some help.
So I walked over and asked if she'd like a hand. Even with the hat and the new haircut and the scarf, I knew that smile. "K____? Is that you?" I asked. She said yes and we had a few minutes to chat.
Then I put her shoe back on her foot and we both left to start our weekends.
So even in the heart of downtown at rush hour, it's possible to play Cinderella and recover a lost shoe. These crappy hands are good for something after all.
Friday, July 10, 2009
How are you keeping it? Good-good?
I never could master the Liberian handshake. Granted, I don't really have anyone to practice with who knows what it is - it's kind of a slide/snap maneuver, your hands have to be really dry, and you should've been practicing since shortly after birth in order to master it by adulthood. So my chances, I'm guessing, are pretty slim.
It was July 18, 1989 when I returned from six months in West Africa. For my 20th birthday two of my friends took a treacherous cab ride to the American Embassy compound to buy me a bag of frozen strawberries at one of the few supermarkets in the country. Perhaps you know they're not native to the tropical rainforest, but in case you didn't - they're sooo not. Pineapple? Mango? Coconut and banana? All you want. No strawberries. Also not easy to find - ice cream, but they did it. Ann and Denise, I'm still grateful and amazed that you went to all that trouble!
There's coffee, though, and coffee trees smell nothing like coffee. They have the most gorgeous blossoms and a heavy, sweet but not cloying smell. Whenever we went by them all I could do was close my eyes, breathe deeply, and hope and pray to remember the moment.
Why did I stop eating red meat in Liberia? Two words - no cows.
What we did have was chicken, rice, dried fish, palm butter, scorching-hot peppers, rice, chicken bouillon cubes, rice, rice, various types of bread, rice, fresh fish (if by the sea), shortening (instead of butter/margarine for the bread), "bush meat" (whatever unlucky critter ended up in the stew pot), rice, palm wine, plantains, Spam, rice, greens, and rice.
All served on a bed of rice.
School - I was at a university - could not open without electricity, which ran for 3 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening. However, when the generator conked out again after having spent 5 days raised from the dead to open school, life and the semester went on undisturbed. And dark at night.
When coming back from Cote d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), our intent was to walk the 8 miles from the military checkpoint at the border to the next town. But a car came along and picked up the four of us. What would they have done without us sticking our flashlights out the windows to light the way in the absence of headlights?
During the school year I lived on campus and not at the missionary compound. The cafeteria served bread - like a thick shortbread, or sometimes cornbread - for breakfast and dinner. There would be a thick pool of heavy margarine, or a smear of Crisco, on the plate as a spread. The Americans would often bring peanut butter into the cafeteria.
At lunch we stood in line to get a bowl of rice. Then we stood in another line for soup, which in the US we would call a stew. There were several different colors of stew, each with a hint of red from the palm oil. I'm sure they tasted different, but I could never taste anything except the AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH of peppers.
Did I mention I looked terrifically thin when I got back to the States? Suck it, Atkins Diet.
The American professors had apartments on/near campus. When one of the professors went back to the States for a few weeks she allowed us to use her home - and at that point I cooked an entire four-course meal for seven on a hibachi with no refrigeration and one knife, thankyouverymuch. YES. Do I feel any conflict now with my nifty collection of multi-functional kitchen accoutrements? Well no, not until this minute... hmmm..... well, I'll say this - standards are higher in the US as an adult than they were in Liberia (or anywhere) as a college student.
Sweetie mentioned recently that if we're going on a trip there's sure to be a Stephanie-developed checklist of Stuff To Bring. And I can't tell you how difficult it was to get used to a much more laid-back way of traveling. Specifically, when do we leave? When the bus is full. If a big group comes by tomorrow and buys tickets, we leave tomorrow. Otherwise, no. How long is the trip? Depends on if it's rainy season or not. Depends on if the military checkpoints lets us pass. There's no way to know. Now put your head back on your canteen and go to sleep.
And throwing ourselves on the mercy of strangers to take us in whither we landed just blew my mind. But you know, what a wonderful thing - to fling one's self on the wings of adventure and be confident of a warm welcome. It never, ever failed to materialize - a safe, dry place to sleep.
Fufu is boiled, pounded cassava root. Women young and old sit outside with their pot of fufu-in-process and the pounding stick and they pound all day. ALL DAY.
Tastes like wax.
Cassava fries, though, aren't bad.
Liberia is a tribal country. You can draw all the lines you want to around a map, but patriotism is tribe, not country. Every tribe has its specialty industry, and the Mandingo tribe made incredible bread. Like French bread - crisp outside, fluffy inside, perfect with (I'm not kidding) Laughing Cow cheese, which you could buy one wedge at a time on the street in the capitol.
Going to Liberia when I was 19 made it really weird to say "I'll just have a beer." In college - where I had been a mere 60 days previously - there's so much faux-drama and secrecy and posturing about alcohol that it was other-worldly for it to be a non-event to have a Club beer. Which, by the way, I've never liked, but sterilizing your water gets old pretty fast and makes bottled beverages much more appealing. I've never cared for soda, either, but orange Fanta was my best friend for a while.
It's also how I knew I had malaria - I was at the market and spit out my Fanta saying it had "gone bad." It can't. The soda was fine, it was me that wasn't doing so great. And that's really all I remember until about 5 days later when my fever broke.
Palaver is a highly civilized concept. To palaver is to peaceably discuss an issue, for as long as necessary, until a workable solution can be reached. In small villages issues are not put to a majority vote - because if 51% support an idea, then you have 49% of your village unhappy with it. One imagines a leader doesn't sleep well that way, and probably not much of the citizenry, either.
There is also a wonderful dish known as palaver sauce; I'd be happy to share the recipe but I can't find kpon leaves or plato greens anywhere and doubt they're much available. Sadly, due to the absence of worlor seed, I won't be sharing the worlor sauce recipe, either.
The bananas I've had in the states have, frankly, fallen short of what I've learned a banana can be. Head out of the gutter, please. In West Africa they were small, creamy, and intensely flavorful. If you have the opportunity to pick up some red bananas they most closely approximate what I had available (really available, like "dropping off the tree").
One of my favorite dishes was Groundnut Stew. Groundnuts are known as the States as peanuts. This wonderful dish is cleverly served atop rice.
From the Phebe Cookbook, written by the folks at the Phebe Hospital compound - and by all means, take advantage of the supermarket and its selection of natural peanut butter!
Groundnut Stew
1 pint (2 cups) roasted peanuts
2 lbs. chicken or beef
1 bouillon cube (chicken or beef) - check the label to see if it's gluten-free, if that's a concern
Tomato paste
1 medium onion
1 TBSP butter (optional)
Season meat with salt and pepper. Let stand for a while.
Cook meat on medium heat until partly tender. Pound peanuts in mortar until like butter. Add 2 cups sterilized water to peanuts. Strain through a sieve. Pour the liquid into a pot with meat. Add a little tomato paste to give color. Cook until as tender as desired (approximately two hours).
It was July 18, 1989 when I returned from six months in West Africa. For my 20th birthday two of my friends took a treacherous cab ride to the American Embassy compound to buy me a bag of frozen strawberries at one of the few supermarkets in the country. Perhaps you know they're not native to the tropical rainforest, but in case you didn't - they're sooo not. Pineapple? Mango? Coconut and banana? All you want. No strawberries. Also not easy to find - ice cream, but they did it. Ann and Denise, I'm still grateful and amazed that you went to all that trouble!
There's coffee, though, and coffee trees smell nothing like coffee. They have the most gorgeous blossoms and a heavy, sweet but not cloying smell. Whenever we went by them all I could do was close my eyes, breathe deeply, and hope and pray to remember the moment.
Why did I stop eating red meat in Liberia? Two words - no cows.
What we did have was chicken, rice, dried fish, palm butter, scorching-hot peppers, rice, chicken bouillon cubes, rice, rice, various types of bread, rice, fresh fish (if by the sea), shortening (instead of butter/margarine for the bread), "bush meat" (whatever unlucky critter ended up in the stew pot), rice, palm wine, plantains, Spam, rice, greens, and rice.
All served on a bed of rice.
School - I was at a university - could not open without electricity, which ran for 3 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening. However, when the generator conked out again after having spent 5 days raised from the dead to open school, life and the semester went on undisturbed. And dark at night.
When coming back from Cote d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast), our intent was to walk the 8 miles from the military checkpoint at the border to the next town. But a car came along and picked up the four of us. What would they have done without us sticking our flashlights out the windows to light the way in the absence of headlights?
During the school year I lived on campus and not at the missionary compound. The cafeteria served bread - like a thick shortbread, or sometimes cornbread - for breakfast and dinner. There would be a thick pool of heavy margarine, or a smear of Crisco, on the plate as a spread. The Americans would often bring peanut butter into the cafeteria.
At lunch we stood in line to get a bowl of rice. Then we stood in another line for soup, which in the US we would call a stew. There were several different colors of stew, each with a hint of red from the palm oil. I'm sure they tasted different, but I could never taste anything except the AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH of peppers.
Did I mention I looked terrifically thin when I got back to the States? Suck it, Atkins Diet.
The American professors had apartments on/near campus. When one of the professors went back to the States for a few weeks she allowed us to use her home - and at that point I cooked an entire four-course meal for seven on a hibachi with no refrigeration and one knife, thankyouverymuch. YES. Do I feel any conflict now with my nifty collection of multi-functional kitchen accoutrements? Well no, not until this minute... hmmm..... well, I'll say this - standards are higher in the US as an adult than they were in Liberia (or anywhere) as a college student.
Sweetie mentioned recently that if we're going on a trip there's sure to be a Stephanie-developed checklist of Stuff To Bring. And I can't tell you how difficult it was to get used to a much more laid-back way of traveling. Specifically, when do we leave? When the bus is full. If a big group comes by tomorrow and buys tickets, we leave tomorrow. Otherwise, no. How long is the trip? Depends on if it's rainy season or not. Depends on if the military checkpoints lets us pass. There's no way to know. Now put your head back on your canteen and go to sleep.
And throwing ourselves on the mercy of strangers to take us in whither we landed just blew my mind. But you know, what a wonderful thing - to fling one's self on the wings of adventure and be confident of a warm welcome. It never, ever failed to materialize - a safe, dry place to sleep.
Fufu is boiled, pounded cassava root. Women young and old sit outside with their pot of fufu-in-process and the pounding stick and they pound all day. ALL DAY.
Tastes like wax.
Cassava fries, though, aren't bad.
Liberia is a tribal country. You can draw all the lines you want to around a map, but patriotism is tribe, not country. Every tribe has its specialty industry, and the Mandingo tribe made incredible bread. Like French bread - crisp outside, fluffy inside, perfect with (I'm not kidding) Laughing Cow cheese, which you could buy one wedge at a time on the street in the capitol.
Going to Liberia when I was 19 made it really weird to say "I'll just have a beer." In college - where I had been a mere 60 days previously - there's so much faux-drama and secrecy and posturing about alcohol that it was other-worldly for it to be a non-event to have a Club beer. Which, by the way, I've never liked, but sterilizing your water gets old pretty fast and makes bottled beverages much more appealing. I've never cared for soda, either, but orange Fanta was my best friend for a while.
It's also how I knew I had malaria - I was at the market and spit out my Fanta saying it had "gone bad." It can't. The soda was fine, it was me that wasn't doing so great. And that's really all I remember until about 5 days later when my fever broke.
Palaver is a highly civilized concept. To palaver is to peaceably discuss an issue, for as long as necessary, until a workable solution can be reached. In small villages issues are not put to a majority vote - because if 51% support an idea, then you have 49% of your village unhappy with it. One imagines a leader doesn't sleep well that way, and probably not much of the citizenry, either.
There is also a wonderful dish known as palaver sauce; I'd be happy to share the recipe but I can't find kpon leaves or plato greens anywhere and doubt they're much available. Sadly, due to the absence of worlor seed, I won't be sharing the worlor sauce recipe, either.
The bananas I've had in the states have, frankly, fallen short of what I've learned a banana can be. Head out of the gutter, please. In West Africa they were small, creamy, and intensely flavorful. If you have the opportunity to pick up some red bananas they most closely approximate what I had available (really available, like "dropping off the tree").
One of my favorite dishes was Groundnut Stew. Groundnuts are known as the States as peanuts. This wonderful dish is cleverly served atop rice.
From the Phebe Cookbook, written by the folks at the Phebe Hospital compound - and by all means, take advantage of the supermarket and its selection of natural peanut butter!
Groundnut Stew
1 pint (2 cups) roasted peanuts
2 lbs. chicken or beef
1 bouillon cube (chicken or beef) - check the label to see if it's gluten-free, if that's a concern
Tomato paste
1 medium onion
1 TBSP butter (optional)
Season meat with salt and pepper. Let stand for a while.
Cook meat on medium heat until partly tender. Pound peanuts in mortar until like butter. Add 2 cups sterilized water to peanuts. Strain through a sieve. Pour the liquid into a pot with meat. Add a little tomato paste to give color. Cook until as tender as desired (approximately two hours).
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Dreadmill
Dear Women's Magazines -
In some ways, I'm atypical. I haven't eaten red meat since 1989, I do not see the big deal about SNL's Kristen Wiig, I don't have cable TV.
But in a lot of ways, I'm more like the mythical Everywoman that you claim as your audience . I have the following: a job that has its good points but could be better; more Stuff to Do than Stuff-Doing Time; ten-ish more pounds to lose; two dogs and a husband who all seem to like me well enough on most days (and vice versa).
On behalf of those Everywomen, I gotta tell ya - I'm not down with everything you're spewing at me every month. Some of it is on the money, some of it we have some common ground, and the rest - honestly, either I'm doing this all wrong, or you liiiieeeed like a tobacco exec at a Health and Human Services hearing.
"It's Easy to Work In Exercise During the Day"
I'm willing to meet you halfway on this one. I take all 20+ flights of stairs down to the cafeteria every day at work. And when I can, I exit the train one stop early and walk the rest of the way to my office - and have for the past year or so. Honestly, I do feel better and am more productive when I pull it off, and it's not that big of a deal timewise.
But I didn't lose any weight that way. It's just not enough to make an appreciable difference. Over the past two months I've dropped somewhere around 8 pounds, and I'm literally swimming my butt off. Figure a 15-minute drive to the gym, a solid 30 minutes of swimming (assuming I don't have to wait for a lane), another 45 to shower, dress, and dry hair and the drive home. That's a full hour and a half of non-work time that I had to scrape together out of my already-busy day. It's worth it and it's do-able, but "easy"? No.
Find An Exercise You Love To Do - And DO IT
We're in sync on this one. I like walking, but don't usually have the 3+ hours it takes to burn off as many calories as I need to burn. And finding comfortable sneakers for my extra-wide, flipper-like feet is no easy task. But put me in a pool - where footwear isn't required and flippers are a definite advantage - and I'll stay there for hours. I still get on a treadmill every so often and do weights; swimming, for all its benefits, doesn't build bone density. So in the past two years on the dreadmill, nothin' much. Two months in the pool - weight loss.
Which reminds me.... parents, you might want to try to steer your kid towards an activity they can do for life, like tennis or running or golf. I was a gymnast, and I assure you no co-worker has ever said, "You know, there's a balance beam and a springfloor at the park up the street from me. We should meet up for some tumbling sometime after work" or "You look like you a vaulter - are you interested in joining the company gymnastics team? We kicked Xerox's ass at the corporate Olympics last year."
"Getting in Shape Doesn't Have to Cost Any Money"
In theory, true. I'm sure there's someone out there who gets a charge out of running up and down their house's stairs and hoisting bags of flour or full suitcases or whatever around as weights. And I've heard good things about those $15 fitness DVDs, but my 19-inch TV and playful golden retriever (who does doga on my mat) make that impractical in this house. For those of us who live in the real world - one that has, like, weather - we need a gym.
My costs so far, for an 8-pound loss - I'm not including food, because I mostly shifted around by putting the $ I used to spend on cheese and crackers and Smartfood popcorn towards edamame and strawberries:
* Two athletic Reebok bathing suits - $70 + tax (on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods}
* One pretty bathing suit that proved shockingly and embarassingly inadequate for a good backstroke push-off - $30. I guess I'll bring it to the beach this weekend
* Swimming Cap - $15 (plus the deep conditioner from the two months I swam without one, and the haircut, and the damage to my highlights....)
* Sneakers for my impossible-to-fit, extra-wide, flipper-like feet for land workouts - $80
* Swimmers' shamwow-like super absorbent towel - $10
And keep in mind that I already had a yoga mat, gym bag, extra hair dryer, gym membership, etc. We have a terrific park near the house and I happily go walking there - but not when it's pouring rain (almost every day this month), not when it's over 90 degrees, not when Atlanta's air quality is "unhealthy for every non-cockroach living being" (daily from June to mid-October), and not when the pollen drifts obscure the walking path (March and April).
One free source of inspiration was watching The Biggest Loser. Those folks didn't just show up at the gym and go through the motions - they busted it, they threw up, they sweated through their clothes, they cried, they cursed their trainers. Honest to God, I think of that when I start slowing down on my laps and feel like it might be OK to stop before hitting my goal. And I keep going.
"When You Make Healthful Substitutions, You'll Never Miss Snack Food"
F-you. Seriously. DO NOT tell me that a crunchy carrot stick is a "great substitute" for potato chips. That's insane. What kind of half-wit confuses the two? I happen to love berries, but I'm not so clueless as to notice they're not covered with chocolate.
And the verdict is...
I'm renewing my subscription to Weight Watchers magazine (terrific recipes) and I'll still pick up the occasional copy of Self and Fitness.
Here's the thing - I go to church every Sunday. And the message does not change, ever - in my house of worship, it's "love thy neighbor as thy self" and "follow the Ten Commandments" and "your marriage and your family are important" and "it is impossible to have earned the mercy we are shown, it's a gift." In the past ten or more years that I've gone to the same church, same message. The people who went there 50 years ago? They heard the same thing, every time.
But I need to hear it every week, because it's hard to do and it doesn't mesh with everything I see around me. Same thing with my health - there are no giant billboards advertising carrots the way there are for soda and doughnuts and fried chicken. I need to read the stories every month of someone who lost weight and kept it off to remind me that it can be done.
So dammit, you've got me for a good $10 per month. Just add that to my tab above.
Well played, editors. Well played.
In some ways, I'm atypical. I haven't eaten red meat since 1989, I do not see the big deal about SNL's Kristen Wiig, I don't have cable TV.
But in a lot of ways, I'm more like the mythical Everywoman that you claim as your audience . I have the following: a job that has its good points but could be better; more Stuff to Do than Stuff-Doing Time; ten-ish more pounds to lose; two dogs and a husband who all seem to like me well enough on most days (and vice versa).
On behalf of those Everywomen, I gotta tell ya - I'm not down with everything you're spewing at me every month. Some of it is on the money, some of it we have some common ground, and the rest - honestly, either I'm doing this all wrong, or you liiiieeeed like a tobacco exec at a Health and Human Services hearing.
"It's Easy to Work In Exercise During the Day"
I'm willing to meet you halfway on this one. I take all 20+ flights of stairs down to the cafeteria every day at work. And when I can, I exit the train one stop early and walk the rest of the way to my office - and have for the past year or so. Honestly, I do feel better and am more productive when I pull it off, and it's not that big of a deal timewise.
But I didn't lose any weight that way. It's just not enough to make an appreciable difference. Over the past two months I've dropped somewhere around 8 pounds, and I'm literally swimming my butt off. Figure a 15-minute drive to the gym, a solid 30 minutes of swimming (assuming I don't have to wait for a lane), another 45 to shower, dress, and dry hair and the drive home. That's a full hour and a half of non-work time that I had to scrape together out of my already-busy day. It's worth it and it's do-able, but "easy"? No.
Find An Exercise You Love To Do - And DO IT
We're in sync on this one. I like walking, but don't usually have the 3+ hours it takes to burn off as many calories as I need to burn. And finding comfortable sneakers for my extra-wide, flipper-like feet is no easy task. But put me in a pool - where footwear isn't required and flippers are a definite advantage - and I'll stay there for hours. I still get on a treadmill every so often and do weights; swimming, for all its benefits, doesn't build bone density. So in the past two years on the dreadmill, nothin' much. Two months in the pool - weight loss.
Which reminds me.... parents, you might want to try to steer your kid towards an activity they can do for life, like tennis or running or golf. I was a gymnast, and I assure you no co-worker has ever said, "You know, there's a balance beam and a springfloor at the park up the street from me. We should meet up for some tumbling sometime after work" or "You look like you a vaulter - are you interested in joining the company gymnastics team? We kicked Xerox's ass at the corporate Olympics last year."
"Getting in Shape Doesn't Have to Cost Any Money"
In theory, true. I'm sure there's someone out there who gets a charge out of running up and down their house's stairs and hoisting bags of flour or full suitcases or whatever around as weights. And I've heard good things about those $15 fitness DVDs, but my 19-inch TV and playful golden retriever (who does doga on my mat) make that impractical in this house. For those of us who live in the real world - one that has, like, weather - we need a gym.
My costs so far, for an 8-pound loss - I'm not including food, because I mostly shifted around by putting the $ I used to spend on cheese and crackers and Smartfood popcorn towards edamame and strawberries:
* Two athletic Reebok bathing suits - $70 + tax (on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods}
* One pretty bathing suit that proved shockingly and embarassingly inadequate for a good backstroke push-off - $30. I guess I'll bring it to the beach this weekend
* Swimming Cap - $15 (plus the deep conditioner from the two months I swam without one, and the haircut, and the damage to my highlights....)
* Sneakers for my impossible-to-fit, extra-wide, flipper-like feet for land workouts - $80
* Swimmers' shamwow-like super absorbent towel - $10
And keep in mind that I already had a yoga mat, gym bag, extra hair dryer, gym membership, etc. We have a terrific park near the house and I happily go walking there - but not when it's pouring rain (almost every day this month), not when it's over 90 degrees, not when Atlanta's air quality is "unhealthy for every non-cockroach living being" (daily from June to mid-October), and not when the pollen drifts obscure the walking path (March and April).
One free source of inspiration was watching The Biggest Loser. Those folks didn't just show up at the gym and go through the motions - they busted it, they threw up, they sweated through their clothes, they cried, they cursed their trainers. Honest to God, I think of that when I start slowing down on my laps and feel like it might be OK to stop before hitting my goal. And I keep going.
"When You Make Healthful Substitutions, You'll Never Miss Snack Food"
F-you. Seriously. DO NOT tell me that a crunchy carrot stick is a "great substitute" for potato chips. That's insane. What kind of half-wit confuses the two? I happen to love berries, but I'm not so clueless as to notice they're not covered with chocolate.
And the verdict is...
I'm renewing my subscription to Weight Watchers magazine (terrific recipes) and I'll still pick up the occasional copy of Self and Fitness.
Here's the thing - I go to church every Sunday. And the message does not change, ever - in my house of worship, it's "love thy neighbor as thy self" and "follow the Ten Commandments" and "your marriage and your family are important" and "it is impossible to have earned the mercy we are shown, it's a gift." In the past ten or more years that I've gone to the same church, same message. The people who went there 50 years ago? They heard the same thing, every time.
But I need to hear it every week, because it's hard to do and it doesn't mesh with everything I see around me. Same thing with my health - there are no giant billboards advertising carrots the way there are for soda and doughnuts and fried chicken. I need to read the stories every month of someone who lost weight and kept it off to remind me that it can be done.
So dammit, you've got me for a good $10 per month. Just add that to my tab above.
Well played, editors. Well played.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Book Report and Random Thinkiness
Michael Pollan - Paula Poundstone was pretty rude to him (but funny) when he was a guest on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." I decided to finally check his book "In Defense of Food" out of the library.
It's an extraordinary book. It's written in everyday (not overly-scientific) language that isn't preachy, it's just uncommon common sense. He points out that we're in an odd state of affairs when we're turning to him, a journalist, for nutrition advice, and that no other culture at any other time has had a hard time figuring out what to feed themselves and how. True enough.
I highly recommend the book if you haven't read it. If you want a quick summary, it's this - "Food is more than a lump of protein, fats, carbs, and vitamins. It's FOOD. Cook your own as much as you can. Eat food as it was intended - orange juice doesn't naturally have calcium, so don't drink it that way. There are lots of ways to eat a really healthful diet, and vending machines and food that never rots isn't part of any of them. Science doesn't know everything."
The anti-inflammatory diet - Also at the library, since it's in the same part of the Dewey Decimal System, was Dr. Barry Sears' "The Anti-Inflammatory Zone." Dr. Sears is the creator of the Zone diet, and I took the book out to see what he had to say.
After getting about one-third of the way through I decided it was quacky and brought it back to the library. Any book that talks about the Secrets Mainstream Medicine Doesn't Want You To Know is, in my opinion, trying to sell something. Like, say, Dr. Sears Zone Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (it's on Amazon). I haven't ruled out the idea that there is something to an anti-inflammatory diet, only that this book reads too SHAMWOW for me to take it seriously.
That said, I'm a little over two weeks into my three-week experiment and I'm feelin' pretty good, even if I don't know conclusively why. There is little agreement on what exactly an anti-inflammatory diet really is. I've removed a lot of simple carbs (bread, pasta), sugar, and nightshades (alas, tomatoes and potatoes), from my daily consumption. I've also let go of cheese, which I generally eat too much of. I'm eating more fish and vegetables. My new gym has a pool and I've been pretty regular in attendance.
So is it the anti-inflammatory component of what I'm doing that's helping? Or the overall health-supporting diet and exercise? Or both? I have no idea. But what drove me to this - wanting relief from constant achiness - is apparently a stronger motivator than "I want to lose weight." Good to know.
It's pretty unlikely that this Italian girl is going to permanently give up tomatoes and cheese. In fact, Sweetie and I went out for pizza this weekend because neither of us had the energy to scrape together something in our own kitchen (and I was REALLY craving pizza). And it's just hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that millions of earth's tomato-eating people are "secretly" battling some sort of painful malady, you know?
Pool Fitness - For crying out loud, if you get in the pool expect to get your hair wet. Seriously. You don't have to go underwater during most pool fitness classes, but you really should expect to be splashed.
Pool Fitness II - When someone with a 4-prong cane enters the pool area, GIVE THEM THE LANE NEAREST THE STEPS. She was elderly, in her skirted swimsuit and floweredy bathing cap and determined to get her workout. She really needed to be in an outside lane to hold onto the side as she power-walked up and down the length of the pool - and good for her, I say. Her reaction when I vacated the outside lane for her let me know that she can't assume folks will make simple accommodations for her. Sad.
New Tag - My blog project right now is adding a "Health Conscious" tag to the selections on the right, which will take you to all the yummy recipes I have from various healthful-cooking sources. Basically, I eat what tastes good and some of it has really healthful qualities and some of it (hellllllooooo, brownies!) not so much. Clicking on "Health Conscious" will take you to those recipes that are, as they say, more of an "everyday" food and not a "special occasion" food.
It's an extraordinary book. It's written in everyday (not overly-scientific) language that isn't preachy, it's just uncommon common sense. He points out that we're in an odd state of affairs when we're turning to him, a journalist, for nutrition advice, and that no other culture at any other time has had a hard time figuring out what to feed themselves and how. True enough.
I highly recommend the book if you haven't read it. If you want a quick summary, it's this - "Food is more than a lump of protein, fats, carbs, and vitamins. It's FOOD. Cook your own as much as you can. Eat food as it was intended - orange juice doesn't naturally have calcium, so don't drink it that way. There are lots of ways to eat a really healthful diet, and vending machines and food that never rots isn't part of any of them. Science doesn't know everything."
The anti-inflammatory diet - Also at the library, since it's in the same part of the Dewey Decimal System, was Dr. Barry Sears' "The Anti-Inflammatory Zone." Dr. Sears is the creator of the Zone diet, and I took the book out to see what he had to say.
After getting about one-third of the way through I decided it was quacky and brought it back to the library. Any book that talks about the Secrets Mainstream Medicine Doesn't Want You To Know is, in my opinion, trying to sell something. Like, say, Dr. Sears Zone Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (it's on Amazon). I haven't ruled out the idea that there is something to an anti-inflammatory diet, only that this book reads too SHAMWOW for me to take it seriously.
That said, I'm a little over two weeks into my three-week experiment and I'm feelin' pretty good, even if I don't know conclusively why. There is little agreement on what exactly an anti-inflammatory diet really is. I've removed a lot of simple carbs (bread, pasta), sugar, and nightshades (alas, tomatoes and potatoes), from my daily consumption. I've also let go of cheese, which I generally eat too much of. I'm eating more fish and vegetables. My new gym has a pool and I've been pretty regular in attendance.
So is it the anti-inflammatory component of what I'm doing that's helping? Or the overall health-supporting diet and exercise? Or both? I have no idea. But what drove me to this - wanting relief from constant achiness - is apparently a stronger motivator than "I want to lose weight." Good to know.
It's pretty unlikely that this Italian girl is going to permanently give up tomatoes and cheese. In fact, Sweetie and I went out for pizza this weekend because neither of us had the energy to scrape together something in our own kitchen (and I was REALLY craving pizza). And it's just hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that millions of earth's tomato-eating people are "secretly" battling some sort of painful malady, you know?
Pool Fitness - For crying out loud, if you get in the pool expect to get your hair wet. Seriously. You don't have to go underwater during most pool fitness classes, but you really should expect to be splashed.
Pool Fitness II - When someone with a 4-prong cane enters the pool area, GIVE THEM THE LANE NEAREST THE STEPS. She was elderly, in her skirted swimsuit and floweredy bathing cap and determined to get her workout. She really needed to be in an outside lane to hold onto the side as she power-walked up and down the length of the pool - and good for her, I say. Her reaction when I vacated the outside lane for her let me know that she can't assume folks will make simple accommodations for her. Sad.
New Tag - My blog project right now is adding a "Health Conscious" tag to the selections on the right, which will take you to all the yummy recipes I have from various healthful-cooking sources. Basically, I eat what tastes good and some of it has really healthful qualities and some of it (hellllllooooo, brownies!) not so much. Clicking on "Health Conscious" will take you to those recipes that are, as they say, more of an "everyday" food and not a "special occasion" food.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
What Part of "This Is My Life Source" Did You Not Understand?
I adore NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" radio news quiz. This week's celebrity guest was Michael Pollan, known food/health writer who is all about natural, whole foods (who isn't?). I believe he wrote "Eat This, Not That", which I keep meaning to get from the library and never do. Comedian/contestant Paula Poundstone brought her A game this week, paraphrased below.
Poundstone: Look, I try to get my kids to eat vegetables and all that, but I gotta tell ya. One of the things that makes my life worth living is Ring-Dings.
Pollan: Well, there's certainly room in the diet for special occasion foods.
Poundstone: Did you hear me? They make life worth living. And you want me to have them one day a year? What the hell is wrong with you?
Pollan: One good way to tell if a food is a good everyday food is to count the number of ingredents. The fewer the ingredients, the closer to a whole food it is.
Poundstone: Three. Devil's food cake - one. Creamy filling - two. Chocolate shell - three.
There you have it.
Poundstone: Look, I try to get my kids to eat vegetables and all that, but I gotta tell ya. One of the things that makes my life worth living is Ring-Dings.
Pollan: Well, there's certainly room in the diet for special occasion foods.
Poundstone: Did you hear me? They make life worth living. And you want me to have them one day a year? What the hell is wrong with you?
Pollan: One good way to tell if a food is a good everyday food is to count the number of ingredents. The fewer the ingredients, the closer to a whole food it is.
Poundstone: Three. Devil's food cake - one. Creamy filling - two. Chocolate shell - three.
There you have it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Cabinet That Physics Forgot
There's really no other explanation for it. I don't see how all the stuff I squished into that cabinet stayed there without raining (too much) on me every time I opened the door.
Then, when I visited my sister in the Fall, I was making dinner and asked where she kept her Crockpot. "In the garage, where else?" she laughed. And sure enough, her don't-use-it-everyday stuff was neatly stacked in a cabinet in the garage - accessible, but not in the way of the used-regularly skillet and casserole dish. BRILLIANT.
This is short because, y'all, it has Been A Week. Work. Funeral (far, far too young). A cold that won't go away. You know how it is.
So in a nutshell, here's the 3-weeks-or-so process it took to streamline my kitchen so that I can fly through dinner prep. Undoubtedly someone could knock this out in a day or two if they had a lot of time to focus on it, but the 3-week process worked just fine for me.
1. I cleared a shelf in the basement and relocated some rarely-used, but necessary, items from the kitchen to nicely labelled storage boxes downstairs. Specifically - my canning equipment, roasting pan, deviled egg plate, cupcake tin, chip & dip plate, big wooden salad bowl, and a specialty cake pan or two. Key - if it has dust on it, you probably don't use it enough to justify the kitchen real estate.
And there's really no go-to list for this. I have two Dutch ovens and truly use both of them a lot. Not everyone does.
2. Sometimes more is more. If you are washing something multiple times midpoint through a recipe, perhaps you need more than one. My baking goes faster now that we have two good sets of measuring cups and two sets of measuring spoons.
3. Sometimes less is more. If you have 3 soup ladles, and you never make 3 kinds of soup at the same time, keep your favorite and let the rest go.
4. Repurpose. When I moved all the canning equipment to the basement Sweetie went nuts trying to find the funnel. It turns out the widemouth funnel I use for canning was also the perfect size to funnel coffee beans into the grinder. Since it had a regular use I didn't know about, we brought it back upstairs.
5. Bins! Plastic or vinyl-coated wire bins! Fabulous, and cheap! I have a long, narrow cabinet next to the stove and keep grains/rice/pasta in there. And OY, what a pain to have to pull everything out piece by piece (some of it falling of its own accord) to get to what I needed or even see what I had.
What took me so long to figure out that putting the different kinds of rice, biryani packets, box of cous cous, etc. in one of these $5 babies would make such a difference?
And when I had a side-by-side fridge, this (probably $10) was a LIFESAVER - it was sooooo much easier to pull the basket out of the freezer and sort through it on the counter than to remain crouched and frozen, pulling one item out at a time and hoping it would all fit back on the shelf when I was done... We've since sold the old refrigerator but I kept the basket for the new freezer.
Note - write down the measurements of your cabinet/shelf/freezer before you go. A bin 10 inches wide is no help for an 8-inch-wide cabinet.
6. What's it really worth? I am fortunate to come from a family of excellent cooks. And my roasting pan and some other equipment previously belonged to one grandmother or another.
And you know what? To them, it was just kitchen stuff. Not heirlooms, not the souls of their being, not a key piece of their identity. I nearly had a breakdown when I was trying to make some room in the kitchen and couldn't come up with any reason to keep the old handled eggbeater except it was Grandma's. Mind you, I had never used the eggbeater in the 8 - 10 years it had been in my possession.
Realistically - did my grandmother ever gaze fondly at her eggbeater, or vegetable peeler, or Pyrex pie plate (which, actually, I have and use) - and wonder who would care for these treasures when she was gone? Not my practical Grandma, I'm certain. Her heirloom china is beautifully displayed in our china cabinet, but the eggbeater has gone on to grace a stranger's kitchen. Ultimately, she would not want me to live my life surrounded by stuff that gets in my way and keeps me from doing what I want to do. For all I know, she hated that eggbeater and always meant to replace it.
More recipes coming soon!
Then, when I visited my sister in the Fall, I was making dinner and asked where she kept her Crockpot. "In the garage, where else?" she laughed. And sure enough, her don't-use-it-everyday stuff was neatly stacked in a cabinet in the garage - accessible, but not in the way of the used-regularly skillet and casserole dish. BRILLIANT.
This is short because, y'all, it has Been A Week. Work. Funeral (far, far too young). A cold that won't go away. You know how it is.
So in a nutshell, here's the 3-weeks-or-so process it took to streamline my kitchen so that I can fly through dinner prep. Undoubtedly someone could knock this out in a day or two if they had a lot of time to focus on it, but the 3-week process worked just fine for me.
1. I cleared a shelf in the basement and relocated some rarely-used, but necessary, items from the kitchen to nicely labelled storage boxes downstairs. Specifically - my canning equipment, roasting pan, deviled egg plate, cupcake tin, chip & dip plate, big wooden salad bowl, and a specialty cake pan or two. Key - if it has dust on it, you probably don't use it enough to justify the kitchen real estate.
And there's really no go-to list for this. I have two Dutch ovens and truly use both of them a lot. Not everyone does.
2. Sometimes more is more. If you are washing something multiple times midpoint through a recipe, perhaps you need more than one. My baking goes faster now that we have two good sets of measuring cups and two sets of measuring spoons.
3. Sometimes less is more. If you have 3 soup ladles, and you never make 3 kinds of soup at the same time, keep your favorite and let the rest go.
4. Repurpose. When I moved all the canning equipment to the basement Sweetie went nuts trying to find the funnel. It turns out the widemouth funnel I use for canning was also the perfect size to funnel coffee beans into the grinder. Since it had a regular use I didn't know about, we brought it back upstairs.
5. Bins! Plastic or vinyl-coated wire bins! Fabulous, and cheap! I have a long, narrow cabinet next to the stove and keep grains/rice/pasta in there. And OY, what a pain to have to pull everything out piece by piece (some of it falling of its own accord) to get to what I needed or even see what I had.
What took me so long to figure out that putting the different kinds of rice, biryani packets, box of cous cous, etc. in one of these $5 babies would make such a difference?
And when I had a side-by-side fridge, this (probably $10) was a LIFESAVER - it was sooooo much easier to pull the basket out of the freezer and sort through it on the counter than to remain crouched and frozen, pulling one item out at a time and hoping it would all fit back on the shelf when I was done... We've since sold the old refrigerator but I kept the basket for the new freezer.
Note - write down the measurements of your cabinet/shelf/freezer before you go. A bin 10 inches wide is no help for an 8-inch-wide cabinet.
6. What's it really worth? I am fortunate to come from a family of excellent cooks. And my roasting pan and some other equipment previously belonged to one grandmother or another.
And you know what? To them, it was just kitchen stuff. Not heirlooms, not the souls of their being, not a key piece of their identity. I nearly had a breakdown when I was trying to make some room in the kitchen and couldn't come up with any reason to keep the old handled eggbeater except it was Grandma's. Mind you, I had never used the eggbeater in the 8 - 10 years it had been in my possession.
Realistically - did my grandmother ever gaze fondly at her eggbeater, or vegetable peeler, or Pyrex pie plate (which, actually, I have and use) - and wonder who would care for these treasures when she was gone? Not my practical Grandma, I'm certain. Her heirloom china is beautifully displayed in our china cabinet, but the eggbeater has gone on to grace a stranger's kitchen. Ultimately, she would not want me to live my life surrounded by stuff that gets in my way and keeps me from doing what I want to do. For all I know, she hated that eggbeater and always meant to replace it.
More recipes coming soon!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
I Need Maple Syrup, Not This Pomegrante-Infused Pancake Topping With Vanilla Essence
Sweetie and I frequently have about 15 minutes to sit down and eat together during the week, and sometimes the only reason we even have that is because we decide we'd rather eat together at 8:30 than separately when real people eat dinner. And by "eat dinner", I sometimes mean "slap a piece of turkey between two pieces of mustard-slathered bread and say a blessing over it."
And I have yet to meet any real-life June Cleaver who makes a meat & three from scratch every.single.day. I have and use an apron, but that's really where the commonalities end. Most of us on most days are just doing the best we can!
There are ways, though, to streamline this process so that, with catlike agility, you can whip through your kitchen and break your "Nothin' to Somethin'" personal best time for getting food on the table. Make that getting food on plates on the table.
The first step (we'll do two or three more) is this: get a garbage bag. One pantry/drawer/cabinet/whatever at a time, pull out ALL the food and check the expiration dates.
Much like 12-steppers need to get deeply, painfully honest with themselves (OK, maybe not quite that intense... for some people) it's time to shine the flashlight on yourself and ask The Hard Questions. Namely, this expired when??? and why the hell is it still in my possession, shouldn't it have run away on its own by now?
I thought I was pretty familiar with the stuff in my cabinets. And I was, because some of it and I had quite a long time to get to know one another. I mean the bulgur wheat that was packaged in 200... this hurts.... 2006. Fare thee well. The shiitake mushroom broth that sounded so cool and I never had any idea what to do with it (keep your ideas to yourself, I've Hefty'd the dream). The blanched almonds that made a perfect snack that one time with the dried cherries (also still on the spinaround).
And now that it's all gone, I can - dare I say it? - find the salt. And the peppercorns and the canned tomatoes and the jelly. So when I race in the door and leash up the dogs and run back home to start dinner, I don't waste time anymore plowing through the useless and expired and the highly specialized in order to get to the Jiffy cornbread mix. It's right there.
Next time - What To Do With Aunt Louise's Tupperware Circa 1974
And I have yet to meet any real-life June Cleaver who makes a meat & three from scratch every.single.day. I have and use an apron, but that's really where the commonalities end. Most of us on most days are just doing the best we can!
There are ways, though, to streamline this process so that, with catlike agility, you can whip through your kitchen and break your "Nothin' to Somethin'" personal best time for getting food on the table. Make that getting food on plates on the table.
The first step (we'll do two or three more) is this: get a garbage bag. One pantry/drawer/cabinet/whatever at a time, pull out ALL the food and check the expiration dates.
Much like 12-steppers need to get deeply, painfully honest with themselves (OK, maybe not quite that intense... for some people) it's time to shine the flashlight on yourself and ask The Hard Questions. Namely, this expired when??? and why the hell is it still in my possession, shouldn't it have run away on its own by now?
I thought I was pretty familiar with the stuff in my cabinets. And I was, because some of it and I had quite a long time to get to know one another. I mean the bulgur wheat that was packaged in 200... this hurts.... 2006. Fare thee well. The shiitake mushroom broth that sounded so cool and I never had any idea what to do with it (keep your ideas to yourself, I've Hefty'd the dream). The blanched almonds that made a perfect snack that one time with the dried cherries (also still on the spinaround).
And now that it's all gone, I can - dare I say it? - find the salt. And the peppercorns and the canned tomatoes and the jelly. So when I race in the door and leash up the dogs and run back home to start dinner, I don't waste time anymore plowing through the useless and expired and the highly specialized in order to get to the Jiffy cornbread mix. It's right there.
Next time - What To Do With Aunt Louise's Tupperware Circa 1974
Sunday, December 28, 2008
What 2008 Brought
Best Recipe of the Year - Caribbean Chicken. We make this a LOT - the flavor is incredible, and really - it's just a marinade and not some crazy technique that requires $150 in new equipment for one recipe. It doesn't even require exotic ingredients. We sometimes do the whole deboned chicken thing, but often enough we just marinate chicken breasts and thighs and call it a day.
Worst Recipe of the Year - when you try a bunch of recipes you inevitably end up with some stinkers. And hands down, the worst of the worst was a miso-bean thread salad from Vegetarian Times. Instead of being a wonderful, flavorful cold Asian noodle salad, it was a weird, otherworldy kind of mousse salt lick with veins of noodles running through it. The hell??? Great for Halloween as a visual, but clearly a Gitmo device culinarily.
Best New Gadget - I can't believe this, but, um, I don't have one. Just to be sure, I went through my kitchen and opened all the drawers and cabinets and, yup, nothing new. Apparently this fiscal management/decluttering thing has taken hold more than I realized. I've bought good standard equipment through the years - insulated cookie sheets, a Microplane zester, digital thermometer, standing Kitchen Aid mixer, good wooden spoons (a cheap one broke on me), Calphalon grill pan, etc. - and everything is in working order. I really didn't see that coming.
Best Reason to Try New Vegetables - you might otherwise, inadvertently, name your child after one. Someone yelling "Kale! KALE!!" in the airport was not looking for a leafy green, but their kid. I hope to God they just didn't know... I mean, how low are your expectations for someone when you name them after a vegetable??? The worst part was that the parents clearly thought the other folks in the airport were smiling at how cute their son was - and he was indeed a cutie, but Jeebus, they named the kid "Kale." What else are a bunch of Southerners going to do but smile politely?
Best Dessert Recipe of the Year - Pumpkin Cake. Insanely popular everywhere I take it. It also makes excellent cupcakes.
Most Surprising Cost Savings - the new fridge, which cut our power bill and our food bill. It was a steal itself - $275 used vs. $800 - $1000 new, and much more energy-efficient than our 18-year-old icebox. And now that leftovers aren't buried deep in the old narrow fridge, we are much, much better about using things up and not having awful little surprises when we go looking for the mustard.
A slight downer is that I feel pretty un-hip for being this excited about a kitchen appliance.Worst Recipe of the Year - when you try a bunch of recipes you inevitably end up with some stinkers. And hands down, the worst of the worst was a miso-bean thread salad from Vegetarian Times. Instead of being a wonderful, flavorful cold Asian noodle salad, it was a weird, otherworldy kind of mousse salt lick with veins of noodles running through it. The hell??? Great for Halloween as a visual, but clearly a Gitmo device culinarily.
Best New Gadget - I can't believe this, but, um, I don't have one. Just to be sure, I went through my kitchen and opened all the drawers and cabinets and, yup, nothing new. Apparently this fiscal management/decluttering thing has taken hold more than I realized. I've bought good standard equipment through the years - insulated cookie sheets, a Microplane zester, digital thermometer, standing Kitchen Aid mixer, good wooden spoons (a cheap one broke on me), Calphalon grill pan, etc. - and everything is in working order. I really didn't see that coming.
Best New Resource - Youtube. That's how Sweetie learned to debone a whole chicken - the written instructions paled in comparison to watching a video of how it's done.
Best Old Resource - the library, with which I've reacquainted myself over the past few months. Realistically, I only ever make a handful of recipes out of any one cookbook. It just doesn't make sense to put the money and the shelf space into them anymore.
Favorite Food Sites - what, Nostinkycheese ain't enough?? I'm partial to:
http://www.thecasualkitchen.blogspot.com/
http://www.worldshealthiestfoods.com/ - not a huge fan of their recipes, but it's a great nutrition resource
Wise Bread, a living-on-less website, has some terrific recipes and ideas in the food and drink section - http://www.wisebread.com/topic/frugal-living/food-and-drink
http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ is one of my very favorite, reliable sources for a laugh
Best Reason to Try New Vegetables - you might otherwise, inadvertently, name your child after one. Someone yelling "Kale! KALE!!" in the airport was not looking for a leafy green, but their kid. I hope to God they just didn't know... I mean, how low are your expectations for someone when you name them after a vegetable??? The worst part was that the parents clearly thought the other folks in the airport were smiling at how cute their son was - and he was indeed a cutie, but Jeebus, they named the kid "Kale." What else are a bunch of Southerners going to do but smile politely?
Friday, December 26, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Overheard, Part Deux
I spent the day at my satellite office (Panera). It's astounding how much work I can get done there since my phone isn't ringing and no one is stopping by to chat.
Throughout the morning:
a) A couple sat down next to me. College-age. She looked like a Bollywood Ann Hathaway - gorgeous. He looked like John Belushi in the Animal House years. He was saying, "Let's just stay friends and see what happens later." She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. So did the guy at the table on the other side of them.
b) The business owner a few tables away was shouting into his cell phone. I know he was a business owner because of his previously-broadcast cell phone chats. Anyway - "I don't really know how to DO Vegas, though. Like pick up chicks." Well, no surprises so far. "But a friend said you just buy a table and put a bottle of sumpin' on it and that's all it takes. So I'll try that."
c) A trio of women in various stages of pregnancy. The one furthest along received a gift bag, and the giver said, "some of the stuff is not from your registry." The recipient said, "Well, thanks. I guess. Is there a receipt?"
d) Two kids enjoying their PB&J. "But I just decided TODAY that I really NEED the Dora the Explorer sleeping bag. And I talked to Santa ALREADY so how will he KNOW that I NEED it for Ansley's sleepover?" Her brother said Santa is on Twitter - he knows because his best friend already did it.
Throughout the morning:
a) A couple sat down next to me. College-age. She looked like a Bollywood Ann Hathaway - gorgeous. He looked like John Belushi in the Animal House years. He was saying, "Let's just stay friends and see what happens later." She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. So did the guy at the table on the other side of them.
b) The business owner a few tables away was shouting into his cell phone. I know he was a business owner because of his previously-broadcast cell phone chats. Anyway - "I don't really know how to DO Vegas, though. Like pick up chicks." Well, no surprises so far. "But a friend said you just buy a table and put a bottle of sumpin' on it and that's all it takes. So I'll try that."
c) A trio of women in various stages of pregnancy. The one furthest along received a gift bag, and the giver said, "some of the stuff is not from your registry." The recipient said, "Well, thanks. I guess. Is there a receipt?"
d) Two kids enjoying their PB&J. "But I just decided TODAY that I really NEED the Dora the Explorer sleeping bag. And I talked to Santa ALREADY so how will he KNOW that I NEED it for Ansley's sleepover?" Her brother said Santa is on Twitter - he knows because his best friend already did it.
Overheard
Overheard it, loved it, thought I'd share:
"No, no, no. I'm going to enjoy the holiday - not be a vehicle for other people to enjoy their holiday."
"No, no, no. I'm going to enjoy the holiday - not be a vehicle for other people to enjoy their holiday."
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
It's The Stuff That Counts
Yes, of course, there's heart-warming good will and togetherness and spiritual enrichment at the holidays. And there's shopping! Much as I wish I wasn't, I'm a shopper. And Thanksgiving - or Easter or Arbor Day or whatever - is a great time to pick up a few things for a special dinner.
Cooking the Big Dinner for the first time? There are a few absolutely critical items, some nice-to-haves, and some culinary equivalents of a chia pet.
Really Important and Helpful
MEAT THERMOMETER
Every year - seriously, every year - there are TV news reports and magazine articles and door-to-door missionaries preaching the word about the deadly cavalcade of bacteria hiding out in the turkey, preparing their attack on the half-wit who leaves the bird on the counter for six hours before feeding it to her family. The fever! The chills! The delirium! Um, happy holidays? And what are you grateful for, little Timmy?
You need to thoroughly cook the turkey and, if it has stuffing, that can be hard to do. And the standards are high - you want it fully, safely cooked and you want it not dehydrated. Dear God, what next? A federal turkey bailout?
This little wonder will get you where you're going as far as done-ness of the turkey. Kitchen respect is yours - all yours! - when you use the term "cooked to temperature." That means you confidently tossed aside the recipe directions to cook for X.Y hours and, savvy as you are, you knew that when the internal temp of the bird reaches 165 degrees, you're done even if you're "supposed" to have Z minutes left. If you've stuffed the turkey, the stuffing must also reach 165 degrees.
And by the way, you can use this baby all year long. I always, always, always use mine for roasted chicken - it can be perfectly well done and still be pinkish (who knew?). I also use mine to test the water temp for yeast when I make pizza crust.
For more info on safely thawing and cooking a turkey, click here.
ROASTING PAN
You've seen those foil roasting pans in the supermarket, right? Thinking about buying one for your feast? Do this - while at the store, put a 5-pound bag of sugar in the foil pan and see how stable it feels. Then realize that, between a roasting rack and a 10-pound turkey, you've got at least 7 more pounds to add to that. And when you take the pan out of the oven and the turkey slides and the foil buckles and the broth and grease slosh out, you're standing in a puddle of shoe gravy.
So I see you've decided that a roasting pan is a really good idea. Excellent choice! The picture above is a fancy-schmancy from Crate & Barrel. Do you need a fancy-schmancy? No. My own roasting pan is a piece of my grandmother's speckleware. She turned out wonderful dinners in it for 50 years or more, which is good enough for me. If you're only going to use your roasting pan once or twice a year, I wouldn't bother with a Calphalon or All-Clad version.
As long as your roasting pan has well-attached handles and is big enough to allow plenty of air to circulate around your bird, it's fine. I prefer one with a lid - I think it's more versatile that way - but it's not a hard and fast rule.
Oh, and that magazine rack in the picture? It's called a roasting rack - and yes, I really did use mine as a magazine rack when I had my first Big-Girl apartment. It lifts the bird off the bottom of the pan, allowing the grease and broth to run off and the skin to crisp.
TURKEY LIFTER
I know, I know - I'm breaking my "no gadgets that have only one purpose" rule. I'm sure you can use these to, ummmmm, string up loops and make potholders or something, right?
The first time I made a turkey I couldn't get it out of the pan. Wading cautiously into the waters of entertainment cooking, the bird was a 16-pounder for, I don't know, a dozen people or so. You know, starting slow. I fuzzily recall there was a lot of wine.
Anyway, my plan of impaling the bird on a wooden spoon didn't work out anything like I envisioned it. And three people with two forks each, trying to lift from the bottom, didn't balance so well. Neither did the "helpers" after all that Beaujolais Nouveau.
They're worth the ten bucks.
HELPFUL, BUT NOT MISSION-CRITICAL
RIDGED CARVING BOARD
I really wavered about whether this was imperative or nice to have... Here's the deal. When you carve a turkey there's a LOT of juice that runs off. It's just what you need after you've trashed your kitchen for the past 2 days of preparation, right? You can, if you have to, make a little fortress of rolled-up paper towels around your regular cutting board. I guess.
But if you're going out to buy a cutting board anyway, something like this is the way to go. Never cut on a glass surface - it ruins knives. You can chop your veggies on this, then carve your turkey before serving. The broth collects in in the ridge, which is soooo much easier to work with.
BASTER
I'm SO intrigued by this "shower head baster" business! A regular baster is fine - squeeze the bulb, place the wand in the broth, release the bulb, then squeeze the broth over the turkey. Done. I've had a plain, regular baster for years and when it finally wears out someday, I'll consider replacing it with this one. Note - if you're buying a regular baster, get one with a metal tube. They clean up much better and they don't melt.
Gosh, this shower head baster just sounds like a little spa day for the turkey, doesn't it? The dry heat of the sauna. The blast from the shower head. Wow. Kinda deceiving, actually...
GRAVY SEPARATOR
One of the best kitchen inventions ever. Pre-separator the intructions were to wave an ice cube over the hot broth to solidify the fat so it could be skimmed off. Think about it - steaming hot broth, ice cube. Besides having your own little weather system in the roasting pan, the ice didn't stay ice very long. Ugh. Blotting with paper towels, which took off a fair amount of hard-wrought broth, was another method. But no more!
When you've removed the turkey from the roasting pan and you're ready to make gravy, pour the broth into the separator and wait a few minutes. No need for ice or tribal dances or whatever, just let physics do its thing. The fat will rise to the top and, since the spout is connected at the bottom, you'll pour out plain, de-fatted broth. Stop pouring when all you see is fat.
LARGE MEASURING CUP
This is actually a "triple pour" measuring cup. Why someone can't turn their wrist a little to pour from a regular spouted cup is an unknown here in Nostinkycheese Labs, but whatever. The point is this - a large measuring cup can double as a bowl. If you're mixing up herb butter, or the water/cider/mustard for gravy, you can easily use this to both measure AND mix. I have a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup that I use all the time.
YOU MEAN THESE COST KITCHEN SPACE AND MONEY???
TURKEY PARAPHERNALIA
I come from good people, and we do not embroider our turkey. I don't know anyone who does. Can someone please tell me what the hell this stuff is for? I see this Turkey String Art kit every year. Is it one of those trashy lace-up turkeys? Like I said, I come from solid folk and we wouldn't know of such a thing. Truly, I'm lost.
SILICONE POTHOLDERS
Man, I effin' hate these things. They seemed so happy-bouncy-sproingy in the store! And sure, they're cute and kinda squeaky. But I use them only as trivets now - I just can't get a good grip with them, and if I'm moving 8 pounds of something at 400 degrees, I want to really know that I've got it firmly in hand. Fabric only, please.
On Crate & Barrel's webite, they say this piece of engineering times "three dishes simultaneously... features beep and light signals, clock and countdown functions, and the familiar touchpad controls of handheld electronics. Pre-programmed with cook times for beef, lamb, chicken, and more."
Uh-HUH.
I just wouldn't know where to start with this thing. There's only one probe, yet it times 3 dishes? If they're going that far with it, why not have it yell out "Green bean casserole - done!" instead of giving some sort of Morse code? I think by #3 I'd be trying to remember what on earth was still in the oven and there must be something else for me to remember... do I need to call someone? Is it their birthday? Maybe it's the day for the dogs to get their heartworm meds?... before finally clipping it onto my waistband as a pedometer or something.
Cooking the Big Dinner for the first time? There are a few absolutely critical items, some nice-to-haves, and some culinary equivalents of a chia pet.
Really Important and Helpful
MEAT THERMOMETER
Every year - seriously, every year - there are TV news reports and magazine articles and door-to-door missionaries preaching the word about the deadly cavalcade of bacteria hiding out in the turkey, preparing their attack on the half-wit who leaves the bird on the counter for six hours before feeding it to her family. The fever! The chills! The delirium! Um, happy holidays? And what are you grateful for, little Timmy?
You need to thoroughly cook the turkey and, if it has stuffing, that can be hard to do. And the standards are high - you want it fully, safely cooked and you want it not dehydrated. Dear God, what next? A federal turkey bailout?
This little wonder will get you where you're going as far as done-ness of the turkey. Kitchen respect is yours - all yours! - when you use the term "cooked to temperature." That means you confidently tossed aside the recipe directions to cook for X.Y hours and, savvy as you are, you knew that when the internal temp of the bird reaches 165 degrees, you're done even if you're "supposed" to have Z minutes left. If you've stuffed the turkey, the stuffing must also reach 165 degrees.
And by the way, you can use this baby all year long. I always, always, always use mine for roasted chicken - it can be perfectly well done and still be pinkish (who knew?). I also use mine to test the water temp for yeast when I make pizza crust.
For more info on safely thawing and cooking a turkey, click here.
ROASTING PAN
You've seen those foil roasting pans in the supermarket, right? Thinking about buying one for your feast? Do this - while at the store, put a 5-pound bag of sugar in the foil pan and see how stable it feels. Then realize that, between a roasting rack and a 10-pound turkey, you've got at least 7 more pounds to add to that. And when you take the pan out of the oven and the turkey slides and the foil buckles and the broth and grease slosh out, you're standing in a puddle of shoe gravy.
So I see you've decided that a roasting pan is a really good idea. Excellent choice! The picture above is a fancy-schmancy from Crate & Barrel. Do you need a fancy-schmancy? No. My own roasting pan is a piece of my grandmother's speckleware. She turned out wonderful dinners in it for 50 years or more, which is good enough for me. If you're only going to use your roasting pan once or twice a year, I wouldn't bother with a Calphalon or All-Clad version.
As long as your roasting pan has well-attached handles and is big enough to allow plenty of air to circulate around your bird, it's fine. I prefer one with a lid - I think it's more versatile that way - but it's not a hard and fast rule.
Oh, and that magazine rack in the picture? It's called a roasting rack - and yes, I really did use mine as a magazine rack when I had my first Big-Girl apartment. It lifts the bird off the bottom of the pan, allowing the grease and broth to run off and the skin to crisp.
TURKEY LIFTER
I know, I know - I'm breaking my "no gadgets that have only one purpose" rule. I'm sure you can use these to, ummmmm, string up loops and make potholders or something, right?
The first time I made a turkey I couldn't get it out of the pan. Wading cautiously into the waters of entertainment cooking, the bird was a 16-pounder for, I don't know, a dozen people or so. You know, starting slow. I fuzzily recall there was a lot of wine.
Anyway, my plan of impaling the bird on a wooden spoon didn't work out anything like I envisioned it. And three people with two forks each, trying to lift from the bottom, didn't balance so well. Neither did the "helpers" after all that Beaujolais Nouveau.
They're worth the ten bucks.
HELPFUL, BUT NOT MISSION-CRITICAL
RIDGED CARVING BOARD
I really wavered about whether this was imperative or nice to have... Here's the deal. When you carve a turkey there's a LOT of juice that runs off. It's just what you need after you've trashed your kitchen for the past 2 days of preparation, right? You can, if you have to, make a little fortress of rolled-up paper towels around your regular cutting board. I guess.
But if you're going out to buy a cutting board anyway, something like this is the way to go. Never cut on a glass surface - it ruins knives. You can chop your veggies on this, then carve your turkey before serving. The broth collects in in the ridge, which is soooo much easier to work with.
BASTER
I'm SO intrigued by this "shower head baster" business! A regular baster is fine - squeeze the bulb, place the wand in the broth, release the bulb, then squeeze the broth over the turkey. Done. I've had a plain, regular baster for years and when it finally wears out someday, I'll consider replacing it with this one. Note - if you're buying a regular baster, get one with a metal tube. They clean up much better and they don't melt.
Gosh, this shower head baster just sounds like a little spa day for the turkey, doesn't it? The dry heat of the sauna. The blast from the shower head. Wow. Kinda deceiving, actually...
GRAVY SEPARATOR
One of the best kitchen inventions ever. Pre-separator the intructions were to wave an ice cube over the hot broth to solidify the fat so it could be skimmed off. Think about it - steaming hot broth, ice cube. Besides having your own little weather system in the roasting pan, the ice didn't stay ice very long. Ugh. Blotting with paper towels, which took off a fair amount of hard-wrought broth, was another method. But no more!
When you've removed the turkey from the roasting pan and you're ready to make gravy, pour the broth into the separator and wait a few minutes. No need for ice or tribal dances or whatever, just let physics do its thing. The fat will rise to the top and, since the spout is connected at the bottom, you'll pour out plain, de-fatted broth. Stop pouring when all you see is fat.
LARGE MEASURING CUP
This is actually a "triple pour" measuring cup. Why someone can't turn their wrist a little to pour from a regular spouted cup is an unknown here in Nostinkycheese Labs, but whatever. The point is this - a large measuring cup can double as a bowl. If you're mixing up herb butter, or the water/cider/mustard for gravy, you can easily use this to both measure AND mix. I have a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup that I use all the time.
YOU MEAN THESE COST KITCHEN SPACE AND MONEY???
TURKEY PARAPHERNALIA
I come from good people, and we do not embroider our turkey. I don't know anyone who does. Can someone please tell me what the hell this stuff is for? I see this Turkey String Art kit every year. Is it one of those trashy lace-up turkeys? Like I said, I come from solid folk and we wouldn't know of such a thing. Truly, I'm lost.
SILICONE POTHOLDERS
Man, I effin' hate these things. They seemed so happy-bouncy-sproingy in the store! And sure, they're cute and kinda squeaky. But I use them only as trivets now - I just can't get a good grip with them, and if I'm moving 8 pounds of something at 400 degrees, I want to really know that I've got it firmly in hand. Fabric only, please.
On Crate & Barrel's webite, they say this piece of engineering times "three dishes simultaneously... features beep and light signals, clock and countdown functions, and the familiar touchpad controls of handheld electronics. Pre-programmed with cook times for beef, lamb, chicken, and more."
Uh-HUH.
I just wouldn't know where to start with this thing. There's only one probe, yet it times 3 dishes? If they're going that far with it, why not have it yell out "Green bean casserole - done!" instead of giving some sort of Morse code? I think by #3 I'd be trying to remember what on earth was still in the oven and there must be something else for me to remember... do I need to call someone? Is it their birthday? Maybe it's the day for the dogs to get their heartworm meds?... before finally clipping it onto my waistband as a pedometer or something.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Time = Money = Freezing
So I'm making cupcakes for the hardy band of our church's ad-hoc builders for Habitat for Humanity. Chocolate-Spice Cupcakes with Orange-Rum Cream Cheese Frosting, to be precise.
[Habitat Captain Guy? The rest of this is way boring and there's something interesting on television right now. You have cable - find something.]
But precise is the very last thing I've been this evening. I mixed up my allspice and ginger and dumped in FOUR TIMES the amount of allspice called for. Then I discovered that my set of measuring spoons has a rare half-tablespoon on the ring, found where the teaspoon would usually be. In other words, I'd used EIGHT TIMES the amount of cinnamon in the recipe.
That's why trash cans are conveniently kept in kitchens.
So congratulating myself on my commitment to high standards (I'm going to be positive about this if it kills me), on my second effort with newly and properly measured ingredients, I jauntily tossed an egg from my right hand, sailing over my waiting left hand, to the kitchen floor.
That's the other reason trash cans are conveniently kept in kitchens. Clearly, this is not my night.
So here's something I've gotten surprisingly good at - saving money and discovering new things that can be frozen instead of thrown away or thrown across the room because I'm so damn tired of having the same thing for the fourth meal in a row.
1. Keep an emergency dinner around - either something in the freezer (soup, barbecue) or something very easily thrown together with pantry staples. Sweetie made me the only thing I felt like eating tonight; tortellini soup (boxed chicken broth, pre-made tortellini, chopped carrots, shredded Parmesan). Having an emergency dinner or two means you don't have to spend $ getting food delivered.
2. The easiest way to build up a stock of emergency dinners is to double the recipe for whatever you're making. Throwing a baked ziti together? Make an extra in a disposable foil pan, wrap it up, and freeze it. It's ready to go when you need it.
3. Did you know you can freeze a block of cheese? I had NO idea. A few weeks ago I bought a brick of Monterey Jack cheese for chicken enchiladas. It's not a type we get in bulk, so I wrapped the remainder carefully in plastic, put it in a Ziploc, and froze it. When I made Chicken Tamale Casserole this past weekend - voila! - no need to buy the cheese. The texture was a little crumbly, so I wouldn't plan on serving it on a cheese plate after freezing, but for shredding it worked beautifully.
4. Lunchmeat can be frozen. I bought the honkin' big package of deli roast turkey at Costco (18 good-size slices for about $8.50) - I just love a good turkey sandwich for lunch. I laid out a few sheets of Saran Wrap, laid 4 or 5 pieces of turkey on each, and rolled each up like a wrap sandwich. I popped all the rolls in one big bag and into the freezer it went. When thawed, the turkey does not taste one bit different for having been in the freezer. I saved a good amount of $ and I didn't cry at the idea of having to eat 18 slices of turkey before they went bad.
5. Bacon can be frozen. That's one thing we never finsh before it gets to the HAZMAT stage. Same as the turkey - get some plastic wrap & roll it up. I felt so smug when I made a bacon-roasted chicken and didn't have to buy any special ingredients!
6. Bulk shopping is my friend! A small block of Kraft Cracker Barrel cheddar runs a good $4 or more ($5.50 lately for the part-skim, which I used to love but no longer buy). It's about the size of two sticks of butter. Two pounds of cheddar at Costco is $5.79.
7. You can find any recipe you could possibly want on the internet - there's no need to buy a cookbook unless you really want to. I'm sure if you Googled "Chicken Olive Pasta Tasty Rice Ricotta" or some other combination, you'd get at least 500 hits.
Besides saving on cookbooks, the Google trick can also help to use up leftovers and random odds & ends in the pantry. Google on what you have and see what comes up.
8. Apparently the very chi-chi spice emporium Penzey's has a bottle of vanilla that costs FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS. I've never paid that for a good wine, never mind a flavoring. From what I hear, Costco's $4 bottle of vanilla (same size) is every bit as good. No need to elaborate, is there?
9. Breakfast for dinner - eggs take literally minutes to cook. Toss some chopped veggies into your eggs - mushrooms, spinach, onions, broccoli - and you've got a protein and a vegetable.
10. If you make cookie dough and freeze it in small balls, you can bake just one cookie - instead of spending $1.25 for one at Whole Foods.
[Habitat Captain Guy? The rest of this is way boring and there's something interesting on television right now. You have cable - find something.]
But precise is the very last thing I've been this evening. I mixed up my allspice and ginger and dumped in FOUR TIMES the amount of allspice called for. Then I discovered that my set of measuring spoons has a rare half-tablespoon on the ring, found where the teaspoon would usually be. In other words, I'd used EIGHT TIMES the amount of cinnamon in the recipe.
That's why trash cans are conveniently kept in kitchens.
So congratulating myself on my commitment to high standards (I'm going to be positive about this if it kills me), on my second effort with newly and properly measured ingredients, I jauntily tossed an egg from my right hand, sailing over my waiting left hand, to the kitchen floor.
That's the other reason trash cans are conveniently kept in kitchens. Clearly, this is not my night.
So here's something I've gotten surprisingly good at - saving money and discovering new things that can be frozen instead of thrown away or thrown across the room because I'm so damn tired of having the same thing for the fourth meal in a row.
1. Keep an emergency dinner around - either something in the freezer (soup, barbecue) or something very easily thrown together with pantry staples. Sweetie made me the only thing I felt like eating tonight; tortellini soup (boxed chicken broth, pre-made tortellini, chopped carrots, shredded Parmesan). Having an emergency dinner or two means you don't have to spend $ getting food delivered.
2. The easiest way to build up a stock of emergency dinners is to double the recipe for whatever you're making. Throwing a baked ziti together? Make an extra in a disposable foil pan, wrap it up, and freeze it. It's ready to go when you need it.
3. Did you know you can freeze a block of cheese? I had NO idea. A few weeks ago I bought a brick of Monterey Jack cheese for chicken enchiladas. It's not a type we get in bulk, so I wrapped the remainder carefully in plastic, put it in a Ziploc, and froze it. When I made Chicken Tamale Casserole this past weekend - voila! - no need to buy the cheese. The texture was a little crumbly, so I wouldn't plan on serving it on a cheese plate after freezing, but for shredding it worked beautifully.
4. Lunchmeat can be frozen. I bought the honkin' big package of deli roast turkey at Costco (18 good-size slices for about $8.50) - I just love a good turkey sandwich for lunch. I laid out a few sheets of Saran Wrap, laid 4 or 5 pieces of turkey on each, and rolled each up like a wrap sandwich. I popped all the rolls in one big bag and into the freezer it went. When thawed, the turkey does not taste one bit different for having been in the freezer. I saved a good amount of $ and I didn't cry at the idea of having to eat 18 slices of turkey before they went bad.
5. Bacon can be frozen. That's one thing we never finsh before it gets to the HAZMAT stage. Same as the turkey - get some plastic wrap & roll it up. I felt so smug when I made a bacon-roasted chicken and didn't have to buy any special ingredients!
6. Bulk shopping is my friend! A small block of Kraft Cracker Barrel cheddar runs a good $4 or more ($5.50 lately for the part-skim, which I used to love but no longer buy). It's about the size of two sticks of butter. Two pounds of cheddar at Costco is $5.79.
7. You can find any recipe you could possibly want on the internet - there's no need to buy a cookbook unless you really want to. I'm sure if you Googled "Chicken Olive Pasta Tasty Rice Ricotta" or some other combination, you'd get at least 500 hits.
Besides saving on cookbooks, the Google trick can also help to use up leftovers and random odds & ends in the pantry. Google on what you have and see what comes up.
8. Apparently the very chi-chi spice emporium Penzey's has a bottle of vanilla that costs FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS. I've never paid that for a good wine, never mind a flavoring. From what I hear, Costco's $4 bottle of vanilla (same size) is every bit as good. No need to elaborate, is there?
9. Breakfast for dinner - eggs take literally minutes to cook. Toss some chopped veggies into your eggs - mushrooms, spinach, onions, broccoli - and you've got a protein and a vegetable.
10. If you make cookie dough and freeze it in small balls, you can bake just one cookie - instead of spending $1.25 for one at Whole Foods.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sort of a PSA for Runners
Sweetie ran the half-marathon at the Silver Comet Trail this weekend. In the spirit of camaraderie and support, he wishes to pass along the following statement:
"Running tights are not as opaque as people think they are."
"Running tights are not as opaque as people think they are."
Friday, October 17, 2008
Atkins Was Too Annoying, Anyway
Aren't you glad the Atkins Diet craze is over? I got so tired of all those people shaking in terror at the sight of a cracker, or santimoniously pointing to my plate at a cocktail party and ticking off "good (green pepper), good (cheese), bad (carrot)." What could possibly be bad about a carrot stick???
That wasn't the weirdest moment of that years-ago party, though. I met a guy whose name sounded soooo familiar - and, yes, mutual friends had been trying to set us up. The tacky guest criticizing my crudites? Set-up guy's boyfriend. "Ummmm, my friends don't know I'm gay," he said. "No shit," said I. Happy New Year!
Where was I on the cooking thing? Right....
Moderation in all things. And if you're going to indulge, indulge on something that's worth it. It's a sad fact in life that crappy candy does not necessarily have fewer calories than really good candy.
And let's defend our humble potato friend, shall we? They're the inspiration for an awesome children's toy (of the Mr. Head variety). They are high in potassium and, as long as you leave the well-scrubbed skins on, high in fiber. They're way inexpensive and, unlike fresh corn or good fresh green beans, always available.
Not only are we not in a potato famine, we are awash in different varieties. And they ARE different, and using the right kind of potato can help ensure excellent results.
Russet potatoes - these are the corky-looking, kinda dirty-looking longish potatoes. They don't have as much water as other potatoes, so when baked they get light and fluffy and soak up butter or sour cream really well. These are also called Idaho potatoes (long story).
Red potatoes - no surprise what these look like. These are usually smaller, rounder, and smoother-looking - just overall cuter - than russet potatoes. If you're making mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes, these are the ones to use.
Lastly, we have our great compromise potato - the Yukon Gold. This is smooth in appearance like one of our spunky red potatoes, and may be similarly shaped but is larger. The skin is yellow/brown. They are known for their buttery taste, and who doesn't love that? They're my go-to for mashed potatoes.
So it should be obvious by now that we're not making rutabaga or celeriac this week. Everybody needs a good recipe for Roasted Potatoes, especially with cooler weather coming, and these are terrific. They accompany any meat dish beautifully.
You'll need:
Whole grain Dijon mustard (or regular Dijon if you don't have whole grain)
olive oil
butter
lemon juice and lemon peel - in other words, one lemon
fresh garlic
oregano
salt
1 1/2 pounds tiny red-skinned or tiny white-skinned potatoes. These may be called "creamer potatoes" or "fingerling potatoes" - either is fine.
That wasn't the weirdest moment of that years-ago party, though. I met a guy whose name sounded soooo familiar - and, yes, mutual friends had been trying to set us up. The tacky guest criticizing my crudites? Set-up guy's boyfriend. "Ummmm, my friends don't know I'm gay," he said. "No shit," said I. Happy New Year!
Where was I on the cooking thing? Right....
Moderation in all things. And if you're going to indulge, indulge on something that's worth it. It's a sad fact in life that crappy candy does not necessarily have fewer calories than really good candy.
And let's defend our humble potato friend, shall we? They're the inspiration for an awesome children's toy (of the Mr. Head variety). They are high in potassium and, as long as you leave the well-scrubbed skins on, high in fiber. They're way inexpensive and, unlike fresh corn or good fresh green beans, always available.
Not only are we not in a potato famine, we are awash in different varieties. And they ARE different, and using the right kind of potato can help ensure excellent results.
Russet potatoes - these are the corky-looking, kinda dirty-looking longish potatoes. They don't have as much water as other potatoes, so when baked they get light and fluffy and soak up butter or sour cream really well. These are also called Idaho potatoes (long story).
Red potatoes - no surprise what these look like. These are usually smaller, rounder, and smoother-looking - just overall cuter - than russet potatoes. If you're making mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes, these are the ones to use.
Lastly, we have our great compromise potato - the Yukon Gold. This is smooth in appearance like one of our spunky red potatoes, and may be similarly shaped but is larger. The skin is yellow/brown. They are known for their buttery taste, and who doesn't love that? They're my go-to for mashed potatoes.
So it should be obvious by now that we're not making rutabaga or celeriac this week. Everybody needs a good recipe for Roasted Potatoes, especially with cooler weather coming, and these are terrific. They accompany any meat dish beautifully.
You'll need:
Whole grain Dijon mustard (or regular Dijon if you don't have whole grain)
olive oil
butter
lemon juice and lemon peel - in other words, one lemon
fresh garlic
oregano
salt
1 1/2 pounds tiny red-skinned or tiny white-skinned potatoes. These may be called "creamer potatoes" or "fingerling potatoes" - either is fine.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
But Do They Leave The House?
Apparently "French Women Don't Get Fat" for a number of reasons. They eat freshly prepared, non-processed food. They insist on high quality. They exercise portion control. They walk a lot.
And according to the comments in this British newspaper - the British possibly not an unbiased source of information about the French - they also smoke a lot to stay slim.
I've read several bloggish reports of American women who gave the FWDGF approach a serious and enthusiastic go. Croissants, wine, dark chocolate, and creamy soups drum up lots of enthusiasm. And they loved it.
One of the things routinely commented upon was lingering over meals. For hours and hours, as a part of the daily routine. And it did sound languid and luxurious and all that... rather vacation-y.
My most recent Saturday morning - before 10am - included taking the dogs out for their unleashed frolic at the local tennis courts, loading up the car with all the recyclables, doing a few loads of laundry, vacuuming the downstairs and probably scrambling an egg with chopped vegetables. That was before getting the dry cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.
I can not imagine the weekend when I would whip up a batch of beaten biscuits, only eat one of them - if they were up to snuff - and gaze thoughtfully at two perfect strawberries. For an HOUR.
I wasn't there and she didn't provide a schedule, but I imagine my sister spent last Saturday getting her 6- and 4-year-olds to various soccer games and birthday parties and keeping the toddler from destroying the house, and certainly at some point they ate some cereal and bananas or something.
Just a guess, but I'm pretty sure it's a treat for her to remain seated for five consecutive minutes at mealtime, let alone ponder a glass of milk and wonder if the cow that provided it led a charmed existence.
There's a lot to be said for cooking your own food, watching portions, and savoring judicious treats. Sweetie and I have always believed that eating together - with the TV off - is an important part of our day.
Even with as much as I love to cook, I'm not willing to ascribe food that much of my day. I'm just not. A square of dark chocolate is great. A shopping trip with an longtime friend or watching Cutie sing with her church choir or digging up the flower beds is better.
Perhaps it's semantics or lower standards or rationalization. When we can sit down together to a homemade meal, fantastic. It's truly a delight to carve (well, watch him carve) an herb-roasted chicken and spoon up some homemade mashed potatoes and talk about our day and our plans and so on. But if Sweetie is volunteering one night and I'm working out and I throw together a smoothie for dinner, well, so be it.
Vive la difference.
And according to the comments in this British newspaper - the British possibly not an unbiased source of information about the French - they also smoke a lot to stay slim.
I've read several bloggish reports of American women who gave the FWDGF approach a serious and enthusiastic go. Croissants, wine, dark chocolate, and creamy soups drum up lots of enthusiasm. And they loved it.
One of the things routinely commented upon was lingering over meals. For hours and hours, as a part of the daily routine. And it did sound languid and luxurious and all that... rather vacation-y.
My most recent Saturday morning - before 10am - included taking the dogs out for their unleashed frolic at the local tennis courts, loading up the car with all the recyclables, doing a few loads of laundry, vacuuming the downstairs and probably scrambling an egg with chopped vegetables. That was before getting the dry cleaning, grocery shopping, etc.
I can not imagine the weekend when I would whip up a batch of beaten biscuits, only eat one of them - if they were up to snuff - and gaze thoughtfully at two perfect strawberries. For an HOUR.
I wasn't there and she didn't provide a schedule, but I imagine my sister spent last Saturday getting her 6- and 4-year-olds to various soccer games and birthday parties and keeping the toddler from destroying the house, and certainly at some point they ate some cereal and bananas or something.
Just a guess, but I'm pretty sure it's a treat for her to remain seated for five consecutive minutes at mealtime, let alone ponder a glass of milk and wonder if the cow that provided it led a charmed existence.
There's a lot to be said for cooking your own food, watching portions, and savoring judicious treats. Sweetie and I have always believed that eating together - with the TV off - is an important part of our day.
Even with as much as I love to cook, I'm not willing to ascribe food that much of my day. I'm just not. A square of dark chocolate is great. A shopping trip with an longtime friend or watching Cutie sing with her church choir or digging up the flower beds is better.
Perhaps it's semantics or lower standards or rationalization. When we can sit down together to a homemade meal, fantastic. It's truly a delight to carve (well, watch him carve) an herb-roasted chicken and spoon up some homemade mashed potatoes and talk about our day and our plans and so on. But if Sweetie is volunteering one night and I'm working out and I throw together a smoothie for dinner, well, so be it.
Vive la difference.
Friday, October 3, 2008
High Praise
It's Learn To Cook/No-Fuss Saturday, and we're going to take a few steps backwards. These recipes are intended to help cooks of any proficiency get a quick meal on the table AND to help folks who want to become more familiar with that mysterious room known as "where the icemaker is."
If you don't yet have a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook -
I can't recommend highly enough that you get one. Get it used if you wish. I have the one in the binder because a binder lies open flat, whereas a paperback book snaps itself shut the minute your hands are too messy to turn pages and keeps all the important info in the fold of the spine where you can't really see it. Mine is probably ten years old and has the splatters on page 114 (Banana Bread) and elsewhere to prove it. By the way, that's a sign of a well-used and well-loved cookbook - food splatters.
There isn't another book in my collection that's as often-referenced as this one. Need to know how to cook a particular cut of beef? It's in there. Want to know if asparagus can be frozen? It's in the small-but-helpful "Canning & Freezing" section. What on earth is a "3-quart baking dish" in real-people inch measurements? They have your answer (a 13x9x2" pan - like for a sheet cake).
Groundbreaking? Not really. I bought mine when I wanted to make an apple pie. Not a Carmelized Apple Pie With Vanilla Glaze, not a Calvados-Sauced Apple Pie With Cornmeal Crust and Cinnamon Cream like I had in my other cookbooks, but a plain, Grandma-would've-made-it apple pie. It's got some cool stuff in there, but mostly it's a godsend for the basics.
Speaking of Grandma Would've Made It... My father's mother is famous for her lemon meringue pie. Since my other grandmother passed away before I got her recipes, I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. I made my own lemon meringue pie one evening. Not just "from scratch", but old-school "from scratch" - coddled egg yolks into a custard, zested fresh lemon, offered thanks to Saint Kitchen Aid while I had the egg whites & sugar becoming meringue in the stand mixer.
Sweetie took pictures of the finished, white, billowy product. We sampled the pie and I called my grandmother. "I need your recipe," I said. "This is just one I found and I wanted to see if I could make it; it's good, but the texture is a little off and the taste is a little too sharp/lemony. It's not as silky as yours."
There was a confused silence on the other end of the phone. Then, "You mean they don't make that lemon pudding mix anymore?"
If you don't yet have a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook -
I can't recommend highly enough that you get one. Get it used if you wish. I have the one in the binder because a binder lies open flat, whereas a paperback book snaps itself shut the minute your hands are too messy to turn pages and keeps all the important info in the fold of the spine where you can't really see it. Mine is probably ten years old and has the splatters on page 114 (Banana Bread) and elsewhere to prove it. By the way, that's a sign of a well-used and well-loved cookbook - food splatters.
There isn't another book in my collection that's as often-referenced as this one. Need to know how to cook a particular cut of beef? It's in there. Want to know if asparagus can be frozen? It's in the small-but-helpful "Canning & Freezing" section. What on earth is a "3-quart baking dish" in real-people inch measurements? They have your answer (a 13x9x2" pan - like for a sheet cake).
Groundbreaking? Not really. I bought mine when I wanted to make an apple pie. Not a Carmelized Apple Pie With Vanilla Glaze, not a Calvados-Sauced Apple Pie With Cornmeal Crust and Cinnamon Cream like I had in my other cookbooks, but a plain, Grandma-would've-made-it apple pie. It's got some cool stuff in there, but mostly it's a godsend for the basics.
Speaking of Grandma Would've Made It... My father's mother is famous for her lemon meringue pie. Since my other grandmother passed away before I got her recipes, I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. I made my own lemon meringue pie one evening. Not just "from scratch", but old-school "from scratch" - coddled egg yolks into a custard, zested fresh lemon, offered thanks to Saint Kitchen Aid while I had the egg whites & sugar becoming meringue in the stand mixer.
Sweetie took pictures of the finished, white, billowy product. We sampled the pie and I called my grandmother. "I need your recipe," I said. "This is just one I found and I wanted to see if I could make it; it's good, but the texture is a little off and the taste is a little too sharp/lemony. It's not as silky as yours."
There was a confused silence on the other end of the phone. Then, "You mean they don't make that lemon pudding mix anymore?"
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