Not Quite Bedtime For Bonzo

People do all sorts of strange things when they are stressed out. Some folks fight with people they love; others drink or eat too much; and I understand there are even people who claim that exercise is a stress buster.

Me? I do one of two things.

The productive solution involves cleaning my house. There's nothing like a few hours of non-stop housework to take my mind off even the most difficult situation. RT likes this particular strategy a whole lot. And since I don't sleep well when I am stressed out, he has occasionally woken up to a house that truly sparkles.

The other solution is to immerse myself in some sort of arcane and usually downright silly techie project like, urmmm, redesigning my weblog template. You probably have no idea how many hours one can spend doing this. I tell myself that it is a quieter activity than vacuuming. RT works hard you know, and he needs his rest.

Besides, the cleanest house on earth just gets dirty again, and, as we know, a new template is a joy forever. OK, maybe not forever, but it is a joy tonight.

 

posted by taming at 00:46 | link | comments (3)|
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Not A Toy

It had to happen, eventually, and yesterday it did.

Yes, yesterday I went over to the dark side, and bought espresso equipment. Although we'll still be drinking plenty of good ole home roasted coffee, RT is looking forward to capas, and I am looking forward to leaning how to pull the perfect ristretto.

Lest you think we are talking about a discount store steam toy, here is a picture of the Bezzera we bought. And lest you think that was the total of our buying fest, I should probably mention that this required a new Rancilio Rocky coffee grinder, a tamper, tamping mat, various other pieces of small equipment, and, well, a bank loan.

I had to remind RT that it all came to about 1.25 car payments, before the glazed look left his face. He knew that buying the big black car a few months ago would come with an additional price, and this was it.

 

posted by taming at 08:08 | link | comments (3)|
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Yet Another Blast From The Past

My red, white and forest green Jell-O creation was quite the hit. Women my age and older swooned over it and told stories of much loved Jell-O salads from their past.

It was the Jell-O that delivered the knock out punch as I claimed the "awesome" cook award for 2006. I don't use the word awesome myself, unless I am experiencing actual awe, but it was a very popular word amongst those at dinner yesterday.  The shrimp salad I made was awesome. The seven layer salad I made was awesome, and the pumpkin cranberry loaf was, like, totally awesome.

I have no Christmas traditions of my own. I'm the lone Jew in a family of United Church Protestants and Catholics. My general sense was that Christmas dinner should feel comforting and familiar rather than exciting and au currant.

Like many of the people at the table, I was born in the 50s and passed through my teenage years in the 60s. And although I spent these years in upstate New York, while the people I was with yesterday lived in rural Saskatchewan, holiday food all over North America came from the pages of the women's magazines of the day.

My mother discovered the ubiquitous, and now mostly reviled, green bean casserole made with cream of mushroom soup and canned onion rings, when she was just beginning to forge her own identity as a wife, as a mother, and as a cook. The women at the table yesterday remember that dish. The green bean casserole, like the Jell-O salad, is somehow all mixed in with our past, and even though we, at some point, made more or less conscious decisions not to serve these foods ourselves, tasting them again has somehow become nostalgic in the best of ways.

There was something wonderful, and a bit bittersweet, about watching the children, for the most part our grandchildren and great nieces and nephews, as they played with their toys, and about watching their moms and dads as they went about the business of parenting.

Somehow, as the taste of foods from our shared past brought back memories of our own lives as young women, it was, well, awesome.

 

posted by taming at 07:28 | link | comments |
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Killing Time Christmas Morning

Whilst I sit here, waiting for the release of The Royal Podcast, with the Queen's Christmas message to the empire, I might as well share with you the lessons I learned yesterday as I got ready for the holiday.

• One of the biggies (listen-up Limine), is that with a few drops of green food dye, you too can make Christmas Jell-O. without any scary day-glow lime stuff.  I expect the family to ooh and ahh over this accomplishment.
  
• People have a right to be proud of their Jell-O creations. After all, how many people would spend an hour cutting canned pears into just the right shape for the ridges and valleys at the top of a (forest green) Jell-O mountain.
  
• No matter how many times one has made pumpkin bread, it is still possible to burn a batch to ashes. I suspect this only happens when starting over requires a trip to the store for eggs.
  
• If that favourite family recipe just doesn't taste the same these days, you can blame it on the food industry, which quietly downsized one pound cans of various ingredients to 14.5 ounces. They should have bought kitchen scales, or calculators, for us all.
  
• It is a very bad idea to let slip the fact that you are going to have a Christmas dinner without turkey ahead of time. Although RT knows that I have no control over the menu at our niece's house, he may never forgive me. I'm pretty sure he somehow expected a magical solution involving the 20 pound bird in our freezer. Poor RT.
  
• It is a very good idea to repeatedly tell your spouse well in advance how hard it is to find that must-have thing you are hoping to get for Christmas. It's not just that you really, really want it, but if you are married to a guy like RT, it almost guarantees that there will be a little wrapped box with a "surprise" as well.
  
• Christmas is a whole lot more difficult than Chanukah, but a plate full of latkes will never take the place of a turkey in Tamingville.

 

 

posted by taming at 05:55 | link | comments (1)|
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Cultural Dissonance

Prepare for a moment of meanness.

I married into a family of Jell-O enthusiasts. My sister-in-law may never have seen, much less tasted, eggplant until I brought a pan of eggplant parmesan to a family gathering, but she (and all her descendants) know a good Jell-O mold when they see one.

This would not be an issue today had I not been tasked with providing a selection of salads for Christmas dinner. No one suggested anything specific, but I know, in my heart of hearts, that they are expecting a fruit filled salad that wiggles. I also know that I will get bonus points if Cool Whip is one of the ingredients.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love RT's family. They have been not just tolerant, but welcoming, of this odd big city Jewish American woman who was thrust into their lives. Heck, my noodle kugel has become a featured food at all the family baptisms.

This does not mean that I can throw caution to the wind and show up with a big bowl full of mocha gelatin cafe (which, frankly, makes me a bit nauseated when I read about it, even if it does contain coffee). This occasion requires something more "festive", something featuring the traditional colours of Christmas. And who knows, the lime Jell-O, that will no doubt be part of my creation, just might be the only green food eaten with any enthusiasm that day.

In any case, I better get dressed and head over to the grocery store. From what I gather, after spending a couple of hours looking at recipes, making a truly spectacular wiggling salad takes a fair amount of time. Days even, if one throws caution to the wind, and tackles a seven layered masterpiece.

 

posted by taming at 09:54 | link | comments (3)|
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