A couple of weeks ago, I broke my toe. Even though it was only just a very little toe — a piggy, if you will — the break is really cramping my style. It’s hard to walk and hard to stand in one place, and it’s really hard to balance. It turns out that’s mostly what my little toe was for: Helping me keep my balance.
Which I knew, in theory. But sometimes you don’t know something deep down until it becomes so personal that you fall on your heinie, which is what happened to me the other day, when I tried to stand on one foot with a broken toe.
I have spent a lot of time in the last several years thinking about balance, and what it means, and what it takes. Not just physical balance, but something even more interior: Balance in how we spend our time, in how we speak and think, in our politics, in our relationships, and yes, in our spiritual lives.
When I was young, I thought poorly of balance, and compromise, and prudence, and that whole class of virtues that require you to stop, consider, and moderate yourself. I could grudgingly acknowledge they were useful for getting along in the world, if you’re into that kind of thing; but it was clear to me that these were the lamest kind of virtues. They’re a consolation prize for people with no passion, no conviction, no courage, and possibly no personality.
Most of the country feels that way now. I have some friends and family who are very far right and some who are very far left, and they all feel with their whole hearts that theirs is clearly the only honorable position. They also feel that the other guys forced them into it, because someone has to counterbalance all that extremism.
Even people who mean well are very much at sea these days. It’s really hard to know when to freak out, and when to chill; when to sound the alarm and when to pace ourselves. We don’t know when to protest, and when to let things ride, or when to reach out and when to denounce. We can’t tell when to draw bright lines and when to look for common ground. We have, in short, no sense of balance. People get yelled at for trying to maintain some balance.
Lately, I’ve been practicing a form of exercise which I shan’t name, because I’m just too tired to have that fight right now. Suffice it to say it sometimes requires me to stand on one foot. It requires balance. And I have learned that balance is not what I thought. … Read the rest of my first monthly column for The Pillar! Each article will be accompanied by a recipe.
(I did it, guys. I got someone to pay me to write about food!!)
Here we go! This is my tenth annual list of Christmas present ideas. It used to be that I’d only include things I could wholeheartedly endorse, because I had witnessed my kids using or playing with these gifts. But now they are older, and they don’t spend their whole entire lives in the living room where I can see them! So, this is my best guess about good presents. Caveat emptor, and read the reviews. Everything here is under $100, and most of it is under $50.
I have used this kit to make delicious mozzarella many, many times, and I really enjoy it. You just need to supply the milk (a gallon for about a pound of cheese), and I also recommend getting a pair of kitchen gloves, because hot cheese is hot. I also recently started using silicone molds, like this skull one,
Not the most deluxe one out there, but it’s sturdy, easy to put together (my ten-year-old did most of it), and a nice generous size for the price, and it’s on sale right now. You can rig it to swing back and forth, or to swivel.
I actually got this as a summer family TV show (for teens and up), and it was much cheaper than I expected for an entire series. If you haven’t watched it in a while, this show really holds up.
And we have arrived at our first gift that I don’t really know if the kid liked or not! It’s set in ancient Greece and it’s by Lloyd Alexander (author of the Chronicles of Prydain), so it seemed like a safe bet.
Slide your ID in this wallet that has a little cut-out, and you become Batman. It has styles for vertical ID’s, too, for people under 21. Goofy but well-received. Who doesn’t wanna be Batman?
Cowboy Bebop complete serAs I understand it, this is a groundbreaking and seminal series for anime fans, and it has interesting music.
I think this is the last DVD set on the list! I have a long-standing grudge against Spongebob because I could tell when my kids had been watching it, because of how visibly stupid they had gotten. But I have to admit, it’s funny stuff. (Are you happy, Ashley and Stacy? I admit it! It’s funny.)
You might be SURPRISED at how much fun the right kid will get from this thing. It has a million options for fonts and pictures, and I found it a little overwhelming, but my ten-year-old got the hang of it right away, and everything and everyone, including some docile guests, have been labelled ever since.
A book that came highly recommended for ages 9-12, but I haven’t read it myself. A mysterious little free library guarded by a cat appears in town, and leads to adventure.
I actually bought this to go on a charm bracelet, because I apparently don’t know what three inches means. Anyway it’s sturdy, the limbs move, and it has a bright little light and a keychain. If your kids are not as obsessed with Batman as mine are, there are other keychain minifig lights of many, many other characters.
I got this as a starter charm bracelet, and then filled it in with lots of other various charms from Michael’s and Etsy. This is a nice present for making a kid feel like you really know and understand them, because you can find charms of EVERYTHING they like.
A decent starter set for beginning carvers. It comes with a nice little roll case to store the tools in. The tools are quite sharp! It does not include any instructions (or at least the one we got didn’t), so a kid who wants to know exactly what to do might be a little overwhelmed by this.
This was on my wish list, and I love it. The teeth are very sharp and the way the handle is shaped makes it easy to grip and manipulate in tight spaces, and you get a lot more leverage than with a hacksaw. Useful for carving or for carpentry. Japanese tools are super.
Speaking of Japanese tools, here’s another one that I requested and am enjoying having! This one is for the garden, and it’s also super sharp and really handy for smaller hacking and gouging jobs. The handle is light, but it’s a sturdy tool, and very useful.
Might as well mention the hori hori knife I also have, even though I think it was on a previous list.
I can’t find the listing for this exact knife (actually I have two different ones, and I like them both!) but they are all priced around $15-$30, so I don’t know how much it matters which one you get. It’s excellent for bulb planting (it has the soil depth markers right on the blade) and root excavation, as well as any number of other dirt-stabbing jobs you might have. One edge is serrated, and the whole thing is slightly curved, so you can stick the knife into the soil and then twist, and get what you want. An ingenious garden tool with many uses.
I was reading and enjoying this book, but lost it, so I haven’t finished it yet! It’s set in the not-so-distant, horribly believable dystopian future. His first novel, Peace Like a River, was tremendous, and then his second one, So Brave, Young, and Handsome was a huge disappointment; so I figured it was worth a shot. As his writing tends to do, it creeps right up to the edge of being precious and overly self-aware, but it was undeniably fascinating and gripping, and I hope I find it so I can see what happens.
This is a book I only recently became aware of, but apparently it’s beloved. I got it because I was trying to get other people on board with the idea of making a stargazy pie, and that didn’t work, but we sure love the book. It’s a rare children’s book that really appeals to a childlike mind, but doesn’t talk down to kids. A sweet and satisfying story with pleasant pictures. It says ages 2-6, but I think some older kids will find it appealing.
This SEEMED like a good idea, and maybe it will be a good idea for someone on your list! I think the problem is that the thing that makes you want to try making a viral recipe is seeing it online over and over and over again, so having it in a book kind of takes the edge off. It did get good reviews, and the recipes are supposed to be quick and easy.
and I stand by it. King Arthur recipes are well-written and reliable, and this would make a good present for someone who’s learning to bake or who already knows, and wants a solid collection of recipes.
Part model, part puzzle. Does not need glue or tools. Reasonably easy to put together, but it’s nice looking, and would not be out of place as a present for a teen or adult Batman fan.
This is one of these little models that’s designed to be tucked in between books on a shelf, so it looks like you’re seeing into a little world. Kid said she likes it, and the instructions were reasonably easy to understand, but some of the parts didn’t fit together right. So not suitable for a perfectionist or easily frustratable person. There are several other designs, all pretty cool-looking.
Good heavens, more Batman. This is a mirrored bat logo with a light behind it for the wall, and you can change the color with a remote. It’s really more of a light than a mirror, and really more decor than lamp, but it’s cool!
A cute little bookshelf. Comes in several colors. It doesn’t hold a ton of books, as you can see from the picture, but the benefit is that it fits into a narrow space. I vaguely remember putting this together, and I don’t remember crying or running away from home, so it must be reasonably easy to assemble.
I think we forgot to play this? I guess we’ll try it over Thanksgiving vacation. It came highly recommended, and it’s very pretty. It’s a strategy game, for ages 8 and up, for 2-4 players, and takes 30-45 minutes to play.
In case you are not really sure what kind of cat the person on your list had in mind. This one is a bit thicker and also pleasantly soft. I’m really glad they’ve stopped making kids’ sweaters so itchy. What was that about?
Actually we got the Pepsi pencil case from this same company, but that’s sold out and (I don’t know why this makes me laugh but) it says they don’t know if or when it will be in stock again. So maybe you would like this Pringles pencil case, instead. Reasonably sturdy and well-made, and comes in a few different flavors.
Maybe people in this house could be a little quieter! Maybe they could, but they won’t! Maybe they can’t. Here is a white noise machine with 20 different, non-looping sound settings. It plugs directly into the electrical socket, and also has a detachable USB cord, and it has a little light, volume, and a timer.
Another game that came highly recommended, but it was for a kid who has moved out, so I’m not sure if he’s played it or not. It is for 2-4 players, ages 13 and up, and it says it takes 5 minutes to learn, 45 minutes to play.
Directed by Akira Kurasawa, starting Toshiro Mifune, the only actor my mother ever admitted to having a crush on. This is an unexpectedly goofy movie, and the two bumbling peasants were apparently the inspiration for R2D2 and C3PO.
We got manual typewriters for two of our kids for Christmas, and they were a big hit. You can find them for sale on eBay and Facebook marketplace and no doubt other places, and you can find the specific ribbons they need on eBay. I used to spend hours and hours of my time typing out the dialogue from Archie comic books all summer long, and I don’t even know why, except that it was fun. Typing is fun! Especially when the typewriter comes in its own compact little suitcase with a handle. One of the ones we got was military, because you know what? You can’t hack into a piece of paper.
This is “Ice Blue” model, but it comes in several colors. Great for smoothies, very useful for soups in the pot. KitchenAid is still a great brand, but if you are thinking of giving someone a standing mixer, which is a wonderful present, I highly recommend buying an old used or refurbished one rather than new. I’ve had mine for almost 30 years, and it was refurbished when I got it! I hear about the new ones breaking after five years or so.
We got ten of these for stocking stuffers. You squeeze the rubber mug and a rubber kitty pops out. Whoever decided to spell it “POP a Chino” should be arrested, but the actual toy is cute, and satisfyingly rubbery. I have a weak spot for Schylling toys, which are just pure toys, not intended to teach you anything.
Okay this one is really stumping me. It showed up as something I ordered around Christmas, but I have no memory of it, at all. Looks like it might be fun? It says ages 14 and up, “easy to learn, hard to master.”
As I get older, prepare for more and more lists of things that, according to my records, I definitely bought, but I have no further information, haha.
I do remember this! Floppy and adorable, nice and roomy. It is made of “synthetic snowy owl fur,” by which they mean thin fleece. There are a number of other animal onesies at the venerable ABPTBAZ store.
I’m including this even though it’s out of stock, just to remind you that you CAN buy a device that’s just for playing music and reading ebooks, and the parental controls allow you to keep the kid from accessing the [ptui] rest of the internet. Our particular child isn’t especially devious or tech-savvy, so I can’t say how easy it might be to defeat or subvert the parental controls, but there are lots and lots of parents who do want this exact thing and will give detailed reviews, so it’s an option! Feel free to recommend specific products if you’ve found something good.
Perfectly fine earphones that have gotten constant use all year. Reminder that your child does not need studio-quality sound to listen to whatever ridiculous synthesized nonsense they’re probably listening to while they do the dishes. We got these because they matched the MP3 player, but they come in a bunch of different colors.
You’re never gonna believe this, but I don’t remember anything about this game. I think I must have bought it hoping we’d play it over Thanksgiving vacation or something. I will admit it looks very much like something I, and I alone, would enjoy playing. Who wants to come over and play with me? If I can find it?
This isn’t the exact model we got, but something along these lines. You put the coin in the right spot and Godzilla rises up out of the sea (box) making a noise (I don’t remember what the noise is, but I would guess “SKREEEONK”), snatches it, and sinks back down, and the lid closes. There are also versions of this concept with cats, monkeys, pandas, etc..
Brass earrings with an iridescent finish, nickel-free, gorgeous, HUGE. For someone with very confident ears. (I will also say that if you, for instance, buy these well ahead of time and then somehow lose them but don’t discover this until almost the last week in December and need to reorder them real fast, this store is very accommodating and will get a second set to you very quickly!)
Am I thrilled that my ten-year-old latched onto Bender as a hero and role model? Not especially! Does she adore these earrings? Yes, she does. So there you go. At least it’s just his head, and not his shiny metal ass. (They’re pretty big, but because they’re 3D printed, they’re light.)
A very specific present for a very specific person. They have many, many other styles from pop culture, and they come with a little metal chain and clip. My kids have some many charms on their backpacks, they sound like Jacob Marley coming down the hall.
The specific earrings we got (a Russian blue cat gazing at the moon) are sold out, but they do have earrings showing dogs of all different breeds. It’s kind of weird, because the earrings we got were a more abstract design, but it looks like what they’re selling now is more hyper-realistic styles? But maybe you know someone who would be delighted to have earrings that look just like their specific dog. You will probably find them here!
As described. We somehow ended up with two different hoodies, each with a giant parakeet attacking Tokyo (not the same design, though!), but I don’t remember where we got the other one. We ended up giving them both to the kid and she wears both of them, so there you go.
These also come in black with red spikes, and plain black; but the pink and green ones are UV light reactive, so you tell me. I don’t know if Demonia boots are very well-made or if my kid is just really gifted at walking, but she DOES walk around in these, and she loves them. At least they have sensible grippy soles.
And that’s it! That’s the list. Happy shopping, and good luck!
Happy Friday! The last Friday before Thanksgiving. I haven’t even thought about our Thanksgiving menu this year, except that I have a new roll recipe I’m pretty excited about. Oh, and I may ditch the cranberry orange muffins and make cranberry lemon bars instead.
So I guess we’ll have . . .
Mulled cider
Spanakopita
Turkey with stuffing and gravy. Some years we make oyster sausage stuffing, but I think mostly I’m the one who likes it.
Cranberry sauce from a can
Mashed potatoes
Dinner rolls
Maybe a mixed roast vegetable and bacon dish, or maybe candied sweet potatoes
Lemon cranberry bars
Apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie, maybe cranberry curd tart
Maybe ice cream. One year I made butternut squash ice cream with candied pecans, and it was pretty dang good, but you really can’t beat vanilla with pie.
There, I guess I made the menu! I collected a bunch of those recipes here. We are only having immediate family over, and I have asked the kids to pick a poem to read after dinner and before dessert. We started this last year and it was more or less a success.
Okay, on to this week’s food!
SATURDAY Leftovers for kids
and the grownups went out on a DATE. It was our intention to try the new banh mi place in town, which is supposed to be fantastic, but we got there at 5:45 and it was already closed! So we went to the newish Buba Noodle Bar. I had a short rib bao bun and bugoki yaki udon. Both completely scrumptious and super fresh, and even though it was very busy, the service was fast and friendly. The waiter strongly encouraged us to try the coconut ice cream, but I explained we were going to the movies and I wanted to eat a tremendous amount of popcorn, and he understood. Clara and Wesley turned out to be at the theater, too, and we yakked for a while, and then found seats on opposite sides of the theater, as is fitting.
We saw Frankenstein! We both enjoyed the heck out of it. Just every little bit of it was delicious and gripping and exactly what movies were meant to be. I feel like maybe this is the movie Guillermo del Toro has been trying to make all along. If you have a chance to see it in the theater, do! It’s long, but nothing feels extra or slow. My only quibble was I couldn’t understand everything Elizabeth was saying. But I got the general gist. Anyone who complains about this movie is living their life wrong. If you can’t see it in the theater, it’s definitely still worth watching on Netflix.
And I did eat a tremendous amount of popcorn, and also Mike and Ikes and lemonade. What a lovely night.
SUNDAY Pork chops, risotto, Brussels sprouts slaw
Sunday after Mass, Damien and I went to two different pharmacies trying to get Covid and flu shots (the kids got theirs last week), but it kept not working out, so we went home unjabbed.
I started some pork chops marinating, using this marinade from Recipe Tin Eats (In that sentence, I had the choice of either saying “marinating” and then “marinade,” or else “recipe” and then “Recipe.” Because if I don’t think about things that don’t matter, who will? And the answer is: Guillermo del Toro).
I had a pound of Brussels sprouts left over from last week, and they were right on the edge of going funky, so I really had to use them. So I made a Brussels sprouts slaw, and I thought it was quite nice, fresh but autumnal, with toasted almonds and dried cranberries, yum yum. In fact, if you are looking for a vegetable for Thanksgiving, this is more substantial than a green salad but less heavy than green bean casserole or whatever. Which I have never actually eaten, because it just doesn’t look good.
I sliced up the Brussels sprouts in the food processor. I forgot how dainty Brussels sprouts can be when you slice them thin. They leave their peasant cabbage ancestry behind and turn into little green doilies, very pretty.
I skipped the red onion. The dressing has maple syrup and dijon mustard in it, but it still tasted pretty bland to me, so I squirted in a ton of honey before I mixed it all together.
Then I realized that, honey or no, the kids were not going to be happy with just pork chops and slaw for supper, so I made some Instant Pot risotto and kept it warm in the Instant Pot, which is not ideal, but still, risotto.
Then I roped a couple kids into helping me put the dang trellis up. Ye Ongoing Tragicke History of ye Dange Trellis. It’s not . . . the most secure engineering imaginable. But it is up!
See? Demonstrably not lying on its side in the dirt. Really, sincerely, thanks to everyone who was sympathetic and encouraging in the comments last week. It helped a lot, because I was not only discouraged about the project, I was embarrassed at how discouraged I felt. So, we got it up!
When it was close to supper, I put the pork chops on a pan, poured the rest of the marinade on top, and broiled them; and we had a nice little meal.
The recipe calls for grilling the pork chops so they get a crust, and broiling does not achieve that; but they still have a wonderful savory flavor and are incredibly juicy. I was very pleased with this meal altogether. It was just a very successful combination of flavors and textures.
MONDAY Ham, peas, mashed potatoes
Monday, Damien and I got in for an appointment to get our shots, and it was a relief to get that done. The pharmacist complimented me on thinking to wear a tank top under a cardigan, so he could reach my arms easily. I guess a lot of people turn up in turtlenecks or wetsuits, and then they’re surprised they have to strip down in the middle of the supermarket.
I discovered the ham I had bought on sale was one of those fancy spiral-cut hams, with the glaze and everything, hoo de hoo hoo. So I set that up to go into the oven, and I made five pounds of mashed potatoes and put those in the slow cooker to stay warm.
And then I realized that, despite obsessive searching for weeks, I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to find free bricks on Marketplace, and it was only a matter of time before we got some real snow. So I went to Home Depot and bought 130 bricks, plus several bags of gravel and several bags of sand.
Damien got the ham in the oven while I was out, and when I got back, all I had to do was heat up some peas.
The kids were all pleased about supper, even though something weird happened to the mashed potatoes and they were kind of soupy and gummy by supper time. I really don’t know why that happened! They tasted fine; the texture was just really off. I dunno.
Actually, I do know. I get frustrated that my mashed potatoes always have lumps, so I made these in the mixer, rather than mashing them by hand. I had it in my head that there was some arcane chemical reason not to do it this way, but they looked fine. But I guess I must have overmixed them, because they were not great! Oh well. Lumps it is. Maybe I am not cooking them long enough before I mash them.
TUESDAY Chopped Italian subs, fries
Tuesday I unloaded all the bricks and sand and stuff from Damien’s car, and the I figured, what the hell, as long as they’re out and I’m all gritty, I might as well do this project.
I already had the area squared off, that I wanted to brick. So I
. . . now look. If you are one of those people who does things the right way and can’t understand why anyone would not do things the right way, these next few paragraphs may not be for you. All right.
So you’re supposed to dig eight inches down, then level and compact the dirt, then lay gravel, level and compact that, lay sand, lay bricks, and then sweep more sand in between the joints.
I did . . . some of that. Okay? I dug down a certain number of inches
and I leveled it off, in a certain sense. You are supposed to set up stakes and stretch string in between them so you can maintain an even slope, and I went so far as to go inside and find some string and bring it outside.
All right? And then I spread gravel on and sort of rubbed it around with a plank of wood, and then I put a rubber mat on it and jumped up and down on top of it, which you really cannot claim didn’t compact it somewhat. And I’m sure anyone heading east on 101 around noon enjoyed the show.
Then I started laying bricks, and if they didn’t look straight, I hit them with a mallet. Then I put some more sand on top and swept it until my arms were tired.
And you know what? It looks . . . better! It really does.
I swept in as much sand as I could into the cracks and then left it to settle.
And I actually felt not-terrible about it. It’s starting to come together! We need to patch that gaping wound in the siding over the door, and wash the siding, and fix the parts of the trellis I broke, and there are other various things that need to be done. But it’s better, and there is less of a slope in front of the door, which will be very helpful when it gets icy out there. And the mail lady has a spot to leave packages (she has been putting them in the wheelbarrow), and most importantly of all to me, I will have something to decorate for Christmas.
Here’s a before and after, so far:
and I’m laughing to myself because it sure does look different! I am not at all convinced that it’s an improvement! But it looks different! Well, there is no chipmunk living under the porch anymore, anyway, because there is no porch. So we’ve got that going for us. And there’s a heck of a lot more light in the dining room and kitchen.
It’s just a long project, that’s all. A long project. It will pay off eventually. Or not.
Anyway, after laying the bricks I suddenly got reeeeeeeally tired. I guess it was the vaccines settling in. Just really dopey and slow and creaky, like way more than usual, even taking brick-laying into account. So I was glad I had already prepped supper.
I tried that thing that was trending on TikTok like four years ago: Chopped Italian sandwiches. I chopped up a bunch of ham and salami, peppered salami, and pepperoni, and provolone, tomatoes, and lettuce. I tried using the giant cleaver I bought on clearance when the International Market closed, but I guess you need to sharpen it, because it sure didn’t chop very much. So I just used a knife.
You’re supposed to mix everything together with some kind of Italian dressing, but I knew the kids were going to be skeptical of something new anyway, so I just did meats in one bowl, cheese in another, and so on, and let people dress it as they liked.
For mine, I mixed all the stuff together with some of that hotsy totsy sandwich pepper spread, and I put it on a toasted bun.
I thought it was DELICIOUS. It was, of course, just an Italian sandwich, but it was just more fun to eat. I did manage to contain the filling more after I took this picture, and got it all shoved into the roll, and used plenty of the hot sandwich spread.
And then I fell asleep, and it was the greatest nap the world has ever seen. Just pure delight. It was worth getting vaccine autism and tentacle creature blood clots just for that nap. So nice. Then I woke up for a while, and then I went back to bed.
WEDNESDAY Hamburgers, chips, vegetables and dip
Wednesday it was Damien’s morning to get up with the kids, and I was sooo deep asleep and having a really dumb dream when I finally became aware that (a) my phone was ringing and (b) this is something I needed to respond to in some way.
It was Damien. What happened was, when he tried to turn onto School Street, he felt a pop and the steering went out, and he had to wrench the car off onto the side of the road. So he had the big girls walk the little girls to school, but he needed me to come get him.
So I got up and while I was scraping the windshield, I locked the keys in the car. But I found a spare and drove out and picked the big kids up, and also the dog who was also there because of course he was, and brought Damien his wallet, which he forgot, and he called AAA and I went to bring the kids to the other school, but! A giant construction vehicle was tipped on its side in the intersection.
So we took a detour and ended up in an unfamiliar neighborhood and then, with no warning, the road ended in a foot bridge over a stream! So we turned around and this time we went way, way, way around, and I dropped the kids off and emailed the school about why they were late, and got coffee and went home. Apparently it was a single nut in the steering that broke.
So I was sitting in the living room telling Sophia about our crazy morning and Damien texts me, “Are you coming?” Ahh crap. Turns out he thought I was coming to meet him in Keene, and I thought I was meeting him in Marlborough at the mechanic. So I run out the door, and then he texts me never mind, he will meet me at the mechanic. But by this time I am already in Keene, so I turn around and go back, and . . . eventually I and my car and Damien and his car and the tow truck and the dog all ended up in the same place, and then we went home.
Greatest day of Sonny’s life. Every day is the greatest day of his life, but this was outstanding.
I don’t really remember the rest of the day. They fixed the car. We had hamburgers, chips, and a vegetable platter with dip for supper. And that’s-a my story.
THURSDAY Omelettes and homemade dinner rolls
Thursday I was planning to make omelettes and biscuits, but I’m really the only one who is enthusiastic about biscuits. So I thought I might test out a dinner roll recipe I saw, and if it was good, I could use it for Thanksgiving. It is this recipe from Handle the Heat.
Speaking of heat, I went to grab the cooking spray to grease the bowl to set the dough to rise, and I was wondering why the cap was so hard to get off. Here is why:
I didn’t even know we had butane in the house! And I don’t know why it was on the counter next to the cooking spray! But I am pretty glad the cap was hard to get off! Yeesh.
Anyway, paying slightly closer attention to life in general after that, I followed the directions scrupulously, made the dough, set it to rise for ninety minutes, formed the rolls, and then put them in the refrigerator.
You don’t have to refrigerate them — you can just let them rise a second time and then bake them — but its very convenient to be able to pause the recipe this way. She said letting them do a slow second rise in the fridge actually improves the flavor; and this way, I could bake them right before dinner. So I took them out of the fridge again around 4:00 when we got home, preheated the oven, and brushed them with egg. Looking very promising, right?
Into the oven they went, for about 25 minutes.
You guys, they turned out SO GOOD.
You brush them with melted butter when they come out of the oven, and they’re incredible. Soft, rich, and lightly chewy on the inside,
with this tissue-thin fragile buttery crust on the outside, with a little crunch on the bottom. Absolutely perfect dinner rolls.
I made omelettes to order (I had leftover ham, tomatoes, and shredded cheddar in mine) and we had that with the hot rolls, and it was delightful.
The omelettes were a complete mess, but they tasted good.
So, these rolls are definitely going on the menu for Thanksgiving! I have never found a roll recipe I really like, so this is awesome.
I spent most of the day working on the Christmas present suggestion list, and I’ll have that up soon, probably Sunday. I tried to get the kids to remind me of presents they had gotten each other, so I could include them too, because I remember that some of them were so creative and wonderful. They reminded me they were mostly things like a 2002 Buffy the Vampire Slayer calendar they had found at Puggy’s. Truly thoughtful and very well-received, but not necessarily presents you’d recommend to anyone who is not a Fisher.
FRIDAY Pizza
I bought two balls of pizza dough. Two! I didn’t even know they came in such a low number! Here’s the amount of pizza I was making just five years ago:
I feel like there’s no way two pizzas is gonna be enough food, but deep in my heart, I think it probably is. Or maybe we will starve! Always a possibility.
The plan for today was to go pick up a load of free bricks around 11:00.
Oh yes, a big load of free bricks, the beautiful old clay kind, came available in a nearby town immediately after I finished laying the Home Depot ones I bought! So I’m getting them and I don’t even know what for. I’ll think of something! Maybe we’ll eat them if we run out of pizza.
Update: Damien’s car has gone bad again, and my car is in no shape to carry a load like this. Dang it. I told the lady she should let the next person in line have them, and I haven’t gotten up to the part where I’m relieved because I didn’t really have a plan anyway, but I’m sure I’ll get there soon. Another long-term project! We’ll get there.
“Because of our traditions,” Tevye explains beneficently, “everyone knows who he is, and what God expects him to do.”
We listened to this soundtrack a lot when I was little, and I never liked the “sons” part. They sing: “At three I started Hebrew school. At ten I learned a trade. I hear they picked a bride for me. I hope… she’s pretty.”
I asked my mother, “Isn’t that kind of shallow? They shouldn’t be so worried about what their wives look like, should they?” I was a pretty self-righteous kid. I was heavily into stories of the saints at the time, and had heard over and over that beauty is fleeting and God sees the heart, and that’s what really matters.
My mother, probably hiding a smile, said, “Well. . . it’s true that other things besides beauty matter, but it’s also normal for a young man to want his wife to be pretty, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” I did not like that! I wanted her to say that I was absolutely right, and incredibly spiritually mature for my age.
I also wanted her to say I was pretty, and I wanted to be pretty, and I wanted to meet a boy who thought I was so pretty, he would ask me to be his wife, and we could be like Tevye and Golde, except I would be pretty. Give me a break, I was like eight. Plus, it was the early 80s, and we were all very dumb.
My mother was right, though, of course. It’s great to have the highest of high standards, and to strive to dwell in a realm where body and soul are both exclusively and harmoniously ordered toward the good and toward service of God and each other. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
It’s also great to recognize that most of us simply don’t live in that realm. We have our moments, but there’s nothing especially holy about sneering at normal human desires and impulses, and there’s definitely nothing holy about pretending you’re holy. I eventually figured that out.
I am now 50, and to be honest, I thought I had gotten over this kind of spiritual snobbery. But a few weeks ago at Mass, I discovered I have not, because both the first reading and the Gospel bothered me a little bit. … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
But some of them made an involuntary pilgrimage, walking not through Holy Doors but through terrible trials of grief and loss—and in the process, they gained a more profound understanding of the theological virtue of hope. It is, they learned, more than optimism, more than desire, and more, even, than a belief that everything will work out someday in heaven. Hope is a force that orders their lives on earth as they walk toward heaven.
Pope Leo recently said, “We know that, even in the darkness of trial, God’s love sustains us and ripens the fruit of eternal life in us.” Here are three stories of Catholics who did find sustenance from God in times that felt hopeless.
Danielle McLellan-Bujnak knows about that darkness. She saw her home, her cozy neighborhood and her entire town vaporized in the Palisades fire at the beginning of this year. It burned at 2,000 degrees for 20 hours. The soil was poisoned, and the ocean went black. … Read my feature story for America Magazine.
Happy Friday! I’m in a bad mood, but I still made some good food!
SATURDAY Leftovers + taquitos
Just a regular shopping day. Shopping just gets more and more stressful because everything is so expensive, plus I think it was Saturday that a lot of people got their EBT cards refilled after a long delay, so the store was insanely mobbed. I think people were justifiably afraid their accounts were going to get emptied again without warning, so everyone was stocking up, and the mood was just . . . distinctly un-merry. Un-merry indeed. But we got it done and came home intact, and ate taquitos.
You just boil the cider down until it reduces to a syrup, then add white sugar, brown sugar, heavy cream, and butter, and then boil it again. I used an entire gallon of cider, so it took longer, but it wasn’t difficult at all.
Then you stir in sea salt and cinnamon, and pour it into a lined pan. She says in the recipe that you need to get all your stuff ready to go when it reaches the right temperature, and she is not kidding! But it’s pretty straightforward, as long as you can read a candy thermometer.
You can see that the pan was too big, so I made a little dam out of tinfoil, and that worked fine.
Then you let it cool and harden, and then you can cut it up.
Scrumptious. Caramel and apple are two of my favorite flavors, and these taste deeply of both, and they are very chewy and creamy. They do lose their shape at room temperature. I portioned them out into mini cupcake papers put them in the fridge, and that worked well. I might cut them into bits and make ice cream at some point, and I might make another batch to give out as little Christmas presents.
Then, as I had repeatedly warned the kids we were going to do, we did a big giant horrible outdoor clean-up, front and back, and let me tell you, it is a long time since I have been glared at that much. I was glaring at myself! It was not fun! It was cold and muddy out there, and there was a lot of roof debris, and there was one spot in the yard where some kid was spray painting a Halloween costume, so there was a silver circle on the grass, and one of the ducks pooped right in the middle. I was the only one who thought it was funny. But we got it done, and now we are — not ready for snow, but not in a situation where the first snowfall will make me feel like a failure as an adult or a homeowner or a yard-haver or whatever. (We have had a few bits of snow, but not a heavy blanket of snow yet.)
Clara and her boyfriend invited us out to dinner, but we were too exhausted to go out, so instead we invited them over. I Was Afraid There Wouldn’t Be Enough Food (and if I ever write a cookbook, that will be the title, maybe with a little smiley face to show that it’s okay, this is not a book about famines.. Or maybe I won’t call it that), so I made a pot of black beans and cut up some pomegranates, and there was plenty.
except I didn’t cook the second pineapple, but just served it raw in chunks. I don’t have a strong preference for either way. It was good! The meat came out nice and tender, with that good spicy, smokey taste
and it was a tasty, pleasant meal after a long day outside.
Oh, the beans were pretty good, too, although maybe I used too much cumin. Here’s my recipe for that
and I also chopped up a bunch of fresh spinach and threw that in there, even though the people in our family who most need Secret Spinach don’t eat beans anyway.
I ate more cider caramels than I choose to remember clearly, but there were still lots and lots left over, so, feeling competent and motivated, I packaged up a bunch to be mailed to various people. Take that!
MONDAY Chicken quesadillas, chips, beans
On Monday, Clara’s boyfriend came over and fitted up the new roof area with eaves and soffits and whatnot. It looks fantastic. We have to redo the drip edge and put some siding back and paint the eaves, but it’s basically done. What a long, drawn-out ordeal, but it feels great when it’s rainy and windy outside and we can just sit in the living room and fully expect not to get dripped on.
Monday evening I cut up a rotisserie chicken and made quesadillas (plus jalapeños for me and Damien) and served that with chips, salsa, sour cream, and the rest of the beans.
Quesadillas is another thing I never ate or even saw until I was in college. It’s a shame they weren’t on my family’s radar, because my mother would have really loved them. It’s funny to think that, just a few decades ago, there just . . . wasn’t non-American food where I lived. There was a Chinese restaurant where you could get pupu platters and wonton soup and chicken fingers, and maybe if you were willing to drive, you could get Italian. My father had an authentic Chinese cookbook for when he was feeling ambitious, and my parents retained a few middle eastern dishes from when they lived in Israel, but other than that, the most exotic thing I ever encountered growing up was a banana. Maybe some parsley. It’s just funny how quickly things changed!
TUESDAY Maple roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots, and Brussels sprouts
The kids were home for Veteran’s Day, and I left them alone (they made popcorn and watched the Lego Ninjago movie; very satisfactory) and I got the meat marinating for this new-to-me recipe, maple roasted chicken from Sip and Feast.
Then I started putting together the trellis/pergola/arbor thingy I bought a while ago. If you’ve been following the sad, sad story of our front entrance, we tore down the porch last summer, planned a sunroom, then downgraded plans to a small porch, then to a portico, then to an awning, and then I bought this trellis thingy because we’re about to start getting a million packages for Christmas, and I don’t want them to sit on the front step and get wet. Also I’m tired of the house looking like its front was chopped off, which it was. Also I want to have something to put Christmas lights on! Reasonable desires, and a cheap trellis thingy seemed like a reasonable solution. I was even thinking of rambler roses and whatnot, and getting kind of inspired at what a beautiful, cottagey look I could achieve.
So I started putting this thing together and immediately realized they hadn’t cut out half of the slots to make it fit together. That’s okay! I’m competent and motivated, so I used a hacksaw and a chisel and cut new slots, and even painted them so it wouldn’t be raw wood exposed to the elements.
Got the thing put together pretty quickly, and even realized before it was too late that I should move it out of the kitchen before I put it completely together, or else it would not fit out of the kitchen! I was really feeling on top of the situation, and figured I would just drag it outside, and then in the morning I could just zip zip zip set it up and we would have a beautiful house. It felt so good to finally be making progress on this interminable project.
Supper was really good! It’s pretty simple. You just marinate the chicken (I had drumsticks and thighs), then roast the vegetables and potatoes for a while, then put chicken and marinade on top of that and roast it some more. It has you cutting the tops off some entire heads of garlic, and roasting that along with the rest, which is always pretty
The recipe calls for parsnips, but I skipped that and just did fingerling potatoes, baby-cut carrots, and Brussels sprouts. I made a SINGLE RECIPE, and it was plenty of food, which kind of blows my mind, but it happens more and more often these days. Teeny tiny little family of seven.
Anyway, the dish turned out great, and it’s a wonderful fall or winter dish, with the maple flavor.
Very photogenic, too.
Another win for Sip and Feast!
WEDNESDAY Marcella Hazan sauce with sausage on pasta
Wednesday I started this super-simple sauce going. I don’t think I’ve harassed you lately to try this sauce, but you really should. Can you open a can of tomatoes and put it in a pot with some butter and an onion? Then you can make something wonderful!
Okay, this picture is a little misleading because loose Italian sausage was on sale, so I cooked that up and added it to the sauce. But even without sausage, it’s incredibly rich and savory. The recipe
has you take the onions out before serving, but I generally leave them in, and people (including me) just eat them. I only had red onions, and it still turned out great.
I think only one kid made Cup O’ Noodle, so that’s a win.
I did go on a bit of a cleaning rampage during the day, and attacked the bathroom walls and ceiling and grout with a mop, a swiffer, a Magic Eraser, a scrubbing brush, baby wipes, CLR, and Concrobium. They look better, but not as good as you would have expected if you had witnessed the fury with which I scrubbed. I also dripped a little cleanser into my eye when I was doing the ceiling, but it’s the eye that already has a giant brown floater in it, so I thought perhaps it would cancel that out. Which will tell you something about my state of mind.
With my leftover fury and mental clarity, I went outside and attached a little roof to the trellis thingy. We have a lot of sheets of corrugated polycarbonate — really, more than most people — so I found a piece that was the right size and screwed it on, easy peasy.
This is one of several pictures I took before I attached anything, intending to ask Facebook which roof material looked best, but then I got mad about . . . something, I forget what, and decided I could figure it out for myself.
Then I spent KIND OF A LONG TIME attempting to set the friggin thing up. I couldn’t get it high enough, level enough, centered enough, or close enough to the house, and also I hadn’t really accounted for the outdoor light, and I dropped it multiple times and broke three different parts of it, was incredibly unkind to the dog, and then ran out of daylight. But, I did not impale myself on anything, or hit myself in the face with a hammer, and nobody called the police on me, so we’ll call that a win. I still had high hopes that I, being competent and motivated, could get it done the next day.
THURSDAY Chicken burgers, puffed corn, broccoli
Thursday, I was absolutely determined to get that trellis up. Just get it up. It’s not a hard project! It should be an easy project! I just needed to push through! I am competent! and motivated!
I decided that, rather than building it up from the ground up and then securing it to the house, I would affix it to the house first, and then shore up the bottom. This involved two ladders, two drills, two kinds of screws, and some carriage bolts I had bought for the tree house I never built but I definitely will, plus some of the most appalling work with a circular saw I’ve ever seen, and I’m afraid the dog was again spoken to in ways he didn’t fully deserve, except in a kind of cosmic sense.
Eventually I conceded that I couldn’t do it myself, so Damien helped me get the trellis thing up there, and GUESS WHAT? It looked ridiculous. It was centered and level, but much too high, and looked absurd. And also, the whole rest of the house is terrible. And everything is terrible.
So now there are three different pieces of wood stuck to the house at various heights, and the trellis is still lying on the ground, and it is cracked in three spots. But I wasn’t even ready to throw in the towel until I realized I was standing on tip toe on a stack of cinder blocks in the rain, using a hammer to hit a screw as hard as I could, and then the very last rational cell in my brain gathered its courage and told me to go inside and give up for the day. So I did.
I just wanted something to put a string of Christmas lights on, and now it seems like even if I manage to get the thing attached, the rest of the house is just so much grosser and dirtier and shabbier than I realized. In retrospect, it seems unlikely that people have been driving past the house and laughing at me, but yesterday that felt very true. I don’t know. It’s just friggin November and everything is the worst. I fully recognize that I am feeling more discouraged about not getting a trellis up than the situation really warrants, but I’m sure you can see this is one of those freighted problems. It’s not really just about the trellis! But at the same time, getting that freaking thing up would help, a lot.
Anyway we wrapped up the day with a fairly squalid supper. I took this photo just so I would remember what we ate, but it’s pretty illustrative of the day in general.
Splort. I did take down the sunflower head that’s been drying for several weeks and got all the seeds off it, and bag them for the spring, so that’s something.
I attempted to make a little ASMR-style video about it, but actually I took a video of myself dropping the camera. AND THAT WAS FRIGGIN THURSDAY.
You know what, I did drop off three bags of dresses at the thrift store, and I did mail three packages, and I did do some pretty okayish writing. Also, Damien and I are gonna see Frankenstein this weekend. And my car ran out of oil somehow (a leak, obviously), but I stopped and got new oil right away before anything exploded, and I didn’t even get oil all over my pants, so we’ll call that a win, too. And I cleaned my room.
And, for probably the biggest win of all, I didn’t eat any caramels all week, even though there are about 400 pieces left. I’m gonna eat some tomorrow, though! Watch out, caramel!
FRIDAY Tuna noodle?
I asked the kids what they wanted, and that is what they said. Excelsior! November has to end eventually, and when it does, I’ll be there. Possibly tottering on a pile of cinderblocks with a hammer in my hand, but I’ll be there.
2pineapples, cut into spears (one is for the marinade, and set the other aside for cooking separately)
3onionsquartered
1.5cupsorange or pineapple juice
3/4cupwhite vinegar
1/3cupancho chili powder
1entire headgarlic
3chipotles in adobo
1-1/2tspsalt
1Tbsporegano
For serving:
flour tortillas
sliced red onion
chopped cilantro
lime wedges
Instructions
Thinly slice the pork.
In a food processor or blender, combine one of the pineapples and the rest of the marinade ingredients. Blend until smooth. (You will probably have to do it in batches.)
Marinate the sliced meat in the marinade for at least four hours.
Pan fry, grill, or broil the meat and the spears of the second pineapple. Roughly chop cooked meat and pineapple.
Serve pork and pineapple on tortillas with sliced red onion, chopped cilantro, and lime wedges.
Put olive oil pot of Instant Pot. Press "saute" button. Add diced onion and minced garlic. Saute, stirring, for a few minutes until onion is soft. Press "cancel."
Add beans with liquid. Add cumin, salt, and cilantro. Stir to combine. Close the lid, close the vent, and press "slow cook."
Happy Friday! Let’s get the heck to it! Here’s what we ate this week.
Oh wait! I forgot I haven’t showed you Halloween costumes yet. Okay, we had one Chestburster (from Alien):
one Rarity:
one Red Hood:
one Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist:
and of course one Bender, complete with cigar:
The three older kids made their costumes completely on their own (and at the last minute, I should add. The original plan was for them and two friends to be different versions of David Bowie, but that fell apart, sadly; so they had to throw these together). Benny made her entire Edward Elric costume by herself except for the shirt (which is a T-shirt with duct tape on it), including that incredible articulated arm; and Corrie made her entire Bender costume except for the body, which I started and she finished. She was particularly proud of her tidy little robot feet, which stayed on all night.
So I would say the costume torch has officially been passed! It stopped raining in time, they got tons of candy, and everyone was happy. Whew.
SATURDAY Leftovers and mozzarella sticks
Just a regular shopping and chores day, as far as I can recall. I was in a state about the messy house, so I gave the kids pre-cleaning assignments while I was out, and they really did them. This big kid thing is pretty great.
For supper, we had leftovers, and mozzarella sticks for the frozen food bonus. Looks like I chose chicken soup with rice, caprese salad, and honey battered chicken.
It was a non-HDO All Saints Day, and I’m ashamed to say we did absolutely nothing to mark it. Sorry, saints.
That evening, I had already told the kids we’d be doing a deep cleaning on Sunday, so before bed I made an apple pie and the dough for soul cakes, so we’d be able to still have some good food after a busy day.
SUNDAY Beef pho, apple pie
When we got home from Mass, I got some broth going for pho, and cut out and baked the soul cakes. Here’s that recipe:
These are not super sweet, and are kind of spicy and old-fashioned tasting, and they are much much better when they are fresh out of the oven and still soft.
I did tell kids about the history of soul cakes (kids would go door-to-door singing a song begging for cakes, and they would pray for someone’s soul in return. This is apparently the origins of trick-or-treating), and then I said they had to pick someone dead and pray for them, and then they could have one skull cake (an un-prayed-for soul) and one winged cake (a soul released from purgatory). They were very relieved with this deal, because they thought I was going to make them sing.
Then oh boy, did we clean. The kids tackled the living room, dining room, kitchen, stairs, and landing, including floors and woodwork, and I did the “tool area,” which is the geographically lowest point of the house and collects so much miscellaneous junk and just plain dirt, you wouldn’t believe it, and it was also full of pieces of dog food the dog likes to fling around just to keep his spirits up. It had gotten to the point where, just to get from the kitchen to the back door, you had to writhe around like you’re doing the merengue. But not in the fun way.
So while the kids did their part, I cleaned and organized and swept and scrubbed furiously and sorted ruthlessly, and got rid of something like 200 dresses that I was finally ready to admit nobody fits into anymore. Some of them were dresses all eight of my girls have worn! I was very brave.
(Actually, I remember talking about this before — getting rid of clothes that have heavy nostalgic value — and a younger mom was like, “oh no, are you saying it never gets easier?” and I was like, “Yeah, sorry, it just stays hard.” But it turns out it does get easier! I think it’s probably the Prozac, honestly. Also I do that goofy “thank you for your service” thing if I have to get rid of something with especially fond memories attached, and it really helps!)
I shan’t show an “after” picture of the area I cleaned, because it will look too much like other people’s “before,” but it’s a massive, massive improvement. You can just walk through it like a normal human being. Hooray!
The kids also did a great job cleaning, and it feels so so much better in here.
It also smelled great, with the pho broth simmering away. Here’s the recipe I followed. Real pho is made with a bone broth, but I honestly figured I was already pushing my luck with an unfamiliar food, so I figured this would be sort of entry-level pho, and if they liked it, we could go from there. A phojascent soup, if you will. Beef is a big treat these days, so I was pretty excited about that part.
In the morning, I had put the hunk of beef in the freezer and asked Damien to sharpen a knife for me, and I sliced the meat up as thinly as I possibly could
(it’s much easier to cut thin if it’s slightly frozen) and prepped a bunch of toppings: Scallions, cilantro, thinly-sliced onion, lime, jalapeños, and Thai basil.
Right before supper, I turned up the heat on the broth and quickly cooked some thin rice noodles. I tried to keep them in nest shapes, but they just unwound and merged, oh well.
The idea is everyone gets a piping-hot bowl of broth with noodles in it, and then you add the thinly-sliced beef right into your bowl, and it cooks right in front of you. Then you put whatever you want on top. I chose everything, plus some sriracha.
Here’s my bowl, before the meat has entirely finished cooking.
Some of the kids were uncomfortable with the rareness of the beef (it did cook more than in the picture above!) so they put their bowls in the microwave, and that did the trick.
Holy wow, it was delicious. I know this is dreadfully inauthentic and so on, but it was so good. Light and savory at the same time, and delightfully filling. I think almost everyone liked it, which hardly ever happens! We’re definitely making this again.
I glazed and baked the pie in the afternoon, and it was still warm after supper, so that was also popular.
This is probably the flakiest crust I’ve ever made. I ended up freezing the butter for way longer than I usually do (usually I chill it for half an hour or so, and then grate it into the flour and salt), but this time it was really frozen solid. That must have been what made the difference.
Monday I was a little annoyed at myself because I was planning butter chicken, and I had bought chicken thighs with the bone and skin on, so I had to process all that. Sonny was . . . . the opposite of annoyed. He was enraptured. I didn’t actually even give him any scraps, because there has been entirely too much throwing up in this house lately, but I think he still enjoyed the afternoon. Just being near meat is good. He’s kind of into the whole agony/ecstasy thing.
I had my own little agony going, because I had bought a sack of chappati flour
but the “gluten free” part didn’t really register with me until I made the dough, according to the instructions on the bag. Like, when I’m cooking new foods, I always keep an open mind. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to look like! Or maybe it’s my fault, because this is my first time!
Well, sometimes it’s just because it’s gluten free, and that’s just a sad state of being. The dough is on the left here:
As you can see, I decided to go in a different direction, so I made a double batch of this sort of generic no-yeast flatbread from Recipe Tin Eats. That’s the dough on the right.
It’s just flour, salt, butter and milk, and you fry it in an ungreased pan. I did try that, but I burned the hell out of it, so I tried greasing the pan.
Ladies and gentlemen, they still sucked. Really, just terrible, all twelve of them.I don’t know where I went wrong, but these were truly disgusting. I guess not as bad as they would have been if I had used the gluten-free chappati flour, which tasted of lentils and miscellaneous grit, but still inedible. Oh well! Anybody want an opened sack of gluten free chappati flour that has regular wheat flour sprinkled all over it because that’s how I bake? Let me know.
The butter chicken was fabulous, luckily. I made a big pot of basmati rice and garnished it with cilantro, and it was just wonderful.
I use the Recipe Tin Eats recipe, and I’ve never found a reason to try a different recipe.
My site is being weird, so if the recipe link above isn’t working, here it is:
I also roasted the pumpkin seeds the kids had saved from carving jack-o’-lanterns. I did reserve the seeds from the one massive one, and I’m air drying those out to be planted in the spring. The rest, I lightly oiled, spread in a single layer, and toasted in the oven at 300 degrees, stirring them occasionally. I think it took about forty minutes. Then I sprinkled them with kosher salt, and they were yummo.
And that was Monday!
TUESDAY Grilled ham and cheese, chips
Tuesday, I was supposed to leave early and take a kid to a medical appointment far away, and I felt so sick and lousy that I just cancelled it. I’m working on introducing myself to the idea that I don’t have to force myself to do every hard thing that presents itself, but can sometimes take an easier route, like rescheduling an appointment. It feels weird, but it was definitely the right call. We had a simple supper of grilled ham and cheese with chips, and in the evening I started a big hunk of pork with its dry rub (a cup of salt and a cup of sugar, rub it all over, and bag it overnight).
WEDNESDAY Bo ssam with basmati rice, kiwi and mango
In the morning, I cut up a bunch of kiwis and mangos, which is just a lovely combination
and around 12:30, I put the brined pork in the oven. I do the bare bones version of this recipe,
okay, again the linking is not working. Ugh. Here is the link:
https://mykoreankitchen.com/bo-ssam/
So you rub a cup of salt and a cup of sugar all over the pork shoulder and let it sit overnight, and then you put the pork in a 300 oven for like six hours. Then just before you serve it, you crank the oven up to 500 and slather brown sugar, cider vinegar, and salt on the top, and let it brown up.
I know I always say it, but this is the lowest-effort, highest-yield recipe I know. It turns out absolutely scrumptious every time, and you barely have to do anything. There is a sauce that goes with it, but I rarely make it, because it’s already so juicy and tender and good.
I reheated the leftover basmati rice, and put out some lettuce leaves and the cut-up fruit, and wow, it was a perfect meal.
The idea is you tear off some lettuce and use it grab up some rice and some shreds of meat, and you make a little bundle for personal gobbling. Repeat. IT’S SO GOOD. I like having fruit as a side for this meal, because the meat is outrageously salty, and it’s good to have something juicy to sooth the tongue a bit.
Everyone likes this meal, and I deliberately made a giant pork shoulder so there would be leftovers for Thursday.
THURSDAY Pork fried rice and wontons
Thursday we had to get up early to get to a flu and covid shot clinic. Very relieved to get that done! Then we got donuts and I brought the kids to school and prepped supper. I cut up the leftover pork, defrosted some peas and a bag of cooked rice I had stuffed in the freezer last week, and chopped up some onions and garlic. Sadly, I had used up all the fresh ginger for the pho, so when it was time to cook, I had to use powdered ginger.
When I got home, I made a pot of chicken broth from bouillon and cooked some frozen wontons in it.
Not a spectacular meal, but it was tasty and popular and cheap, and took probably 20 minutes to cook. My meal planning skills have been in overdrive lately, and it’s been really gratifying to make stuff ahead of time, and use leftovers, and so on. My big secret is not having little kids hanging off my legs while I cook. I cannot emphasize what a difference this makes. I do now have a dog doing his Y E A R N I N G thing in the kitchen while I cut stuff up, but it’s not nearly as disruptive as toddlers breaking and trying to eat glass while I have raw pork on my hands, for instance. Truly, I don’t know how I survived that long, long period of my life. No regrets, but no desire to do it again, either!
FRIDAY Spaghetti
Just reglear old spaghetti.
I know I have a bunch of people who are waiting for me to get back to them, so if that’s you, I haven’t forgotten, I promise! Sorry about that!
And that’s-a my story. Shall pray for you all at adoration in a few hours, if I manage to stay awake.
raisins, currants, nuts, candied citrus peels, etc.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350
Put the flour in a large bowl. Grate the chilled butter on a vegetable grater and incorporate it lightly into the flour.
Stir in the sugar and spices until evenly distributed.
In a smaller bowl, beat together the eggs, vinegar and milk. Stir this into the flour mixture until it forms a stiff dough.
Knead for several minutes until smooth and roll out to 1/4 thick.
Grease a baking pan. Cut the dough into rounds (or other shapes if you like) and lay them on the pan, leaving a bit of room in between (they puff up a bit, but not a lot). If you're adding raisins or other toppings, poke them into the top of the cakes, in a cross shape if you like. Prick cakes with fork.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until very lightly browned on top.
Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.
Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.
In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.
Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.
If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.
If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!
If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.
You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.
This is a very loose recipe, because you can change the ingredients and proportions however you like
Ingredients
cooked rice
sesame oil (or plain cooking oil)
fresh garlic and ginger, minced
vegetables, diced or shredded (onion, scallion, peas, bok choy, carrots, sugar snap peas, cabbage, etc.)
brown sugar
raw or cooked shrimp, or raw or cooked meat (pork, ham, chicken), diced
soy sauce
oyster sauce
fish sauce
eggs
Instructions
In a very large pan, heat up a little oil and sauté the ginger and garlic for a few minutes. If you are using raw meat, season it with garlic powder and ginger powder and a little soy sauce, add it to the pan, and cook it through. If you are using shrimp, just throw it in the pan and cook it.
Add in the chopped vegetables and continue cooking until they are cooked through. If you are using cooked meat, add it now.
Add the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar is bubbly and darkened.
Add in the cooked rice and stir until everything is combined.
Add in a lot of oyster sauce, a medium amount of soy sauce, and a little fish sauce, and stir to combine completely.
In a separate pan, scramble the eggs and stir them in. (Some people scramble the eggs directly into the rest of the rice, but I find it difficult to cook the eggs completely this way.)
If you are using cooked shrimp, add it at the end and just heat it through.
When I was growing up, we lived next door to a group home for adults with disabilities. There were probably 15 people living there, not including the old couple who housed them.
Some of the residents paced, some of them sat and rocked endlessly on the porch. Some of them wobbled and scuffed their feet when they walked, and others leered and rolled their eyes at passers-by. They were noisy occasionally, but mostly, they were peaceful, if odd.
I hated living next to them. They were just so different. I was embarrassed when friends came over, and I especially hated it when my mother invited one of them into our house. Two of the residents, in particular, would come by a lot.
One who came often was Bill, a tall, lanky man with no teeth and a massive underbite, his cartoonishly bent legs flapping in old-fashioned trousers. He didn’t say much, but he liked to hang around the kitchen or the porch, and my mother would let him come and go as he liked while she was home. I hated it when he came over, because he was just so different.
Happy Friday! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! The kids made their costumes almost entirely on their own this year. I made one component each for Benny and Corrie’s costumes, and the older kids did it all themselves. Sweet! I haven’t seen them all put together yet, but I will share when I do. (Honestly, I would have been a little sad if they had 100% taken over the costume-making.)
Also this week, Damien and I (mostly Damien) FINISHED THE ROOF. Well, basically. Maybe not every little detail, but it is doing what a roof is supposed to do, and I’m pretty happy. Especially since we’re suddenly getting all the rain we didn’t get all summer!
I got pretty cook-y and bake-y this week, and a little bit spoooooky. Here’s what we had:
SATURDAY Anniversary Indian food!
Saturday we got most of the shingles up, until we ran out of shingles. This was our anniversary; this is our anniversary picture.
28 years!
So we ran out of shingles, we gave up, cleaned up, and went out to eat at the local Indian restaurant, Royal Spice, which I heartily recommend if you’re anywhere in the area. They are SO nice and the food is SO good. We got the same fried vegetarian whatnot appetizer platter we always do, with the cute little stand that holds three kinds of chutney; and then Damien got some kind of lamb dish, maybe kadai? and I got a beef chettinad curry. Of course we both had rice and garlic naan. The waiter actually congratulated us on how much we ate (all of it). He said it made him happy. It made us happy, too! And it made my nose run.
Then, in order to avoid going home, we stopped for ice cream. I was surprised to see how many other people were buying ice cream. It was nippy out! Maybe they were also avoiding their children.
Oh, the kids had Aldi pizza.
SUNDAY Leftovers and chimichangas
Sunday after Mass, I went shopping and Damien finished the roof! Here it is when we started taking it off a week ago:
and here is where we are almost done putting it back on.
Actually, darn it, the picture I was going to share is where it’s not quite done. I guess I’ll have to come back later. I would run out and take a picture now, but it’s raining right now and I am still in my payamas.
The kids spent most of the day working on their costumes. The house is such a wreck, SUCH a wreck, you wouldn’t believe. Partly because of costume making, partly because we’ve been working on the roof rather than making sure kids actually clean, rather than just pantomiming it. But I’m holding off on a cleaning rampage until after Halloween, because we’re about to be hip-deep in candy wrappers. You have to let that happen for a few days, and THEN you can clean.
MONDAY Chicken tenders, caprese salad with skull cheese, french bread
Monday I suddenly realized that, if I was gonna use the silicone skull molds I bought on a whim, it needed to be this week. So I made a batch of mozzarella using my kit. I’ve taken to heating the cheese in the final stage longer than it says in the instructions, for a total of three minutes or more, and that has made it much stretchier and smoother. I also bought some kitchen gloves, and that helped a LOT. Because when you heat cheese, it’s, uh, hot.
So I made a batch and planned to make individual skulls, but it doesn’t stay pliable for long, so I opted to just smoosh it over the molds in slabs.
I cooled it in water and then ice water for about fifteen minutes, and then peeled it off. SO SATISFYING. Here’s a little video of that.
Then I cut the cheese into individual skulls, but I wasn’t happy with the square effect.
So I sort of grudgingly (not that the whole thing was anyone else’s idea besides mine) trimmed off the square edges with a paring knife, and I made a caprese salad.
I usually serve this salad undressed and let people add their own oil and vinegar, but the skulls looked much more defined after I splashed a little balsamic vinegar over them.
Very pleased with this.
Then I decided to try a balsamic reduction, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I can’t find the specific recipe, but I think it was just a cup of balsamic vinegar and half a cup of brown sugar or something, simmered until it’s thick and syrupy. I had pretty much the lowest-quality balsamic vinegar one can find (thank you, Aldi), and the recipe warned me that reducing it would make it even worse, but I liked it anyway, so there! I like good food, but I also like bad food, which has made my life much simpler.
Then I decided we needed some fresh bread, so I made a big batch of french bread
and decided to make twelve little loaves, rather than four big ones. They turned out pretty cute.
Then when I got home, all I had to do was heat up some frozen chicken tenders, and we had a nice little meal.
I told the kids on the way home that I had prepared a spooky surprise for supper, and they were incredibly impressed by the spooky caprese. I mean one of them took a PICTURE and sent it to her FRIEND GROUP. Let me tell you, you may think you’re over wanting to impress the cool kids by the time you’re fifty years old, but when you have four teenage girls in the house, it does sneak up on you sometimes. (I think they expected feetloaf, which they swear I have made in the past. I have not. I have made zombieloaf, which they were weirdly unimpressed by, and anyway who can afford ground beef?)
I keep seeing recipes for mozzarella where you just use milk, vinegar, and salt. The kit I got has rennet and citric acid. If you’ve done both, do you have any comment about the difference? The kit is plenty easy to use, and the cheese is great, but I like having options.
TUESDAY Ina Garten roast chicken, baked potato, mashed squash
Sometimes I look at my camera roll to remind myself what I did on a particular day, and it looks like I spent Tuesday morning noticing the pretty leaves in the back yard, the burgeoning trash heaps in various rooms of the house, the one fingernail I hit the hardest with a hammer, some fluctus clouds, people being dumb on social media, and misc. Eventually I got my ass in gear and got a couple of chickens roasting, using Ina Garten’s simple recipe again, minus the thyme and gravy.
Actually, wait, I had to take a kid to an appointment on Tuesday! I forgot. I always tell myself I’m so lazy and waste so much time, and then I look at my calendar, and . . . well, sometimes I am lazy and waste time, but sometimes I’m not and I don’t. It all evens out.
Anyway, before the afternoon run I threw the chicken in the oven, and I prepped some potatoes and some butternut squash (I made a little video showing how to prepare it so it’s easy to cut and peel) and then ended up cooking it in the slow cooker anyway, so I didn’t really need to bother peeling it first! I just dumped it in the slow cooker with half a cup of water and set it to high, and let it go for probably three hours. Worked great.
When I got home, I mashed it up with some cinnamon, a little chili powder, a pinch of salt, and a bunch of honey, and then covered it and put it in the oven to stay warm while the chicken and baked potatoes finished up.
Chickens turned out lovely. I think you can see how crisp the skin is.
It’s kind of fun cutting the chickens up and out pops the heads of garlic and the lemons. Hello, boys! You did your job so well!
So it was a great little cool-weather meal of tasty chicken, mashed squash, and baked potato. Not the most artistic photos, but I was so hungry.
You can see I squeezed some of the garlic right out of its wrappers and ate them, yum yum
WEDNESDAY Basic asian pork chops, rice, sesame broccoli
Wednesday we had another appointment and I didn’t get going on supper until it was later than I would have hoped. The original plan was bulgoki, but believe it or not, I can’t find gochujang anywhere in this town. I gotta order some. They did have it at the International Market, but to everyone’s sorrow, it’s closing. I’m so sad about this. They were awfully nice, and they carried foods that no one else did.
I did stop by to pick up some bargains as they liquidate, and they were out of gochujang but they did have these cans of BBQ sauce.
The guy on the can seemed confident, so I opened it up and off, it looked so gross. It was a solid, gritty chunk swimming in orange grease. I thought maybe if I heat it up and whip it a bit, it would help.
It did not!
It tasted like . . . something a dog who lives on the docks would eat with reluctance. I don’t know. But it smelled bad and tasted bad and life is short, so I threw it away and made a quick sauce out of soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic powder, and marinated the pork chops in that.
When I got home, I poured the leftover marinade on top and roasted them under the broiler
and they were perfectly good and juicy. They tasted like soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic. No complaints.
I roasted a tray of broccoli with sesame oil, a little soy sauce, and sesame seeds, and cooked a pot of rice, and there you are.
Damien has been working away furiously on his car all week. It has many, many things wrong with it, and it’s been a huge project, so I was honestly just so impressed that, when he went out to buy some more tools and parts, he also came home with caramel apple wraps, because even when he’s stressed out and overworked, he’s a nice daddy and always thinking about those kids.
I was still riding the high of the mozzarella skull success, so I got the idea to use the molds again and make some candy skulls (we always have candy melts in the house). I made the caramel apples real quick and then stuck the skulls and some sprinkles on the apples, and they were pretty cute.
That night we watched The Invisible Man from 1933, and it was a hoot. If you’re looking for something to watch that’s a tiny bit scary but really mostly silly, and pretty short, this is a good one. I wasn’t expecting it to be funny, but it was!
THURSDAY Hot dogs, chips, chicken soup with rice, crostini, skull cake
Thursday the menu said we were having hot dogs (I had been expecting to have to go to a third doctor’s appointment an hour away, but it got rescheduled, so I found myself at home with an easy meal and extra time), but when I fished the hot dogs out of the freezer, they just didn’t look great at all.
I mean they’re hot dogs, so it’s not like they spoiled or something, but they just seemed like Discouragement Food, and who needs that. So I looked in the freezer again and found some chicken parts, and made a simple soup. I cooked the chicken in water for an hour or so, then pulled out the chicken and sorted out the meat and bones and — man, you guys know how to make chicken soup, but I’m in too deep now! Let me tell you, the dog was INCREDIBLY interested in this part, and wanted me to know, I mean really really know, that if I NEEDED anything, like for instance if I needed someone to EAT SOME CHICKEN, then HE WAS HERE, and I should not hesitate to call upon him. What a guy.
So I put the meat back in the pot and dumped in a bunch of chopped carrots, celery, and onion. Didn’t have any herbs in the house. Let it cook for several hours and acknowledged that it tasted hot, wet, and, if you used all your powers of concentration, slightly chickeny. So I added some concentrated chicken broth and bunch of pepper, and about an hour before dinner, I added a bunch of rice, and let that simmer until the rice was a little bit exploded.
I sliced up the leftover bread from the other night, drizzled it with olive oil, and sprinkled it with garlic powder and salt, put it in the oven, and forgot all about it. So they were PRETTY CRUNCHY, but oh well. I did also serve the hot dogs and chips that were on the original menu.
Ahem.
In October, I’ll be host To witches, goblins, and a ghost I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast. Whoopy once! Whoopy twice! Whoopy chicken soup with rice!
You see, I am using my literature degree! I use it all the time.
I also spent several hours writing an essay, then got to a point where I realized it was crap, I’m a crap writer, my mind is gone, I can’t do this anymore, I need to go get a job cleaning Greyhound busses, etc. etc., and decided to make a cake.
I was actually originally thinking to use my skull molds yet again, and make jello skulls, but the only gelatin I had in the house is unflavored. I briefly considered making rosewater Jello skulls, but pivoted to cake, and then remembered I had bought a cake pan at a thrift store for $2. It’s for making spherical cakes (it’s two hemispherical pans and two silicone rings to hold them steady while they bake), and I thought I could somehow . . . carve it into a skull?
Which I couldn’t, really, but I did cut out eyes and a nose, frost it, and then frost the ramekin it was standing on for the teeth part. I realized too late that it had a Dios de las Muertos look, and I could have really gone to town with flowers and stuff, but I ran out of time.
Then I went back and reread my essay and it was actually fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine, so I took out the line that might get me sued and sent it off. So now you know, my creative process involves cake, and sometimes a frosted ramekin. Go ahead and jot that down.
The kids were moderately impressed by this third spooky surprise, but after supper it was time to carve pumpkins, so we forgot to eat the cake, and it’s still sitting there on the counter, grinning at nothing and slowly drooping. Who among us. Anyway, now I know those pans work well, so that’s something!
Oh and the soup was fine. Tasted like chicken.
FRIDAY Bagel, egg, and cheese
This is the first Halloween since 2010 that we’re not going to the Halloween Parade at the school. The youngest kids are both in middle school and they have aged out. Ah, me. The older kids are going out with their friends tonight, but Corrie is going trick-or-treating with me and Damien, so, phew. Also the rain just stopped, and it’s supposed to stay more or less clear tonight, PHEW.
It just now occurred to me that, for the spooky caramel apples, I could have put the candy skulls on the apples FIRST, and then stretched the caramel sheets over them, for a potentially creepy “oh no, it’s coming through the walls” effect. Next year!
Also, here’s something nice, that I totally forgot existed: Carole King singing Chicken Soup With Rice.
Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!
I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.
Ingredients
4-1/2cups warm water
1/4cupsugar
2Tbspactive dry yeast
5tspsalt
1/4cupolive or canola oil
10-12cupsflour
butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)
Instructions
In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.
Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.
Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.
Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).
Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.
Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.
Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.
Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.
Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.
Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.
Today’s food post will be mainly a roof post! That’s how it be sometimes.
So, here we have a representative sample of some of the wood we pulled down from the roof. Just in case you were wondering why it seemed so urgent to do this project.
We’ve had a leak for quite a while, but we had a storm a few weeks ago and it busted right through the living room ceiling. So off we went.
We started on Thursday of last week, and pulled off the old shingles, edge, and flashing, and opened up the eaves to see how bad the damage was. It was actually not as bad as we feared! But we did have a bit of a tough moment when we discovered that 2x4s are not actually two by four inches. I guess maybe you knew that, but we didn’t — mainly because the existing trusses were rough-cut wood that actually does measure 2×4.
So that added a few trips to Home Depot, and a lot of staring up at the roof and saying, “But . . .what? What??”
This is a roof over the first story of the house only, but there is quite a steep drop-off in the ground on one side. I stuck mainly to the less-scary side, and Damien worked on the more-scary side. He discovered that whoever fixed the roof last ran out of flashing and used a bunch of metal newspaper printing plates from 1976, so that was kind of neat.
There have been a few other spot repairs on the roof, we discovered as we tore layers away. Some of them looked vaguely familiar; some of them had clearly been done by other boneheads. I think it was on Friday that we realized we have been living in this house for almost 20 years, and it was really time to stop calling the previous owners “they.” As in, “I can’t believe they did it this way” and “I can’t believe they just left it like that.” Because, like I said, for twenty years, it’s been us. There is no they. They are we.
I masked up and clambered around pulling all the horrible old moldy, mousy insulation out
It was also very much we who did a terrible job putting tarps down, so there were rusty nails and scraps of rotten wood and bits of chewed-up insulation all over the place, in among the tall grass and wet blackberry thorns and whatnot. So I wandered slowly and furiously around with a magnet for a while and got most of the nails and crap cleaned up, and redid the tarps, so there. I’m making it sound like I did most of the work, but actually Damien did most of the work.
SATURDAY
Saturday, Clara’s boyfriend came over and did a ton of work replacing and shoring up trusses and laying down new decking, and talking us through the rest of the project. Then I went back to Home Depot for some more wood and dropped a 8×10 sheet of plywood on my foot and broke my little toe, which is something I like to do from time to time. My toe is now more or less pierogi-shaped and permanently grey, and the toenail grows in three distinct pieces. All just part of my feminine mystique. Then I went to Home Depot a few more times and also got pierogis, and we had that and leftovers for supper.
I was a little bummed to be missing the No Kings rally, so I went out with a staple gun and gussied up my skeletons.
So there.
I think it was on Saturday that Damien fell off the ladder. He tumbled really well, and didn’t hurt himself, thank God. But it was a good wake-up call for us to both be super super careful!
SUNDAY
Beef barley soup and pumpkin muffins
Sunday we went to Mass of course, and then stopped at the store for some meat and milk and whatnot to help us limp through the week without actually shopping.
Corrie has been aching to learn how to make her favorite meal of soup and muffins, so I gave her a very little bit of direction, and off she went making beef barley soup
Nothing like sitting down to a delicious meal you made yourself.
Damien spent the day fitting plywood onto the roof for decking. It is, like everything else in our house, oddly shaped, so it took a long time! But he got it done and then absolutely swaddled and taped the heck out of it, because the rain was on the way. And it rained all night and into the next day, and man, that was nerve-wracking, listening to the rain fall. We both kept looking up at the ceiling, hoping and praying everything would stay dry.
MONDAY
Roast chicken, peas, noodles
It did stay dry! Wonderful. While Damien worked on the eaves or something, I went back to Home Depot for nails or something. I think it was also Monday that we got the drip edge on. The days really blurred together this week. I did see a nice rainbow at Home Depot, so that was something.
I roasted the chickens following Ina Garten’s super easy recipe. I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I just threw the garlic and lemons in there, and had the seasoned butter on the top, and they turned out absolutely scrumptious. No searing or flipping or basting or anything. They did take a little longer than expected, but it was worth the wait.
We didn’t have much in the house for sides, so I just cooked some egg noodles and served them with butter, and heated up some frozen peas. Unsophistication at its best.
I was looking at this plate and trying to think what it reminded me of. Then I realized: Toy food. It looks like toy food.
Not a thing wrong with that!
TUESDAY
Chicken quesadillas
I guess it was Tuesday we got the drip edge on. I don’t know. I’m probably forgetting a bunch of things we had to do. Damien had a bunch more carpentry to do, because the eaves and soffits and whatnot are in tough shape in spots. While he wrestled with that, I went upstairs and caulked the frame of the window (we suspect water is getting in under the siding from the window frame) and loosened up the siding around the window, much to the consternation of Maggie the Cat, who mostly lives in that room.
Then I swept all the crap off the roof, which was harder than you’d think! I don’t know if you’ve ever swept a sloped surface above your head, but it makes you feel like your arms are just about useless.
Then, o then, we finally started on the water and ice shield! This was exciting, because it meant the structural part is basically done, and also because it was going to rain again. It is fancy self-adhesive stuff, and BOY IS IT ADHESIVE. I guess I would kind of like to draw a veil over Tuesday, but the upshot is that we went up and down the ladder 923 times
and we kept at it and kept at it, and by gum we got that roof and part of the wall covered with high quality water and ice shield.
and then it DID rain again that night, and the roof did stay dry. WHEW.
The kids made chicken quesadillas for supper. I purposely made two big chickens so there would be leftovers for that, and the kids did great.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday Damien and I were both just so freaking exhausted, we decided to just stick to our day jobs on Wednesday, and we both got some writing done. Damien has been going back and forth from working on the roof to doing all his regular work all this week – pretty amazing. That evening, we dressed up and drove to Concord for the tenth anniversary party for In Depth, which is one of the papers Damien writes for. The snacks were quite good, but we decided to stop at Burger King on the way home anyway.
I had bought sandwiches, popcorn, and Swiss Rolls for the kids at home, so they didn’t have to cook. I think they spent the evening working on Halloween costumes. We got home late and collapsed.
THURSDAY
Thursday we had school conferences, which I went to
while Damien started in on the tar paper layer.
In the morning, I had fried up a bunch of Italian sausages, cut them up, and put them in the slow cooker to stay warm all day. So when we got home around 5, all I had to do was cook some spaghetti and then discover that yes, I had turned on the slow cooker, and yes, I had plugged it in, but! the power strip I had plugged it into was not plugged in. No.
I didn’t really think we needed to dine on All Day Room Temperature Sausage, so we just had plain spaghetti, and it was a little sad. But at least we had tar paper.
FRIDAY
Friday Damien finished the tar paper and we started in on the step flashing between the roof and the house wall. For whatever reason, I got the heebie jeebies and couldn’t get myself to get up on the roof, so Damien ended up doing most of it.
Then we ran out of flashing, briefly considered putting the newspaper plates back up, and decided we should just go back to Home Depot. So I’m gonna do that after adoration, and he’s gonna finish putting them on, and we may or may not be able to get the waterproof tar sealant stuff on tonight. I don’t now what’s for supper, and I’m struggling to feel like this is my problem. I will probably pick up some tuna.
AND THEN, the only thing left is to put the shingles on! And of course reattach the siding. And rebuild the soffits and fascia boards, and a few other miscellaneous things, and of course haul away all the debris. I’m sure in a few weeks, when it’s really truly done, we’ll feel proud and relieved, but man, this project has really taken it out of us. It’s only about 115 square feet of roof, and we’ve been thinking it would be sort of a test project to see if we could fix the whole main roof on the rest of the house in the spring, which, I don’t know. Maybe. It’s pretty high up there. Lotta roof. Much ladders. Keep hitting our thumbs with hammers. You know.
It’s our 28th anniversary tomorrow, and you’ll never guess, it looks very much like we will be spending most of it on the roof. Better than in the grave!
29ozcanned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
1cupuncooked barley
salt and pepper
Instructions
Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened.
Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.
Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley.
If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes.
Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary.
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