Thanksgiving has come and gone. Again! This was the first year we have hosted Thanksgiving and it felt a lot like a rite of passage. The food is so traditional and deeply sentimental, everyone has their own idea about how things should look and taste. Everyone's grandmother did it the right way and everyone's family tries their hardest to carry on the traditions of turkeys' past.
As we scrambled about cooking and cleaning, we realized that the reason you get all of those seemingly ridiculous wedding presents is for this type of day and this type of day alone. The giant platter, the random place settings, and the good silverware were all lovingly hand crafted for this day. No pressure or anything.
We were lucky enough to host the Husband's family. My mother in law arrived with her should-be-famous apple and pumpkin chiffon pies and my sister in law arrived with all of the sides, an army of french bread, and of course, my most favorite niece.
I had to prepare the turkey, stuffing and salad. For the first time, I was incredibly nervous about the turkey and stuffing. I make roasted birds all the time but I just couldn't conceptualize this. And stuffing, what exactly is that? (It's kind of like a bread pudding but not really). I finally settled on a few recipes and with some psychological counsel from my mom stopped hyperventilating enough to buy the ingredients.
I realized that the conversation with my mom was what this was about: the multigenerational passing of knowledge, hard fought knowledge, about these traditions. And before the cooking even began, I felt thankful for this excuse to cozy up to my mom (via my office phone) and let her download all her years of knowledge (nuzzle nuzzle).
Despite my nervousness, I up early and realized that I really did need to put the turkey in right away. Really? Right now? At 10am for a 4pm dinner? That seemed utterly absurd but that's what the directions said and if it's anything that us science types are good at it's following directions.
I got what seemed like a monster turkey, 14 pounds, and wrestled with it for a long time. I had to give it a bath, slather pesto under the skin, massage it with oil and garlic, stuff it with aromatics, and pluck a few errant feathers out of its tail. Needless to say, I got pretty intimate with the thing. I was just about to stick it in the over when I realized that the wings were sticking out in all directions.
"Mom"
"Yeah Meg, Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Mom, what do I do about the wings? They're sticking out and will burn. What do I do about the poor little wings"
"Alright, here's what you do..."
Needless to say, she talked me off the ledge and aside from my quizzical "You want me to make sleeves for it?" we got it done.
After the turkey wrestling match (which I won BTW), I began the only dish I knew how to make. The mashed potatoes. A bit of boiling, mashing, mustard, butter, milk, salt and pepper, they were done and resting comfortably on the sideboard.
I had to run out and take Molly for a walk but when I got back the bird was in able hands, the house was vacuumed, and everything but the stuffing and salad were set.
I don't really want to talk about the stuffing, it was fussy, underseasoned, and not worth saving. I've decided it needed mushrooms and that's all I want to say about that.
We had a somewhat magical moment with the gravy with my mom on the phone, my husband's mom at the stove, and me yelling "I know how to make a roux" as if I was trying to get the teacher to call on me. The gravy, by the way, turned out exceptionally good.
Finally, things devolved, as they always do, to a word game. This year Bananagram was introduced and was throughly enjoyed by all, except me, who happily shoved sweet potatoes and corn bread in my mouth.
It was a fine holiday, only marred by my needing to work and a stomach that limits capacity. It is still my most very favorite holiday specifically because of the tradition, the family time, and the general ability just to hang out with one another. I would also like to praise our new furniture, which performed exceptionally well. The bookcase served as a perfect sideboard and the new kitchen things did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Hooray all around and on to Christmas, I just bought 40 feet of garland, two wreathes, about a million lights, and 50 cable ties! For the first time I feel festive!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Quick Recipe for you!
It's that mad mad holiday/crazy work season again and I haven't had a lot of time to compose my thoughts for the blog. I finally took some nice pictures of the new kitchen but haven't had a chance to edit them, they're coming I promise!
I did have a chance to throw an impromptu birthday dinner for my friend Michael (Happy Birthday!). This is my favorite type of entertaining, quick, easy and full of good cheer. We decided to do the dinner around 5 pm and everyone showed up at 8. Hilleary made a yummy salad with goat cheese, persimmons, pomegranate seeds and a shallot vinaigrette and I threw together a quick spinach, salsa, and cheddar fritatta. It doesn't get any easier than that menu and we made it all while everyone was sitting at the counter and I was cooking. Our wall removal/counter renovation achieved it's intended outcome, I could cook and enjoy my party at the same time.
To reinforce the easy dinner, I made the easiest dessert imaginable: Roasted Figs with Marscapone and a Balsamic Vinegar Reduction. One of my guests is diabetic so I wanted to make something rich and special without a ton of sugar and flour. You could pretty much do this with any fruit. I love treating peaches this way but I imagine pears are delicious too! You can also substitute creme freche or vanilla ice cream. I had mine without the cheese and it was just as delicious!
For 4 people
10-12 Fresh figs, halved
1 T olive oil
1/4 cup Marscapone
1/2 cup good balsamic vinegar
Preheat the oven to 350F. Slice the figs and lay them out on the cookie sheet. Brush them with the olive oil and roast them until they start to shrivel ~30 minutes or so. As they're cooking prepare the balsamic glaze (see below). When they're done, let them cool.
When cool, spoon out a small (or large depending on taste) amount (1/8 teaspoon) of the marscapone on the top of each and then spoon over the balsamic reduction. I served them in those japanese soup spoons but they could easily be put in a bowl. I placed a candle on Michael's and we all sang him the birthday song.
Balsamic Glaze
1/2 cup good balsamic vinegar
In a small sauce pan (I use my cast iron 8" saucier), slowly heat the balsamic. Stir until it reduces by about 1/2. It should be thinner than maple syrup.
I'm thinking of making this again for Thanksgiving but adding some bacon to the top.
I did have a chance to throw an impromptu birthday dinner for my friend Michael (Happy Birthday!). This is my favorite type of entertaining, quick, easy and full of good cheer. We decided to do the dinner around 5 pm and everyone showed up at 8. Hilleary made a yummy salad with goat cheese, persimmons, pomegranate seeds and a shallot vinaigrette and I threw together a quick spinach, salsa, and cheddar fritatta. It doesn't get any easier than that menu and we made it all while everyone was sitting at the counter and I was cooking. Our wall removal/counter renovation achieved it's intended outcome, I could cook and enjoy my party at the same time.
To reinforce the easy dinner, I made the easiest dessert imaginable: Roasted Figs with Marscapone and a Balsamic Vinegar Reduction. One of my guests is diabetic so I wanted to make something rich and special without a ton of sugar and flour. You could pretty much do this with any fruit. I love treating peaches this way but I imagine pears are delicious too! You can also substitute creme freche or vanilla ice cream. I had mine without the cheese and it was just as delicious!
For 4 people
10-12 Fresh figs, halved
1 T olive oil
1/4 cup Marscapone
1/2 cup good balsamic vinegar
Preheat the oven to 350F. Slice the figs and lay them out on the cookie sheet. Brush them with the olive oil and roast them until they start to shrivel ~30 minutes or so. As they're cooking prepare the balsamic glaze (see below). When they're done, let them cool.
When cool, spoon out a small (or large depending on taste) amount (1/8 teaspoon) of the marscapone on the top of each and then spoon over the balsamic reduction. I served them in those japanese soup spoons but they could easily be put in a bowl. I placed a candle on Michael's and we all sang him the birthday song.
Balsamic Glaze
1/2 cup good balsamic vinegar
In a small sauce pan (I use my cast iron 8" saucier), slowly heat the balsamic. Stir until it reduces by about 1/2. It should be thinner than maple syrup.
I'm thinking of making this again for Thanksgiving but adding some bacon to the top.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Like a laboradoodle
It's been one of those crazy few weeks at work only made worse by two things. The presense of outside collaborators and a wonky computer. It's hard to underestimate the pain of arriving at one's desk really early to prepare for a 9am meeting only to find out that your computer account is locked and that the IT people don't pick up the phone until 9am.
We have a set of collaborators who's only aim in life seems to be to create a jargon and after a particularily hellacious jargon creation session (that went on for 5 hours and seriously all we did was talk in jargon) my lovely boss came up with a new bit of jargon, as seen on this post it.
A collaboradoodle- its like a collaboration and a poodle.
It doesn't mean anything except to represent those lost hours of your professional life when you walk out of a meeting with nothing but the creation of a mythical "action plan" and something about as useful, a mythical poodle.
That extension written on the collaboradoodle, that's IT number just to remind myself how much working in a PC world ruins my life, one collaboradoodle at a time.
We have a set of collaborators who's only aim in life seems to be to create a jargon and after a particularily hellacious jargon creation session (that went on for 5 hours and seriously all we did was talk in jargon) my lovely boss came up with a new bit of jargon, as seen on this post it.
A collaboradoodle- its like a collaboration and a poodle.
It doesn't mean anything except to represent those lost hours of your professional life when you walk out of a meeting with nothing but the creation of a mythical "action plan" and something about as useful, a mythical poodle.
That extension written on the collaboradoodle, that's IT number just to remind myself how much working in a PC world ruins my life, one collaboradoodle at a time.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Go Yankees!
So this pictures offends me in two ways. One my sister Kate is so photogenic it's offensive. Two my husband is perfectly willing to take a nice picture with Kate.
To prove my point:
To prove my point:
Something truly terrifying for halloween
We have this enormous closet (we call her Red on account of the red door, the hall pantry is green on account of the green door, etc) and it is truly an organized persons nightmare. On our final walk through, my father looked at Red and said "How can people have so much crap" and well, I'm ashamed to admit that it looks almost exactly the same now as it did then.
I just organized it a few months ago (yes, this is organized) and I hope that apartment therapy's next project is the giant red closet with so much stuff cure because doctor, I need the cure.
Trust me, that part looks better blurry.
I just organized it a few months ago (yes, this is organized) and I hope that apartment therapy's next project is the giant red closet with so much stuff cure because doctor, I need the cure.
Trust me, that part looks better blurry.
Before Pictures
Well I did things a bit backwards. I wrote about my big cleaning purge in my previous post and have now found my before pictures. Note the stacking! The clutter! The general state of disarray! To be fair we are in the middle of the great wall project of 2009 but I have to admit it usually looks pretty similar to this. If you want to see the afters look at the next post.
Kitchen Cure
A few weeks ago I signed up for apartment therapy's Kitchen Cure. They send you instructions, you follow them, and send them documentation of your progress. The first week's assignment was to clean out your fridge and pantry and then wipe everything down.
This was easy and some what terrifying. We've lived here a year and a half yet we had stuff that was a couple of years old. Note to self, don't move frozen food. I also discovered things that I keep buying every time I shop. Kidney beans (for soups and chili), chocolate bars (for what ever), and fish sauce. Nice combo. I need to go on a good restocking the pantry run down to Fairway to restock the shelves for the winter. In the summer most of my cooking is from fresh ingredients but in the winter I turn to the pantry and freezer for most of my ingredients.
This morning I decided it was time to put all the stuff back that I had moved for the wall demolition. I had gotten into some bad habits and wanted to make a clean break. I also discovered how poorly organized everything was and decided to declutter and relocate (which was the assignment for week 2).
Bad Habits:
1. Not having a place to store everyday cooking items like olive oil, salt, pepper, tea, etc. These things lived on the counter top but were always making a mess and cluttering things up. It made cleaning the counter tops annoying and turned the only usable counter space into a mine field of things to knock over.
Before this was just a place for tupperware but by adjusting the shelf and moving things up a little I could accommodate the everyday items.
2. Keeping every possible kitchen utensil out on the counter. Again, cluttered and dusty. I used AT's classification system of daily, weekly, and monthly (or less) and separated out my utensils. Everyday ones went in the top drawer (garlic press, wine key, can opener, and tongs) while weekly/monthly stuff went below (spatula, silicone brush, meat thermometer, lemon squeezer), neatly organized into wooden thingys. The stuff I rarely use, it super specialty (like a lemon zester, frosting spreader, grapefruit spoon, and duplicates) went into a small bin in the pantry. I use a lot of this stuff but I decided I should sacrifice a cluttered, kind of gunky gross space, for the sake of having everything right there.
3. Stacking things in precarious ways- Just plain dangerous in a way that made me avoid using those items. I shifted a lot of stuff to this random, awkward cabinet over the stove. I realized that this is where all the stuff that we only use with company and that isn't pretty should go. Extra mugs, dishes, and some specialty dessert dishes were all nicely stacked here, out of sight but not out of mind.
This freed up a lot of room in the main dish cabinet to actually put the things were used daily and weekly in a safe, easy to reach place. We have very tall cabinets and I am always tempted to climb on the counter to avoid getting the step ladder. I hope that rearranging things will make me less tempted to do that since the things I need all the time are within reaching distance and the things that I don't need all the time, well, quite frankly if I need to get them down there will probably be guests. And those guests will make me less prone to do dangerous things.
I did the same for our very deep, tall corner cabinet. I followed the same pattern while organizing as I went along. I have a habit of putting things in things (like non matched serving utensils in the salad bowls) and both losing them and dumping them on my head while looking for something. I made a "nothing goes in anything rule" to reduce the head trauma.
As I reorganized everything, I realized that I had basically booby trapped the whole place for my husband. This may explain why he refuses to take serious pictures with me.
So blah blah blah, declutter, wash, dust, recycle. Rinse and Repeat. I should also note that I cleaned everything (with cleaning products!) and am pretty sure that nothing had been cleaned since the kitchen was finished 10 years ago. I had cleaned all of the lower cabinets after the great mouse infestation of 2008 and was very happy to see no mouse poop this time.
I'm a slob and have a tendency to leave things everywhere. I also recognize that I don't follow any organizational scheme and organization schemes basically lead to losing things, tucking them into places where they will never see the light, and general mayhem and clutter. I have switched to a bin system for most of my organizational needs. This means that instead of folders and filing cabinets, I have switched to bins and piles. I know, it makes my accountant and work colleagues very nervous, but if I just put it in a contained pile I won't outsmart myself.
My work piles
In the kitchen, the bin system sort of gets morphed into the "put everything where I can see it and position it so that I can't put anything on top of it" system. If it's in the back I should consider it lost so nothing goes in the back unless I can see it peeking out the top.
So what's one to really do with a tall, deep closet for a pantry? Well, I hid a lot of stuff that I don't mind losing until I need it again. The blender, toaster, wine chiller, and growler bottles. Those are seasonal so they'll come out from hiding. The big green closet didn't really need that much rearranging. What it actually needed was a serious scrub.
The previous owner left all sorts of stuff there including sample granite tiles, a very large cutting board, and tons of other little crap. Word to the wise, no one ever wants your crap so do them a favor and get rid of it. When I lifted up the crap I realized he had used it to cover this disgusting sticky mess. I tried everything to clean it and ended up just putting the tiles back over the slick and stacking things on them. A good scrub and vacuum (all the dust from the electrical work) and it felt a lot better and now has enough room to house the liquor which had been living in the husband's office.
I also used this time to decide what I needed to repurpose or buy. A few more bins (I've seen these great lucite ones) and a spice rack solution is really all I need.
So my few simple rules:
1. Organize by amount of use
2. Don't hide anything
3. Don't stack anything unless you only use it when people are around to supervise its removal
4. Things do get dusty when they're not in cabinets
5. Organize by weight, put heavy things down low, lighter things up high
6. Don't booby trap the house
7. Don't over organize
8. Don't buy organizational things until you know you need them. The corrollary to this is don't buy things at Ikea just because they are cute. You will end up buying organizational things just to organize your cute, miniature, useless things and repeat the cycle.
We have a lot of stuff. I can imagine that my "after" pictures look a lot like people's before pictures. But I've spent a lot of time trying to reduce the amount of stuff I have while pretending that I'm not a pack rat and more organized than I really am. So I've embraced my pack rack (and my pack rat spouse) in an attempt to only be able to mess up the things that I use on a daily basis and reduce the clutter that drives everyone crazy.
This was easy and some what terrifying. We've lived here a year and a half yet we had stuff that was a couple of years old. Note to self, don't move frozen food. I also discovered things that I keep buying every time I shop. Kidney beans (for soups and chili), chocolate bars (for what ever), and fish sauce. Nice combo. I need to go on a good restocking the pantry run down to Fairway to restock the shelves for the winter. In the summer most of my cooking is from fresh ingredients but in the winter I turn to the pantry and freezer for most of my ingredients.
This morning I decided it was time to put all the stuff back that I had moved for the wall demolition. I had gotten into some bad habits and wanted to make a clean break. I also discovered how poorly organized everything was and decided to declutter and relocate (which was the assignment for week 2).
Bad Habits:
1. Not having a place to store everyday cooking items like olive oil, salt, pepper, tea, etc. These things lived on the counter top but were always making a mess and cluttering things up. It made cleaning the counter tops annoying and turned the only usable counter space into a mine field of things to knock over.
Before this was just a place for tupperware but by adjusting the shelf and moving things up a little I could accommodate the everyday items.
2. Keeping every possible kitchen utensil out on the counter. Again, cluttered and dusty. I used AT's classification system of daily, weekly, and monthly (or less) and separated out my utensils. Everyday ones went in the top drawer (garlic press, wine key, can opener, and tongs) while weekly/monthly stuff went below (spatula, silicone brush, meat thermometer, lemon squeezer), neatly organized into wooden thingys. The stuff I rarely use, it super specialty (like a lemon zester, frosting spreader, grapefruit spoon, and duplicates) went into a small bin in the pantry. I use a lot of this stuff but I decided I should sacrifice a cluttered, kind of gunky gross space, for the sake of having everything right there.
3. Stacking things in precarious ways- Just plain dangerous in a way that made me avoid using those items. I shifted a lot of stuff to this random, awkward cabinet over the stove. I realized that this is where all the stuff that we only use with company and that isn't pretty should go. Extra mugs, dishes, and some specialty dessert dishes were all nicely stacked here, out of sight but not out of mind.
This freed up a lot of room in the main dish cabinet to actually put the things were used daily and weekly in a safe, easy to reach place. We have very tall cabinets and I am always tempted to climb on the counter to avoid getting the step ladder. I hope that rearranging things will make me less tempted to do that since the things I need all the time are within reaching distance and the things that I don't need all the time, well, quite frankly if I need to get them down there will probably be guests. And those guests will make me less prone to do dangerous things.
I did the same for our very deep, tall corner cabinet. I followed the same pattern while organizing as I went along. I have a habit of putting things in things (like non matched serving utensils in the salad bowls) and both losing them and dumping them on my head while looking for something. I made a "nothing goes in anything rule" to reduce the head trauma.
As I reorganized everything, I realized that I had basically booby trapped the whole place for my husband. This may explain why he refuses to take serious pictures with me.
So blah blah blah, declutter, wash, dust, recycle. Rinse and Repeat. I should also note that I cleaned everything (with cleaning products!) and am pretty sure that nothing had been cleaned since the kitchen was finished 10 years ago. I had cleaned all of the lower cabinets after the great mouse infestation of 2008 and was very happy to see no mouse poop this time.
I'm a slob and have a tendency to leave things everywhere. I also recognize that I don't follow any organizational scheme and organization schemes basically lead to losing things, tucking them into places where they will never see the light, and general mayhem and clutter. I have switched to a bin system for most of my organizational needs. This means that instead of folders and filing cabinets, I have switched to bins and piles. I know, it makes my accountant and work colleagues very nervous, but if I just put it in a contained pile I won't outsmart myself.
My work piles
In the kitchen, the bin system sort of gets morphed into the "put everything where I can see it and position it so that I can't put anything on top of it" system. If it's in the back I should consider it lost so nothing goes in the back unless I can see it peeking out the top.
So what's one to really do with a tall, deep closet for a pantry? Well, I hid a lot of stuff that I don't mind losing until I need it again. The blender, toaster, wine chiller, and growler bottles. Those are seasonal so they'll come out from hiding. The big green closet didn't really need that much rearranging. What it actually needed was a serious scrub.
The previous owner left all sorts of stuff there including sample granite tiles, a very large cutting board, and tons of other little crap. Word to the wise, no one ever wants your crap so do them a favor and get rid of it. When I lifted up the crap I realized he had used it to cover this disgusting sticky mess. I tried everything to clean it and ended up just putting the tiles back over the slick and stacking things on them. A good scrub and vacuum (all the dust from the electrical work) and it felt a lot better and now has enough room to house the liquor which had been living in the husband's office.
I also used this time to decide what I needed to repurpose or buy. A few more bins (I've seen these great lucite ones) and a spice rack solution is really all I need.
So my few simple rules:
1. Organize by amount of use
2. Don't hide anything
3. Don't stack anything unless you only use it when people are around to supervise its removal
4. Things do get dusty when they're not in cabinets
5. Organize by weight, put heavy things down low, lighter things up high
6. Don't booby trap the house
7. Don't over organize
8. Don't buy organizational things until you know you need them. The corrollary to this is don't buy things at Ikea just because they are cute. You will end up buying organizational things just to organize your cute, miniature, useless things and repeat the cycle.
We have a lot of stuff. I can imagine that my "after" pictures look a lot like people's before pictures. But I've spent a lot of time trying to reduce the amount of stuff I have while pretending that I'm not a pack rat and more organized than I really am. So I've embraced my pack rack (and my pack rat spouse) in an attempt to only be able to mess up the things that I use on a daily basis and reduce the clutter that drives everyone crazy.
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