Celebrating Ward’s Day

Liesl started working at Ward’s Aero more than four years ago.  Ward didn’t have dinner at our house until late this past summer, when we instituted “Ward’s Day.”

Ward’s not a planner, and impromptu cooking for guests isn’t a skill I’ve mastered. I need at least a day’s notice before I feel comfortable making dinner for anyone other than Liesl.

We tried to invite Ward for dinner several times, and it just didn’t work out.

But then I had an idea: Ward’s Day.

One day a week––we chose Wednesday––I plan a dinner, and make enough food that Ward can come if he wants to. If he doesn’t, Liesl and I have plenty of leftovers.

He’s been here twice since then, and might come tonight.

We’re having split pea soup with half-grain egg bread, and from-scratch lemon meringue pie for dessert.

It’s win-win-win all around. I get to practice cooking for guests, Ward gets a home-cooked meal he doesn’t have to make for himself, and we all get to spend time together. It’s an important step for Liesl and me, a way for two introverts to stitch together our social network.

What about you?  What practices help you improve the strength of your in-person social connections?

You Are Not Who You Were

I almost failed typing in high school.  It was a shock to my goody-two-shoes honor-roll self.  But now, freed from the failure-creating restraints of a typewriter without a correction tape, I type fast enough to be paid to do so.

Our family had a computer before we had a TV (and that’s another story), and I never thought of myself as being particularly good at it.  In fact, I thought I was terrible at it.  But now that we’ve moved beyond computers-for-programmers, I’ve learned enough about computers that people actually ask me for help.  On Sunday, our minister at the Anchorage UU Fellowship described the workshop on social networking that she’d attended at General Assembly, and she said, “Basically, they said we need to be on Facebook and I don’t know how to do that but I’ll ask Heather.”  I’m the Heather she was talking about.  Weird.

As a child, I was terrified of dogs.  I had very little experience with them, since we only kept the one dog we ever had for about 2.5 days.  Now I love (most) dogs, and I can actually get Brady to do most of the things I ask him to do.  A few weeks ago he learned “roll over.”

Like everyone else in my school district, my seventh grade electives were divided into four quarters, one quarter each for metal shop, wood shop, cooking and sewing.  Three guesses which one I liked, and was good at.  Did you guess cooking?  Ding, ding, ding!  We have a winner.

I grew up cooking with my mom.  Some of my earliest memories are of sitting the kitchen counter while she cooked and baked.  It was, for me, the best kind of learning–the kind you absorb, rather than consciously acquire.  Seventh grade cooking class just felt natural.

Sewing class, on the other hand, was more alien.  My mother also sewed–but I think she sewed out of obligation, rather than joy.  As I think about how she was when she sewed, it was with a determined concentration that just looked less fun than the creative chaos of the kitchen.

When my seventh grade self applied that determined concentration to sewing, it didn’t work out all that well.  I made a dress (light blue calico) that didn’t fit, and I never really liked.  And I made a stuffed pillow that was supposed to look like a surf board.

I didn’t like the precision that sewing required, and I had trouble keeping steady pressure on the foot pedal.  I decided that I just wasn’t any good at sewing, and I haven’t touched a sewing machine in the years since then.

Until today, when I unpacked this from its box:

It’s a Brother CS6000i, and it was an amazing bargain via Amazon.  I wanted a new creative outlet (crazy quilts), and I wanted to be able to mend and alter our clothes.  This model has an amazing option that tipped me over the edge:  I don’t have to use the foot pedal.  If you follow the link to its Amazon page, and watch the video there, you’ll see that there are buttons just above the foot for forward, backwards and speed control.  (Not only is that good for me, it means that my partner will be able to use the machine as well, without having to find a way around a foot pedal.  An accessible sewing machine, in more ways than one!)

I’m kind of afraid of my new sewing machine.  Well, not of the machine per se.  I’m afraid that I will still be terrible at sewing, and that my bargain will be an expensive doorstop.

But I’m choosing to believe the lessons I’ve learned from typing, computers and dogs:  I am not who I was.  And that, as Gandalf says in The Lord of the Rings, is an encouraging thought.

Knives for Real Kitchens

The finer points of knives — David Lebovitz has lots of, um, tips :: by Culinate staff :: Culinate.

In this article Culinate passes on the well-known rule of knives: no dishwashers.

My first set of knives had wood handles, so I had a second reason not to put them in the dishwasher.  I never used them.

For a long time I made do with a rag-tag assortment of mismatched knives.

Then I found a set of knives that were “dishwasher safe yet best washed by hand,” made by a reputable company, and a reasonable price.  I bought them, but then someone told me I really, really shouldn’t put them in the dishwasher.

So I used them, and because I didn’t put them in the dishwasher, and because I am who I am (less than enthusiastic about hand-washing), they sat in their dirty state for longer than they should have.  Soon they had rust spots, and I stopped using them.

Then I read that you can use a potato to clean rust spots.  I set aside an afternoon and cleaned the whole set.

It worked!  Now I use them again–and I put them in the dishwasher.

My rule about cleaning knives?  Clean them by whatever method makes it more likely that you will use them frequently.

Adventures in Yogurt Making

This past winter I read Anne Mendelson’s book, Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk through the Ages.  Well-written and informative, it taught me a lot about the history, geography and chemistry of milk.  It also intensified my longing to have dairy goats, and to make cheese and yogurt.

Since our homeowners association expressly forbids the raising of livestock on our condo balcony, goats are out, for now.  But cheese and yogurt–now, those were possible.

I decided to start with yogurt, since it seemed a simpler process.  Mendelson’s method didn’t require any special equipment, and the yogurt-making blogosphere was full of stories about making yogurt in the oven, in a thermos, or even using a towel-covered bowl and a heating pad.  For my adventure into this uncharted territory, however, I wanted something I could depend on–an electric yogurt maker.

I chose the Eurocuisine YM100, and I’ve been happy with my choice.  From the start, I’ve been irrationally attached to its cute little glass jars.  Some of the other yogurt makers have plastic jars, and I am trying to use less plastic.  The machine has a timer that keeps the heating element on for the amount of time I choose.  One of the other models has a piercing beep when the yogurt is finished; mine simply shuts off.

My first batch of yogurt was a disaster.  I had purchased a glass candy thermometer to track the temperature of the milk.  When I was washing the thermometer, after the yogurt was safely ensconced in the jars, I discovered that the glass tip had broken.  I tried to rationalize for a while–It’s such a small piece of glass.  Surely I wouldn’t swallow it. And if I did, how much damage could it do?–before my truly rational sweetie convinced me that I needed to throw the batch away.  My new thermometer is metal.

I use whole milk from Matanuska Creamery for making yogurt.  From what I’ve read, whole milk produces a thicker yogurt.  All of the organic milk available in Alaska is ultra-pasteurized, and not a good option for making yogurt.

I love making homemade yogurt.  I add a spoonful of jam to one of the jars and stir.  The taste transports me back to what Dannon’s fruit-on-the-bottom tasted like in my childhood.

My next yogurt adventure is to convince Eurocuisine to make a straining device that works with my glass jars.  I want something that all seven jars screw into, something I can flip over and keep in the fridge during the draining process.  Hey, I figure that if I can make yogurt, I can do anything.  I can talk a nameless, faceless corporation into making my yogurt strainer!

Steel-Cut Oats

My first encounter with steel-cut oats was at the Our Lady of the Pines Retreat Center in Fremont, Ohio.  Used to rolled oats, which turn into a gummy paste when made into oatmeal, my mouth was surprise by their firm, yet tender bite.  Never one to be shy when it comes to tracking down something that tastes good, I found my way to the kitchen, and asked what was different about the oatmeal.  ”It’s McCann’s Irish Oatmeal,” the cook said.

When I got back home, I tracked down a cannister of McCann’s–I have to admit I was charmed by the container–and began learning how to make steel-cut oats.

For a long time, I was less-than-successful.  I used both sets of directions provided with the oats, the quick, overnight-soak method, and the standard method.  Only rarely was I organized enough to remember the night before that I wanted oatmeal in the morning, and both methods often resulted in oatmeal stuck to the pan.

Within the last year, though, I’ve found Deborah Madison’s recipe, and it works for me, every time.  Three cups water, one cup oats, 3/8 teaspoon salt.  I bring the water to a boil, and add the salt, then then oats. Then I turn the heat down to a simmer, cover the pot, set a timer for 20-25 minutes, and take the dog out.  When we get back inside, I usually have a few minutes to empty the dishwasher, or put on a pot of coffee, before the timer beeps.  Then it’s time to take the pot off the heat, and let it sit, covered, for 10 minutes.

I think the magic of this preparation method is in the last step.  Letting it sit, off the heat, for some reason makes it so that nothing sticks to the sides of the pot.

And the timer just beeped, so it’s time to have breakfast!