Lessons in Festive Project Management

Shortly after the Boy was born on a now distant late-September morning, Brainiac startled me with the declaration that our Christmas tree would henceforth be displayed with a train chug-chug-chugging below. Effective immediately. I didn't grow up with trains around the tree and reached adulthood knowing about the concept in theory but never having given any thought to its application in reality. And then my train-appreciating husband became the father to a train-obsessed little boy (I'm pretty sure that this is where train-appreciating men come from in the first place) and so for the last nine Christmases there has been a train 'neath the tree, as directed.

The methodology in years past has been thus: slap down the track, futz with the engine, throw a bit of glittery fake snow about and call it good. Inevitably the uneven floor beneath the track or the glitter or an overzealous cat would interfere with the arrangement and tears would ensue. Then more futzing, trying to locate the little tube of smoke potion stuff, shimming the track, swearing about "today's alleged craftsmanship and my grandfather's engine never would have..." and yet more futzing and then inevitably disillusionment. A few more tears and Brainiac would declare the train off-limits and there it would sit, gathering resentment as much as dust.


Enough. A few weeks ago father and son were informed that my regrettable lack of oversight to the train process is coming to an end and I am ready to take up a position on the side of attractive as well as functional Christmas railroad operations. Not that I have any overblown expectations of museum-quality displays or the type of thing you get when grown men spend too much time in their parent's basements. No, not at all. My thoughts are merely that if we apply a few standard project lifecycle concepts to the affair we'll end up with something to make everyone happy - a working, touchable, seasonally-appropriate, attractive little show of Yuletide tradition. If, along the way, I ended up with some days' worth of teachable moments, so much the better. Taking a page from my workaday world, I've appointed the Boy as project manager (I, of course, am Management) and given him a brief training on Mandatory Project Activities as they pertain to the Christmas train:

- Project Scheduling
- Needs Assessment
- Requirements Gathering
- Gap Analysis
- Budget Review
- System Development
- User Acceptance Testing
- Stakeholder Acceptance ("Mama, what's a stakeholder?" "Me. It means I have to like the plan." "Oh. So I really have to pay attention to this stuff? Man!")
- Deployment

I'll post the results as the work is completed, along with the hoped-for denouement of a lovely, functional Christmas train. Stay tuned, world.

Drink Pretty Creature

Like many couples, Brainiac and enjoy the occasional evening out sans offspring. Happy hour, with its drink specials and snacky bites, is a particular favorite and we are quite devoted to 25-cent wing nights. Yes, it's true - I of the homemade pickles and organic peach jam can be bought at the low, low cost of a glass of sauvignon blanc and a plate of extra-hot Buffalo wings. I'd be hard pressed to even pretend shame so let's not bother.

Anyway, our recent cocktail culture habits have given rise to a new obsession: bar snacks. In case you lead a completely upstanding life and are unaware, it's not uncommon for bars to put out little bowls of this or that nibble, a salty lagniappe designed to encourage the purchase of yet another refreshing adult beverage. Alert drinkers might notice pretzels or nuts or the like and, in the best establishments, these are not stale (I sometimes suspect the purchase of vast warehouses of, say, bagel chips and have believed on occasion that a snack dating to Ronald Reagan's first term in office is being thrust in my direction. This practice must be discouraged by taking one's custom elsewhere. Life is too short, friends.)

Even when the bar snacks are up to code, we may not be heading out as often as we'd like (see also: the new frugality), preferring to stay in and have pals in for a drink and a bite. The drinks part is easy because, honestly, people just aren't that picky no matter what they claim to the contrary but when it comes to the accompaniments, standards must be kept. The ideal bar snack should 1) be able to be prepared ahead, 2) be served without need of cutlery or, heck, even a napkin, 3) enhance the taste of a wide variety of drinksies and 4) taste great. Hitting all four points is harder than you might expect but by gosh I try.

As I type I'm roasting chick peas seasoned with cayenne, adobo, black pepper and chili powder. The smell is fantastic but early taste tests are not promising. I remain convinced that the method will work, however. Open cans, drain and dry the chick peas, spread in a sprayed, rimmed cookie sheet and roast away at 450 degrees, having sprinkled very generously with whatever flavor seems like it might work. Next try: garam masala and amchuur powder.

I've got a cocktail bug for okra, too. Sliced and dry roasted with similarly prepared hot peppers...I don't know. In my mind it's crispy and blisteringly spiced and completely absent the okra slime factor. Maybe covered in cornmeal? I don't want to mess with frying and being stuck in the kitchen, though, not when I'm supposed to be perched perkily on an ottoman listening to my friend J. hold forth about her very disastrous, painful, and hysterically funny honeymoon (it's o.k., they're still married).

One of my favorite restaurants here nearby the homestead pretty much serves only meat. I know, its insane. Great, though, and I refuse to bend my mind toward even possibly thinking otherwise. This place serves bacon as an appetizer, and it is awesome - thick cut and slow roasted and just as full of umami as you could want. Another restaurant I enjoy sells house-cut bacon cured to order and I might see my way clear to trying to replicate such a snack at home. I've seen variations of brown-sugar bacon or bacon wrapped around whatnot but I think when it's all said and done, the sugar and the whatnots (scallops, artichoke hearts, water chestnuts) are really just excuses to eat bacon and wherever possible I advocate for the elimination of excuses. This, I feel, has promise as a drinks go-along.

Finally, I've also been messing around with papdum, which have the great advantage of being very quick to prepare even though you must fry them. They're so fast that you can cook up an enormous tower of papdum - I like the black pepper and chili varieties - and still have time wipe the counter and change your shirt before the doorbell rings. They stay crispy and are as whispy as angel's breath even has they pack a huge flavorful punch. You can serve them with chutneys but it's not necessary.

None of these snacks costs much - less than a dollar per snacker for very generous portions - or requires much in the way of effort, but all add so much to the experience of sitting and enjoying a laugh with good pals. At the very least you will have spared your friends yet another bowl of chips and salsa. Or, goodness forbid, Reagan-era bagel chips.

Old and Full of Days

I am tired. Like, seriously tired. I could point to any number of reasons why this is so, but I think I'll bump up the most pleasant right to the top of the list: I am tired because I am having too much darn fun. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. To the rest of the possible reasons for my tiredness (work, stress, money, health, diet, schedule, etc., etc., etc.), thank you for your application but the position has already been filled.

Looking at the calendar I can see not a single moment from now until well after New Year's Day when I cannot tell you right now where I will be and what I'll be doing, more or less. I don't mind this terribly much. Surprises and spontaneity are increasingly unpleasant experiences and I am pleased to be able to look ahead a few weeks and know that I need a box of Legos, a rubber frog, pink glitter, a roasted hunk o' beef, a blue t-shirt, a bottle of chocolate stout, or a football-themed sheet cake, and also precisely on which days these are true. Predictability is the order of the day.

With that in mind, the advanced date reminds me that it's time for my annual rant on gift-giving, homemade-edness and celebrations. Or, we can skip it and go for the following instead, my favorite sources and resources for holiday crafting and gifting fun (please note this SPOILER ALERT in the event that you are related and/or are in a gift giving relationship with me):

- Sew Mama Sew has launched its annual Handmade Holidays series of tutorials gathered from all corners of the web. Wonderful inspiration for homemade gifts for nearly any interest or need of which you can think and for just about any skill level. Don't forget to peruse the archives of previous years' series. My nieces and nephews are (probably; see also having lots of fun and near miss on complaining about the calendar) receiving keyrings made of fabric tied (ha!) to their interests and personalities, a project posted two years ago, I think. I'd like to make them the "Don't Get Out of Bed" pants from this year's collection, but I don't think my skills are up to it (yet).

- I am also making up a number of jars of Cowgirl Cookies, except mine won't be Cowgirl Cookies. Follow? What I mean is that I'm making Buffalo Sabres cookies (blue and yellow candies), Dalmatian cookies (black and white candies), UB Bulls cookies (blue and white candies) and so on. That I have a brand spanking new Wegmans grocery at hand, what with their 99 cent 5-lb. bags of flour and bulk candy section makes this fun, easy and inexpensive. I cannot WAIT for my Sabres-obsessed nephew to open his cookie jar and start bugging my sister to bake 'em up right away. That's the kind of aunt I am.

- I have rediscovered ShrinkyDinks, a craft of my childhood. They're back! Who knew? Well, my five-year old knew and now announces with great regularity that she'd like to "shrink some dinks". For holiday gift giving of the aforementioned cookie mixes or jams or spiced honey or dipping sauce, I'll be making little Shrinky Dink tags that can then be saved or put on a tree or whatever. A small tangible reminder of the consumable gift, you know? A search through Microsoft Powerpoint or via Google Images for whatever key word one seeks (Buffalo Sabres, Dumpling, or Honey, for example) will likely yield an embarrassment of traceable riches for coloring and subsequent shrinking (remember, this method is NOT for commercial application, let's not take food off of designers' plates or run regrettably afoul of licensing laws, yes?). I'm no artist and if my tags work out o.k., I'll post some pictures.*

- For your baking pleasure, please see my friend Susie J at Christmas Baking. Every year I say it but it bears repeating: the gingerbread recipe is super-plus fantastic and should all the seasonal merriment makes you sleepy you could do worse than whip up a batch of mokka in response.

- If, like me, you need a gift-giving back up plan and you'd rather it didn't involve traffic, lines, or, heck, even bothering to dress I recommend Etsy and Artfire. I bought a number of gifts from Etsy last year (and in the time since) and have been pleased with each and every one. It can be hard to find what you need or want, and judicious application of key words goes a long way.

- Finally, don't forget YouTube as a source for wildly inventive tutorials on everything from knitting to making candy wreaths to gingerbread house hacks. Expanding my use of the site from nostalgic explorations of both teen-dream and more recent crushes (!) I can profess a legit educational application the type of which I'd heard about but not quite endorsed. I may set my children to work making smaller candy wreaths for their teachers (or at least as much of the wreaths as they will before a ravenous desire for the candy supplies and/or more complaining than I am willing to tolerate set in).

This weekend is the elementary school fund raising auction. Brainiac is feeling very competitive that our contribution of a Scotch-and-Cigar basket (designed to tempt the men away from the spa outings and girls-night-out packages) raises lots of money. For my part, I'm just looking forward to the first event of the rest of the year. With wine.

* Regular readers know better than to count on this. I'm always promising pictures and rarely deliver. Sorry.

Take Note

Take one youth football season (with it's thrice weekly practices and twice weekly games) and throw in with it a long-gestated corporate acquisition the scale of which will haunt me for years, four weeks of some kind of odd, exhausting respiratory illness for three-quarters of the domicile's inhabitants, and the further destructive machinations of another company that I never really did like all that much and what you get is a home cook that just hasn't been feeling it.

My name is Marsha (hello, Marsha) and my kids are eating an awful lot of hot dogs. Sure, they're local, nitrate-free hoity-toity dogs but that only gets you so far when they're on the menu as much as has been recently. Life hasn't been so terribly bad, I don't think, after all it's not as if they haven't been treated to a (swanky)PB&(homemade)J now and then. On bread that has 4 grams of fiber per slice! So there is that. (This is just between us, right?)

In the last day or so something seems to have snapped loose and Brainiac found me last night preparing a shopping list while sitting on the sofa and nearly buried in cookbooks. Some (Bistro Cooking and and the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook) were old friends, some (Make it Fast, Cook it Slow and Modern Spice) were newer favorites. For some reason it seemed terribly important to immerse myself in print rather than bytes for, although I considered running to Epicurious or All Recipes, I couldn't quite drum up the interest in what seemed at the time to be a very sterile, almost transactional, activity. I wanted to hold those books, cross-reference, sticky-mark, note the messages I've left to my future self reminding me to up the borage or leave out the tamarind or cook for ten minutes longer than specified or whatever.

I emerged two or three hours later filled with plans for, well, not hot dogs. Pho! Agrodolce! Amanda Hesser's Pasta with Yogurt! Rice and beans! (Yes, really.) Like the cookbooks that inspired them, so of the dishes on the list are old reliables to which I'm returning after a long break while others will be new adventures. The family is always a little suspicious when I start trying to shake things up (remind me to tell you about my very project-managed midlife crisis some time). As we shopped today and the kids tripped over each other to help pull ingredients off shelves, I talked about each and what we would do with it - the red curry and the walnut oil and the ginger all have a story to tell - and they took my ideas and my list and my recipes and threw back at me their own. Can we make a focaccia or maybe a socca? What about the dolmades? Can we make our own instead of buying from the "tapas bar"?

It looks like there is, indeed, life after hot dogs (and PB&Js).

From the Back of Beyond

I admit that this doesn't look really that great. Tastes good, though, and that's pretty much what we're about Chez Hot Water Bath. These are - or will be - marinated mushrooms (sort of) à la Edon Waycott in Preserving the Taste. I tend not to add the amount of herbs Ms. Waycott recommends, preferring a more basic, and hence flexible, pickle. The idea is the same, though, and I highly recommend you get your hands on the book and mix up a batch as soon as possible. Since I'm the only person in my house who will consent to eat mushrooms of any kind for any reason (although they do occasionally eat them without their consent - I have excellent knife skills*) eight or ten half-pint jars will serve me well for the winter as long as have the willpower to refrain from opening one until at least Thanksgiving (that's the end of November for the non-U.S. among us - Hi Uzbekistan!).

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran one of what I've come to think of as OHMIGOSH! It's still possible to can at home! articles. I am greatly amused by the breathless tone of these pieces but cannot stop myself from reading. This one is better than most and I recommend a perusal if you've got the time. For one thing, it contains practical advise and recipes. For another, the author manages to avoid reaching for the we're-so-hip-and-retro paintbrush.

This is a holiday weekend here in the U.S., three days when we're to be honoring and thinking about the laborers who sweated and toiled in the building of the nation. Many of us celebrate by heading to the beach or the mountains or staying home with barbecue tongs in hand. For my part, I'm looking at some raspberries that are fairly crying out to be made into jam. It may not be quite what the originators of the observance had in mind, but I promise that I'll be sweating and toiling in its making.

It's good to be back. For the record, bloggy friends, AppleCare was spectacular, if a bit disorganized, in the replacing of our damaged keyboard. Would that I could place a few non-computer issues on their capable shoulders.

* There are entire books revolving around how to hide this or that dreaded ingredient in somesuch more easily acceptable dish. Generally speaking, I don't love the idea of, say, spinach puree in my brownies. That said, there are certain recipes that everyone in this house loves - bigos, for one, and my vegetarian Bolognese sauce - but would fall completely flat without a good healthy half-pound or so of mushrooms. I am unrepentant on this point.

Jezebel Cannerbel

Online mag Jezebel published a first-person essay on canning today, prompting a very long and hugely entertaining comments thread. It's hard to say where readers are coming down on canning, pro or con, after the author's unequivocal stance of anti-.

Go, read, enjoy. Then come back and share your thoughts. The most thrilling aspect of the discussion to me is that so many people had experiences to relate - either they were intimately involved in a canning project or have known and loved others who were. And, truthfully, although the stories of canning-gone-wrong made me cringe a bit (I feel a certain amount of pressure to relate only success stories but goodness knows I hear of/experience my share of failures) they're mostly pretty funny. I wonder if I'd ever gone through with the ill-conceived Orangina project if I'd make someone laugh as hard as I have reading some of these. It's almost worth trying again to find out.

Not Tonight Dear

All weekend I mulled a new post, a kind of What I Did Over Summer Vacation, wherein I planned to detail this year's pickled mushrooms (splendid), the sweet cherries (ten pints of pure sunshine) and perhaps do a little mourning over my tomatoes, newly beset by blight as they are.*

Instead I am indulging in a fit of crankiness brought on by a short but spectacular storm that has left us with sub-optimal media and internet conditions and which came on the heals of a plumbing challenge (read:  leak from upstairs into the downstairs and all over my desk) which left the one totally reliable computer with a keyboard that no longer recognizes commas, the numbers 1, 4, and 7 or the letter K.  Tomatoes aren't the only things blighted around here.

So.  Will return.

* The blight situation brings into stark relief a point I've made a time or two about canning's value proposition.  If I have to purchase tomatoes for preserving when commercial options are available for around a dollar a can, what should I consider to be a break even?  Or should I even care when by purchasing I've supported a local farmer, giving her the means by which to combat the blight and make our 'hood safe for nightshades once again?  But then if I add in the energy costs and lids and time and...whatever.  I'll probably buy at least some tomatoes to make the less plain items - your salsas, your roasted veggie sauces, and so on - and buy my regular old diced specimens (the price of which seems likely to be somewhat more than a dollar darn tootin' soon) at the grocery.  With the decision at hand for many of us, I'll ask you to be honest about the costs and rewards...and not to forget to factor in your own enjoyment.  Surely it is worth something, yes?

Carrots, Green Beans and Peas, oh my!

It's that time of year again, friends, when I take a break from kitchen and kettle to issue a public service announcement concerning the hot water bath processing of (in order of the number of questions I receive about them) carrots, green beans and peas.

Ready? There is no safe, recommended water bath processing time for non-pickled carrots, green beans or peas (and other non-acidic garden vegetables). If you are looking to can regular old plain veggies - a fine and noble activity - you're going to want a pressure canner and the recommendations of the good folks at the USDA. Pickled vegetables are another matter entirely and you can safely go about putting up quart after quart of dilly beans or pickled carrot coins for as long as your vinegar supply holds out.

For now I'm concentrating on pickling mushrooms and avoiding the siren call of raspberry jam. What's in your water bath these days?

Summer In the Kitchen (or Not)

Laurie Colwin related in her delightful cooking memoir Home Cooking the story of a friend who wondered about the herald-of-spring quality in the picnic staged by students at the seminary across the street from Colwin's apartment. "What is it about Episcopalians," the friend asked. "Is it their genes to barbecue?"

I think that when the friend in the story said barbecue she meant grill, although I cannot say for sure because I knew neither party to the conversation. The key to understanding what she meant, I suppose, is knowing whether or not the noun or verb form of barbecue was meant. Given the context, this Episcopalian is going with the verb and is very happy to do so. Grilling may not be in my genes but it's certainly among my preferences for getting good food on the table with a minimum of fuss, a maximum of flavor, avoidance of burgers and dogs where possible, and leaving ample time to pursue some of the other great joys of summer (swimming, gardening, sitting on the back porch watching fireflies, and - shocker! - canning).

In the warmer months, I rely upon three tools (a grill basket, a small cookie sheet that was perhaps meant for a toaster oven, and a set of skewers), a selection of condiments (if you're wondering what on earth made you concoct a batch of jerk sauce now you know) and two bread products (8 inch flour tortillas and garlic bread). From this modest list of necessities, great things can be achieved.

The basket can hold diced potatoes or cauliflower spears or mushrooms or whatever. Sprinkled with a bit of olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and/or some of that Adobo spice stuff (the bitter orange is really great) and plunked right on the grill, you've got a side dish fit for all comers. The skewers make short work of cooking any combination of meats/fish or veggies, all marinated overnight in Chiavetta's Italian Dressing or the jerk sauce (or even the Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce). Thread 'em up and put them right next to the basket. They'll cook in minutes in a well-heated grill.

The teeny cookie sheet holds more fragile veggies - zucchini ribbons, say, or maybe red onion strings - salted and peppered and sprinkled with a spare amount of red wine vinegar (or that cheapie balsamic stuff in the green bottle). That, too, can go right on the grill. As for the bread, wrapped in foil (or not), either tortillas or garlic bread will warm sufficiently within minutes.

And that's dinner, prepared and served in roughly 40 minutes, with little cleanup in terms of pots and pans (the foil, once cooled, can be rinsed and used again and again and...). Salsa or steak sauce (Helen Witty has a recipe I've been meaning to try) are nice, as is a bit of yogurt with mango pickle or diced hot peppers. If I've got some good fruit, I might add a bowl or maybe a plate of sliced tomatoes and cheese for company, but these are frills and not at all necessary. A glass of wine, however, improves even this wonderful meal immeasurably.

When the dishes are cleared away and the minor post-dinner cleaning chores are done, it's no small gift have time to spare, something that I suspect even the grilling-suspicious Laurie Colwin and her friend would understand.

The Reason For It All...

...or at least most of the reason for most of it all.

We had these pictures taken last fall to capture what seemed to be an almost magical time. The children were in that wonderful in-between state of needing and independence, not so old as to want to shrug away from publicly-offered hugs and not so young as to require constant and exhausting vigilance. Despite my personal fondness for near countless throngs in the next generation I am not exactly comfortable with actual babies (mine included, regrettably). I do toddlers really well, though, and preschoolers and I get along famously.

Now that we're halfway through the Boy's elementary school experience and the Girl has been promoted from pre-K, rendering my preschool parent days well behind me, I am almost eager for the next era. I hope that in my excitement I don't forget to remember this time when it seemed we'd be this way forever.

Not a NY Times Review Site

So, yes, that canning article was pretty interesting, no? I loved the inclusion of Edon Waycott, the woman who acted as my canning gateway drug so many years ago (and who, honestly, covered the same territory as the piece's focus but better and first) and the mention of community-based preserving co-ops. Lovely! And, like Ace Commenter Catherine I appreciated the nod to resisting the temptation to profile home canning as the next big retro craze.

I did chafe at the bit about canning being a "quasi-political act" if only because there is little more polarizing in our world than politics and even people who share wide swaths of common ground fall out all too easily when politics are brought into the act. You like to make jam, your neighbor also likes to make jam and although you may make it for different, unfathomable-to-each-other reasons (perhaps you're a locavore while he's feverishly preparing for the zombie apocalypse, say) make it together anyway. You might find lots of stuff will taste better as a result.

In other New York Times news, I was fascinated by a recent Op-Ed concerning Michelle Obama's off-the-cuff remarks that, now living in the White House, she doesn't miss cooking. Now, I adore the piece's author, Amanda Hesser, and have gone to great lengths to defend her whenever the opportunity arises (you'd may be surprised how often this actually happens, it's strange the lightening she attracts). But! I think she's off base on this one.

Not that she didn't touch on the right notes. Frugality, health, self-reliance all get shout outs, and rightly so. And I've said often enough (here and here and here and here) that I bemoan the current state of family cooking and wish more kids could be lured into the kitchen, of which the happy byproduct would be less of a burden (yes, Amanda, even for someone who loves to cook the process can be a chore) for the one person who usually finds herself with the job. (For the record, Michelle Obama and I both have two children, full-time jobs - although I'm willing to cop to the fact that hers is a wee bit more demanding than mine - and husbands whose work takes them out of the house more often than not. There the comparison of our lives breaks down - I rarely travel, I have near complete privacy and I seldom am held up as a role model of anything but, still, if someone offered me a highly trained chef to "help" on a daily basis I would require less than a heartbeat to accept. And I really like cooking.)

I don't think this is really Michelle Obama's fight. As much as I share the desire for a very charismatic roll model showing families the way back into the kitchen together, I don't think the solution is to tsk-tsk women who admit that it's just not their thing. Moreover, reading that Obama's well-documented toned arms somehow prepare her for whisking duty leaves me with the same faint queasy feeling I get whenever I hear someone demand of my very tall brother-in-law why he never played basketball. Poor form, that.

And? I'm uncomfortable with the idea that there is one way to be First Lady. Is it really so hard to work with the idea that First Ladies, just like us regular, er, ladies will come with some variety?

Finally, and on a completely different topic, I've been for some time mulling a post about my enduring but conflicted love for All Recipes. Enduring because I almost always find a good starting point for whatever it is I've got a notion to make. From flourless chocolate cake to fish tacos, All Recipes has never let me down. Conflicted because, my word, is there any other site out there which has user reviews so consistently useless (if entertaining)?

Turns out I don't have to write that post because the New York Times did it a little over two years ago,making all the points I'd make if I were going to write about it, which I nearly did but now won't. Go read the article instead. Very entertaining.

No Quote From Me?

The New York Times has an article about canning today. I haven't read it yet (making breakfast, getting dressed, etc.) but will. Do the same and come back to tell me what you thought?

Not Too Far From the Tree

Yesterday when the Boy asked, after spying a cello carton of basil, if we could make a pesto for lunch I was tempted to demur. “Basil’s not in season here yet,” I might have said. “This carton came all the way from California.” Or maybe I could have appealed to the his inclination to be more frugal than I with “You know, we could buy two whole basil starts for the same price. Can you wait until July for your pesto?”

Fortunately, good sense carried the day and I recognized that that my son, bless his heart, 1) saw and recognized basil in a container that did not actually say basil, 2) remembered that basil is a key component in a traditional pesto and 3) did not ask me to make him pesto for lunch but rather asked if we could make it together and 4) unlike many of his pals, will actually eat something that doesn’t actually look all that great (green + slimy is so attractive to eight year old boys in so many ways but why not in the form of food?). After only a moment’s prevarication, I decided that these points ought to be rewarded. We bought the basil.


His job: everything. He stemmed, rinsed and dried the greens, shredded the cheese and figured out proportions of nuts, garlic, oil, salt and pepper, grinding and tasting his way to a rather nice sauce.



A mom could get used to this. And if it's true what some guy in the New York Times said about pesto maybe being a wee bit less than au courant, I suggest humbly that he run out at the earliest opportunity to find himself an unjaded eight year old for whom pesto is less a cultural touchstone and more just a delicious lunch he can make (mostly) by himself.

I've just sung the last song of our increasingly elaborate bedtime ritual and have used my most lovingly stern voice to remind my cherubs of our shared interests in their staying in bed for the night. With that, a glass of wine and a bit of surfing I'll end my own day, a tiring (if pleasant) one that as capped off an amazingly exhausting five day stretch.

If there are any words that are beginning to terrorize me more than, say, anything that the news can drum up, they would have to be preschool rummage sale. Held in the church with which the school is affiliated, the annual sale is an epic event demanding superhuman effort on the part of half a dozen volunteers and the vast inconveniencing of an additional score. Moving a couple hundred chairs, a grand piano, bell tables and assorted altar furniture in and out of the worship space and in between holding court as several hundred shoppers poked, picked and peaked around the thousands of donated items for sale which had been sorted and tagged during the preceding five nights, well, it's enough to tire a girl out. And make her sore in all kinds of not-usually so used places.

The sale was successful so the tiredness is abundantly worthwhile. Our scholarship fund is newly plumped and community bonds are strengthened so you'll hear no complaints from me. That I was able to score a brand new Sookie Stackhouse box set of the first seven Southern Vampire Mystery books for a single U.S. dollar is icing on the rummage cake.

There seems like there's a ton more I ought to share - the linen-ish skirt I've nearly finished sewing for myself, the daisy-bedecked sundress made for the Girl, recent cooking adventures with the kids (the Boy can now make pancakes more or less on his own, shocking me tremendously...if he can feed himself reasonably well, I am very nearly obsolete, yes?), my delight that strawberry season is upon us and my increasingly desperate search for a humdinger birthday present for Brainiac. For now, though, sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

Go On, Make Me Happy

The word "things" can be made to be so ugly. Especially in times such as ours when the notion of taking a shine to material goods is used as shorthand for those sorts of people who aren't as enlightened as we, those who haven't embraced the simple joys so much more appropriate to difficult times. (See also: my belief that people who want me to stop "coloring within the lines" really just want me to start coloring within their lines, or "why my acquisitive/religious/literary/residential/educational choices are more authentic and spiritually/economically/morally/environmentally/socially sound than yours".) Whatever. I don't much care. We've all got enough on our plates and surely enough to worry about without having to parse and/or footnote that which brings the joy, yes?

Today was a difficult day in the middle of a not-so-pleasant week in what just might turn out to be a year of notable disquiet. Do I dwell? No. Instead I visit my happy place, which is currently stocked with the following things:


1. OPI's "Baby It's Coal Outside"
2. The Hothouse Flowers
3. Pansies
4. Rose's Lime Juice
5. Pink glitter
6. The novels of Victoria Dahl, Jo Goodman and Sherry Thomas. Oh, and Georgette Heyer
7. Really thick ecru writing paper
8. Needlepoint pillows
9. Lemon oil
10. Rose Poivree
11. The Book of Common Prayer
12. Blackberry jam
13. Picking the first tomato
14. My monogram (MJW or MWJ in case you want to buy me something)
15. That I am the fifth generation to use "my" lusterware tea service
16. Filling Christmas stockings
17. Swimming laps
18. Folding laundry
19. That Nine West shoes fit me without having to try on
20. My friend Jen's taco dip
21. Pretty cocktail napkins
22. Almond paste
23. The way Brainiac and I hardly have to talk to have a conversation
24. Easter hats on little girls
25. My kids' love of crayons
26. Tea, iced or hot
27. My car's seat warmer
28. My old Laura Ashley catalogs
29. The picture of a German Shepherd that I drew in 7th grade
30. The idea of a brocade and velvet skirt I'd like to sew for myself

There. That's better. What's in your happy place?

Togetherness

We're fixin' to take the pressure canner for a spin this weekend. It will be interesting doing a canning project with Brainiac. Not that he's not usually involved to some degree, if only to calmly listen while I complain about all the tomatoes or peppers or...but this time I want him pretty close by. An inaugural run of any new equipment that involves buttons, a power source, gauges or instruction manuals of any level of complexity is boundto have me too jittery to think clearly. His sciencey, rational demeanor will do be good this first time out.

To prepare I've concocted what looks in the fridge to be a lifetime supply of chicken broth. In reality it's probably less than a month's worth, since it and veggie broth are staples around here. I find store-bought broth to be perfectly acceptable but making my own appeals to my inner frugalista, that secret corner of my personality that freezes carrot peelings.

Yes, it's true. My method for broth making is simple: freeze chicken carcasses (we have a roasted chicken maybe every other month) and also freeze veggie peelings from carrots, onions and the like (including also celery tops, onion sprouts and garlic that's a bit past it's prime). So now you've got chicken(s) and an ever-filling container of veggies. Eventually the twain shall meet and you can 'em all in a pot with water and a couple peppercorns to make broth. Easy as pot pie.

In times recently gone by I'd freeze the broth. With the acquisition of the pressure canner we'll be able to keep the broth while also preserving precious freezer space for something else. Excellent.

Now, I realize that on the face of it, all this is kind of silly. Freezing already-cooked (chicken) or processed (veggies) stuff only to cook it into something else and then process it for storage when more broth than I could ever use is on offer at a perfectly nice store not five miles from me...well, yeah. Silly. That's not the point. Not my point, anyway (although I know it may well be the point for you) and I'm o.k. with that. I like not wasting perfectly good raw materials and knowing what's in the food on my shelves. Realistically, I can't do that for everything but where I can (ha! can? get it?), I will.

The Best Sauce

If my kitchen smells a bit peculiar at the moment, it's only because I embracing a notion to be productive. The oven is packed with a peach-blueberry crisp, chocolate chip muffins and a pumpkin pie while the stove top entertains my largest stockpot simmering the makings for chicken broth (for pressure canning experiments) and a bit of roasted veggie pasta sauce. The aroma around here isn't bad, just strange.

Some of these will find their ways to friends' houses and others are meant for us here at home, but what almost all have in common is that they would not have been possible today had I not canned, frozen or otherwise stored the key ingredients months ago. I haven't been able to do any food shopping for almost three weeks and not for the first time am I thankful for spending the time I do stocking our pantry. Remind me of this, will you, when come late summer I complain about drowning in apples or tomatoes or whatever is vexing me at that moment?

The fruit crisp is our dinner party offering. I rashly promised to bring dessert without actually thinking about what I might produce. With the day upon me, I peered into cupboard and freezer until - a ha! - inspiration struck in the form of two bags of frozen blueberries to pair with a pint of canned peaches. A quick crumble on top and off we go. I love fruit crisps hot, warm or cold, with cream or without and will take almost any opportunity to share my devotion. If peach is good and blueberry is better, surely together they'll be fantastic, right? Let us hope.

The roasted veggie sauce is saving tomorrow's lunch. I've got some wagon wheel pasta on hand - my favorite for brown bagging because they don't have to be cut, twirled or slurped - but no commercial sauce. No problem. I pulled a pint of the roasted veggie sauce off the shelf, poured in a half a cup of leftover merlot and just like that, there's tomorrow's lunch.

These are just two examples of the sheer convenience of having a stock of homemade convenience foods. On other recent days I've opened salsa for snacks, pickles to brighten a plain meal, and diced tomatoes for dirty rice. Blackberry jam filled thumbprint cookies made to cheer a friend, while tomolives graced more than one martini glass. In nearly three weeks of what I had thought of as sub-optimal food procurement I've been astonished again and again by how little we actually needed and missed.

Even while I extol the virtues of home canning, though, I have to confess that it's true that similar benefits could be had with careful shopping for commercial goods. Still, I think we can't overlook the empowerment that taking more charge of one's food brings. I know the origin of every ingredient in every jar I opened, hugged the people that stood beside me filling them, pint after pint after pint.

This week the pantry associated with the local medical clinic put out a call for assistance, looking to fill their rapidly dwindling stocks. With three weeks of near-zero food-related expenditures thanks to decisions we made six or seven months ago, my family's mandate is abundantly clear.

What an extraordinary privilege.

Quiz Show

Like many folks these days, Brainiac and I are trying to be more mindful in how we spend our increasingly limited discretionary cash. Some changes were a long time coming and we're grateful to have the kick in the pants to take care of them. Other fiscal adjustments are more nuanced and may not even look like much to the outside observer but are making quite an impact to us personally (I recently learned that I can buy four bottles of nail polish for the cost of one manicure! Laugh if you must, I will merely smile the smug smile of someone whose nails look fantastic at a fraction of the usual cost + a bottle of Seche Vite). For shorthand we might call these line items NO and MAYBE.

We have a third category, let's call it YES, in which we have, if anything, expanded our spending. You might think of it as covering anything which could be considered tool-like. Under this rather large umbrella we placed things like chain saw (although now unnecessary because Brainiac trashed picked and repaired one from a nearby posh 'hood's curb - can you say score?), printer ink, drying rack(s) and so on (I should point out that the YES list isn't really a license to spend, it's really more a wishlist of practical items for which we are willing to exchange actual money, although we hope the situation doesn't actually come to that). Anyway, last week I indulged my inner spendinista in a highly responsible way by purchasing an item off of the YES list. What did I buy? How about a quiz? I'll give you three hints. My purchase:

1) Relates to the, uh, theme of this here blog,

2) Requires me to read a gauge (Brainiac cracks up at this one), and

3) Enables me to can non-acidic foods like broths or plain green beans.

So what do you think I bought? Oh, here's a bonus fourth hint: It just might be more fun that all those bottles of nail polish.

Red Beans and Ricely Yours

Lately I've noticed a steep uptick in the number of people brought to my little interwebby home with searches on things like "Dave Ramsey rice beans" or "beans and rice rice and beans" or even "ramsey bean rice do i have to" (yes, really). In the year and a half since I posted my thoughts on the subject of Mr. Ramsey's dietary recommendations the hits have been steady, if not numerous. A few a week, here and there, with the occasional e-mailed question of what, exactly, did I mean by paneer or how dare I compare the man to Martha Stewart. All very workaday. In the last month those weekly few have turned into a daily few dozen.

It's not hard to understand why. Some folks are getting serious about their personal debt load and are embracing Dave Ramsey's methods for coping with and eliminating it. Others are just trying to figure out how to put a decent meal on the table while using as few of their scarce dollars as possible. One doesn't have to be an, ahem, news analyst to make sense of their interest in Ramsey's anti-debt empire or his ever-so-catchy admonishment.

To the extent that my referrals are economic coalmine canaries (o.k., they aren't at all, but go with me, yes?) there's more that brings me pause. The same day that CNN.com posted an article about white-collar, educated, professional folks utilizing foodbanks in California I received two separate e-mails and perhaps half a dozen hits all asking essentially the same question: can home canning help me feed my family cheaply.

Leaving aside the many unpalatable issues brought to bear in the CNN.com article - and I believe there are many besides the regrettable fact that people are hungry - it, the e-mails and referrals all underscore a key point that I've made before (here and here and here) and which I am going to make again right now. Knowing how to cook, how to can and even the basics of shopping for food are not luxuries, they are shields against all manner of weapons. Choosing a steady diet of rice and beans for any reason can be a grand and noble thing, but better if one can do it in a way that doesn't feel like a punishment or, worse, a consequence for decisions made in meeting rooms in far away cities by people never encountered. If one knows how to cook, there is endless (frugal) variety and pleasure to be found in beans and rice. If one knows how to shop for ingredients and is able to use them, the household impact of ever-increasing costs for pop tarts or boxed soup mix or anything else might be diminished (although admittedly not eliminated - there are limits, after all).

The talking heads have been agog at their wondering what the economy might mean for family life. Might people entertain at home more? Throw less elaborate home parties for birthdays? Vacation closer to home, camping perhaps? I suppose any or all of this is possible (although I remember the early-90s recession-influenced fashion of flannel and tightwadery didn't last all that long, did it?) I'd like to throw another possibility out there.

Maybe we'll learn to cook. For real, like with cutting and mixing and applying heat and measuring. Maybe we'll learn to do it with our kids, filling their metaphorical toolbox with the skills they'll need to be not as vulnerable as their parents to the vagaries and whims of large corporations. Maybe we'll be more ant-like, shunning our internal grasshopper voices to pick fruit and make jam, even when the day returns that we don't have to. Maybe we'll do it because it's a good thing to learn to do with our families, working together side by side to feed ourselves and each other. Maybe.

And to answer the question, yes, it's possible that preserving food at home can contribute to a lower grocery bill. For all of you who asked, I hope you found what you're looking for in your search here. Stick around and we'll learn even more together. As with most things, cooking and canning are more fun with friends.

Spiced Honey, At Long Last

Spiced honey falls under "not really thrifty, but cheaper than in a store" category of home food preserving. A frugal indulgence, if you will. One can pay a pretty penny for a very similar commercial product, but spicing and canning honey at home is so easy and it's such a perfect winter canning project that it would be a shame not to try it at least once.


There are those who believe that cloves and cinnamon sticks are the order of the day. Purists adhere to one or the other. I say go big or go home and load up on star anise. Beautiful, aromatic and delicious, star anise adds an ever-so-slightly licorice flavor to the honey alongside an indefinable what is that that lends the whole affair a decidedly mysterious bent.

I buy honey from a hobbyist-turned-microfarmer who lives a few miles down the road from me. If you can, try to find someone close by your neck of the woods from whom you can do the same. We're all a little spooked by the dying bees thing and, whatever the cause of the trouble, we'll all do well to help however we can. This does not mean that I believe you're disqualified from spiced honey if you can't locate a local provider. Not at all. File it under "trying" and carry on as best you can. This is supposed to be fun, not guilt-inducing.

So. You've got your honey, about 2 pounds of it, I'd say. All you need next is a bit of citrus juice, maybe a tablespoon, and some kind of spice. Lemon is canon, but I also like lime and what I've got tonight is a pink grapefruit (from my grandmother's tree! wheee! I love grapefruit) so that's what I'm using. For the spice, do what you will. You don't need a lot of it because you'll be infusing the flavor and don't have to include the spices themselves in the jar (unless you want to - the effect can be lovely).

Combine all your ingredients into a saucepan and warm over low-to-medium heat, stirring frequently. Keep on like this, tasting liberally, until you get something you like. Then jar according to the directions on the box, straining the spices out and leaving half an inch of head space, and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. If you have an odd amount that's too small to process, strain it into a clean jar and put it in the fridge. The honey will crystallize, but will be perfectly good for spooning into a beverage or spreading onto toast.


That's it. For maybe 15 minutes of hands-on time you've been rewarded with a few jars of pure sunshiney gold, not to mention a few tricks you can change up and switch around depending upon your mood the next time. And I can't imagine how there wouldn't be a next time.

I used half-pints tonight since I'm embracing honey-based selfishness with these and don't intend to share (but probably will anyway). For gifting I might go with quarter-pints (you know, those teeny tiny jam jars) and pair with some white tea or a loaf of really good white bread. If you've got a sick friend, a jar coupled with a small bottle of brandy and a new tea cup probably wouldn't go amiss. If you hang with unrepentant sweet mongers, then spoons are probably the best accompaniments.


But you didn't hear it from me.

Birdie Call

For four mornings running I awoke to the sounds of birds singing and emerged from my bed with thoughts of spring and sunshine on my mind. What I actually discovered was...something else entirely. We are still mired in the grey and gloom so characteristic of this month and have also enjoyed a few freeze/thaw/rain cycles which have gifted us with significant mud to boot. Not exactly what those singing birds promised. Maybe I dreamed of them? It wouldn't be the first time my delusions came with aural manifestations.

Still. Spring may be some time away yet but a girl's got to plan. In odd moments I'll jot a recipe here, an idea for a new hot pepper garden there or a maybe a reminder to buy gingham for sundresses on the corner of an invoice. I've found myself daydreaming of blackberry picking while, say, in a meeting most definitely not about such things. Last summer I didn't have nearly as much fun as I might have and I am determined to right that old wrong. Bread will be baked! Flowers will be planted! That old annoying yew? The dying/dead one? Along the front walk? Will be removed!

Work will be nuts, of course, with the news that my employer, an enormous company, is being bought by an even bigger one. What will this mean? I have no idea. There are the usual family worries, well worn, plus a few new ones that I'd just as soon not visit us. But there they are nonetheless. There will be bills and deadlines and annoyances in spades - things that make it all too easy to retreat from personal plans and goals. I will have to work hard to remind myself that the sun still will come up regardless of my employment status, the birds (not imagined ones, at that) will sing no matter how many meetings on my calendar and that gingham sundresses for one's daughter don't exactly sew themselves even when the family is completely happy and hale. I will have to work to remember that the meetings and expenses and errands and sorrow will always be with us, in one form or another, and that it's my responsibility to give them no more due than absolutely required.

Easy promises to make, harder to keep. I'd better get started.

The March Hare

I am not going to belabor how much I hate February. I refuse. I will only say that for a short month is has a heck of a long list of offenses to answer for. How does one month become so terrifically ambitious in the dismay and mayhem department? It boggles the mind.

Beyond the regular old economic news which, honestly, is like background noise at this point (futures? oil? jobs? it's all almost quaint) my own rather quotidian worries have been rather rapidly overtaken by events that, if made into a movie or a book, no one would ever believe. Typical of my incredible good fortune, these things don't happen to me, rather they happen around me, to those to whom I am to closest. I'd rather they didn't happen at all, of course, but I suppose that's an unrealizable request.

On Friday, when news of the crash of Flight 3407 started filtering into the news, friends and colleagues started saying things like, "Oh, I heard Buffalo and thought about your family but then realized that the town isn't that small What are the odds?" My response? You'd be surprised.

Clarence Center is a difficult place to describe to suburbanites accustomed to towns that run into one another in one unceasing flow of buildings and cars. Clarence Center abuts my hometown of Williamsville, New York, more or less. In between the towns there is a ruralish, sparsely-populated area and then you come to the hamlet of Clarence Center. Three, maybe four blocks long, there's a church, a coffee house, a gift shop, a bank and a firehouse. And an elementary school. The cross streets - the few of them there are - are almost entirely residential but for a contractor here or a day care center there. It's a short drive out of town into the horse, dairy and green bean farms. It's the kind of town people think about when they talk about those all-American places that Norman Rockwell might have painted.

It's surreal enough that a place I know so well, even after being away longer than I lived there as a child, was involved in something so awful and completely random and weird. The thing is, my sister lives in Clarence Center, about 100 yards from the single house that was destroyed. She now shows identification to a sheriff's deputy to return to her home after work or errands. She has described the smell in the air, one that promises to get worse before it gets better. My niece takes cover under the dining room table when a plane or helicopter is heard in the sky (just a few miles from the airport, this is not an infrequent event). The good men of the firehouse next door are doing their best to assist the federal departments that have descended, trying to do what they can before the next snow blows in mid-week.

My sister, and the town, are hurting. Survivor guilt is the talk of the day and veterans in the area speak knowingly of PTSD. There's little I can do but be as understanding as possible in that thoroughly insufficient way of someone who isn't there, hearing the crackles of the still-smoldering fire, who isn't organizing grief counseling for the many school kids who live on that block, who isn't wondering how to begin to talk about something so totally, horrifyingly random and from which there is no protection.

The Last of the Car Posts (I swear)

So Brainiac has this new GPS thing. I wasn't exactly what you'd call supportive of the purchase but instead of arguing or getting all logicky with him ("But, honey, we don't actually go new places" or "But, honey, our own home can't even be found with the device so how much utility could it actually have?") I decided to just keep my mouth shut and let the poor man follow his geosynchronous bliss.

Shows what great ideas I have.

There is now a little black box perched on my car's dash. The kids have named the little black box Mrs. Ashi (yes, the box gets an honorific. me? I am almost always referred to as "she") and I am NOT allowed to speak over her clipped guidance. In case it's not clear, let me spell it out: Mrs. Ashi is allowed to speak her piece while I am routinely talked over and argued with. And! The Boy knows enough about maps and direction in general (plus, we do go to the same places over and over again) to know when I am not doing what Mrs. Ashi has instructed me to do and he is vocal in his dismay. It's humiliating. Of course, if I could get anywhere without being lost perhaps I wouldn't be in this situation.

It's not really my fault, though. I live in a place where, within just a few miles of my house, one can find the following roads: Valley, Old Valley, North Valley, Valley Hill, Valley Creek, Valley Forge, Old Valley Forge, South Valley, Valley Park and Orchard Valley. A little farther afield we can find even more variations on this theme (and, by the way, type "valley" enough and it stops looking right). How on earth is anyone supposed to have any directional sense in such an environment is completely beyond me.

The rest of the family is devoted to Mrs. Ashi even as I question her utility so I am trying to be welcoming. I suspect that if Mrs. Ashi were to develop opposable thumbs, an interest in marathon sessions of Shoots and Ladders and learned how to order a pizza I might be replaced altogether.

Automotive Ennui

So, you remember the car that caught fire, right? Although the manufacturer took care of the situation and expressed great dismay for our plight, we thought perhaps we ought to consider a replacement vehicle. This isn't a decision made lightly, of course; besides very compelling macroeconomic concerns there is also the very simple matter of my consuming resentment of almost any amount of money spent on automotive requirements. I really, really, really hate parting with even the smallest sums on cars or their maintenance and this, you might understand, interferes somewhat with the car buying process. How it came to pass that I married a man who loves nothing more than to tinker on, shop for, or talk about cars is a mystery for the ages. It's probably true that we create many of our own challenges, don't you think?

I've been playing along with the whole new (to us) car idea because I take a pretty dim view of the whole catching-fire-while-driving thing. The dimness of the view shifts a bit when presented with the costs of automotive acquisition and I don't know where we'll end up with it. Since I first offered a tentative agreement that a new car would be a good idea Brainiac has probably visited every dealership within a 20 mile drive. To say he's excited is a gross misrepresentation and I feel a little bit the killjoy when I remind him that despite my consent I'm not that happy about it and I'll probably be a little miserable about the whole thing. For a while. Poor guy, but I can't fake this. You either feel the car thing or you don't, and I don't.

I especially didn't feel it when Brainiac called to tell me one day that he'd been in an accident with the other car on his way to work. Some guy tried to occupy the same space as he, it seems, and physics being what it is, they collided and now we've got the thread of totaling hanging over the car we had hoped to keep. It's really more than I can bear. One new car? With medication, therapy and a few bottles of wine I might see my way clear to becoming fully functional again someday.

Two new cars? Excuse me while I go to my Happy Place, if only virtually. I'd visit in person but I'm afraid I'd have to drive.

The Old Gray Mare

I suppose by now you've come to the same conclusion as I. It's true, I'm the worst blogger ever. I make bloggy promises and walk away, drop philosophical anvils and scoot, post idly about plans for fun little themed series and pfft. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, not to be relied upon, blog-wise.

It wasn't always thus. Hot Water Bath has been around now for nearly seven years (that's, like, 49 in blog years) and my words here have been much of a journal as I've ever kept. It occurred to me recently, though, that part of the challenge to my ability to keep posting as I used to is precisely that the longevity is working against me. My life isn't the same as it was when I started but I keep trying to post about the same sorts of things as always. Clearly that idea is a non-starter.

So where does leave us? I don't know. Let's take a leaf from my workaday life and do a bit of an analytical exercise, shall we?

Marsha's Life

Year: 2002	Year: 2005	Year: 2009	Advantage
loves house	hates house	loves house	2009
town o.k.	town tiresome	town awesome	2009
no time to read	serious reading	vamps in lurve!	2009
canning = hobby	canning = duty	canning = diversionary	2009

See what I mean? I could go on: For a long time I believed that I could save the world by shopping at a farm market. Now it's more like, "eh, buy your kale and move along, lady, there's a line forming". I used to bake a lot more, but now I rely on a few standby items that I can make with my eyes closed, thereby freeing up time for polishing my nails (oh, how I love this new OPI color I scored on my birthday) or sitting on the back porch with Brainiac and sharing a cigar. My life has changed so it's only fitting that my blog should, too.

I need to consider things a little more before I go off and make tons of changes but I think I can safely say that things might be a wee bit different soon. I understand now that I, myself, am a whole lot different and I'm going to be dragging the blog alongside. Tally ho!