Miscellaneous Kitchen Wizardry

As a kitchen-clueless bride many eons ago, the Crock-Pot promised to become my rotund angel-of-a-savior.  Throwing cheap meat and a few handfuls of veggies into its mouth at 10:00 a.m. and returning to eat at 6:00 p.m. fit my style nicely.

However, a small problem erupted almost immediately.  I abhorred the greasy, mushy potatoes and carrots surrounding my chuck roast – a tough hunk that usually took all day to tenderize.  Yuck.  I used the Pot successfully and happily for things like chili or baked beans, but otherwise it fell from grace.  For the most part, it spent the last couple of decades isolated in solitary confinement – way back in the corner of the cabinet behind the silvery stainless pans that maintained their front-and-center spots. 

However, I recently dragged out the old Crock-Pot (yes, the same 41-year-old one with its chipped lid and drip-stained sides) in order to experiment for the sake of a family member looking for main-dish ideas.  And in the process of experimentation, I discovered interesting recipe ideas online that put my previous limited chuck-and-veggies mindset to shame.  Like Vegetarian Red Beans and Rice. Tilapia Pockets. Sausage and Cabbage Stew.  Salmon with Carmelized Onions and Carrots. Indian Chickpea Curry.  Spicy Lentils and Rice with Chicken. Veggie Gumbo.

Tonight we’re having Asian Chicken with Vegetables served over brown and wild rice. The energizing smells wafting through the house are awesome enough, even if the Pot never made it to the dinner table!  Here’s the ginger-y, garlic-y, orange-juice-y goop simmering away:

ALSO on the kitchen front, I’m back into fresh juicing after a juice-free sabbatical of several months.  How I DO LOVE my Green Lemonade made from romaine, kale, apples, lemons, fresh ginger and stevia.  It’s the best.  Like an instant blood transfusion.  A glass of Green Lemonade and I’m ready to…well, to face our herd of little grandkids.  Need I say more?

AND, yesterday I baked the most tantalizing gluten-free, honey-and-stevia-sweetened apple spice cake.  The adults loved it, and those grandkiddos stricken with the famous "lake appetite" lapped it up last night after swimming and asked for more.  Now THAT is a true and reliable test of acceptability, is it not?  This cake is made with almond flour, and thus is higher in protein than other desserts...but the kids don't need to know.

FOR THE RECORD, I haven't given up the traditional ship entirely.  I recently made a loaf of French bread (yes, with regular white flour) and a decadent mint-filled chocolate cake for a friend who had been in a terrible accident and was finally home recuperating from 20-some broken bones.  Here's the cake, proof that the Bakery Lady (aka moi) still cranks out junk (or should I say soul?) food:

Deferred Maintenance

We all face the dilemma of deferred maintenance, of pooh-poohing something that needs attention but continues to grow mold or fall apart or accumulate while we focus elsewhere.  Ho hum; laaaa tee da.  Look the other way, pretend it’s not really there, and oh, turn a deaf ear while you’re at it just in case someone else brings it up.

For example, when a certain lakeside deck morphs into a collection station for miscellaneous artifacts, especially plastic swim tubes, six trillion mis-matched water shoes, and an arsenal of squirt guns, there’s no point in putting them away because they’ll just come right back out.  So this certain deck becomes a mess ALL SUMMER LONG. 

That’s creative justification.  That’s deferred maintenance.  That’s just the way it is.

Water-Walking Glitter

A delicate puff of breeze stirred the lake’s surface as I lay stomach-down on a cushioned floating mat enabling me to stretch out at eye-level.  I might not have noticed from an upright posture, but the prone position gave me a detailed perspective otherwise crowded out by the more pressing or obvious. With the onset of the wind, sparkles erupted on licking water-tongues, brilliant diamonds that seemed to lap-lap, step-step, and march-march in my direction, although they never quite arrived.

Then, as quickly as they came, they disappeared. I waited, and soon another breeze encouraged the flames back to life, glittering and parading as before, only to vanish again. This cycle repeated every few seconds.

In another direction, tiny water-bugs raced like bumper cars on top of the water, also reflecting the silvery sun: round sequins of zig-zagging glitter. When I quietly approached, they ignored me UNTIL I was about 5 feet away.  Then they spun out-of-control like lunatic racecars, swimming in confusing high-speed patterns that would make any predator - fish or otherwise - dizzy.

In both cases, the sunshine reflected in glittery visual patterns – little energetic sprinkles of illumination that inspired me with their perfection.

The Old Home Town

While driving back to the Cleaner-Upper house (see blog for 8-1-12 for clarification)  after church this morning with the car windows down, the fragrance of Summer Perfume overwhelmed me.  The scents of mature pasture grasses, pine trees, and last night’s rain converged, opening pathways to a network of internal receptors and introspective thoughts.  This triggered a thoughtful mode, and I reviewed the past several days spent in a familiar geographical area – my old home town.

The farm.  This is where we lived for 30 years on 26 acres of hard-core-country about 20 miles from the city. The country smells there used to inspire me as well – smells associated with haymaking, calf feeding, chicken slaughtering, gardening, canning, jelly making, and just living close to the earth when the sun baked the earth on a hot summer day like today.

Main Street.  I’ve driven by those store fronts hundreds of times: the candy shop on the corner, the studio where an artist crafts custom jewelry, the quiet strip that periodically erupts with a farmer’s market.  Once a long time ago my car was almost hit by the diesel engine that no longer chugs through the middle of town, intersecting with Main. 

Marsh. That’s the grocery where my regular checker, blonde little Sandy, tallied my groceries and smiling slow-on-the-go Virgil carefully bagged them as if they were precious gold.

Rita’s house.  This imposing Victorian house on 9^th Street became my bi-monthly responsibility for a season.  Rita was the only client during my three years as a housekeeper to ever leave a tip.

The hospital.  Our last child was delivered there.  Now the parking lot is overgrown with weeds.  The entire building has been abandoned.

The shopping center. The end unit on the end of this little mall (originally a tiny private dwelling) housed my bakery/lunchroom business for seven years.  So much sweat behind those windows.  So much challenge sweetened with success that changed me forever.

K.N. – A special friend has inspired, encouraged, and supported me for a long time.  I chatted with her yesterday; nothing had been lost between us despite my move from the area over two years ago.

During this visit, I’ve been drawn back into the life I lived here for 30 years by a primal, involuntary sense of belonging.  I’ve moved on to another wonderful location, and yet it has been good to touch base with the place that helped shape the person I have become. 

The Old Rug

The large patchwork rug's bright, magic-carpet colors had grayed over the years to a dull, sad numbness. Although its functional importance remained, the rug appeared to have caved in to the stereotypical image of old age: used up and worn out.  Perhaps being trampled, dirtied, and neglected was to be expected at this stage of life.

Like a street person waiting for a reason to hope, it needed a form of appreciation and encouragement I could offer: a bath.

So my helper (the Bathroom Saint, alias BS, who voluntarily spit-shined both impossibly-needy bathrooms, praise God for her selflessness) and I ceremoniously lugged it outside, wetted it down, and did a quick-soap-scrub with Murphy Oil Soap and a scrub brush – not unlike the cheap, quickie version at the drive-through carwash.  At the end of this short cycle, the rug appeared significantly transformed - more vibrant, if also still scarred by lingering stains and unrelenting dirt.  Its countenance had brightened, and yet obviously it was the same old, experienced rug that had been wizened by trials.  We draped it over the picnic table under the hot-hottest-oven-blasting-sunshine-ever to dry (ouch), and headed back inside.

About an hour later as we purged kitchen cabinets of prehistoric canned and boxed food dated “use by 2003” and before, the BS paused to wipe gushing rivers of sweat from her face with a paper towel.  She glanced outside through the sliding glass door at the rug.

“Look!  Butterflies!”

I joined her to watch three small, delicate butterflies perched on various squares (blue, cranberry, and green), flexing their tiny, fragile wings like body-builders preparing for an event.

It seemed odd.  Why? Were they attracted to leftover soap?  The colors?  The soft texture?  The dampness?  The personality of the rug?  Did they give the rug their presence (isn’t this the most any of us can offer?) as an encouragement to return to the line of duty with a renewed sense of purpose? I don’t know.  I just know they came, like little winged angels of mercy and grace, to visit and adorn an old rug in the process of redemption.

Trading Hats

Sometimes we seniors imaging a certain sweet, subliminal chirping in our subconscious minds: “You know all those (chirp, chirp) HATS you’ve worn over the years?  All those ROLES (chirp, chirp) you’ve assumed?  You’re getting old; it’s time (chirp, chirp) to weed out those hats.  Give yourself a BREAK.”  Like a little bird.  How sweet.

I’m here to say that this canary is seriously messed up, because my hat wardrobe just keeps growing. 

My Feed-the-Picky-Grandkid-Hat sometimes hitchhikes on the wide sombrero-like brim of my Heirloom-Babysitting-Hat.  Words drip like fringe from my Blogging-Hat, and dare I mention my Would-Be-Published-Author-Hat? It seems to keep getting lost in the depths of the closet on the highest shelf toward the back. 

There’s also a Grocery Shopping Hat, House Cleaning Hat, Buy-Wrap-and-Send-All-the-Family-Birthday-and-Christmas-Gifts Hat, Be-Available-for-Whatever-Hat, Laundry-Hat, Make-Sure-the-Freezer-Gets-Defrosted-Hat, Cook-Till-You-Drop-Hat.  The hats are endless.

Tomorrow morning I will shed my glittery (sunshiny, playful) Honorable-Lakefront-Queen-Hat and climb in the car for a very long drive wearing my Clueless-About-Directions-Unless-I-Stay-On-The-Main-Drag-Hat.  Upon arrival at my destination, I will don my seriously-serious (that means s-e-r-i-o-u-s) Cleaner-Upper-of-the-Neglected-House-Hat.

I know everything there is to know about that Cleaner-Upper-Hat – it carries half-used Brillo pads in the hatband, for example, and means business. No messing around.  Although I’ve been tempted to pitch it, to play the old lady trump card that says I’m too fragile for this kind of rigorous activity (an outright lie), it remains in my hat-wardrobe as an icon of work ethic and voluntary goodwill. I hope to continue to wear it as long as I’m able, knowing my physical labor helps and encourages a certain individual whose Janitorial-Hat is undersized and refuses to stay on….but who is gifted in many of my woefully-unskilled (clueless) areas and is also quick to help me with them. 

My Cleaner-Upper-Hat (and sometimes my Food-Fixer-Hat) parallels this other person’s Techno-Guru-Hat (and sometimes Intensive-Skilled-Labor Hat).  It’s a good trade.

Wildflower Icons

An empty lot on our road has been overrun by an invading population of Queen Anne’s Lace.  These tough-stemmed wildflower patriots rushed in when a house was torn down and the lot vacated last year, and have grown so tightly together in clumps that their flowers stand in woven masses – almost tangled, and yet seemingly locked together by design rather than accident.

Some of the round, white lacy faces stand with strong wills - tall and straight above their fibrous stems - while others demurely nod or even bow respectfully.  Collectively, they seem to speak of the concept of community: individuality within a corporate interconnectedness.