Take Me Home, Country Roads

Last weekend I went back to where it all started. Well, sort of. I was born in Louisiana and moved when I was five. Anyway, I went home for the weekend for a much needed visit and relaxing weekend with my parents. Dad was out of town, so I didn't get to see him this trip. Since I knew I was going home, I decided to take my torn pants to fix with her gorgeous sewing machine and other fun tools. Mom was, after all, offered a job with Coats and Clark in Manhattan, but that was before my time. Good thing she didn't take it otherwise she wouldn't have met Dad and then had me. Perish the thought!


Now, you may ask, "How did your pants get torn?" It was a situation that I thought would never happen to me. I bought the pants at Macy's because I was (and still am, sadly) in desperate need of work clothes. I'm really bad about buying clothes for myself even when I really need them because I know the money could be spent elsewhere on more important things. Like food, which causes my pant size to fluctuate. But I digress. I find these wonderful, classic black and white checkered print like old man pants. Not like Dorothy from Oz kind of checkered. Anyway, they're comfortable, the perfect length, so I buy them. I had already envisioned the outfit I was going to wear to work next day, so I was ready for the morning.


Morning comes, and I shower before changing. I get everything but my boots on and when I bend down to get them...riiiiip. I stand up quickly in mild shock and confusion. "Did that really just happen? No, surely not. I have no backside to speak of!" Lo and behold though, when I looked in the mirror, there it was. A hold as big as a quarter. My first thought was, "Maybe no one will notice." Right. I think they'll notice the pink contrast in the middle of black and white fabric. So I sigh, change pants, and don't feel as put together as I originally did. I was excited about those pants.


Thankfully, the rip was just where some thread in the seam was weak, so fixing it would be no problem. So I go home and get to fixing the pants. I machine-stitched them to death so they wouldn't come undone, oh no buddy. These pants weren't going to play peekaboo with no man! Or woman. Or dog. Whatever. No one was going to see my underwear.


Mom's sewing machine is very unique in the way that it operates. It was originally a treadle machine, where you pump the foot pedal which powered the machine, going only as fast you went. Her dad, an incredible handyman, built her a motor to go with the machine that would be powered when you pushed the treadle. So her machine has the early 1900s look with the modern feel. The best of both worlds, I say! It still runs beautifully and will one day be mine. I can only hope to do it justice, and find someone to repair it if I screw up. *cringe*


Now this handy gadget is one of my favorites that I have yet to see anywhere else but firmly attached to the end of Mom's sewing stand. It's an antique pinker which is SO much easier than using pinking shears. You just feed your fabric under the cutting wheel on the left and turn the crank on the right. There's even a guide so you don't cut your fabric crooked. I wonder if Mom would notice it missing? Since I have no nifty sewing stand like she does, I'd have to mount it to something like the kitchen counter. Wouldn't that be a lovely conversation piece? Perhaps Victoria and Bo would come over, see it, and say:

V/B: "I didn't notice this last time! What handy kitchen gadget is this?"
Me: "It's a pinker."
V/B: "Oh, what does it make pink?"
Me: "It cuts fabric."
V/B: ...

Then they would probably never come back again thinking I'm crazy for having a fabric cutter right next to my toaster and mixer. Nah, I think Victoria would be pretty fascinated by it and would still come back. She likes things like that. And understands my crazy.

New Friends

Sorry for the delay in a post. I realized I hit my maximum bandwidth on Flickr, which has completely crippled me when I try to post at work. I need to just bite the bullet and upgrade to a pro account because I'll only get frustrated in the end by having to ration pictures each month. That's no way to be when you have a marvelous camera just itching to be used!

Upon moving to the "big city," I had to leave most of my friends behind. I knew only 3 people where I was going, so I spent a lot of time trying find things to keep me busy. I knew once I got a job, things would get better (on so many levels) and I'd hopefully find some people to hang out with. I had been a temp at the law firm since the end of October and by complete luck and the shortcomings of another temp, I was able to secure my current job of legal assistant. The other legal assistant was my age and seemed like the perfect solution to my friendless problem. She and her husband had actually made a New Year's Resolution (Project Lonely Walrus I believe is what they dubbed it) to make more friends.

Don't we all look so happy? Well, Victoria (her new nickname because we agree she belongs in another time period and I think she looks very Victorian) is not trying to seduce the camera as you may think (and/or hope) but is actually fighting to stay awake. Her husband, Bo (short for Bohemian) apparently tries to pull a scary face during every picture he's a part of. I was unaware of this and thought maybe he just took bad pictures. No, he's just goofy.



When Giraffe and I went over to their house a few weeks ago, I was in for a treat. They live in an adorable little house off the beaten path with a one-eyed cat named Figaro. Victoria is inspired by the likes of Martha Stewart and Alicia Paulson and her house reflects so. Not to mention, they're both the talented creative types, which makes my eye twitch with envy. Friendly envy, of course. She had fixed us a lovely dinner and I noticed this beautiful embroidered tablecloth as we sat down.

Me: "Oh I love your tablecloth!"
Victoria: "Thank you. It was my great-grandmother's."

I sat there gaping because I wish I had something that beautiful and sentimental, but instead I have a tablecloth that I made and my cat likes to get tangled up in (because it's too long) and pull it along with everything else off the table. Including a vase of flowers. Thanks Butters. You, the other cats, and Giraffe are the reason I can't have nice things.

Victoria's looking a little funned out.

"No! Don't go to sleep, Bo! We're fun people. We promise!"

Victoria decides to entertain herself by making her and Bo's pieces date. Right before she knocked him off the table. *sigh* Love.

Project: T-Shirt Construction

When I first moved, I was needing things to keep me occupied until I got a job. That took 3 months and one extraordinarily bad job at Godiva (manager issues. SERIOUS manager issues.) before I landed my current job. Well, sorta, but that's another story, too. Anyway, I found a fun craft book called Generation T on sale at Borders and decided this would be the perfect way to fill my time.


I flipped through all 272 pages of ways to manipulate T-shirts into other shirts, iPod covers, tote bags, etc. and came to the dilemma of picking just one to test. Luckily, in my boredom the weeks prior, I went through all my clothes and bagged some for Goodwill because moving them had been not fun and I was already filling up my walk-in closet. Sad, I know. And with T-shirts! It's not even like it was all this designer wear or cocktail dresses or overcoats. Not that I am even into designer clothes, have a reason for a cocktail dress, or need for a beautiful overcoat. Anyway, needless to say, I had plenty of T-shirts just aching to be revamped.
Since I had lost approximately 20 pounds a few months prior to the move due to a wonderful last spring break hurrah to Hawaii, I had all these baggy shirts that I still liked, but made me look like a frump. For example, my dad travels a lot for his job and I asked that he bring me cool shirts and postcards if he saw some that reminded him of me. One of these gifts was my Vermont shirt. It's simple, which is part of its appeal, but also because it was from my dad. So I decide on the pattern above and bust out the scissors. I'm a nervous wreck cutting this thing up because there's no turning back. If it ends up looking horrible, I'm going to have to live with it or figure out a way to fix it. That should be the follow-up book to this one. "How To Repair the Projects You Started...Moron."

It turned out good in the front, but I cut the scoop too deep and wide, so that's why it bunches at the bottom. Because it's too deep, I can't wear a bra without looking stupid, and for the greater good of the world, I will refrain from going out sans brassiere. I've been thinking about how to fix it, and I think I finally came up with a solution. It's not what I'd like to do, but I want to wear the shirt I made, dangit! I think I'm going to cut the back up the middle and draw it in a little bit and then make a seam to close it up. That way, the bunch will be gone and I can maybe raise the scoop so I can wear it out to show off my craftiness. Then everyone will think that's just how it's supposed to look. Except for anybody that sees me that reads this. Oops.

Vermont love!

The Mother-in-Law

Those words can put the fear into just about anything. Once in a while, you luck out and have a mother-in-law that doesn't fit the stereotype. She's like your second mom, which is what it's supposed to be like, in theory. I am, thankfully, one of those lucky people.

Now, I'm not married. Let me clear that up and allow my family to catch their breaths.

I've been with my sweetie for 2 1/2 years. Our "courtship" was insanely fast and made our heads spin a little. Not Linda Blair spin, but that special love spin. That sounded a little...moving on. He has told me his end of what happened in those first couple of months, and I'm sure his mom was a little concerned. Let me give you a little history of my Giraffe and his mom. His parents divorced when he was young, which caused he and his mom to develop an extremely close relationship. They were buddies because she believed in treating him like an adult, but still maintained a very mother hen approach of rearing. She wouldn't even let him use the oven for fear of burning his little hands, but I digress. Back to the me part of the story.

First, he had come out of an interesting relationship not too terribly long before me. Also, he tells her how much he cares for me and we haven't even been going out that long. So when the time comes around for me to meet her, I'm a nervous wreck. I wanted to make a wonderful first impression to the mother of the guy I'd like to marry someday. I'd be taking her baby away from her. Eep.

Giraffe had also told me about how she had all these heart problems and had to take a basket full of medication to function, so I get a very solid picture of this woman in my mind. She's going to be this little old lady with heart problems who sits around in an armchair most of the time and patting our faces as we hug her. Oh no. I walk in and there's this little 5'3" brunette flitting about getting dinner on the table and being this dazzling social butterfly. My first thought was, "Is this his aunt?" before I realized "Oh my gosh! This is his mom?!"

Second thing I noticed: her house was immaculate. There was no clutter on the floor, no dust on the tables or lamps, and the whitish carpet was perfect. I am not the best housekeeper and just knew it was written all over my face. How can I take care of her baby if I don't dust everyday? I could just feel all the dust bunnies and cat hairs on my clothes doing a Conga line for everyone to see. However, this woman was nothing like that. She is the epitome of the perfect hostess. She never meets a stranger (a quality I wish I had) and is just delightful to be around.

After dinner, we were sitting around on the couch in the living room and began talking about the budding relationship. Turns out, he had told his mom how happy he was because of how much I understood him because I was just like him. She was just tickled pink to hear how happy her son was because he had found someone just like him, but this also disturbed her a little. She said, "I didn't think anybody could be as weird as my son." I knew I was going to like this woman.

Today, we have a wonderful relationship and I cannot wait until she's my official mother-in-law, despite the fact that I already feel it now. I'm just afraid if she ever had a key to our future home, she would clean the place when we're not there. She likes to clean that much. I think her heart problems would flair up again if she had to dig through my plastic containers in the back of the fridge. There's no telling what's in there by now. It's like a game full of colors and textures. One that I don't like to play.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Okay. This is it. The big time. I was cooking a gourmet meal for my sweetie on Valentine's Day. Never mind the gumbo disaster or the burned patty melts, this was a new meal, a new dawn. Deep breaths...and here we go.

I started off with the pasta portion of the meal which included roasting grape tomatoes and garlic then mashing it in a bowl with a little of the starchy water from the pasta pot. Next, you dump in the pasta (I chose bowtie because it's my favorite!) and wilt in some basil and arugula. You can also dump in a handful of parmesanno-reggiano, but I only had regular parmesan. In theory, this sounded like a fantabulous pasta dish. However, something bad happened. The pasta is supposed to be just shy of al dente so when placed in the tomato/garlic liquid, it'll soak it all up leaving no liquid at all. This didn't happen. Either I spooned too much starchy water or the pasta was overcooked or the bowties held too many water droplets, but it turned out as soup. We had to use a slotted spoon to serve it, which made my left eye switch slightly.


The main dish was gorgonzola steaks with a sage, parsley, and scallion rub. You sear the meat to get it nice and caramelized then add the toppings before placing it in the oven to bake until everything gets nice and melty. I love cheese so this sounded phenomenal to me. I pull it out and looks all perfect and I serve it up next to our pasta soup. Giraffe takes a bite and said it was pretty good. I breathe a sigh of relief then cut my own piece. One teensy weensy problem: turns out, I don't like gorgonzola. It tastes too much like bleu cheese, which I don't like. My Giraffe reassured me that he liked it because he really likes bleu cheese.


It broke my heart and went against all my cheese-loving principles, but I scraped all the cheese off the steak and ate it with the few herbs that remained. That ended up being pretty good. Next time I'll try a different cheese that I know I like ahead of time.

Now it was time for dessert. I tried a new recipe, but I had no worries. Dessert is what I can do. I did a no-fried ice cream that tasted just as good as you can get at a Mexican restaurant. I rolled ice cream balls in cornflakes before I started cooking dinner then put them back in the freezer to harden. Once we had eaten, I pulled them out and melted some honey and cinnamon to drizzle over the cornflaked ice cream, which totally made up for the mediocre dinner. At least he liked it.

I need to get back to my roots and stick to country cooking. This was a Rachael Ray recipe and some of hers have worked nicely in the past, but next time I'm going to try a Pioneer Woman recipe. My food talks to each other likes hers does so it should be a snap!

Be My Valentine?

Tonight's the big night. I plan on cooking a gourmet-esque meal for my Giraffe and I'm praying it turns out alright. Lately I've been getting pretty cocky about my cooking abilities because I haven't screwed up in a long time. I've done chicken parmesan with pizazz, sides with flair, and nothing has managed to burn too bad. So last night, the Fates decided to let me have it and knock me down a peg or two. I knew the goodness couldn't last forever.



I've been wanting to make patty melts for a while now because the place I frequent for lunch, which is conveniently located right across the street from work, makes some really good ones. So I do the responsible thing and eat there a couple of times a week getting this patty melt. For research purposes of course. The calories don't count if it's for research. Anyway, I decide on my plan of attack and get to work. I take some ground beef, mix in some Worcestershire sauce and seasonings, and broil the meat. Then I begin browning the pieces of bread in some butter in a skillet to make them nice and crispy. Finally, I sauté some onions and cover them with aluminum foil to make them sweat and become not so crunchy. Everything's going very well at this point.



When it's time to assemble the sandwich, I wanted the cheese to be all gooey and melty, so I popped them back in the oven for a few minutes. I keep checking the sandwiches and the cheese isn't melting like I want it to. Giraffe's thin Swiss was melting fine, but my thicker American cheese wasn't. Idea! I'll turn the broiler on to get the job done. I keep an eye on the melts and check them after a minute, and still not melty enough. I open the oven door again a minute or two later, and my patty melts are on fire. The top piece of bread is completely ablaze, so I very calmly shut the oven door and turn to Giraffe. "Our sandwiches are on fire." We open the door back up and he, because I wasn't doing anything, decides to blow on the sandwiches; however, his "gust" of wind could've barely put a candle out. So I just stare at him and said, "Do you realize how ridiculous you look right now?" "Nope." So while he's laughing at himself, I grab the pot holder and pull them out. The top piece of bread is completely charred, but the rest of the melt looks fine. So we decide to just do another piece of top bread. I get the skillet and butter back out and begin again. Then, to add insult to injury, as I was pressing on the final piece of bread in the pan, hot butter came up through a hole in the bread and burnt my right index and middle finger. So then I hop around the kitchen in pain wondering, "Why I am so inept?!"


After dinner, I tried for redemption. I went back to what I know: baking. In celebration of Valentine's Day at the office, I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I even made little hearts on wax paper to refrigerate and place on top of the cupcakes. I made them too thin, so I ended up just drawing them on the cupcakes when they were done.

Now, I'm spooked about tonight and am working with slightly burned index and middle fingers on my right hand. I hope those of you who are planning on cooking for your valentines tonight have great luck and don't burn anything, food or person.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Picture Perfect!

In order to make up for the long-winded post last time, I decided to post a bunch of pictures I took with my new camera! I got a Nikon d40x last week and have been snapping pictures like mad. The cats are sick of the camera by now, but I can't help it! They're all so photogenic.

Sylvester looking like a backwards "Q." Ramona, anyone?

Butters trying to be emo.

"Mom. Seriously. Stop taking pictures of me."

And if that doesn't melt your hearts, I don't know what will.

*Stay tuned for the Valentine's Day dinner of success/disaster!

Boyfriend Chronicles, Part I

Valentine's Day has completely snuck up on me. I didn't realize it was this week until Giraffe's stepbrother asked us what we were planning on doing on the special day. We looked at one another with blank stares until I turned back to Stepbrother and said, "I have no idea." However, since then, I have developed a plan. I am going to cook him a special Valentine meal. As you all know from my aforementioned hesitancy of cooking due to the ill-fated gumbo, I am slightly nervous. I plan on documenting this later, so stay tuned for a hopefully good recipe and no stories about grease fires.

Because of all the reminders of Valentine's Day around, I've been reflecting on boyfriends from years gone by. Some of them were good, most of them were bad, but I learned something specific from each one that has helped me become who I am today, for better or worse. I have several installments, so for now, here is The Boyfriend Chronicles, Part I.

My freshman year of high school I pursued (okay, pretty heavily pursued) another freshman in the marching band. We had started a friendship at the end of 8th grade and we began talking on the phone all night, every night like teenagers often due. We somehow ended up in a relationship and spent three months of it barely seeing one another and talking on the phone all summer. When school started, I was psyched to have my first boyfriend! Due to some scheduling conflicts and the realization of "I love music...I can read music...why not be in band with all my friends?!", I joined up. He played tuba and I played percussion on the sidelines because since I joined late. Despite not marching around, I had a blast. Alright, back to the relationship. Since we had hardly spent any time actually together, it was not what I had imagined. However, I was not going to let this upset me! I mean, it was my first boyfriend, what kind of expectations did I have? My only knowledge was from cheesy, romance movies where everything is super perfect. What I, instead, had was a guy, whom another band member said best, was the reincarnation of a cow. He was just a very laid back kinda guy, to say the least.

Now, as this was my first relationship, I decided to go all out. I'm the creative type so I was going to make for him the best gift imaginable, in my opinion: a mixtape. That's right, a real analog tape filled with songs that had, on one side, sentimental value between us, and the other had songs representing how I felt about him. I spent the whole weekend gathering up the perfect songs and then began the meticulous process of putting each song on the tape and making sure the timing was right and no songs were clipped. Finally, it was done. And it was, to me, perfect. On the next Monday, I've got bounce to my step and I look forward to seeing him so I can give him this treasure that I created just for him. In band that afternoon, the time came. I prefaced it with something very romantic and articulate, I'm sure (i.e. "Uh, hey. I made you this."). He thanked me and got on the bus to go home after class. I released the breath I had been unknowingly holding and smiled to myself. He was going to love it, I just knew.

I see him the next day, expecting some sort of reaction such as spinning me in his arms saying how much he loved it or, even better, made me one of my own! However, he said nothing. All day. Or the next. So finally after waiting two whole days for some sort of reply (a simple "thank you" would have been nice), I ask him at the end of Wednesday. He shall be known as Boyfriend #1 or B1, for short.

Me: "B1, did you listen to the tape I made you?"
B1: "Huh? Oh...yeah."
Me: "Well, what did you think? Did you like it?"
B1: "I already had some of the songs on there, but the others just sucked."

WHAT?! Did he really just say that?? We'd been going out for months by now, and that's an eternity in high school, and he thanked his girlfriend this way? I was stunned. And, of course, heartbroken. The first nice thing I did in my first relationship had completely bombed. As you can imagine, all my female friends were all over him once they heard what had happened. Since this is high school, that took all of 1.2 seconds to get around. They offered encouraging words ("It's okay. I think what you did was really sweet!") and offers ("When I march next to him, I can bump into him and make his tuba crush him like it was an accident."), but things changed after that. I just didn't feel the same way and began wondering if this relationship was right for me.

Shortly thereafter, Christmas was upon us. Now, Christmas is a big deal to high schoolers in relationships. At the time, it was always understood that the guy would get the girl something special like the beloved pink ice ring of the time or something equally as cool. Me? I wanted something practical like books. That's what I got him for Christmas. A nice copy of The Phantom of the Opera with a carefully thought-out, sweet inscription in the front of the book. Let me interject for a moment: I am NOT the type of person who likes public displays of affection. At all. Imagining guys proposing to their girlfriends via scoreboards and the like freak me out. I'm just now coming around to kissing in public, but even now I still get that little feeling of anxiety. It's just not how I'm wired. Anyway, back to B1 and Christmas.

We had math class next door to one another during second period. During first, I had heard everyone telling me that B1 had something really crazy to give me and to get ready. I'm trying to gather information as best I can and finally someone blurts out, "It's in a HUGE box!" My world stopped spinning. My heart dropped. My face turned pale. I felt like throwing up. I didn't want the bell to ring because I knew as I came around the corner to go to algebra, he'd be there with a huge box that had already created a big buzz. Even the preppy kids, who I did not hang out with, had heard and were interested. Stupid high school. But the bell did ring, and I did see him holding a box bigger than him, walking down the hallway. I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment (something I do not handle well at all) and I set my stuff down in my classroom. Everyone called for me to go to his classroom and open up my Christmas present. My class and his class filled the room and surrounded me as I opened the box as quickly as I could because I wanted this over as soon as possible. However, I open the box and see...another box.

You've got to be kidding me. This is a nightmare. So I open up the next box, and the next, and finally get to the bottom where there's newspaper strips everywhere. So I start digging to find this present so I can just get on with my life and turns out, he had it in his pocket the whole time. Everyone oohed and aahed as he brought it out, so I turned to follow their gazes. He was holding a small, black box. Ring-sized. So I take it, open it up, and see a gorgeous diamond ring inside with approximately seven diamonds in the shape of a V. I put it on, show everyone with the biggest, fakest smile I can muster, and quickly exit the classroom. My heart didn't stop pounding all through algebra. Shortly thereafter, I had to call it quits with B1 because we were just not meant for each other.

I still have the ring and occasionally wear it when I'm wearing diamonds. The process of how I got it no longer bothers me and we became good friends afterwards. He is now married to his best friend's sister and they have a son together. My lesson from this relationship: no matter how many nice, romantic gestures you try to bring to the relationship, you need to make sure you actually get along by spending time together instead of just jumping in. That and under no circumstances should any guy try to make a big gesture to get my attention unless he wants me to throw up, and then dump him on the spot.

Cookie Therapy

After pouring my heart over the fumbled gumbo recipe, I decided it was time to do what I know I can do well: bake. Plus I also needed to bake some cookies as a thank you to my mechanic for taking care of me and my car the week before. If snickerdoodles can't say thank you well enough, I don't know what can.


My Giraffe believes in this phenomenon called "cookie therapy." He says that no matter how bad a day you've had, all you need is a cookie and everything seems brighter because you take a bite of the cookie, think about the bite and savor it, then repeat the process. Bam! All your problems are gone. At first glance, this seems like the perfect thing for the both of us. I love to bake, he loves to eat. Match made in Heaven! Oh no, my boy doesn't do chocolate. I can hear the gasps from here.


His argument? "Chocolate is supposed to taste bitter." My rebuttal: "They add sugar for a reason!" Him: "I still don't like it." Add this to the short list of things he won't eat which include coffee and catfish, although I think he's coming around to that idea again. He had a bad experience with a Shoney's involving food poisoning that laid him out for days. We're talking near death here, the way he tells it. I promised I'd fry it up and make sure it was completely done before feeding it to him. So I guess I feel comfortable doing fish and baking. Just not together. Ew. Oh! Can you imagine Trout Tartlets? Or Catfish Crepes?!


So I've been on this mission to find a cookie that this boy will eat other than oatmeal raisin because those, to me, are boring. Kind of like bran cereal. Immediately crossing chocolate off the list, I first think sugar cookies. This is about as plain as you can get!
Me: "Hey! What about sugar cookies? You like those, right?
Him: "No. Too much sugar."

Sigh. So I start thumbing through my cookie cookbook and make some lemon cookies because those are one of my favorites and something I think he would like.

Me: "Oh sweetheart? I made some lemon cookies! What do you think?"
Him: (Takes a bite, grimaces, and mumbles through cookie crumbs) "Too much powdered sugar."

GRR. Turns out he's got this aversion to powdered sugar ever since a funnel cake disaster due to his cousin. Why must I suffer for his cousin's culinary shortcomings?! Now it's Christmastime and I make the most appropriate cookie: gingerbread. Who can resist the urge to bite off little gingerbread men's heads?

He can.

So when he put in a request for me to make cookies recently, I sat in mild shock. How can I fix you cookies when you don't eat any?! I bust out my cookbook again for inspiration and then the answer appears in front of me. I can't believe I didn't think of this before! Snickerdoodles! I love snickerdoodles! And if he hates him, I'm really going to have to evaluate our 2+ year relationship.


Well, I'm happy to say that we're still together because he popped a cookie in his mouth and said, "These cookies are really good," which coming from is a big deal since hardly anything is "really good," "great," or "awesome" when it comes to my making food. It's usually "it's alright," which really means, "please don't give me any more because I'll be forced to eat it." I do get the occasional "good" so I guess there's hope. It's a learning process, right?

Hey Love o' Mine? Be ready to eat snickerdoodles every week for the rest of your life because now that I found something you like to eat, I'm never letting go.

The Gumbo Disaster

I used to be good at a lot of things. Then I met my Giraffe and I began to doubt my abilities. All the things I was able to take pride in: science, being the best at Street Fighter II for SNES...and the one that upset me the most, cooking. I had been trying my best to overcome this and just bull my way through it, including the first time I cooked for him which turned out very badly but that's another story. Everything was going okay...until the gumbo.

It still pains me to talk about it.

My mom had been given a recipe for gumbo that was extremely good and could either feed you for days or a small army. I had tried this at my parents' house and wanted to do it myself when the weather was starting to turn colder and/or I wanted a touch of home in my own place. I looked over the recipe and it seemed easy enough, just large quantities. Mom even got me a huge stock pot for the occasion.

Gumbo
(makes 2 gallons)

Roux

1 ½ cup oil
1 ½ cup flour
Cook (until color of old penny)

Add:

2 peppers, chopped
1 onion, chopped

Stock Pot

2 gallons water or stock
6 cups chicken, cooked and diced
1 cup uncooked rice
1/3 jar chicken base

2 cans diced tomatoes
6 cups celery, sliced
3 cups frozen okra
½ T. thyme
½ T. garlic
2 T. salt
2 T. Cajun seasoning

Hot sauce
File

Combine.

I decide to do this one Saturday so I go out and buy all the ingredients I need to begin this beast and only one thing gave me trouble: filé. Filé is ground sassafras leaves that aid in thickening as well as being a key ingredient to Creole cooking. I'm originally from Louisiana so I couldn't just skip this step. This gumbo needed it! And I, of course, didn't have any. Since you add filé close to when it's going to be served, I decided to get started and as everything cooked together, I'd go in search of my ground sassafras.

I get to chopping and boiling and throwing everything into my ginormous stock pot, which takes THREE HOURS. That's right. Three hours of my life was spent chopping ingredients for only one dish. I want those three hours back. Anyway, I get everything together and it's simmering away. Now, I've already told Giraffe that I'm making him gumbo and to get ready for one of the best things he's ever eaten. I figure since this dish was tested out by my own mother and it was a Louisiana dish that he had never made, this was the perfect opportunity for me to one-up him. Bring some of my upbringing to the table.

Then begins the filé search. We search all over town for it and by the end of the night, we find it hidden away on a shelf at Publix. So I do my victory dance in the aisle, then go pay so we can get back to feast on this magnificent gumbo! At this point, it had been cooking for a few hours so I just knew it was about ready to eat. Wrong.

I stirred it up and saw that all the heavy ingredients were waaaaay down in the bottom of the pot and all the spices were at the top. We're talking at least 6 inches between the two. I had thought to myself that 2 gallons of water seemed like an awful lot, but my mom swore that's what she did it. She kept saying the water would cook out and it would thicken up to the consistency that I knew it to be. In addition, the filé would help thicken it up as well. So I thank her, hang up, and rush to the filé powder to pull this gumbo back together. No amount of filé could have saved this gumbo.

Giraffe tried to make me feel better by saying to just let it sit on the stove overnight simmering to help cook it down and see how it was later.

Three days later, this gumbo didn't look any better. Now, my hopes and dreams of being the perfect housewife are dashed. I can't even follow a simple recipe. All my efforts of trying to cook better had been for naught. However, my Giraffe knew just what to do to make me feel better about this whole culinary disaster: he held the stock pot for me so I could flip the switch to activate the garbage disposal.

If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.

Tablecloths and Superbowl

Ever since I added the two leaves in the kitchen table, the original tablecloth was taunting me because it was just too short for the new and improved bigger table. So I decided it was time to make another one. I got some lovely red gingham which just screams country and called up my Coats and Clark-Caliber Mom to figure out the best way to tackle this project. After spending half an hour on the phone with my mom going round and round over directions, I finally got the project on its way.

She had suggested I buy an extra half yard in case her memory of the table dimensions were off. This table was actually the first piece of furniture she ever bought. So I get to cutting and pinning and then I realize what's going to make this project so much easier. I'm going to have to dig out the ironing board and iron. I think I've only had to iron five times in my entire life, so needless to say I'm not very good at it. I have this horror of recreating an episode of The Honeymooners where Norton accidentally leaves the iron on Ralph's prized bowling shirt, leaving a dark iron-shaped mark. So when I do have to iron, I'm frantic because I don't want to ruin the fabric, but I also hate the chore and want to be done as soon as possible so I turn the heat up and press firmly. You can see how this inner battle can be exhausting.

I work through the ironing and start on the hand-sewing portion because I want to mitre the corners and machine-stitch the hem. At this point, it's Superbowl time and my Giraffe is parked on the couch watching intently. I keep my ears open and occasionally glance up to see what's going on in the game. I work all through the halftime show and finish the final side of the cloth.

I'm, of course, excited about having completed a project and have a cute, new tablecloth to display so I throw it on the table to admire my handiwork. Then I realize something. I forgot to cut off the extra half yard that Mom suggested I get because I got tied up in the football game. Part of me doesn't mind that it goes almost all the way to the floor (the football-watching part) but the other is nagging at me for having such a long cloth that people can get tangled up in (the housewife in training part). I guess all it really needs is a test run with my long-legged, danger-prone boyfriend to see if the tablecloth stays or goes.

Both parts of me tell me not to get too attached to the tablecloth.

Sixth Sense Cooking

I've determined that there is a sixth sense to cooking, which not everyone possesses. "I see dead produce"...yeah. That was bad. Moving on.

As you're throwing all your ingredients into the pot/dish/bucket/whatever, sometimes there is a certain time at which you add further ingredients. There's also a window of time that involves gastronomical creativity. Let's say you're making spaghetti sauce. You've sauteed the meat, added the tomatoes, and...whatever else you add to spaghetti sauce and it's time to season. For those of us who frequently eat Italian food, we instinctively reach for the oregano, basil, and pepper. But wait! What's that? Your Spidey Sense is tingling?! It's telling you to add a dash of...allspice? Some know how to harness their superpower, some do not, and some just don't have it at all. Mine likes to come and go.

I was raised in a house that usually had one big meal with maybe one side like casseroles, hamburgers with fried potatoes, pizza, etc. But boy could we bake. Oh yeah, throw in that I was a VERY picky eater growing up. Mom is a great cook, but due to scheduling conflicts weekly, the only meal we could all ever continuously sit down for was Sunday lunch after church. So when I left home to go to college, I didn't have much in my culinary repertoire that wasn't related to baked goods. I relied on boxes of chicken nuggets, the one casserole that I'll actually eat, pizza, and ready made pasta dishes that you just throw in the pan. Really I just ate out a lot. And gained 25 pounds. Let's not talk about that.

So suffice it to say, I couldn't cook much, but what I thought I could cook was good. Then I met Giraffe Boy, my love of over two years. While this boy will eat anything put in front of him short of chocolate and catfish, he wasn't all that crazy about my cooking. He's a "meat and three" kinda guy. I am a "stuff your face with one big thing" kinda gal. Match made in Heaven, right? I thought so. Till I realized this boy is a way better cook than I am. I've watched him make many dishes and while it's going, he'll start looking through the spice rack. His fingers graze over each little pot, sometimes turning to read the label, and will ultimately grab a few that he feels will enhance whatever he's cooking. I ask him, "What are you adding?" He'll reply, "[Insert spice here.]." Me: "Oh, is that in the recipe?" Him: "What recipe?" So I learned that he just adds what he feels is necessary to the dish. And the outcome? Always wonderful. The jerk.

I realized I possess the Sixth Sense when it comes to baking because that is what I've done my whole life. I can feel when something needs cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, sugar, etc. Funny thing is I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I bake for others. Don't worry, I only use my power for good. Most of the time. Since people usually go ga-ga over something like Black Bottoms or Lemon Cheesecake, I've been able to fake knowing how to cook.

So to my friends and family who thought I could cook, I finally release the wool from your eyes. To those who realized I couldn't cook and went along with the sham, I hope you don't have any stomach disorders.