Ever since we defrosted our freezers several weeks ago and were able to see what frozen leftovers we had, Husband and I have been making a point of eating those leftovers and trying not to put any leftovers from new dishes in the freezers. Every night during the week we say to each other “we’re not cooking or baking this weekend, are we.”
Then Saturday rolls around, and our resolve crumbles. This weekend, “not cooking” resulted in an Italian Pie of Greens and two loaves of Leinsamen Mischbrot, a German sourdough bread made of several kinds of flours and flaxseed. The previous weekend, “not cooking” resulted in a cod and mussel stew with harissa, chicken tortellini soup, and four loaves of French bread. We tell ourselves that since the Swiss chard for the pie and the makings for the stew and the soup were already in the freezers, that it is good to have homemade bread on hand, and that none of the newly prepared main dishes went in the freezer as leftovers, we are kind of, sort of, sticking to our plan. There are noticeably fewer containers now in the Lutheran freezer where all the leftovers go.
Husband informs me that we are now eating the last loaf of rye bread from the freezer. Beatrice Ojakangas, the Duluth cookbook author, said that her father would complain to her mother that “there isn’t anything to eat in this house” if he couldn’t find any rye bread in the kitchen. Husband loves rye bread, but insists that he isn’t going to bake for a while. I notice, though, that there is rye sourdough starter in the fridge, and we just got some rye chops we had ordered, so I can guess what we are “not baking” next weekend.
When is your resolve the weakest? What is your favorite bread to make or eat? How do you deal with leftovers?
Wednesday night Husband and I were talking about a recent complaint that my regulatory board received about a licensee, as Husband is the new Board Investigator. It is an unpaid position that I volunteered him for because he is semi-retired and very fastidious in his work and there wasn’t anyone else to do it and he is my spouse.
He said we would need to finesse the written response to the complaint. I thought he said defenestrate the response. I was confused. Once we got that cleared up, we had a good laugh and both did some research on The Defenestration of Prague. What a strange word and even stranger concept!
What have you been “volunteered” for something by virtue of being related to someone? Have you ever wanted to be an investigator? Who or what have you wanted to throw out of a window?
The regulatory board of which I am a member has had the same attorney for the past 11 years. The Board attorney is provided to us by the State Attorney General’s Office. He has been very helpful. We were sad to learn at our most recent meeting that he is leaving to be the executive director of a medical practitioner regulatory group. We will miss him.
I am happy to say that my experiences with attorneys have been pretty limited over the years. I mainly interact with the local county attorneys in my capacity as an expert witness and when I am the expert examiner for mental health commitments. I get along quite well with all the county attorneys and district judges. We used to have a quite inept local attorney who everyone referred to as “The Dumb Swede” to distinguish him from “The Big Swede”, a very tall district judge. I keep waiting for the retirement of another local attorney who must be in his 70’s and who has had the same really awful toupee for the 35 years I have known him. The toupee looks like it is being devoured by moths.
The other day in the grocery store, Husband and I ran into one of our district judges (not the Big Swede) who also attends our church. The judge made a comment about a rather flamboyant older member of the congregation who had recently died. Husband told His Honor in jest that he really needed to stop judging people like that. The judge thought that was pretty funny.
What have been your experiences with attorneys? Any good lawyer or judge jokes?Any stories about toupees?
Husband and I have an extremely loving relationship, but we have never been able to agree about toothpaste. I find Colgate toothpaste too chalky. He doesn’t like the way my Crest toothpaste tastes like fluoride. Neither of us will change our toothpaste preferences. I guess that is what you might call brand loyalty.
I am the most fussy about food ingredients, so that I try to bake with King Arthur Flour products and cook with this Turkish olive oil we get at the Syrian grocery store in Fargo. We also buy Barilla or De Cecco pasta, organic cream, and Land O Lakes butter.
I wonder if the days of exclusive brand loyalty are over for marketing agencies, or if they still try to make people exclusive Ford purchasers, for example.
What brands are you “loyal” to? What are some “off brands” you would recommend? What kind of toothpaste do you prefer?
Our winter has been quite septic this year, with far more ice accumulation than we have ever had before. There is a 4 inch thick layer of ice on our driveway, with lesser amounts on the front stoep and sidewalks.
Since Husband hurt his wrist we are very wary of walking on the ice, and for the first time we bought a container of Ice Melt to help with ice removal. The temperatures have been in the 30’s and 40’s, and that has led to a gradual melt with refreezing at night when the temperature drops. Although it works well, I hate to use the commercial Ice Melt too much since it is mostly salt and I don’t want the salty ice that I manage to remove with the ice removal blade to get into our garden beds. That means pushing the salty ice chunks to the end of the driveway. That is very tiring.
I am the primary ice remover in the family right now, and I am really stiff and sore from the ice removal process. I think of creative and probably illegal or impractical ways of quickly getting rid of the ice when I am out there in the driveway, but I am afraid we are stuck another month of this nonsense. Bring on the Ibuprofen!
What are some creative ways you would get rid of ice, legal or otherwise? How do you manage sore muscles? What are your remedies for cabin fever?
Husband remarked the other day that in the almost 40 years we have been married, we probably only watched the Super Bowl twice, both times at a friend’s house.
Neither of us follow sports, college or professional. In the last few years I have only been glad there was a Super Bowl because it was a good day to have our church annual meeting right after the last morning service. The annual meeting is a tedious affair, especially if there are contentious issues to discuss. People are far more willing to compromise when they want to get home for the pregame show. Things have simmered down over the last 15 years with the deaths of many of the more iconoclastic church members who would get up in arms about important theological issues like being opposed to installing air conditioning even though it would insure that the service committee ladies didn’t swelter in the kitchen while preparing the funeral lunches, and brides didn’t faint in the heat in the sanctuary during summer weddings.
When I was a girl we would usually go to my paternal grandparents’ home when there were important games to watch on TV. I always enjoyed listening to my dad and his brother, both high school and college sports officials, call penalties before the TV officials would. Our plans for this Sunday are to sing in the church choir and head home to take naps. Salmon and mussel stew with harissa are on the menu. The annual meeting was two weeks ago. Life is good.
How will you spend Super Bowl Sunday? What are your favorite things to eat when you watch the Super Bowl? Any meetings you dread having to attend?
Should be warming up by the time you’re reading this. My mom’s mother’s birthday is February 8, 1899. (She died on February 8, 1990.) and mom always said, by her mom’s birthday you could tell spring was coming and the days are getting longer.
But boy, the wind on Thursday. Blowing out of the North and it’s COLD, yet the sunshine is so nice.
15° but there’s mud on the south side of the shed, and that’s what’s so cool about the weather. The sun sure is getting powerful as we move toward spring and April showers and it will be here before you know it.
We were at supper with friends the other night and comfort food came up. I hadn’t thought of an actual food to call comfort food and I was kinda stumped. Popcorn was a big one though. Lately I’ve been making coleslaw at home. Met a friend at the grocery store one day and he had a bag of cabbage mix in his cart, and I thought that sounded good. A little vinegar, sour cream, mayo, pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper, garlic and onion, and Kelly and I are really enjoying it. I can’t figure out why. I think it’s such a good mix of crunchy, creamy, with just a little ‘zing’ too it. Some of you that know your way around the kitchen better than us; should we replace the bay leave that’s been in our flour container since 1997??
Egg production is down a bit with these temps, but everyone is surviving. I’ve got my new hooded jacket, zak-traks for my new insulated boots, and wearing nitrile gloves under my regular gloves and were doing fine.
This cold weather has me thinking of watering calves when I was growing up. Baby calves were kept in the barn with the cows. (Which is frowned upon but now; too many germs spread from cows to the calves that the calves are not old enough to handle yet.) They were warm and I had a simple float on a bucket for their water. When they were about 3 months old, I moved them up to the other barn. They’d be about 300 pounds and boy, that was a rodeo. It’s only 50 feet from here to there, but they didn’t know where they were going, and after burning the horn buds off they were all riled up and it was all I could do to get them up there. It was uphill. Both ways. I just hung on for the ride and tried to head them in that direction. Course once in that barn, I still had to get the rope halter off them. I was younger then thank goodness.
And in this barn was an old metal water tank. 400 gallons or something. One of those galvanized oval metal tanks you’ve all seen. In the summer it was outside with a hose and a float to keep it full of water. In the winter, it was inside. Dad didn’t believe in electric waterers nor was there an outlet in the barn and the calves would have gotten into it and that would be a whole big thing.
Sometimes I would use a hose to fill the tank. And then drain the hose and it hang inside the feed room door, so it was on the warm barn side. But if I didn’t want to use the hose, I used 5 gallon buckets. Carrying those buckets of water built muscle and character. Carrying 2 did it even faster. Remember it was uphill. Depending on the weather, it might take 4 or 6 buckets to fill it. When it was this cold it all froze solid except maybe a depression in the middle so it would only hold 5 gallons. Eventually I’d have to knock out the ice to make more room. The calves, like any outdoor animal, is fine in the cold as long as they can get out of the wind, and they have enough food and water to keep their energy up. When it got to the point they couldn’t drink I could bang on the outside using the backside of an old axe, then chop out a bunch inside, then pound some more on the outside. Mind you, eventually I’d cut a hole in the metal. Sooner if I forgot to turn the axe around. Then it held less water…
As the weather got warmer, eventually Id be able to get the water tank out of the frozen manure, and flipped over all ALL the ice knocked out of it and those ice chunks would last a long time.
So now in winter I haul water in 8 quart buckets to the chickens. It’s downhill all the way to their pen. And a longer walk of 150 feet. (summer we use a hose and multiple buckets) I can carry two buckets in one hand, and corn and water in the other. I have strong fingers. Maybe from all those 5 gallon buckets?
Chickens don’t like bread crust either. But they didn’t eat the cantaloupe, which is weird. We’ve always said we have fussy chickens.
I’ve mentioned we have electric heat. When its below zero, it might cost us $12 / day and I have to think, how much is heat worth to me? Do I want to be cold or do I want to pay the $12.
Good thing this cold spell didn’t last too long.
What Is your favorite cabbage recipe? What is the longest cold spell you remember?What is your ice removal strategy? What do you do with old spices?
Husband describes himself as a left handed person, so one would think that the small fracture he currently is sporting in his right wrist wouldn’t be as big a problem as if had he fractured his left wrist. Well, that isn’t the case at all. Husband writes and reaches for things with his left hand. Those are things he learned before the age of 5. He does everything else with his right hand, including throwing balls and fine motor tasks like buttoning and tying his shoes. He also has carpal tunnel issues with his right hand, so his fingers don’t work that well.
It has been an exhausting learning experience for him to make his left hand work in ways it is unaccustomed to. I am unusually dexterous, so this is all painful for me to watch. I suppose this is a textbook case of mixed lateral dominance. We are supposed to write and throw and kick with hands and feet on the same side of the body. Husband writes with his left hand, but kicks and throws with his right hand and foot. He is also right eye dominant. Can you imagine how hard it would be to navigate the world not knowing what eye, hand, or foot to use? Husband’s father was a lefty. Both our children and our grandson are righties, so I hope the mixed lateral dominance gene has been evaded for future generations.
Are you a lefty or a righty? Know any lefties who struggle? Any stories of lefties who were forced to change to righties in school? Ever broken a bone?
Our children grew up eating a lot of rice, especially Basmati rice since we made curry pretty often. I made risotto occasionally, but not often since it was such a boring pain to make, standing at the stove and stirring and adding the broth for what seemed like an eternity.
The advent of the Instant Pot has revolutionized risotto making, and you can get a really decent risotto in no time with very little effort. I splurged and got a large bag of Carnaroli rice from a fancy, mail order Italian grocery store. It is heavenly. It is said to be far superior to Arborio rice. I haven’t decided yet.
I was tickled the other day when our daughter told me that she and a friend are determined to sample every risotto in Seattle. Their most recent foray into risotto was at a very fancy Italian restaurant where the risotto was green (presumably from pesto) and had Wagyu beef on the top. Daughter said it was wonderful.
I think she and her friend are on a lovely quest, and I wondered where I would want to go to sample a delicacy. All the minestrone in Tuscany? All the baguettes in Paris?
Where would you like to travel to sample the food? What is your favorite rice dish?
We got a good 6 to 8 inches Wednesday night into Thursday. They were predicting that, so I unhooked the rear blade and hooked the snowblower on the tractor on Tuesday. I hadn’t used the blower this year, so I had to put the hydraulic cylinder on it to rotate the spout, check the oil, grease the power takeoff shaft, and I was fairly impressed with myself that I could get in amongst the linkage and frame and get the power takeoff shift connected to the tractor. I would not have been able to do that last summer. BULLY FOR ME!
It was kind of fun to blow snow again, I do things a little different with the blower than I do with the blade and it’s just been the last few years that I started using a blade for snow, so the skills for this came back pretty quick. I remembered it would be slower, but I forgot how much it makes my neck hurt because I’m looking over my right shoulder to do it. The seat swivels a bit, and I sit as sideways as I can, but it’s still looking over my shoulder. My next tractor will have heated mirrors so they stay clean. Or maybe my next tractor will have a blower on the front!
Kelly took some video of me, and I put my first video on YouTube.
One day I had to stop at Fleet Farm as I was looking for insulated winter boots. I found them over in the ice fishing section. You all know I’m not much of a sportsman so I don’t think I’ve ever walked through that area before. It was a little bit fascinating!
I found some boots; they’re keeping my feet much warmer than the plain rubber boots I had been wearing.
Then I went to Menards and walked around there for a while. After that, I had a meeting on the far end of the college campus, and by the time I got home I was pooped out. Nothing hurt! Just pooped out.
Kelly counted 17 pheasants in the yard one morning. The most we’ve ever had, and I love seeing them. I have one neighbor that always asks if he can pheasant hunt and I always tell him no.
My chickens from last spring are just coming into their peak. It’s not unusual to get 16 or 20 eggs a day lately. If anybody was up for a road trip again for eggs, this would be a good time. Although we should wait for the driveway to get better than glare ice.
After that rain we got on Monday, our yard and driveway became pretty slick. It’s been packed snow all winter, not thick, just a half-inch maybe, but that’s what rain does to it. I went to a meeting Monday night. I was impressed that I was even able to get out. Years of practice I told Kelly. After I got home, I used the loader and tried to scrape the ice on the hills and corners on the driveway. It didn’t do much, but it did rough it up a bit and that helps.
I went out to do chores while it was raining on Monday, I tried Kelly‘s yak traks, but they didn’t fit my boots, and I lost them on about the third step. Again, I’ve been doing this for years, I know how to aim for the gravel or bare ground or walk through the snow. Once I got to the feed room, I threw out a bunch of corn, and that gives some traction. Then I carried a bucket with me and scattered corn in front of me to make a path to walk on. A win for the crows and chickens and ducks, and a win for me.
I remember an old movie called Angel In My Pocket, Andy Griffith and a host of character actors that you would recognize. It came out in 1969, and a gentleman playing the church caretaker, Parker Fennelly, reminds me of my grandfather Hain. That was the only movie I was able to watch this week. I couldn’t find it online anywhere so I ordered the movie off eBay and it came from Australia. Spent a week in customs in Chicago. It a long way for some entertainment, but I really enjoy this movie and it makes me think of Grandpa.
I was filling the birdfeeders one day, and I love the fact that the chickadees don’t even wait for me to finish, and they don’t appear to be very scared. I was standing right there filling things and they just come and sit on the birdfeeder.
And here’s Humphrey breaking the corn cob into bits. PHOTOS
Trail Baboon 