Snow Day Miscellany
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The snow is falling hard now, in slightly bigger flakes. The woods look pretty already, but not as gorgeous as they will this evening. I've got pizza dough rising on the counter, and have already cleaned out the freezer, refrigerator, and Rocky's basket of toys (which had approximately two dozen shards of rawhides in it). Jay walked Rocky and is now napping.
Things I have to report on today:
1. This is a Mountaineer apple.
I bought it at the grocery because it's local and it doesn't have a shiny peel (I generally don't like the taste of apples that are shiny--yes, I'm talking to you Red Delicious!). The Mountaineer apples are quite funny looking, kind of squat and mishapen, but delicious.
2. I'm reading a new cookbook by Pam Anderson called The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Looking Great.
There have been only two cookbooks that really had a lasting impression on me or changed the way I cooked. The first was Molly Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest,
which Jay gave me as a housewarming present when I first had my Waverly coworkers over for dinner when I lived with Mary. Molly Katzen was a founder of the vegetarian restaurant Moosewood, and she had a freedom (dips for dinner) and enthusiasm that made me interested in cooking for the first time.
The other cookbook was Pam Anderson's How to Cook without a Book,
which aims to teach readers how to memorize a few techniques that will free them from the tyranny of reading recipes in order to cook. She's right---the most time-consuming, daunting part of cooking isn't the actual work; it's the recipe-following---having to read step by step, meticulously measure, and worry about having just the right ingredients. She wants you to be able to make dinner with whatever you have on hand. I've only mastered a few techniques so far, but I love using them:
--a creamy vegetables soup (boil a vegetable in chicken stock, puree it, add extras like beans, and stir in some milk or cream)
--an omelet (eggs, cheese, and extras on the stove for a few minutes, then under the broiler)
--searing scallops (sear two minutes each side, remove, swirl pan with liquid till bubbly, stir in a pat of butter to make a sauce)
3. For some reason I've thought a lot about my mom today. I realized that, just like her, I often am found, first thing in the morning, singing some sort of "morning song" around the kitchen. A favorite of hers was "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" and also "All I Want Is a Room Somewhere." One of mine is that Good Morning song from Singin' in the Rain ("Good morning, good morning! It's great to stay up late! . . ."). I thought about her too, today, when I was making the pizza dough. I look back at my childhood and am chagrined at what a troublemaker I was. But I have only good memories of working with mom in the kitchen: sifting flour, rolling out dough, cutting out biscuits. I really learned a lot from her, and I feel super homey and happy when I'm baking even now.
Miss you, Mom.
-
The snow is falling hard now, in slightly bigger flakes. The woods look pretty already, but not as gorgeous as they will this evening. I've got pizza dough rising on the counter, and have already cleaned out the freezer, refrigerator, and Rocky's basket of toys (which had approximately two dozen shards of rawhides in it). Jay walked Rocky and is now napping.
Things I have to report on today:
1. This is a Mountaineer apple.
I bought it at the grocery because it's local and it doesn't have a shiny peel (I generally don't like the taste of apples that are shiny--yes, I'm talking to you Red Delicious!). The Mountaineer apples are quite funny looking, kind of squat and mishapen, but delicious.
2. I'm reading a new cookbook by Pam Anderson called The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Looking Great.
There have been only two cookbooks that really had a lasting impression on me or changed the way I cooked. The first was Molly Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest,
which Jay gave me as a housewarming present when I first had my Waverly coworkers over for dinner when I lived with Mary. Molly Katzen was a founder of the vegetarian restaurant Moosewood, and she had a freedom (dips for dinner) and enthusiasm that made me interested in cooking for the first time.
The other cookbook was Pam Anderson's How to Cook without a Book,
which aims to teach readers how to memorize a few techniques that will free them from the tyranny of reading recipes in order to cook. She's right---the most time-consuming, daunting part of cooking isn't the actual work; it's the recipe-following---having to read step by step, meticulously measure, and worry about having just the right ingredients. She wants you to be able to make dinner with whatever you have on hand. I've only mastered a few techniques so far, but I love using them:
--a creamy vegetables soup (boil a vegetable in chicken stock, puree it, add extras like beans, and stir in some milk or cream)
--an omelet (eggs, cheese, and extras on the stove for a few minutes, then under the broiler)
--searing scallops (sear two minutes each side, remove, swirl pan with liquid till bubbly, stir in a pat of butter to make a sauce)
3. For some reason I've thought a lot about my mom today. I realized that, just like her, I often am found, first thing in the morning, singing some sort of "morning song" around the kitchen. A favorite of hers was "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" and also "All I Want Is a Room Somewhere." One of mine is that Good Morning song from Singin' in the Rain ("Good morning, good morning! It's great to stay up late! . . ."). I thought about her too, today, when I was making the pizza dough. I look back at my childhood and am chagrined at what a troublemaker I was. But I have only good memories of working with mom in the kitchen: sifting flour, rolling out dough, cutting out biscuits. I really learned a lot from her, and I feel super homey and happy when I'm baking even now.
Miss you, Mom.
-
posted by Anonymous at
3:33 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Lynnie,
You know one of the things I remember most about your mom was her singing too. That and taking out splinters. (I this huge one that was actually infected because some of it was way down deep. I'd been trying to get it out for a week. She told me to put hot compresses on it 3 times a day for at least 20 minutes and it would come right out. She was right. So now almost every time I take a splinter out of me, Ryan, or Lindsey -- which is about every 10-20 days in the summer -- I think of your mom. Thinking of you and her.
Eve
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