Review of Days 3/17-3/22

Last Wednesday I had a complete and utter meltdown while cooking dinner. I wouldn't rank it among one of my all-time best meltdowns because I didn't actually burst into tears, but it was up there, mainly because of the intensity of my frustration and the creative use of some "colorful" words. It was one of those types of breakdowns that sneak up on you, taking you by surprise and leaving you to wonder what dark corner of hell that came from. My day just prior to the point where I lost it had been sort of quiet, even boring, but in hindsight, I can see that the signs were there...

It was kind of a blah day, snowing, raining and a little chilly so I decided not to take Ellie out. It was also St. Patrick’s Day and I didn't have any desire to maneuver around the binge drinkers that had passed out on the sidewalk. ick, don't I sound old and cranky. The decision to stay in seemed to agree with Ellie because she slept for most of the day, giving me some much needed time to catch up on some cleaning and other things that I've been putting off. like writing thank you cards. At some point I decided I wanted to make crepes with some sort of savory filling for dinner, so I surfed the Epicurious site for crepes recipes and found this one for Chicken Crepes With Asparagus And Mushrooms appealing. I printed the recipe for later use and went on with my day. Busy with things, busy with Ellie, busy with food shopping, busy with avoiding writing thank you cards, I never really stopped to eat anything more than an orange and a slice of toast all day and so, when I finally got around to starting dinner, I was already past the point of reasonable hunger, my blood sugar had plummeted to dangerously low levels. I could have, no... I SHOULD HAVE snacked on something when I realized that, but I ignored the warning signs and continued with the dinner preparations. When it became apparent that the recipe was a lot more involved than I had originally thought, had I been smart and read the reviews from folks who had tried the recipe before me, I would have known this I started to get a little panicky but, a quick check on Ellie, who was still napping, made me think things might work out ok. I got busy again, preheating the oven, chopping, measuring and setting up my mise en place. I had just begun making the roux, something that needs constant stirring and attention when...She Who Must Not Be Disturbed WOKE UP!!

My daughter, who normally brings me nothing but joy and great pleasure and who, for the most part, is really a very good baby, woke up hungry and fussy. Fussy? After napping all day!? Feeding her didn't calm her, changing her diaper didn't calm her, her pacifier didn't calm her, wheeling her around in the carriage didn't do it, "this little piggy", "how big is baby", and peek-a-boo 47,000 times didn't do it, nor did my Peter Allen impersonation when my baby...when my baby smiles at me I go to Rio... quiet her. She wanted to be held in my arms with her face pressed against my neck and that was the only thing that would quiet her. I tried making the roux and then the velouté with one hand, and somehow I managed without letting the pot go flying off the stove or burning anything, including myself. By the time Tom came home from work, I was sweating profusely from the unbearable heat of the apt, (the oven being on was not helping matters), the Babe was NOT letting me put her down (that was beginning to get old), both my arms felt like they were going to fall off, I had tripped over the cat about 36 times, I had to go to the bathroom, dinner was nowhere near being ready and I was STARVING. When Tom walked in the room and innocently asked when dinner would be ready, I turned towards him, wild haired and eyes bulging, mouth foaming and neck muscles straining and lost it.

For what it's worth, the dinner was really tasty. The sauce over the chicken was smooth and creamy and very rich, too rich to eat all the time but a once in a while treat is ok. We didn't end up eating it with crepes but with rice. After Tom got over the shock of his wife turning into a raving lunatic, he rescued me by taking Ellie so that I could finish making dinner. I attempted making the crepes, really, I did, but after the first one crumpled when I tried to flip it over, I gave up and made rice. We ate our fancy dinner in the style of chicken ala king and it was delicious. I'm sorry there's no picture but I was still way to fragile to start setting up lights and way too hungry to stop and take pictures. As it was, it took everything I had not to just bring the dish up to my face and snarf it all down.

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The first time I saw our house (well, before it was ours) back in July of 2003, I remember thinking that if we ended up buying it, one of the first things that was going to go was the fenced in area overlooking the driveway that the previous owners called a garden. To me it looked like it was being used as a dog run rather than a garden, but I didn't actually say that to them I thought the thing was ugly and I hated that it could be seen from the road. I mentioned to Tom that eventually I'd like to make it go away and Tom, sensible guy that he is, explained to me that usually with something like this, it was highly likely that concrete had been poured into a hole and that the posts to the fence had been sunken into that concrete and that removing something like this would be a big pain in the arse. I was disappointed but had secretly decided that we would deal with it later, when there were less important projects that needed our immediate attention and more time to spend on projects of a cosmetic nature. Our property is very long and narrow; the house sits on what is basically the bottom of a hill. The back of the house sits on what begins to be a rather high slope that eventually evens out and becomes flat ground, but it's not so convenient for something like a vegetable garden. I would have to do some creative planning if I wanted to start a garden that was close to the house but could not be seen from the road, yet also make it work without needing to build it on the side of a hill. The more I thought about it, the more the fenced in area started to grow on me. I could see the sense of having the vegetable garden at level ground and closer to the kitchen, even if it did look out of place and ugly, and so I think it's here to stay. It looks like a small space in the picture but it's actually 20' x 8', a nice size space for someone like me who is just getting into gardening and is a beginner. It's not too big, but big enough for me to try a few different things. I hope that once I get the garden established it won't be such an eyesore from the road, I don't plan on putting it to use until next year so I better get over being bothered by the way it looks. I guess I should stop focusing on the negative and look at the positive...this really is a lucky break, I get a fenced in area that will keep the deer and other critters out of the garden without infringing on their rights too, AND we didn't have to build it. How cool is that?

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Remember the pantry I was excited about?

It had doors and two shelves above it that made it impossible to stand up to my full height of 5'7" whenever I wanted to get or put something away. The top two shelves were very deep but not so easy to access, anything I wanted to put there would have been too hard to get back out and so basically it was wasted space. Tom was planning to build a Lazy Susan for those two shelves to better utilize the space, but when he took the shelves out I realized that the pantry could be extended. We could build more shelves for stuff and I'd also be able to stand at my full height whenever I was inside, thus creating the pantry of my dreams! or close enough to it

Tom spent all of Friday and most of Saturday, measuring and cutting, chopping and banging, getting the new shelves ready and into the pantry. As an added bonus he even painted the pantry for me and lined the shelves with the contact paper I had bought way back in November.

I didn't have to do a thing, except coninue being my fabulous self and I ended up with this terrific pantry!

The Lazy Susan, which Tom built himself, (and please take special note of the curved guide that he invented to prevent things from flying off the back)

ended up finding a home in the cabinet above the refrigerator, which also had the same type of deep but waste of space area.

So, even though I'm still not used to such a large kitchen, it's slowly becoming "my own space," a place I definitely hope I'll eventually learn to love and want to spend more time in.

OH! I almost forgot. We replaced the old flood lights just outside the kitchen door,

with a new more kinder and gentler light. So now we wont go blind coming in and out of kitchen from outside, woot!

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Take a peek inside my peat flat, go on, I dare ya. What do you see?

I know, I know, things are growing! I'm so happy, I'm doing the happy dance!

So far, of all the seeds I planted, only the Canterbury Bells, the Italian Parsley, the True Lavender, the Spearmint, The Common Sage, The Rosemary, the Lemon Balm, the Columbine, and the Chinese Lantern, have yet to start germinating. Hopefully by the time we go back this coming weekend they will have started too. My lettuce has pretty much died (I'm sorry Cathy, I tried, I really did), and I'm nervous that the wildflowers might be ready for planting now and that maybe I should have directly planted them into pots instead of trying to germinate them in the peat. I'm so unsure as to whether I did the right thing for them. I was so ecstatic that things were actually growing that I ran out and bought more seeds and planted them in seedling starter too. So now I also have some, Baby's Breath, Red Poppy, Bell Pepper (Carnival Mix), Borage, Broadleaf Sage (pretty sure its also known as common sage), Curled Chervil, Helen Mount Violas (Johnny Jump Ups), Pepper (Hot Mix), Forget-Me-Nots, and Dahlias (Rainbow Mix). I expect a high failure rate for some of these things, especially the flowers. I'm beginning to wonder if it might have been better to buy them already established rather than try to grow them from seeds myself. I guess I'll find out soon enough. The hard part is the waiting, I keep wanting to peek under the plastic hood of the flat and watch everything grow. I almost insisted we bring the flat back into Manhattan with us so I could watch it all week!

I tested our soil with a home testing kit and found that our soil, at least the sample we collected from the fenced garden is very high in alkaline, low in nitrogen and potash and very high in phosphorus. Not sure what all that means, except that I have a lot of reading to do. I also need to find out why some of our trees are covered in lichen and if I should even be concerned by it.

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We have ladybugs over wintering in our house. I suppose that's a good thing, at least my indoor plants wont get aphids, but it is a little odd. Most folks get ants, we have ladybugs. I can't find the spot where they might be getting into the house, but let me tell you, there are at least a dozen of them just chilln' in almost every room. I think it's kind of neat, and yet it repulses me at the same time. Good thing ladybugs are on my list of "acceptable" bugs otherwise I'd be FREAKING.

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I have done some cooking since "The Incident". I’ve been trying to keep up with my plan to make as many meals as possible and freeze them so that when the warmer days finally arrive I'm not stuck in the house cooking all day. I also have another motivation for that plan and that is, I go back to work in two weeks. Tom works days and I'll be working nights, (only a few hours four nights a week), he'll be taking care of Ellie for those few hours and cooking won't be much of an option. To make it easier for him to take care of Ellie with his undivided attention, I thought he might like grabbing a bag of something homemade out of the freezer, popping it into the microwave and eating something far better than take-out every night with minimal cleanup afterwards! So far he seems to be grooving with the idea. So, I made meatballs this weekend, hundreds, no, thousands of little meatballs and froze them into individual serving sizes. I also made a chicken and Southern style dumpling stew that turned out really well… except for the dumplings, those turned out scary and just a little undercooked, not sure what happened there, I guess I need more practice.

Written by Deb on March 23, 2004 12:03 AM