Such a day
Mar. 17th, 2005 07:33 amYesterday was exciting.
Slow, but exciting.
Maia went to her last final. I did some puttering around the kitchen. She got home, I made breakfast, and went to plant a couple of carrot tops (like onions they can be put in the ground and will regrow. I don't want them for the root, but rather the tops, which I use in the making of stock). She came out, with Alexa, we decided where to put the lavender.
Some other minor questions about the arranging of things and we were off to the races. The plan for the day was to buy a freezer. Oh! the things a freezer makes possible. Meat, in abundance. I can buy whole cuts. An entire sirloin? No problem. A pork loin? No problem. If I think I'm going to be having a feast for a dozen in May, I can keep it whole until then. Chicken breasts? Buy 'em 10 lbs at a time and have them handy.
Vegetables. No problem. Fish? Were we big eaters of fish, again, not a problem. And ice cream. What a refrigerator freezer does to ice-cream is a crime (esp. a frost free freezer, not only is the constant minor thawing and evacuating bad for the ice cream, it uses more energy, and take up half a cu. ft. of storage space). And mice, we can now store lots of mice.
Since Alexa promised to get a vacuum sealer, when we bought the freezer, the deal just gets better.
So we pile in the truck (hauling the horse-trailer so 1: the unloading will be from a much lower lever, and 2: we won't need to lay the freezer down, which means we can plug it in as soon as we get home. The latter means I can afford to shop for lots of stuff which is going to be frozen shortly after I buy it).
It's about half an hour to the Costco/Home Despot we plan to shop at. We natter about this and that. Just before we are about to leave Highway 101, traffic starts to act funny. Not the slow and go for no reason funny, but the other funny. The funny that makes your hair stand on end. That something just out of sight is very wrong funny.
The sort of feeling one gets when the birds are acting strange, the dogs get quiet and nothing seems as it should be.
There is a saturn in between the lanes (this is a two lane stretch of divided highway). It's bronze, single occupant, and the lights are facing us. The headlights. She is doing about 25 miles an hour, the wrong way.
We swerve. Maia reaches for her cell phone to call the CHP. At this point I tell her to stop. The car in front of us (four door, white, cleaned recently, single occupant, black lozenge on the left side, 1/3rd from the edge, with silver letters, WWJD), for no good reason. Much braking, lugging of the trucks V-8 Diesel, the squealing of tires; the approaching of tiny car, disappearing from my view (in the back seat) beneath the bow of the truck. The shuddering of the combined mass of the truck and trailer.
The stopping. Some few feet behind the car.
The Highway patrol number is busy. Maia tries again.
"Are you calling about a car going the wrong way?" Was the first thing she heard.
To the depot (the exit was not more than 100m from where we stopped) and to the shopping. PVC, and extension cord, as well as a lock box for the plug-end; so we can hang the bug-zapper and not worry about the dogs eating the wire. A slab door, so we can hang it on the Mouse House. A freezer. Some other odds and ends.
We are not in good humor. Home Depot takes about two and-a-half hours. We are an odd mix of calm, and snippy. I go back to haul the freezer to the front and Maia is getting ready to cry.
It is (and I ought to have guessed, because I am probably more familiar with it than most) post-traumatic stress. To be expected. Not only was the lady in the car scary, but the, not-quite, crash made it worse. A couple of jokes is not enough to get that out of the system.
I commended dinner. So we head off to a small place she recalls (Santa Maria is not our usual stomping ground) and we have "Mediterranean/Persian" food at Armani's. Nice enough little place. I had sishleek (kebab) with barberry rice (some sort of currant. Maia thought it might be pomegranite seeds, but it wasn't). Alexa had something similar, with eggplant, and plain rice (I had to pay extra for mine) and Maia had a shwarma like thing. All quite good, and the tzatziki-ish stuff they had (they called it cucum-gurt sauce) was very good. Homemade yogurt, garlic, dill and cucumbers. There was a Greek restaurant I used to visit on occasion, which had dill in the tzatziki. The owner was an armenian. I'll probably make some when my dill gets bigger. If I can figure out how to keep the temp up (no pilot light) I'd like to make my own yogurt. A different place (le Petite Greque, in Larchmont Villiage, near Melrose and Gower. It may still be around) used to have a breakfast (they called it a desert, but no, I knew better) of thick yogurt (they made it, it was the texture of softened ice cream) drizzled with honey and covered in pistachios. With greek coffee it would set you up for hours).
We were better. I was still sort of brittle (teasing didn't sit well, I was prone to snappishness), but Maia was much better.
Costco. We've had so-so luck with produce from this one. But, until the one in SLO (right next door to the Home Despot, they broke ground last week, after lots of wrangling. I think SLO has decided to allow some box stores, but only in a ghetto, just outside of town) opens we have only this one. Which means no bulk produce, unless it's destined for immediate use (say apples to crush for cider) we pretty much limit to meats, and packaged.
We slip through the appliances (this Costco is sort of like a pic-n-save, somethings are seen, only to vanish, and if you wanted an IR heat gun (we do) you'd better grab it now. There was some nice stilton, in a crock. Never seen since. I still have some, but I should have bought more, same for some bratwurst I loved and Maia [who is not a sausage person] liked) and get the vacuum sealer.
Into meats. Maia and Alexa go to price frozen chicken parts. I look at pork loins (grab a nice one, not too much fat, and about six lbs.) and look at the big cuts of beef. We can rule out the tenderloin. Too pricey (at 9 bucks a lb.) and not worth the effort. Tender, but bland. I'm not going to make filet mignon, nor tournedos, so why spend the extra money?). Which leaves the NY strip, the rib-eye and the sirloin.
The sirloin is mislabeled, on the shelf, and I pretty much decide I will get my preferred working cut (the rib-eye, well marbled, good flavor and easy to butcher, into steaks, chops, roasts and bits) when they get back and we talk about it. Maia notices the price on the sirloin is 3.50 a lb., where the rib-eye is 5.50.
Ok, redo the math. The rib-eye is in 15 lb slabs, the sirloin in 9lb chunks (that's why the butchery is easier with the rib-eye). It's $90 for the one, and $35 for the other. Dickering, opinions (Alexa likes rib-eye, Maia is ambivalent).
We toss 15 lbs of rib-eye in the cart, as well as 6 lbs of chicken thighs (fresh, at $0.99 a lb, the freezer can't beat that) for stock (because with a freezer, and a sealer, I can put up lots of 8 oz. bags of stock, and use as needed. I can also make broth, and leave the cans behind).
Ignore the 25 lb. bags of Con-Agra bread flour (I need to find a mill) and discover the toothpaste we like isn't here. Various odds and ends in the canned goods, and to the check-out. Drop the cart (a bear to move, with some 30 lbs. of meat, 15 gallons of water and some boxes of canned goods) and take a quick turn through the books.
I snag a copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse. I'd been looking at it (I seem to recall) in trade paper at $15, here it was in cloth for $17. Walking out, with Maia I see a copy of Maria Russel's "The Sparrow. I react. A gasp, and a grab. My copy is in a box somewhere (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
libertango inflicted it on me, out of love and affection, some years ago) and I want to re-read it. This being Lent, it would be a good time (if you've not read it, I commend it. Be warned, however, that if you were reared Roman Catholic, it may be hard. I had to stop every so often [call it fifty pages, or so] because it felt as though someone had tapped me in the solar plexus with a baseball bat. I've been told, by other catholics I've pushed it on [or inflicted, with a small outlay of cash and postage] this reaction is not peculiar to me).
Maia then pointed out a pair of cookbooks. Even at the level of high-priced remainders, this was not a trivial pass through the bargain bin. Not brutal, four books for $35 dollars, but with everything else, the three of us spent about a grand yesterday.
And I still have cooking to do, some cleaning (so far we have three extra people at table tonight, no word from the other two) a small bit of butchery to attend to, and pictures to upload. In the meantime, you can see some in the Grab Bag which has four new pictures, of which this is the first.
The excitement never ends.
Slow, but exciting.
Maia went to her last final. I did some puttering around the kitchen. She got home, I made breakfast, and went to plant a couple of carrot tops (like onions they can be put in the ground and will regrow. I don't want them for the root, but rather the tops, which I use in the making of stock). She came out, with Alexa, we decided where to put the lavender.
Some other minor questions about the arranging of things and we were off to the races. The plan for the day was to buy a freezer. Oh! the things a freezer makes possible. Meat, in abundance. I can buy whole cuts. An entire sirloin? No problem. A pork loin? No problem. If I think I'm going to be having a feast for a dozen in May, I can keep it whole until then. Chicken breasts? Buy 'em 10 lbs at a time and have them handy.
Vegetables. No problem. Fish? Were we big eaters of fish, again, not a problem. And ice cream. What a refrigerator freezer does to ice-cream is a crime (esp. a frost free freezer, not only is the constant minor thawing and evacuating bad for the ice cream, it uses more energy, and take up half a cu. ft. of storage space). And mice, we can now store lots of mice.
Since Alexa promised to get a vacuum sealer, when we bought the freezer, the deal just gets better.
So we pile in the truck (hauling the horse-trailer so 1: the unloading will be from a much lower lever, and 2: we won't need to lay the freezer down, which means we can plug it in as soon as we get home. The latter means I can afford to shop for lots of stuff which is going to be frozen shortly after I buy it).
It's about half an hour to the Costco/Home Despot we plan to shop at. We natter about this and that. Just before we are about to leave Highway 101, traffic starts to act funny. Not the slow and go for no reason funny, but the other funny. The funny that makes your hair stand on end. That something just out of sight is very wrong funny.
The sort of feeling one gets when the birds are acting strange, the dogs get quiet and nothing seems as it should be.
There is a saturn in between the lanes (this is a two lane stretch of divided highway). It's bronze, single occupant, and the lights are facing us. The headlights. She is doing about 25 miles an hour, the wrong way.
We swerve. Maia reaches for her cell phone to call the CHP. At this point I tell her to stop. The car in front of us (four door, white, cleaned recently, single occupant, black lozenge on the left side, 1/3rd from the edge, with silver letters, WWJD), for no good reason. Much braking, lugging of the trucks V-8 Diesel, the squealing of tires; the approaching of tiny car, disappearing from my view (in the back seat) beneath the bow of the truck. The shuddering of the combined mass of the truck and trailer.
The stopping. Some few feet behind the car.
The Highway patrol number is busy. Maia tries again.
"Are you calling about a car going the wrong way?" Was the first thing she heard.
To the depot (the exit was not more than 100m from where we stopped) and to the shopping. PVC, and extension cord, as well as a lock box for the plug-end; so we can hang the bug-zapper and not worry about the dogs eating the wire. A slab door, so we can hang it on the Mouse House. A freezer. Some other odds and ends.
We are not in good humor. Home Depot takes about two and-a-half hours. We are an odd mix of calm, and snippy. I go back to haul the freezer to the front and Maia is getting ready to cry.
It is (and I ought to have guessed, because I am probably more familiar with it than most) post-traumatic stress. To be expected. Not only was the lady in the car scary, but the, not-quite, crash made it worse. A couple of jokes is not enough to get that out of the system.
I commended dinner. So we head off to a small place she recalls (Santa Maria is not our usual stomping ground) and we have "Mediterranean/Persian" food at Armani's. Nice enough little place. I had sishleek (kebab) with barberry rice (some sort of currant. Maia thought it might be pomegranite seeds, but it wasn't). Alexa had something similar, with eggplant, and plain rice (I had to pay extra for mine) and Maia had a shwarma like thing. All quite good, and the tzatziki-ish stuff they had (they called it cucum-gurt sauce) was very good. Homemade yogurt, garlic, dill and cucumbers. There was a Greek restaurant I used to visit on occasion, which had dill in the tzatziki. The owner was an armenian. I'll probably make some when my dill gets bigger. If I can figure out how to keep the temp up (no pilot light) I'd like to make my own yogurt. A different place (le Petite Greque, in Larchmont Villiage, near Melrose and Gower. It may still be around) used to have a breakfast (they called it a desert, but no, I knew better) of thick yogurt (they made it, it was the texture of softened ice cream) drizzled with honey and covered in pistachios. With greek coffee it would set you up for hours).
We were better. I was still sort of brittle (teasing didn't sit well, I was prone to snappishness), but Maia was much better.
Costco. We've had so-so luck with produce from this one. But, until the one in SLO (right next door to the Home Despot, they broke ground last week, after lots of wrangling. I think SLO has decided to allow some box stores, but only in a ghetto, just outside of town) opens we have only this one. Which means no bulk produce, unless it's destined for immediate use (say apples to crush for cider) we pretty much limit to meats, and packaged.
We slip through the appliances (this Costco is sort of like a pic-n-save, somethings are seen, only to vanish, and if you wanted an IR heat gun (we do) you'd better grab it now. There was some nice stilton, in a crock. Never seen since. I still have some, but I should have bought more, same for some bratwurst I loved and Maia [who is not a sausage person] liked) and get the vacuum sealer.
Into meats. Maia and Alexa go to price frozen chicken parts. I look at pork loins (grab a nice one, not too much fat, and about six lbs.) and look at the big cuts of beef. We can rule out the tenderloin. Too pricey (at 9 bucks a lb.) and not worth the effort. Tender, but bland. I'm not going to make filet mignon, nor tournedos, so why spend the extra money?). Which leaves the NY strip, the rib-eye and the sirloin.
The sirloin is mislabeled, on the shelf, and I pretty much decide I will get my preferred working cut (the rib-eye, well marbled, good flavor and easy to butcher, into steaks, chops, roasts and bits) when they get back and we talk about it. Maia notices the price on the sirloin is 3.50 a lb., where the rib-eye is 5.50.
Ok, redo the math. The rib-eye is in 15 lb slabs, the sirloin in 9lb chunks (that's why the butchery is easier with the rib-eye). It's $90 for the one, and $35 for the other. Dickering, opinions (Alexa likes rib-eye, Maia is ambivalent).
We toss 15 lbs of rib-eye in the cart, as well as 6 lbs of chicken thighs (fresh, at $0.99 a lb, the freezer can't beat that) for stock (because with a freezer, and a sealer, I can put up lots of 8 oz. bags of stock, and use as needed. I can also make broth, and leave the cans behind).
Ignore the 25 lb. bags of Con-Agra bread flour (I need to find a mill) and discover the toothpaste we like isn't here. Various odds and ends in the canned goods, and to the check-out. Drop the cart (a bear to move, with some 30 lbs. of meat, 15 gallons of water and some boxes of canned goods) and take a quick turn through the books.
I snag a copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse. I'd been looking at it (I seem to recall) in trade paper at $15, here it was in cloth for $17. Walking out, with Maia I see a copy of Maria Russel's "The Sparrow. I react. A gasp, and a grab. My copy is in a box somewhere (
libertango inflicted it on me, out of love and affection, some years ago) and I want to re-read it. This being Lent, it would be a good time (if you've not read it, I commend it. Be warned, however, that if you were reared Roman Catholic, it may be hard. I had to stop every so often [call it fifty pages, or so] because it felt as though someone had tapped me in the solar plexus with a baseball bat. I've been told, by other catholics I've pushed it on [or inflicted, with a small outlay of cash and postage] this reaction is not peculiar to me).Maia then pointed out a pair of cookbooks. Even at the level of high-priced remainders, this was not a trivial pass through the bargain bin. Not brutal, four books for $35 dollars, but with everything else, the three of us spent about a grand yesterday.
And I still have cooking to do, some cleaning (so far we have three extra people at table tonight, no word from the other two) a small bit of butchery to attend to, and pictures to upload. In the meantime, you can see some in the Grab Bag which has four new pictures, of which this is the first.
The excitement never ends.
