April 2, 2009
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When I don’t write with any kind of frequency I get more selective. Not that this is going to be any better than the usual but I felt like I should wait until something interesting happened. But nothing did. There have been unpleasant events but only marginally annoying and hardly worth mentioning so that leaves the good stuff which is even less noteworthy.
Last night, rather late, I called my brother and asked if he wanted to go for bread pudding at our local, Scottish pub. The owners live down the street from me. The guy is some sort of doctor and his wife is a nurse and they always traveled to Scotland. Pretty soon their whole house was filled with the furniture and rugs they would send home. That spilled over into a restaurant.
I sit upstairs by the fire but my brother likes to sit downstairs at the bar. We’d never been together so it was sort of fun. He got the waitress to give us some kind of special beer in a brandy snifter. It did taste more like brandy than beer.
Bread pudding is a recipe I’ve been collecting from various sources. I must have two or three versions recorded from Paula Dean, and that Italian, Giada I think her name is, and there’s a third but I can’t recall whom. I still haven’t made it. The hard sauce puts me off, and I wouldn’t be able to choose a bread, and who wants a whole pan of that sitting around tempting them at every meal. After all, it’s just bread, right, with some eggs and milk. Shoot, that’s easily breakfast fare.
If I’m not cooking I’m watching the cooking shows and in between that I’m planning for the next salt-free Wednesday I cook for my ex-mother-in-law. I’m going to start calling her “Georgia” because it’s shorter. This week I made a scrumptious chicken casserole. First I boiled a big pot of water and cooked egg noodles al dente.
I sauted onion, carrot, and celery in olive oil/butter, seasoned with pepper and Penzey’s “fine herbs.” Then I took all that out of the pan and added enough butter for a rue. I sauted button mushrooms and fennel, and when that looked ready I added two tablespoons of flour which I browned with more pepper and fine herbs and a little Mrs Dash. To that I added a half cup of white wine, the juice of one lemon, and some half and half. I threw in some frozen peas and some fresh parsley and thinned it with some of the pasta water.
Henry had brought her a roasted chicken from the grocery store just loaded with salt so the whole point of this meal was to try to use the chicken in a way that would diffuse the salt. I took the skin off, cubed it, and added it to the gravy, along with all the vegetables and the noodles and after adjusting the seasoning it went into the oven for 30 minutes “to get acquainted” as they say. We were quite pleased with it.
On the floor front, I have one. Subfloor that is. My kitchen floor and the two long steps into the great room are read for the next step, which I believe is some sort of concrete leveler. I’ve decided on concrete using either a dye or stain. I read about it and my floor guy has done it. Derek was over to check on a heat vent we discovered in the bathroom and he told us we were “cuckoo.” He warned that it would crack because we were putting it on top of wood. My floor guy just called and said he had it all figured out, something about fiberglass, and was bringing a catalogue with color samples for me to look at. I’m thrilled and relieved because I believe this is what will suit me and the house. It’s cool.
I moved my crazy sister today. She smelled of alcohol and it was only 3:30. Fifty-five and shlepping most of her belongings in black garbage bags, though the cello, guitar, and computer had beautiful cases. My mother took me outside when I got there and said they’d had a huge fight and that my sister had told her to shut up. That wasn’t a word we were allowed to use so of course my mother was shocked.
When we got to the house where she is going to be renting a room the key wouldn’t fit. The lady who she’s renting from said she would have to let her in until they could figure the key situation out. My sister said could that happen today and the woman was vague. Weird. I thought it seemed very controlling. I also thought she looked nuts, too, so the more the merrier.
