Rest Stop Ahead

I don't know what it is with me and highway rest stops.

This week, I drove from Medford to Springfield, about 100 miles, to meet up with my wonderful cousin Steve who grew up in Connecticut but now lives in the San Francisco area, and is in New England for  vacation. We had a wonderful lunch and a lovely visit, but the drive out was not entirely uneventful. I wear reading glasses, and if you've ever met me, you may have noticed that I carry them tucked into the neckline of my blouse when I'm not wearing them. You may also have noticed that I — ahem — don't have a whole lotta real estate in that neighborhood to anchor them, if you get my drift.


I was in the women's room, doing what comes naturally, and somehow adjusted my footing, but in doing so knocked the glasses out of my blouse and into the toilet. The toilet in the public restroom. The toilet in the public restroom that I've already peed in. So my quandary, as I'm sitting there: do I reach in and pull out these glasses? They were cheapo $4 reading glasses from Christmas Tree Shops (a tchatchki shop for you non-New Englanders), and my first instinct was an unambiguous "Are you insane? No, for Pete's sake!" But I know how toilets work, and I know glasses are really bad for plumbing, and I didn't want to imagine what would happen if they went down. On behalf of every woman who's ever been grossed out in a public bathroom, I realized I had to retrieve them. Ewww.


Don't thank me yet.

So I start to reach for them; but the electric eye that flushes automatically detected my movement as the signal that I was done. The toilet flushed, and before I could say "Holy crap", they were gone. I took that as a message that I was not supposed to reach in to a public toilet to retrieve anything, ever. Lesson learned.

———


For Thanksgiving 2008 we were driving our usual route to Madeline's house on Long Island, and stopped at the rest stop on 684 in Katonah. We often stopped there because that's about as far as I can get without a pitstop. I drink alot of tonic when I'm driving. (Tom's pet peeve #4,893: I never drink to the bottom of the can when I'm driving. That last swig takes too long.)

 As I'm walking into the women's restroom, a man standing out front of the buiding asks me if I'd like a pork loin. I muttered some kind of  "don't bother me" response, and continued inside. As I was returning to the car, I was horrified (okay, maybe horrified is too strong a word — I didn't like)  to see that Tom was talking to the man, and holding one of the frozen, cryovac-sealed pork loins - the kind you can get at BJ's or Costco: they're about 18 to 24 inches long, and 6 inches or even more in diameter. When we buy them we cut them up into three sections before freezing them. I'm sure you know the cut of meat I'm talking about. Anyway, there he is, Tom, with a pork loin under his arm, and I approach the men and join the conversation. It turns out the man is a truck driving minister from Fort Bragg, finishing up a delivery to the area, but doesn't know how to get rid of about 18 of these cryovacked pork loins. I suggest possibly a food pantry in the town, but he is in a rush to be rid of them, unfamiliar with the area, and needs to get back to North Carolina quickly. So we relieved him of one of the roasts, thanked him and bade him farewell and good luck.

We were giddy with our good fortune, although not completely convinced we hadn't just taken poisoned or expired meat from the mysterious stranger (the meat was frozen solid and factory sealed but bore no label or expiration date). We looked at each other and said almost in unsion - Think Jimmy and Gerry would want one, too? So we walked back to the man and offered to take another two. leaving him with three plus an unopened case. What the heck, we thought, we can probably give these roasts to Madeline's church's pantry, so we might as well take all six from the opened box. So we left with our pork loin treasure, leaving the man with just the unopened case.

We couldn't contain our glee when we got to Long Island and told and retold the story of the truck driving minister in Connecticut, and Jim & Kathy and Gerry & Antoinette each took home a pork loin, although to this day I don't actually know if they ate them or if they were just being polite.

Giving the other three to St. Raphael's in East Meadow didn't work out, so we brought the still-frozen roasts back with us, and I passed them along to our food pantry, Friends of St. Francis here in Medford — but not before cooking a family-sized portion of one of the roasts and eating it to make sure they were good. St. Francis was grateful for the donation, and planned to cook them for the day-after-Thanksgiving meal at Bread of Life, a provider that serves a multi-town constituency. I told them about the truck driving military chaplain from North Carolina, but left out the part about the rest stop.

Every time we drive to East Meadow now we stop at "our" rest stop, but alas, we've never again been offered free meat. A girl can dream, no?

Tale of Two Dishwashers

What planet was I on when I decided it was a good idea to purchase a dishwasher on June 3 that could not be delivered until July 8?

My old dishwasher — and I use the term “old” loosely, because we purchased it on January 1, 2007 — had died and been restored to life one too many times to justify a  another $200 + parts service call. I knew ahead of time that the part, the electronic control panel, would be about $125. This would be the dishwasher's fourth control panel, and I was pretty clear on the numbers. Nope, I wasn't about to repair this dishwasher with the design flaw one more time.


So I went to Sears, found the dishwasher I wanted, got the details and went home to research it on the web: price, reliability, reviews, etc. Two days later I went back to purchase it, but, alas, the 20% off sale was over, and the salesman wouldn’t budge. So I hemmed and hawed and huffed and puffed and bought the dishwasher anyway (plus a service contract and an air conditioner as well — I figured: that'll teach him!) and scheduled the first available delivery date, more than a month out. Now I sit, or rather, stand, washing dirty dishes day after day, night after night, and pretty much any time in between. There are always, always dishes in the sink. The very surprising upside is that while I'm washing that last sinkful of the day, the boys are drying and putting away. I know it's actually more hygenic to air dry dishes, but I really enjoy those few minutes each night as we accomplish this one little task, all of us focused on a singular goal.

My old dishwasher is not utterly useless, though: it makes a great stand for piling stuff on top of and up against. Hey, anybody want to buy a working dishdryer? Cheap.

The Grotto

Momo has found poor Pixel's favorite spot. And funny how all the older cats now have the honorific "poor" in front of their names when the sentence also includes the word "Momo".

And man oh man, don't I need to wash my windows?

Momo's a Celtics Fan!

We were leading until I snapped this picture.

No Birthday Cake? You Say That Like It’s A Bad Thing

It's my birthday, and you can be sure I brought the boys out yesterday to buy a present AND a card. Gift and card notwithstanding, I'm also enforcing the standard we-forgot-to-get-you-a-gift gift: no bickering for 24 hours. By golly, I'll be queen for the day! But I think I’ll skip the birthday cake this year and go with one of my favorite cookies instead.

I have previously mentioned that I am programmed not to follow recipes to the letter. This particular cookie is a family favorite that I invented one day when I was out of peanut butter, but had hazelnuts in the freezer (far stranger things than this happened when we lived 2400 miles from the nearest grocery chain.)

Kwajalein photo courtesy Sue Rosoff Photography.

HAZELNUT CYCLOPS COOKIES

1 ¼ c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 c toasted, blanched and cooled hazelnuts
¼ c granulated sugar
½ c butter
½ c brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 egg
Coarse brown sugar (for dipping)
Guittard Bittersweet Onyx Wafers (or Hershey Kisses)


Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Grind the cooled hazelnuts and granulated sugar in a food processor until very fine. Add the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and egg and continue processing until very smooth.

Pour the hazelnut mixture into the flour and stir together until well blended. Use a wooden spoon instead of a mixer to prevent overmixing, which will make the cookies tough.

Wrap the dough in plastic and chill well, or freeze until ready to use. (If freezing, thaw in the refrigerator before shaping).

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Shape the dough into 1” balls, dip into the coarse brown sugar and place about 2” apart on a cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until slightly browned. While the cookies are still hot and on the cookie sheet, press a Bittersweet Onyx chocolate disk (or a Hershey Kiss) into the center of each. Let the cookies set about 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Note: To toast the hazelnuts, spread them in a single layer on a heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until the oils begin to release and the nuts begin to lightly brown. Alton Brown says if you can smell the nuts toasting you’ve overdone them, but I usually toast them until they are fragrant. Cool the nuts completely before grinding.

Variations:

• Mix 12 ounces of chocolate chips into the dough before wrapping and chilling, and skip the chocolate disk at the end. 
• Skip the chocolate altogether and mix about a cup of coarsely chopped hazelnuts into the dough before wrapping and chilling. 

And in case you're wondering, no, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I didn't chill the dough.

C Stands for Cool, Calm and Collected

This is the first time I've embedded a video, so let's see if it works.

It was early morning one school day, and I was pouring juice or milk (okay, soda) for David for breakfast, to drink with his eggs or cereal (okay, cookies) when I dropped the glass, shattering it on the ceramic tile kitchen floor, inches from C. He didn't move from his favorite spot next to the heating vent, but I noticed a lot of tiny shards of glass in his fur. So what was I supposed to do?

I got out the vacuum, and the rest is now, officially, history.

What's for Supper?

If you know me, you know I know my way around a kitchen. So what the heck happened in my kitchen today?

I had some ears of corn on the counter unshucked from the holiday barbecue, and thought struck to make corn fritters for dinner. Yes, I know they're supposed to be a side dish, not a meal; but I get these urges sometimes, and corn fritters just seemed so right. That little voice inside my head made it sound like such a good idea. And why waste all that space with protein and dietary fiber and vitamins when I can fill it all up with fritters?

So I opened Joy, and checked the googles, and found a couple of recipes, which of course I couldn't follow to the letter because I am incapable of following a recipe to the letter. I had the bright idea to coat my fritters in seasoned panko. I still think that's a winner of an idea, but now I'll never know.

Let me explain, in my most unscientific voice, exactly how popcorn works. The water inside the kernel is heated to vapor, expands, and then, BOOM, explosion, and voila, you have popcorn.

Now, imagine that same scenario, batter-dipped and in 2 inches of 375° degree peanut oil.

Then imagine cereal for supper.