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The pandemic has changed us in so many ways, I literally can not write about all of them. But I do know that being indoors so much and consuming so much television, my creative mind has wandered off in search of nourishment.

 

Enter The Great Courses. This site has courses for sale on a zillion different topics and ideologies. You’ve got to hit one of their frequent sales unless you’ve hit the lottery or recently sold an app to Facebook.  My latest escapades deal with something the pandemic has forced me to do…cooking. The series is actually called “The Everyday Gourmet” and has five or six courses of 14 to 30 lectures each.  There are helpful tips and hints and recipes that are completed before your eyes.

 

I love this stuff. I view complicated recipes like a science fiction novel. I read it all of the way through and think “Yea, that’s not gonna happen.” The recipes with never been heard of before ingredients are the best. But recipes that try to trick me into making things like barbecue sauce from scratch, those are the most conniving. The minute I see tomato paste and brown sugar, I can only think that a lovely bottle of Baby Ray’s would work and save me the small bowl that I’m supposed to be whisking in.

 

Cooking isn’t all that bad. I make completely passable meals that have yet to kill anyone. The worst part is cleaning up. You know those cute couples who when one cooks, the other cleans up. The hubby and I are not that couple. And to make matters worse, the dishwasher died so long ago… I don’t remember the last time it really worked. This is the 21^st century folks! Where are my paper pots and pans?

 

I recently saw a cute poem on Facebook that kind of sums it all up:

Roses are red

Food is delicious

We use paper plates

‘Cause I hate doing dishes!

 

But the pandemic is not over, yet. So the trip to the grocery has become my “going out” this year. Another zillion meals will come out of the kitchen at my now more educated and capable hands. But I will keep the faith that one day, I’ll have a kitchen that handles the dishes like the Jetsons.

 

Oh, I’ll take a flying car too.

Now that we have entered the green phase here where I live, life can start returning just a bit to normal.

 

By the way, you have me to thank for the green phase. I no sooner plopped a box of hair color on my reluctant head when the governor announced the salons would re-open. It’s ok though. The color did not get all of my grey as advertised. I still have an uncomfortable patch front and center. The back looks great. Yea!

 

I got very excited about the restaurants having outdoor seating. I watched as the local gastropub set up for this by closing the parking lot and setting up tables in addition to the already existent outside seating. So Mother Nature cues the heat and humidity. This is not all bad, but add in the blazing sun and you could send the food out raw and have it nicely cooked by the time the poor server reaches the table.

 

Speaking of the server, tip well, my friends. These folks are getting your food to you as fast as possible in hot, humid weather while wearing a mask. That alone calls for an extra 5%.

 

Stay-At-Home is officially over. But I really can’t find any place to go. The hot and muggies put a damper on the outdoor activities. And not too many places are open yet. I guess it’s for the best. Amazon would miss me. I pay for the salaries of about 25% of their work force.

 

When I do venture out, I notice that men, in particular, are quite mask resistant.  I have a wonderful wardrobe of whimsical and colorful masks. One for every occasion and outfit are at my beck and call. Sometimes, it’s the hardest decision of the day. The best part is, when you don’t need to be wearing the mask, you can slide it up on your head and cover the ever widening grey streak. It’s a two for one deal!

 

I bought the hubby a couple of man-ly type masks. He wears them when going out with a look of disdain on his face. Luckily, that’s mostly covered by the mask. He can’t use the grey cover benefit because he is almost all grey and really shaggy. The barber opened but he couldn’t get an appointment until next week. My son is in the same boat. Their hair is dense and curly. When the barber clips it, it comes off like sheep wool at a shearing. At an outdoor Father’s Day breakfast, I was using them both for shade.

 

But as normal, whatever that is, begins to resume, I look forward to the day when the grocery isn’t out of stock on basic stuff. That sweet, sweet day when I can eat a meal that I didn’t cook in air conditioned comfort. And most of all, I can show off the tan lines that my mask makes!

Refrigerator Jenga

The covid crisis has brought more perils to the everyday person than originally imagined. Not so much health wise, but certainly refrigerator wise. For the first time, we are mostly on our own for meals. More cooking means the need for ingredients. The refrigerator is one place we store our ingredients.

Refrigerators nationwide are becoming filled to the brim with various fixings for weeks worth of meals. This has not diminished our need for beverage and snack storage in the least. Storage space has not increased, hence the need for “refrigerator jenga”. The gentle art of removing one item so as not to end up with anything on the floor. As you will always need the one thing that will be residing the back of the shelf, and an artful dance occurs between you and the contents of the fridge.

To win this game, you need to reappear from the bowels of the icebox with the desired product in hand, and there are no other casualties. Today, in order to make a meatloaf, I found myself having to dodge several condiments, beverages and a bag of hard boiled eggs. Unfortunately for me, I came out of the game as a loser when a jar of horseradish plunged to its splintery death. Not only was my penalty to clean up the ensuing mess, but to smell horseradish all over the house for some time.

Generally, I buy plastic containers for this reason. Sometimes it helps. Other times the container hits the sweet spot and shatters like a fun house mirror as it makes it dramatic two foot leap to earth. Anyway you look at it, the challenge is there.

I have tried to combat the intricate stacking of product by “organizing” my refrigerator. Labeled plastic bins and careful arrangement of items lead to, as my hubby called it, the “Wawa look”. It lasted two weeks tops. Fresh veggies began to spill over into the designated beer area as I sought healthy options for side dishes. After all eating at home should be healthier and weight loss would follow. The jury is still out on the one. Many folks are referring to the covid 19 as the number of pounds gained by sitting at home waiting for the the barbers and hairdressers to once again man their stations and save us from our locks.
But that’s a whole “nuther” story.

At the end of the adventure, in spite of my loss, the meatloaf got made.

I’m going in for the side dishes. Pray for me.

The Art of Grocery Shopping

I have done many things in my years on earth. One of the weirdest and most challenging is getting a complete grocery order now-a-days.

Being a regular on the Giant grocery pickup scene, I figured that nothing much would change for me. I’d make up my menu, check my recipes, and order what I needed. No worries, right?

However, the grocery gods are not cooperating with my plan. That and covid 19 has made an exceptional amount of Americans into absolute lunatics.

Most things I order at store are out of stock. I can’t wrap my mind around some of the items. Minute Rice has been my holy grail as of late. But we will think about that later on.

In order to actually get an order, I have had to erect a complicated, well considered plan of attack that would make any military bigwig proud. It all starts with the number of places that have curbside delivery in your area. Luckily, where I live it isn’t hard to find the service. It’s hard to get a time slot. So the plan begins to evolve.

I learned that to claim a reserved pick up time, I need to have stuff in the cart and pay for it. Most place will let you change your cart with some degree of ease up until the time that your order closes. So go ahead, grab the time slot and order thirty dollars worth of ice cream and candy. As you determine what you really need, you can remove the junk and add the meats and veggies…or not. Do this at three or four stores.

Once your order is closed, go ahead and grab your next spot. Now. The early morning hours (between 3 and 6…AM) are the best time slot grabbing times. Stores have dedicated personnel who stalk the internet at this ridiculous time of day with no other duty than to capriciously open random times for the groveling public to snap up. You gotta be there. Remember, this is war…or grocery shopping. Same thing.

Don’t forget to load that cart with strange and wonderful things…and pay for them(or you lose your spot quickly.). Now comes the fun part.

Say you ordered 7 kumquats from store A as part of your order. Store A failed to have them in stock and, since covid-19 renders stores incapable of restocking for some reason or providing reasonable substitutes, the just tell they are out of stock in an email of text…along with half of the rest of your order. What now? What now?

Simple. Have another time slot at the next store where you have commandeered at time slot. Fill in your missing products (7 kumquats)as you go. It is good to have these slots a day or so apart, so it may mean many sleep deprived mornings getting the primo time slots at the correct store. I have three revolving store time slot roulette spots. Not only does it enable me to actually get the complete ingredients for any given recipe, but it also keeps me mentally sharp juggling the addition and removal of products to keep the time slot AND get my needed products.

The system isn’t perfect. It falls short where random hoarding happens. It took forever, two states, and the help of a trusted friend to get a pack of toilet paper. But we are set for a bit on that score. The latest crisis is the omnipresent shortage of Minute Rice or Success rice. I don’t quite understand how this is in short supply, but I must deal with it. I am on my third round of store roulette hunting for lazy person rice. I now have my husband checking specialty stores. (Today he has a mission to a local butcher shop to try to find beef too. Someone mentioned a meat shortage and now the shelves empty faster than you can believe. And the pickers for the grocery pick up just seem to avoid providing beef altogether)

Even though I did manage to score some success rice on line. I can not rest until a box of minute rice resides in my closet. It will mark the beginning of the next shortage. And I will live to search another day.

 

 

So when I make an error, I like to do it in an epic way.

 

Really, it’s not all my fault. I’d like to share the blame with the covid-19 hoarders and the grocery store that doesn’t restock quickly. That being said, I’d like to take you on a journey of my quest for macaroni and cheese.

 

It’s Lent. You need mac and cheese to eat with your stewed tomatoes. It’s the law, I think. However, the grocery stores, the big box stores and the warehouses are all out of macaroni and cheese.  I don’t know why everyone suddenly developed a pressing need to clear the shelves of this item week after week. But I was left with no mac n cheese. I wasn’t about to take this lightly.

 

In a moment of brilliance, I noticed the ad from a restaurant supply store that featured cheese sauce in regular and jalapeño. Having two boxes of elbow macaroni on the shelf in my pantry, I put the two together and determined that macaroni and cheese was doable with only a little bit of construction necessary. Bingo!

 

I ordered two cans of plain and one jalapeño. I thought I test run the spicy stuff before committing to two cans. Luckily, this store has a habit of having the product at your door almost before you finish ordering. When I went to bring the box in, it weighted a ton! It wasn’t an over large box and the containers were less than five dollars each. Therein lies a mystery.

 

I opened the box and, what I thought were 10 ounce cans of cheese product, were actual #10 cans of cheese product. These mega cans sport six pounds and ten ounces of cheese product…a piece! I have enough cheese to last until the end of time. I am the proud owner of nearly twenty pounds of cheddar cheese sauce.

 

Needless to say, I will be making macaroni and cheese. I will be making a lot of macaroni and cheese.

 

I could probably make more, but the hoarders have emptied the shelves of elbow macaroni.

 

But the restaurant supply has elbow macaroni. It’s in a twenty pound bag.

The tax bill came.  It is just the real estate tax bill, but still. The heavy hitter is the school tax bill. This just warms you up for it.

 

Tax bills are the necessary scourge of home owning adults everywhere. They don’t hurt so bad when they are rolled into you mortgage, but once the mortgage is gone, it’s all yours.

 

Now, yes, I do realize that taxes provide important revenue to keep streetlights on, trash collected and top officials in nice cars. But for the amount, which went up almost  nineteen dollars this year, what do I get?

 

First, I expect a thank you note. If someone gives you money, you should thank them. A phone call or note would be the way to go. Emily Post, people, Emily Post.

 

Next, I pay my taxes early to get the discount. Upon studying my bill, I notice that the discount is a paltry 2% whereas the penalty for late payment is 10%. I think the reward for my diligence should be worth the same or more than the punishment for negligence when it comes to forking over the dough.

 

I am truly bummed that my trash services aren’t up to snuff. There is no discount for the trash pick up part of the tax bill. But my pickups are cut in half! Plus, the trash company has trucks with a claw that actually does the picking up. They pull up next to the can, the claw comes out and empties the can. It is fun to watch. But the entertainment comes at a cost. You can only have one can. It has to be their can. You have to have it in a particular location at the curb. But as I said, it is awesome to watch. I guess we can chalk this up to an entertainment fee.

 

The real estate tax isn’t the only tax bill at the beginning of the year. There is a head tax in my township. Now what is that? It is a tax upon you for being an adult in township. It was only supposed to be temporary for one year, but it hung around and increased. I guess the township needed better pens. I have no idea where this tax actually goes. But I can imagine.

 

For a head tax, you’d think there would be some variations. Should the head tax be the same for a person who is bald? Their head takes up less room than a fully maned individual. Is hat size considered? So many questions and not enough answers.

 

All of this comes at a time when taxes are foremost on people’s minds. That crazy season between February first and April fifteenth when we have to confess our income to Uncle Sam and hope that our deductions have quenched his thirst for more of our money. I show up every year at the tax man’s office and he acts as my confessor. The mediator between the government and my pocket, walking the tax law tightrope that changes with the wind.

 

Oh, I have tried to go it alone. But when the tax forms read like math questions, I generally just lose it. If a train leaves station A and another train leaves station B, and a cat with a wooden leg can claw four feet of furniture an hour, how much pancake batter does it take to replace your roof? Place the answer on line 4 and divide by your total income minus the amount of homework your dog ate as a child over Pi to the tenth degree. Provide receipts and show your work.

 

You see why I let someone else handle this.

 

So my fellow taxed persons, we have nothing to do but battle through the taxes. I’ll meet you at the same place and same time next year.

Garlic.

 

That word draws lovers and haters for miles around.

 

As for me, I like it if it is used appropriately. I always get suspicious when an eatery reeks of the bulb. I can’t help but wonder if the food is not as fresh as it should be, or what other horrors lay under the extreme odor and flavor.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I like garlic. Garlic, when used to enhance a dish, is amazing! Mediterranean cuisine depends on it to elevate other flavors. But it should not be the only taste I’m getting. I once had a scallop dish that was so overwhelming seasoned with garlic that I could not taste the delicate scallops…at all. Majorly disappointing since seafood is my thing. I’m a fish-a-holic. I will eat fish anytime. The season of Lent should be marked with hamburgers by me. Instead, it is my favorite time of year because the seafood is always the freshest.

 

Garlic also has the unfortunate side effect of making me extremely thirsty. After a heavily garlicked meal, I need gallons of water to tame the thirst. It never happens with anything else. I don’t suppose I’m the only one. But it is annoying. There is one restaurant in New England that serves a roasted garlic bulb with their bread. It is wonderful in that the roasting mellows the garlic and makes it sweet and buttery. That night, the waitstaff continuously restocks my water glass because I can’t get over my parchedness.

 

So garlic is simply amazing in the proper amounts. What is the proper amount? Well, if you smell like garlic the next day, it’s too much. My best friend is hooked on garlic bread with cheese. It smells good, looks great but is overwhelming in the way it tastes. My poor taste buds can’t cope. But I did try it. Garlicky, cheesy carb overload but that’s what gave it character. After imbibing in a hunk, just to see what made this so special, I reeked for hours. Vampires left town.

 

Also, if you can’t taste anything but garlic…it’s too much. I enjoy picking out different flavors in my meals. Garlic is like the elephant in the room. You can’t avoid it, escape it, or hide from it…and it won’t go away. If it is just a little elephant, you can put a lamp on it and call it a table or simply enjoy the company.

 

So cooks of all levels, please, be gentle with your garlic. You can always add more if necessary. I just don’t want to die of thirst.

Shrimp tails.

 

Yes, shrimp tails are a major concern in my life.  You see, I love seafood. All kinds of seafood to be exact. I order seafood when it is at all available. So as you can imagine, I order shrimp often.

 

Unfortunately, one of the problems with ordering shrimp is that it is usually served with the tail on. Now in some applications this is wonderful. Shrimp cocktail would not be the same with out the nature-made little handles already affixed to each morsel. In this scenario, shrimp tails are justified as they keep the consumer’s fingers out of the sauce, they are cold and they are visible.  The same for “pick and peel” shrimp…you are alerted by the name alone to be wary of shrimp tails (as well as other shell bits).

 

My bugaboo is that shrimp tails more often than not accompany the shrimp into sauces and batters that require removal before consumption. And these shrimp are served at about the same temperature as lava so manual removal requires a high pain threshold as well as several napkins, wet wipes and probably at some point, a hose and bucket.

 

So the problem now becomes how to handle the situation.

 

There are a couple of solutions. First would be to daintily remove the entire tail section with a knife and fork. This is fine and decorous. But it leaves a big piece of deliciousness in the shell on your plate. The next course of action is then to surgically remove the tail shell with a knife from the intact shrimp. Sometimes I can do this with grace and ease; other times not so much. A lot depends on whether the sauce they are slathered in will come out of the material that I am wearing. In any other situation, such as a large glob of fried batter on the shrimp that obscures the location of the tail, if there is one, I usually end up consuming one tail. That is probably a significant factor in why fried is my least favorite preparation for seafood. The crunch should only come from the coating.

 

I understand that tail on shrimp are sold that way because the tail adds flavor. That’s fine, but someone needs to remove my shrimp tails for the safety of myself as well as others at my table.

 

You’ve been warned.

I am officially old.

 

Not because I had a birthday in December, but because I got a toaster oven for Christmas and was thrilled!

 

It isn’t just any toaster oven, it is super sized! With French doors! And I feel powerful enough to bake or roast or even toast in this puppy.

 

Yeah. I’m old. Small appliances shouldn’t make anyone this giddy!

 

Last night, I cautiously approached the mega oven bearing a pork roast with sauerkraut. I love this New Years meal because traditionally it is supposed to bring a good year. I was entrusting my luck for the entire new year to the new kid on the kitchen block with highest hopes. I even dug out a digital meat thermometer with dual probes that I had bought awhile ago. None of the old appliances were deemed worthy of the dual probed beauty…until the toaster oven.

 

Preheating the hotbox, I probed the pork roast find the ultimate location for thermal detection. At the sound of the ding, I opened the doors and gingerly slid the roast and my hopes and dreams into the oven.

 

Now they say “a watched pot never boils” but luckily a watched toaster oven does cook. I did watch the roast through the spacious french door windows as the heat did its thing. This is sort of testament to not only the level of wonderment I have with a new appliance, but to the television program available during the holidays.

 

After an hour or so, the numbers on the Thermoprobe crept toward the goal of a wonderful dinner. The beeper sounded off and the time for reckoning was upon us. I removed the pan bearing dinner and placed the roast on the platter to rest from its heat induced challenge.

 

A well placed slide of my razor edged slicing knife revealed a delectable, moist pork roast that any chef would be proud of. My pork, sauerkraut, and mashed potato dinner assures me a happy and successful 2020 all thanks to the new bit of toasty real estate in my kitchen. Thank you, toaster oven!

It will be a happy new year!

Trash. Everybody generates it. But my concerns aren’t as global as some folks because our trash company only picks up one can once a week. My concerns are how to generate less trash when every company seems to be against you.

 

I try to follow the wisdom of folks who apparently know things. When it makes sense, I will try it. For example, I try to limit my online orders so that I had one larger order instead of several smaller orders. But in spite of my efforts, the company will always break up my order in to 23 smaller orders. This leads to smaller boxes with lots of bubbles. A significant portion of my life involves cutting up boxes and stabbing plastic bubbles. It is sort of therapeutic, if you think about it. Not only do I get my product, but a little dose of mental health as well.

When I’m not Buffy the box slayer, I am pondering the sense of some things. I have no beef with paper straws. I kinda like them as a throwback to a simpler time when all straws were paper. You learned to down your beverage quickly before the straw supersaturated and collapsed into a gooey heap. Facing these sorts of challenges makes my generation who they are! The newer straws are made of sturdier stuff indeed. But is the value of switching to paper straws negated by tossing said straws into a plastic bag lined trash can?

 

While we are wondering the fate of straws, plastic straws are ending up in the ocean befouling sea life. What I really need to know is, how did my plastic straw, that I threw into a trash receptacle, end up in the ocean? Somehow I do not believe the consumer is directly liable here. Maybe we should be looking at how straws and plastic bags are handled in between the consumer and ocean. Jus’ sayin’.

 

Speaking of plastic bags, I’m really not a huge fan. Don’t get me wrong. I love a bag with handles. Can we please go back to the days when stores gave out paper bags with handles? I mean how convenient was that? Yes, they are a tad pricier but if I have to pay a nickel for plastic bags(as is being contemplated by woke legislators), why not just switch over? First of all, you use fewer bags. One store puts one item per plastic bag. If you put 3 or more items in one paper bag, your cost is covered. Paper bags are great for book covers, recycling newspapers, mulch, whatever!

Ok, I admit. I buy cases of paper bags with handles. I use them for trash in place of plastic. I use them to corral my recycling before hauling it out to the recycle can. I used them to carry things of all kinds…everywhere. I don’t have the least ounce of guilt throwing them out when the time comes because they will break down just fine.

 

But I still wonder how my trash ends up at the beach more often the me?