Life in the Cheese Drawer

let’s a take a moment to talk about the five-year plan. in taking on the “someday sunday” blog theme, i’ve been talking about things that i would like to do in the future. in all the SS posts, though, i don’t have a plan to do it. that’s because i’m not a fan of the five-year plan, or 10-year plan, or any year plan, quite frankly.
while i am a huge planner for concrete items, those concrete items for me are elusive, hard to nail down. i’ve noticed this theme even at work: i am NOT the big picture person; once that big picture’s come into focus, i am the details person.
so while i would like to go to machu picchu someday, greece someday, get chickens and bees someday, that someday is not in focus. 

i think life would be a little boring if we all stuck to a five-year plan. and it really allows for no upheaval or spontaneity. with a five-year plan, i probably would not have moved to rochester. i probably would not have my job now because the job experience i had in roch wouldn’t have been experienced. 
a five-year plan holds you fast to a certain set of experiences, and without the sense of “anything could happen,” time skips along at a terrifyingly fast pace. routine lulls us into a sense of complacency about time. 
now, i understand that if a person is satisfied with her current set of circumstances, a five-year plan isn’t really in someone’s cards. i feel like that’s where i’m currently at. i like my house, i like my job, i like my life. but if something comes up? i’m not going to pass up the opportunity to at least weigh the pros and cons, consider for a moment what might be, maybe shake things up if that’s what the stars say to do. 
because i’ll sweat the details. but i’m not going to say no to what the future might have in store – my plans are all about the minutiae after the big picture’s been sorted out.  
anything might happen. that’s what life is. 

happy caturday!

i have to start thinking about a merry catmas card…

repost
When daylight saving gives us an extra hour of sleep on a Saturday night, and the days suddenly grow so short that I wonder why it’s 9:30 p.m., look at the clock, and realize it’s still 5 p.m., I know it’s time for the holidays. I’m not one to want Christmas to come right after Halloween, and I enjoy the time it takes to move from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s. But Thanksgiving isn’t what it used to be, for some reason.
When I was young, my family went to my aunt Kathleen & uncle George’s house for the day, along with their kids, my aunt Colette, and uncle Squire. My mom was “famous,” I guess you could say, for her pumpkin pie, and this is the dish we would bring to the Thanksgiving spread. Although I loved the food and the people at the time, looking back, it was really the night before Thanksgiving that was especially endearing.
For the four pies that would ultimately come from the oven, my mom would start prepping right after supper, pulling out cans of pumpkin puree and evaporated milk. She mixed the ingredients in the large stainless steel pot we owned, the only thing big enough to hold all the ingredients. There was a real science to the spices, taste-testing for the right combination after each dash here, teaspoon there. Some years we had pies that tasted heavily of cloves; other years, nutmeg sparkled on our tongues.
After the filling was perfected, it was time for the crust, which was the best part for us kids, and the worst part for my mom. My siblings and I would gather around as we watched her crumble flour, salt, and Crisco between her fingers, then add water until the dough stuck together. We helped get the pie plates ready, which I never remember her buying and that she still uses, by swirling Crisco on the bottom and sides with a napkin, making circular patterns until we were told to stop.
Meanwhile, my uncle Squire always came to our house the night before Thanksgiving to make his contribution to the dinner: cranberry-orange sauce. Because he was a bachelor and didn’t have much of a need for kitchen gadgets, he didn’t own a blender, a necessary accouterment for making cranberry-orange sauce. My dad, of course, was in the kitchen as well, inputting commentary when necessary and generally making fun of my mom and uncle. So there we were in the kitchen, my mom, dad, Squire, and one, two, three, or four kids.
Our countertops were old and not the best for large-area food preparation, so my mom used a piece of laminate, which was a remnant of countertop cut for a sink (something I realized much later in life). After my dad pulled it from its cubbyhole and placed it on the kitchen, my mom prepared for the most difficult part of piemaking: rolling the dough. After cursing her dough and yelling at us to watch out while she flipped the crust from the surface to the plate, my mom let us have the leftover pieces to mash together and play with. After begging to cook our mini-pie creations, mom made us toss our dough in the trash.
But the best was yet to come: It was time to slip the pies into the oven. Baking four pies took time – two batches of prep and hour-long baking for four pies – and of course, small children had to go to sleep to prepare for the next day’s festivities. We were tucked into bed while the pies baked, the smell wafting up the stairs and into the bedroom where we would be lulled to sleep by the scent of pumpkin and spices. It was the best night’s sleep of the year.

i’m pretty open to new technology. i tend to be an early adopter of some things (see: internet dating, expensive tvs, facebook). other things, i refuse to touch. like ebooks. it’s just not the same! you can call me a luddite when it comes to kindles and other ereaders. luddites are people who are opposed to new technology.
so where does luddite come from?
back in teh early 1800s, the economy in england was pretty horrible, and technology was threatening textile workers’ standard labour practices. the workers had spent a lot of times learning the craft, and were afraid the machines would replace them. so the workers, led by one ned ludd, rioted and broke the machines that would automate textile work. 
the rebellion actually lasted for five years – mill owners were shooting protesters! eventually the military came in to put down the movement. 
this is short because i’ve been cooking all day and i’m off to the wishbone run tomorrow morning, so i’ve got to get myself to sleep. zzzz.
 
 

i was going to review john green’s new book, “turtles all the way down,” but it’s been a couple weeks since i finished it, and i have a much more pressing thing to review for you: THANKSGIVING FOOD.
first, just know this isn’t my first rodeo (i think you know that). second, know that i really ENJOY doing this. i’m not sure why. but i just do. 
tomorrow i start the work. i’ll do a lot of prep cooking tomorrow because there’s no timeline, and i can just do it willy nilly. which means i end of doing a lot more cooking tomorrow than on thanksgiving itself. 
day before
i’ll brine the turkey. i use the pioneer woman’s brine and i get organic cage-free turkeys (not fresh – they’ve been frozen). 
i’ll make a couple pies. this year, it’s pecan and pumpkin cheesecake. (!)
the DRESSING. this is everyone’s favorite and it’s always the first thing we run out of. i think i’ll make a double batch this year and see how it goes. 
cranberry-orange sauce. we do the cold version. i tried the hot version last year, and people weren’t as impressed. it’s like we need something cold and tangy to go with everything warm and homey. 
i’ll cook the squash and get it in a bowl. the day of, we’ll throw in some butter and brown sugar and stick it in the microwave.
sweet potato casserole. this is something that we never had growing up, and one year i decided to try it out. SO DELICIOUS. so we’ve been making it ever since. it’s easy to warm up, so we’ll make it the day before.
apricot coronne, a technical challenge from the great british baking show, will be breakfast. i’ll make it the night before.
day of
for a snack/lunch, i’m making a squash galette with bacon. it’s so yummy! and filling, so it should be enough for everyone if we have some cheese and other snacky stuff with it.
then we’ll pop in the rolls – i just use bread dough from the freezer section and make pull-apart rolls. 
spatchcocking the bird. if you do it this way, it takes a little over an hour to roast, which is a-ok with me. 
throw on the potatoes. 
put in all the things that need to warm up – dressing, sweet potatoes, squash
this year we’re trying a parmesan cilantro corn dish instead of green beans. we’ll see how it goes!
then time to cook the brussels sprouts – just fry them up in some bacon. 
bird comes out and time to make GRAVY. 
LET’S EAT.
***************
then it’s time for DIE HARD.

since two of my etymology posts were greek related, you may have ascertained that i am interested in greece and greek mythology. i even took a greek language class in college (ó dikaeopolis!)

i want to go see all the ruins, learn about the history, catch up on all my mythology. and who wouldn’t want to go see this?

so my favorite youtube yoga teacher, lesley fightmaster, hosts a yoga retreat in greece every year. i would LOVE to go to that. there’s a yoga shala D:

some day! 

happy caturday!

poor ralf has some respiratory problems. he has asthma to being with, and i was reading that stress can axacerbate asthma. well, he’s been having these issues since stan arrived, and stan’s awfully stressful. he might also have a cold on top of that, so his wheezing sounds pretty horrible. he seems to be ok the rest of the time, but he doens’t sound great. i think i’ll give it another week and see if he gets a little better. stan gets fixed on wednesday, so maybe he’ll calm down a little it.