AND, HOW WAS YOUR THANKSGIVING?
Since my mother chose to move to Missouri and my sister chose to move to some frozen northern place, the only family member living close to me is my brother. He's not really into doing holiday dinners, and I feel no obligation to go visit family members who moved away from home in order to fulfill some Rockwellian holiday fantasies. I was invited to join my best-friend-from-high-school (who for the rest of this story will be BFFHS) for Thanksgiving dinner. She couldn't decide whether to take her mother (this is the friend whose mother had a stroke, and is pretty much paralyzed) down to the VFW for a $5 Thanksgiving dinner or to cook a dinner at home. I said that if she chose to cook at home I would help. Apparently that tipped the scale towards dinner at home. I volunteered to do garlic/rosemary potatoes and green beans with bacon. And, since I had a large quantity of the favored type of brown rice on hand I was asked to cook up two cups of rice for the dressing. (It's nice that neither one of us can consume wheat. She's allergic, suffers from typical allergy reactions, and I can't digest it.) BFFHS kept calling it stuffing, but she doesn't stuff the turkey with it. If it doesn't stuff something, it isn't stuffing.
When I arrived BFFHS was rummaging around in her car. Now, I would like for you to imagine the most disorganized handbag you have ever seen. Magnify it to the size of a Toyota Camry, and put it on four wheels. This is the state of BFFHS' car. She was looking for the oven knob. Why was the oven knob in the car to begin with? Because it has no numbers on it, and BFFHS had been trying to find a replacement knob with numbers. The reason that BFFHS wanted to find the knob at that particular moment? Apparently the oven thermometer was showing that the oven temperature was 500º and they weren't having any luck adjusting the temperature by turning the stem with pliers. Okay, just how will the knob make a difference, if turning the stem with pliers (which does the same exact thing as turning the stem with a knob attached) isn't doing anything? The knob was not found in the giant four-wheeled pocketbook, so BFFHS couldn't test her theory that the knob would fix that problem. She then determined that the oven thermometer must be malfunctioning, since the temperature didn't go up or down no matter which way the stem was turned. So, she removed the thermometer. Out of the oven, it showed a lower temperature. The oven thermometer was not broken. It was pretty obvious to me that the thermostat in the oven was the problem-the oven didn't know when to turn itself off in order to avoid getting too hot. This was not a theory that was welcomed or even considered as a possibility by BFFHS, so at least two hours were spent “adjusting” the oven with pliers. It didn't matter where the thing was turned-within 10 minutes the temperature was back up to 500º. So, I kept turning the oven off until it got to 300º and turning it off when it got to 400º. BFFHS began predicting that the turkey would be horrid, burnt, not cooked through, just plain old ruined. It wasn't any of those things. It was pretty good. The rest of the dinner was also tasty-much better than the pedestrian fare we would have gotten down at the VFW (although, dinner with old veterans who enjoy their cocktails can be entertaining enough to make up for bland food).
When I told BFFHS that I was going to tell the tale of her war with the oven on my blog she said “It's a good thing nobody reads your blog”. That is not true. Some people read my blog. One or two anyway.
I recently needed (wanted?) some jars with lids for a craft project, and thought that good old Mason Jars would be just the thing. Cheap, and you can find them everywhere. You know, at the grocery store high up on the shelf above the pectin and the household wax, or way over in a back corner somewhere-but they always have jars, right? Not any more! I tried two grocery stores. They still carry pectin, and the wax for putting on top of jelly, but no jars. I went to Walmart, figuring that they would still cater somewhat to the uber-domestic types. No jars. I went to Target. No jars. Doesn't anyone still grow vegetables and can them? Doesn't anyone make jam to give as presents to people who will never use it and finally toss out the old dusty jars in ten years? Isn't anyone preparing for the upcoming disaster? I guess not here in Southern California. I had to order some on line. I'll bet the General Store up in Julian would have them, they have everything you would need to live off the land in a log cabin. Should have thought of that-a drive to the mountains would be fun. Not cost efficient I'm sure-the shipping charge for the jars is probably less than the gas would cost for a little day trip.
“The October wildlife fires.” I have images of flaming lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.
Since my mother chose to move to Missouri and my sister chose to move to some frozen northern place, the only family member living close to me is my brother. He's not really into doing holiday dinners, and I feel no obligation to go visit family members who moved away from home in order to fulfill some Rockwellian holiday fantasies. I was invited to join my best-friend-from-high-school (who for the rest of this story will be BFFHS) for Thanksgiving dinner. She couldn't decide whether to take her mother (this is the friend whose mother had a stroke, and is pretty much paralyzed) down to the VFW for a $5 Thanksgiving dinner or to cook a dinner at home. I said that if she chose to cook at home I would help. Apparently that tipped the scale towards dinner at home. I volunteered to do garlic/rosemary potatoes and green beans with bacon. And, since I had a large quantity of the favored type of brown rice on hand I was asked to cook up two cups of rice for the dressing. (It's nice that neither one of us can consume wheat. She's allergic, suffers from typical allergy reactions, and I can't digest it.) BFFHS kept calling it stuffing, but she doesn't stuff the turkey with it. If it doesn't stuff something, it isn't stuffing.
When I arrived BFFHS was rummaging around in her car. Now, I would like for you to imagine the most disorganized handbag you have ever seen. Magnify it to the size of a Toyota Camry, and put it on four wheels. This is the state of BFFHS' car. She was looking for the oven knob. Why was the oven knob in the car to begin with? Because it has no numbers on it, and BFFHS had been trying to find a replacement knob with numbers. The reason that BFFHS wanted to find the knob at that particular moment? Apparently the oven thermometer was showing that the oven temperature was 500º and they weren't having any luck adjusting the temperature by turning the stem with pliers. Okay, just how will the knob make a difference, if turning the stem with pliers (which does the same exact thing as turning the stem with a knob attached) isn't doing anything? The knob was not found in the giant four-wheeled pocketbook, so BFFHS couldn't test her theory that the knob would fix that problem. She then determined that the oven thermometer must be malfunctioning, since the temperature didn't go up or down no matter which way the stem was turned. So, she removed the thermometer. Out of the oven, it showed a lower temperature. The oven thermometer was not broken. It was pretty obvious to me that the thermostat in the oven was the problem-the oven didn't know when to turn itself off in order to avoid getting too hot. This was not a theory that was welcomed or even considered as a possibility by BFFHS, so at least two hours were spent “adjusting” the oven with pliers. It didn't matter where the thing was turned-within 10 minutes the temperature was back up to 500º. So, I kept turning the oven off until it got to 300º and turning it off when it got to 400º. BFFHS began predicting that the turkey would be horrid, burnt, not cooked through, just plain old ruined. It wasn't any of those things. It was pretty good. The rest of the dinner was also tasty-much better than the pedestrian fare we would have gotten down at the VFW (although, dinner with old veterans who enjoy their cocktails can be entertaining enough to make up for bland food).
When I told BFFHS that I was going to tell the tale of her war with the oven on my blog she said “It's a good thing nobody reads your blog”. That is not true. Some people read my blog. One or two anyway.
I GUESS HOME CANNING ISN'T VERY POPULAR THESE DAYS
I recently needed (wanted?) some jars with lids for a craft project, and thought that good old Mason Jars would be just the thing. Cheap, and you can find them everywhere. You know, at the grocery store high up on the shelf above the pectin and the household wax, or way over in a back corner somewhere-but they always have jars, right? Not any more! I tried two grocery stores. They still carry pectin, and the wax for putting on top of jelly, but no jars. I went to Walmart, figuring that they would still cater somewhat to the uber-domestic types. No jars. I went to Target. No jars. Doesn't anyone still grow vegetables and can them? Doesn't anyone make jam to give as presents to people who will never use it and finally toss out the old dusty jars in ten years? Isn't anyone preparing for the upcoming disaster? I guess not here in Southern California. I had to order some on line. I'll bet the General Store up in Julian would have them, they have everything you would need to live off the land in a log cabin. Should have thought of that-a drive to the mountains would be fun. Not cost efficient I'm sure-the shipping charge for the jars is probably less than the gas would cost for a little day trip.
CHANNEL 10 BOO-BOO:
“The October wildlife fires.” I have images of flaming lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.
2 comments:
Hi, Marilyn!
I'm from the raw feeding list.
Next time you need canning jars and supplies, try hardware stores - anything from small independents to the 'big box' stores usually carry them, often all year 'round. Also crafty stores.
TC
Giselle
If they have them at Home Depot I'm going to shoot myself.
Okay, not really. But I will feel like a big doofus.
Thanks for the tip.
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