kitchen update: happy camper!

Finally! The templater was here today to create a template for the granite countertops to be cut from. So our wonderful contractor, Rich from PeachTree Builders, came back this afternoon and installed a portion of my old countertop and my SINK! My glorious SINK! Who knew how happy I would be just to have my old sink back?!

And the installer told me I can put the stuff back in my cabinets; the countertop can be installed with the cabinets full of stuff. What a relief, to be able to see my dining room table top again!

And apparently we're on a two-week countdown to the new countertops. Woo hoo!

I should also receive the fixture for the undercounter lights tomorrow, so we'll be able to schedule the electrician back to get that all wired up with its own switch as soon as he's available!

There are lots of exclamation points in this post, but can you blame me?

first performance in four days!

We rehearsed for 8 hours today. Too tired to blog it. More tomorrow. G'night! Zzzzzzz.

countdown: in 5 days we have a live audience!

Yikes!

We had rehearsals Weds, Thurs, Fri nights this week, starting at 6 and running till about 10. Today was ostensibly the only day we don't have rehearsals between now and opening night; however, those of us who need a little extra practice with the tap finale came in for a couple of hours of sweat and sore feet. Needless to say, I was among the group. And, unbelievably, I let myself be talked into switching places with a friend who is in THE FRONT ROW and having even more trouble with the steps than I am. I am such a sucker for a friend in need. So, folks, if you want to see someone flub some dance steps while smiling brightly, you might as well come on down!

Tomorrow is 8 hours of tech rehearsal (I think that means practicing so the lights & sound folks get the settings figured out). After that it's rehearsal every night for four hours. And every hour precious, I must say. At this point we still seem pretty disorganized. The old hands assure me this is normal.

I bought "character shoes" (black shoes with a strap so your shoe can't go flying off your foot an inopportune or opportune times) with a lower heel than my tappers. Me feet are killing me, people!

That's my excuse, and I'm stickin' with it.

the countdown continues

First performance, a dress rehearsal with reduced-price tickets for senior citizens, is next Thursday!

why i like to cook

I can't cook in my kitchen right now. The countertops were removed about a week ago, and along with them went the sink and garbage disposal. The dishwasher is in place but disconnected. The stove and fridge are hooked up and useable, but when you have to wash every dish in the bathroom, you tend to not cook at lot. Washing greasy pans in the bathroom sink is just plain gross! And paper towels have become the plate of choice.

I confess, I've had a Happy Meal every day we've been in town since the kitchen was torn up. I love being able to get the tiny serving of french fries with my small hamburger and diet coke, not to mention the toys which I plan to give to some little friends soon. But how many calories am I consuming, really? I'll let you know when I find out. As I type this, I've got the McDonald's nutrition info site loading. [Note: the McDonald's site is the most incredibly bloated thing. On a modem, it took nearly two minutes to load the home page! Tsk, tsk. So they're getting no link love from me.]

Meantime, I was thinking about my evolution as a cook. I didn't always find it so much fun. I remember taking Home Ec in 8th grade and enjoying the process, but it just barely achieved its lowest goal (in my imagination, they had many lofty goals as well) of giving me a certain base competency in the kitchen. And, come to think of it, on the sewing machine too, which I actually took to much more strongly since it tied into my teenage desire to have more clothes than I could afford to buy, in the days when having a visible label on your clothing was extremely bad taste. But I digress!

Anyway, Home Ec class certainly didn't motivate me to learn more about cooking or go on to cooking creativity.

Segue to today. I love to cook! And I'm having withdrawal pangs. So many recipes to try! No kitchen to try them in. Ah, well. Patience is a virtue, I'm told.

Today as I was reading my regular email from King Arthur Flour, I realized one thing that's changed since 8th grade Home Ec: I have good tools now. It makes such a huge difference in my enjoyment!

My "if I didn't have these, I wouldn't like cooking nearly as much" list includes:

1. Good knives. To have knives that can be honed when they go dull, that feel good in the hand, and that are versatile and competent is just simply heaven. I have only three knives that I use a lot: a medium-sized butcher knife, a boning knife, and a serrated bread knife. That's it.
   
   Of the three, I'd have to say the boning knife is the superstar. It peels veggies, chops onions, slices meat and chicken, does just about everything. I even use it for cutting watermelons, even though its blade isn't as long as the butcher knife, because the blade is slimmer and gets less resistance. I take my knives with me when I do large-scale cooking events, and my helpers and I are always reaching for this one.


2. Whisks. I'm a total whisk geek! I don't know if my mother ever had one in her house, but if she did, I never used it. Now I practically can't cook without them. The aforementioned helpers know they have to wash whisks immediately, because I'm always reaching for one. The King Arthur's email alerted me to this cool whisk, which is safe for non-stick pans. I think I found another must-have whisk! I already have 3 normal-sized ones, one tiny one, and one very long one. How many whisks do you have?
   


3. Cookie scoops. I'm hopeless with making drop cookies without them. I am always in awe of people who can make consistently round, equal-sized cookies just using a spoon. My hat's off to you people, but as for me, give me a good scoop or don't ask me for drop cookies! A muffin-sized scoop is on my wish list now.
   

There are probably many more (like my food processor; how did I live without it?) but those are the ones that come to mind right now. What's on your "if I didn't have these, I wouldn't like cooking nearly as much" list?

P.S. A Happy Meal apparently has about 500 calories. Not as bad as I feared! But the bun does have high fructose corn syrup. Boooo.

P.P.S. Nope, I'm not shilling for King Arthur, but since they got me thinking they're getting my link love. You probably can get these products cheaper elsewhere, but I do really respect this company. They win "best place to work" awards regularly, and I think we're so lucky to have them nearby.

the countdown begins

First performance, a dress rehearsal with reduced-price tickets for senior citizens, is next Thursday!

wordless wednesday

fireworks on our fifteenth anniversary, and tbwtvf, hd

Every now & again, the Huz and I run over to Burlington, Vermont to see the fireworks. We go there not because their fireworks are better than anyone else's (although they're pretty darn good). Not because there are fewer crowds, because there definitely are not! Not because there are fewer mosquitoes, or more concession stands, or better bands, although from what we were able to hear, the music was darn fun, and the concession stands were plentiful. I managed to resist the fried dough booth; love that stuff, but have you ever looked at the calorie count? Shocking!

No, we do it because we can book a 7th-floor room at the Wyndham which is right on the lake, and watch the fireworks from behind our huge plate-glass windows without being deafened, chewed on, or trapped in traffic. We position ourselves in chairs at the window with a pint of ice cream each (this year we both chose Hagen Daaz strawberry, nothing in it but cream, eggs, sugar and strawberries and man, is it good) and consume as darn much of it as we want with no guilt about either eating it all or putting some of it down the toilet at the end.

The fireworks barge is positioned directly across from the hotel, right at the breakwater for the bay. Just outside the breakwater, hundreds of sailboats and motorboats sit anchored, waiting for the show to begin. During the show, I wondered if they were smelling the chemicals or coughing from the smoke or perhaps watching embers come slowly floating toward them, with fire extinguisher in hand! But I'm sure it was a magnificent way to see the show. If someone invited me, I'd do it ... as long as I knew I could just walk home to my room at the Wyndham. I hear it takes an hour and a half to get out of town after the fireworks!

For my money, watching from indoors on the 7th floor is The Best Way To View Fireworks, Hands Down! We had a grand time.

simba relishes a romp

The rain FINALLY took a break for a few hours on Friday. It felt like a miracle! There's so much moisture in the ground, you can see the mist in the right side of this picture. The sky was beautiful, as you can see in the picture below, taken at a different exposure. I drove by the park as I was coming home, raced home, grabbed Simba and the camera, and raced back to this little roadside park to see if I could capture it at all.

The Fridge

Every now and again, we find some inexpensive little gizmo that we just love, and we forget to tell others about it. A couple of years ago, I found the Fridge. When my brother-in-law was visiting, he couldn't believe how well it keeps a drink cool without sweating all over the place. If you love your drinks cold, The Fridge is the best beverage cooler going. Keep a couple in the freezer, pull one out when you're heading out on the deck to shoot the breeze, and put your standard-sized can or bottled drink in it. You'll have a cold drink for longer than you'll want to take to drink it!

The Fridge has a thick layer of blue freezer gel in the walls, and a removable, flexible top insert to allow for containers up to 2-3/4", plenty big enough for standard canned or bottled drinks. Other gel-based cooling options, like the plastic "glasses" with two walls and gel between, don't hold a candle to these guys.

They keep drinks cold for a long time. I've even put a slightly warm drink in a Fridge fresh from the freezer, left it for ten minutes, come back and found it had cooled down to fridge temp! And there's very little "sweating" on the outside of The Fridge.

I love these things, and the price is right.

Find them at AJ Prindle

P.S. I'm not getting a thing for promoting this product. Just wanting to share a good thing with a few close friends!

another great barbecue recipe

For a great barbecue party:

1. Start with a rustic home right on a lake.
2. Set a very longgg table with plastic tablecloths and lots of napkins.
3. Plop some pretty peonies into whatever vase is at hand.
4. Invite lots of friends and family.
   
5. Have one of them stop by Big Fatty's for lots of ribs and chicken.
6. Dig in!
7. Work it off with a paddle and a canoe.
8. Relax and listen to the haunting calls of the loons on the lake.
   

.. and what we can do ..

So, in the midst of cleaning up the kitchen after priming the backsplash, I was looking down into those corner cabinets so wide open and accessible as they await their new countertops. It was a real pain to put down shelf paper in those cabinets when I had to get into the corner the hard way: through the little hinged corner door.

And then I had what might un-genteelly be called a wild hair: why not replace the paper (turquoise, with dancing Snoopies, believe it or not) with this gorgeous, heavy German paper I picked up for a song at a going-out-of-business sale at one of my beloved home stores? (... anyone remember Homescapes? I loved that place!) So, not an hour later I had lined the top shelf of one corner cabinet, and this is what it looked like. And I did another cabinet, and the top silverware drawer before I realized that I can do the drawers any time, easily, so don't need to rush to get them done before the countertops are installed. Duh!

Then this evening, after yet another takeout dinner, the Huz and I moved the fridge and stove back into place. At last, we can walk through the kitchen! It was such a big relief that he said, "It's nice to have our kitchen back" and then we looked at each other and burst out laughing. It's going to be a long, long time before we have our kitchen back, but now we have our kitchen floor back at least!

we do what we can ...

No faucet yet, so no appointment for templating and no useable kitchen. But there are a few things we can do even without those guys, so today I primed the backsplash and was just thrilled with what a difference that little bit of white made in the brightness of the kitchen!

I'm also planning to move stuff back into the bottom shelves of the cabinets, getting rid of things that I never use. The top shelves are open to the countertop so I'm not sure it's a good idea to move them back in until after the countertop is back on.

I'm sure getting itchy to do some cooking! The Huz and I are leaving tomorrow for 3 days for the holiday and our 15th anniversary (yep, fireworks on the anniversary every year!) There's a Wyndham Hotel right on Lake Champlain in Burlington. We've reserved a top-floor room facing the lake, and intend to view the gorgeous fireworks sans bugs and crowds. Probably with a pint of Ben & Jerry's and two spoons. How heavenly is that?

As long as we don't fight over the last bite ...