This morning was my weaving guild’s study group hybrid meeting. This year we are focusing on dyeing and I did a presentation in December. This time a woman who has since moved to Maine but has stayed in the guild did a presentation but it turned out she got so distracted by learning a new fiber art she didn’t get to dyeing!
Instead she did a report she called “The Empty Pot” and presented about ply-split braiding. I had been reading up on that recently—it seems more popular in the UK than here. I think it might come in use after the class I’m taking in June which is about weaving decorative trims. Interestingly she said Michaels actually sells the tool you need.
Michaels has gotten into some odd crafts lately, I’ve wondered if they are teaming up with a UK company because they also had peg looms which is another nichey craft more popular over there. I almost didn’t join the Zoom since she warned us it wasn’t going to be about dyeing but I’m glad I did. I’m also glad I didn’t drive up there (it’s about 40 minutes away) since she was in Maine presenting even though some did and it would have been nice to see them. It already took almost 2 hrs out of my morning without leaving the house!
I also talked to my dad briefly and his propane supplier called to me ask what stove I thought he’d want. I’m glad we’ve given some of these people my number because it makes it easier! I know what my dad wants is a stove ASAP.
After the meeting, I remembered I had a box of books on the enclosed porch I had won in an estate auction for a few dollars. When I had looked at them before they were largely community cookbooks from other areas and some vintage commercial cookbooks. Anyway, I thought I’d dig through them and there were four that were from Maryland and I was able to find three recipes to make.
I made one right away and had that with some tuna for my lunch. Matt is taking it easy food-wise so he had some saltines and canned soup.
I worked on the book some and then got potato rolls going for the book. I always think yeast bread/rolls is harder than it is but thanks to the mixer, it’s not bad.
I am really trying to finish this book this week. At least all the savories! I have to pace out the desserts a little.
The rolls were really good. We literally just had pork chops, rolls and mushrooms for dinner.
Oh, I emailed the candy shop and they actually think we got two incorrect boxes (from looking at the photos) and are refunding us the money. I’m glad I reached out! I really am not interested in at least 3/4 of the candy in the box I ended up with.
Easter was surprisingly successful! We had the cold lima bean and green bean salads and cheese straws I made yesterday and ham heated up on the burners.
My brother actually did bring a chocolate cream pie from a supermarket or somewhere despite reminding me he doesn’t want to contribute to holidays.
My dad even got us some candy we liked and put them in our childhood baskets like my mom used to.
It was a little chilly but sunny. Both my brother and dad were chatty. If the oven hadn’t been broken it would have been a bit better and less fraught but it was pretty good. A 90% improvement over previous holidays. I think my talks about making an effort has started to sink in.
Matt didn’t feel great so we didn’t stay super long (we didn’t get to play the game we brought) but it was a pleasant afternoon.
We did decide to celebrate Christmas and Easter on different days. We have had 3 years of strange and/or unexpectedly bad holidays and this will make things so much easier. Less traffic and if something really goes haywire places will actually be open so we could shop or get take out or whatever.
My dad lives on a long winding road full of trees but nothing was green yet! He had a few daffodils but that was it and the trees are still bare. Meanwhile here not too too far away in the city everything is green and in bloom.
Our dogwood bloomed today along with more fancy tulips. The cherry blossom tree is almost there.
One snag—my family has been getting candy for every holiday since the 1920s from the same candy shop and this year they missed up my order for the first time! You get to pick each chocolate in your box and it seems like they made my husband’s box twice instead of filling my box with my assortment. It was labeled correctly when I opened it. My box was jankier looking too. Sabotage?
Matt didn’t feel 100% but we made the scallops he bought yesterday (kind of had to) and a light mushroom risotto for dinner.
I would say today was better than expected with some minor hiccups that didn’t derail anything. We even had time for nap!
The dirty secret about recipe development is that it takes a lot of time. So much time, that depending on what you are making, you might not have the time or ingredients to actually make food to eat that day. The dishes! We don’t have a dishwasher and the dishes are exhausting.
Today I perfected the cheese straws recipe and some cold marinated salads to take to Easter tomorrow that will be in the book.
In the morning we picked up the knitting needles we ordered from Michaels. I find putting orders near the door as “grab and go” items a bold choice as we are left with the honor system and no one checks ID or that we picked up the right order.
Not too far away is a new halal place so we picked up lunch there which seemed a little awkward to do during Ramadan (this article was interesting) and I find the use of “halal” to describe this specific style of food interesting, we don’t tend to use “kosher” in the same way. But, I digress, they were open and I’m sure they’d rather have our money than not. That area has very little in the way of food choices so I hope they do well.
While Matt waited for the food, I dashed in the supermarket and got what I wasn’t able to get earlier in the week. I wanted a white onion–why don’t they sell them in bags here? It was so expensive for just one onion, it was more than the head of cabbage. For those nosy, math-loving people reading at home, it was just under $3 for one large-ish onion.
Lunch was very saucy! You can’t even see the salad which took up half the container.
Fingers crossed Easter goes okay. My brother has said several times that he is uninterested and unwilling to contribute anything to holidays or to help with my dad but he is always in attendance and takes home all the leftovers. I told him if he wants dessert tomorrow he has to bring it himself because my dad’s oven broke. I refuse to provide both the main meal and the dessert so my dad was going to make it which obviously isn’t happening now. We will see! At least we have the lamb cake leftovers back at home and we picked up the traditional Rheb’s Easter candy for everyone.
I always loved Easter but it was less fun after my grandfather died (we always played the crack the egg game together) and now with my mom gone (who always made a cake and loved to make us Easter baskets) and it’s just my picky eater brother and father left. The perils of having a small family and neither of us having children! My mom was always so happy to see us, made a real effort to make things nice and was always excited to try whatever we made which went a long way.
I am still trying to figure out how to handle holidays since my mom’s death. Since my brother won’t help and my dad isn’t up to cooking for all of us (he batch cooks and eats very plain, basic leftovers he’s frozen for meals) it keeps falling to me to plan and make a meal that we can all eat. They are both picky, limited eaters. Occasionally they’ve invited friends but they are all picky eaters too!
Every holiday since my mom died there has been some drama involving the meal no matter how much I plan it down to the minute. This time the oven is broken so I had to pivot. Thanksgiving 2021 was such a massive disaster that I am still unsure how as I had reviewed the plan near daily with my dad since August as per his request and all he had to do was have ingredients from the written list ready for me at the house and get the turkey going before I arrived to make everything else. Not a single thing went correctly. We left and got the worst food from a diner I’ve ever had because we had no food at home.
This past Christmas my dad made a huge deal about making cookies and buying candy and then had neither when we arrived with dinner. He had decided against baking because my brother “didn’t seem interested” and didn’t tell me at any of our daily conversations leading up to Christmas. Of course, I didn’t bake or buy candy because he said he would and we had spent hours picking out recipes he was going to make. Even this Easter he said he was going to make cake then decided on a brownie recipe (again after talking to my brother) which neither my husband or I enjoy and then the oven broke. At least we had notice and got our own cake this time. He does not have any issues shopping, planning and preparing his own meals and bakes all the time so it isn’t a skill or memory issue.
I am debating seeing if everyone wants to move to holding “holidays” on different days so I can just do what I want on the holiday and get take out or whatever on another day to get together. I’ve already decided to do that for Christmas this year.
At least the burners are working on his stove so we can heat up the ham in slices in a pan.
And he was able to order a new stove! It’s run by propane since they aren’t hooked up to the county gas lines so I was worried that would be an ordeal but apparently it will be ready in a week or so. Switching to electric was going to mean actual construction would have to happen in his kitchen and he didn’t want to deal with that. I don’t want to either. Running a second household is exhausting. My mom handled everything and my dad tries but it’s a lot to keep straight and he has a very low tech life.
Early in the morning, I spent two hours trying to find out why my dad’s Xfinity bill doubled this month. Customer service is so condescending. It took getting a second person for them to give a me reason that made even a tiny bit of sense–they were waiting for a credit that my dad gets for being a very low income person in a rural area from the state and the federal government. Hopefully, that goes through! His bill was more than he spends on food for the month.
It’s really annoying how they have phased out things like actual landlines and expect everyone to “upgrade” but it costs so much more. My dad doesn’t even have a computer but to get phone service and watch tv he has to have the internet. Not to mention that when he has to verify his identity knowing his name, address, and account number is not enough, they need to text or email me to confirm. It makes everything so tedious. What do people who need help and have no one do? Right now I have to chat with these people and relay the info to my dad in real time over the phone or in-person.
This is also the second time during customer chat they referred to him by my mom’s name which is truly baffling because she had died before he left Verizon (after having an account there since 1976) and got Xfinity. They tell me they have no idea why her name is attached to the account. She was never on it. Truly what is going on here?
Moving on—Matt mowed for the first time this year and Dottie went nuts because we wouldn’t let her outside. You’d think she’d want to be inside with me sniffing the cheese straw air. The yard looks great—it was quite wild.
For dinner Matt picked us up the good Szechuan take out except one dish that’s my favorite was really salty this time and we tried a soup we didn’t love. Still good though and we have leftovers because we over ordered and lunch was huge. He also picked up some scallops for our dinner tomorrow.
I guess I got a lot done today? I’m glad I was able to find side dishes from the list for the book that I think my dad and brother would eat so I am not having to eat pounds and pounds of salad myself.
We watched The One I Love and McQueen. Very different but both were good!
This morning I finalized the beef roulade, flavored butter and popover recipes for the new book so we had that for lunch. All were excellent!
That should have been the star food of the day but Matt stopped at our favorite old fashioned bakery, waited in line and they had coconut lamb cakes! We hadn’t placed an order so we didn’t think we’d get anything special but thought maybe they’d have something good. I have been wanting cake but did not want to make it myself.
He saw some egg cakes and was going to get that but spied one last lamb cake in the case and it wasn’t earmarked for anyone! He was so excited to call and tell me the cake was secured. The woman at the bakery said we have to name it before we eat it.
I’ve always wanted a lamb cake! My mom always made a homemade bow tie bunny cake (sometimes with coconut fur, sometimes not) and when we were little, we’d often make and decorate egg shaped cupcakes which were great but I remember always looking at the lamb molds at Michael’s and thinking they looked so cute.
The bakery near us does the cutest retro desserts so of course they’d have a kitschy lamb cake. They even frosted the cardboard under the cake with green icing, coconut and jelly beans. It came in a special lamb print box and was only like $20. Day made!
For dinner we got a couple of sushi rolls from the place that makes the salad style California rolls. Honestly, I was still stuffed from lunch.
Tomorrow I’m trying to knock out three more recipes and then I will only have a couple desserts (neither are cakes!) and the recipes I’m still waiting on my grant partner to send me to do. In the final stretch!
I posted a recipe to Coconut & Lime that I really thought was already up there! I was looking for it to see what I had done and found it in my drafts.
My husband had to do an odd fast today where he could only eat meat/fish and rice or potatoes. No seasonings, no dairy, sugars, fruit or vegetables. He’s been dreading it and kept asking me what I am going to eat and telling me how he doesn’t want me to “suffer” eating bland food today just because he is. Very sweet but it’s only one day! Not a big deal. Tomorrow he is off for Good Friday and can take the test at home and mail it out. Modern medicine!
I went to the Italian market because I needed parmesan and bread for recipes for the book and at his urging got myself a sandwich for lunch which I promptly forgot to photograph. He had some ahi tuna on rice.
For dinner Matt made us steaks and I had some bread and broccoli and he had some roasted potato wedges.
Looking forward to a three day weekend even though I think it is going to be filled with a lot of recipe development. I think I’m going to make a couple dishes tomorrow for lunch. I really want to be finished with the recipe part soon!
Our tulips and daffodils are starting to bloom! We splurged some fancier bulbs and they are so pretty.
Only one more episode of School Spirits! I hope it’s on next week, IMDB says the 20th. Our guess is that they are going to find Maddie’s killer and if there is another season, Maddie will take over from creepy guidance counselor since she’s already helped one ghost cross over.
My dad’s oven is apparently never going to work again so I’m glad I planned cold dishes for Easter as sides. My brother has said that he never is going to contribute to family meals but I suggested that if he wants dessert, he might want to bring something! We will see. Matt and I might get a dessert just for us, we go over there for lunch and I’m not baking sweets this weekend. It doesn’t sound like Easter without cake though! I thinking the bakery might have extras of something even if it’s too late to place an order.
I’m also on a hunt for matzah since it’s Passover. All the matzah we’ve bought for the last few years, no matter what the brand, has been burnt! I hear Trader Joe’s has some this year. Maybe I will call and see if they have any next week. We normally make something for Passover at some point during the holiday but not having good matzah makes it difficult.
Today was exhausting! My dad had internet/phone issues, my brother was worrying him about something, his oven isn’t working.
Since he’s hosting Easter, this is a problem all around. Of course he calls right as I am trying to leave the house. Then I had to rush to meet a local business woman about hosting us for a book giveaway in June.
Grocery shopped for the book and they didn’t have heavy cream or whipped cream in a can?? Finally found flank steak though. I was going to get some Hawaiian rolls but they were (if you can’t read the photo 2 for) $9! That seemed obscene.
Edit—I responded to a curious comment quizzing me about grocery prices below but to put it in context, a couple years ago they’d regularly go on sale for 2 for $4/5, and more recently 2 for $6/7, 2 for $9 is a sharp increase in “sale” price; I didn’t want to spend 10% of my grocery total on two packs of rolls!
Got home, baked some shrimp, talked to my dad many times about his various issues, and headed out to meet up with a neighbor. She had some community cookbooks and a great one written by her mother about the Filipino restaurant she owned for many years she offered to let me borrow for research. The book is amazing! Long out of print so I can’t imagine I would have ever come across it.
Came home just as Matt got back and we had nachos made with the leftover chili for dinner.
Please let my dad’s stove be easily repaired! He’s supposed to make dessert (he had said a cake but now says brownies??) and we have to heat the ham. The stove top is okay apparently and would do in a pinch but not ideal!
This morning I mailed out an item I sold on Etsy and stopped at the library. I talked to the librarian about giving a talk there about the book we are writing with the grant as part of the requirements. I’m excited that she got back to me later in the day and we have a spot lined up for June! Now I need to think of a title for the talk.
For lunch we had leftover spaghetti.
It was the best weather so far this year so I went outside, sent out emails, sent out some feelers for other venues for a talk and pressed some flowers from the yard—daffodils, flowering almond, serviceberry and violets. Did a little reading in the hammock. Dottie was thrilled to have me outdoors with them! She was very intrigued by the hammock.
For dinner I made corned beef hash with coleslaw mix (so just cabbage and carrot), potato and sauerkraut. Plus ground mustard, celery seed and paprika. It was tasty!
I’m a little exhausted! Caught up on School Sprits. I have a lot of thoughts!!
For lunch we had leftover ham salad (me, crackers, Matt bread) and I perfected the spoon bread for the new book.
Then my migraine came back so I went and read for a tiny bit and napped. I am so tired of these headaches. It is really getting in the way of my life.
I was going to make something with the corned beef but I didn’t feel up to it. Maybe tomorrow? Instead we had the $12 spaghetti and meatballs/salad/garlic bread combo from our favorite spot. Lots leftover too!
More School Spirits. It’s pretty Canadian and I have some questions but it’s cute. The main character did say no one blogs anymore. Sob.
I made ham salad for lunch. Which was an adventure because I managed to knock the gherkins off the counter and it shattered all over the kitchen and living room. What reach!
I made chili in the slow cooker so we didn’t have to worry about dinner. I was going to make some cornbread for the cookbook and planned out the recipe but I was too tired. Maybe tomorrow!
We had a game afternoon and played First Rat which was cute but had a lot of rules for the sake of having rules if that makes sense. Not bad but not as fun as we hoped. Maybe if we play it again!
Watched Perry Mason (so good!) and tried out School Sprits on Paramount Plus since we subscribed for Yellowjackets. It’s cute!
My poor dad lost power yesterday and didn’t get it back until this afternoon. His internet is still out so he doesn’t have a home phone or tv to watch (he doesn’t have a computer) and Xfinity is saying there isn’t an outage but his neighbors are out too. I made a tech appointment for him on Wednesday but apparently his neighbors have ones on Tuesday so hopefully they will fix it sooner than Wednesday.
It has been sort of a salty, fried week. What can you do?
This morning it was horrible weather but we went to the conservatory and saw the “voodoo lily” one of the smaller varieties of “corpse” flowers. It really did smell like rotting cheese. I thought the Latin name sounded familiar and I looked it up and they use part of the plant to make konjac flour and shirataki noodles!
It was also their spring flower show so a great day to go. We picked up lunch at Local Fry on our way back.
For dinner Matt made fried rice with leftover rice from takeout, leftover ham, zucchini, cabbage and mushrooms.
We watched Filth, oddly slow and Rye Lane which was pretty cute. Coincidentally they used some of the same film making techniques despite being very different! The Colin Firth cameo working at the Love Guac’tually stall was fun.
Rachel Eats Dinner 