In the Headlights

The Brush-Off

I mentioned that the other day, Sandy and I had pizza.  When she came over, she brought a carton of mushrooms so we could festoon our frozen pizza (Publix brand, self rising...very good) with peppers, onions and mushrooms and extra cheese.  Plus the pepperoni that was already there.

Sandy watched me as I scraped off bits of dirt from the mushrooms before slicing them onto the pizza.

"They're grown in a sterile medium" I said in answer to the question on her face.  I hope I'm right.

I recall the time decades ago in Miami Beach when Texas Bill was at our house for dinner.  Bill often worked as a cook/chef and we'd often cook together.  He was aghast, one time, watching me wash mushrooms, insisting that they should just be brushed off and not washed.  I was equally aghast at the thought of eating dirt.

Since then, I phased through washing them, then letting them dry, to my now blase attitude of getting most of the dirt off and just going ahead with the recipe.

The problem is that mushrooms absorb water, diluting their flavor and texture, as well as that of the dish they are being added to.  A not insignificant problem.

I've been surfing the 'net looking for confirmation that the growth medium is sterile.  I can't imagine all these advocates for eating actual dirty dirt, but I can't seem to find it.

There are plenty of sites telling me where to buy a mushroom brush, though.  Maybe I should make that investment.  Messy Gourmet points out that there are general purpose kitchen tools, that do many things, none well, and then there are specialized tools that do one and only one thing well:  melon ballers, cherry pitters, mushroom brushes.  M.G. adds that the real question is not whether you need a mushroom brush or lemon zester, but how much drawer space you have in your kitchen.  My drawers are jam-packed, but maybe I should get rid of a pizza wheel or garlic press to make room for one of these babies.

[Image through Amazon]

French Onion Soup

In the South, you are supposed to eat black-eyed peas and greens for luck on New Year's Day.  In my family, we have always carried on a tradition that is from my mother's side of the family:  French Onion Soup, the hot, bready, cheesy kind.

I made it and took it to the folks' house.  And to make sure there was plenty for leftovers, I used six pounds of yellow onions.

I don't know if you have ever sliced and cooked six pounds of onions.  It is a daunting task.  For it, I hauled out my mandolin.  Red and I bought it years ago.  After a lot of shopping (hard to find, back then) we found it at a restaurant supply house.  And I had to order the finger guard separately.  After all the time and expense, I found I almost never use it.  It does have one perfect application, however, and that is French onion soup.  The mandolin is just hard enough to assemble and clean (not real hard, just hard enough) that I rarely bother unless I am making something in volume.  In this case, I was.  Also, it was important that the onions be uniformly sliced, something I find hard to achieve with a knife or a food processor.  I only sliced off one fingernail doing it, too (which stayed on by a thread, so I didn't have to hunt for it)...I sliced them about 3/4 without the guard, then did all the ends one after another using the guard.

Six pounds of onions, sliced thin
4 ounces unsalted butter (one stick)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 quarts chicken broth
2 cups beef broth
1 cup red wine
Bay leaf
Thyme, salt and pepper to taste
Cognac or dry sherry (optional)
Stale French Break
Grated Emmenthaler or Gruyere cheese (lots)

Melt the butter and olive oil under medium-high heat until bubbling, and add onions.  Saute, stirring frequently, until golden brown.  Add broth, wine and spices.  Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. 

To bake, put soup in oven-proof bowls and top with 3/4-inch thick slices of baguette, then a handful of cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees until a light brown crust forms.  Serve.

You may also put it under the broiler to prepare quickly (make sure the soup is hot first.)

I looked at the Cook's Illustrated version before I started.  They suggest using red onions, mixing chicken and beef broth, and adding the red wine.  They also suggest a combination of Swiss cheese (Emmenthaler or Gruyere) and Asiago.

Whatever.  I was happy about the broth combination, since I forgot to buy it when I got the onions, and didn't have a critical mass of either alone.  My onions were yellow, my cheese was Emmenthaler.  The results were delicious.

Merry Christmas

     

The first three I took at Rockefeller Center.  The last three are windows at Sak's Fifth Avenue.  These were action scenes, with everything moving, and people were five and six deep at thewindows.

Merry Christmas, my friends. 

A Style to which I Could Become Accustomed

I think L.C. is planning to surprise me with this for Christmas.  I don't think she could have meant anything else when she sent me these photos, do you?

 

Mercedez-Benz introduced the Mayback in 1997, as an ultra-luxury concept car.  It was actually marketed in the 2000's, under the sole name Maybach.

It is available in 57 and 62 (decimetres).  The latter allows the back seat passengers to fully recline their seats, which are heated, cooled and massage.

 

The most powerful has a 6.0 L V-12 engine which delivers 604 HP. 

Priced from $335,500 to $426,000.  At least those were the prices when the Wikipedia article was published.  With the exchange rate now, it's probably higher.

 

You can customize this car up the wazoo, with over 2 million equipment details alone.  Maybe add on a home-made camper.

The Wedding

I got back Sunday afternoon from the wedding of Steve and Melissa, in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Mike and Vicky and I drove up (more specifically, Mike drove, Vicky and I entertrained ourselves in many ways).

The wedding weekend was great.  The weather was chilly but beautiful.  We stayed at the Marriott, and the rooms were lovely, great beds, showers, decor, and reasonable.

We got there Friday afternoon, and went to the groom's parents' house for a barbecue rehearsal dinner.  Actually, there was no rehearsal, but lots of wine and fabulous barbecue.  The house was huge and decoreated in fantastic eclectic antiques, paintings, pottery.  The party itself was held in an outside area which was tented in.  The heaters were few and far between, but we all managed to stay warm, migrating into the house for another libation when we got too cold.

After sleeping one party off, the next morning was a wedding brunch given by the groom's aunt uncle.  Omelet station, eggs benedict, cheese grits and shrimp, mimosas, bloody marys, screwdrivers, tenderloin and ham.  All this with the wedding to come in the evening.

That evening was cold again.  The wedding took place outside, in the same place that the rehearsal dinner had been.  Wonderful, again. Beautiful short ceremony.  The bride, who is gorgeous to begin with looked so beautiful.  Her sisters had done her hair and she wore a $129 Isaac Mizrahi gown from Target (the one in the illustration).  Melissa's slim and looked great in the dress.  Now both sides of the family have money as do the bride and groom in their own right.  So this was a decision consciously made.  And she couldn't have looked better if they'd spent thousands.

A few lovely toasts  "the first time I took Melissa out, I knew we were dating.  It just took her eight months to realize it," said Steve.

It was wonderful meeting both sides of the new family, as well as lots of their old friends.  What a great celebration.

So the drive up Friday and back Sunday was a bit much, but I got to read the Sunday New York Times and work the puzzle on the trip back.  We also listened to James Patterson's Sam's Letters to Jennifer on audiobooks.  I was afraid it was going to be blood, gore and serial killers.  Sadly, it was not.  Instead, it was a calculated, treacly tear-jerking mess.  I kept busy waiting for it to redeem itself somehow.  No such luck, but it did pass the time.

Time to Remodel the Bathroom

Aw, Jeez.  Deb says this is how you get a man to wash his hands.  He could still be pretending, though.

 

Just a Simple Log Cabin

When Sandy and I drove through North Carolina and Tennessee a few months ago, we passed a number of beautiful log cabins.  I've long admired these structures, and while we were there, I picked up a brochure for Cedar Log Homes, based in Kingsport, TN.

  I could so easily see myself living in a simple yet stately log home with a high vaulted ceiling, a large master bedroom and luxurious lofts upstairs, and a beautiful stone fireplace.  It may happen, even though I love where I live now.

Companies like Cedar Log Homes provide kits for the various home designs, which include structural posts and beams, trim caps, logs, foam sealant (which renders them very well insulated and energy efficient, not to mention good at keeping critters out), and lots of other things, right down to nails.

What dont' you get?  Well, I don't see any mention of roofing material.  You'll have to have your own slab poured, and plumbing and wiring installed, appliances and pretty much everything that isn't part of the shell.  They have floor plans, so I guess the kits include stairways and interior walls.

Oh, and you'll have to provide the labor to put the whole thing up.  As long as you know that, everything's just fine.

According to their FAQs, they have a number of models under $25,000.  Just remember all the extras.

I'm guessing  the under-$25,000 aren't among those in the NASCAR Celebrity Homes series.

The Secret Life of Shelf Liner

A few days ago, I was visiting my neighbor, Jan, and her chocolate labs gave me an effusive greeting. 

Unfortunately, I was wearing black.  By the time we were done hugging each other, I had a fair amount of lab on me.

Jan said not to worry, and handed me a piece of mesh rubberized shelf liner.  I wiped myself with it, and lo and behold, no more fur.

This was an eye-opening moment.  I had to try it on my cat Dandy's favorite black dining room chair.  After about a week, it looks like it is a fur seat.  I bought a rool of the shelf liner, more than I will use in a lifetime, at Target for about $2.98.

It did a great job on the chair.  Almost no hair was left after one pass.

In addition, Jan mentioned that I should cut a piece and keep it in the car.  If I want to toss my cell phone on the dash (and I do like to have it out, otherwise I'm fumbling for it driving down the highway), the mat will keep it there.  Indeed, it does.  I put it on the dash and tossed my pager and phone on it, and they didn't budge an inch.  It was great.  I do make a point of removing it and tossing it on the passenger-side floor when I'm not driving, though, because I imagine that a few days in the hot sun, and it will be permanently affixed to the dash.  It wouldn't be a pretty sight.

If you decide to get some shelf liner for this purpose, I'd suggest you get a darker color (it comes in brown).  The white does cause a bit of glare when the sunlight hits it.  Aside from that, it's a great use for an inexpensive product.

Cover Up

I live alone, and usually when I cook, I wind up with leftovers that I later microwave.

I usually cover a bowl or dish with plastic wrap prior to heating to keep the food from drying out,to decrease the time, and to keep food from spattering all over the inside of the oven.  I hate peeling the wrap off and getting that burning steam released;  it's  a particular pain when I want to remove the wrap, mix the contents of a bowl, then heat it some more.

Recently, I had the wrap out to nuke some soup.  I had just washed some dishes, and  had a storage bowl and lid sitting on the sideboard.  Hmmm.   I put the lid of the Rubbermaid Stainshield over my soup bowl, (it didn't seal, just covered it) and put it in the microwave.  It  kept the heat in, stopped the spattering, and all I had to do was lift it, stir the soup, recover and return to the oven.  It worked perfectly.

It's easy to wash afterward, too.

It can then return to being the lid of a storage container, but I suspect it will get a lot more use in the microwave.

Here's a review from epinions,  where I got the illustration.

Adventures in Landscaping

There are some beautiful things in my yard now.  The flower on the left is a majestic lily.  There is a whole row of them along the front walk. 

I am charmed every time I go outside.  Charmed and horrified.  The horrified part is that there is still quite a bit to go on this project which started in mid-May.

Each minor project that gets done begets two or three more. 

It started because we had a drought, and my front yard was sandy dirt with the occasional weed, and lots of ant hills.  a friend from work had some landscaping done by Keith and his crew, so he came and gave me a bid I could live with, and had quite a vision for what could be done with the yard.

It started expanding when we got the sprinkler system put in and he suggested that if we ran some PVC under the driveway, we could, at a later date (ha) develop the side lot and run the sprinklers there. 

As the work got going, they ran into huge and massive tree roots.  This is Florida, after all, and the land had never been developed.  Those had to be dug out manually.  They are also redoing the wood on the old flower-filled wagon in the front yard, and took down a fence dividing the front and the back, which had no real reason to exist.  I have discovered a fondness for purple foliage, and red flowers.

The biggest unexpected side project is the new well.  During the drought, my well ran dry and sucked up muck that clogged my water-to-air cooling system.  I had to have repairmen come and fix both, not an easy feat when you are the only one living at the house.  You know how these things work:  "We'll have a repairman there between 8 and 5 on Friday."

Imagine my chagrin when we got the sprinkler system hooked up and the spray was pretty anemic.  We installed an immersible pump, and in the process of installing it, the well failed again, and dredged up muck, and clogged up the air again.  To make a long story short, we decided (5 weeks ago) that the well needed to be replaced.  I had a choice between a modestly priced 3-inch rock well, and a much pricier artesian well.  After much thought, I decided on the artesian, which should provide wonderful, potable, plentiful water forever.  That will be pretty nice, because for the last few weeks, when I shower, the water dribbles out.  It takes twenty minutes to get hot water to the shower in the master bath, and the output isn't much, and I never seem to get all the conditioner out of my hair.  I don't have the patience.

I finally got the permit to dig the well;  that should start Monday, and involve large trucks running over my yard and digging holes.  I'll try to remember to take pictures.