by jphilo | Oct 15, 2012 | Daily Life
Life has been a series of cooking adventures down our gravel road lately. The man of steel is cutting down on sugar, and allergy tests keep revealing more foods I need to avoid. At this rate, we’ll be reduced to foraging nuts and berries in the fall and eating dandelion greens in the spring.
Our cooking adventures were an effort to avoid that cruel fate, and they led to some surprising foodie finds. For example Balkan Meatballs, a scrumptious winter comfort food, tastes better when vegetable shortening and almond milk are used as substitutes for butter and milk.
Sometimes, life does give you lemonade.
The next foodie find came compliments of the Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker, a Christmas gift from the man of steel. With trepidation, I followed the recipe for juicy roast chicken. The oxymoronic instructions said to roast the bird, uncovered in the Deep Covered Baker, for an hour at 450 degrees. Between the uncovered, covered baker and the high temperature, I expected the bird to be black and gross. But it truly was a juicy roast chicken.
So much for distrusting oxymorons.
The final foodie find followed hard on the heels of the juicy roast chicken. The carcass of the little red hen looked pretty meaty, so cooking the meat off the bones was in order. After putting the carcass in a large sauce pan, filling the pan with water, pouring in the rest of the juicy juice to make broth, and heating the pan on the stove, the contents were simmering briskly. About three hours later, the final foodie find came to light: Even if a person forgets about a chicken carcass simmering briskly on the stove, the pan will not be a burned mess if enough water was added at the beginning of the fiasco adventure. Instead it yields a rich, concentrated broth and meat falling off the bones.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
image courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net
by jphilo | Jan 23, 2012 | Daily Life
Have you seen the Pioneers of American Industrial Design stamps issued by the US Post Office last June? I am totally in love with them. Maybe because the sleek modern lines – with a few art deco flourishes here and there – soothe my soul. Or maybe because the Fiestaware pitchers, the black rotary dial phone, and the box camera stir up the kind of sweet childhood memories I like to carry around with me the older I get. Whatever the reason, I’m toying with the idea of purchasing a lifetime supply of these new Forever stamps.
The stamps also got me thinking about a new Forever Stamp idea. I settled upon a collection of household innovations developed during the lifetime of Baby Boomers. The featured items in that category will be near and dear to anyone – male or female – born since 1950 (give or take a few years) who’s in charge of making a house run smoothly. Here are the innovations on my top ten list.
Top Ten Household Innovations
10. Automatic car lock fobs – While these are not actually in the house, anyone who has
tried to use a key to lock a car while carrying groceries knows it belongs on the list.
9. Liquid hand soap for the home – How come it took so long for this one to move from
schools, rest stops, and gas station bathrooms to the home?
8. Baby carrots – No explanation needed on this one.
7. Stackable washer and dryer – Again, why did this take so long?
6. Reusable grocery bags – I know, Europeans have been using these for decades, but
the bags took a long time to get across the pond. If the Beatles had used them on
the Ed Sullivan show in the early 1960s, plastic grocery bags might never have been
invented.
5. Pampered Chef nut chopper – No explanation needed on this one, either.
4. Pampered Chef and/or Tupperware can openers – I’m not endorsing Pampered Chef,
but these can openers have prevented cuts from the jagged metal piece left by
traditional can openers, they make the list.
3. Self-stick stamps – No, I didn’t add this one to ingratiate myself with the Post Office
come stamp selection time. But, eery time I plop a self-stick stamp on an envelope, I
remember the horrid taste of the gummed stamps that required a quick lick to stick
and offer a prayer of thanks.
2. Post-It Notes – Love ’em.
And now, for the top household innovation since 1960…..
1. DOUBLE ROLL TOILET PAPER – Need I say more?
That’s my top ten list. But, let’s go for the top twenty. Leave a comment to add your favorite household innovation since 1960.
This is gonna be fun!
by jphilo | Nov 20, 2009 | Reflections on the Past
With Christmas creeping ever closer, it’s time for Christmas lists, but I’m having a hard time starting mine.
I could say life’s too busy, which it has been.
Or I could plead ignorance, saying I don’t know what I want, which isn’t true.
Or I could say my tastes are expensive this year, and having been raised in a thrifty family, embarrassment keeps me from showing anyone such a pricey list. Now this last reason is closer to the truth, so I’ve developed a few suggestions to help my potential gift givers stretch their shopping dollars. Maybe they could find the Pampered Chef baking stone and chopper I’m hankering for. Come to think of it, ebay might also have some of the remaining serving pieces needed to complete my good set of Lenox china.
But all those reasons are smoke screens created to obscure the real reason my Christmas list isn’t ready. See, the only thing I yearn for is, according to my research, a figment of my childhood imagination. All I want for Christmas, and all I’ve ever wanted since it was first advertised on TV when I was about seven, is a little cardboard princess vanity and stool, complete with play cosmetics and a real mirror.
The memory of the ad is fresh in my mind, as is my ancient childhood certainty that my thrifty parents would never, never buy such an expensive gift. And the memory of my joy one Christmas morning when I found the vanity assembled and ready for use in the bedroom I shared with my sister, has never left me. Neither has the disappointment I experienced upon waking from the most vivid dream of my entire life.
Since the night of that dream, a cardboard princess vanity is all I’ve ever wanted for Christmas. But after scouring the internet and finding no mention of them anywhere, I’m convinced they were a figment of my overactive imagination. Either that or they were so chintzy, they all fell apart and are no longer in existence.
If any of you remember seeing those TV ads and were captivated by them, too, would you leave a comment? And if you received one as a gift, please lie through your teeth. Even if it’s not true, tell me the fake cosmetics didn’t work, the furniture was a piece of junk, and the gift was the most disappointing one you ever received.
At age fifty-three, it’s time to put this dream behind me and get on with life. There’s a world of Pampered Chef and Lenox out there, and it’s time I stepped into it.
