Out of left overs

               

I am not the cookerer in this house, and that is a happy circumstance. I don’t care for cooking, and people don’t care for my cooking, so it works out all around.

The cook of record likes to eat, as does her grandmother, but the cook has discovered one does not become a chef overnight and learning to cook is the same process as any sort of education, not always interesting to achieve.

We would eat pasta in cheese sauce every night, if the grocery procurer would allow. Her second go to is soup, and we do have a lot of that. Soups are adequate; a box of broth, some diced meat, some ready at hand vegetables like spinach or broccoli, onions, carrots.

The opportunity for disaster occurs in the spice cupboard. The cookerer has most every spice known to men. She fancied herself the master of their use, but we ate so many spice disasters, she’s retreated to minimal seasoning.

I hoped to find her some cooking classes this summer. But, the national park is not offering cooking camp again. There are two cooking schools in the area, but the summer camps are geared to a much younger age, and guarantee perfect hot dogs or mac and cheese. Beth probably can rustle up some classes for the summer, and it’s only February, so I can let this one go for a bit.

There is a considerable absence of dishes I like. If the cookerer doesn’t like it, it doesn’t happen. But I can be persistent, and then amused when, months later, I find mushrooms, for instance, appearing regularly.  

We’re  open to anything that features bacon. I found a recipe for pasta with bacon and peas. Because I would not put bacon in the cart unless the peas came too, I am pleased to say not only did peas cross the threshold, they probably will continue to do so.

My sister made a little casserole I loved; cottage cheese and noodles. I’ve been promoting it for several weeks, but it hasn’t materialized, though the recipe languishes on the kitchen table. Today the cookerer is off with her mother, and I announced I would make cottage cheese and noodles for myself.  I asked if we had everything. “Probably,” on her way out the door.

Only noodles were in house. I went out for cottage cheese, sour cream, Worcestershire sauce and tarragon in order to proceed. It’s in the oven now, and smells wonderful.

I have to admit, if I were the cook, it wouldn’t happen. My fingers fumble to open anything, spoons fly from my hands, and by the time I was through standing for twenty minutes, my back was screaming. Time to knit and watch TV.

Closer to spring

We had the six a.m. call today; school is cancelled. Not surprising; freezing rain forecast and freezing rain the obvious meteorological phenomena when I actually got up at 8. In the Secret Life of Grandma, which Laura puzzles over occasionally, “Eight am is when you get up and school starts.” But, not today.

It was thirty one degrees here, all day, until an hour ago, when it rocketed to forty. That is a diversion, so we won’t believe we will wake up again tomorrow to thirty one and freezing rain, and probably another snow day for school.

I eventually went to work, a treacherous jaunt behind and in front of folks who have no idea how to drive in winter. Hint: do not try to idle through slush and snow. Without power to the wheels, you car is nothing but a two ton sled, that cannot be controlled. Grrrrr…

To continue, it was awful getting into the door at work, and that after the road guys unloaded ten pounds of calcium whatever on the bricks that should not be called a sidewalk. They glazed over again as soon as more rain filled all the nooks and crannies.

Once behind my desk, I finished up the monumental country dance that is closing one year and opening another in government accounting. There is a trustee meeting tomorrow, the annual organizational meeting, as well as forty or fifty odd checks to sign (we call them warrants), so best to be as organized today as possible.

My mother-in-law gave me that Revereware pot when I was married, in 1964

Another side bar: for five years I attended the meetings of one township board to take minutes. I have no membership on the board, or authority (of course), but I do like two of the board members well enough to see the minutes are properly taken. I was notified of a meeting tonight, and I simply said to the nice board member, “You’re on your own. Herself (who is the Secretary of the Board), who despises my snotty attitude, can take her own minutes.” I’ll pay for that tomorrow, and don’t give a rat’s patoot.

After I came home and ate a very late lunch, I asked the kid who wonders about the Secret Life of Grandma if she would like to go to Jan’s new studio and deliver the armload of quilt tops we have finished. And, so we did. Jan sent me a picture of a couple. Remember the tree? It’s ready to have its binding whipped down.

There was a bonanza surprise. Right next door to the studio is the deli where I buy pierogis (in the Secret Life of Grandma). Laura got to pick. We have a six pack each of mashed potato and cheddar, and chicken parmigiana (judgment reserved) in the freezer.

I'm just called for dinner. And it’s one day closer to spring.

Snickerdoodles

A dozen to take to Emily, tomorrow.

A dozen for Mr. and Mrs. Across the Street, who have been so nice to us.

A dozen for Laura and me.

Update: the dozen in the red cookie jar are gone.

We hope this is the last food story

Except for the ten years I was married, I never learned how to cook. When there was no one to cook for me, I winged it with a bag of noodles, a stick of butter and a can each of lima beans, corn, and tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes, in season.

Fortunately, people around me could cook. My daughters, my sister, eventually my granddaughters. No one went hungry, especially me.

Emily and Laura were defacto cooks last July, when we moved. Emily cooked like Aunt Janice, and pretty much elbowed Laura away from the stove during the several weeks before she went off to college. Big sister syndrome. Though Emily had little hope for Laura, the little sister was merely biding her time.

Laura was born to make lists, which is the last name of shopping list or menu list. She was very expansive in the beginning, and I had to rein in the amount of produce she wanted to load into our refrigerator. I learned in a day or less not to interfere. I don’t buy ingredients she isn’t interested in using, for instance.

In the beginning we ate a lot of wraps. I’ve become an excellent wrap wrapper. Kale goes into the pan first, some green pepper, some broccoli—whatever is in the fridge. Some spices. Some protein. This goes on a wrap, on a little plate, which is bigger than the wrap, when the wrap is wrapped. Always good, sometimes excellent.

After the breaking in period, I made a couple of attempts to steer nutrition. A vegetable with the mac and cheese, for instance. She does not bake mac and cheese (“the macaroni sucks up all the cheese! Yuck.”)  Most dishes seem to be served in a bowl. Even spaghetti. Convenience, I suppose. I generally find vegetables incorporated in the dish being served in a bowl. Kale in the mac and cheese, for example.

Laura is a solitary cooker. I don’t mince fine enough or chop well enough to be welcome, so I stay out, rather than be sent out. Consequently, I can read the list and know what’s for dinner, but don’t see it happening. The other night, before she called me, I heard something new. “I should plate this.” Someone apparently watches cooking shows, too.

Flan, you say

Laura is not adventurous about food. When she was small and at her mother's house, her siblings were quite resourceful at concocting meals from food bank donations, but soup and beans don't give pre-teen cooks much latitude. When there was a perceived delicacy to hand, the same siblings described its make-up just short of cockroach legs and mouse tails. It's only in the last year Laura has tried cheesecake and found it worthy.

I ordered flan at a restaurant once, and Laura looked carefully, but declined my offer to share. Since then flan has been bandied about: "Well, you could send us to bed with nothing but flan to eat." "Mind your P's & Q's, young lady, or you'll have nothing but flan and water for supper." That sort of thing.  Emily has had flan, Laura not.

We took inventory of the refrigerator this morning, preparatory to a short grocery run, and found Emily left us an unopened half gallon of 2% milk, and the dregs of a full gallon. Milk has not passed my lips in fifty years, and Laura doesn't drink it, either.

"Well, we could always sacrifice it to the dreaded flan," I observed. We  fired up our computers for recipes. 

Because she had no confidence in the custard part, Laura stuck with finding caramel sauce. I went through recipe after recipe for custard cups, caramel on the bottom, caramel on the top, a fluted spring form pan...I was close to giving it up when I found what I knew my grandmother made: 12 eggs, five cups of milk, sugar and vanilla, in a glass baking dish. Now we needed twelve eggs to go with the milk.

All Laura's attempts at caramel sauce included sweetened, condensed milk. I'm fairly confident our grandmothers didn't have sweetened, condensed milk available, so I turned Google pages until I found the real deal: brown sugar, butter, milk. I made the custard, Laura the caramel. We knew it would be so good, we each ate little tiny suppers, in anticipation.  We weren't wrong.