Archive: March 2008

Last week, Elise posed two scenarios to her fair readers, “to get your take on kitchen habits: what is normal, and what is not.” The first scenario included meal plans, a stocked fridge, and smooth kitchen operations, whereas the second painted a picture of late arrival home, no food in the house, and caving in to order take-out. After reading a handful of comments empathizing with the second scenario, I shamefacedly admitted that JG and I have a routine that resembles the first one, although I pointed out that we don’t always clean while we cook (at least, I don’t), and the non-cook of the night gets stuck with whatever mess is left behind.

Elise promptly e-mailed me in response to my comment:

Why wouldn’t you want to admit that? I am TOTALLY impressed by it! How do you do it? What do you buy? Who cooks? Can you share some recipes, or ideas, or SOMETHING?? I am desperate

I was stunned. The thought that anyone besides us might want to hear our extremely regimented method of meal planning, recipe filing, and grocery shopping was completely foreign to me. Sure, we can’t imagine living without it, but it’s an entirely different story to describe it to the outside world. After Elise’s encouragement, I present the first of a three-part series on how JG and I deal with meals. So, welcome to our kitchen!

My favorite parts of the kitchen are the gigantic refrigerator that we inherited from the previous owners, the wood floors they put down, our bookshelves of cookbooks, and my Kitchen Aid mixer. My least favorite parts are the little pockets of counter space (rather than a long, lovely expanse) and a complete lack of natural light. We haven’t had to make any major improvements, thank goodness, other than replacing a twenty-year-old dishwasher and stove hood. The kitchen isn’t huge, but it gets the job done. Eventually, I’d like to reface the cabinets and have a more cohesive shelving situation on the opposite wall.

Before I launch into the nitty-gritty (and thrilling!) details of our kitchen processes, I feel the need to disclaim myself to death:

I’m just describing how JG and I do things, and I understand that not everyone will ascribe to or even like how we do it. In fact, I will be pleasantly surprised if this little series does not land me in the So Square We Can’t Even Believe It category. So please do not interpret these posts as a prescription for your life.

So! The topic of this first installment is how we set up a meal plan and create a shopping list for the week. Continue reading →

It has been a good weekend. Saturday was full of cleaning and airing out of rooms, partly because it had been a while, but mostly because we had deposited Ted at the groomer’s for a “day at the spa.” We took advantage of his absence by mopping the floor and washing his couch blanket, finally. In the evening, JG steamed up some mussels and baked up three potatoes’ worth of fries, and we wolfed it all down in twelve minutes flat. Cleaning works up quite the appetite, I guess.

We curled up on the couch with Ted to watch a recommended rental, Dan in Real Life, and I was startled to find myself all weepy at the end. It’s not that the movie is sad; I just can not hold it together with books or movies that involve premature, just-not-right deaths of spouses. At first, I tried to be strong and sniff the tears away, but it was to no avail. Even though Dan in Real Life made me cry, the bonus features made me laugh, and the soundtrack is on my wish list now. JG and I are also considering introducing a crossword puzzle war of the sexes at the beach this year. That’s a lot of bang for our rental buck, I think.

Spring is seeping into our neighborhood, and JG spent the afternoon today preparing for the warmer weather, including putting away snow shovels and wheeling out the grill. Soon, it’ll be time to fertilize our fledgling grassy lawn. Ted and I took a leisurely walk before dinner, and we stopped every so often to check out the new growth around us. It wasn’t quite warm enough for flip-flops, but I wore them anyway, feeling rebellious. JG made beef stroganoff for dinner, and we ate it at the coffee table as we watched Kansas advance into the Final Four.

It’s Sunday night, now. Just a couple of hours remain before we head down to bed. JG is playing Super Smash Brothers and I am typing away while we wait to turn on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition because this episode is supposed to take place in Delaware, and we heard that the football team helped out with the house. I feel satisfied with the amount of tasks we accomplished and unusually rested.

Bring it on, Monday.

Called JG to report that I was still at work. Had to finish laying out a poster to try and fit in a manuscript’s worth of text. Was bitter that the author totally disregarded the 10-day lead time guideline.

Enjoyed a relaxing commute home with jazz flute and piano in the background. Remembered that an up side to staying late is missing the traffic.

Got home, changed, and started to make fettuccine alfredo. Asked JG to put chicken on the Foreman grill to cook.

Splattered the roux onto my sweatshirt from overzealous whisking.

Slopped milk all over the counter from fumbling with the pull-tab thingie.

Dropped the whisk into the pan, covering it with sauce. Fished it out and grabbed another.

Became anxious when the sauce didn’t thicken correctly.

Spilled sauce onto the stove while adding the pasta to the pan.

Dropped a baby carrot on the floor while making salads.

Wondered aloud, and angrily, why I was sucking at life.

Sat down to eat. Was pleasantly surprised that the dish tasted good.

Realized after the fact that I added an extra cup of milk during the pull-tab tussle. Didn’t feel so bad that the sauce didn’t thicken right away.

Bundled up in my Slanket and sat with JG to watch a few episodes off of our new DVDs of the third season of The Office. Laughed heartily. Wondered how we missed the one with the bird funeral.

Lay down to “listen for a little bit” while JG turned on the basketball tournament.

Woke up blearily to see that West Virginia and Xavier were going into overtime. Trundled down to brush my teeth.

Savored the comfy bed. Realized that the night was pretty good, despite cooking klutziness.

Watched West Virginia miss enough free throws to throw away the game. Fell asleep almost immediately.

Our neighborhood is full of dogs, and most of the time, I love it. It’s nice to exchange small talk with the other owners when it’s my turn to take Ted for his walk, and I have definitely fallen into the cliché where I know all of the dogs’ names, but not all of the owners’ names.

That said, in light of some rare and unpleasant encounters, this edition of Dogarazzi comes with a plea:

Please put your dog on a leash whenever it is outside your home or an enclosed area. Please encourage your friends to do the same.

Over the weekend, I was out with Ted for his afternoon walk, and I noticed a dog out in a front lawn while his owner was working out in the yard. I stopped for a moment, since I couldn’t tell if the dog was tethered; he was a black dog with a brown muzzle and ears, easily larger than our golden retriever friend, Friday. I stood in the sidewalk, trying to figure out if I should continue our normal route past the house. I probably should have turned around.

Right away, the dog came padding over to us. He wasn’t aggressive, and he didn’t bark, but he was very insistent to sniff out Ted. I restrain myself from picking up Ted in times of stress because I don’t want to reinforce reactive, excited behavior, but I could tell that he was a little scared of this very outgoing, much larger dog. He tucked his tail between his legs and proceeded to circle me and wrap the leash around my legs, while the bigger dog continued to sniff.

All the while, the owner was calling out, “General! General! Come here! Come back here! Oh, he’s friendly! He won’t do anything! General! Come back here!” My ire quickly rose.

It was not until I was fully incapacitated from the winding leash that the owner came over and put a hand on General’s collar, repeating that “he would never do anything, he’s friendly, see what I mean?” I unwound Ted in stony silence and walked away in the direction that we came.

Even though I so wanted to say firmly, “Your dog should be on a leash,” or even “Please control your dog,” I could not bring myself to do it. The words stayed, paralyzed, on the tip of my tongue, and I wasn’t able to spit them out. I felt as though I would be implying that he was a poor dog owner or that General really would have gone after Ted. No, nothing like that. I just think it’s common sense and courtesy to control one’s animals, and the easiest way to do that is with a leash.

Why is it so easy for me to refuse to start driving until everyone in my car is wearing a seatbelt? Because it’s my car. Within that steel cage, I am in control, and I am responsible for what happens, so you buckle your seatbelt if you’re going to ride with me. Out in the world, I don’t feel nearly as assertive. For instance, I believe strongly in sending kids to public schools, but I don’t go telling others that they should do it because it’s outside the bounds of my responsibility, so to speak.

Keeping a dog on a leash is part of being a conscientious owner. In our neighborhood, a dog can go from a front door to a front lawn, to a sidewalk, and then the street in a matter of seconds. I understand that dogs can get loose by accident, but having a dog wander in an unenclosed lawn within spitting distance of a road, even while the owner is in the general area, is simply not a safe practice, in my opinion. The dog could be distracted by a kid on a bike, a child in a stroller, or even a car coming down the street that is probably not following the speed limit of 25 miles per hour. The leash is a dog’s seatbelt, and it is a safety precaution for the dog.

And, yeah, I’m concerned because Ted is my dog, and therefore, within my domain of responsibility. Plus, he’s a small dog that will usually submit to larger or more vocal dogs. JG worries that, if Ted is overstepped by a much larger dog, like General, that he won’t know what to do, and heaven help us if he accidentally nips the larger dog. Even if Ted is perfectly at ease with another dog, what am I supposed to do if the situation gets ugly? Keep cooing that Ted was always such a nice dog until he thought he was in mortal peril? I don’t think so.

I’m not upset because General was a mean dog, because he wasn’t. He was really quite amiable, and not at all mean. I’m more upset because it seems like some owners don’t see a problem until something drastic happens, like someone is bitten or a dog is hit by a car. Just because there wasn’t an actual altercation does not mean that the situation was under control. Our pets are animals, and we can’t know what will trigger those instincts.

I wish I had been able to say, calmly and decisively, that General was not under the owner’s control, however I would have phrased it. While I work up that courage for the future, please accept this public service announcement:

Please put your dog on a leash whenever it is outside your home or an enclosed area. Please encourage your friends to do the same.

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