You're Doing It Wrong

Masterpiece Theatre is doing some sort of Complete Jane Austen (hereinafter “CJA”) broadcast. I’m not sure what the scope is and my research journey to the PBS website turned into the usual commerce flog with lots of information on purchasing CJA but no helpful little blurb that tells me what the plan is for the broadcast CJA.

I decided to set my DVR for the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in its entirety. Or maybe not ever. I’m not sure. When I mentioned Jane Austen to my husband he rolled his eyes and said, “Is that the one where they all sit around in nightgowns writing letters?” And he has a point, their outfits do kind-of look like nighties and there is a lot of letter writing and also hair brushing while getting ready for dances, visitors and sleep. To the untrained eye, the stories may seem to blend together.

What I do know is that this is the Pride and Prejudice that features the dreamiest Mr. Darcy ever: Colin Firth. I didn’t hate the Kiera Knightly version but wished for a Mr. Darcy that I really wanted to wrap my arms around. Once I saw the first part of this series sitting there on my DVR I had second thoughts. Did I really want to spend close to 6 hours watching Pride and Prejudice? I’m still catching up on the first season of Jericho and the new episodes have started. And I’ve got some Doctor Whos to get through.

What was I thinking? Of course I want to watch 6 hours of PandP. I’d watch it all in one sitting if that choice was available. It’s in three installments and I have to wait for the third this Sunday. I am biting my nails with concern. Will the adorable Elizabeth Bennet and handsome Mr. Darcy discover true love?

Meanwhile, I dug out my Emma Thompson Sense & Sensibility DVD from the closet. That will have to tide me over until Sunday.

Our firm doesn’t take the January or February holidays. Yesterday I took the bus but I left a half hour later than usual because I knew there would be no traffic. I don’t think the bus driver hit the brake pedal until we got to downtown Portland.

Of course we paid for it on the way home because there was a giant traffic jam from everybody coming home from their surprisingly sunny three-day weekend.

On Sunday I did something that’s been on my list forever and I put a bunch of stuff on my iPod that I never seem to listen to at home but would be perfect to listen to on the bus. A friend sent me some comedy shows and I have a spoken word CD that I got from Liz Woody and I have some fairy tales in German and a writing class.

Yesterday during the traffic jam I listened to the comedy shows and Liz and enjoyed the scenic route the bus took to avoid the freeway until the last minute. Listening is underrated.

Another thing I did yesterday was re-read A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor which is one of my top three short stories of all time. Another one is De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period by J.D. Salinger and if pressed to choose the third right now, I’d have to pick The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. If nothing else these are all stories that I read over and over and love just as much every time. Maybe love isn’t the right word. They’re all pretty twisted stories.

A long time ago I wrote a story where some side characters had a band called Flannery and they took their names from characters in this story: Bailey, June Star, John Wesley and Pitty Sing. It seemed awfully clever at the time.

Last night after we turned out the light, I told Bob I’d read the story and he said, “That’s the one with the rabbit ears.”

“What?” I said, thinking he couldn’t possibly remember that from the story.

“The woman wore a bandana tied with rabbit ears on the top.”

This is a man who after living in the same home for 10 years still can’t remember where half the kitchen stuff goes, yet he remembers a tiny detail from a story he probably read over 20 years ago.

From the first page of the story:

Bailey didn’t look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children’s mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit’s ears.

Salami Rolls
I like to make Bob a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day, or at least a chocolately dessert.

Since V Day was Thursday, and Thursday night is usually my most tired night of the week, I made him his nice dinner last night.

At some point this week I was following some link rabbit hole and found Marcella Hazan’s bolognese recipe. Cook’s Illustrated also had an Italian Meat sauce recipe this month so I already had it on the brain and a hearty meaty dinner sounded good.

When I make something with ground meat I use turkey, but it was Marcella and it was for Bob, so I went for the ground beef. I’m sure the last time I purchased ground beef was the 80’s. I had the time so it cooked on the stove all afternoon and smelled fabulous and Bob was thrilled when he came through the door.

When he got home I was wrangling the pepperoni rolls and struggling a little because the dough was sticky (explanation below) and he saw what was going on and said, “You’re making those pepperoni things! I’ll leave you alone.”

I didn’t take the recipe with me to the store and on my list I wrote “frozen dough” so when faced with a freezer full of frozen dough product, I had no idea what to buy. I knew orange rolls wasn’t right. I also bought salami because I went to Trader Joes first and they had about 9 kinds of salami and the only pepperoni was the thin sliced kind you put on pizza and I didn’t want that. Also, couldn’t find provolone in a lump, only thinly sliced so I bought mozzarella. I’m not sure whether I’m a brilliant problem solver or really lame at following directions.

When I got home I made the Cook’s Illustrated master recipe for pizza dough and after the rise I punched it down, cut it in half and put half in a ziplock bag and threw in the freezer. I cut the other half into 8 pieces and flattened them out. I panicked a little because it was so sticky but at this point, I was in the determined phase of my baking project so I kept at it. I put my hunks of salami and grated cheese on my flattened dough, made a pouch and doused the lump with melted butter and garlic. They took forever to get golden brown so I didn’t take them out of the oven until 2 minutes before we were going to eat. I stuck them outside in the shop to help them cool off a bit.

Meanwhile, we hoovered our bolognese with Trader Joe’s pasta because I wasn’t in the mood to tackle homemade pasta. I also made salad even though I didn’t feel like it. We were having so much meat product, I felt some green was essential.

I brought the rolls back in and I don’t think I can accurately convey how mindbendingly yummy these are. Warm squishy bread, meat and cheese with a buttery-garlic flavor. I was sad I’d already eaten so much of the other stuff because I wanted to eat all of them. Bob reheated some for breakfast and said they were even better today. I know what I’m having for lunch.

I’d also made the flourless chocolate cake on Amy’s site but I had to bail on the raspberry sauce because when I got home I learned I was mistaken and we didn’t have 6 giant bags of raspberries in the freezer, we had 6 giant bags of strawberries. Strawberry sauce didn’t sound right. I’d also forgotten to put whipped cream on the grocery list so we didn’t have that to fall back on. It was really delicious by itself so no worries there.

Spectacular dinner. My husband was a happy man. And for me, I ordered a big girl camera yesterday.

Updated to add: This is what Bob did after dinner last night. The gift is, he went without me. He knew I would hate it. He said, “There were a lot of bored girlfriends sitting around me.” What a prince.

Evening
Nice sunset, too. It was not this lovely all day. The lady on TV said it was going to be up to 60 later this weekend and I hope she’s right.

BTW — I tried the pepperoni rolls tonight and I don’t think our lives will ever be the same. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

View Out Front This Morning
It’s supposed to get in the 50s today. I have a million errands and chores to do including some quality time in the backyard cleaning up hedge debris. I actually woke up in the middle of the night last week and realized that hedge debris is heaped on top of a bunch of new bulbs. I need to give them room to grow.

We’re Celebrating Valentine’s Day with Hummus

Here’s a photo of the baked treats. Looking at that makes me want to make them again, but spring is coming and we have to fit into our pants. Also, this week I discovered the existence of something called a pepperoni roll and I’m going to have to make a pan of that instead. We can always get bigger pants.

We’re not big on Valentine’s Day in our house but I do a little something at the office.

The first year I brought Star Wars valentines (the kind that cost $2 for a box of 36 at Target) and left one on everyone’s desk.

Last year I got Pirates of the Caribbean valentines with tattoos and got heart pencils at Target and put Devil Duckies on them. (Example of last year’s in photo)

This year I got Scoobie Doo valentines and gave Marie Antoinette head pops. (also in photo) It was between that and Unicorn Power Gum but I hate grape flavor. Bob had a great idea that I could bake cupcakes and stick the Marie pops in them. And that would have been funny but a logistical nightmare since I would have had to make them on Wednesday night and then carry them all to work on the bus.

As it was I had to keep telling people, “It’s Marie Antoinette’s head.”

Land of the Lost
I’m big on putting things away in their proper place. It’s not a system or belief, it’s how I maintain my sanity. I can’t stand not knowing where things are.

Last night the soy sauce was sitting next to the stove and since I didn’t know how it figured into the dinner plan, I stuck it back in the cupboard.

Then we sat down to eat and apparently it fit into Bob’s dinner plan.

B: Where’s the soy sauce? I wanted to use it.

Me: It was by the stove so I put it away. If you wanted to use it you should have put it on the table.

I know. I was feeling a bit testy. Bob got up from the table and opened the cupboard. After one second:

B: I can’t find it.

Me: Don’t make me go over there.

Then he made a production of turning on the big overhead light, like it was too dark to see properly. I looked over my shoulder and could see the soy sauce in the cupboard from where I was sitting.

Me: It’s next to the olive oil. Looking for something means looking in places other than where you expect it to be.

Bob: Did you learn that since you married me?

Me: No, I work for [names of attorneys redacted].

I’m not even sure that was the right response because the attorneys don’t look for things at all. They ask me to find something and I spend a half hour looking high and low and pulling my hair out and then in despair, going into their office and moving a few papers around and finding it on their desk.

Some time ago a friend of mine sent me some information on a baking contest. The grand prize was an insane amount of money, I can’t remember how much. Maybe $5,000. It was one of those where you had to use the sponsor’s product in your recipe.

I had an idea for recipe that would be a variation on cinnamon rolls and involve almond paste.

Like many of my brilliant cooking project ideas, I never got around to making it and this stupid box of almond paste has been staring at me ever since.

This is one of my current on-going missions: I’m trying to clear out my cupboards of the random stuff that gets shoved to the back that you never end up using. Like when you buy a weird vinegar for a particular recipe or you know how you sometimes get a gift basket and it has a jar of kiwi-cumin spread? And every time you open your cupboard you see this jar of kiwi-cumin spread and you feel personally responsible to Aunt Phyllis who so thoughtfully sent you that basket that you can’t get rid of it?

I’m trying to figure out how to use all those things.

I thought I’d throw together some cinnamon rolls this weekend. The dough (which I think of as d’oh!) didn’t look too impressive on the first rise and I was sort-of concerned this was going to be another disaster. Also, I’m not so good at volume estimates. They always say “until roughly doubled in volume.” Whatever genes or brain matter you need to figure that out, I am woefully lacking.

See those droplets on photo #2? I’m just a hair this side of sane when it comes to kitchen cleanliness and I wash my hands a lot, like if run in the laundry room to transfer clothes to the dryer when I get back to the kitchen I wash again. That’s my dripping hands over the d’oh! reaching for a paper towel.

Look how nicely the second rise went except you can see where they want to unroll. There was this I Love Lucy cakes on a conveyor belt moment when I couldn’t get the dang thing to roll up right and I was rolling and unrolling and trying to tighten up the roll like a sleeping bag.

After I started making them I realized that almond paste is among the bottom 10 flavors Bob likes to enjoy and he would be really sad if came home to a wonderful tray of cinnamon rolls and then had blucky almond paste flavor.

So I left it out and now that stupid box is back in the cupboard.

I didn’t remember to take a photo of the final baked product until after we’d eaten half of them. The photo is still in the camera. They were really delicious as they should be since they had over a half stick of butter and a cup of half-n-half in them. I have the last one left for after lunch.

Sunshine and 55 degrees of rain-free goodness. We went for a walk.

Crying Gets the Sad Out of You

I’m a crier.

I cry when I’m sad, mad, frustrated, over-tired, sick, angry, my feelings are hurt, any remotely heart-wrenching moment of a book, TV or movie and probably some times I can’t think of right now.

When I was younger I would sometimes curse myself for being “too sensitive” because people sometimes told me that: I was too sensitive.

Who even says that? Compared to what? Maybe they weren’t sensitive enough. Why isn’t that considered a negative quality? All those people should be rounded up and publicly flogged. Then we’ll see who cries.

You can sense that not only am I over it, I now feel it is my lifelong mission to help individuals who are uncomfortable around crying people experience a moment of personal growth by having me cry in front of them.

It helps that I live with a man who doesn’t blink twice when I cry. If my feelings are hurt he gives me a hug and says nice things about me and if it’s because of a hurt puppy or that scene in The Whale Rider where Paikea does her speech for her Grandfather about how it’s nobody’s fault that she’s a girl that makes me cry even thinking about it, he gives me a hug and says nice things about me.

Sprout from the Fall Bulb-Tacular

I also come from a family of criers. My cousins are the best. We sit around when we’re all together and try to outdo each other on the most humiliating public crying experience:

“I cried at the DMV.”

“Oh yeah? I cried at my parent-teacher conference.”

Then we all laugh and argue about who had to be carried out on a stretcher after Steel Magnolias.

With books and movies I usually sniffle a bit but don’t really fall apart. About once a year I am majorly undone by a show or movie and most recently this was with Dr. Who at the end of season two when (spoiler alert for a show that originally aired in 2006) we lost Rose Tyler. Wah, Rose Tyler. What’s the Doctor going to do without Rose Tyler? He’s already started his 2nd season without her so I’m guessing just fine. But still.

Other books and movies that particularly undid me that I can think of right now: A Prayer for Owen Meany, Pan’s Labyrinth and that episode of Angel where Angel turned human and spent the day with Buffy all happy and doing human things but then had to be turned back into a vampire and Buffy wouldn’t remember their day together.

I talked to one of my weepy cousins the other day, the one that cried at the DMV, and she told me she was getting ready to watch a movie with her daughter, Finding Neverland. Even though I was really pissed that no one warned me how sad that movie is, I didn’t let on. I just said, “Oh, it’s really good.”