Experimental Cooking

Today was dull and dreary; overcast skies and alternating rain and thunderstorms most of the day. Molly wasn't willing to get more than a few inches from me all day. Finally this evening with the storms passed she was willing to leave my side long enough to venture outside for a bit. What is it going to be like this summer when the real thunderstorms arrive?

I had supper at mom's tonight and the discussion turned to the ingredients in microwave mashed potatoes. We conducted a side by side taste test of two different brands because the advertised differences were amusing. One brand (Betty Crocker) advertised "high fiber" and had a larger serving size (2/3 cup) with fewer calories, the other (Idahoan) was advertised as "natural" potatoes with a smaller serving size (1/2 cup). (Both were red potato varieties.) The results: we preferred the Idahoan natural potato kind. It tasted more like real mashed potatoes and had a better consistency.

I had predicted the result before the experiment based on the ingredients listed on the box. The Betty Crocker "high fiber" variant had cellulose listed as the second ingredient. They were using cellulose to supply fiber and add body to the potatoes, allowing the lower calorie claim along with the larger serving size. But it also made the consistency stiffer and the taste was less potato-ey than real mashed potatoes. It is amusing what you can learn if you read the box carefully.

That experiment in turn led to a discussion of angel food cake baking.  I had made a regular angel food cake earlier in the week and mom had made the chocolate variant yesterday. I happened to mention that the boxed mix I used allowed adding either a quarter cup of all purpose flour or a quarter cup of cocoa and extending the baking time by 3 minutes to account for the altitude here. Mom had started from a different mix but had added the cocoa as a seat of the pants thing. Both turned out well, but the high altitude "fixes" led to us looking at a couple of the "from scratch" recipes renowned in the local area and comparing them to a recipe out of a standard cook book. Sure enough, the local recipes had that dash more flour added relative to the standard cookbook.

 
I wonder how many local recipes have all the altitude corrections built in without notation? I also wonder how drastic the effects would be on low altitude cooking.

Enough blithering about cooking, time to do some real work.

I'm Mad

(Before proceeding, the answer to yesterday's question is octopus. Odd huh?)

 

(And no, I'm not literally mad in either sense fo the word.)

 

Time once more for Mama Kat's Writer's Challenge.

This weeks topics:

1.) “I’m mad at myself. I’m embarrassed. I can’t believe after all these years, I’m still talking about my weight.” Poor Ope. What are you mad at yourself about?

2.) Divorce Dreams…a tempting alternative? A disaster to be avoided? Ever an option? Advice? What’s your take?

3.) What is the joy in your present moment?

4.) List 10 rules you’ve unlearned (meaning 10 things you thought were expected of you or were the “right way” of doing things, but that you now ignore).

5.) Mother’s Day is coming…what is the secret behind the close bond you have with your mom? OR What do you do to create that close bond with your kids?

#1 - I'm Mad
(I think that if I were Oprah, I would just leave it at that: I'm mad!)

I suspect that we all have multiple subjects to be mad or obsessed about. The problem is narrow it down to just one thing. I'm going to say weight for the moment.

I have spent my entire life in the 3 standard deviation range for size (except for a week or two sometime in infancy). I was born a small preemie, one of the smallest to survive at the hospital at the time. I have always claimed that they over cooked me in the oxygen tent after birth. The growth that followed led to me being one of the biggest (both tallest and heaviest) in my class throughout school. That is why I have been 6'5" and 300 lbs. since high school.

The only time I get perturbed is when people design doors too short and chairs too small, when people drive cars so small that even one of my size 16 feet won't fit in the door, etc. But at least I can see above the crowd.


#2 - Divorce Dreams

I think that everyone in a long term marriage has occasional thoughts of divorce. L and I have been married for close to 35 years and I know I have had such thoughts. I suspect L has as well.

Such thoughts tend to occur in the throes or aftermath of a particular disappointment or unmet need. Usually the thought of divorce is completely unrealistic. A few hours or days later, the cold hard light of reality intrudes and you realize that divorce is not going to meet the unmet need. You realize that the shared memories and experiences are more important than the problem. That history and belief in each other will let you work the triggering problem out.

The other big trigger for such thoughts seems to be a crisis of self belief. It is a dangerous trap to start believing you are not good enough and that divorce is a way to let your partner find happiness (or even yourself). Usually the delusion fades away and with it the contemplation of divorce.


The divorce dream becomes problematic when it becomes the wedge that prevents you from working on the underlying problem(s). We've all know couples where the idea of divorce was the axe that sundered the marriage because it stopped the ability to function as a team to solve the underlying problem.


(Confused enough?)




#3 - The Joy


The current joy is the coming of summer. The glorious days of never ending sunshine and green growing things all around. The satisfaction of mowing the lawn and working in the garden. The late evening twilight with the cicadas and birds and even the coyotes.




#4 - 10 Broken Rules

• The best person always wins

• Belief is sufficient to impel action

• People are always honest

• Life is fair

• Liars never prosper

• Change is not a constant

• People never change

• Good plans always work well

• Managing people is easy

• Sleep is always attainable

#5 - Relation to Mom

It's getting late, so I'll just point you to this post from last year.

Pears and Goats

Today was one of those days where things started strange and went pear shaped from there. It began with a voice mail box full of full moon (you know, lunatic type) messages, including two from people that wanted to adopt cats but then left no number for me to contact them. Then the fiber optic interface box at the demarc was scheduled to be replaced, but the new box hadn't been programmed quite right. Browsing to a new page hung up the phone and picking up the phone led to strange internet behavior. It took about an hour for the technician to get all correctly setup, so there went the lunch hour.

Molly and I were finally able to head out on our walk a little after 6pm and it was glorious. Warm, slight breeze, late afternoon sun: what could be better. An hour later and the clouds were rolling in and by the time we finished our 5 miles and returned to the house it was sprinkling. It gave the air that glorious ionic touch that smells so good during and after a rain. Before I could even get supper fixed, the rain started falling and the lightning and thunder sat on the horizon, giving a sight and sound extravaganza. Told you I shouldn't have worked on the lawn sprinklers! Of course Molly didn't care for the booming and kept her head in my lap as I ate supper. Poor doggy.

I'll close with this weird fact I was reminded of today: unlike most creatures, goats have rectangular pupils. (Don't ask how it came up.)

Human pupils are round. Goats and most other animals with hooves have horizontal slit pupils which are nearly rectangular when dilated. This gives goats vision covering up to 340 degrees, meaning they can see virtually all around without having to move. Contrast that with the less than 180 degrees we poor humans can see around. The real kicker is that animals with rectangular pupils can also see better at night due to having larger pupils that can close tighter during the day and open more at night. Makes me think we got shorted a bit in the grand eye design competition.

Bonus question: what well known invertebrate also has rectangular pupils? No Google!

Spring?

Needless to say, the PowerBall ticket of the last post was indeed worthless. At least no one else won either. {*grin*} Better luck Wednesday!

Sunday was a return to spring warmth, so I finally got to work on the sprinkler system and play in the water without being too cold. Of course that meant I awoke this morning to the sound of thunder and rain as a thunderstorm rolled through. I'm just happy I didn't wash the truck or it would have flooded for sure.

Today was symptomatic of the arrival of spring. I had at least 5 panicked calls on the office phone before 9:30 this morning. All from people who had lost their puppies Sunday. They were hoping that we (the humane society) had found and captured them Sunday or this morning. I passed the calls on to the animal control officers, really hoping that we had indeed captured their pets. Dogs that wonder into the fields and river bottom this time of year tend to become coyote food in very short order.

The first nice spring weekend and people were out working in the yard, removing debris, etc. and forgot that the gate was open and the puppy was in the yard with them. Many times it is hours later that the pet is discovered to be missing. We actually schedule more animal control during the time in an attempt to keep the animals out of harms way, but there is a limited amount we can do in our huge rural area.

One final observation: the economy must be picking up a little. We run the only no-kill shelter in a huge geographic area (hundreds of square miles), so we are getting calls from a 3 state area from people who have gotten a job elsewhere and cannot take their pets with them. It is good that people are getting jobs, but it is hard on them to leave their animal friend and companion behind. They look very hard to find a shelter that will ensure they are taken care of and not subject to euthanasia. That's how they find us. It will sure be a relief when we get the new facility built. Our current one (an old municipal shelter from the '60s) has very limited space and is almost continuously full in spite of volunteer fostering and help from the front range shelters with adoption and finding new homes out of area. We really hope to have the construction finished by December.

Back to the salt mine and then off to bed.

Fall?

Today felt much like a day of early fall. It was overcast and breezy and the temperature never got above 60. A perfect afternoon for football, but not so good for working on the sprinkler system. (Which was my original plan.) I have a solenoid to replace and the cool and breeze made the idea of working in the water unattractive today. A good excuse to goof off.

Molly and L and I took a stroll through the neighborhood, wasting a dollar at the corner store buying a PowerBall ticket. Given that we have a gigantic 1 in 195,249,054 chance of winning, I think it is a pretty safe bet that buying the ticket was a waste. If I turn out to be wrong, the party's on me. {*grin*}

My reading of the last year seems to be feast or famine. Right now it is in feast mode, since I have 6 books setting on the shelf as yet unread and yet another on the way. It really works out well to read the publishers blogs, because all of that precious new reading material has come from volunteering to read new issues on their blogs. Now all I need is to find a similar source for my expensive scientific book habit. After being a member of a certain scientific book club for 20 years, I quit a couple of years ago. I don't want to say that I was their best customer, but the annual report did take a nose-dive and they do keep asking if I wouldn't like to rejoin. {*grin*}

Well, enough meandering. Time to go figure out what to fix for dinner.

Five Things That Leave Me Going Huh?

Five Things That Leave Me Going Huh?

People who watch reality TV.

People who fail to consider of the different abilities of others.

Molly, who wags her tail in time to only some of the music I have on.

My neighbor who mows his lawn twice a week, even now when it has barely started to grow.

The crow trying to nest in the evergreen bush outside my bedroom window. The raucous battle between the crow and the robins nesting in the pine trees makes morning a noisy affair.

(World's Largest Crow - Belgrade, Minnesota - Photo by Oxley)

The Dad Things

Time once more for Mama Kat's Writer's Challenge.

 

This weeks topic of interest to me:

3.) What does that tell you about your father?  List five products your father used (or uses).  Write a longer piece about, at least, one of them.
(writingfix.com)

There are a lot of things that come to mind when I think of all the things dad used, but given that it is spring, I'll stick with yard and garden related things.

The five things I remember dad using in the yard and garden:

• lawn chair
• hand sprinkler
• lawn mower
• spading shovel
• push hoe

The lawn chair and hand sprinkler go together. Many the afternoon and evening I would find dad sitting on his folding lawn chair with sprinkler in hand watering the lawn. He seemed to achieve a zen state sitting there, moving his arm back and forth, watering. Every so often he would bestir himself, move the chair, and resume sprinkling in a new area. He much preferred to water that way over any other. No sprinkling system or stationary sprinkler held a candle to sitting in the breeze amidst the cooling mist and hand sprinkling for dad.

Dad was also lawn mowing fanatic. From the time we were old enough to operate a mower until we found a "real" summer job, we all had lawns all over town to mow. I can remember being so happy when I got a job in a furniture store as the carpet layer's assistant in 9th grade. No more lawns! Carrying rolls of carpet and moving furniture was a snap compared to mowing multiple lawns day after day. But dad actually enjoyed mowing. When dad retired, he started mowing pretty much all the lawns on the block just for the pleasure of mowing. I think he was mowing 7 or more of the neighborhood lawns at his peak. It was one of the sure signs of his final decline and impending death when he could no longer mow.

Dad was also a spader. He liked to spade, sometimes huge tracts. In his later years when he got a roto-tiller, he still liked to spade. Unfortunately he was not a discriminating spader. Seedlings and weeds and ... were all treated to equal opportunity before the shovel when dad spaded. Along with the spading was digging. I can remember dad digging out the stump of an entire mature tree in a day, using shovel and hatchet and a lot of back breaking labor.

When garden season was in swing, dad loved to use a push hoe to keep the weeds and sand burrs down. Like his spading, his push hoeing sometimes lacked discrimination. Mom was often exasperated as her seedlings and young plants joined the weeds in being cut off at the roots and removed.

The amusing part of all this is that during the time I was growing up, I always swore I'd never do any of those things. And now that I am older - I actually enjoy mowing the lawn and spading. But I still haven't fallen in love with the hand sprinkling. {*grin*} Makes me think that dad may have been onto something.