A Report From the Cult

The test recipe, in disguise. 

Back when I was in the downward trajectory of my employment bounce and couldn't yet hear the sproing sound that the bounce would make when it started back up, I was worried I wouldn't have enough activities to occupy my time.

As Bugs Bunny would observe, it is to laugh.

Bugs Bunny Laugh GIF from Bugsbunny GIFs

Being  part of the gig economy means I'm plenty busy with jobs, nearly all of which have found me rather than me having to look for them. But it's also meant I've had time to volunteer for positions that will never pay the rent but which I find absolutely delightful. Maybe my favorite of these is my "job" as a recipe tester for America's Test Kitchen. 

As I've blogged before, I am a fully vested member of the cult of ATK.  I subscribe to their magazine, I read their newsletter, I search their website for recipes, and heaven  forbid I should buy a spatula that hasn't been thoroughly vetted by their equipment testers. Husband has suggested that perhaps I should stop buying the odd spices they suggest (duukah, anyone?) until I've used up enough old spices that the cupboard closes again.

I'm also one of the hundreds of home cooks who try out America's Test Kitchens' unpublished recipes.

Now before you get all googly-eyed with admiration that your very own friend (yes, I consider you my friend even if we're only acquainted through the computer) was actually selected by this prestigious institution to advise them on their recipes, a disclaimer is necessary. It was less a selection process than clicking on a "Hey, want to sign up for this?" link on their website, and I'm pretty sure they were seeking out people like myself who are mediocre-at-best cooks so that they can find the weak spots in recipes real cooks would sail past but which leave us m-a-b's weeping salty tears into batter.

Every few weeks I get an email that contains an as-yet-unpublished recipe. I can either try it then fill out an online evaluation of the results, or I can ignore it and wait for the next one. ATK has explained that at least 80% of their in-home testers must answer positively to the question "I would make this again" to move the recipe to the next stage of development.

The offerings tend to be fairly typical ATK fare--they use every pot and pan I have, are significantly more fiddly than the thrown-together fare I usually serve, and the time investment is significant. And the results have ranged from "That is WAY too much work for a pizza" and "Seriously? I'm going  to chop up an expensive cut of meat and put it in a taco?" to  "Hey! I'm a pretty good cook!" and "Whoa, where did that come from?"

A few weeks ago my inbox held instructions for a dessert that was popular back when I started grade school. That was a long, long time ago, in an era that was best known for Jello "salads" and meatballs made with grape jelly, so I wasn't optimistic. I had been tagged to bring a dessert to a friends' lunch, though, and professional chefs had developed this food, so I pulled out all the pans and measuring cups I owned and got started. Two hours later I flipped the cake seen above onto a vintage Fiesta place.

Friends, this thing was on the far end of the "Whoa, where did  that  come from?" scale. Yummy, yummy, yummy. And even though we recipe testers agree to not disclose what we're testing, I don't think I'll be turned out of the cult for saying that the caramel sauce was one I would drink from a pitcher.

It was a totally unexpected result, and while it may be a stretch to compare this dessert to the hodgepodge of gigs I currently juggle, it is a reminder that some faith and taking a step at a time can result in something so much better than what we expect.

It's a delicious reminder, and it was covered in caramel.

Deep Winter

It is deep winter in the House on the Corner.

Last Saturday we woke up to find the corner blanketed in wet, heavy snow. I peeked out the window as soon as I opened my eyes, then pulled the covers over my ears and went back to sleep. My friend J, though, woke up, grabbed her camera, and plunged into the snowfall. Later the day she sent me the picture above, a shot of the House on the Corner taken from across the street.

It is pure magic.

I love the way she framed our cast iron birdbath in the exact center of the stone gate that marks the entry to the college across the street. I marvel at the glow of the streetlamp in the snow, its harsh yellow glare softened to pink. I smile at the sculptures formed by wet flakes on bushes that will bloom in a few months.

And I am delighted by the image, even though I am in the throes of deep winter, the post-Christmas dark that feels just a degree or two off plumb. I knew that within hours our predictably unpredictable Kansas weather would melt that snow and my snow day excuses for sloth.

Everything that was postpone-able during the holidays is now coming due: The closet that desperately needs cleaning. The resolution to return to healthy eating. The start of the spring fundraising project. The writing project I promised myself I'd begin "as soon as I have time."

Of course, all of these are good and virtuous and I will be so delighted with myself when I have jumped into them. Until I take that jump I will feel guilty that I'm dithering here on the diving board.

Nevertheless, more snow is predicted for this weekend so I think I will live one more day in J's snow-covered House on the Corner. It's a place where I can pull the covers over my ears and sleep a few more minutes, then finish the socks I'm knitting and watch an episode of The Good Place.

Next week the the days will be just a little longer and I will dive in, but right now it's the deep of the winter and this is where I burrow.

Happy Holidays (Blink Blink)!

So, happy new year! We're three days into 2019--have you gotten used to writing that date on your checks yet?

Hahahaha! I jest, of course. The first few days of a new reality are not the days in which we absent-mindedly fill in a form with a previous name. (I had been Mrs. Husband for several years when I realized I had just signed a check with my maiden name. I blame that slip on the toddlers who were biting at my ankles. My subconscious obviously was fondly remembering the placid days of spinsterhood.) Also, who writes checks these days? Besides me, I mean? No one.

Anyway, it was a lovely, lovely holiday at the House on the Corner. We missed the #2's, of course. We had spent intense days together in October at the wedding so the newlyweds decided to use their accumulated vacation days on a honeymoon in Portugal rather than on a hectic, cold, travel-fraught weekend in Small Town Kansas. I know! Can you believe that choice?

During last weekend, though,  the remaining Boys and Lovely Girl#1 were here to celebrate Christmas/New Years/Three's Birthday and it was another reminder that being the mother of grown-ups is worth every single bout of norovirus I endured during their childhoods. (They may have hosted that virus in their digestive systems, but the smell has never left my nostrils.)

In fact, that appreciation for grown-up offspring was underscored and outlined in sparklers when I woke up during the holiday week with my left eye feeling itchy.

You know where this is going, right? Yup. A quick photographic text consult with our in-family opthalmologist (feel free to bill me, Lovely Girl #2) confirmed that I have apparently returned to my toddler roots.

 I had pinkeye.

Here are the bad things about having pinkeye as an adult: It looks really terrible, and people who see you recoil in horror. It feels as if you've been standing outside in a sandstorm. It is highly contagious.

Here are the good things about having pinkeye as an adult, especially as an adult who has been slightly buffeted by the holiday season: Except for that icky eye, you feel perfectly fine, but have societal permission--nay ENCOURAGEMENT--to hibernate and knit, read, do All The Things that are healing and energy-restoring.

Dr. Lovely Girl emphasized that I should wash-wash-wash my hands, then wash them again, and  head to urgent care if the redness worsened. Other than that, though, there weren't any restrictions.

With a house full of family, though, my first concern was whether mah bay-bees would starve to death if I wasn't there to poke food into their mouths every time they opened their beaks. Dr. LG gave a qualified okay to cooking--"If you wash your hands really thoroughly first and clean all the countertops before you start you should be okay," she texted.

The guys were having none of that, though. Five minutes later they'd planned meals for the rest of the week and I had handed over a debit card for shopping.

See the picture above? On the left is Boy#3. He hooked his own extruder to my KitchenAid mixer and made homemade pasta. On the right is Boy#4, shown mincing garlic for Chana Masala, a spicy Indian chickpea dish he served with naan. Other meals included chili (secret ingredient: brown sugar to counter the extra jalapeno) and spaghetti carbonara, and I lifted not one finger to help.

I'm taking away two lessons from this:

Lesson Number One is that I did not permanently scar the Boys by neglecting to teach them to cook. Seriously, I was a terrible, terrible mother in this respect. Cooking with kids made me edgy and irritable, and they left home knowing how to make chocolate chip cookies and not much else. All four have become excellent and adventuresome cooks, and two have married excellent and adventuresome cooks. It is another reminder that parenthood boils down to keeping them vaccinated and teaching them to look both ways when they cross streets, and they pick up almost everything else on their own.

Lesson Number Two is that I spend way too much mental bandwidth worrying about food when my family is home. When I'm the cook in charge I eat one meal already thinking about the next meal and what ingredients I need for that next meal and what time I need to start cooking that meal. No one was nearly as concerned about our eating this vacation, I was much more present in each moment--and the food was better.

So, summing up: My family is the best, and having grown-up offspring is still the best stage of life.

Also, I'm voting for pinkeye as the best virus to host. It has norovirus beat by a landslide.