smells good in here
I really do enjoy cooking. I like the magic of discovery and the wonder of flavour. I've discovered, for instance, that by using stock boiled into a syrup (glacé) I am able to make gravy with no thickening agent. That's right, no flour! I never mastered the art of thickening gravy. An egg yolk would in fact probably work nice too, but if you're using pan drippings or even stock the trick is to boil the living daylights out of it, stirring like a mad fool, till it's sure to burn into a crust. Just as the boiling gets foamy and angry and the thing insists it'll crust up and you're stirring so hard you have to oil your elbows, you pour it on the food. A spatula and oven mitt are all that it takes to discover flavour heaven. No seasoning required. Just pour that good syrupy brown stuff onto any savoury food you're serving and the stuff is redeemed, paleo style. My pan drippings were sparse tonight in my roast chicken because the thing was small and there were carrots and potatoes soaking it up. Even so, there was definitely some of that brown crap that's so hard to wash off if you leave it to dry. I'd read about this, and there it was, the secret flavour of chefs, looking like so much bad pot stain. I started with water and scrubbed my spatula against the ceramic dutch oven sides. The stuff started to release, dissolving just as it does in the dishwater, but now on the stove. it looked really watery, milky even, and I just wasn't feeling it, so I reached over to the stock pot I have going and ladled out some of the floating fat and whatever stock water might come along. This then I boiled within an inch of it's life and yes, it was good. I will never again, I do pledge, waste this precious gift of flavour from the bottom of my pans. Good gravy needs no flour.
The stock? Oh it's cold out so I can finally make more stock! Now that I understand this business that stock once reduced will be down to 10-15% of it's original volume and dark as caramel. So I dug down into the freezer where all summer I've been freezing the leftover bones from bbq, smoking, and the occasional roasting. I only had room for half of them so I'll be doing this twice in a row. I shove all those bones in a 16L stainless steel pot, fill it with water, and shove a lid on it. This is brought to a nice high boil (mostly because I forget and then it spatters my attention), and then set at a constant simmer on the back burner. The simmer has to remain active or it'll spoil but if you boil it too furiously it'll keep running out of water. When you add water, the whole pot cools down so you don't want to have to do this too often. Cooling is your enemy. If you let it cool just once you'll smell the sour next time you fire it up and the whole thing is spoiled. I do mean spoiled. It's growing bacteria and will sicken anyone eating it and the sour smell is their feces. It's the feces that's making it nasty so boiling and killing the bacteria won't fix it. Dan turned one off late one night because he thought it was boiling too much and sure enough it was trash by earling morning, only a few hours later.
If I'm even just living in an apartment building I probably can't make my stocks anymore. It's a lot of heat, humidity, and energy use. Pro kitchens have range hoods and special stock pots designed for the job. Mind you, I have seen that stock pot badly abused too. I only worked one kitchen and what they put in their "gravy pot" was often quite offensive. I would not put compost in the gravy but they did. compost is any vegetable matter that's begun the composting process already and it's not fit to eat. Not even in gravy.
Yes, I could enjoy being a cook. No, I would not be able to be one. Cooking is only about 30% of the job really. they have to manage the kitchen. Budgets, menus, employees, the whole thing. For a place to be small enough for me to do that it wouldn't make any money! LOL, besides, I'm a paleo cook who won't use red meat and knows too little about seafood. Oh but I'd sure love to share my chocolates and gravies with folks.
Well so Dan comes home and asks me, as I sit knitting and roasting and cooking, "did you get your car fixed?" LOL, I forgot all about it. I need a new battery in my smart car. She has no juice and it's worse than last year. It's her 5th year of life and the first and last were really hard as there was no block heater in use. This year the block heater has to wait for dan to go to spokane and back and then earn enough to pay for the work. I fear it could be november before it's all on. I'm praying winter won't be so harsh but I don't feel confident about it. I'm tired of proving myself against it year after year. I'm tough, okay? Can we just accept that I'm really tough and get on with other things yet?
Sometimes it feels like I've been spending my whole life proving I'm tough and brave and steadfast and never getting enough credit to rest on my laurels. Well screw it, I'm done, I've proved it. Go knock a chip of someone else's shoulder, dammit, I'm busy.
LOL, I guess that's part of getting this age, I've heard so many women say those words in their own way. They're always right around the age of 50 too. I guess it's a strong age for us. I'm also thinking I need to start easing up on my body now. Not to where I'm not working it, but the stress part. Stress doesn't make you stronger. Stress weakens you more than any other environmental impact. Tolerating things like the discomfort of winter adds stress. Maybe West Coast winters will suck, but the one I endured was just a nice wet month or two. I think it sunned at least once a week anyway, and I have a thing for fog and rain that's right up in the fetish category. Nothing gets me hotter than a downpour with thunder and lightning. I like the hot rain best but rain on the roof will do.
Dan grumbles at rain like it's a ritual. He calls me crazy when I say I like it. He's missing out, the silly fellow. ~shrug~ Life is full of things we're missing out but we fill it with things we didn't miss and that'll have to do. Hey, that's a tweet.
The stock? Oh it's cold out so I can finally make more stock! Now that I understand this business that stock once reduced will be down to 10-15% of it's original volume and dark as caramel. So I dug down into the freezer where all summer I've been freezing the leftover bones from bbq, smoking, and the occasional roasting. I only had room for half of them so I'll be doing this twice in a row. I shove all those bones in a 16L stainless steel pot, fill it with water, and shove a lid on it. This is brought to a nice high boil (mostly because I forget and then it spatters my attention), and then set at a constant simmer on the back burner. The simmer has to remain active or it'll spoil but if you boil it too furiously it'll keep running out of water. When you add water, the whole pot cools down so you don't want to have to do this too often. Cooling is your enemy. If you let it cool just once you'll smell the sour next time you fire it up and the whole thing is spoiled. I do mean spoiled. It's growing bacteria and will sicken anyone eating it and the sour smell is their feces. It's the feces that's making it nasty so boiling and killing the bacteria won't fix it. Dan turned one off late one night because he thought it was boiling too much and sure enough it was trash by earling morning, only a few hours later.
If I'm even just living in an apartment building I probably can't make my stocks anymore. It's a lot of heat, humidity, and energy use. Pro kitchens have range hoods and special stock pots designed for the job. Mind you, I have seen that stock pot badly abused too. I only worked one kitchen and what they put in their "gravy pot" was often quite offensive. I would not put compost in the gravy but they did. compost is any vegetable matter that's begun the composting process already and it's not fit to eat. Not even in gravy.
Yes, I could enjoy being a cook. No, I would not be able to be one. Cooking is only about 30% of the job really. they have to manage the kitchen. Budgets, menus, employees, the whole thing. For a place to be small enough for me to do that it wouldn't make any money! LOL, besides, I'm a paleo cook who won't use red meat and knows too little about seafood. Oh but I'd sure love to share my chocolates and gravies with folks.
Well so Dan comes home and asks me, as I sit knitting and roasting and cooking, "did you get your car fixed?" LOL, I forgot all about it. I need a new battery in my smart car. She has no juice and it's worse than last year. It's her 5th year of life and the first and last were really hard as there was no block heater in use. This year the block heater has to wait for dan to go to spokane and back and then earn enough to pay for the work. I fear it could be november before it's all on. I'm praying winter won't be so harsh but I don't feel confident about it. I'm tired of proving myself against it year after year. I'm tough, okay? Can we just accept that I'm really tough and get on with other things yet?
Sometimes it feels like I've been spending my whole life proving I'm tough and brave and steadfast and never getting enough credit to rest on my laurels. Well screw it, I'm done, I've proved it. Go knock a chip of someone else's shoulder, dammit, I'm busy.
LOL, I guess that's part of getting this age, I've heard so many women say those words in their own way. They're always right around the age of 50 too. I guess it's a strong age for us. I'm also thinking I need to start easing up on my body now. Not to where I'm not working it, but the stress part. Stress doesn't make you stronger. Stress weakens you more than any other environmental impact. Tolerating things like the discomfort of winter adds stress. Maybe West Coast winters will suck, but the one I endured was just a nice wet month or two. I think it sunned at least once a week anyway, and I have a thing for fog and rain that's right up in the fetish category. Nothing gets me hotter than a downpour with thunder and lightning. I like the hot rain best but rain on the roof will do.
Dan grumbles at rain like it's a ritual. He calls me crazy when I say I like it. He's missing out, the silly fellow. ~shrug~ Life is full of things we're missing out but we fill it with things we didn't miss and that'll have to do. Hey, that's a tweet.