Home for the Holidays Daily Update: Dec 31, Home at Last

It feels good to be home.

Don't get me wrong, Kansas was great, but it's nice to see my couch again.

A cocktail in my hand.

Me and J. having our traditional post trip fight.

A new year to screw up on my doorstep.

Life is good.

The Curse of Being an Adult

My mom is a chaplain. She works for a hospice system and provides spiritual support for people who are dying. And she is so comfortable doing it. She can talk about death and dying to people who are dying and to the people they are leaving behind. She can fly into hospitals and spot the family strife and separate for these people what is important right now (helping Uncle Joe die) and what isn't (what Uncle Joe did in 1975 to Uncle Harold). It's quite amazing. But sometimes it is disconcerting.

She has a patient who was basically an ass his whole life. He was a loud, ex-army son-of-a-bitch. I imagine him in sansabelt pants, complaining about integration and how liberal Nixon is. But he got what was coming to him, didn't he? He's dying. He wasn't there for his wife when she died, and now his new wife isn't there for him. He was worried about what would happen to his dog when he died. And today his dog died, and Mom thinks that he is going to turn his own oxygen off because he is ready to die. And she says this while she is washing out tupperware to put into the dishwasher. It makes my heart stop, because if you are that comfortable talking about this, does that mean that someday you will turn off your own oxygen? And leave us here alone?

And what will we do then?

Home for the Holidays Update: Dec 30

Today I made Hollandiase sauce from memory and it was the best damn sauce I have ever made. It was golden, creamy, yellow, and just the right amount of lemony bite.

So, who wants to give me a million dollars to open a hollandaise sauce restaurant?

Home for the Holidays Update: Dec 29

One of these things is not like the other.

At a holiday get together with a friend of mine from highschool: my brother, his wife, their baby, my friend, his wife, their baby, my friend's older brother, his wife, their baby. Me, my boyfriend, and our bottle of scotch.

Kidding, we only wished we had a bottle of scotch.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 28

The Salina Journal is our local paper here at my parents. My parents live, well, a long way from most things. For example, it takes two hours to get to an airport that has jets, and three and a half hours to an airport that has useful flights (The closest airport has great flights to useful places such as Phoenix, Denver, and Memphis). I am sure that some people need to go to Phoenix, Denver, and Memphis, but not me.

I spend a lot of time defending Kansas. I don't even know why I do it- I am not really that fond of the state in which I grew up, but it seems that people have the wrong impression. And that bothers me for some reason. So the brief summing up of my position: it's not a flat wasteland full of red necks, it's cheap and easy to live there, it's a great place to raise a family.

And then I come back and I realize that these are all phrases, that said slightly differently, are used to damn with faint praise.

"She has a great personality" = "It's a great place to raise a family" = "Fugly and boring."
"It's not a flat wasteland" = "But he's really nice!" = "Kind of boring, really."
"It's cheap and easy to live there" = "She's totally a whore." = "No seriously, it's cheap. Cause no one wants to live there."

It makes me feel like a traitor to look at my homeland objectively. Maybe sometimes you just have to love it for love's sake? And then the Salina Journal cements my impressions with the following comments taken from the newspaper December 28:

"Computers Generate Confusion" - an op-ed piece written by a crotchety old man who doesn't like computers.

"Wild Animals Can Always Surprise: Wall Around Tiger Pen Slightly Lower Than Recommended Height" - what. the. hell.

"I won't let my kids eat animal crackers 'cause I don't want them growing up thinking all animals taste the same." - from the section of the newspaper in which readers can call in comments.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 27

My sister, who is ostensibly a college student, also works at Sears. She used to sell tires and spoilers and new shocks, but now she has been promoted to fixing tires and installing new shocks. She is over the moon about it.

I have never heard her mention something that she learned at University, but she talks all the time about fixing things for Sears. As long as she is happy, I don't care what she does. Especially as long as she lets me wear her Sears jacket. I love wearing her Sears jacket.



Yes, I am holding a pitchfork.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 26

Laaaaaaaaazy days with a baby.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 25

We never did get around to buying a Christmas tree, so we passed gifts from under the palm tree that we put lights in last night. Mom normally keeps it front of the windows, but strung with lights, it looked very "Christmas Tropicale". It was surprisingly charming. Maybe we will get a holiday palm again next year.



Christmas Dinner Menu:

Grilled Marinated Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce, a la 1964
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Brown Sugar Glazed Ham
Roasted Winter Root Vegetables
Smashed Red Potatoes with Horseradish and Chives
Challah, served with butter (rendering all the work unkosher)
Brandied Cranberry Sauce
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Winter Citrus Salad
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Flaming Christmas Pudding

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 24

J. and I drove my grandma to my parents house from Kansas City. Every time I come back to Kansas, the wide openness of it all takes my breath away- flying down I-70 at eighty five miles an hour, we pass a car maybe every five minutes. Arriving at the homestead, it's disarray and madness. Last week my parents had no electricity because of an ice storm, while at the same time remodeling their kitchen. The kitchen was completed, but none of the holiday arrangements were. So J and I flew to the store, mixed and baked and got a little bit tipsy doing so- but everything was ready by Christmas Eve.

I would never say it out loud, but all the mixing and baking and wrapping and decking and twinkling shininess of Christmas makes me all nostalgic and emotional.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 23

So, Christmas is a big deal in my family. There is a lot of eating, general merriment, and of course, repressed passive-aggressive tendencies because everyone becomes eight years-old again when you go home. Kidding! Our family would never be passive-aggressive: it's just that if you didn't eat so much, you would be thinner. That's all I am saying and I am saying it because I love you.

That's right, up front they get coffee in real mugs and employees at least act like they give a shit about you. Viva la revolucion, when the working classes will break through that flimsy curtain and take the real china and free drinks that is rightfully theirs.

J. and I got bumped up to first class, where I drank many a Baily's and coffee out of a real coffee cup and stared out the window, regretting that I don't get to fly more. Then, on our connecting flight, we sat in coach, where we belong, and I felt warm and fuzzy about the fact that I no longer travel for work.

What is the lesson here, children? Booze makes all the difference.

Three Months of Cheffing

I could write a long thing here about blah blah blah how great going to culinary school is, but I won't. On Monday I have my final practical examination for Phase I which marks the half way point in class work, and a quarter way though the entire program. Instead I leave you with the five greatest things I learned, and the three worst.

The Greatest

Meat Braised with Wine is the best food in the world. This technique rocks far and wide and always brings all the boys to the yard. Or something. It is great, and the only reason that western civilization hasn't actually fallen apart yet. Beef bourguignonne, coq au vin, short ribs braised in red wine, modern American barbecue, carnitas, goulash.... all of this deliciousness stems from this one technique. Amen.

Do Not Fear the Alternative Meat. Rabbit? Yes Please. Goose? I think more like this. Venison? Yes. Boar? I'll take five pounds. Calf livers? I was skeptical, but ultimately wrong. Sweetbreads? Well, when we were preparing them they sort of oozed in this uncomfortable manner as if they were self-ambulatory and trying to excape. But they were ever so delicious.


Puff Pastry. A thousand layers of delicate pastry separated by 999 layers of delicious butter? A golden wall of flakey layers that I created with my own two hands and a rolling pin? So this is what it feels like to be God.

Salt. Everything needs salt to taste like itself.

I can do this. I am really good at it. My hands sometimes seem to be working by themselves, as if they know what to do so I can sit back and relax. It feels good to let them go.

The Worst

Screaming is the acceptable form of encouragement and criticism in most kitchens. Not looking forward to that.

I look stupid in my magic cooking dress. Also, cooking is hard physical work. I am tired and sore most days.

Hell is other people. OK, I knew this already, but this class is definitely cementing that impression.

Wish me luck on my exam tomorrow!

I will get around to this, I swear.

I made some amazing food this week. And I shaved my mustache. And school was awesome + hard. I *will* update this week, including a clean shaven pic, but not tonight. I have to watch cartoons and feel sleepy.