Teleidoscope

Sat, Mar 29, 2008

Knife Skills Class

Posted at 6:15 pm MDT to Technology

This was fun. We chopped all kinds of veggies for a minestrone soup, and for a vinaigrette, and chopped and chiffonaded herbs, and supremed oranges. And then we ate the soup and salads for a late lunch.

I skipped the green salad (except for a bite of tomato to taste the vinaigrette) because of my lettuce allergy. But the orange salad (with mint chiffonade) was good.

The soup was also very good. My Nonna would have used rosemary in additon to the other herbs, and more beans, but I still had a bowl and a half.

I managed to cut myself when I was working on the last segment of my orange, but I've had worse papercuts. And I honestly can't imagine ever needing to supreme an orange in real life. Concasséing a tomato is likely to be a lot more useful.

On the way home I stopped at McGuckins and bought a new sharpening steel and a replacement for my favorite wood cutting board that warped to death several months ago (it cost $13, and the old one lasted about 10 years...). Also some other kitchen gadgets, including the sausage-stuffer to go with my Kitchenaid's meatgrinder, and a cherry/olive pitter. And a few little 4 oz. condiment dishes for mise en place use, so I have something between the tiny ones and custard cups.

I also invested in a 1 gallon white porcelain compost container for my kitchen counter. My soil is so bad than any little bit would help, and there is no sense sending good organics to the landfill. Now I need to find a big outdoor compost bin that won't get wrecked by the wind, or put it down wind from the house. But it will take me a while to fill the gallon jar, even with Farmers' Market starting next week.

I mentioned in class that I work at the Market, and that it was starting up again next week. The Instructor asked which farm I sold for and said "Oh, Jay Hill Farm is where the school gets all our greens." So the salad I didn't eat came from Nanette's farm. I'm not sure about the basil and mint we chiffonaded.

I didn't buy any more knives because my old Chicago Cutlery boning knive is adequate for the little I use it, and they didn't have a roast slicer that I liked. I think I'm going to keep using the Ginsu as my main bread knife.

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Good Day

Posted at 6:13 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Interesting question. Did I have a good day today because I had meals and meds at sensible intervals? Or did I have meals and meds at sensible intervals because I was having a good day and had the attention to spare to notice it was time for food and herbs? I definitely woke up in good shape: it was the first time in a couple of weeks that I had the energy to do some yoga in the morning, well before the morning dose of herbs had cut in.

Yesterday was very bad and my third dose of St. John's Wort didn't happen until late in the evening so I may have awakened with my brain chemistry already boosted this morning. My third dose today was at a reasonable suppertime. It will be interesting to see how I feel in the morning -- though Saturday makes a difference.

I woke up Wednesday with a mild headache that got very gradually worse all day until I took some Ibruprofen. I wonder if the Ibruprofen crashed my brain chemistry. (I'll have to track the interactions.) Or maybe whatever was wrong Wednesday kept building until I melted down in the mid-afternoon yesterday.

One factor in today being a good day was probably that the woman I'm having trouble dealing with wasn't around -- I learned at the 4pm status conference call (2 pm my time), that she was in training all day.

Tomorrow should be fun: it's the day of the Culinary Knife Skills workshop I signed up for a while back. Four hours of playing with sharp pointy things. I'll take my own good chef and paring knives. I plan to use the school's slicer if we need one, to see what it should feel like. Maybe I'll swing by the McGuckins knife department after class. I probably need a better steel, too.

My slicer is a Ginsu: embarassing but true. (They sell them in the supermarkets as special events, I didn't send away for them.) But they cut, and they don't wear out the way regular serrated bread knives do. Because I bake (and slice) my own bread I used to wear out a Chicago Cutlery bread slicer in about 5 years. A more upscale brand might last better, but they are too expensive to gamble on replacing them every few years. I may keep the Ginsu as my bread knife even if I get a better slicer for other uses.

Other shaped knifes from the same company as Ginsu are pretty useless for real cooking tasks, though I have one skinny tapered one that does a fair job of slashing bread loaves before baking.

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