Last weekend, for one day, I was Martha. Or something close to it. I canned salsa. On a farm. With chickens. I chopped fresh vegetables straight out of a garden that was bigger than my backyard. Then, with the help of an experienced canner, I turned those chopped vegetables into a pot of boiling salsa-like liquid. While our tasty concoction simmered away, we stepped outside to enjoy a cup of tea in the sun on a deck overlooking mature trees and a pond. Ah, heaven.
After transferring the completed salsa to sterilized jars, we sealed the lids (I fished them out of the boiling water using a very handy magnetic lid-lifter-thing) and then processed the now-full jars. I felt very domestic. Part of that feeling may have come from my surroundings - laundry on the line, chickens clucking happily, plants growing everywhere, majestic trees, etc. A slight departure from my everyday reality of living in a construction zone filled with dust, dirt, and dump trucks. We don't even have grass.
So this weekend, I'm going to be Martha in my own house. Today I went to the Wellesley Apple Butter and Cheese Festival, except I didn't buy any apple butter. Because I'm going to make my own! Instead, I bought fresh apple cider which I will use to make that apple butter. There won't be any chickens, but my kitchen will nonetheless be filled with the happy sounds of canning. Chanthone, my canning mentor, will surely help to avert any potential canning disasters, thereby allowing me to revel in my Martha-like domesticity.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
This Isn't Quite How Martha Would Do It...
Today I spontaneously invited a friend and her family over for dinner. I casually mentioned that I was making chicken fettuccini alfredo with carrots and broccoli. I got home and couldn't find the chicken I had asked my husband to take out of the freezer the night before. "Oh yeah," he said. "There wasn't any." Okay. So we would have fettuccini alfredo sans chicken. Not a bad meal. I started boiling water in a medium-sized sauce pan. I found the fettuccini noodles and realized there weren't really enough left for company. I switched to linguine. Upon dumping the linguine into the now-boiling water, I immediately saw that I should have used a larger pot. Scott pointed out that I might have put in too many noodles, but I protested gently and continued anyway. As the noodles neared completion, Scott was forced to intervene by transferring the whole mess to a bigger pot. The noodles near the top were not submerged enough to cook properly and the noodles at the bottom were actually burned onto the pot. My company, and good friend Mandy, may or may not have noticed. After allowing Scott to rescue the pasta, I thought it might be nice to have some Pillsbury crescent rolls with the meal. So Scott got those ready. Note - the pasta was moments away from completion.
With Mandy standing right beside me, eager to see what she was about to eat, I began ladling the mixture onto our plates. Except I somehow missed a plate and ladled some right onto the counter. Nice. For someone who has been trying to learn to cook and be altogether a little more "Martha-like" I wasn't putting on a good show. To make matters worse, our crescent rolls weren't ready until about 10 minutes after we finished the pasta. Try telling four young kids to stay in their seats because dinner is coming in two parts and the second part is delayed for no other reason than the hostess didn't think of it until the first part was finished cooking. It was at this juncture that Scott made the following kind observation: "This isn't quite how Martha would do it."
So maybe I haven't really made any progress. But there is this - Mandy liked the meal enough to want to try it herself. I gave her cooking tips, if you can imagine that. Then we started talking about other recipes. I'm even going to show her how to make a peach cobbler (as if that isn't the epitome of Martha). If Mandy (or anyone for that matter) begins to come to me for advice in the kitchen, what does that say about my abilities? Or, perhaps more to the point, what does it say about Mandy's?
With Mandy standing right beside me, eager to see what she was about to eat, I began ladling the mixture onto our plates. Except I somehow missed a plate and ladled some right onto the counter. Nice. For someone who has been trying to learn to cook and be altogether a little more "Martha-like" I wasn't putting on a good show. To make matters worse, our crescent rolls weren't ready until about 10 minutes after we finished the pasta. Try telling four young kids to stay in their seats because dinner is coming in two parts and the second part is delayed for no other reason than the hostess didn't think of it until the first part was finished cooking. It was at this juncture that Scott made the following kind observation: "This isn't quite how Martha would do it."
So maybe I haven't really made any progress. But there is this - Mandy liked the meal enough to want to try it herself. I gave her cooking tips, if you can imagine that. Then we started talking about other recipes. I'm even going to show her how to make a peach cobbler (as if that isn't the epitome of Martha). If Mandy (or anyone for that matter) begins to come to me for advice in the kitchen, what does that say about my abilities? Or, perhaps more to the point, what does it say about Mandy's?
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