My Questionable Cleaning Style

Kitchen Horror!

My lovely Motel 6 bedroom

I have made a hideous mess of my kitchen while elevating our bedroom to "cleanest ever" status.  
If you are asking yourself what a cake dish and two punch bowls were doing in the bedroom in the first place, you don't know me well.

Last week four of my all-time favorite friends came to visit and the first couple arrived six hours before I expected them.  The sheets were in the dryer and I was at the tail-end of my weekly kombucha bottling session so the kitchen was a wreck, but other than that things weren't as gruesome as they could have been. These were "self-cleaning" guests and after a week of fun - including Indian cooking lessons - they departed, leaving the house cleaner than they found it.  I must mention that the guys prepared all the meals and cleaned up afterward too. I swear, I could soooo love communal living!

Learning in Santhoshi's Kitchen.  Yum.

Guess which guest chef is left-handed?

Maybe depression at their departure inspired the current cleaning binge?

Yesterday I ripped everything out of all the closets, cabinets and drawers of the master bath and bedroom and took everything that didn't belong to the kitchen. It took all day but I knew Jerry was going to work late so I had extra time to get everything straightened back up.  What I forgot to factor in was that Kate was coming over.

"Oh my God, what happened here?" was her entry line.  Things only deteriorated from there.  Before the evening was over, I had emptied drawers and shelves in the kitchen too.  When Jerry got home, he didn't even comment.  He's used to these upheavals and knows that they usually abate on the third day.  It also helped that he could see that the boudoir was Holiday Inn clean.  

Vanilla in its infancy

Today I got up to face the explosion in the kitchen and ended up arranging my spices which led directly to infusing vodka with vanilla beans.  When I was done with that, I whipped up a batch of my homemade deodorant and made laundry soap - all in a kitchen that would have caused social services to remove my child from the home had they had occasion to visit.   (She's twenty-six.  I wonder where they would place her?)  Then, instead of picking it all up, I decided to write this blog.

I am currently taking an online course called:  Focus and Concentration.  I wonder if they have a money-back guarantee?  

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

Cooking Class

“I cracked the coconut earlier today and removed the meat,” said Santhoshi, the young Indian woman who was to teach our cooking class. Michelle and I were the first two pupils in her first class and she was sweating she was so nervous.
“Really?” Said I. “How'd you do that?” I asked. She indicated a large mortar and pestle sitting on her counter. 

Right then I knew that recreating the Indian meal that she had tailored specifically with my dietary guidelines in mind and was now going to spend the evening teaching me how to make was going to be impossible for me to execute. MY mortar and pestle is the right size to crack a walnut and my first thought was to use a chop saw. How do you get the meat separated from the hull? I have no clue. Maybe it just falls off or maybe you need a pry bar for that.

Santhoshi and Michelle cooking korma

The class continued. Santhoshi also had prepared a paneer dish that had marinated all day. Turns out it wasn't something she usually fed her family because it came from another part of the country. She felt, though, that all Americans expected it with their Indian meals. 

On to korma, the mouth-watering focal point of our Indian dinner. Lots of chopping is involved - it's full of veggies. I estimate the end product, which smelled beyond terrific, takes basically two-and-a-half hours to create - that does not factor in the time it takes to crack the aforementioned coconut or cut and marinate the paneer referenced above.

She also made Jeera - a savory, cumin-flavored rice - plus a sweet milk dessert called payasam. This dish included saffron, that deliciously expensive thread from the crocus flower. I've had a jar of saffron threads for longer than I've lived in South Carolina, but never found occasion to use it. That was about to change.

In our class environment the meal took a bit longer to prepare, largely because I kept butting in and asking irrelevant questions but also because we laughed a lot. Cooking classes can be fun!

Two hours into our class, I realized that neither of the students were helping do any of the work. That probably slowed us down a bit, too. I should have at least offered to chop the onions. I do that all the time at my house. Now it was time to fry the paneer.  I helped by stirring it. It was approaching 8:30 and I usually eat hours before that. Michelle and I began sneaking bits of extra coconut. I never realized how totally yummy raw coconut can be.

The Korma - I call it "heaven in a pot!"

The paneer smelled divine. Santhoshi had made a lot of it - an entire skillet plus some skewers that she put in the oven. We tried it. Then, the two students ATE the entire skillet of fried paneer. Wow! I didn't even think I liked the stuff. What was in that marinade?

Now comes the highlight of the evening. Time to try the meal. Our instructor plated the food with some naan (because naan is the world's best flatbread) and gave us a hearty serving of flavorful rice, about a half cup of korma and some of the oven-baked paneer. I began by sampling the korma and it was just sooooo tasty.  

Santhoshi had left the dining area to get her husband a plate of food (and that's a whole different story, believe me) and I asked Michelle to sneak us each another scoop of the korma. She complied. I ate that. My Lord, that stuff was downright divine! Then, as I was gobbling up the rice and cheese, our teacher left again. This time MICHELLE added more korma to our plates. It was seriously good. We could not get enough of it! I wanted to take home a giant doggy bag and eat nothing but korma for the rest of the month. 

When Santhoshi reappeared, she served us each another heaping cup of korma. Remember - we had already eaten a skillet of cheese and nibbled on coconuts and eaten THREE SERVINGS OF THE STUFF! 

We both ate it all. Every luscious bite. Neither of us were hungry at all now. In fact, by the time we'd finished, I was Thanksgiving full - but it was the best Indian meal I've ever had in my entire life.

I received the recipes in my email but who are we kidding here? Our sweet teacher even invited me to take a road trip to the Indian store to buy the more exotic ingredients. I optimistically bought a coconut from Harris Teeter that's already been scored for easy opening.

I need more instruction, that's what I need! I am thinking I will just enroll in the same Wednesday night class until I feel like I really can do it on my own. (That's code for never.)

Seriously, if you live in my area, take this class! At the end of it, you will eat the best Indian food of your life and that's totally worth the wait. Totally.  And if you learn how to make vegetarian korma, invite me for supper. Often.

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

Snow Day, 2015!

Yesterday I was looking forward to attending a cooking class on preparing Indian food. Jerry was in Georgia to attend a college career fair, so it was the perfect night to venture out of my comfort zone.

Then I received this text: Winter Weather Advisory in effect for York Cnty/Zone, SC until Thursday at 7:00 AM EST. 

My cooking class was postponed, Jerry's event was canceled and we found ourselves at home, deciding upon what to do with our evening. 

And then this text arrived: 
From TC City Mgr: Inclement weathers expected to reach totals of 8"-10" of snow by midnight. Please stay off roads. Dial 911 for emergencies including downed trees

An irrelevant aside:
I was a bit peeved by the “weathers.” Why does texting excuse people from using punctuation? 

Back to the point:
It wasn't snowing yet and I felt the evening would be best spent visiting our grandsons, whom I hadn't seen since Monday. That falls under the category of emergency, right?  Apparently not, because both Jerry and Jessica vetoed my idea. They knew the roads were dry, but bad weather was obviously on the horizon and why take a chance?

By midnight, there was a dusting of snow. The storm had begun.

Today I awoke to the sound of whooping and hollering, the happy noises of children sliding down the golf course hill behind our house. I looked outside and, sure enough, there they were - sledding on the wet grass.

They say that 90% of what we worry about never happens. I think the percentage is higher when you're talking about weather.

Happy snow day!