What I learned today

[Jenise]

So we have this wood table (seats 10-12) that we purchased during the pandemic. My husband put some kind of coating on it and then happened a series of unfortunate events that included folding it wet (it reduces from 10 ft length to 6) and leaving it uncovered over the winter and then putting a tablecloth on it which he didn't remove for a week. The first left some ugly yellowed stains on part of, but all of, the two center panels and the second caused splintered peeling and leopard-like mold spots all over. Looks pretty bad.

So this morning we got out there with some plastic sanding pads to smooth over the peeling spots (which exposed the original brown wood underneath vs. the silver cast of aging that I had so carefully cultivated) and various other things, including bleach, to see if it would cure the mold spots. And that was a big fat no.

I was drinking a strong glass of iced tea, trying not to let myself look as upset as I felt because it seemed we were going to have to sand it all down and start over, when it dawned on me to dip my finger in the tea and dab at one of the splinter repairs. I liked the look.

Next thing you know we had a bowl of strong teabags (Tetley orange pekoe that I buy in Canada, can't get anything even close down here, with boiling water just to cover) ready to go. The tea was the stain and the bags were the applicators. We literally painted it with tea bags. Dry, the table is no longer ashen gray but a warm golden hue, the former spots now blend in like wood character, and yet it still looks like it's been outside for a year vs. new out of the box. We'll go ahead and put a protective coating on it.

I'm VERY pleased. If only all of life's problems were solved this easily.

Brilliant, what a fix!

[Jenise]

Karen, Bob called it "another highly successful girl fix". It's just another in a long line of simple solutions to problems he'd make complex. He only knows to go to the Hardware store and buy chemical products. 35 years ago my first ever "girl fix" involved finding ants on our kitchen floor. Bob was all set to go to the Hardware store and buy RAID. I stopped him with "No poison in my kitchen," and went and got a bottle of hair spray. "They can't move so they die," I explained. I've been girl-fixing things ever since.

LOL, yep, hairspray works for a lot of things. I recently learned that Shout, which I use to take stains out of my clothing, usually tops that I get a grease or food stain on, cleans carpet and upholstery better than anything I have tried in carpet cleaners. Yesterday, was errand day and I put my pup in the bedroom where she can see out the window, go into her condo, or lay on the bed. Something must have upset her because she threw up on the carpet. I grabbed the Shout, sprayed the spot, rubbed it in and waited a few minutes. Dabbed with a cloth and it was gone. Usually, pet stains are hard to remove in some surfaces.

Saw an interesting hack on aMary Berry cooking show.
She was making a tart, firstly she rolled out the pastry. The genius bit she took the base from the tart tin and slid it under the pastry on the bench, gently folded in the sides, popped it back int the flan ring and eased the folded bits up the side of the ring.

Quite possibly you may be asking if I’ve been living under a rock but I never thought to do that..

Now I have to make a tart and give it a shot.

Isn't is crazy Barb, how someone can come up with these tips? I watch a cooking show called The Kitchen, they have amazing hacks now and then that blow me away.

[Jenise]

I don't bake much at all, but Barb I would never have thought of that either.

Saw an interesting hack on aMary Berry cooking show.
She was making a tart, firstly she rolled out the pastry. The genius bit she took the base from the tart tin and slid it under the pastry on the bench, gently folded in the sides, popped it back int the flan ring and eased the folded bits up the side of the ring.

Quite possibly you may be asking if I’ve been living under a rock but I never thought to do that..

Now I have to make a tart and give it a shot.

Does sound good, although of course requires a 2-piece baking tin.

I'm often in humid kitchens, so my 'hack' when the dough gets a bit sticky is to roll it out in the pie/tart pan. (Often using my hands instead of rolling pin, because of the angles) It all gets baked there later, and has always worked for me!

[Jenise]

So last weekend I bought yellow zucchini. Small, new ones at a farmstand. I have always found yellow zucchini tasteless--more so than green zucchini which when fresh is quite sweet--but yellow, no. So I thought if buying it from Joe I still don't like it then I'm never going to like it. I cut them in half and grilled them lightly within 24 hours of purchase, and:

I'm never going to like yellow zucchini.

Have you tried zucchini in the Sicilian style? Sliced rounds slowly sauteed with lots of olive oil and garlic. Much like the over cooked vegetables that gain in flavor with long, slow cooking but finished off with something piquant like a good red wine vinegar or anchovies or capers, S&P. Served at room temp I find them delicious as is or on bruschetta or on a plate with other crostini for a big appetizer.
Trifolare is another style from Northern Italy. Also cooked in EVOO, garlic and parsley without the Southern piquant additions. Trifola in the Piedmont means truffle and thinly sliced truffles are cooked in this manner.

[Jenise]

I actually adore summer squashes. Patty pans, yellow crooked neck and green zucchini too. I cook them toghether with salt and butter, and I like them what some would consider overcooked but they get sweeter with longer cooking. I grew up on that, and will make a large batch as a main course for vegetarian days. Zucchini gets prepared by itself fairly often too. Yes, lots of olive oil and garlic, or rubbed with oil and sprinkled with salt and HdP then oven roasted, or cooked stovetop with onions--love all that. I just have never found yellow zucchini to have any flavor. Even lightly grilled like I made on Sunday, they had no flavor. Should have been sweet.

This week I have fresh black truffles. One of the things I do is the frequently suggested placing eggs in a container with a truffle and allowing the flavour to infuse before using for delicious scrambled eggs
This week I went outside the square and substituted cooked eggs, cracked the shell all over and infused for two days. Developed a nice truffle flavour. I just ate it as Is with my lunch but am thinking of uses for such a critter.

[Jenise]

What I learned today is that seagulls don't like shrimp shells. They're the goats of the bird world and will generally eat anything I put out for them--jeez, they drop crab shells all over my house--but shrimp shells? A no go.

This week I have fresh black truffles.

From where?

Our family always called seagulls "flying rats".

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I've heard that elsewhere, but I actually appreciate them. Never do I have rotting fish skin in my trash--the birds eat it all. And I love their sounds.

This week I have fresh black truffles.

From where?

Jeff, from Tasmania. The truffle farm near me hasn’t had enough frosts so theirs are lacking a bit in flavour, so chose to order from Tasmania and it was a good choice they are really good.

I haven't had Tasmanian truffles but I know there are a lot more truffles in the world than there used to be. I had some Chilean truffles last year, not terribly impressive but I didn't spend much.

[Jenise]

Jeff, from Tasmania. The truffle farm near me hasn’t had enough frosts so theirs are lacking a bit in flavour, so chose to order from Tasmania and it was a good choice they are really good.

I didn't realize that frosts were integral to truffle farming.

On a separate topic, I just learned--or at least concluded--that I don't like pecorino cheese. The gamey flavor of lamb fat just isn't for me.

[Jenise]

Today I had another kitchen solution to a garage problem: watching my husband struggle to fill small round holes with a wide flat putty knife in the outdoor cedar furniture we're refinishing, I made a piping bag out of a Ziploc bag so we could just squirt in the required amount and smooth it down.

[Jenise]

Yesterday I learned to never ever ever throw a dinner party without making a to-do list in the morning, one that starts out with an outline of all the things I plan to serve. Had I done so yesterday, I wouldn't have forgot that I'd planned to serve blistered padron peppers as a starter (how can one forget that?) or, even more ludicrously, forget to serve the salad. The salad was meant to be a second course after the albondigas, BUT I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT IT even though I announced before dinner that it would happen and where in the line-up because most of these people aren't used to 2nd course salads. I haven't felt this stupid in YEARS.

I actually do usually do that list day-of, but unfortunately I was awake in the middle of the night for a few hours and so didn't rise until 10:44. You know that feeling when you wake up and it's a whole lot brighter in the room than it usually is at your customary wake-up time? THAT. And company was arriving at 4:00. And the entire meal, including a dessert, plus clean-up including myself head to toe all had to happen, along with a trip out to fill the propane tanks for the after dinner firepit in less than six hours. I'd figured I'd have 8-10.

We've all had those dumb moments. One of my favorites: I worked up an entire pot of oyster chowder, served it forth, and it seemed a bit intense and thick... and then I realized that I had never added the milk and cream!

My mother made egg-drop soup once and mistakenly added the cornstarch thickener by the tablespoon instead of the teaspoon. We ended up with triple the amount of soup that had been intended.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Funny stories, both. But I still can't believe I forgot those things. Or that I didn't take time, even on a day when I had less time than I needed at the start, to make a list. I am a dedicated list maker (there's always a notepad in my purse). Which for a dinner party isn't really just a list. I'm a Cost and Schedule Engineer by profession so it's in my DNA now to scope the project and perform a little critical path scheduling by which to mindfully execute the rest of my day.

Apparently, anymore I can't skip this step.