Reaching a fun milestone: cooking at home

I'm not a very domestic person. I've been more into intellectual and outdoorsy pursuits instead of knowing how to cook and sew, for example. However, it's never too late to teach an old dog new tricks or for the antithesis of Martha Stewart* to learn some new skills.

I was always in awe of my friends who have stronger domestic skills; they sometimes casually say they'd usually rather just cook at home than eat out because they can cook better. I always thought, wow, that's cool that they're so skilled! I've been asking them to share cooking methods and recipes with me. An awesome benefit of having international and well-traveled friends is that they can either share their families' recipes or demonstrate how to cook food they've encountered while traveling, and they know a lot of vegetarian options.

Now that I've been experimenting with cooking, I often find myself preferring what I've cooked at home to eating out too. To be fair, though, I have to say that I'm just not into German food, or anything that's meat-centric, potato-centric, or always drenched with dairy-centric. Pasta and pizza are on the gives-me-a-headache list so I try to avoid them. I don't live in a large metropolis and there aren't a lot of vegetarian or ethnic restaurants that I really love, outside of Safari (Eritrean food).

Now that I've learned a lot of new vegan and vegetarian recipes, I've enjoyed my meals at home more, and love to share them with my friends, too. I can even enjoy Mexican salsa without having to put up with the addition of sugar and/or curry powder that our local restaurants think are staples for some reason. Now, if I could just get my coworker to show me how to make tamales...



*She makes me nervous for many reasons, including because she's too fancy. However, she does have good taste in horses :)

Cheshire Cat cupcakes

A couple years ago, my Detroit friends and I had the opportunity to participate in an awesome, underground-style event that only happens in one city each on the east and west coasts, and in Detroit as well. The whole event was super creative, participatory, and inclusive. My friends made art and costumes for the event and I was awed by their creativity. I made a costume for myself and I was awed at how not creative I am ;)

Anyway, for the event, I made 76 cupcakes. If I remember correctly, they were all vegan. I am not good at domestic skills either, but wanted to make some fancy cupcakes. I'd give myself a B- (mostly because of the effort!). I found a super cool guide to making them here. Mine didn't turn out exactly the same but I was okay with that even though they looked like some really weird demons.

Hostess of the Year Award

Last weekend, some friends came over for an event we were attending together. It was wonderful to have them over but I was a bit frazzled; I won't lie. I had planned the event for 20 people and had helped coordinate another event later that evening (though my role was minimal on the latter). That week German class and work had been busy all while I was getting over being sick for a month.

After the first event, I sent my two friends on their way to my house along with my house keys to let themselves in while I dropped off the other friends I had given a ride. When I showed up, I wanted to offer a snack and a drink to the friends who had been waiting.

Keep in mind: I am no Martha Stewart (which is totally okay with me, since I find her a little bit scary even though she's talented). I also live like a total bachelor (female version though). My fridge contained vegan margarine, an onion, and tahini. I couldn't exactly MacGyver an appetizer out of that. I hadn't been grocery shopping because of being sick and too busy afterward. I turned to my cupboard, which at least had a few other options.

I had it! I offered my guests a choice of Stovetop stuffing or some cheddar biscuits from a mix, since those were pretty much the only convenience foods I had in the cupboard. My friends happily picked the Stovetop stuffing and drank fruit tea with it.

I happily file this entry under Domesticity Fail, even though everyone enjoyed the stuffing.

How NOT to eat a pomegranate

Here's a very helpful video on how to deseed a pomegranate the easy way.

Since I often screw up the simple things in life, let me share a cautionary tale on how I learned what is NOT the proper way to eat a pomegranate.

1. First of all, know your Greek mythology. Remember Persephone, who was stuck in the underworld for 3 months of the year (winter) because Hades convinced her to eat pomegranate seeds? That is a helpful hint. Don't be an idiot like I was the first time and attempt to eat the fleshy part inside the pomegranate and throw away the seeds. The seeds are your friends; the fleshy part is not. It's horrible and bitter.

2. The youtube video above is really helpful for removing the seeds. Cut the pomegranate in half lengthwise and whack the pomegranate like it's part of a 50 Shades of Grey novel. The seeds will fall out. It's even better when they fall out into a pan that you had the foresight to put down ahead of time.

3. There is a caveat to step 2 though. If trying this at work, be careful when pulling the pomegranate apart as seeds and juice might fly out unexpectedly and make a horrible mess of the break room, leaving the person shocked and holding half a pomegranate but being extremely grateful that none got all over the white work trousers. I'm sure a slow motion video of this, and the look of shock on the victim's face, would have been hilarious. Cleaning up the mess was not hilarious.

4. Pomegranate seeds are quite delicious when one is able to survive eating the correct part of the fruit and deseeding it.

Domesticity fail and acting like a weird American, rolled into one

I just couldn't help myself: I was making cupcakes for a party. I had already put on my awesome Dia De Los Muertos cooking apron when I realized that I had left the cupcake mix in the car. I didn't want to take the apron off, so I went outside to get the mix and kept the apron on. Since everyone is nosy around here, I'm quite sure that I had an audience. If anyone asks, I'll say I did it because I'm American, not weird. Around here, that pretty much means the same thing anyway. I just wish that I had on high heels and pearls to go with the apron and the t-shirt and shorts. It would be a typical "ATW is Trying to Be Domestic" outfit.

The back story is as such: I'm not a very domestic person, nor am I a girly girl. However, I feel that it's important to have a wide range of skills and knowledge, so I try my hand at cookery from time to time. Such aspirations have yielded varied results. 

My coworkers erupted in laughter one time when I told them that because I am not domestic, I decided to make up for that by wearing a (faux) pearl necklace and high heels with my shorts and t-shirt when I was baking cookies. I wanted to see how the housewives of the 1950s felt when they were cooking, minus the dress, conical bra and corset, of course.

The results? It was amusing for the time that I made the cookies. However, I wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Plus, I'm not fond of wearing any shoes in the house and I'm clumsy, so traipsing around in high heels and being overly domestic just isn't going to happen, never mind my clumsiness and the inherent danger of wearing anything other than flat soles.

Pfälzerwald Salat: or, Am I Supposed to Eat That?

Ooh, pretty bouquet! Wait, am I supposed to eat that?

I like to try new things to eat, as long as it's not meat (there are many, many ways that meat adventures can go wrong, especially if one doesn't like meat anyway) or it's not super spicy hot (I can tolerate medium salsa, as a point of reference).

I saw what I think was labeled as Pfälzerwald Salat, or maybe it was Wald Salat, or something like that. Either way, it had the word "Salat" in it, which is salad, and it was next to a bin of what I definitely know is salad. That's not meat or super spicy so it was fair game for me to try. Plus, it was rather interesting looking; it looked almost like weeds (erm, wild greens) and some flowers. I've heard that some flowers are edible and this was next to regular salad so I was 99.9% sure it was edible for humans. This came from the forest around here, or at least that's what I thought, so I bought some.

It hung out in my fridge for a while until I bought some salad dressing. It dawned on me: does one put salad dressing on flowers? What kind should be used? Before I poured dressing on it, I thought I should try it plain first. What if it doesn't need dressing?

As I was debating this, I thought that it really didn't look like salad; again, it looked like flowers and weeds. What if I was wrong? What if this was meant for pet bunnies or something? Why would the farmer have put it by the regular people salad then? Is there something that Germans know that I don't?

My curiosity and lack of better judgment took ahold of me. I grabbed a leaf and took a tentative bite. It was bitter. I was wondering if I should call the poison center. Then I thought I should try one of the flowers (so smart, aren't I?). I may as well go down kicking. It really didn't taste like much. I wondered again if I had been sold rabbit food. I then wondered if maybe the bitter weed thing was a mustard green or whatever else it was that I skimmed over the description of in the hippie books I read on foraging wild plants.

I had enough. I dumped the salad in the trash. Some day, I will find out if this was actually a salad; if I ate it incorrectly and that's why it didn't taste good; or if I narrowly avoided being poisoned by rabbit food.

Domesticity fail

I once elicited much laughter from my mother, as well as some aunts, when I complained about a housecleaning problem I was having. When I spent a semester in England, I decided that the outflow of money was high whereas the influx of money was nil. Thus, I picked up two housecleaning gigs for some extra spending money, which worked out perfectly and financed a trip to Paris and a trip to Dublin.

I was often vexed by cleaning the bathtub; in trying to wipe up the random dust bunnies in the tub, all I did was spread them all over. I finally had the brilliant idea to use the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust, as long as the tub was dry. Sometimes there were still errant fuzzies, though, and I complained of them to my mom. She asked me to repeat the problem and was laughing when I mentioned the vacuum cleaner. I wanted to know how else one would get the fuzzies. Apparently the story has made its way around to my aunts, too. Again, this is a time where I have learned that it is best to laugh at yourself.

Domesticity Fail

From Oct 7, 2008

I have one last "horror" story of failed domesticity. At times, I try to fool myself into thinking I can eat something other than cold food or food that comes in a box. Sometimes I try to cook something or bake treats. Usually the results are quite mixed.

Several weeks ago, I decided that my co-workers needed some cookies for putting up with me (and plus, I had said in my interview that food can often work well as a reward/motivator for staff..unfortunately, I may have crossed theories in management with animal training theory instead). I attempted to bake some oatmeal cookies and misjudged how done they were, as I'd like to think that the oven in the window distorts the true color of the cookies (thus I also must never be allowed in a tanning machine), and burned some of the batch.

I took the good cookies to work and told my colleagues what a failure I am and that I burned the other cookies. They raved about the cookies they had in front of them, which makes me laugh because I just followed the recipe on the label of the oatmeal.

I had thought that they were just being nice. I think it was sincere, though, because the next day a co-worker asked if I had any of the burned cookies left. I had thrown out most of them, but with a remaining cookie, had grated off the burned part and found that it wasn't too bad. I was pretty impressed that she liked the cookies enough to want some burned ones (thought I think that she would have wanted anything with sugar at that point). Sometimes you just have to take the burnt part of your life and scrape off what you can't use and make good with the part that you have left.

Get it right!

This is one of the favorite stories my mom has told me:
One of her co-workers was very excited about some cookies she was going to bake and bring in. She raved about these cookies and my mom asked her what type they were.
"They're anus cookies!" the coworker crowed.
That gave my mom pause. "ANUS cookies?" she asked.
"Yes, anus cookies! They're quite good."
At this point my mom thought that the coworker had taken leave of her senses but she can think on her feet.
"Wait, don't you mean anise cookies?" my mom asked.
The coworker gave her a confused look, so my mom continued, while trying to keep a straight face: "You mean anise; trust me on this one."

The Amish Friendship Bread Pyramid Scheme

I went out with some chick friends last week and one friend was lamenting the fact that her neighbor had given her Amish Friendship bread starter. She told us that it was too much of a commitment; she was going on vacation. With this starter, one must leave it out for 10 days, kneading it every so often (we were wondering why it doesn't go bad). This made me laugh; I've never heard someone so sad about baked goods before!

My thought was this (probably because I'm not overly domestic): who wants to do all that work for some bread? I'll just make it in the breadmaker, visit Avalon Bakery in Detroit, or make beer bread, which requires hardly any ingredients, doesn't require any time to rise, and is fantastic.

The friendship bread saga continues, though: on day 10, the dough is to be divided and extra is given to friends. They're supposed to start the process all over and then give some of the dough to their friends and the cycle continues.

I pondered this, then summarized the bread process: it's a pyramid scheme. The original breadmaker reels in unsuspecting fools to help with spread the Amish bread takeover who then in turn recruit more breadmakers. Friendship, my hiney.