Call It What You Want...

Dear America's Test Kitchen (and all my friends, in case Christopher Kimball doesn't have my blog bookmarked yet):

On your suggestion, we asked for and received the Victorinox Chef's Knife for Christmas. Lately, I've been cooking more -- perhaps because I have a good knife -- and I even bought a bag of onions, more than half of which I have already used. Generally more than half rot before I get to them. But I've always hated cutting onions because my eyes water so dreadfully when I do. Except they don't anymore. Have I gotten tougher, or does having a good knife make cutting onions not only easier (you should have seen my fine dice today), but also less eye-watering?

Dear This Old House:

I love your show and your magazine. So does my 2-year-old. When we read your magazine, he looks for the spot where the stars of the show are pictured, then points to each one so I can identify each in turn: Norm Abram, Tom Silva, Kevin O'Conner, Rich Trethewey, Roger Cook, and then he repeats each name. Rich Trethewey, he doesn't do so well with. Norm, he has down pat. Anyway. Yesterday he pointed to the word "Healthy Care" imprinted on the front of his baby brother's high chair and said, "House. Old House." Not only did he announce the magazine name when I got my most recent issue (recognizing it from the show), but he picked out the "H" on the high chair. Now he knows that "H is for 'House'." He's quite proud. If only he could replace the kitchen floor and wire in some new outlets with what he's learned from you guys.

Dear Waste Management:

My son also loves your trucks. He only knows two letters right now (sometimes three), and the first that he learned was W. "Trash truck!" Unfortunately, he thinks that "Trash truck" starts with W, I think. So, while I'm enthusiastic about my kid's affection for your trucks and your WM logo, do you think you could change it to "TT" for Trash Truck or something?

Sincerely,
Your Friend Jenny

I made another 30-minute recipe last night, though this one was not out of Cook's Illustrated's book I used before but off the internet, and I have some observations about them and their relationship with me and my home.

1. Decent 30-minute recipes take that much hands-on time. Yes, it's done at the end of that time, but they require that time to be spent in front of the stove and prep counter, working. They work a lot better when someone else is around to look after the kids. Or PBS Kids, in a pinch. Mark is getting to think "Between the Lions" is pretty funny. Grandmas and Grandpas are entirely preferable. The time Tim's folks were here, it was easy to do the 30-minute recipes because no one bothered me, and the kids had someone to play with!

2. Decent 30-minute recipes need to be planned for ahead of time. How often do I have all of those ingredients around the house? Last night I just happened to have a can of artichoke hearts sitting around (purchased at Thanksmasgiving time and forgotten when we intended to use them). I balk at menu-planning (I HATE IT) but it would make it more likely that I would have the stuff on hand.

3. Decent 30-minute recipes need to be served when they're done. It sort of spoils the effect of a lovely Lemon-Artichoke chicken with fettuccini to sit around for an extra half an hour. But a 2-year-old (who liked the corn better -- yes, he ate more veggies) can't wait until 6:30 to eat (nor can his borderline hypoglycemic mommy), and his daddy can't teleport home from work.

For these reasons, you can be assured that, while rather more elaborate recipes will make appearances at my house, meals that involve ground beef and some tomato product and a decent amount of time ignored are not to be forgotten.

[In a completely unrelated side note, yesterday Mark showed off some great counting skills again:
"One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six...
Nine, Ten...
Elijah...
Fourteen!"
He was very proud of himself. I was amused...]

Or something. See below for the end of the day... :)

This morning saw me cleaning the dishwasher, though after a few scrubs with some Soft Scrub and a gentle scrubber, I decided I didn't want to be crawling around the kitchen all day and filled a coffee cup with white vinegar, set the empty dishwasher to wash itself, and voila! a clean dishwasher.

While the boys and I played downstairs, Roomba swept the upstairs hall and the boys' rooms, leaving that carpet clean and neat. We put Adam to bed and brought Roomba down and I spent the next 20 minutes or half an hour cutting all the gunk off Roomba's brush and roller, getting it all cleaned out. People with long (or long-ish) hair should not be allowed to live in houses, is all I have to say on that.

Now there are two boys in bed, a pot roast in the crock pot (with veggies, too, of course) and I am marveling in what turns out to be the way knives are supposed to work.

After a rather unfortunate experience at Thanksgiving time in which my Dunce and his wife (Mrs. Dunce) revealed to me that, no, knives aren't really supposed to be that hard to operate, we decided perhaps the ones we were using weren't the best. So when Tim's mom asked what we wanted for Christmas, he had the thought to suggest a new chef's knife.

Our friends at Cook's Illustrated and the ever-beloved (by me) America's Test Kitchen tell me that in their tests the only one that is "Highly Recommended" is the "$30 upstart", Forschner Victorinox Fibrox Chef’s Knife
$25.33
FROM THEIR WEBSITE: "Comments: One tester summed it up: “Premium-quality knife at a bargain price.” Knives costing four times as much would be hard pressed to match its performance. The blade is curved and sharp; the handle comfortable. Overall, “sturdy” and “well balanced.”"

And so, we now have a nice little -- um, not little. Very big and scary -- chef's knife, and I tried it out today to chop vegetables for my roast. I don't do much, to be honest. Just boring little me. Onions and potatoes, and toss in some already chopped and peeled baby carrots.

I was able to actually chop the onions the way they do on America's Test Kitchen, which seems to be an easy way to get small pieces. Cut the onion in half, trimming the top and cutting through the bottom. Then slice horizontally (parallel to the cut side) a couple of times, then chop from top to bottom, then slice parallel to the bottom. Lo and behold, nice chopped onion, no cut fingers.

But the potatoes were really impressive. Remember if you will the struggle with the old chef's knife (destined for the garbage, or maybe Goodwill, for someone with more strength than finesse). Slicing and chopping the potatoes was so easy it felt like I was cutting through butter. Really. I am a happy gal.

I wanna go chop more stuff now, please...

While I crow, I even studied the Bible Study lesson and journaled for next week's study, and Mark ate as much of the beef -- AND VEGETABLES, GOBBLED THEM DOWN, I TELL YOU, including the carrots that he has in the past avoided like Black Death -- as I did.

And Adam cried from somewhere about 2 p.m. until 5 something, stopping crying to eat, and while Mark watched some PBS Kids show while I finished the gravy. 20 minutes tops. He is now trying to take that nap he was supposed to have gotten earlier. And just whimpering, not full-out screaming. Just in case I get too big-headed and super-mom-ish...

One.

Yes, one.

We have an interesting relationship with a local (chain) pizza restaurant whose name will remain unrevealed to protect the innocent, incompetent, injured or inept. It's not uncommon to have bad service or bad food or both. We never (or almost never) think of it as it comes to mind to go there to enjoy dinner, but it's really best to 1. have low expectations and 2. not be in too much of a hurry when we go to eat there. Up until last summer we'd eaten there several times and never paid for the entire meal thanks to extremely slow service, wrong orders being brought to our table, or Tim's thin-crust pizza being disgustingly overcooked (more than once).

Then last summer we got Joshua as our waiter and our trend was broken. He was quick. He was not quite excruciatingly polite, but nearly. He put in, received, and brought us the correct order. He was appropriately dressed (no underwear showing) and clean (you think that's not that big of a deal???). And we paid full price. (And left a good tip.)

Reasonable service prevailed the next couple of visits. Perhaps things had changed.

We stopped over at our favorite pizza location Friday night for a little dinner. We waited what seemed like forever to even have a hostess appear so that we could be seated. Our waitress (pierced, lisp-y, but sweet and helpful) took our order. Tim chased down a booster seat for the boy. People fussed over our adorable children. We asked for and received silverware. Waitress arrived with our pizzas. Well, with mine, and an incorrectly made thin-crust for Tim (wrong toppings). Waitress was well aware of the wrong pizza having been made and apologized, telling us we could have this incorrect one (Mark wasn't one to argue) and that Tim's correct order had been put in, no charge, of course, and was there anything else she could get Tim to make up for it? Salad bar? Breadsticks? Tim asked about a dessert pizza. Really, Tim's not going to eat that much, and his pizza being late was probably the person's pizza being late that would be the least disruptive (that was an awkward construction, granted, but you get the idea). Mark was starving from never having eaten any food ever before in his life, and while there weren't being any hypoglycemic moments for me, yet, you just have to watch out. (I'd have taken the breadsticks AND the salad bar...) Sure, waitress agreed, she'd put in an order for a dessert pizza. And Tim's actual pizza would be on its way out soon.

Tim's pizza arrived shortly (incidentally, Mark ate three pieces of pizza to Tim's two). Then came the dessert pizza. Then came three boxes to take them all home in, and the check.

We paid for one medium pizza (mine) and two drinks (Tim's and Mark's).

And a tip for the waitress.

What a deal.

I told Mark that Uncle Brian and Aunt Tara had a babysitter for the evening and were getting ready to go out.

Mark repeated, "Babysitter."

"Do you know what a babysitter is?" I asked him.

"Bumbo seat."

This is a Bumbo seat. Adam sits in it. (Last weekend Andrew did, as shown in the picture below.)

Get it? Bumbo seat=baby sitter.

Baptism day went off without a hitch; more pictures will be posted soon. Pastor Wade did not do the quick and careless job I dreamed about a couple nights before, and Adam's godparents did make it after all (also unlike my dream) -- though "someone" might have gotten out of the house in her sandals instead of her church shoes (but Grandma AJ saved the day by trading since Tara would have looked a little less than formal up there in her red adidas shoes... I mean "someone").

You say you're not sure if Adam and Mark look a great deal alike? Think maybe Adam might look a little more like Mommy or something?

Hmmm.
Who are those cute boys? Every time I start thinking Adam looks less like Mark than I originally thought, he goes and pulls something like this on me.

More later.

Happy New Year!