New Toys

Sometimes I am so full of ideas to write about I have to make notes so I don't forget them all.  And then some other times, my little blogging muse sits in the corner and she pouts and gives me the silent treatment.  This is what I have been dealing with. Since she is being so remarkably unhelpful, I suppose I will have to do this all myself.

My new toys are a few little treats I bought, all very inexpensive.

[caption id="attachment_1608" align="alignright" width="125" caption="Iris as a young woman, apparently in need of said treats..."][/caption]

As Iris Murdoch said, "One of the secrets to a happy life is continuous small treats."

I may have that tattooed on my person somewhere.  Or maybe not.  But either way, I could not agree more.  It doesn't have to be anything big--check out my post from last year,  Cheap Little Treats, for some ideas.  But for right now, here are my new toys:

First of all, I am really liking my avocado slicer/peeler. We've been on a turkey and avocado sandwich binge lately, and I finally got tired of having avocado under my nails every time I made a sandwich.  So not only does this little gizmo (it has no moving parts--can it still be called a gizmo?) slice the avocado very nicely, it also removes the peel at the same time. Way more fun than conventional methodology, and gives a much better looking slice.  As a companion piece to my slicer/peeler, I bought the Avo Saver, which really kind of looks like a piece of junk, to be perfectly honest. It's lurid green plastic with a rubbery strap that goes across the top, and I am sure it's made in China.  But here's the thing:  it works great!  Usually if I have a half avocado left over, I dutifully put in the fridge, going through the ministrations to keep it fresh, but secretly knowing that I'll be throwing it away in a few days, when it gets that murky brown (different from Murphy Brown) tone to it. And avocadoes aren't cheap, so that makes me mad!  With the Avo Saver, you put the half with the pit on the device, lash it down securely with the stretchy strap, and it stays for several days, in relatively good condition.  No, it's not perfect, but it only had a very little murky brown on it, and it was just a very thin layer I could scrape away easily.  Usually the murky brown penetrates the entire avocado.  So, a good purchase.

Next toy is the Chef'n Stem Gem strawberry stem remover.  I have to admit that the cuteness of this device swayed me.  As a bonus, it works well!  You press the green button like you were giving somebody an injection, which opens the pointy teeth.  You plunge the open teeth into the strawberry, twist, let go of the button, pull out, and tah-dah--quickly hulled strawberries.  It would be great if you had to do a whole bunch at once.  I'm sure it would really cut down on time. So another good purchase.

Next little item is some shampoo and conditioner.  As I've gotten older, my fine hair has gotten...oh...I guess fluffy would be a way to describe it.  I do not want fluffy hair.  I want shiny and smooth hair.  At the same time, however, I need volume, but volumizing products tend to exacerbate the fluffy issue.  It's a puzzler, I tell you.  I saw some ads for new smoothing products that somehow seem to be geared toward middle-agers (similar to a teenager, but different)  like myself, and the first thing I bought was L'Oreal Evercreme Cleansing Conditioner.  It very gently cleans, but mostly conditions.  It was fine, not amazing.  It does smell fantastic though.  So then I moved on to Suave Professionals Keratin Infusion Smoothing Shampoo and Conditioner.  Now I have to say, I am very impressed.  When I use this shampoo and conditioner, my hair feels smooth and silky, it's shiny, and it still has oomph. And the price?  Well, you know, Suave does what theirs does for less than half the price.  Apparently in this case it's true!  It is indeed half the price of the L'Oreal line (which is still really cheap), so a bottle of the Suave Keratin is less than $3 at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.  I have color treated hair, so I am careful what I use on it.  I'm not advocating cheap slop.  Rather, I am advocating a cheap product that also happens to be excellent--a rare combination these days.

While some days I feel like Iris Murdoch looks (above), at least I know I'll have a delicious turkey and avocado sandwich (I just discovered that lightly sprinkling salt and pepper on the avocado in the sandwich is hugely helpful in bringing out the avocado flavor) to eat, and smooth, shiny hair to toss about.  So that's good. Happy life indeed.

My Literary Obsessions

What to read?  It's harder to decide what not to read.  Sometimes I leave the library feeling guilty about how many books I've checked out.  But that's the best part of the library:  if you get home and find out it's not the right book for you, you can immediately return it, no harm, no foul, and someone else can check it out.  Whether fiction or nonfiction, I have certain genres that I return to over and over with which I am, perhaps, more than a little bit obsessed.  I'm intrigued by the lives of women living in the Middle East, and I am horrified and fascinated by the way Jewish women tried to manage their lives and their families in the most nightmarish of circumstances. I love to read about treacherous travel from the safety of my little bed, and I imagine being a pioneer woman, once again trying to manage self and family under harsh conditions, whenever we drive to the Sierra.  My favorite genre is the "seamy side of London" category (I don't know what else to call it).  Pickpockets, prostitution, and insanity in Victorian London? Well, it makes me happy, what can I say?  Reading is one of life's great pleasures, and I am sad that Kids Today forsake reading for any manner of electronic stimulation.  Maybe one day they will find their way to books--we can always hope.  And now, a few of my favorites...

Books about women in the Middle East:

Princess by Jean Sasson (nonfiction); Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel (fiction);  A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (fiction); Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (nonfiction, comic-book style);  A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco by Suzanna Clarke (nonfiction)

Travelogues (Armchair Tourism):

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (nonfiction);  Sand in My Bra edited by Jennifer L. Leo (nonfiction);  How to Shit Around the World by Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth (nonfiction);  Notes from a Small Island and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (nonfiction); Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (nonfiction); Baghdad without a Map by Tony Horwitz (nonfiction)



Holocaust  Women:

Holocaust by Gerald Greene (fiction);  All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein (nonfiction); Day After Night by Anita Diamant (fiction)

Pioneer Women:

Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (nonfiction);  Impatient with Desire by Gabrielle Burton (fiction); One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus (fiction)

The Seamier Side of London:

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (fiction); Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue (fiction); Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England by Emily Cockayne (nonfiction); The Sexual History of London by Catharine Arnold (nonfiction); Dr. Johnson's London by Eliza Picard (nonfiction); The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber (fiction); The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman (fiction)

So many books, so little time!

Crazy Survivalists!

Oh wait.  That's me.  Well, not really a survivalist.  I mean, I don't even like camping.

[caption id="attachment_1511" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="No, this isn't me!"][/caption]

I avoid like the plague sleeping in a sleeping bag, even indoors!  So maybe I'm just a preparer.

I've always kept my pantry stocked such that if the whole family came down with some dreadful flu we could feed ourselves for several days without having to leave the home.  But now, for some reason, I'm starting to take this kind of thing a bit more seriously.  I have been reading a few books and have found things that made me laugh (one book has acronyms for everything--TEOTWAWKI, and WTSHTF, to name a couple, which stand, by the way, for "The End of the World as We Know It" and "When the Schumer [Yes, really. Schumer.]  Hits the Fan", respectively), and

[caption id="attachment_1485" align="alignright" width="98" caption="Haven't read this yet..."][/caption]

I've found some good information about, for example, how long food will keep.  There are even novels about The End of the World as...excuse me--TEOTWAWKI, such as One Second After, by William Forstchen.

I found out that  Mormons are big on stockpiling food.  Who knew?  They seem to have very organized systems of storing food, and not just a few extra boxes of pasta.  We're talking actual sacks of wheat.  Large quantities of canned vegetables.  And of course you have to have hand grinders to grind the wheat to make flour, and camping stoves to cook the veggies.  It sounds crazy, I know.  But when you start to think about These Uncertain Times, it gets a bit less crazy.  Apparently the Mormon church used to advise its members to keep a supply of one year of food.  Now, however, that has been scaled back and three to four months of food storage is encouraged (although longer would certainly not be frowned upon).

We're not necessarily talking about society crumbling due to terrorist attacks, although that is of course a major consideration.  Pandemics such as avian flu, among others, are of grave concern.  If, heaven forbid, avian flu mutated (which viruses regularly do)  to transmit easily to and between humans, and there were an outbreak, surely we would be instructed to hunker down at home to minimize the spread. That means no running to the store for bread and milk.  There is also a lot of talk about a disruption in the power grid, by way of a terrorist attack in the form of an electromagnetic pulse.  Our banking, fueling, communicating, shopping, etc.,  would grind to a halt from such a disturbance.  Don't forget about things like the solar storms we've been seeing this week that can also disrupt the power grid, or even an asteroid

[caption id="attachment_1488" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Feeling paranoid yet?"][/caption]

strike. And then of course you've got your garden variety chemical and biological threats, and...and....

Now, you could just  lie awake and worry (something I excel at).  Instead, however, you might feel a little bit better if you manage your household in such a way that you have some water put aside, some food to keep you going for a little while, a hand-crank radio to listen to.  It's really not that different from earthquake-preparedness, which we Californians are well used to. For instance, don't just stockpile a ton of canned food.  You have to stockpile food your family actually uses, and then rotate your stock constantly, so that if some catastrophe comes along you aren't stuck eating seven year old canned green beans and not a whole lot else.  I mean, if you have to use your stores for the emergency you stockpiled them for in the first place, it's likely things are going to be pretty bad.  Wouldn't a little familiar and comforting food help things?  Of course it would.

In addition, if you don't ever need the food you stockpiled, it's good to know it won't be wasted--these are things you use anyway. And a gas powered generator can keep the food in your freezer frozen for quite a while, provided that's the only thing you use the generator for. So with your Coleman stove, your hand crank radio that will also charge a cell phone, your generator, and your stored food, you should be okay for a month or so. Maybe even longer if you really get into this way of thinking.

When I fixate on an idea, like this one, I go on a reading jag (more about my literary obsessions another time), and I find out what I can.  I can't even imagine what the people who stock the reserved-book shelves at the library must think I'm doing with all the survivalist, pantry-stocking books I've been checking out.  But while there are some books that are not really my bag, that segue into militia-type preparedness, I did find some that are worth taking a gander at, and that have useful information to keep in the back of your mind.

My favorite of the books I read is Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Occurs by Kathy Harrison.  The other books I read which I found interesting and helpful are as follows:  How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It by James Wesley Rawles (yes it's the one with all the acronyms, but it was actually an informative little tome); Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook by Peggy Layton; and 100-day Pantry by Jan Jackson. Mind you, there are thousands of books on this topic--you just have to find the ones that speak to you.

Isn't all this a little paranoid?  Maybe.  But isn't it better to have supplies and not need them (although they certainly won't go to waste), than to need supplies and not have them?  So buy a few extra cans of broth (FYI, you can cook pasta, rice, and veggies in it, thus saving water), some extra cans of salmon or tuna, and a couple extra boxes of pasta or bags of rice when you go to the grocery store each week.  Doesn't cost much, and you may be very glad one day.  And just so you know, no, I've not gone crazy!  I guess what all this boils down to, really, is embracing your inner Boy/Girl Scout; that is, BE PREPARED.

Bread and Lemon Zest

What about bread and lemon zest?  Well, I've been baking bread lately from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  And the zest is a little tip I got from Bon Appetit magazine.

[caption id="attachment_1438" align="alignright" width="189" caption="Look! It's pretty!"][/caption]

First of all, I got Artisan Bread from the library to test it out.  I was very impressed, so I bought it. I found that it really is just a few minutes that you spend before putting a loaf of fresh bread on the table.  You don't have to make bread every day.  Rather, you mix up a very easy dough and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.  Then you tear off a hunk of dough, smooth it out, pop it in the oven and voila! Fresh bread with dinner tonight!  The dough will keep in the fridge for weeks, so if you only feel like doing this on the weekend you can. This is a photo of my third loaf (and only my first boule--the others were baguettes), so I know my technique will improve.  I'm not a fan of gimmicks, such as, just say, claiming to make bread in five minutes, but this isn't a gimmick!  It really works. This bread cookbook is well worth the money.

Now on to the zest:  I have sooo many lemons right now, and my second little tip is one I found in Bon Appetit magazine at some point, but I'd never tried it out.  Here's what Dana Sturgis, test kitchen director, says in the magazine: "When a recipe calls for lemon juice, don't waste all that great zest!  Before I squeeze a lemon, I use a sharp vegetable peeler to remove thin strips of zest.  I let the strips air-dry for a day or two, then store them in a jar at room temp until I want to crumble them into rices, stews, or cooked fruit.

[caption id="attachment_1447" align="alignleft" width="112" caption="Denuded lemons and their zest"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1448" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Zest after aging"][/caption]

When I need 'fresh' zest, I just soak the strips in cold water for an hour, and they're as perky as the day I peeled them off."  Due to the plethora of lemons and the plethora of guilt I feel for not using every last one, I was thrilled to find this little tip.

[caption id="attachment_1450" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Ready for storage"][/caption]

And I have to say, it works well!  I used a sharp chef's knife to very finely mince the shards of peel, and it was easy, quick, and guilt free!

Homemade bread and preserved lemon zest...we're just so thrifty!

The R&B Cure

Post-holiday letdown maybe?   Perhaps a teensy bit of a holiday spending hangover?  Not sure.  But I've been a little blue, and we all know what that means:  I need some music.

On the whole, I don't listen to a whole lot of R&B.  I tend more to electronic music, with a little bit of this and that thrown in.  But for some reason, I had a yen for some R&B. Something mellow and sing-alongable, but still dance-aroundable.   Most of these songs were on my iPod already, so I assembled what I had (so thrifty!), and only downloaded about four of them from Amazon.  I know that some of these songs aren't strictly R&B--there's some funk, some rap, some soul.  But for the most part it's got a generally R&B-ish flavor.  I must say, it is an excellent playlist. Enjoy!

On Broadway:  George Benson

Be Happy:  Mary J. Blige

What's Going On:  Marvin Gaye

Dont' You Worry 'bout a Thing:  Stevie Wonder

Strawberry Letter 23:  Brothers Johnson

Lovely Day:  Bill Withers

Take Off Your Cool:  Andre 3000 and Norah Jones

September:  Earth Wind & Fire

Old Songs:  Betty Wright

Honey Please Can't Ya See:  Barry White

Just Friends:  Amy Winehouse

Turn Your Love Around:  George Benson

Let's Stay Together:  Al Green

Mercy Mercy Me:  Marvin Gaye

Forget Me Nots:  Patrice Rushen

In the Middle of the Game:  Betty Wright

You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine:  Lou Rawls

Back and Forth:  Cameo

He Can Only Hold Her:  Amy Winehouse

Just the Two of Us:  Grover Washington and Bill Withers

Give Me the Night:  George Benson

Nothin' On You:  Bruno Mars

The Tears of a Clown:  Smokey Robinson

We're in this Love Together:  Al Jarreau

You Take My Heart Away:  DeEtta Little and Nelson Pigford

Fantasy:  Earth Wind & Fire

Across 110th Street:   Bobby Womack

My Cherie Amour:  Stevie Wonder

I feel so much better already!

New Old Furniture

Every day I get an email from that site My Habit, which is an offshoot of Amazon.  It sells high-end clothing, furniture, and household goods at great prices.  But I find it dismaying that so many of these items are still made in China.  Like this very cool little acrylic end table, normally $1300, and on sale for $330 (woo-hoo!), but made in China!  I could go to Ross and get cool little tables that are made in  China and cost about $40.  So I'm annoyed.  What I've been doing instead is haunting eBay and a very fun store in Fairfield called The Trading Post. It's got a fair amount of junk , but if you look around a bit, there is a lot of really beautiful old furniture. And it's huge!  I can get lost in there for ages.

[caption id="attachment_1344" align="alignright" width="210" caption="Her tail is blurry 'cause it's always wagging!"][/caption]

I feel like old furniture that isn't officially antique (isn't antique supposed to be 100 years old?), that shows that it has been well loved and is now hanging out in a used furniture store, is kind of the shelter dog of the furniture world.  Perfectly good, an excellent addition to the family, but just needs someone to take a chance on it.  (And speaking of shelter dogs, our new baby is such a sweetheart.  So gentle, so loving,  always wagging, and there was only that one time where she jumped up on the coffee table and pranced across....)

At The Trading Post last spring I found a little old solid mahogany bookcase for the upstairs hallway and it still had the sticker on the back from a San Francisco furniture store from many years past.  Then this past summer, we needed a new dresser.  As you well know, finances ain't what they used to be.  So since I absolutely, unequivocally refuse to buy anything from Ikea (no--don't get me started.  I'll rant and also perhaps rave.), I went to the Trading Post again and found a very nice dresser.  It was tired and scratched, but it was solid wood and it was not much more than $100.  Sold!  I loaded it up in the back of my little wagon and brought it home.  The picture at left is not the exact dresser--I forgot to take a snap (remember when people like your grandparents called photographs "snaps"?) before we made it pretty, but this is very close to how it looked.  So anyway, we (the royal "we") removed the ugly old hardware and then gave it a good sanding.  The drawers smelled a bit musty, so I put little bowls of bleach in each drawer then closed the drawers and left it for a few days (a Martha Stewart tip).  Problem solved.  We then painted it a semi-gloss white, put on new hardware, and called it good.  It looks great.

In October, I went on the Solano County surplus auction site and found all sorts of interesting things (filing cabinets, bookshelves, stretchers, gun holsters...).  Most interesting of all, however, was a chair from the 1950s, solid walnut, built by a company from North Carolina called Boling.  And then at the beginning of December I saw two more of these chairs on the same site.  Needless to say, all three have been adopted into our home. They are hard wooden chairs, but they are somehow very, very comfortable.  So of course, once I had the three chairs, one in the living room and the other two in the family room, the pair needed a table to go with them.  I went to eBay and looked and looked for a small wooden table, preferably dropleaf, to go with them.  Well, if it wasn't "pick-up only" in Pennsylvania, it was $90 shipping, so that didn't work.  No surprise, I went to The Trading Post and found exactly the table I was looking for.  It's a little dropleaf occasional table, probably from the 1940s, priced very reasonably, and it goes perfectly with my Boling chairs.  No, the woods don't match (the table is maple), but they are an excellent complement to each other. The picture shows the table with one leaf up and one down, and it is just perfect!

While buying old furniture won't make more jobs in furniture factories, it will support local, small, non-chain businesses, which I can't advocate strongly enough.  So I got new (to me) furniture at an extremely doable price, and I didn't buy the Chinese-made...umm...crap that we are deluged with and will probably end up in the landfill before too long.  I certainly can't imagine any furniture from Ikea or Target lasting more than about five years, let alone 70.  In the future, what on earth will antique stores sell?