Back to School

I woke up late Saturday morning (6:30 AM) after another rough night. Normally this wouldn't matter, but I have a 9:00 AM class in Livonia. I signed up for a one-hour class in making your own pasta at the Williams-Sonoma (it's an upscale cookware and kitchen appliance store, Mom) in the Laurel Park Mall.

So, I ate some scrambled eggs for breakfast, shaved, showered, dressed, drove too fast and got there right at 9 o'clock. I thought it would be a hands-on kinda thing, but it was just 25 folding chairs at the back of the store with 24 people (and me) watching a lady make pasta. It felt good to raise my hand when she asked who had a hand-crank pasta maker at home. And I felt a bit smug when she easily and successfully made fresh pasta with the hand crank machine, but the pasta screwed up big time when she used the Kitchen-Aid (mixer) pasta maker attachment. BTW, the hand crank version and all the Kitchen-Aid attachments were made by the same company that made mine (but, I bought mine on the Web), Imperia.

They did do a cool thing by first making boxed, dried linguine, then adding virgin olive oil and herbs and passing around small paper plates and plastic fork for us to taste. Then when she finished cooking her fresh pasta (in an amazing 2 minutes - it takes far less time to cook fresh pasta, BTW) they put on the same oil and seasoning and passed that around for a comparison taste test. And, yes, the fresh was 100% better tasting!

The most interesting thing was the ravioli maker attachment for the Kitchen-Aid stand mixer (not that I would want one. I love my little hand ravioli cutters!) She fed pasta sheets in on either side of a hopper then put a pre-measured amount of filling in (she was using butternut squash and parmesan cheese). Note: I asked her the exact ingredients and she said they are all in the Williams-Sonoma pasta making cookbook. I checked after class - $20 US! I think I'll try and make it up!!). Even though it was attached to the mixer, you hand-turned a knob and then repeated the procedure. A sheet of ravioli emerged, three pieces wide, crimped and cut out in a zig-zag pattern (like postage stamps) that you just pulled apart and put in water. Sweet!

Interesting way to start the weekend! But, now I'm off to the library. I took 7 Mile Road to Beech Daly, then turned left on 6 Mile to the library. It dawned on me that I had just effectively by-passed all the grocery stores I know, so apparently I am not getting the five additional items I forgot, today. So, in, out, wham, bam, thank you ma'am, I have five new books to read.

So, now I am back home and changed into my usual weeknight, weekend clothes (dark blue T-shirt and shorts I originally bought for physical therapy. I have five sets and find them the most comfortable things to wear around the house). First of today's projects: Installing a paper towel holder in the downstairs bathroom cupboard.

This was a cheap cabinet that I cut the legs off, turned upside down and hung on the wall years ago for Jake to use. But now that I'm using this bathroom, I need the paper towels for both wiping my glasses off (I wash them with my excess shaving cream every morning) and spraying Windex on the sink to clean it after I use it.

So, being a cheap cabinet, I know the shelves are not 3/4 inch thick (in fact, they are less than 1/2 inch thick). So, I find some smaller screws and attach the paper towel holder. But, even the smaller screws punched through the Formica, so I got my Dremel tool, ground them down below the surface and filled in the hole with white caulk. I raised the shelf to accommodate my mouthwash and the Windex and, other than waiting a day or so for the caulk to harden, I'm done! See photos.

I had complained to my friend B___, that his style of burgers didn't taste right (you remember the ones I added bread crumbs, a grated onion and an egg to the ground chuck?) He asked me how I ate them and I said, "Just with yellow mustard on a bun." He said, "Oh no, you need to put BBQ sauce on them!" So, I tried that for lunch, two burgers on buns with BBQ sauce, a few chips and a nice dill pickle. Result? Maybe I'm being too picky, but, while it was better, now it tastes like meatloaf with BBQ sauce on it! I guess I am just a purist, a 100% ground chuck only hamburger kinda guy.

Next on the agenda? A really nice two hour nap!!!

Awaking refreshed and energized, I thought it might be time to move those five more wheel barrows of mulch. So, I did. This time (since the pile is rapidly diminishing), I am concentrating on the North end of the garden, where the honeysuckle and the three roses are.

Then I brought the new 40# bag of bird seed out of the garage and put it into my metal canister, refilled my feeder and used the last of the peanuts Jake and Carla bought me in the squirrel feeder.

Its 4:00 PM and I don't know why but I am thinking of a thick chicken soup. So, I drag out my big (BIG) bag of saved chicken bones and a frozen package of chicken thighs and throw them in the smaller stock pot (the big one is already in use, filled with water Friday night to chill out the city-water chlorine so I can redo Newt's tank on Sunday). I add two onions, quartered, but not peeled, two carrots, rough chopped, all the garlic I had (smashed), three stalks of celery, again, rough chopped and a 1/2 cup of kosher salt and 1/4 cup of whole peppercorns. I turned it on "High" and when it started to boil, I turned it down to "Medium-low" and walked away.

I had more leftover pasta for dinner and then watched TV for a while. But, I decided an early bedtime would be good, so I added four cups of water to the stock pot and went to sleep around 10:00 PM.

I woke up just after 1:00 AM and sat on porch watching the rain. Nice night.