Grandma's hooch

Happy New Year!

We've spent this past week and a half with family (my husband's, then mine). I met my niece Leah for the first time, learned how to knit and crochet, bought a 12-quart stainless steel mixing bowl (which Leah fits into), watched my stepson make out like a bandit on Christmas Day, and spent lots of time eating and laughing.

I will admit my family has loosened up considerably in their old age. They're a lot more fun than they used to be (or maybe I'm just old enough to fully appreciate adult fun?). Part of the annual Christmas get-together are my grandmother's increasingly funny antics. She's 84 and going strong--one of those old Southern ladies who plays cards with her bridge club and still cans her own pickled watermelon rind. The first year of our now-annual get-together, she cracked everyone up with the advent of her rooster collection. The gift exchange that year went something like this:

[Grandma opens a big present, to reveal a two-feet-tall ceramic rooster.]
Grandma: It's just what I always wanted!

Someone else: Grandma, you wanted a ceramic rooster?

Grandma: Yes, I've always wanted a cock for my kitchen.

[Everyone starts giggling.]

Grandma: For Christmas this year, all I wanted was a big ceramic cock, any size, any color, but preferably black and over 18 inches tall.

[We're all in hysterics now, rolling on the floor.]

Someone else: Grandma, you wanted a cock for Christmas?

Grandma: Yes! I can start a collection now! I'm going to put him in my kitchen and call him Cocky.

I'm still not sure Grandma knew why we were laughing so much, but now she gets roosters of every size and description from everyone, each Christmas. Rooster statues, clocks, salt and pepper shakers, creamers, placemats, plates, you name it. We all snigger like fourth graders whenever she says the word "cock."

This year, my uncle brought several Mason jars of moonshine and something called "Apple Pie Hooch." He brewed it himself, using the following recipe:

2 gallons apple cider
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 cinnamon sticks
A bottle of grain alcohol

(Brew the first three together over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar evaporates. Let cool to room temperature, add the grain alcohol, drink.)

Grandma discovered the apple pie hooch and has been drinking it steadily all week. "Grandma's hooch" has become a new family catchphrase.

I asked my sister to take a picture of me in the hot tub, drinking moonshine out of a Mason jar, surrounded by uncles and aunts and cousins. That's me--class all the way.

...and the Christmas aftermath

Involves upchucking, apparently. We arrived at the in-laws safe and sound, after 21 hours of driving, and the new Prius performed like a champ. And we only spent $85 on gas to travel 1300 miles. So that was pretty awesome.

The kids had a great Christmas; there was the standard orgy of capitalism. The best part, of course, is the time spent with loved ones, and we may have succeeded in convincing everyone to come visit us in MA this year.

The downside to it all is that a 24-hour stomach bug was working its way through the kids, and last night my husband came down with it. Violently. All over the carpet. Merry Christmas to me. He hasn't moved all day, he's been sleeping it off (I hope). Running a slight fever but at least there haven't been any more...episodes. It remains to be seen whether he'll be well enough to travel to VA tomorrow. Or if my sister, with her new baby, will allow us to, due to possible contagion and all. So travel plans are up in the air right now.

At least we won't have to worry about traveling in the big blizzard that's socking New York and Boston right now. We'll miss the first big storm of the season. I hope our kitties are okay...do you think blind cats know when it's snowing outside?

Merry Christmas!

Week 1 of new job = success!

So far the new job is going really well. I'm surprised, actually. I think I expected a big boring suburban data farm, but it's not that at all. Everyone is super nice, my boss doesn't have any glaring personality disorders (yet), and best of all, I have more freedom with this job than I've had with any others. They've essentially given me carte blanche to do my job the best way I see fit, with no corporate bullshit clogging up the works. It's so nice to finally be treated like an adult.

So I'm optimistic.

We're leaving this week for the annual Holiday Drive Across America, so this weekend I'm packing and cleaning and cooking all the stuff in the refrigerator. (Notice I said I'M doing those things.) We spent yesterday morning stacking firewood, and let me just tell you how cool I felt, sweaty, covered with wood bits, struggling to throw a plastic tarp over the pile. Hot stuff. All those years in Manhattan, brunching at the hot spots in designer shoes, dating investment bankers, to be reduced to spending a Saturday morning stacking firewood in the 'burbs. But don't worry--it was more fun stacking the firewood than it was dating any of those investment bankers.

New job! And new furniture

I started the new job yesterday. Unlike the position at MIT, it's actually permanent. So now I have a real live permanent job, with benefits and a salary and everything. It's at a microchip company out in the 'burbs. We had to get a second car (the Prius), but now my commute is 5 miles, since it's in the next 'burb over. It's a big improvement over a 90-minute commute, with walking, and 14-degree temperatures. Everyone at the new job seems very nice.

Also this weekend, my folks were in town. They brought up my grandmother's dining room table. So now we have a dining room table, finally. We can eat like civilized people, and entertain. It's mahogany, seats 10, comes with six mahogany chairs. I also inherited some china and crystal. There's a great furniture consignment shop in town, and this weekend I picked up a mahogany china cabinet (to hold Grandma's china) and an extra prep table for the kitchen, at cut-rate prices. And I got a treadmill (since I won't be walking to and from the train station anymore). It was the weekend of furniture.

Once we get a load of firewood, that will take care of all the most pressing household needs (winter clothes, bookcases, desk, table, Christmas presents, new car, etc.). After the holidays we can concentrate on paying off debt/second-tier stuff, like furniture for the guest room.

We leave for our annual Christmas road trip a week from tomorrow! I can't believe it's so close...

My parents will be in town this weekend

They're bringing my grandmother's dining room table, which means we'll finally have a dining room table. Which means we can finally start entertaining!

In other news, it's really cold. I'm glad this is my last week commuting into Boston. On Monday, my new job starts, and I'll be driving instead of taking the train/walking. Tonight, I pick up a treadmill so that I still get my exercise. Christmas shopping is done, and now I can concentrate on planning for our big upcoming annual holiday road trip...

CSA madness

Well, isn't this exciting! I was afraid that in the move from SoCal to Boston, my CSA days were over. (At least until the summer.) Happily, I was wrong!


For those that don't know, CSA stands for community-supported agriculture. Typically you pay a flat fee upfront, for x number of shares over some time period. Usually you can specify large or small box, weekly or biweekly, where you'd like to pick it up, then on your set day you go pick up a box of fresh fruits and veggies. In Cali, I was paying $177 for 12 weeks of small biweekly shares; meaning I was paying $29.50 per box for six boxes of fresh fruits and veggies, year-round. They were grown locally, meaning my food dollars were supporting local farms and farmers, and my produce was usually organic and pesticide-free.

Well! Upon settling in here in Massachusetts, I promptly checked out the CSA options, figuring I'd be out of luck until at least spring. Turns out I am now the proud member of both a fish CSA and a winter veggie CSA.

A fish CSA (CSF?) delivers several pounds of fresh-caught, local fish, either whole or in fillets. What fish you get depends on what they catch. Naturally I signed right up (whole, biweekly), since fresh seafood is one of the primary advantages Boston has over San Diego--oddly enough. Thanks to my new friends at Cape Ann Fresh Catch! ($120 for 12 weeks; so $20 for each biweekly delivery, or $10 per week. That's a deal in my book!)

My first delivery was three big fresh flounder. When I say whole, I mean whole. They were so fresh they hadn't been gutted or scaled. So I had a project ahead of me when I got them home.


Here's what I learned:

1. Lock the cats up first. (I didn't.)
2. You can't freeze whole fish with the guts still inside. You have to clean them first.
3. I didn't bother to descale them.
4. Flounder guts are not actually in the middle. They're off to one side, immediately under the head. Basically their guts live in their chin.
5. My super-sharp professional knives weren't up to the task of cutting through fish scales and skin, which is actually very tough. What did work: my super-heavy-duty professional kitchen scissors. (Also called kitchen shears.)
6. Between my impromptu biology lesson ("Where are the guts?...What are THOSE? Oh, lungs.") and figuring out that scissors worked better than the knives, it was not a pretty or clean butchering process. Just as well I didn't take any pictures.
7. Fish decapitation is very easy with good scissors.

So, in summation: with whole fish, first cut off the head. Find and remove internal organs. Snip off fins/gills if necessary (not necessary with flounder).

It's also best if you clean fish the night before trash day, so that fish remains can go immediately outside, and not stink up your house any more than it already is.

So in addition to my new fish CSA, I'm in a new veggie CSA, as well. If you're in the Boston area, check out Enterprise Produce. Because it's winter in Massachusetts, it's a six-month time commitment, with a box of stuff every week. Sometimes it's what you would expect from winter in Massachusetts--my first box had kale, potatoes, carrots, buttercup squash, turnips, and Napa cabbage. But they subcontract out to other CSA farms on the East Coast, meaning I also got a bag of mesclun greens, a box of cherry tomatoes, fresh green peppers, and a huge grapefruit. It was a pretty decent haul.


Based on that first box, I'm optimistic about the next six months. It was $700 for six months; between that and the fish CSA, the only grocery shopping I'll be doing in the next six months will be to replenish the pantry. That's $115 a month for fruits and veggies, another $40 a month in fish; that's $145 a month to feed two people. Not bad at all.

By summer I'm hoping to have laid in my own garden here, thus negating the need to join a CSA. It'll be my first garden; stay tuned!

Why must I always trip and fall at the fancy parties?

Last night DH and I went to a party at his boss's house. His boss is a former baseball star-turned game company founder, and it's obvious where all that baseball money went. He has a ginormous house (complete with enclosed indoor hot tub, private screening room, and 11-car garage), and as you might expect, the party was all-out. Open bar, catered meal, DJ, a party bus to shuttle people to and from their cars, and a bottle of wine for everyone to take home.

It would have been a great night, did I not trip on the front stairs and go sprawling over his front hallway, spilling two vodka tonics everywhere. I didn't even have the handy excuse of being drunk. No, I was just clumsy and bit it, and lots of people saw. I was so ashamed I spent the rest of the night playing bar trivia. (Yes, he had a bar trivia machine at his bar.)

Now my foot hurts, and I can't decide if it's because I hurt it in the fall somehow or if all my shame is just manifesting itself there.

Got the travel bug again

So I guess it's a good thing we're getting ready to embark on our semi-annual 24-hour-drive to Missouri, huh? I'm sure if you ask me how I feel about road trips the day after that, you'll get slapped. But right now, my wanderlust is itching again.

I think a lot of it has to do with winter. It's dark so early here, and it's getting cold (below freezing at night, every night), and the knowledge that I have another four months of this (at least) ahead of me makes me want to stab myself in the eye. That, coupled with the knowledge that there are far sunnier, warmer places in the world, makes me spend my days researching travel deals.

Also, my stepson will be staying with us for a six-week block of time this summer, and I'd dearly love to do some traveling with him. Yesterday I had a whole slew of ideas for road trips (the best of which was to hit the Icefields Parkway in Canada before full immersion in British Columbia's wineries), but alas, there's only so much travel you can accomplish when you only get two weeks of vacation a year. So I suspect any road trips this summer will consist largely of visits between family members.

The good news is that the five-year outlook is very good for travel opportunities.

The bad news is we're not there yet.

Le sigh.

(However, I'm going to start putting together a list of ideas for extended road trips for when that five-year plan coelesces. So far:

1. Across Canada.
2. Around Australia.
3. Up the Continental Divide to Alaska, and then Alaska.)

Now the proud owners of a new Prius

Note: this is a stock photo. But ours is that same color.