The Egg and I

I was at the stove yesterday morning, making myself some breakfast, poking and prodding with my spatula. One of my daughters sidled up and looked at the pan.

“Ooh. You should take a picture of that and put it on your blog.”

Now it has never occurred to me to share any of my cooking, er…, expertise, other than scribbling the odd recipe for someone on a scrap of paper. While the cooking around this house can be described as somewhat more creative than usual, this morning’s creation of mine was essentially leftovers. And not even my leftovers.

Food sites are a such a big thing on the Internet. While I don’t follow any of them, I will linger a bit if I chance to run across one. Great ideas. Wonderful pictures. I will, of course, immediately rush to the computer to chase down any culinary information I can’t find in my usual collection of cookbooks ­- the ones crammed full of little bits of paper with handwritten instructions, recipes torn from newspapers, and the like.

What are the key ingredients in jerk seasoning? How do you fold a tamale wrapper? What’s the recipe for that gumbo they serve at Disneyland? Is the right order salt-tequila-lime or lime-tequila-salt? Where can I watch a rerun of one of Jamie’s cooking shows?

When I find what I’m looking for, I’ll print it out or jot down some notes. Then tuck it inside the cover of one of my cookbooks. A recent Lifehacker survey indicates that people, even computer geeks, still prefer paper-based recipe files to computer-based ones. From the stains on my recipe collection, I can understand why. That little netbook would quiver in fear sitting on the counter next to my bowls, utensils, and ingredients.

I’m pretty good with leftovers and, if I were to turn to blogging about food, cooking with leftovers might be a good focus. Breakfasts too. (Usually I’ll either skip breakfast or make a production of it – neither scores nutritional points, I know.) Which brings me back to what I had steaming on that pan yesterday morning: leftover dirty rice (already a concoction of what’s-on-hand ingredients) – and an egg.

It’s my belief that anything with an egg next to it is breakfast. Or on it; in it; around it. Traditional bacon and hash-browns. Yesterday’s dinner. The last tidbits of something tossed into an omelet.

If it’s still morning, go look in your fridge, find something in there looking lost and forlorn and match it up with an egg – any style – and enjoy. Mmm-m-m..! Heaven! Now, doesn’t the rest of the day look so much better?

Bon appetit…!

Home is where I’ve never lived

Somewhere near Mojave, California

Well. We bolted.

Monday noon we were compaining about the miserable rainy Pacific Northwest weather. Late Wednesday afternoon we rolled our little motorhome into a small RV park near Mojave, California. When we got up this morning, it was to squint at the sun and admire the fluffy clouds in the blue sky. I’m sure I could hear and feel the dampness leaving my body. The carpets in the car were dry for the first time in months.

It’s mid November. It’s pleasantly cool this morning here in the high desert and warming up nicely. Even though the area has a reputation of always being windy (there are windmill power generators all over the hills around here) this morning there’s only an occasional light breeze.

My first ever visit to Mojave was in ‘60 or ‘61. I was on a California camping trip with my parents and we were heading into town, our canvas tent, Coleman cooler, and assorted camping gear packed inside and on the roof racks of a 1957 Pontiac station wagon. As was the custom, we had a water-filled canvas bag hanging from our front bumper – in case the radiator boiled over.

Hardly anyone had air conditioning then, especially if you were from “up north”. Even though it was insufferably hot, we had been driving across the desert with the car windows closed. It was far worse if we opened them. Then the hot air roared through the car like a blast furnace.

We rolled into the gas station at the crossroads. (Ding-ding.) The guy who pumped the gas (remember those guys?) was hosing down a big thermometer hanging on the front of the station.

My dad cranked down the driver’s window. “How hot is it?”

“Too hot,” came the answer. “But I’ve got it down to about 105 now.”

I don’t know what it is about the desert. I crave the desert. I feel like I belong here. I actually like tarantulas. (Cute fuzzy little guys.)

Where does that feeling come from? Is it genetic? Can’t be. I have no family history in desert country. All of my ancestors, as far back as I am aware, come from cold, wet, snowy climates. I was born, grew up, and spent most of my life in Vancouver, BC, (one of the nicest cities anywhere when the weather is nice) but never ever got used to that long, grey, cold, damp, drizzly stretch that runs each year from  October to about March.

Sometimes I think it was all those TV westerns I grew up with as a kid. Bonanza. Gunsmoke. Have Gun Will Travel.  Those guys were always riding their horses across the dry scrub and desert, worrying about how empty their canteens were and who was gunning for them or rustling their cattle. Sitting, watching, impressionable, in front our black-and-white RCA, I must have developed a sense that this kind of countryside was the right place to be.

Soon I’ll be back home, changing wiper blades and cursing the lousy defroster in my car. I think I have it all backwards. Instead of working all year in order to vacation for a few weeks in the sun, I should do it the other way around: fly up for a few weeks of lousy weather when I begin to miss it.

Getting to know my shadow

“Control freak..!! Control freak..!!”

Oh, no. Was I doing it again?

I am finding out that I’m not the person I always thought I was. All my life, if you’d asked me to describe myself, I’d tell you I was a laid back, easy going guy. Live and let live. Do your own thing. Chill out, man.

You get the picture.

Sadly, as I’ve been doing a little introspection over the last little while, I’ve noticed that I can actually be rather inflexible and controlling with other people. I seem to have a need to micromanage. Sometimes… OK, most of the time. (All the time…?)

How can this be? How can I not have noticed all my life?

I was listening to life coach Debbie Ford on a radio show last week. She was explaining about a person’s shadow side – that dark side of us that we don’t really want to be, the part of us we don’t want other people to see, the part of us with all those buttons that other people push and drive us crazy. So what do we do? We suppress that part of us and deny that it even exists.

Now, this shadow side is not necessarily evil. It’s made up of those parts of our character that were always discouraged, about which we were (or still are) teased. Every family has its shadow side – the things you were told you shouldn’t be: noisy, artistic, blue collar. As we’re growing up, we pick up these rules unconsciously and firmly tuck away any “wrong” feelings we might have, until we end up confused and not even knowing ourselves.

The problem is that this hidden dark side insists on coming out. (Ususally at the most inopportune time.)  It just covers up your eyes, so most of the time you don’t see it. You think you are acting quite differently from the way you really are. When you do notice, it drives you crazy.

You might say you don’t want to be like your parents. Then you hate it when recognize those aspects in your life – and go ballistic when you see your kids do it.

Suppress it as much as you like, but those characteristics will pop up like submerged beach balls. Rage, crusade against them, and one day, shloop, those beach balls will pop up out of the water and you’ll act them out. This has been the downfall of many a powerful person.

Anything you don’t embrace will end up controlling you. So what to do? Find your shadow side and get to know it.

How do you do that? Here’s a few ideas:

- pick one of your positive traits and look for the opposite
- do you see irritating characteristics in others? Maybe that’s you? (“You spot it, you got it.”)
- identify what others are “always” doing to you. (“Everyone is always trying to control me.”) and see if that’s something you’re doing
what makes you angry? Do you do that?
- what things do you beat yourself up for? (Don’t make excuses, like “I’m just trying to be practical.”)

Then what?

Give voice to your those inside selves. Writing or journaling is a good way of going about it.

Just remember, this is human and happens to all of us.

Me? I’ll keep blogging. And go back to doing morning pages.

How about you?

Too, too frugal

OK, I know. This time I’ve gone too far.

I mean, everyone wants to save a buck, but this time I think I’ve taken it to an extreme: I have found to make my disposable razors last longer. How? By sharpening them.

No, wait. Don’t leave yet. This system actually works. It’s really easy. And it’s free.

Remember those old black-and-white movies with a scene in the barber shop. The barber would lather up the guy in the chair for a shave. Then he’d take out his straight razor. (I just always knew he was going to dispatch the guy in the chair. I could never expose my throat to some cold-blooded stranger with a straight razor. But I’m getting off topic.) But before he started shaving, he’d run the razor back and forth along a flexible strip of leather, known as a strop. You’d usually see it hanging on or near the chair.

Zip-zap-zip-zap-zip-zap-zip-zap.

This diversion of a few seconds before the shave makes an amazing difference to the sharpness of the blade. If you thought that blade was sharp before, you’d be amazed how sharp it could be after just a few trips along the strop, and how much smoother the resulting shave would be.

It turns out that this principle works on more than straight razors and with materials other than leather. Canvas. Denim.

Hey, my jeans are denim. And a few strokes along the fabric (moving in the non-cutting direction), first one way and then the other, restores a keen edge to the blade.

So, it’s not so much that I’m trying to squeak an extra month or two of use out of my 10¢ disposable razor. It is a handy trick to know when you’re at the campground, have just pulled your razor out of your kit and, as you start to shave, realize you should have brought along a new razor. A few quick swipes (zip-zip-zap-zap) and you can finish your shave with more comfort.

As a long term cost-saving solution? Well, you get what you pay for.

Want more details and video instructions? Check out: http://lifehacker.com/5356529/extend-your-razors-life-with-a-pair-of-jeans

Sharing the Wisdom

My degrees are not hung on the wall here at home, nor do I have an office where I can prominently display them. I should put them up though. They’re quite “old school”. Traditional old english printing, hand lettered calligraphy. Not something that’s been spewed out of a printer by the thousands.

I like to think, with all my formal education along with the natural wisdom I have gained through my years of worldly experience, that I can be a resource to my kids as they go through college and university, that I can offer a depth of insight they have not had the opportunity to yet develop during their brief time in this world.

If I smoked a pipe, I could puff it and nod my head and off-handedly explain how the scientific and philosophical mysteries with which they are struggling all tie neatly together.

So it was this evening when my daughter approached me for help with her paper.

“Dad….  Can you help me with my hanging indents?”

Being Funemployed

Recently, I was taking a short break at the bus loop. There was still a few minutes left until I had to to pull my bus around and up to the stop. I was flipping through a discarded newspaper and decided to check out my horoscope. (Sometimes I’ll check out a few different ones so I can choose the one I like best.)

This one said simply,

Imagine being in the middle of a rat race, and feeling out of sync. If this is your reality, it’s time to change things.

I glanced out the jostling crowd waiting for me at the stop and the snarl of traffic I was about to plunge into. Sigh….

I tossed the paper aside and randomly opened up another one. “The Joys of Funemployment” teased the headline. It was an article about how some casualties of the crumbling economy are turning lost jobs and unemployment lines into a time of career reassessment and creation of creative businesses – a combination of work and fun: telecom employee to graphic designer, sales manger to jeweler, school administrator to baker. Funemployment.

What would I do if I were to stop working to pay the bills to work at something… fun?

I remember having a run-away-from-home impulse when I saw a hand-lettered sign in the window of the bakery on Granville Island. Wanted: Baker’s helper. It was an all night shift. I’d most likely spend my time hefting huge bags of flour, and cleaning impossibly doughy equipment, but it still sounded like fun. At home, I’ll often bake bread as way to relax. There’s a magic to how a crusty loaf comes together and a special ambience to a workspace dusty with flour and cornmeal.

I’m sure that’s also why my heart (but not my brain) brought me back several times to the ad for the small bakery for sale in the Kootenays – way out at the far end of a road that didn’t really go anywhere else other than the edge of the lake. I always wondered if people drove all the way out there to get their bread warm out of the oven, or if the loaves were delivered to town in an ancient bread truck with the Keep on Truckin’ guy painted on the side.

I thought back to some of the appealing, but off-the-wall, opportunites that have trotted in front of me in the past. There was the time that they were looking for a radio operator for an oceanographic ship mapping off the west coast of Africa. Or the RV tour company wanting campground hosts in Mexico. I’ve thought about being a special effects artist (Ray Harryhausen was my hero when I was in high school), a farrier, a writer of film scores, and restorer of old theatre pipe organs. I’ve considered being a photographer, working as a stained glass artist, and making custom convertible tops for trucks and boats. And that’s just a small portion of my list.

I’m going to start watching out for new ideas and opportunities and this time actually consider them as something I could really do instead of rejecting them out-of-hand as impractical and a shaky career move. Heck, I’ve already done the shaky thing, so I’m free to move out a bit more. Sure, the day-to-day reality might not be exactly what I imagined but I’ve run into a lot of people who are thriving by doing what they love.

* * *

Today I checked my horoscope again. It said,

You’re oozing with brilliant ideas lately. Instead of talking about them, act on them.

I must be on the right track.

Who will clean up the goopy mess?

To: Whoever took the pink basket with the Tide upside-down in it on top of the shelves in the laundry room:

It was a neatly lettered note, carefully placed in the middle of the kitchen table.

Did you not think that the Tide was in there upside down for a REASON?? Or notice the goop all over the bottom?

There is no getting away from anguish and exasperation (and worse) when you live in a home with a bunch of other people. Cleanup is a continual job. One or two dirty dishes quickly become a over-full sink. A pair of shoes slipped off at the door becomes a mountain of footwear in the entryway. Any delay in taking laundry out of the dryer results in a backlog of laundry and baskets. How can anyone even find an empty basket if they’re all being used to hold everyone else’s dirty laundry and are all lined up in a row in front of the washer? The temptation to fake it, borrow and switch is just too great. (Do you think anyone will notice?)

You can please clean up the goopy mess on top of the shelf because it’s disgusting. Thanks!

Responsibility is a heavy burden. Clean-up is hard work. Doing it is tantamount to admitting that you were the cause of the problem, the person at fault. (It’s out of sight. No one will know.)

PS Why did you ever take my basket in the first place???

Why aren’t there more baskets in the first place? Why does everyone else use up the detergent so that there’s none left for me? Why aren’t people there promptly to move clothes from basket to washer, washer to dryer, dryer to basket and then put them away so that the basket is available for other people to use? (Can’t you do your laundry on a day that you’re not working?)

And, by the way, why is the garbage so full that I can’t put anything more into it?

Spices of Life

The air smelled of pine trees, campfires, and BBQs. It was a sunny afternoon and we were camped at Cultus Lake, relaxing in the shade of a big cedar tree. Our friend John (actually a relative, I’m told, but I can never get these things straight) stuck his head around the corner of the motorhome and said, “Hey! Have you got any chili sauce?” Margaret peered over her sunglasses at him. “Would you prefer Mexican, Thai, Cajun, or Chinese?”

Our motorhome has never been short of interesting spices and condiments. (Or books, but that’s another story.) Margaret can rustle around under the kitchen sink for a few moments and come up with the most amazing and obscure flavourings. When I’m cooking at home and don’t have the proper ingredients, I’ll head out to the driveway, where we park the motorhome, and yes, there I’ll find what I want.

Which is why I was surprised when, one Christmas at Palm Springs as we were getting ready to roast a turkey, Margaret couldn’t find any sage or poultry seasoning. “I’ll use something else,” she said.

Aargh-h-h! Non-traditional stuffing? I couldn’t stand it. (OK. I admit it. I’m not as gastronomically adventurous as she is. I’m not completely inflexible, but there is a proper way to season turkey stuffing.) “Just give me a few minutes,” I said, grabbed a measuring cup, and headed out the door.

I started at the campsite next door and knocked confidently on the trailer door. “Can I borrow a cup of sage?” I asked the Hawaiian-shirted man who opened the door. I explained my dilemma, easing the confused expression on his face a little. After consulting with someone inside, he shook his head and sadly told me they couldn’t help. Well, not everyone on the road cooks like we do. Can’t expect miracles.

On to the next site. The couple sitting under the awning looked curiously at my empty measuring cup. “Sage? Do you have any?” I told my sad tale of the stuffing about to go wrong, the sumptuous but somehow incomplete dinner being prepared as we spoke. No luck. Nice folks, but what? Do all these people eat their turkey dinners at the diner?

It took a little bit of searching and cajoling but finally one woman came out of her gleaming white fifth-wheel trailer, beaming and clutching a bottle of poultry seasoning. “This is mostly sage,” she said. “You can have it. I have two of them.”

I can truly say that the dinner was fabulous and the stuffing was, well, perfect. I also realized that my sage-hunting expedition, while it had something to do with spices and seasoning, had much more to do with meeting our neighbours.

Each inquiry I made with the empty cup in my hand turned into a conversation about us and them, where we had come from and why we loved travelling, introductions to pets, useful hints and suggestions about the area and on-the-road travel, and an invitation to come back and visit. And in the days that followed, during our walks around the park, we had lots of new friends who came up to ask how our dinner turned out and to chat about good times.

Which is why it’s a good idea not to have absolutely everything you need along on your trip.