Why I Dislike Rachael Ray (not personally)...

Imagine the boots in ladies size 11
and keep the jeans and that's me. 

I'm a Pinterest.com addict now and in addition to finding more home renovation, craft, food, and design ideas than I can possibly implement in a lifetime, I am also faced daily with more linguistic mutilation from Rachael Ray than I can handle. Here's my [completely impersonal - I'm sure she's a lovely, hardworking woman] beef with Rachael Ray. She has coined the terms "Delish" and "Nutrish" (not to mention other irritants such as "Yum-O!" that I am blocking out right now) and because she's famous every wanna-be foodie has begun using those words. These insidious (because have no doubt it is her plan [or that of her very wealthy publicist/manager/advertising team] to suck everyone into using HER words so you buy HER products and watch HER shows etc) have been jammed headlong into the American vernacular.

It seems that many of my friends pin fabulous, decadent, drool-inducing delights from a wide variety of sources and I'd venture to say that 1 in 10 comments in response to their pins includes the word "Delish!". It makes me crazy. I blame Pinterest (sorry P - you know I adore you!) for bringing this abomination of the English language to the forefront of my language-related pet peeves (don't get me started on "there", "they're", and "their"!) as the frequency of food posts and subsequent comments outnumbers any other social networking site that I use.

The words are "Delicious" and "Nutritious". Abbreviating them in this way brings a lazy shame to the English language which has already been bastardized nearly beyond recognition as it is.

Here's the rub... I love playing with words - combining words or jumbling letters amuses me. Why is it okay for me and not for Rach-ish Ray-O? Probably because my silly words aren't intended to build an empire and probably aren't going to become a part of daily conversation for the general public. (I will certainly be happy to eat crow if I happen to build an empire that involves word play.)

[Steps off soap box and stores it for another day.]

Upcycled hat rack...

We have a beautiful vertical Amish coat rack that my mom gave us several years ago. I love it as it's made from rustic wood with a smooth finish. It holds quite a few coats and I often have to trim down the contents to just the jackets/sweatshirts/coats that are currently in circulation. One of the things that doesn't work well about it is if you hang a hat (like a baseball hat) on it, coats don't hang well over them and hats don't hang well over the coats. We needed a hat rack.

Recently we decided to do something about the hat issue and bought a hard piece of red oak. It was about 4'x3"x3/4" in size. We also bought some black faux wrought iron hooks for it.

My husband had gotten a router last summer and hadn't had time to play with it so he had fun routing the edge into a classic finish and then stained and finished it with polyurethane.

During the days after that it was drying, I remembered that last fall we had bought a bag full of maple sugaring taps at an antique store in VT and wondered if we could make those work as the hooks.

So A spent the afternoon puttering in his shop yesterday (he doesn't have a lot of time off so he doesn't get to his shop often enough) and figured out how to secure the taps as hooks.

Below is what it looks like. It hangs along the angle of the stairs (our makeshift mudroom) and looks great!

Cooking for 30... 40... do I hear 50?

A few months ago I learned that part of my husband's role in his fraternal lodge was to prepare meals once per month for 20-30 guys for the next year. Since I enjoy cooking I was happy to tell him that I would help him each month. Since we've begun cooking, we hit the all-time high number of attendees of 45 people this month. This makes me smile because I like to (arrogantly) think that the word has gotten out that the meals are worth attending!

We didn't make these but this is what ours look like...
plus chocolate chips. I'm drooling now.

The first meal that we made was easy - chicken, sauteed green beans, roasted rosemary red potatoes, and ice cream with hot fudge. It was a rousing success! The appreciative faces popping in the door thanking us inspired us to "up the game" for the next meal.

The next meal was inspired by our wedding meal. It was baked spiral ham, roasted maple and thyme root veggies, and homemade apple crisp. Again, a huge success!

Apparently around Thanksgiving the tradition is to have baked scallop casserole by one of the members so we got off easy that month preparing only the side dishes of roasted garlic asparagus, salad, and pie.

For the meal approaching Christmas we decided to make something un-Christmas-like since we figured everyone would have their fill of turkey and all of the fixings. We made homemade turkey and veggie lasagna with salad and deep dish brownies with ice cream and hot fudge. I made so much lasagna that I thought for sure we would have some to take home... but by the time the meal was done and everyone had their fill, there were only a few pieces left which I packed up (as we always do) for the wife of a member that has washed all of the linens every month for 30-40+ years.

In January we tried a new item that I'd never made in large quantities before - maple dijon pork tenderloin, apple sauce, green beans, salad, and roasted potatoes with... deep dish brownies (it's an easy fall back when short on time). I thought the fellas were going to knock each other over coming through the door to refill their plates and I had to act fast to even feed the kitchen staff.

This isn't our soup but ours looked just like it. YUM!

Also in January we made another meal for a separate meeting - Portuguese kale and linguica soup (loaded with veggies), rolls, salad, and ice cream with hot fudge. We made five gallons of it and thought is was waaaaaaay too much but by the time everyone left with a to-go container (they were lined up at the door to get their cups!) we ended up with only a half gallon left. Amazing!

Now it's time to think of what to do in three weeks for the next regular meeting. It's getting harder to be creative and not duplicate anything (except dessert... deep dish brownies are always worth repeating!). I admit that I've grown accustomed to the accolades and don't want to let them down!

The other fun thing is that we can feed this many people a fabulous meal without breaking the bank! It's usually around $150 for the fixings at BJ's (a club warehouse with really nice meats and veggies) and I think that's pretty good!

The rumor is that Andy will be voted into the same position for next year because the food has been so amazing. I don't think it's that amazing... it's how we cook at home but just on a larger scale. I really enjoy it and Andy and I both get great satisfaction from not only the kind words but the greatest compliments of all - when the come back for seconds (and sometimes thirds) and when they swing by the kitchen on their way out to see if there is anything left over that they can take home. That makes me happy!

Treasures in the dust...

We had a wine tasting. Don't judge us.

This past weekend I met a very dear gal pal for a short retreat in Portland, ME. It was fabulous! We chatted late into the night, ate badly (eating fru-fru cheese, fruit, chocolate and wine for lunch/dinner seemed like a great idea!), ran the stairwells and halls of the Eastland Park Hotel at 11pm as penance for the copious amounts of delightful calories consumed, and spent hours discussing wishful renovations to my house and realistic ideas for the home she and her husband are currently designing/building. We also spent several hours in my new favorite place - Portland Architectural Salvage.

It is the holy place for anyone with big ideas about upcycling products - making the old into something new. With 12,000 square feet of display space on four floors, it literally takes HOURS to see everything! I skipped an entire floor because I wanted to focus on the items on the other three floors (I'm not in the market for tubs and such anyway) and I'm sure I still missed lots of things!

Hard to see but there are two drawers here. The shiny thing is
a glass block reclaimed from a glass factory.

I walked away with three items that I love. Two are the same - they are wooden drawers from an old chicken egg incubator. I wasn't sure what they were at first but ventured some guesses including incubator drawer but I wasn't sure. They were clearly of an agricultural nature judging from the wire bottoms and unfinished wood. The salvage store owner wasn't sure what they were either but having had three immediate alternative use ideas for them, I haggled a lower price and brought them home. Upon closer inspection at home, I discovered bits of egg shell adhered to the inside of the drawer and found images of similar drawers from 1950's incubators on the internet and therefore confirmed my assumption.

Champion Milk Cooler and Aerator circa 1892!

The third item is an old fashioned milk cooler and aerator. I grew up on a small dairy farm but didn't recognize it as something that we had used. It was, after all, patented in 1892. It is the perfect shape and height to make it into the base for a table so I bought it.

My thinking is that I'd like to start making unique upcycled items and possibly sell them. But... After some research about the milk cooler and realizing that it's a very hard item to come by... I'm pretty sure it's here to stay.

I have begun looking for salvage stores closer to home and am thinking that this weekend might find me at one in New Bedford. Apparently my husband knew there was one there but was avoiding telling me... I think he's afraid that our basement (aka my workshop) will begin to look like a salvage yard.

My greatest struggle in finding really cool things to upcycle will certainly be... letting them go. I'll do my best though!

Frifildi... A fun combination of letters... or is it more?

Recently I posted a comment on my friend's blog and her word verification popped up with a fun combination of letters that caught my imagination. Frifildi. Come on... That's a fun word! So I put it out there in Facebook-land for my friends to toss out ideas for definitions of this as-yet-undefined word. Below is what they came up with... what about you?

Frifildi. It's the jumbled code that I just had to enter in order to post a comment on a friend's blog post. It makes me chuckle and I feel that it requires a definition. Please chime in. Frifildi.

 ·  · January 5 at 10:08pm near Hyannis, MA

• • Lorien Silverleaf The crap that ends up at the bottom of your purse. You know, "My gum ended up all covered with frifildi from the bottom of my purse"

    January 5 at 10:11pm ·  ·  3
  • Jewels Hadman-Annino A rash...that you get in Italy.

    January 6 at 9:08am ·  ·  1
  • 

    Polly Tobin Goddard The joyful noise that bubbles out when you are having more thrilling fun than a mere laugh will cover. I'm pretty I'll frifildi the whole way down when I finally go skydiving. :-)

    January 6 at 9:55am · 
  • Jewels Hadman-Annino The next family to upstage the Kardashians....The Frifildi wedding will be the event of the century...24hrs later: Nicolettia Frifildi has filed for divorce...

    January 6 at 10:04am ·  ·  1
  • Polly Tobin Goddard Ha ha J - you've got some good ones!

    January 7 at 2:28pm ·  ·  1
  • Jewels Hadman-Annino Could also be a rare tropical flower that only blooms once every 122 years. "The Peruvian Botanical Institute anxiously waits for the Frifildi to unfurl it's delicate bloom."
    Or a Comet! "NASA has launched counter strike missiles against the Frifildi Comet. If they miss, most of the mid-west will become a lifeless crater."