The Logic of Two Ovens…or a Thanksgiving Cooking Manifesto

It’s 8:00am and I’m awake in bed, trying to plot out in my coffee-deprived brain how to most efficiently stage my Thanksgiving cooking. I do this every year (at least the years when I’m responsible for more than one dish) and it strikes me that today, of all days, two ovens is a must-have.

I’m as disturbed (and secretly exhilarated) by American excess, our multi-colored and advertising-drenched aisles of toothpastes and dental floss (whitening, tartar control, pro-enamel, sensitive gums, etc.), the unending shelves of cereal for the sugar junkies and health nuts alike, the thrumming rows of frozen vegetables, microwave meals and bagel pizzas.

But two ovens? Man, you won’t know how much you covet them until a day like today. And I’m not even cooking a turkey this year. Reheating a cooked one for several hours – yes. But starting from scratch – no. Nonetheless, Turkey Day requires copious preparation, the will of a field army general, and the absolute confidence to kick people the hell out of your kitchen (this means you, CityBoy, get your own damn kitchen).

Our motley assortment of serving dishes prepped and ready to go

So far, my Thanksgiving day cooking consist of:

Eggplant caponata (done and chilling in the fridge)

Sweet potato casserole (prepped and ready to go into the oven for 30 minutes)

Mashed potatoes

Roasted Brussel sprouts

Green beans pancetta

First, an Announcement…

So something extraordinary happened a few months ago, in April, to be precise.

CityBoy asked me to marry him.

Out of the blue. On a cold, rainy evening. Surrounded by candles and flowers and Filipino eggrolls. (I told you he was a good man.)

this is a proposal dinner, people!

After I stopped laughing (It was the nerves, I tell you! The nerves!), I said, “yes.”

And then there was a ring. And a book, since it’s CityBoy.

isn't it pretty?

Here we are, as illustrated by my niece Sophia.

it's scary how well this captures us

I’m one lucky lady.

Ugh. Here it comes…

I have been a bad blogger (although that word still makes me cringe a little; I prefer to think of this as a compendium of thoughts, not always coherent or terribly insightful, but useful to me, and I hope at least a little interesting to you). I have definitely been a bad writer.

However, I have been a good worker, moving up in the job world from a part-time position to a full-time one…WITH benefits (cue the triumphant horns). I have also been a good reader. With my new Nook, I have been reading like a fiend, trying (and failing) to keep up with both my physical hold queue and my virtual one at my local library.

Books! Books!! BOOKS!!!

And I have also been a very, very, very good buyer of books, both e-books and book-books. Here’s just a sampling of the books I’ve bought in the past eight weeks:

Moving Thoughts

my little sister made these sweet cupcakes

The other day, a coworker, knowing that I moved from California to New York, asked me about my experience. He and his girlfriend are considering moving from New York to Florida, and he wanted some firsthand knowledge. This got me thinking. It’s been almost two years since my move (!!), but I haven’t really reflected too much, at least here, about how the move has gone, how it’s affected me and my relationships with others, and whether I’d do it again.

Since we’re all still thinking about the new year and what it holds for each of us (beyond the feverish, resolution-fueled exercising I see at the gym and yoga studio), I figure this deserves some attention. Here’s what I’ve learned in the past year and a half (not in any particular order):

Save up.

If you’re considering moving to a new city and you don’t already have a job lined up, wait. Stop. Save. As much as you can, but I’m recommending at least enough to cover your expenses for six to nine months. I’d never been unemployed for an extended period of time before I moved to New York, and I’d never really struggled to find work, so I naively thought that it would take me three to six months TOPS to find a new job.

Boy was I mistaken. It took me a full year, about a thousand job applications, and interviews with three companies (the only ones who responded), to find a part-time entry-level customer service job. Whose salary is not even close to what I was making at my previous job.

Of course my search was hindered by the worst national job market in decades, a failing economy, and an extremely competitive under-employed labor pool in New York City, but I wish I’d really heeded all those friends and family members who expressed serious reservations about my plans to leave a good job without having a new one in place. Especially since NYC is probably the most expensive city in the US.

Let the Games Begin!

We’ve been doing themed holiday gift-giving in our household for a few years now, mostly because I never know what to get CityBoy (other than the odd non-fiction book or documentary DVD – what do you get for the guy who already has all the gadgets and doohickies he wants?). And because the holidays are so expensive, what with all the traveling, dinner dates, and family gift-giving, we usually impose a $25 gift limit on each other.

Last year, it was a CVS Holiday Season in which all of our celebratory presents came from our neighborhood CVS Drugstore. We were traveling to California, so I got CityBoy an assortment of travel must-haves, including hand sanitizer on a clip (for his backpack), travel tissues (unfortunately – or fortunately – I think I used most of those up), and the latest issue of New York Magazine for the plane. I got a travel brush/mirror and a monster jar of Twizzlers (this was in deference to my pathological love of Red Vines, which of course are impossible to find in Manhattan – what is it with you people??).

This year was Game Year. We didn’t have much at home in terms of board games, besides CityBoy’s old Othello set, which I don’t understand how to play, and a Scrabble set, which we can’t play for fear of destroying the very fabric of our relationship, so it seemed like a great idea.

Non-Required Reading: Oh, How It Piles Up

I got a notice from one of the many rarely used frequent flyer programs to which I still (really? still?) belong, offering magazine subscriptions in lieu of anything else worthwhile for my measly few thousand points. I thought, free magazines – how could this be bad?

 

Behold, the Deluge!

 

This is now what greets me every time I open the front door of our apartment, unlock our little lobby mailbox, or pass by the doorman’s desk. It is literally a deluge of words and pictures, opinion and conjecture, daily, weekly, and monthly. Something’s gotta give.

As for actual reading (of novels, with the odd non-fiction book thrown in), here’s what’s in the pipeline:

 

Oh the glory!

 

The NYC public library system is a miracle to behold. Nearly any book I want, so long as I’m willing to wait a little for it to come in, via the handy online holds system. They’ll ship books from all over the five boroughs to my humble little 67th Street Library, day in and day out. The only problem seems to be the timing of the thing. According to my most recent check-out receipt, I need to read all five “new” books I received within the next seven days. This wouldn’t have been a huge problem in my living-3,000-miles-away-from-my-boyfriend days, but CityBoy gets a little cranky if I spend 3-4 hours a day immersed in a book. Apparently it’s considered anti-social.

Jho Can Cook (and CityBoy too)!

The Internet is a powerful thing.  I know you know this too, but for some reason, this fact broadsides me now and again.  A few weeks ago, I made Asian Chicken Salad for dinner (something CityBoy loves because, since it’s salad, he assumes it’s super healthy and thus eats several heaping bowlfuls, which I applaud because there’s nothing worse than soggy leftover salad).

The salad base is a mix of romaine lettuce and Napa cabbage, which in New York seems to only be available in a ginormous head, roughly the size of a basketball.  Not having cooked much Napa cabbage in California, I can’t definitely say that this girth is weirdly unusual, but it’s pretty amazing.  I wish I’d had the presence of mind to photograph it for you.

As you can imagine, we had leftovers.  Lots of leftover cabbage.  Which is where the Internet comes in.  I don’t know what home cooks did before.  Did they just subject their loved ones to days and days of raw cabbage salad?  Or sauteed cabbage?  Or cabbage juice?  Not so in our household.  Scouring the trusty Food Network site, I was able to find two intriguing recipes Ants in a Tree and Shrimp and Egg Fried Rice with Napa Cabbage.

I’m still not sure where Sara Moulton got the “Ants in a Tree” name from.  I’m assuming that it’s some literal translation of the quirky Chinese original.  As you can see above, it’s noodles and shredded cabbage with ground meat, in this case turkey.  It’s actually pretty tasty, though the recipe called for slightly more oil than I used and it still was a little too oily for my taste.  Since a major component of the dish is the cabbage, which becomes soggy quickly once cooked, I don’t recommend it if you’re planning on having leftovers.  You need to eat all of this immediately.  There’s lots of ginger in the dish, which I hadn’t used much before and it adds a lovely zing to the dish.

Life as a Fifties Housewife

I’m perennially amazed by the things in CityBoy’s apartment:  seven different types of mop (I might be exaggerating but only by one or two), no less than two stand-up air filters and five fans, the giant handyman-sized toolbox he keeps in the front closet (I’m waiting for him to start knocking down walls).

But the thing that amazes me the most is this vintage vacuum cleaner that he still uses to vacuum the apartment.

It resides in the front closet, in many pieces, which need to be assembled in a particular fashion in order to function properly.

There’s even a separate attachment for doing bare floors. The first (and second and possibly even the third) time CityBoy tried to show me how to work it, I was baffled. As much by the solid sturdiness of the thing, as its age and complexity. The main canister weighs a good ten pounds and the heavy blunt silver head of the thing could easily bash in a grown man’s head.

It’s got to be as old as I am, if not older, but it still works up a powerful suction, and I’m forever in fear of sucking up stray electrical cords and abandoned socks. On the odd days when I’m actually struck by the need to clean house (and I would describe it like that, a piercing jolt that demands, The house must be cleaned!), dragging this baby out of the closet and fussing over its plugs and joints and appendages is actually quite satisfying. I feel almost like a proper Fifties housewife (minus the flower printed housecoat, lace headwrap, and smoldering cigarette). I’m thinking about stocking gin and tonic in the pantry next.

Rock on, people.

- Jho

What Wakes Me Up at Night…

Phil’s storage units at Manhattan Mini-Storage

Help!!

Negotiating 101, or Living with a Boy

I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I moved 2,800 miles to be with my man.  2,800 miles, 13 shipping boxes and 6 hernia-inducing suitcases later and here I am.  Negotiating.  For space, for the right to pare down, replace, reorganize, rethink what it means to live in 475 square feet.

475 square feet.  That’s the size of most of my friend’s living/dining rooms.  And we’re meant to fit two grown adults, all our furnishings, possessions and egos into this space.  Turns out the ego is infinitely larger than I had originally suspected.

Because, let’s face it, the question of whose pots and pans, or dishes, or towels, we should use is not actually about the pot, pan, dish or towel.  It’s about us, our egos, our history and memory poured into this one item, which has now grown grander and more important that the Queen’s own china.  This should be saved, remembered, cherished.  And this.  And this.  And this.

Such were the discussions between me and Cityboy these past few weeks.  The first week was especially bad, since my recently arrived boxes and bags were drowning the entryway and living room in a sea of clutter.  So I unpacked.  The suitcases I’d flown with were easy, folded clothing whisked into their waiting drawers (thoughtfully purchased and assembled by Cityboy) and off-season clothes into their plastic containers.  A trip to the Container Store (my mecca and partly responsible, according to a recent New Yorker article, for the wholesale feminization of the ultimate man cave, the garage) and I had my fancy slim hangers, complete with cascading hooks and removable pant clips.  My newly created closet (also courtesy of Cityboy) was a beauty to behold, quickly camoflaged from view by the folding screen Cityboy already owned.

Then we got into tougher spaces, shared spaces, where my stuff and his stuff would have to peaceably co-mingle.  I knew it was going to be a difficult process in the bathroom from earlier “discussions,” during which I suggested that Cityboy pare down his plentiful toilette to items actually in use (at the time, he decided to leave the deciding for another day).  So I did what any sensible girl would do.  I fixed what I could fix.  Rather than force Cityboy into saying goodbye to his many unguents and potions, I organized my things into the blank spaces left to me, namely one skinny bookshelf repurposed from the dining area and some undersink space.

I felt a sense of accomplishment and Cityboy got to keep his things just as he’s always had them.

The kitchen was another matter.  I waited until the weekend, when Cityboy would be home to referee my activities.  (Much as I wanted to just spring the newly organized space on Cityboy, my wise friend Nancy cautioned against it.  And she should know a thing or two, having been married for over two decades.  Men don’t like change.  Especially sudden change.  They just don’t.)  First I cleared out all of Cityboy’s open shelving, spreading all of his pots and pans and appliances and doodads over the entryway floor, along with my own.  Then I separated out all the duplicates.  And the broken or less than perfect items.  And the downright weird or ugly.  And I called Cityboy over to weigh in.

I think it helped that a baseball game was on, which meant he was distracted and not hovering the whole time.  Also I included him on what I was doing.  And I asked for his opinion.  Over the course of a long afternoon, I rearranged the kitchen, moving things to where they made better sense to me as a cook, and luckily, Cityboy agreed to let quite a few things go.  Of course some went into storage, so we can “discuss” their fates another day, but quite a bit went into the donate or toss boxes, making me a very happy lady.

Some things saw the light of day that I wished hadn’t (like Cityboy’s macramed “pot holders” he’d made as a kid which I mistook for coasters since they’d shrunk so much) while others were pleasant discoveries (a wooden chopping board Cityboy made in grade school that his mother had saved).

Other things are still under negotiation, like what to do with all the extra shelving that’s been created by my reorg.  And some things, like the frighteningly densely packed hall closet (the only proper closet in the entire apartment), still need to be tackled.  But it’s certainly been an education, which is what this whole life is for.  We must constantly negotiate what has meaning in our lives and make room for newness and wonder.

Containing myself, one space at a time,
Jho