Comfort cooking

Rye bread rising.

You know what they say. When the going gets tough, the tough get cooking. I’m making bread today, and that’s the only kind of uprising I want to think about.

Our freezer is pretty full right now, so we’re making an effort to put a dent in that. Not like it’s a problem, because we have the best freezer food in town! Last night we had the leftover Kabocha Squash Red Curry from the freezer.

This curry is one of my new favorite recipes. The coconut milk held up in the freezer and didn’t separate when I reheated it, but the squash almost disappeared. Taste was great, though. I also used the pomegranate seeds I froze, and that was a huge success.

We had a pomegranate tree when we lived in Texas, and we never ate them. Boy, do I regret that now. While they are a PITA to clean, pom seeds are delicious and add such a punch to this curry, along with chopped roasted peanuts and cilantro.

I remember the first time we tasted cilantro – 1978. We bought it at a small Asian market, because we needed it for a recipe, and the big grocery stores didn’t sell it. We thought it was awful, and I know there are plenty of people who still think that. Or they have that genetic thing that makes it taste like soap. We love cilantro now and can’t get enough.

I’m also defrosting a tub of my stuffed cabbage rolls for dinner tonight. I’m making rye bread to go with. I use the basic no-knead method, but I add a tablespoon of caraway seeds. This time, I also substituted pickle juice for half the water. We saved the juice from a jar of Kosher dills.

The bread is still rising, but I sampled the dough, and I love the taste of the pickle juice in there. I may tinker with quantities, but I’m betting this is a keeper.

Since we’ve been eating reasonably healthy the last couple of days, I told Dale he could make something decadent Monday if he wants. Of course, I have an ulterior motive. I’m playing golf, and I love coming home to one of his kitchen creations.

I strongly suspect he’ll go with burgers, which he has been craving. In my view, they aren’t really all that indulgent. We make ours with bison. I guess the issue is that not a lot of vegetables are involved.

Dale roasted a whole chicken late last week, and we have leftovers from that. We already had chicken tortilla soup and froze two servings. I volunteered to make chicken divan, a retro casserole made with broccoli, chicken, canned cream soup, cheddar cheese and breadcrumbs.

I thought about making it without the canned soup, as we generally avoid processed food. But seriously, if we have it twice a year, I can’t think the canned soup is the worst thing I’ll eat. Plus, I know it tastes great the way I make it, so why mess with a good thing?

As far as death by food goes, I’ve been reconsidering cold cereal. I loved cereal when I was younger, but it’s not as healthy as you’d think. I try to mostly eat real food that doesn’t come out of a package. Plus, there’s the issue of acrylamides, which is a carcinogen that is actually in many foods. A lot of boxed breakfast cereals are packed with acrylamides.

I gave up cereal about 15 years ago. About the same time I gave up sodas. I don’t miss either one of them, but lately I’ve been thinking, oh, would a bowl of Cheerios kill me? Something else is probably going to get me first. Upon further reflection, I see no reason to start up again. If I want some cold cereal-like thing, I eat my homemade granola, which is basically oats and nuts.

The rest of the week is up for grabs. The weather is turning slightly warmer for a few days, so I want to take advantage of that. Golf, walking. We’ve both become so wussy about cold. Low 50s, and we can barely force ourselves to go outside.

Dale, being from Maine, used to advertise himself as the cold weather model, but he’s gone California now.

Learning to jump

It’s hard to process what has been happening. I have few words. Earlier in the week, I had something all written up about Trump’s call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, thinking that was the new low. I thought, this is what crazy sounds like. Before I could hit publish, there was another new low.

Looks like a race to the bottom. And now we know what crazy looks like.

And so, I try to stay calm. I was never good at meditation. I tried when I was first diagnosed with cancer 21 years ago, but I always fell asleep! Several years ago, I found a free app with guided meditations and used to do them on the bus as I commuted to work. I pulled up the app yesterday and did a 20-minute session.

The guided meditation helped. The one I use is called Sattva. Although, I confess, a few naps have been equally satisfying. Just another way to tune out.

In the midst of all this, my sister-in-law reports her sister is no longer speaking to her because of a row they had over Trump. What a coincidence! My sister is not speaking to me because I was rude when she called to warn me accidents and illnesses are befalling everyone she knows.

Dale is still speaking to me, but he blocked Nancy Pelosi.

Blog anniversary

This week marks three years since I started Retirement Confidential. In the beginning, I had a little freelance gig lined up with a former colleague who owns her own consulting business and thought I would expand that over time. But then she unexpectedly dropped me like a hot potato, and I realized I was done working for other people anyway.

My biggest motivator was always money, and it took some time for me to stop worrying too much about it. I collaborated with our financial planner, and we agreed we had enough saved to fund our retirement (coupled with Dale’s pension and Social Security). We have a conservative portfolio that under normal conditions helps us sleep at night.

A pandemic and attempted coup kind of messes with sleep. However, we are hopeful the money will last.

Once I stopped worrying about cash flow, it’s surprising how quickly I lost my desire to do much more than entertain myself with simple pleasures. Retirement is great! I enjoy writing about the journey, and I love hearing your stories.

I’m not sure where the road will take us. It’s one hurdle after another, but I’m learning to jump. Aside from the current drama, perhaps a good goal is to enjoy a long and healthy life doing the things that bring us happiness.

Adios, 2020

A tiny tin of caviar for New Year’s Eve.

Here it is. The end of a miserable year. You think, well, thank God that’s over. But you know it’s not. There ain’t no shortage of misery in these parts.

Golf intersects with life

But there’s lots of good stuff, too, so you keep going. It’s just like golf. No, really, it is. I played my best golf ever this year, breaking 80 several times. I thought, oh, joy, those days of high scores are over at last!

And then came the high scores.

Damn it, just like life. I think yesterday was my worst round of the year. As we were finishing up on 18, after my fourth double bogey in five holes, one of the women said, “It was great to play with you, even if you didn’t play as well on the back nine.”

I’ve been in a snit ever since. I mean, was that necessary? In golf and in life, you don’t need to remind people when they suck.

One of the other women in my group stopped me in the parking lot to share she has broken 100 for the first time. I said congrats and all that, but really, I was in my own head at that point. Today, feeling crummy, I sent her an email congratulating her again on a wonderful milestone. She sent back the nicest note, and it helped me dump the negative waves.

In this case, it was definitely better to give than receive. I find it helps to do something nice for someone else to take the sting out of my own hurt feelings. Yet another lesson about accepting the ups and downs of life (and golf).

New Year’s Eve

Our New Year’s plans are typical. Stay home, eat well. I’m making baguettes, which we will have with good olive oil, a runny Brie, Italian cold cuts and other small bites. Champagne. This year’s treat is 50 grams of caviar.

Back in the day, we ate the good stuff from Russia on occasion. I don’t even know if you can get it anymore. We’ve tried American paddlefish, which is OK, but nothing to write home about. We like American farm-raised sturgeon from Sterling Caviar, which is less than an hour from our home. Sadly, they don’t have tours.

We’ve enjoyed caviar on toast points or on blinis, but this year we are going minimalist. We have one mother-of-pearl caviar spoon, which we will share out of convenience romanticism. I suppose there will be a fight over who goes first, but one person will eat her half right out of the tiny tin and then pass the spoon to Dale, who will then eat his half.

Now we know who goes first.

You had me at coconut milk

In other food news, I made Kabocha Squash Red Curry. I love anything in coconut milk, and I love Kabocha squash, so this was a total winner. The pomegranate seeds as a garnish were a yummy touch. We had a lot of leftover pom seeds, so I’ve put them on a sheet tray in the freezer for a couple of hours and will then bag them. Should work.

The only thing I did different with the recipe is add one diced serrano and one diced jalapeno pepper when I added the ginger. They were old peppers I wanted to use up, and the end result just wasn’t hot enough for us. I definitely think this dish can take the heat if you are so inclined.  

Today is a busy cooking day. In addition to the baguettes, I’m making beef stock out of the bones and scraps from our Christmas roast beef. Dale is making pâte.

Requiem for fuzzy pink slippers

Heartbreaking though it is, I believe my fuzzy fleece-lined pink Crocs are toast. Unless I was out playing golf or walking, I wore them all day every day, and they began to stink. Badly. I hand-washed them in soap and water, and it took a week for them to dry, even with a blow dryer assist. They still smelled awful.

I purchased “odor neutralizer” powder and sprinkled that in. It’s even worse. Anyway, my slippers/Crocs are in time out. I’m pretty sure they are history, but I haven’t tossed them yet, in case anyone has a remedy.   

Bueller, Bueller, anyone? 

Thank you

As we end the year, I’d like to thank you for hanging out with me here at Retirement Confidential. Lockdown has been tough, and politics has been brutal, but we’re retired! We can sleep late, and the food is good. I hope you found plenty of happiness in spite of it all, and I wish you unbridled joy in 2021.

Adios, 2020.

So long, farewell, aufwiedersehn, goodbye.

See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya.

Scram.

Be gone with you.

And get off my lawn!

Post-pandemic food fantasies

The two of us in New Orleans. Mid-to-late 1980s.

Dale and I don’t have a big urge to travel. Not that we’ve seen everything, but we lived in Germany and Egypt, moved more than 20 times and vacationed in some pretty amazing places around the world. For the most part, we’re content to scoot around California in the car.

That said, COVID 19 has tested us. Before the pandemic, we rarely dined out. Most of the time we can make it better at home. It has been a year since we ate in a restaurant, and I find myself relishing in the memories of spectacular regional food.

  • Steamed blue crabs in Maryland
  • Pressed duck in France
  • Weinerschnitzel in Germany
  • Fried whole belly clams in Maine
  • Paella in Spain
  • Stacked enchiladas in New Mexico
  • Barbequed brisket in Fort Worth
  • Greek salad in Crete
  • Grilled conch in Cozumel
  • Fish and chips in Britain
  • Steak in Ogallala
  • Giant prawns in Phuket

We’ve learned to prepare many of the foods we miss, but some dishes are hard to replicate. I find myself thinking about an inn we stayed at in France, where they brought us a perfect croissant for breakfast and a big cup of dark coffee mixed with steamed milk. Or a monster bowl of phở at a strip mall café in Little Saigon. I can see myself sitting at the restaurant savoring every bite.

Both of us are starting to think about changes we’ll to make to our lives when this is over. I mean, we’re not going to hit the open road, but I do think we’ll travel a bit more. Eat some great food. Make more of an effort to enjoy time with friends. Create some new memories.

In the meantime, I leave you with this challenge. If you can go anywhere to eat anything when the pandemic is over, where would you go? What would you eat? It’s tough to decide, and it’s OK to keep changing your mind (indecision should make the game last longer and possibly get us to summer). Oh, and money is no object.

I would go to New Orleans and have a fried soft shell crab po’ boy. Per the rules, that’s my choice. But since I’m there anyway, I would have an oyster po’ boy and maybe a muffuletta. Some etouffee.

So, OK, break the rules. What’s on your list?

Ambition is overrated

My latest pallet scrap burned and embellished with colored pencils.

In my About Me profile, I wrote:

I like to play golf, walk, swim, cook, read, write, watch TV, listen to music, make art and grow cannabis.

And you know, that pretty much sums it up. I never imagined I’d arrive at this place, but I might be devoid of ambition. Although I was fairly successful in my career, success comes with baggage I no longer wish to carry. That could all change, but during this phase of my retirement, it’s rather pleasant to dabble in what amuses me and be free of expectations and judgment.

While I may be voted the girl least likely to do anything memorable, I’m enjoying simple pleasures that escaped me as I scrambled up the ladder at work. For example, I’ve been playing golf for about 25 years, and I’ve never enjoyed it more than I do now.

For years, I felt every swing was being judged. Every mistake was a failure of catastrophic proportions. Now I just play to play, and I am a much better golfer without all that self-induced pressure. Playing partners frequently ask me if I compete in amateur events, and my response is no, I’m not wired for it.

I’ve also learned to accept imperfection through my woodburning activities. At first, I wanted to hoard my art because that was easier than waiting for someone to say, “I like it.” I started giving it away, and it has been quite liberating. In some cases, I will never know if someone liked it. I only know what was in my heart when I created it and shared it. Somehow, that’s enough.

As for my other hobbies, some are going quite well and others leave something to be desired. Between the virus and Trump’s antics, it’s hard for me to sit still long enough to read. I have a book I’ve renewed two times, and I’m committed to reading it before the next expiration date.

But I honestly am not sure I can relax until Elvis has left the building. I was hoping that would be on Inauguration Day, but I read they have to deep clean the White House due to COVID-19 (not simply the stench of his presence), so it may take longer once they finally drag him out, perhaps kicking and screaming. Handcuffs would be nice.

I haven’t been swimming since the health club was forced to close down its indoor activities. The outdoor pools are still open, but I had concerns about the whole set-up. I really wanted to swim Sunday, so I reserved a lane and went over there. I did not like what I saw.

The weight equipment has been moved outside, and I had to walk through sweaty maskless people to reach poolside, where they set up stationary bicycles at the water’s edge, where I would normally enter the pool, and where sweaty maskless people were furiously spinning away.

I left. I’m keeping my membership for now, as I expect the restrictions to loosen sometime in January. You know, after the Christmas COVID rush. Once all that equipment and all those people move back inside, I’ll feel safer.

Although I may be overly cautious, it’s better than being careless or in denial. I played golf with an older guy, who said, “There’s a zero percent chance of getting this virus, but a few people do get it.” Lord. I just keep my mouth shut and the distance greater than six feet.

In the continuing adventures of a gentlewoman cannabis farmer, my plants have been doing great! I grow one at a time by a south-facing window with supplemental light. With autoflowering seeds, you don’t need much more than that. Since the summer, I’ve harvested 42 grams of high-quality buds.

That’s more than enough to make my next batch of cannabis balm, which I use daily on creaky body parts. The recipe is on my downloads page. While some say topical cannabis doesn’t work for them, I’m a believer. I first started using it shortly after my 2015 mastectomy, which resulted in neuropathic pain. I’m not good at describing what the pain feels like, but it’s like all the nerves are screaming, “Fire in the house!”

Recently it occurred to me I don’t have that pain anymore, so I stopped using the cream. Within a month, the pain returned. I also use it on my knees and on an itchy patch of skin on my back called Notalgia Paresthetica (Latin for itches like a mofo).

We celebrated 42 years of marriage on the winter solstice. I made tacos.

My retired pandemic life

Jumbo English muffins made from scratch.

Although I’ve been making yummy English muffins since the pandemic blew into town, Dale always thought the muffins were a tad small. His specific complaint was about sausage-to-muffin ratio. He has his reasons, which I shall explain.

Dale makes delicious breakfast sandwiches starting with one of my toasted muffins and topping it with pan-seared sausage patties, melted cheddar cheese and a smattering of mustard. I do believe we could sell them on the street and live comfortably off the proceeds.

However, the sausage patties are slightly bigger than the muffins and hang over the edge. I’m usually the anal one, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I like to go around in a circle and bite off the edges. You know, just to tidy things up. In this case, Dale is much more persnickety and asked if I could make the muffins larger so the sausage fits well within the confines of the muffin.

You know, of course, all this is privileged nonsense, but we really don’t have much else going on. Welcome to my retired pandemic life.  Today, we’re talking about breakfast!

Anyway, the no-knead English Muffin recipe is from the Washington Post, and it was just ranked their fifth most popular recipe of the year. First, the dough rises four to five hours in the bowl. Then you shape muffin-like things out of the dough and put them on a sheet pan to rise in the refrigerator overnight.

Normally, the recipe makes a dozen muffins. Yesterday, vowing to go big or go home, I somehow ended up with seven. In my math, seven is 12 when you’ve had three beers.

When my brewer’s dozen uncooked muffins came out of the refrigerator in the morning, I plopped some butter in a cast iron pan and slowly browned them. The muffins grow as they cook.

And how mine grew! They are huge. Approximately four inches in diameter, which is more along the lines of a burger bun. I was pissed that I got hoodwinked into sabotaging a perfect recipe, but other than some low-key muttering, I kept my mouth shut. It was my choice, after all.

By the way, low-key muttering is an iffy thing. For us, a lot of it depends on Dale’s hearing aids and whether they are working properly. One time I thought my muttering was just for my own amusement, but his hearing aids were highly tuned, and he heard every vile thing I said.

When I was finished cooking, I came upstairs to let him know he was on his own with the muffins. It may be that we don’t eat them for his world-famous breakfast sandwiches, but perhaps we split one instead? I said I’m playing golf early tomorrow and won’t be here to try them. Do whatever you want. I view them as monstrosities.

Monstrosities was the siren call. Dale immediately marched downstairs to get a sneak preview and said they looked absolutely great to him. I mean other than being size-forward, they do look pretty good. I’ve decided to get over my snit and lovingly accept them into our family of food.

And you know, the weird thing about cooking is sometimes you end up with happy mistakes. They might turn out to be the best English muffins ever. Maybe this is what they could have been all along, if someone had simply taken the time to consume three beers before shaping the dough.

Less important things to think about

The screaming match that passes for news is tough to take these days, and I’m keeping myself pathologically busy so I don’t have time to sit down and read much of it. While I do care, I don’t like to get too stirred up about current events. I have less important things to think about.

I heard a song that kind of sums it all up. Soapbox, by Brent Cobb. My favorite line is, “Well, hot dog, your opinion is louder than mine.”

Still, I was happy the Supreme Court rejected the Texas bid to overturn election results. The Washington Post printed an op-ed that listed all the Republicans who publicly supported the effort. I mentioned to Dale our congressman, Tom McClintock, was on the list.

Doing his best Darth Vader impression, Dale said, “The sickness is strong with this one.”

There are two pandemic songs I like very much. Stay Home by Shinyribs and Quarantine Blues by Steve Poltz. Guaranteed to make you smile.

We are eager to get the vaccine, but we’re definitely not first in line. I wonder about my previous cancer experiences and how that figures into risk. I don’t have cancer now, but did my treatment affect me long-term? I’m pretty sure chemotherapy is an immuno-suppressant, but that was more than 20 years ago, so does it even matter? I really don’t know, and since I am quite healthy now, I’ll just wait my turn.

I’m not much of a Christmas person, but I promised Dale I would support the whole tree-decorating thing and be of otherwise good cheer. I’m hanging tough, but he does not make this easy. It takes Dale a full week to decorate the tree, and it’s like an ornament bomb went off in the living room.

If it were me, I’d have that thing done in a snap, and then I’d put everything away, and then I’d go into a mad cleaning frenzy so we’d wake up to an immaculate house the next morning. But that’s me. Just a kid with a dream.

We like to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy at Christmas, so while I expressed my support for Dale’s unique timetable, I also suggested we hold off on movies until the tree is done, the presents are wrapped and all the associated paraphernalia (as well as the collector’s set of Amazon boxes) is out in the garage for the remainder of the holidays.

I think he agreed, but you never know.

Meanwhile, I’m getting primed to take on some sort of big cooking project. Croissants are on the list. A tough challenge to be sure and certainly less important than the shenanigans of Republican snollygosters.

Which suits me just fine.

Haircuts by husband

Haircuts by husband … better than you expected!

It has been a suck-ass year, but I’m still happy to be retired. I always said I could deal with the stress of a job better than I could deal with the stress of living paycheck-to-paycheck or with no paycheck at all. Not having enough money was a huge family dynamic in my childhood, so I’m sure that’s one of the reasons I hung in there even through some miserable job experiences.

Early on I believed all that crap about finding your passion … which I simply could not find at work. Then I read a book that said don’t worry about passion. The key is to be really good at what you do and always go for the most money if it’s ethical, moral, legal, etc.

Worked for me. I quit expecting a job to make me happy and just tried to do the absolute best job possible so they would value my contributions and pay me more. Although that didn’t add up to early retirement for me, I was 62 and call it earlyish.  

I’m glad I don’t have job worries on top of everything else during this pandemic. My neighbor is a widow with three children. She has been working from home but was asked to come in for a meeting where no one wears masks. After a sleepless night of worry, she said no. She still has her job, so there!

My neighbor has a big fat skunk stripe on top of her head – letting the gray grow in as we avoid salons, which are about to close again anyway. She said she was inspired by my hair. I think she’s in her 50s, about the same age I was when I accepted my hair fate.

Although I was pleased with the compliment, it was undeserved, since my hair has been looking so dreadful lately. My hair is fine and looks pretty bad when it gets too long. And it was way overgrown, but I was afraid to cut off more than just the ends.

This week I manned up and went for it. Using the signature pigtail technique, I cut nearly two inches off. It looked great from the front, but it was crooked in the back. I asked Dale if he would feel comfortable trying to even it up, and he said yes.

I have to confess, it was scary. But he did a fantastic job. Not perfect but perfect enough for me. Seriously, I feel like a new person. Now I’m thinking I may never go back to the salon. Of course, Dale, ever the tool nerd, said if he’s going to do it again, he’ll need better scissors. Maybe Santa will bring him some.

I wish I could get him to do my toes.

In other news:

Although I have absolutely no interest in chess, I watched The Queen’s Gambit and loved it!

The turkey has been consumed or frozen. All in all, we had cold turkey sandwiches, hot turkey sandwiches, turkey enchiladas, turkey soup and miniature turkey pot pies. I made three mini-pies and froze them.

As for the enchiladas, I make tortillas all the time, but I have never used homemade tortillas in enchiladas. Not much else going on, so I said, why not? Fantastic. There’s no turning back. The taste and texture of the homemade tortillas is worth the trouble.

My favorite quote of the week is an older one attributed to playwright Richard Greenberg:

Money doesn’t buy you happiness, but it does upgrade despair.

Post-Thanksgiving cooking fiesta

Homemade marshmallows dipped in chocolate.

It’s the post-Thanksgiving cooking fiesta at our house. I made marshmallows and got them all shipped off today. There were a few left over, so I decided to dip them in chocolate. The dipped version wouldn’t survive the trip to parts unknown, so I don’t want to hear any complaints if you were on my mailing list.

However, if you’re hankering for chocolate, I melted some chocolate chips in a small pan and added just enough cream to loosen it up a little. Dip and done.

For the turkey, we had cold turkey sandwiches and hot turkey sandwiches with gravy. Dale froze one whole breast and trimmed up the rest of the meat, which we’ll use in soup and some sort of casserole. Some of the options are turkey enchiladas, turkey pot pie and turkey divan.

I made stock out of the turkey carcass this morning. Tonight is Comfort Food Tuesday, so we’ll skip turkey tonight and have burritos or chimichangas from Dale’s homemade refried beans. This last batch was made from black beans. He sometimes uses pintos. I like them both!

While we do use canned beans for some dishes, we mostly start with dry beans and cook them in the Instant Pot.

Dale also made a salsa from his homegrown Trinidad scorpion peppers. They are among the hottest peppers on the planet, as measured by Scoville Heat Units. As a point of reference, jalapeños have 2,500 to 8,000 SHU’s. The heat level varies considerably from pepper to pepper.

Trinidad scorpions, depending on which variety, register from 1 to 2 million. As in, kids don’t try this at home. The first time I tasted Dale’s salsa made with these peppers, I sat on the stairs and cried. He has since learned a little goes a long way, and now I actually love it.

That means I’ll make soup tomorrow. It has carrots, celery, mushrooms, turkey and barley. I have this one little trick that makes the soup especially delicious. When I’m straining the stock, I save some of the meat and the cooked vegetables and then whiz it up into a paste in the food processor. We call it the flavor bomb, and I add a couple of spoonful’s to the soup.

I’ll make blue corn muffins to go with the soup. We got hooked on blue corn anything while visiting New Mexico, which in my opinion, has the best Mexican food in the U.S. Blue corn can be hard to find, but it’s worth the trouble. I purchase blue cornmeal for muffins and blue corn masa for tortillas on Amazon.

Stupidity gone wild

The virus is getting bad around here. It seems lots of people are getting together for big social events, and it will probably get worse in the weeks to come. We’re super-cautious to begin with, but we had a serious conversation about whether we need any course corrections.

We’re still going to the grocery store. We don’t do “big” shopping, and that may work to our advantage. One or both of us will shop for just a few things and get in and out quickly. Masks, hand san, social distancing.

My sister and many others wipe down the groceries or even quarantine non-perishables in the garage. I mean, you gotta do what feels right for you, but everything I’ve read says that’s not necessary. Just wash your hands again after you put the groceries away.

Even though I believe my swim protocol is safe, it’s one less place I need to go, so for now, no swimming. I’m still golfing and continuing to be very, very careful. I decided not to play in the women’s group until things improve, mostly because that’s the only time so many women are on the course. We hit from the same tees, so you have be careful your playing partners don’t get too close. And then all those women using the restroom …

I went out yesterday as a single and played with some men, which makes it easier as far as tees and restrooms go. I overheard them complaining to the starter about me joining them. Spoiler alert: unless it’s your own private course, that’s how it works.

For revenge, I outdrove them, birdied the first hole and then had a string of pars. They were pretty nice after that.

New slippers

Finally, with all this staying home, I decided to upgrade my slippers, or as Dale calls them, garden shoes. I never go barefoot and wear Crocs or Birkenstocks around the house. A stiff shoe is good for my back and knees.

I’m one of those people who buys everything in black, but I decided to cut loose this time. I don’t know if it’s retirement or the pandemic or what, but I bought pink fur-lined Crocs, and I love them!!

It’s funny how a small thing like fuzzy pink slippers can lift your spirits.

Betrayed by pie

I don’t know why apple pie has to be so hard. Soggy bottom crust, mushy apples, unnecessary feedback from your spousal unit. It’s one betrayal after another.

This year, I dug out a recipe from the Cook’s Illustrated site, which I subscribe to. Classic Apple Pie. I was tempted to use a different crust but decided to follow the recipe exactly. Because I’m a rules-follower. I’m not always rewarded for such allegiance, but that’s how I roll.

Their recipe called for a mix of Granny Smith and McIntosh apples. I knew the McIntosh would be hard to find, so I read through the comments and saw Pink Lady or Jonagold would be good substitutes. I used Pink Lady. I hate apple pie that has the consistency of apple sauce, so getting that part right was important.

At least it was to me.

The dough was a little dry and difficult to work with. I had to patch it in places, and it was too thick in some areas, but I couldn’t get it to roll out any thinner without cracks. I will say the pie cooked beautifully and looked perfect. However, I have experience with soap opera apple pie – the bad and the beautiful – so I assumed nothing.

Dinner was exceptional. The turkey was crisp on the outside and juicy in the middle, the stuffing was savory with crusty bits and the creamy mashed potatoes were like pillows waiting to be kissed with succulent gravy love. OK, that was a little over the top, but it was damned good. We shared a bottle of Pinot Noir.

We should have just stopped there and skipped dessert. But noooooo. There would be pie.

The texture of the apples was perfect and the seasoning was divine, but the crust was unevenly cooked, and Dale said the flavor wasn’t as good as my regular crust. I focused on the positives and raved about the consistency of the apples, when Dale said it didn’t matter to him. It could be applesauce, as long as the crust was good.

WRONG ANSWER.

Why am I busting my ass finding the perfect recipe if all I have to do is scoop out some apple sauce and throw a slab of crust on top? I was in kind of a snit when I went to bed. That’s why I woke up early ruminating about what went wrong with the apple pie.

Lying there in bed, I decided first to cancel my Cook’s Illustrated subscription. Fuck them. They think they’re so smart. Then I decided I’d go back to Ina Garten’s recipe for apple crostata, except I’d use this Cook’s Illustrated filling and a different crust recipe. And I’d probably have to adjust the cooking time. I planned to spend my day gathering all the recipes and creating a new one.

Then we got up and settled in for breakfast. Honestly, I was still full, so I just started with coffee. Dale went for the apple pie. I’m like, you don’t have to eat that. You’re under no obligation. I’m prepared to toss it. And then I couldn’t stop myself. It just came out.

If you prefer, I’ll just find you some apple sauce and throw a little crust on top.

Well, in terms of responses, that was not my best choice. All he said was, “Just stop it.”

Still, I was kind of happy thinking about what it would look like as it got sucked into the garbage disposal while I watched Dale gobble it up like it was his last meal. Because I was thinking, it could well be.

He practically licked the plate and then looked up and said, “I’m not sucking up to you, but that pie was absolutely delicious.”

What? I cut myself a small piece. Just a sliver, because I see more gravy in my future. But he was right. While the crust was still a bit unevenly cooked, most of it was crisp, crumbly and yummy. Perhaps everything tastes better when you don’t eat like you’ll be visiting the vomitorium later.

I’m not canceling my subscription to Cook’s Illustrated. They are fine people, and I’m sorry I said those bad things about them. I made notes to the recipe, which I will make again, but I’ll tinker with the pastry dough or use my other go-to crust recipe.

And so another Thanksgiving comes to a close. Even after three years of being retired, it still feels like a four-day weekend. I’m looking forward to lots of leftovers. Perhaps even another piece of pie.