Time and motion: a culinary interlude

[desperance]

It takes about fifteen minutes out of my writing-time to go downstairs, boil up a pan of water and cook basmati rice for later stir-frying.

Turns out that this is exactly but exactly the amount of time I need to chop a couple of shallots, crush a couple of garlics, sizzle 'em in olive oil and then break in a couple of pounds of meaty field mushrooms. Including, obviously, the occasional and essential toss of a mushroom-stalk for Mac. He likes me to lob 'em high, so he can biff 'em before he noms 'em; me, I like to lob 'em straight at his pretty nose.

The mushrooms are currently stewing, as it were, in their own juice. I shall trot down and turn the heat off in a minute. Tomorrow there will be chicken stock and blending, and then the rest of the mushrooms, along with celery and carrots and smoky bacon, and I shall have a soup. Om-nom-nom.

Oh, and to be clear, no: I did not throw a shallot at Mac. I did not. Whatever the injured little fuzzbutt chooses to imply. I am a clumsy man, and things fall off my chopping-board. 'Specially as my chopping is ridiculously confined to one small corner of its vasty acreage, on account of the rest of it being filled up with bottles and jars and detritus and stuff. Lots of stuff. I have very little space in my kitchen, and I do not manage it well.

Comments

[owlfish]

Your kitchen is currently the antithesis of mine, as mine is about as empty as it's possible for a kitchen to get.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

In a few days, I am going to be sooo jealous of your new kitchen...

We can haz pix?

[owlfish]

I shall post at least one of it empty! I'm taking lots of photos of the process. (This also means I know where all the wires, pipes, and valves are.) The downside of the soon-to-be kitchen: even with half again as much cabinet space and countertop, there is not enough of it.

Two weeks from today it should be mostly installed, with the countertop a few weeks after that. Getting there!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I did wonder if my "few days" was over-optimistic. I know nothing. (This house does desperately need a new kitchen, and a bathroom too - but I have no idea how we would live while contractors trudged in and out for days and weeks on end. Well, I do know: we'd have to move out for the duration, the cats and I, there is just no alternative. So I chicken out, every time the notion comes up for consideration. It's all too complicated. And hey, I can have a lovely new kitchen and bathroom in my head, any time I want, without any of the complication or indeed expense...)

Also, I think this is universal: that there is never enough storage or counterspace, however vast your kitchen.

[owlfish]

It was easy to commit to a new kitchen when we are new to the house and still have minimal furniture. We just failed to move into the kitchen in the first place, only using the countertop, putting the fridge - when it arrived - in the living room and, almost from the beginning of being here, switching to all food being either pre-made and microwavable, or else grillable outside on the firepit. We changed diet along with house.

I think it would be much, much more difficult to move out of a kitchen already fully in use.

[abserdman.livejournal.com]

You threw a shallot at the pretty cat?

You nasty, nasty, evil man! What did the poor kitty ever do to you?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It fell to the floor, I tell you! And of course it fell on top of him, that's just exactly where he always is, directly below the chopping-board, just in case... (He's tall enough to reach the chopping-board, if he stretches. I have to be careful not to let anything nommable hang over the edge, or whoosh!...)

Besides, you've got no witnesses.