In Which I Cannot Seem To Stop

[serinde]

Having finished cleaning the kitchen after yesterday's excesses, it is clearly time to make another mess. I have a loaf of maple pecan bread rising--which, though it's whole wheat flour in a 3:1 ratio over white, actually seemed to Do The Right Thing unlike my last attempt, though it remains a stone bitch to knead--and will be making Poule au Pot (or "Pol Pot", as my whimsical pooky would have it) for dinner. I'm also toying with the idea of making up the mince pies I didn't manage to make over the holidays, but that's a lot of work and I should probably do something more relevant, like cleaning up the basement and shifting pantry goods around. Especially as we still have ten Imperial assloads of candy left over. And I'd also like to plunge further into the new cookbook, since I have a fridge currently bursting with pancetta, tomatoes, eggplant, and things of that ilk.

What I probably need most of all is a nice tall glass of Settle Down, Beavis.

Though I really enjoy cooking and baking, I'm starting to realize that, unlike most of my amusements, it's a fair bit tiring (der!), and therefore when I spend the day doing that and then look at all the chores I have yet to do, I feel doubleplus oppressed. I seem to be setting myself up for a no-win situation in this respect. I must either classify it as "recreation", in which case I do not have the option, morally speaking, of saying "well I made food, so you guys do laundry/cat box/vacuum/etc."; or it is "work", in which case the group gestalt would be "well, no one said you HAD to spend an entire day in the kitchen, we'd be content with jar sauce". --I realize this probably seems like a no-brainer for all of you playing along at home, but it's a revelation for me.

Comments

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

A year ago I looked at the fruit mince and thought "ugh, too hard" so I settled on making a single large fluted flan type shell, filling it with fruit mince, then covering the top with blanched almonds in a pleasant radiating pattern. Baked it just enough to turn the almonds golden, then served slices of it with icecream. Yummy and much less fiddly than separate little pies.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I did try making a full-size mince pie one year, but we all generally agreed it was too...mince-y. Much too much of a very potent flavor.

Though, maybe if I made it as a very thin tart instead. Hmm...

[arkham1010.livejournal.com]

mmmm. Mince pies. Can you give me a good recepie?

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I've actually been getting storebought mincemeat. I keep meaning to attempt my own, but never think about it until it's too late to start for the holidays.

Maybe I'll have a July Mince Pies party or something.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

IHNPH, IJLTS “mice pies”.

[lillilah]

Getting lots of cooking and everything else done I think is only possible if you don't work. I just can't see how anyone could manage to do lots of fancy cooking, all the household chores and still hold down a full time job. I guess there are people who do it, but they must find cooking, working, and cleaning relaxing.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe you could give yourself one day of the weekend for fun cooking experiments and the other for chores?

Oh and take your assload of candy to the office and offer it to your cow orkers, that's what I always do when I have a house full of stuff that I shouldn't eat.

Kathryn

[spride.livejournal.com]

Someone's office seems already well supplied with candy. Hem hem.

[spride.livejournal.com]

I entirely endorse that line of thinking. Something similar led to my Giving Up Cooking Almost Completely. I realized at my age that going off to work as a senior manager in a high stress job (this is back in Blighty, you understand), coming home late, going to the gym for an hour, coming back and cooking Real Food from scratch, eating it and cleaning up, left me precisely five hours for sleep. Something had to give, and in my case it was the Proper Cooking. I downscaled to dips and salads and pittas/tortillas and falafel and things with no ill-effects, with some judiciously-chosen semi-prepared things from Waitrose that still met my acceptable levels of salt, sat-fat etc.

Then I came here and got fat.

[shechameleon.livejournal.com]

I think there can be something in between....I don't think it's unreasonable to say to those for whom you have cooked a meal (whether it be Ragu jar sauce or Nonni's all-day ragu): "Hey, I cooked, you clean up." Asking them to do other chores might be a bit much, but it certainly would be nice of them to offer.

I usually do laundry *while* cooking, actually. And while doing everything else. I did six loads yesterday, and there will be three waiting for me when I get home (the cleaners come today, yay). Speaking of cleaners, you might look into it - I find them to be quite reasonable, particularly when I consider that they do a lot of stuff I'd never do (like clean the crumbs out of the toaster oven, or dust the ceiling fans....)

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

At the old house, we had a cleaning lady we really liked; she did things Right and all was good. Upon moving we had to dispense of her services 'cos the new mortgage &c was high enough that we couldn't afford it; now that I have new! highpaying! job! we called her to ask her to come back, but she hasn't returned any of our calls. I don't know if this means she doesn't do that work any more, or if her docket is full, or she thinks we suck, or what.