Going into this kitchen project, I thought I had prepared myself mentally to be without a kitchen for a few months. I envisioned whipping up one-pot soups and stews on the hot plate, and I figured we'd use the grill nearly everyday. I even thought that I would do a series of recipes for this blog about cooking without a kitchen to build up a cache of recipes for others going through the same process.
The reality has been so very different, and I have learned a thing or two along the way.
For example, I now realize that a dishwasher not only washes the dishes for you, but it is a place to store those dirty dishes until you have time to clean them.
I have been thrown by how much I missed our modern conveniences. We had lived for years without a microwave, I love camping cooking, and I actually prefer hand washing dishes to unloading the dishwasher. Besides, I love old fashioned things, like toys without lights and buzzers, hand-made gifts, food made from the basics.
But washing dishes in the laundry room utility sink has been a drag. If there are any dirty dishes in the sink we can't do laundry without getting our dishes full of gray laundry rinse water. If we pile them up on top of the washer and dryer -- conveniently the nearest flat surfaces to the sink -- we can't do laundry. Instead, we have been piling our dirty dishes wherever we can find a space until we are ready to wash them, destroying any partition between dirty and clean.
More times than I'd like to admit, I have picked up a glass, squinted at it to try to assess whether it was dirty or clean, and used it anyway. (Maybe that explains the colds I seem to be getting repeatedly this winter!)
I have also learned that cooking for me is, at least in part, about the enjoyment of the process and the beauty of the food. I have lifted myself out of a grumpy mood many times in my life by heading into the kitchen and chopping onions and garlic, or whipping up a cake.
But trying to cook when the knife and food are a room apart on surfaces littered with our day-to-day life in our temporary kitchen-dining room-living room-office-laundry-room? Not inspiring. Which explains why I can count on one finger the number of complete meals that I have whipped up during this period. And it only takes one other finger to count the number of blog recipes that I have created during that same period.
I also have gotten really good at accepting food and dinner invitations. Maybe too good, leaping at offers made in that casual, "we should have you over sometime" kind of way. Do you think whipping out my calendar to lock them into a date and time when a friend throws out that kind of offer is too pushy? "How about Monday? Oh, that doesn't work? Well, we're free Tuesday. This Tuesday is bad? Wednesday is good for us..."
In all seriousness, though, the extra time that we have spent with friends and family has been the best unexpected perk of this process.
I have also learned that dust knows no limits. I thought that there would be lots of dust on the first floor, but that we would still be able to retreat to the sanctuary of our bedrooms to escape all of that chaos. Ha!
I have been flossing dust out of my teeth at night. It is upstairs on our dressers, under our beds, on the plants, on the toys and clothes that we had piled up to give away. Now I've gotten to the point where I see that fine layer of dust on my desk or on the printer and I just look the other way. Why clean it off now when it will be back tomorrow? Soon, though, dust, when this is over, I'll be coming for you with my microfiber dust cloth and a vacuum. You have been warned.
Nothing breeds chaos like chaos. Having our house turned upside down and construction stuff everywhere brings out the tendency we already have to leave our own stuff everywhere. And the stuff expands in close quarters. I have a new respect for people who live in one room with family. On the one hand, it was fun to be in one room during our waking hours. That evening time for homework and dinner prep (such as it was) felt like social time. But if we ever need to downsize into a studio apartment, we are going to do some serious de-cluttering first.
But there have been times when I found a chair that wasn't piled with stuff, sat down, and cracked open a jar of my mother's familiar apple butter. I smear it on a piece of toast or a peanut butter sandwich, bite into it and savor its perfect combination of spice, apple, and lemony tang, and realize: this is still home.
Second Helping: Spiced Roasted Pears
Thirds: Pear and Almond Cake
Mom's Apple Butter
20 to 30 minutes preparation time
approximately 1 hour cooking time (more if canning)
Makes 7-8 pints apple butter
8 pounds tart apples, quartered and cored
5 cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon all spice
zest and juice of 2 lemons
Put a couple of plates in the refrigerator to chill.
Put the apples in a large stockpot and cover them with 2 cups of water. Bring them to a simmer and cook until the apples are very soft, about 20 minutes.
While the apples are still hot, carefully scoop them into the bowl of a food processor and purée until smooth (the skins will purée more finely when they are hot).
Return the apples to the stockpot and add the remaining ingredients. Cover the pot and heat the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Remove the cover and continue stirring and cooking until the mixture thickens.
To test to see if the mixture is sufficiently thick, put a teaspoon of the apple butter on one of the chilled plates and return it to the refrigerator. After a minute, remove it and tilt the plate. Most of the apple butter should remain in the center of the plate, while some of it -- especially the more liquid portion -- will slowly spread out towards the edge of the plate. When the preserves have firmed up to this extent, pour them into storage jars.
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