Happy New Year!

Hello friends.  Happy New Year to everyone.  I don't know about you but 2012 was a bit of a bitch to yours truly.  The company I had worked for the past 15 years, a family business that was over 90 years old, shuttered their doors this past year.  I got to experience the joys of filing for unemployment for the first time in my life.  It is not something I want to experience again....but that being said at least it was something to help me survive until I found a new job.  Which I did but three months was enough of uncertainty and fear for my personal health and the health of my monetary savings to keep me ever so grateful for my new job.  It's a good company with many challenges to keep me busy.

While I was experiencing my own work drought, the Midwest was and still is experiencing a brutal drought whose roots can be found in the spring-like winter of 2011/2012.  This does not bode well for food prices in the coming year of 2013.  Not only has there been a serious lack of rain, we had an oppressively hot summer.  Lots of dead grass, withered evergreens and cracking foundations.  Not to mention thirsty birds.

It was not an easy summer for anyone.  While I had no paying work, I did try and keep myself busy.  I used some leftover masonry materials that my old company was unloading and built myself a new pad for my grill.

Anyone who has ever laid a brick pathway or tried to install a brick driveway knows it's not as easy as it looks.  Especially when you have to deal with roots.

Lots and lots of roots.  Did I also mention that my three months of unemployment coincided exactly with the three hottest months of a record breaking hot summer?  However once you get started, you've got to keep going to finish.  Looks pretty awesome and can't wait for spring and firing up the grill.

In addition to the masonry projects I gave myself, I had a yardsale.  I've had yardsales before but usually there's enough time in between to forget the vows that I'll never have another again.  I love getting rid of crap I don't use or need anymore but the ratio of time spent vs. value gained by selling is frustrating to say the least.  All in all, it's easier just to haul it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army and take a tax deduction.  It also confirms that a salesman I will never be.

Unless it was kisses from Jackson.   Jackson is very popular with....everyone.  Probably the one who enjoyed my unemployment the most.  Lots of walks, lots of attention and only occasionally home alone.

I wish I could say I did a lot of cooking.  Not so much.  Cooking (and blogging about cooking) was a luxury I cut way back on for fear of a much longer period of unemployment.  But once I started working again and getting into the rhythm of life with work, cooking followed.  My company had a chili cookoff amongst the employees.  Despite using Cook's Illustrated best chili recipe, I got not one vote.  Does this bother me?  Not really, chili is not my strong suit and we all know that food so spicy that you can't eat it (one of the competitors) is REALLY not my thing, I'm good with the results.  I'd make that chili again.  I'd also make the cheesecake brownies and pumpkin black bean stew that I also made for my new co-workers because you know I do love an audience for some of the things I make.

Which brings us to the new year.  Here in KC we had snow on the last day of the year and the first of the new year.  I've had a lovely four days off to putter around my tiny house, cleaning, cooking and reading the huge amounts of cookbooks I get from our wonderful library system.  I'm making sure the winter birds have plenty to eat to keep them strong through the bitter cold.

I'm also trying to come up with a new New Year's tradition to bring me some better luck than the typical black eyed peas.  Don't get me wrong, I love black eyed peas but in the luck department, they just seem a little...whimpy.  I decided to go in another direction completely.  I decided to go Indian.

Gulab Jamun.  I saw this recipe on Foodgawker for gulab jamun and remembered how much I enjoyed this dessert at an Indian restaurant here in Kansas City.  Could I pull these off at home?  The trickiest part of making this dish is getting the fry temperature of the oil right.  Too hot and you'll burn them, too cool and they won't cook all the way through.  Test your oil with little bits of dough, making sure the test dough stays at the bottom of the cooking oil and then floats to the top to continue cooking.

You're looking for golden brown but not too dark.  Then you soak them in a wonderful syrup which the balls act like sponges.  They are best when served immediately.

Hopefully my big balls of luck will counteract any possible bad luck in the year of 2013!

So tell me, what are your traditions for the new year and how was your 2012?  Good or happy to say goodbye to?

Summer Heat

Well hello blog, how ya been.  What a summer I'm having, how about you?  Despite fighting the good fight, the company I have worked for quite a while is calling it quits.  Slowly co-workers faded away into new lives.  My last day came and with it new duties to occupy my time.  Applying for unemployment, trying to find affordable health insurance and of course, looking for a new job.  My home computer decided that it had also had enough and fired me also.  Oy.  So while I'm trying to figure what I want to do with the rest of my life, I keep myself busy with Projects.

I'm not quite ready to reveal what exactly this involves but I will say that here in the Midwest we've been experiencing triple digit heat and drought.  In late June.  My poor little garden is still kicking but it's definitely confused by the earlier than normal heat and humidity.  The peas were the first victim of mother nature.  I'm scared to think what August will bring.  It could be worse for me.  I have the good fortune to have two towering oak trees in my front yard that provide the most wonderful sunscreen for my house.  My HVAC system is eternally grateful.  So it hasn't been all doom and gloom.  Action Jackson got to go to work with me the last few weeks since I really didn't want to be the only person in the office and now he gets quite a bit of human time while I transition.  This is a good thing because we're going to attempt to pass a pre-certification test to be a Pets For Life team. I think we'll be good as long as no one is wearing a live squirrel necklace.

I can't say I've been cooking too much.  Attempting to do strenuous outside projects while it's 104 degrees does not lend itself to put too much energy or thought into dinner.  Mostly it involved tomato sandwiches on some wonderful whole grain bread and good mayo.  However I was lured out of my Project Zone by a new butcher in town. The Local Pig.  You know I'd have to check this out.  They supply fresh antibiotic, hormone and steroid free locally sourced meat.  Beef, pork, chicken, lamb, goat, duck and rabbit.  They make their own sausages, franks and chorizo.  And not just the typical brat-like sausages.  Curry and eggplant or Thai peanut.  There's pâté and foie gras.  There's bacon, eggs and stock.  (Be still my heart, duck stock)  There are in house tamales and Farm to Market Pretzel Rolls.  There's honey.  There's even dog bones.  So I made a little trip and spent a little money.  Because here's the other thing, I have some fantastic mustard that deserves some excellent tube meat to slather on.

I houes sit for some folks who travel to wonderful places.  Red Rocks Arizona, Ireland, Paris.  When asked if I wanted anything from Paris, I drew a blank.  I've been to Paris but I knew that these particular good people are chocolate fiends.  Asking for chocolate is just asking to get an empty french box.  But then I called on my go-to Answer Chef, Virginia Willis.  She's spent quite a bit of time in France.  A quick email and she provided the perfect answer.  "Maille mustard shop at place du Madeleine. They have a mustard keg, like  beer. Tell them to get that, not what's already jarred. It's amazing."  Oh hells yes.  I love mustard and good people that they are they went to the mustard shop and brought me back a jar of Moutarde en grains à l'Ancienne au Chardonnay.  So I grilled up some Local Pig beer bratwurst with cheddar and slathered on this wonderfully grainy and complex mustard.  And it was good.

The brat is full of beery flavor and the tang of melted cheddar.  The mustard seeds pop and crunch with hot spiciness.  Even though the mustard is French the combination calls to my long lost German heritage.

So there you have it.  Anyone out there with a job opening feel free to keep me in mind.  Girl's gotta eat.