foreclosure – shoutforjoy.us

Blizzard Jonas Flaming Hash

Tuesday, we were finally able to get out and about after a fine young man with a pickup truck, plow and a snowblower, dug us out Monday evening for 20% of the going rate. We had not prepared for this blizzard. We had left our snow shovels in the shed attached to the barn at the back of the lot. We left our cars parked in front of the barn, instead of next to the house, close to the street. I was pre-occupied with cooking a hearty chicken soup to serve on the street in center city Phila. that night to the homeless and poor and those working outreach, etc. Then I got a migraine in response to the weather system moving in. Bethann was concerned about me, so she forgot about moving the cars, etc. (When I get a migraine, there is a real risk it can cause a stroke. I have had at least six strokes and over 40 TIAs. This is why I am disabled.) So I stayed home Friday evening as the storm was starting, and sent Tony and Will, TKJ’s best driver, to the city to serve.

I grew up in Minnesota. We were required to read O.E. Rölvaag’s book: Giants in the Earth in 8th grade English. I think it was because his son, Karl, had recently been DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) governor. The most memorable thing in that slow moving plot was when Per takes what he knows is an impossible walk into the blizzard and is not found until Spring. When they venture out, they find his corpse sitting on a haystack. He had been so close to his destination, but snowblind, cold and disoriented, on a fool’s errand to satisfy ceremonial religion. It is an important piece of literature on the harshness of the environment and how it informs our values. Back to 2016.

So I go to the grocery store on Tuesday in Bethann’s car. I find I can buy avocados, fresh peppers, onions, all manner of produce from all parts of the world, just two days after the worst blizzard in 20 years to hit us! What an amazing age we live in! This recipe celebrates that. Yes! This entry is about a recipe. Here goes!

Ingredients:

4 Glugs Yukon Jack 100 Proof
~1-1/2 lbs. 80% lean ground beef
2 Avocados diced
1 Orange Sweet Pepper diced
1 Sweet Green Pepper diced
1 Sweet Red Pepper diced
2 small Yellow Onions diced
3 Red Potatoes, peeled & diced
4 oz. “White Cheese”
3 cloves Garlic pressed
Black Pepper Grinder
Paprika
Coriander
Red Pepper
Turmeric

Directions:

In a 14″ or 15″ skillet, begin to brown the Ground Beef & Onions. Chop and add Peppers as they are ready. Sprinkle Paprika, Coriander Red Pepper Turmeric as you are going along and stir in. Add the Avocados. Grind coarse Black Pepper over the mixture, as well. Press the garlic over and stir in with your spatula.
When everything is about done cooking, glug the Yukon Jack into the pan and turn up the gas burner to full. Watch it catch fire for a moment! If you’re not cookin’ with gas, have a butane lighter handy to light it up. You have to be quick. It’s only 100 proof. 😉
Grate some cheese of your choice over it. We had a little yogurt longhorn or somesuch. I grated it over the pan and covered to help it melt. Feta would work. Blue cheese would be my first choice. Whatever goes with the wine you’re serving!

Enjoy! The settlers never roughed it like this!

40 Year Skillet Maintenance

When Bethann and I got married in 1975, we received Corning Ware Centura dishes with matching cookware that was supposed to be unbreakable, oven to freezer to microwave, last forever. We had four daughters, worked full time, rehabbed a couple of houses we were living in; exercised radical and exuberant hospitality and disproved that theory, or whatever it was. When those unbreakable pans hit the floor and broke, they shattered with panache! (Let it sink in. … OK … now ,,, both parts? groan? Thanks.)

So we replaced the dishes with cheap apple stoneware dishes for years. They take up too much room in our limited cupboards in our current old house, so we bought speckled enamel tinware in Amish country for our everyday plates. We can fit so many in our cupboards, we don’t need paper plates any more for parties. That’s right, the post is about skillets!

Back in 1975, we were given a set of three cast iron skillets. We have probably used at least one of them almost every day since. That set cost far less than a placesetting of our CenturaWare® or than one Corning® pan. Cast iron is superior to Teflon® for several reasons, the most significant of which is the production of it does not poison seals at the North Pole. If we had been given Teflon® pans, we wouldn’t be talking about them now. They would be long gone. Any bits we would have ingested would have been carcinogenic; whereas bits of cast iron pans are iron, which most people need in their diet.

Cast iron skillets take some basic maintenance. We wash them with hot water and steel wool. Then we put them on the stove with the flame on low to dry. Occasionally, if it looks too dry, we put a little olive oil in it while it is still hot and rub it around evenly with a clean rag or paper towel to re-season it.

After 40 years of use, your pan may look like this:

Medium Skillet with 40 year accretion of crud

It was time to take action to restore this skillet, so it could continue to serve for another 40 years. It was simple, I took a spent oscillating cutter tool blade and scraped the accumulated charred crud off the bottom and outsides of the pan. Then I scrubbed it with steel wool and rinsed and repeated. Then I finished by scouring the bottom and outsides with comet and hot water with steel wool and rinsing thoroughly.

Now it should take less energy to heat and cook. It will distribute heat more evenly, like when it was new. So mark your calendars to do your 40 year maintenance on all your cast iron skillets. It works the same way for Dutch Ovens, too. With them, you could probably get away with 50 years, as there isn’t so much stovetop use.

This was one of my “sidetracks” from home repairs. I get in the mode of fixing things, then that mode sort of generalizes in me. I get sidetracked onto these little projects as breaks from the bigger ones. Not to worry, I did manage to finish replacing the fan in the upstairs bathroom.

I work on these projects and write about them to combat my severe depressive disorder and cPTSD. Maybe you will find something helpful.

Living Room Makeover

Our 50 cent couch against a newly painted wall

We were told by our realtor to just let the house rot. We are in the process of foreclosure. The odds are we are going to lose the house. We are trying to negotiate a refinance, but PHH, the mortgage handling company, has never been honest, even to the point of lying to me about who owns our mortgage while I was looking at a letter I had just received from them which told me that it was HSBC, the Scottish drug dealing bank that the US Senate bailed out with no strings attached. It makes sense that PHH represents HSBC. One criminal organization represents another. I digress.

50 cent couch covered in beautiful throw I sewed with pillows I covered with excess fabric from the recliners.

Entertainment Stand painted with Behr Ancient Pottery (N250-5) Premium Plus satin

We still live in the house. I am on disability due to my six strokes caused by migraines, more than 40 TIAs, and innumerable prolonged (at times, 20 days long) debilitating migraines that mimic strokes. I asked the ALJ, “Would you hire me?” He granted my Social Security disability immediately. We are losing the house because the lawyer I used screwed things up and I still haven’t received the two years’ back pay. (Somehow, he got his full fee based on it, though. A lawsuit may be pending. I digress again.) Back on track. Bethann and I decided that we wanted to paint the living room as a gift to each other for Christmas. This was a first for us in our over 40 years of marriage; to have that sort of idea at the same time, with neither of us having to persuade the other.

Laying out fabric on the kitchen table, to cut and sew for the couch throw and cushion covers.

Normally, I would just pick the colors and paint. Bethann would learn to like it. I know that is unusual. I have always been the color person in our house. Only once did I have to retreat on a color. That was the Rubber Ducky’s Bill Orange for the trim of the upstairs bathroom that I painted while she was at a Ladies’ Night Out several years ago. She let me leave the walls Rubber Ducky Yellow, but shook her head and said, “What? Can’t I leave you home alone anymore?” I said, “It’s only paint! These colors were big in the ’60s.” Just brings back images of a young, perky Judy Carne saying “SockItToMe!”

Bethann's recliner in chocolate brocade. We bought this for $10/yd. The walls are painted with Behr's Brazilian Tan (N250-2) Flat finish — Bethann’s recliner in chocolate brocade. We bought this for $10/yd. The walls are painted with Behr’s Brazilian Tan (N250-2) Flat finish

My recliner in rust fabric, with my cat, Skittles in the foreground.

At any rate, for this project, I actually went to Home Depot and got paint chips and little samples to try; an absolute first for me! We agreed on the colors, adjusting one, with no argument with each other. We wanted to respect the age of the house (new part: 1845, kitchen & bedroom above: 1700s) without leaving it moldering in its antebellum past. Bethann and I went to Joann Fabric with a great 50% off upholstery fabric coupon and selected fabrics for throw covers for the couch and our recliners, for about $80. It was like an ultra low budget Trading Spaces room makeover, only done right.

Bathroom to the left, Den/Office ahead, Basement to the right. I rehung that door with new hinges and reset the surface mount lock. This is all in Behr's Clay Dust (N250-1) Premium Plus Eggshell finish — Bathroom to the left, Den/Office ahead, Basement to the right. I rehung that door with new hinges and reset the surface mount lock. This is all in Behr’s Clay Dust (N250-1) Premium Plus Eggshell finish

The job included the tiny entryway, tiny back hall, stairway and upstairs hall. The job included 9 doors, 15 doorframes, and 3 windows. We have reconsidered what we hang on our walls and have opted for less. I eliminated the shelves over the windows that the former owner had incorporated into the frames. They weren’t level, and we wanted a cleaner look. I had to replace the top piece of the frame on two of the windows, because the way the shelves were installed destroyed the antique parts of the frames.

I am still repairing sagging accoustic tiles in the ceiling in preparation for painting it with high gloss, ultra bright white paint. The tiles are faux stamped tin style. I am using high powered glue in a dispenser with a long, narrow spout. I insert the spout between the tiles, at the corner where they are sagging to deliver glue on top of the tiles. Then I tighten the tiles to the frame above with a screw through a piece of stiff cardboard and leave it there long enough for the glue to dry. Then I move on to the next spot that needs to be repaired.