Coffee Chat: Rainy Day At Home

Hello and hurry right in!  Hot Coffee or Tea?  It always seems appropriate when it's pouring rain to have a cup of something hot to drink, agreed?  I've got  fruit cake in the freezer.  I'll slice a few pieces and we'll let them thaw while the coffee makes and the water boils to steep the tea.

John is at work...Now I'm both sorry and not sorry if you know what I mean.  For one thing, I have puttered about doing things as I felt like rather than having someone make me aware that it's mealtime.   Lest you think he won't fix his own food, he can and will.  But he's very aware that I often have a plan and he is willing to work with it rather than spoil them.  I appreciate that he's rarely fussy or insistent upon a plan other than my own.



I'm sorry he's working because oddly enough I find I miss him!  I'm as surprised by this as I was surprised by grief when Katie left home.   There's just no accounting for how your personal feelings will sneak up upon you is there?  Well I do miss him.  I've spent pretty much every day for the past three months with him at home and since we've gone nowhere and it's mostly the two of us, the house seems rather empty when he's gone.

I'm sorry too that he's working during this virus business but that's what he's trained to do and help was needed so he went to help.  He'll be back home this evening.  I didn't lecture him about what he ought to do.  He is, after all, a professional.

I've done very little today...and I mean that though if you asked what I'd done, I'd list my tasks out and you'd probably chuckle a little because it's not heavy work but it was enough work.   Still less than I'd normally do and certainly less than I've done all week long.  I slept too little last night and got up with John this morning.   Sleep eluded me due to both anxiety over what I suspect was a weather change coming in and because my back truly ached after my two days of outdoor worked.  And then there is that awareness that the alarm is going to go off much too early...That's always a little anxiety causing as well as you watch the clock tick along and you know you're losing all the possible moments you might have had to go to sleep.

Well the day started quite early and I sat in the kitchen looking out the window after John left thinking I'd see the sunrise.  Not this morning.   It was cloudy and grey out. 

I decided that what I really wanted to do today was to watch television.  So I went about getting things done early so that I could spend the afternoon with the tv.

This morning I also experimented with that Buttermilk Oatmeal Loaf and I added raisins to it and cinnamon.  I am having a problem at present with my breads and according to research I've got more another adjustment to make in order to sort that out but I'm definitely on the right track with this bread now.  I suppose I could offer you some of that to try with butter.   Would you like some? 

And then I settled at last with the television.  I scrolled through everything on Netflix and found 1 program I thought I'd like to watch and share with John....Then scrolled through Amazon and ended up watching cooking shows which I find both inspirational and comforting.  I confess what I was after though was Jane Austen films...All I found required a purchase.  Spending money had not been on my agenda and if I were to spend I'd buy one of the films from my list of wanted movies.

So I found an old Julia Child , The French Chef, and watcher her make Beef Bourguinon and discovered that it isn't in the least intimidating or expensive to make really.  I was rather surprised.    Julia suggested using Chuck roast, just good old chuck roast as the very best meat.  The whole process can be done slowly, from cooking to assembling to reheating.  I'm going to get a  bottle of red wine (she suggests a 'new' wine rather than an aged one because she said the whole dish is a peasant meal and the wine should suit it and it the wine.  An expensive aged wine would simply be lost.)  The beauty of the whole process is that you can do the same with chicken (which becomes Coq au Vin) or lamb.

After that program, I watched an episode of Julia and Jacques Pepin where they cooked various cuts of steak and ended with Hamburgers.  I was reminded of how I passed many a Saturday afternoon watching Julia Child or Jacques Pepin in the winter months.   Absolutely loved those Saturday afternoons.

And then I ended up with a Mary Berry program in which she cooked a lamb stew that was almost exactly the same recipe Julia Child cooked.   The only difference was that Julia served her stew with whole boiled potatoes sprinkled with parsley and Mary Berry served hers with mashed potatoes.

In America, we often put the potatoes IN the stew...

I'm always intrigued about how things translate from one culture to another.  I've often mentioned my love of how ravioli   translate into pierogi and pot stickers.  Cross cultural cuisine really.

Truthfully dears I have little to say today.    I think I just felt ready for a bit of chatter.  That's quite all right, isn't it?  To just want to chat away in a neighborly way?

John and I talk a lot.  We speak of spiritual things and political things and home centered things but I'm afraid when it comes to talking about cooking or lawnmowers a bit of eye rolling starts on both our parts.  I don't mention home decor ideas because he immediately gets alarmed thinking of how much it will all cost and you and I both know that a lot of thinking and talking it out with ourselves goes on long before we get down to the dirty basics of budget and hard work that create the desired effects on a budget.   Ditto for wardrobes and we'll forget entirely thinking about beauty routines or makeup and nail polish.  He's rather prone to glazing over when I speak of gardening too.  I can't fault him there.  I do pretty much the same thing after about the fourth sentence of the merits of this guitar or amp over that one.   Sometimes I think it's absolutely wonderful that we feel any attraction at all to one another given that we are essentially so very different, lol.

I haven't bothered to come up with a single outfit or even to put my final spring capsule wardrobe together.  It seems rather silly given the limited number of times I might possibly leave the house in the next month or two.  I expect to go to the grocery perhaps twice in April and again perhaps that many times in May. 

I am not complaining.  All of my thoughts have turned to home and cooking and sewing, planting and baking...And that's not a bad thing at all.  I'm saving my allowances just now.  No clue what I'm going to do with them but it might be garden plants or roses,  or new pillow covers for summer or...who knows?  It's just easy to save that pocket money when one is at home and so I shall let it build until I can get out to get things I want for home or wardrobe.

Well dears, I've enjoyed it.   There's the sun once more. It's meant to rain again this afternoon so hurry home between showers.  I need to gather my brain and think of something to make for dinner tonight, something that will hold over reasonably well to feed John when he comes in tonight.   It would do me well to run through my freezer meat stock to see what I need to look for tomorrow when we grocery shop.

Come again!