Rural Housewife

Listening to "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" as Juan fixes one of our pull-out pantry doors. He will probably finish about the time the Invisible Fence guy shows up to put the transmitters in the kitchen and train the dogs to stay out of it. Gallifrey has discovered that good things live on the top of the counters and he has begun to surf obsessively. With him on the high road and Baxter on the low road the kitchen has become... fraught. I don't think June Cleaver ever yelled at the dogs to get out of the kitchen. Actually, I don't remember if the Cleavers even had a dog, but if they did it would have been a silky golden retriever, not a cranky spaniel, or a pony-sized wolfhound. Anyway, I need to distance myself from June. She didn't work out so well for me yesterday.

I'm sure there are those who are curious as to how yesterday's adventures in the kitchen turned out. The results were mixed. The ravioli turned out as it was supposed to which was too thin for all of us (go figure, homemade pasta that is too thin and still holds together), too much parsley for the J, and too bland for me. The chipotle cream sauce was amazing. The Vitamix simultaneously blends and cooks, well, heats up. The friction of the blades through the mass is sufficient to generate considerable heat and finish a sauce--no stove required! I never got to the pesto--ran out of time. I'll make it today and save it for next week. The salad was promising, but would have been better with a different spring mix: The one I got was too much bland/sweet with no spicy (arugula) or lightly bitter (frisee), and I just whacked up the grapefruit. But Dave's avocado/jalapeño sauce from the Vitamix the other day was genius. Finally there was the bread. The bread went from difficult to disaster--thanks to our new Thermador range. First it wasn't cooking enough, then it burned. Oh well. More about the recipe in another post.

Thermador is two for four with us right now. Getting the dishwasher (which was damaged and non-functional before it ever went in) replaced took a month and a half, and now the main oven for sure and possibly the smaller oven are not working on the range. At least it's smart enough to know it's broken: There is an error message on the temperature panel with a phone number to call. We were already suspicious that there was a problem as the big oven didn't seem to be heating so we put in a free-standing thermometer to check the temperature. Sure enough, busted. So I have a service call scheduled for next Friday.

While I'm on the appliance rant, our new (replacement) Everpure Exubera is not only not dispensing sparkling water, it's not dispensing cold water either! At least the last (defective) one we had would dispense cold water. I have been shuffled around on the phone all morning only to find out there doesn't seem to be a distributor contact in Texas anymore... I now have a call in to the sales person for the region. We'll see how that goes.

For now, a little time in the studio till the Invisible Fence guy shows up. Speaking of the studio, in case I forgot to update the status, the studio is now a MUCH more pleasant place to be. Let There Be Light! A quick visit from the electrician and the plumber and I can actually work now.