Dept. of Saturday

[kaffy_r]

Don't Like the Weather? Wait 5.25 Minutes ....

Over the past week, I've noted that Chicago weather has been tremendously unsettled; the old joke that's usually ascribed to whatever location the teller is in - as mentioned above - was bewilderingly accurate. For the last six days, we've had 15 minutes of sun, followed by 15 minutes of extreme thunderstorm, followed by more sun, followed by high winds and scudding clouds, followed by sun, followed by dark grey overcast, followed by, yes, more sun.  And it's left me unsettled; I like having weather that's easy to predict. That's just how I roll. 

And today was weird enough to get noticed by more than me, at least judging by Twitter; blowing snow, followed by sun, followed by a full-fledged 15-minute snowstorm, followed by blue, blue skies and sun, followed by yet another snowstorm, followed by wind and scudding cloud, followed by sun ... lather, rinse, repeat. 

So, rather than focus rather unhealthily on the weather (really, kaffy_r , it's weather), I decided to salvage whatever salvageable tomatoes from amongst the many unsalvageable ones slowly decaying in the vegetable crisper (and was there ever a more misleading name?) bin in the bottom of my refrigerator. 

The end result was pretty decent, although I had to augment my tiny bit of sauce with a can of diced tomatoes, so it's not completely from scratch. I was surprised and disappointed that I didn't find a single recipe for making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes in any of my recipe books. Not even Joy of Cooking, for heaven's sake! All the recipes made use of canned tomatoes. That ought to tell you something about the evolution of Western cooking ... So I just winged it. It's been years since I actually made a basic tomato sauce, as opposed to many of the other sauce-y things I make, but I'm pleased. Dehydrated onions, ground celery (as opposed to celery salt), salt, garlic, pepper, Italian seasoning and fresh-ground fennel, they all go together so well. 

What's that you say? That I was supposed to be writing today? 

Ahem. 

Well, actually, I did do some editing of existing words and paragraphs. Does that count? And I think I managed to move our heroes further along their  way. 

Yeah, I got nuthin. Maybe better tomorrow?

Comments

[kerravonsen]

I didn't find a single recipe for making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes in any of my recipe books.
!!
There was this cookbook that Mum had, it was something by Penguin, but I don't know what it was called, because the cover had long since fallen off, the pages were yellowed, and it was falling to pieces. But it was the best cookbook ever for simple, basic, fundamental recipes. I bet it would have had a recipe in there for making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes.

[kaffy_r]

I ended up finding a perfectly good "from scratch" recipe on, of all places, allrecipes.com. I'd already completed the sauce, but I was happy to know that my general kitchen-fu had led me to roughly the right process and that someplace had a recipe. Imagine finding one online, and none in good old-fashioned cookbooks! Harrumph.

Of course, now you've reminded me that we have some hand-written recipe books from BB's mom and my mum, plus a very old-and-falling-apart paperback cookbook that BB's mother got from one of the old Detroit newspapers; definitely an early 1950s book. My bet is that there'll be some sort of basic sauce recipe in that, as well.

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

omg yes, the weather has been insane. There was that one day it was almost 70 and immediately it was in the 40s again the next day, and today when I got up it was SNOWING???

[kaffy_r]

I know - and today (Sunday) we're supposed to be back up in the 60s, then back down to the 40s for the rest of the week. Go, weather!

I trust you've been doing well?

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Yeah! And the wind today! So crazy.

I have actually had a kind of weird year so far because of health stuff, but I took some time off work to try to clear it up and found some really good doctors, so I'm doing a lot better now. How have you been?

[kaffy_r]

My health has been fairly decent - I'm so sorry to hear that yours has been giving you trouble. It's always good to get good doctors, the kind who listen to and work with you. May your improvement continue!

On the work end of things, life with My Not-Quite-So-New-Anymore Overlords continues to be interesting in a less than enjoyable way, but I have acquired a good immediate editor, for whom I'm grateful.

BB will be going in for some minor surgery that should make his day to day life much better. FB continues to enjoy his work, although having his office moved to Palatine means he's spending far more time in the car than he'd like.

And I'm still working on my WIP o'doom, so there's that!

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the good wishes! :)

Glad to hear you got a good editor! And I hope his surgery goes well.

Hahaha I must be thinking about Star Wars too much because I initially misread "Palatine" as "Palpatine." :P

[eaweek.livejournal.com]

Weather's been crazy here, too. March came in like a lion, went out like a day at the beach. Yesterday was ridiculously muggy. Today is blessedly cooler. And it's supposed to snow tonight. And be cold and blustery after that.

[kaffy_r]

Weather's been crazy here, too.

Indeed; I noticed a bunch of video tweets from folks I know live across the nation, showing sideways-blowing snow, followed by sunshine, so it was apparently not simply a Chicago thing. No matter where it's hitting, I hope it stops hitting really soon!

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

In addition to the weather phenomena you described, we also got little BB-sized hailstones for a while, falling in sunlight. Wild day.

[kaffy_r]

Oh man, I somehow missed those; it may have happened here on the North Side during one of the 15-minute periods I forgot to look outside. Sunshower hailstones - that's something to remember.

[eve11]

The tomato sauce sounds yummy!

"supposed to be writing" is my perpetual state these days.

[kaffy_r]

There ended up being just enough sauce for a nice plate of campanelle for each of us, so I was pleased all around.

"supposed to be writing" is my perpetual state these days.

Heh. Testify, sister ....

[liadt]

So, rather than focus rather unhealthily on the weather unlike the Brits;p

Minor prodding of heroes count in my world:)

[kaffy_r]

unlike the Brits

Heh - I think it's genetically coded in humans to complain about the weather.

And I'll take any rationalization of my limited writing output!

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

I totally get the weird weather - and yeah, we have that saying, too, but...wow.

Yesterday was just stupid windy. I mean, SERIOUSLY windy. Oi.

*HUGS*

[kaffy_r]

Yesterday was just stupid windy. I mean, SERIOUSLY windy. Oi.

You didn't happen to notice if your house was lifted up, carried to Oz and deposited rudely on top of the Wicked Witch of the East?

*ducks, runs*

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

LOL!! Well, we definitely weren't in Kansas...but we did manage to keep it here at home. Always on the lookout for that Road, though. Life can be that headtilty, lol!

*Catches you and squishes you with a laugh*

[kaffy_r]

Part of me wants to find that road (or the one made of moonlight lying across the water, which I read about in some fairy-tale once upon a time), and part of me keeps thinking that a road like that would be too good to be true.

*squishes you back*

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Hee!! At least I'm not the only one who thinks that!!

Sometimes we have to work for those miracles!

*HUGS*

[kaffy_r]

♥