Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Today, Julia Childs Wept



Hi all,
Ominous title, no? This morning I threw myself into the brunch with the house dad. He normally doesn't cook, but his wife had other issues and so I volunteered to jump right in. We had a villager helping us (medieval giggle...) and she helpfully dragged out all the ingredients for clafoutis. For those of you who don't know what that is (like me...), it's a rather simple but delicious fruit flan. One might even say it's impossible to mess up.

They'd be wrong, by the way.
See, I thought things had gone swimmingly, and was rather proud of my first effort. The house mom looked at it thoughtfully, but praised the golden edges. She decided we should whip up some cream, and so I did it, adding a little sugar to sweeten it up. I tasted it, and then had a very bad feeling.
I approached the house mom and rather abashedly told her "We have at least one bad thing...and maybe two..." Unfortunately, I proved my worse fears were confirmed.

The "sugar" that the villager had so helpfully fetched turned out to be salt. Yup. And who knew, but apparently a full cup of salt does funny, funny things to a recipe. Not limited to, but including giving the texture and taste of playdough. Yay...

I really know how to impress people, don't I?

Anyhow, we ended up whipping up some delicious buttermilk pancakes and ate pretty much on time. Though apparently this story is going to be whipping through the village and so I may be soon known as "that" co-worker.

As for the rest of my day, it was long but mostly fun. I'm beginning to see who will challenge me and in which ways. There was also plenty of humor, as one of the villagers accidentally washed and then dried a load of clothing with floss in the pocket. Who knew that approximately 1/3 a spool of floss could make 2 inch cluster knots? You could literally grab 1 piece of clothing and the whole bundle would follow! It will definitely take some time to figure everything (anything!) out, but people seem patience, nice and very friendly. So, I'll keep you posted!

Hope all is well,
Steph

PS I found out my address and will update my facebook with it. Otherwise, shoot me a comment or e-mail and I'll be more than willing to share!

4 comments:

Sandy M said...

Too funny Steph!! Since I'm not one of your facebook friends, would you please email me your mailing address? Love, Mom

scgustaf said...

Your wonderful sense of humor will go far in all the adjustments to come... I have a similar cooking adventure as a young newlywed, involving the similarity of seasoned salt to cinnamon/sugar mixture...
Looking forward to hearing more...
~ Neighbor Carol

Unknown said...

Dear Steph, Talked to your mom tonight and she said you have already started blogging, so I immediately went to my new hunky-dory lap top and found it!!! Hilarious! I was expecting you'd have adults in your house, but it sounds like you have kids, or are they the children of the employees? Sounds like you're diving right into life there...I don't know of anything that would call for a cup of salt other than brine...Very cold here with wind. It's strictly survival for all creatures--horses, cats and humans. Grant and I are going to Florida next week for 5 days--Key West. I think I should have sent this to your e-mail address,as it seems tnat return blog comments are supposed to be brief. I'm just learning computer etiquette. I certainly hope this computer doesn't send a virus to every address I have like my old one did--including your mom's computer..That event was the final insult and I got rid of the damned thing. Lois has set up every possible fire wall on this one. Keep cooking and blogging. Krisj

Steph said...

Hi.
Yes, I felt a little bit like Laura Ingalls Wilder, I believe she just forgot the sugar entirely for her first set of visitors involving a blueberry pie!
Kris, you'll have to send me an e-mail so I have your address! Have fun down south if I don't hear from you before then!