Episode 1: Out for blood

for a preface, see the home page of my work stories: Paradise (aka The Job)


Today's work story involves one main character: I’ll call her All-Star because she is the self-appointed chairperson of everything she thinks is wrong with our facility. Yesterday she was out for blood because of some redundancy in the menu. By out for blood, I mean she came to the kitchen door with a sharp knife and a bucket and used her most chastising tone to demand from me a gallon of my own personal supply of human blood. Ok, not really, but metaphorically, yes. She wanted my blood.

Anyway, before I get to that, some background may be needed. We’ve been running a new 16-week menu for a while now and there are hordes of problems with it, all the fault of our food supplier who wrote the menu in the first place. One problem is that items are being repeated several times within one week. What elderly Minnesota farming community doesn’t want the southern favorite of okra five times in one week? Clue: yeah, none. Then there’s the problem of fancy names no one comprehends, the seafood and fish five times per week, the disregard of food standards, double vegetables, skipping the starch that is required, and having four weeks of chocolatey desserts followed by four weeks of fruit desserts. Needless to say, we are constantly hearing complaints and reassuring residents that on our next rotation of the menu we will have this fixed.


This is where All-Star comes in. We had served “Spanish Omelet” at breakfast, which in bulk means tomato and onion in a slab of egg, very like an egg bake. Then for noon we had Frittata (another “fancy name” that no one understands), which is basically an egg bake. So…the ridiculous menu had me serve everyone veggie egg bake for both breakfast and noon meal. They turned out nicely, beautiful veggies in golden egg with a buttery edge. I thought it was good for what it was. However, it was redundant. Nothing I can do about that until the next rotation! Enter All-Star, wheeling her walker up to the kitchen door to ask me “what happened with the menu today?” She’s on the Food Committee, so she already knows why the menu is flawed. She just wants to watch me squirm. I explain as matter-of-factly as possible what the situation was and that it’s something we will fix on the next rotation. “Very sorry…” as I walk away to do the numerous piles of dishes. I start telling my manager what message All-Star had lovingly brought me when the other kitchen door opened. All-Star apparently had more to say.

“Oh, hey All-Star, I was just telling Manager what you told me…” I say, approaching the door. I study her searching look. “Or did you need something else…?”
“Well,” she stammers. “They’re just…very upset. They’re very upset about the menu today.”
Didn’t I just explain? I make what the menu tells me to make. When there’s a menu error, we discover it day-of and fix it for next time.
“There’s nothing I can do about it now. It’s good to know what the residents are thinking, thank you. We’ll fix it for next time.”
She answers me with stares. She stares the hobgoblin witchery stare that seems to be searching my skin for weak points where she can begin peeling it off with her fingernails. I do my best to stare back. I can smell her lust for my blood. I wish suddenly to run to the spice shelf and douse myself in garlic powder. Maybe she’d follow me, teeth bared, eyes wide with thirst, a hiss escaping her pale white lips.
“Get back!” I’d cry, and pray that the butter knife in my hand contains some silver. A silver dagger, a silver bullet…the only way to combat the undead.
But as it turns out, she’s only standing at the kitchen door, calmly staring death into me.
Finally I break the silence: “I’m sorry; if I had a time machine I could fix it.” And I close the door.

What more could I say? Nothing. What more could I give? Blood. Buckets of my blood and an apology on my knees.

But it’s not gonna happen. I’ve lived to fight another day. Until next time…All-Star.



P.S. I feel compelled to mention that this whole story falls under the category of "First World Problems," in which people who get three square meals a day complain that two of them were almost the same thing. Seriously.

Green and Growing Things

 

Bee balm and yarrow.

 

 

Bee balm yarrow iced tea.

 

 

Can we get the squash to grow up?

 

There'll be tomatoes soon!

 

 

Pole beans climbing.

 

 

 

Here's my potatoes. I'm attempting a bucket technique.

 

 

Peppermint in a separate planter to keep it from spreading aggressively.

Homebrew Hard Cider

Brewing your own brew.
It has always sounded like such a delicious, sustainable, independent thing to do. And I've finally given it a try!


However, upon tasting my cider, I found that while the apple flavor is there, and it has a decent kick, it's almost more bitter than dry. I like cider to be dry with just a little sweetness. This is more like bone dry petrified apples with a kick in the face to boot. So...I'm back to the drawing board and determining not to repeat my obvious mistakes while searching out the not-so-obvious.

If it's something you want to try, I recommend these excellent directions from instructables.com. I also recommend the following tips based on my first-timer blunders:

-Juice enough apples to begin with. Don't get lazy partway through and say, "meh, prolly good enough." Or at least reduce the rest of the recipe.
-Take care not to boil your cider if pasturizing on the stovetop (boiling prevents sediment from settling - not good).
-If you're juicing your own apples, clear the pulp out of your juicer at regular intervals. I ended up with a bunch of pulp in my mixture. And....then didn't bother straining it, either.

I'm sure you have more sense than this!
However it goes for you, hope you enjoy the adventure of the process.

Any brewing or cider making tips you may leave in the comments would be greatly appreciated.




Homemade Yogurt: Simple, Healthy, Tasty

We've heard about it and seen the pinterest posts. "Yogurt is so easy," they say, and instantly skeptical thoughts raise one mental eyebrow. My mind says, "Mhmm. Sure." However, curiosity finally got the best of me and I found a straightforward set of instructions ("Back to Basics" Ed. 4, 2014).

Basically, there's three numbers to remember when making yogurt: 180, 105, 112. (Or in Celsius: 82, 40, 44). And in that order. All you need is:

•  a quart of lowfat milk (raw or storebought doesn't matter, it's going to be sterilized anyway)
• 1/4 cup of storebought yogurt or a yogurt starter
• a thermometer

The steps:

 1. Sterilize (180 F): Put lowfat milk in a saucepan on medium low heat and bring up to 180 F (82 C). My thermometer has a metal bracket for attaching it to the saucepan. This was really handy, but if you don't have that, no sweat. Just occasionally check the temperature. (Newbie tip: don't let the thermometer touch the side or bottom of the pan. You want the temperature of the liquid, not the pan.)

 

 

 

 

2. Cool (105 F): As soon as the milk reaches 180, remove from heat and allow to cool to 105 (40 C). This is a good temperature for the yeast in your starter (or storebought yogurt, which is what I used). It's warm enough for the yeast to incubate and ferment the milk, but cool enough that it won't kill the yeast.

 

3. Add your starter (still 105 F): Add your starter or storebought yogurt, blending well (I used a whisk).

4. Incubate (maintain between 105 F & 112 F): The yogurt mix needs to incubate for 2-3 hours at 105-112 F (40-44 C). Of the many incubation options, I chose slow-cooking. I put the yogurt in half-pint jars in the slow cooker and added hot tap water up to the jar rims. I set the cooker on the warm setting and left it alone for about 8 hours.






5. Check it: after 8 hours of slow-cooker incubation, start checking the yogurt for thickness. Press a spoon into the top of the yogurt. As soon as the yogurt is able to retain the impression of the spoon, stop incubating and refrigerate your yogurt. Mine was kinda watery, so I lined a colander with cheesecloth and used that to strain the liquid off the yogurt. All done! I like fruit and honey with mine...mmmm.

Do you have any tips for yogurt making or any suggestions for improving my process? I'd love to hear about your homemade yogurt experiences in the comments!

DIY Gamercize

An indoor workout that won't bore you to tears

 First, I recognize that "Gamercize" is an actual term, referring to console gaming that involves bikes, pedals, etc that are wired to the console. I'm calling this "DIY Gamercize" because I'm going to outline a gaming workout that doesn't involve special, sold-separately equipment.

All you need is tennis shoes, a soft workout surface, gaming console-TV combo, and a game you enjoy (any game where the character must travel from place to place - which is most video games, like shooting, questing, and role-playing games).

It's easily modified for any fitness level and most any fitness goal. In this workout, you do some activities while gaming, some during loading screens, and some in pause mode after completing certain in-game tasks. You might choose to walk and do mat work, or you might jog, do plyo-jumps, hops, and pushups. You could even modify this to include a treadmill, weights, and more. It's up to you! At the right you'll see I've chosen to do my workout on a mat because I have hardwood floors. I also occasionally add some small weights, depending what I want to focus on that day.


So here it is. I'm a casual gamer, and lately I've been enjoying the Bethesda game "Skyrim." It has a very open storyline, and the character at first has to slow-travel everywhere, jogging from quest to quest until locations are discovered. In the last three years of playing this game, I've thought time and again that I'd be very fit if I jogged half as much as this character (or even walked).

Finally one day I decided to get literal about that thought, and that's how I came up with the following:

• As the character travels, I jog in place on my mat (pictured right). Easier: walk in place as the character jogs. Harder: do high knees.
• When the character wins a melee fight, I do one push up per NPC defeated regardless of that NPC's level. Easier: do a modified or inclined push up. Harder: do one handed push ups or do one push up for every hit it takes you to defeat each enemy.
• When the character wins a ranged fight (with magic or bow), I do six abdominal moves per NPC defeat. Easier: do fewer moves per victory. Harder: do more moves, or include weights or resistance bands.

These are my main operations when doing this DIY Gamercize workout. They cover cardio, strength, and abs. I recommend starting with these three and adding other items as you grow more comfortable with gaming while exercising. It does take a bit of coordination!

When you're ready to add more, try some of the following:

• Learn a new yoga move (or learn your first) and strike that pose any time there's a loading screen or a long story sequence that you've maybe seen a million times already.
• Change up the jogging by switching to imaginary jump roping (minus the arms), some side to side hops or toe taps, or high knees. I like to jump rope on uphill stretches, do single ski-hops side to side on downhills, and do high knees when my character sprints.
• Add some jumps. Whenever my character jumps or takes a small fall, I wait a beat and then do a squat jump, then continue jogging.
• Add toe taps or other low-resistance activity during lulls to keep your heart rate up. When there's nothing else physical to do, because I'm crafting or shopping or looting in the game, I like to do side-to-side steps with a toe tap or (if I'm feeling ambitious), I might hop side to side.

I'm guessing I'm not the first to have this idea - have you ever tried anything like this? I'd love to hear your suggestions and experiences in the comments.

#exercise #indoor #workout #fun #gaming #skyrim