Amorphous blob'ism of a week

Y'all, January is hard enough without accusations of "shithole" (or, as it wasn't but was suggested/lied about, "shithouse") countries and assertions of people we do and don't want anytime but sort of especially MERE DAYS BEFORE we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Day in the year that IS ALSO the 50th year since his assassination. 

January is cold enough that we can really do without continued sexual impropriety on a grand scale, including multiple and fairly credible tales of porn stars having had affairs with the Evil Yam just after Melania gave birth and then being paid hush money to shut up about it all.

January is screwy enough in terms of snow days and, thusly, parental schedules, that I hardly think we also need a desperate mother paying a large sum to largely untrained Container Store people for a "sleek and Swedish" organizational system that promises to solve a hoarder son's closet issues. Said mother averred that a cyclonically-inspired closet could be tamed in 60-90 minutes on an early-dismissal Tuesday. Said mother was, four hours, no lunch, and extreme body and foot odor later, chastened by said sleek and Swedish org system that is now a permanent part of a closet due to a mallet, chisel, hammer, and wild-eyed determination to make that fucker fit. Do not tell said mother's husband just what lengths she went to via the baseboard just inside the closet doors.

My dear housekeeper, Imelda, ventured in two hours in: "Emily, I am hearing the hammer. Is everything going ok? I want to offer my help."

"Imelda, I will win in this closet. I will make this organizer fit."

"Ok, Emily, it's just, I'm hearing the hammer" -read: "I should not be hearing a hammer," which was an accurate perspective from anyone but especially Imelda who can fix and solve and do anything- "and I want to offer my services."

I'm pretty sure my scent and the state of my hair and eyes caused her quick departure from the room. 

The Container Store is really the devil. No wonder it partners with Real Simple magazine which is the lyingest name of a magazine ever. Real Stressful would be infinitely more accurate. Sweet baby jesus in the skies, RS editors. Back your trains up. No one can cover even 80% of the advice you offer on one page must less on 200 of them. 

Meanwhile, the children appear to be suffering January-induced meltdowns and loss of senses of humor. Mary mother of moody boys. Get it together. Tonight, Tom's 40th birthday incidentally, found me with a brand new Keratin treatment in my hair -which means it's straight as a board and CANNOT, under penalty of death, be tucked in a rubber band, hair band, or even behind an ear- peeling and deveining shrimp, making biscuits, preparing a cocktail, making the kids' dinner, AND alternately tending to and ignoring pitiful whimpering from Oliver because he had to copy previously written persuasive letter text onto a new sheet of paper. The trials of being a privileged youth today.

My eyes just fell out I rolled them so hard.

Have you ever tried to peel and devein shrimp without being able to move your hair out of your face or even really touch it? Such is not an optimal scenario. And the wailing child is the cream. 

But I'm a perseverant gal, and damn you shithole president and persuasive letter writing and Keratin, I will make my husband a delicious meal. And I did.

barbecue shrimp

biscuits!

kale salad

And the boys calmed down and got their homework done, and dinner was good, and then T and I watched Get Out which is hands down the best social commentary film I've seen in a while, and now we're two forty-somethings off to bed. Happy Birthday, honey.

Mio nipote e qui; dessert

www.em-i-lis.com

Aah, my darling nephew (mio nipote; and also my fabulous sister and her fabulous husband) arrived this afternoon. We are all so happy to see them, and they us. I made a scrumptious dinner of salad and that seemingly omnipresent caramelized shallot, cabbage and tasso tart; we have no leftovers so I'll take that as an affirmative that all was well-liked.

I also wanted to mention the random dessert I made last night which was both a result of a thorough freezer cleaning and delicious: warm biscuits with a sour cherry-currant compote all drizzled with cream. Outstanding!

www.em-i-lis.com

Why the thorough freezer clean you might ask? Well because yesterday, while Ol was home sick and I was rummaging through the fridge looking for something that might constitute lunch, I discovered an insidious black mold in the way-back-bottom of our fridge. Dis-gusting. My Sherlockian suspicions believed this gnarly fur to have grown from a large maple spill that, when I discovered it, had become an intractable, crystalline shellac. When did that happen? I unloaded everything, shelf by shelf, and decided to spin the left turn to nowhere into a positive: how old was that teriyaki sauce? What was that now-gelatinous blob?

After a half-hour, I'd had no luck removing anything but the Styrofoam inserts I think were meant to be permanent. My pink, 1950s-housewife gloves got a hell of a workout, as did an array of toothbrushes, sponges, scrubby brushes and cleaners. I even called in the A-team troop known as bleach and later decided to move on to the freezer just because I'm that girl.

Later glad was I when, having thrown out all things freezer-burned or unrecognizable, I was left with sour cherries, currants and biscuits. Hence this dessert which I will most definitely replicate, purposefully, in the future. Lemons into lemonade, y'all.

Biscuits and chili

Tonight's dinner was delicious, but I admit to hoping that it serves as a final goodbye to temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Today was downright cold which made my indoor MHD that much cozier, but...spring needs to spring. ASAP. I've got sandals and shorts to wear, sundresses and tank tops, floppy hats and flip flops too. I want to get my Vitamin D from actual rays of sunlight rather than gummy Ds in my bathroom. My VegTrug plants looked at me in a fairly accusatory fashion today, as if wondering "why would she so loving plant us and then subject us to freezing rain?!" It's a reasonable question little ones! In any case, Jack is about to test for his red belt in Tae Kwon Do so I took him to a penultimate practice session tonight and when we finally got home I was thrilled to remember a bag of chili verde waiting in frozen repose in my garage chest freezer. A quick thaw would make for such a warming dinner! I have been DYING to make biscuits, knew they'd pair winningly with the chili and had just enough cream left to make a 1x recipe. Though I wish they'd puffed more -I fear I overworked the gluten- they were very tasty and, as I'd suspected, were a tremendous addition to dinner. I used this recipe from the recent NY Times Dining section. Next time I'm going to try a different recipe, just cuz.

Aren't the flaky layers of good biscuits irresistible? I love, LOVE a good biscuit, especially when smeared with cream cheese and pepper jelly, fresh jam or dunked into something wonderful, like tonight's chili. I have yet to take a picture of this chili that doesn't too closely resemble something gross, but imagine turkey, tomatillos, pounds of peppers, etc. It's marvelous.

The news was so stultifyingly reguarly both yesterday and today. Just violence, horror, silly Congressmen and natural disasters for the love. Maybe the MH 370 black box has been found though?