A Handmade Tale — by Kim Garner

[Welles]

Kim discusses baking... as a labor of love and why it is so valuable.

It came to me that baking was a great metaphor to life and that the qualities it took to bake the bread were indeed qualities I want to cultivate more in my everyday life. While technology provides great benefit we have become addicted to it. It can alienate us from connecting on a deeper more personal level to ourselves, to our inner creative, to others and the world around us. It would be good practice to slow down and focus on making things again.

A Handmade Tale — by Kim Garner

https://www.positivelypositive.com/2019 ... made-tale/

[Seeker13]

Welles,
I believe this goes for the art of home cooking in general. It builds bonds with whom it is shared, is healthier and tastes better too. My life would be empty indeed without our frequent family dinners and holiday meals. Creativity is definitely a part of cooking in your own kitchen, trying new dishes, experimenting with new flavors and textures, and you have more control over quantities of the not so healthy ingredients in your meals.

Kim

[Sandy]

Loved this article, Welles. Thank you for sharing it.
I could identify a teensy bit with it after yesterday's efforts. G and I bought some pears at a bargain price because they were just ripe. And so, anyone who has used pears knows.... better get cracking cause at this point they quickly go kaput. I was feeling a bit nostalgic and decided to turn them into something called pear mincemeat, making enough to do some home canning to boot.. Anyway, to make a long story short...the kitchen aromas were fabulous...the scorched pan, not so great LOL but I had such a feeling of satisfaction after cutting and chopping and mixing the ingredients following the steps to process and jar the mincemeat for some future delicacy. And hearing the lids pop as the vacuum formed upon removal. It took me back to another time when people did this to survive through winters fury. I suppose I could have easily gone to a store and bought mincemeat off the shelf, but it was so satisfying to bottle it myself. I'm really better for it...for all the reasons this article expatiates.

Here's to homespun magic.
love,
Sandy

Now I a craving a piece of your lemon pound cake... which is to die for.

[Seeker13]

Sandy,
And home cooking allows for a little excitement in your life! A few hours ago Aleah came up, asked for oatmeal. I thought, "Oatmeal? How about a fried egg?" I started warming up the pan when she reminded me she didn't really care for fried eggs, quickly changing my thought processes. We have a glass top stove that stays hot for a while. So, I took the pan off the burner while chopping up red peppers and onions to make a messy omelet. That finished, put the pan back on the burner. (This is where the excitement comes in!) Within seconds it started smoking like crazy! I'm like, "What the heck is going on?" Lifted the pan and the pot holder, I set the hot pan on, was stuck to the bottom! Of course it was! Because of the glass top there were no flames, but man-o-man was there smoke!

Fortunately we all react pretty well in an emergency, took ten seconds to turn off the burner, put the pan on another pot holder, open all the doors, turn on the fans, scrap the singed ashes off the stove, depositing them in the snowbank. Gotta love those snowbanks! I told you about the toaster oven a couple of weeks ago right!

Um,... now that I think about it...guess I'm not really sure my family is a good example to use for promoting home cooking. But we laugh a lot in the kitchen and usually stuff comes out... unsinged! Well, gotta go clean the kitchen now. Aleah went home and I'm still hungry, maybe I'll make OATMEAL! Homemade of course.

Happy cooking!
Kim

[Sandy]

Kim,
Love it and I have done something similar. But my family didn't react with such wonderful precision and effectiveness. I think it was the time I was making cookies and had forgotten the lasagne mess spilled over on the bottom of the oven. As you can imagine, with enough food fuel, fatty at that, a nice oven fire ensued. In the wild panic, I grabbed the fire extinguisher, aimed it at the oven and pulled the trigger promptly shooting foam in the beagle's face who happened to be standing behind me.( I had it turned the wrong way. ) At that moment and in others since when prompt but reliable emergency action is required I heard my father's voice in my head repeating, "Haste makes waste." Doesn't help..I still panic.

Lately I seem to be turning on the wrong burner. So as a precaution I never set anything on the burners that is flammable.

I do love oatmeal myself...It is so versatile. One of my favourite ways of fixing it is made the night before you need it...where you mix it with berries, nuts, sweeteners or syrups or whatever floats your boat and then pour some juice over it and allow it to sit overnight in the fridge. Yum! To me it is like candy.

Anyway thanks for the laughs this morning. I'm glad everything turned out okay.
love,
Sandy

[Seeker13]

Oh Sandy,
We could have the funniest cooking show ever! Now I'm the one who is laughing! Your poor puppy, that must have been a surprise! Salt, we must remember to use the salt, and not nearly as messy as the fire extinguisher. Aleah and I were laughing so hard, didn't help at all with choking on the smoke. Of course she though it was a great idea to take a picture and send it to Dan. Without knowing she was doing this my thoughts were, "Oh man, better not tell Dan, he'll put me away for sure!"

I like my oatmeal with cinnamon, ginger, flax seed and a half container of fruit flavored Oikoes Zero, but your ideas definately make it sound like dessert!

Along the vien of home cooking, I'm having the family over for Chinese dinner. Was going to get a start on it last night because I also was going to have Tiny over several hours before dinner. We really like the sweet and sour sauce bought in the store. Trying to be more sugar conscious I looked up a recipe. Was going to substitue the surgar with stevia. I've thrown together some before and really liked it... This time however, decided to follow a recipe for plum sauce. Going against my instincts I added the spices it called for, but not even close to the same amounts! It looked and smelled delicious, took one taste and my eyes began watering, had to breath deeply several times to catch my breath! Dissapointed, but not ready to be beaten, I poured a about a third of the sauce into another pot, added a bunch of pureed canned fruit to it, tried again... added about three more cans of fruit.
To make a long story short I have two pots of spicy and spicer sweet and sour sauce! Dave called me from the store saying the kind we usually buy doesn't really have that much sugar in it, I caved(sigh).

If you know anyone who need some really, really spicy plum sauce for their Chinese dinner, I know where they can get it,... a lot of it!!! But, hey! I didn't start anything on fire cooking it!... unless you count my mouth of course.

Kim