baking

Don’t Look Unless You Want to See

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The coffee shop is quiet today, except for the woman telephonically negotiating her dance team’s performance schedule. No complaints; it’s a fun view into a world I’ve not previously experienced. Apparently, there’s an issue with one of the mom’s being pregnant. I’m not entirely sure how that impacts the schedule but I’ll admit to an unhealthy amount of curiosity.

Unfortunately, I’ve moved seats; I was sitting next to an outlet and someone needed to plug in so I volunteered to change tables and lost the thread of the discussion. Now, I’ll never know what they decided to do about expecting-mom. 

I made a terrible discovery today when, for the first time in weeks, I visited the diner across from the coffee shop. It’s a shocking story so get yourself a drink and a comfy seat. I’ll wait until you’re settled.

Okay. Are you ready? Here we go. I may have mentioned before that I always give a massive quantity of cookies – dozens each of 10-ish different varieties — to the diner staff in December. I’ve been doing this for 6 or 7 years. I’m not really sure how it got started, an impulse probably that was popular enough that I just kept it up. 

In 2024, my son left his job at the diner but the head cook – everyone calls him Fresh – asked me if I’d continue to make the cookies. Of course I said yes. The day I delivered the treats, Fresh was not working – get this – because he objected to the way my son was treated in his final days at the diner. It’s a whole thing that we don’t need to get into. It’s sufficient to say that my son was treated poorly by *name redacted*, Fresh objected vociferously and got suspended. 

I didn’t know this until I delivered the treats and got all the hot tea, as they say. The servers promised that they’d save cookies for Fresh. Today, on my return to the diner, I found out that he never got any. Not a single cookie. I know. I know. It was naive of me to think that cookies would survive the swarm of locusts, I mean cooks and servers. Nonetheless, injustice must be addressed. Fresh is getting a personal selection of valentine-themed cookies to enjoy with his wife, Tish. I may not be able to control the actions of Congress but I can make some cookies, damn it. 

Speaking of Congress, I called and talked to an aide to my Representative, Summer Lee. It felt good to have someone listen to my concerns. It felt like action, though I was, sort of, singing to the choir since she’s a pretty loud voice aligned against giving access to our social security numbers to an immature billionaire. You can make your voice heard, too, by calling the Capitol switchboard and asking for your Senators and Representatives. It might seem intimidating if you’ve never done it before but it’s actually easy and doesn’t take very long. Note, however, that it’s not anonymous; if you are calling, I suggest you use rational arguments rather than invectives, no matter how mad you are about threats to the department of education, DEI, social security, deportations, Guantanamo, USAID, NLRB, Kennedy Center, your family’s LGBTQIA+ members, grocery prices, etc. 

And hey, if you’re happy with what is going on right now, you should, at least, not be surprised that I’m unhappy about the current administration’s deliberate and dangerous cruelty. I’ve been pretty clear here that I believe life should be centered in kindness; thus, I feel compelled to remind readers who did not actively vote against this, that there are no voters “safe” from harm under these new policies. Tariffs will increase everyone’s prices. Eliminating the NLRB will impact all union members, not just people who voted for Harris. Also, do you really think we’re going to annex Canada, Mexico, Gaza, and Greenland? Why would we want to? And why would those countries allow themselves to be annexed? SMH.

Honestly, it’s strange to me to think that some people believe a billionaire – I’m referring to Musk, here – is the best judge of whether or not children should receive free school lunches. (Have you ever seen anyone waste money the way Musk and Bezos do? Seriously, does anyone think they could manage if they suddenly lost it all? Ha.) Don’t even get me started on the deadly impact this administration is having on cancer research; seriously, don’t let me talk about it. It’s bad for my otherwise good blood pressure. 

The furnace is making a noise. It just started yesterday. I’m not sure what it means, other than $$$$$. I’ve learned that noises always mean something expensive. The technician will be taking, at minimum, one hundred of my dollars, my precious, precious dollars, tomorrow. Any guesses what’s causing the noise …? I’m betting that there’s an acorn stuck in a mechanism. No particular reason for that. It just amuses me to envision a squirrel thinking, “Here’s a good place for me to hide this tasty snack.”

Yesterday, a chimney specialist came in to check out our four fireplaces. I’m trying to reduce my homeowner’s insurance but in a situation surprisingly reminiscent of my MRI, when they look, they always find things. Damn it. One of my three chimneys is actively collapsing inward and I now have pictures to prove it. Sigh. Both of my options – removing it entirely or repairing it – cost significantly more than $1.29. My next door neighbor very helpfully – if I had a time machine – told me that he got his chimneys repaired when he got his roof replaced. Too bad I didn’t have that suggestion a year ago at this time, during preparation for my own roof replacement. Now, I’m going to pay a second time for scaffolding – which, alone, is estimated to cost approx $2,000. If I ever buy another house, it is going to be a single story (shakes fist at the sky). Who am I kidding? I have so many books that I’m never moving again.

The tree trimmers will be in our backyard this afternoon, trimming the 20-foot honeysuckle that has become sentient and is taking over the entire yard, plus part of the neighbor’s yard. We were going to remove it entirely but the tree guys laughed when we suggested that. Literally. They laughed and said that I should totally remove the honeysuckle if I want a zillion individual honeysuckles rising from the ground in rebellion. 

The neighbors will be very happy with the trimming. They’ve been complaining for several years now that it’s blocking their view of the climbing gym two yards over. LOL I’m just joking. They’re actually more upset that it’s endangering my rhododendron, which is, astonishingly, one of those massive creatures that gives giant blooms every year. It’s one of the weird but lovely things about city living – the neighbors actively care about my yard and gardens at least as much as they care about their own. 

Since I’m actually supposed to be editing my latest manuscript today, without a pen because I forgot to bring one (SMH), I’m going to get back to, at least, reading the darn thing. It’s far too long but funnier than I expected, given that I wrote most of it while I was on chemo – I felt very funny but not very amusing at the time. (HA)

I saw a quote – sorry, I don’t know who said it – that applies to our current world: history shows us that no one who has ever banned books was on the side of good. Reading and writing have always been acts of resistance. Now, more than ever, reading banned books, educating yourself on why someone else has decided which books children shouldn’t read, helping to make banned books available in your community are simple ways to stand against the thought police. Charlotte’s Web is a dangerous book. I recommend that you give it another read. 

Much love.

Don’t Look Unless You Want to See

Pitties and Peaches

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 2 Comments
Love Lies Bleeding/Zuroski

I’ve been trying to write an update but recently the words haven’t formed properly. Today, no matter what, I’m sending this out into the world with a wave and a last hug. Time to move on.

Remember the DIY faucet project I was working on? Well, I didn’t finish the install, which I am really sad about. My daughter’s friend — hey, Noah, thanks again! — did the job for us. I had every intention of working with my youngest to complete the installation but I broke my foot all to pieces and can’t bend it to crouch, can’t sit on it … you know the deal. Noah happened to be in town visiting family and stopped by to help out. The faucet is great, by the way. It’s a hands-free Kohler kitchen faucet (a Costco find) which is way more convenient than I expected.

Booted/Zuroski

You might think that, since I am a writer, having a broken foot would be no big deal. After all, I sit all day long and write. But that’s not actually true. I move around every couple hours. I often sit on my feet while I’m writing. Etcetera. Etcetera. Although I’m very disciplined, discomfort makes me lose my focus. And I’m going to whine about it until I can walk without this stupid boot. 

In brief, my sweet pittie ran into me with all 50 pounds of her enthusiasm while she had a bad case of the zoomies. My foot did things feet aren’t supposed to do and then swelled to football size. I was on crutches briefly but the orthopedic surgeon gave me a boot instead. He says I probably have a torn plantar plate and some broken bones that aren’t showing on the x-rays yet. I guess purple is a non-standard foot color. Who knew? 

The unrepentant pittie/Zuroski

I’ll see the doc again in two weeks and we’ll go from there. My children say I’m a terrible patient. They yell at me a lot for doing things when I should be sitting. I’m annoyed because I’m not allowed to do yoga at all. I’m also not supposed to walk much or go up and down stairs much or really anything. I’m lucky it’s not worse and I’m trying to be good so I don’t have any complications. But argh. I hate sitting still with my foot elevated on a pillow. 

One of the things I got yelled at for recently is cooking. It’s difficult for me to cook without standing and moving around and all the things I’m not supposed to be doing. Anyway, I made ribs with a salt and pepper dry rub, grilled corn on the cob, grilled marinated zucchini, and a delicious peach bar cookie with peaches from our local farmers market. (Yes, I walked around the farmers market to get the peaches. Don’t tell my kids about that part.)

Our peaches aren’t quite ready and I’m getting nervous because the local squirrel is staking out the tree. It’s going to be a battle to see who gets the peaches first. She’s got a few advantages over us since she can parkour to the upper branches. She can pick peaches as easily as we do. She can reach any peach she wants. And she doesn’t care if they aren’t quite ripe. I’m hoping she’ll let us have a few. There are so many peaches on that darn tree and they’re starting to get that rosy pink color. Watch; in two weeks I’ll be complaining about how she ate all of them. 

Moving on … A few months ago, I submitted a picture book to an agent who was doing a special query. I just happened to have something on the topic she was looking for but as happens sometimes, I didn’t hear anything back on my query and I assumed that it didn’t meet her needs. Today, out of the blue, I got an email from her. 

Sadly, it was a rejection but the cool part is that she didn’t contact me all these months because she was seriously considering it. Isn’t that fun? She wrote me a really nice email, too. I’m going to put that one right beside the “banal banter” email. Hehe.

I’m doing a bunch of research for a new book. No details, of course, but it’s got a bit of a time-travel theme, at least in my head. We’ll see how it actually works out. I’m having fun with the planning phase but I need to finish up this horror novel first. It’s coming along pretty well, but I am not looking forward to the first read-through. I have a feeling that it’s going to need some tidying up. But I won’t have to start that until mid-September. 

Haley has some VERY EXCITING NEWS that I can’t share yet but hoo boy, I hope to be sharing it by the end of the month. It’s hard not to shout from the rooftops but patience is an important skill to learn in this business. 

Since I know some of you will ask, here are the recipe links: 

Salt and pepper ribs

Peach bar cookies

Also, if you like music, check out Noah’s latest single. Nowhere Else 

Pitties and Peaches

A Berry Good July

Deb Zuroski, , , 4 Comments

I was shopping at Costco recently when I bumped, quite literally, into a man who was pushing a flatbed and I laughed a little to myself about how hard they are to steer. The secret is that you should always pull a flatbed, not push it. Anyway, as we apologized to each other, I looked, really looked, at him for a moment and was struck by how like Ken he was, a little taller perhaps but slender, with a graying beard and thinning hair, very professorial in the inexplicable way that Ken was.  

By the third near-miss, I had noticed that his walk and mannerisms were also very similar to Ken, even his clothing. I started wondering how his wife would respond if I went up to her and said, “Hey, this is weird but your husband reminds me of my husband. Would it be okay … I really do know how this sounds but … would it be okay if I ask your husband for a hug? I’d just like to pretend, for a second, that my husband is still here.” 

And then, before I could give into the impulse and get myself banned from Costco, I turned away from them, my tears soaking the edges of my mask. 

They seemed to be everywhere I was after that (even parked next to me in the lot). I got used to it, even rather enjoyed bumping into them and lightly eavesdropping on their conversations. Poor man was married to a mouthy woman (a lot like me!) and like Ken, he never quite figured out how to operate that flatbed. 

Last month’s storm gave us roof damage in addition to all that ruined food (and a remarkable case of food poisoning). When you live in a three-story Victorian house, finding shingles on the ground is even more than normally disconcerting because you can’t see your roof. Finally, an opportunity to use my homeowners insurance! The inspector came out last week with his 36-foot ladder (not big enough), remarked on the steepness of the 12-foot gables, and confirmed the damage. 

Yay! Insurance is going to buy me a new roof! 

Haha. Hahahahaha. 

No, it isn’t. In fact, the damage is below my deductible. But the roof inspector said I need a new roof pretty much as soon as I can swing it. Yeah. I figured that out when I picked up the shingle and felt how crackly it was. As my kids would say: OWNED. 

Now, let’s circle back to the food poisoning story:  I won’t actually share the really gory details. I’ll just tell you that, when I threw out all the food, I missed something important — the condiments. Specifically, I missed the mayonnaise. Thankfully, I am the only person who puts mayo on her cheeseburger so I am the only one who spent six hours vomiting. It was bad — we won’t discuss how bad — but I would have felt much, much worse if I’d poisoned my kids. So, if you ever have a power outage, learn from me and don’t forget to throw out the mayonnaise!

And now, without further ado, let’s talk about the gift of summer fruit. Our blueberries are beginning to ripen. Our peaches are still growing. This year, we’ll attempt to save some of the peaches from the squirrels. Yes. I know it’s fruitless (hehe)…sorry, couldn’t help myself.

We’ve been cooking lots of fresh fruit recipes for our post-pandemic summer picnics. My personal favorite will always be strawberry pie but the blackberry lattice pie was outstanding. Sadly, the raspberry crumble pie failed completely. It looked great straight out of the oven but became so watery that we had to throw the whole thing out. Heartbreaking, to be honest. 

Our final berry creation — for now — was a triple berry — blueberry, blackberry, raspberry — compote that we developed to drizzle over my mom’s lemonade cake. So tangy, so aromatic, so good. My mom would be proud. 

A Berry Good July

If You Can’t Be Nice …

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 5 Comments

My daughter and I were out doing the food shopping recently and we stopped at the Dunkin Donuts drive-through. (Haley likes their coffee.) She wanted a doughnut but they didn’t have any. So, she asked for hash browns and the voice, a young person, said “I’m sorry. We’re really short-staffed and we can’t cook anything.” 

I said, just casually, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. That must be making your day really hard.” She told the manager. Get this. They comped Haley’s coffee because we were the only people who had been nice to them that whole day. 

And that’s all I’ll say about that.

If you live in the eastern US, you may be feeling a little down today because Phil has doomed us to another six weeks of winter. Here in Pittsburgh it has been a shockingly snowy winter; already this year we’ve more than doubled last winter’s total snowfall.  It feels some days like we’re hibernating, settled in our winter nests, awaiting the warming breezes of spring.

After a disastrous four months of virtual learning, Ian and I decided to begin a new journey. In January, we moved to homeschooling for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year. I mean no disrespect to any of his teachers or the administrators trying to figure out how to help students learn this school year. We simply came to the realization that Ian could not be successful in the current learning construct. 

It has been a remarkably positive experience for both of us thus far. We’re lucky to be living in interesting times, as they say; so our civics lessons always run over. We both dislike math so we bless Khan Academy for helping us over the hurdle of geometry. The Khan Academy site has also supported Ian’s science requirements gracefully. 

Ian wants to stop talking about sentence structure (hehe) but we’re really enjoying our literature discussions.  This week, we’re reading books that have been re-told as movies. He’s reading Stardust. I’m reading Chocolat. We’ll be discussing them next week and picking out our next books from the stack I’ve already put together. 

Having far too many books has been helpful on this journey. We’ve pulled from the shelves for our civil war/confederacy discussions, our review of sentence structure and the roles of passive/active language, our early budget creation, even our discussions about propaganda.

We had our first conflict when I tried to do a combined civics/poetry lesson using the inaugural poems by Jericho Brown (in the NYT) and Amanda Gorman. We watched the inauguration live, including Ms Gorman’s moving reading of The Hill We Climb; but when I planned to review the role of poetry and those poems in particular, Ian staged a protest, stating emphatically that he has no particular love for poetry and no desire to review either the messages in those poems or the means by which those poets communicated their thoughts. He was both more direct and less polite than I’m being. It made me think again that we don’t pay teachers even half what they deserve for their efforts.

As we sit together every morning, however, I watch his eyes light up before he laughs and I listen to him sing softly to himself while he works on a problem and I am thankful for all of the decisions that brought us to this particular moment, to this opportunity to be here, now, embracing the slower pace of our lives and the strengthening bond of our relationship. 

Writing has been more of a challenge, as I expected. I carve out some time every day to work on my current WIP but teaching is intellectually and emotionally draining which means less daily progress on the WIP! I used to complete four full verses daily for the book but now I’m happy to get one *mostly* done each day. Mary Oliver’s exploration of grief has helped a lot and has inspired me to do some exploring myself. 

We continue to cook. Last week, for National Chocolate Cake day, I made half of a dark chocolate layer cake (it’s made with boiling water — MOIST!) with chocolate buttercream frosting and shared half of that with our next door neighbors. 

They’re in their 90s and don’t make many treats anymore. The cake was a big hit but Mr Neighbor especially likes it when I share homemade cookies. I gave them a gift bag of Christmas cookies over the holidays — buckeyes, ginger snaps, frosted nutmeg cookies, decorated sugar cookies, etc — and his wife texted me that she didn’t get to eat any! Mrs Neighbor said she was inspired to make Scottish shortbread. She’s from Scotland so when I say that shortbread SMASHED, I suspect you get what I mean. 

My current favorite recipe is heavy cream biscuits. They are tender and flaky, heavenly with the spicy winter stew that simmered on our stove all afternoon today. 

Stay safe. Wear your mask. Be kind.

Update: Here are the recipe details for the foods I mentioned.

Beef Stew — I add approximately 1/4 cup of dark soy sauce and 1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce with the beef stock/bouillon/better than bouillon and I simmer it for 2 full hours before adding the veggies. Sometimes, I also add a hearty shake of Penzey’s Black and Red Pepper (a spicy black and cayenne pepper mix).

Heavy Cream Biscuits — After trying a zillion different biscuit recipes, I stumbled on this one in a cooking subreddit. It’s a Kenji sausage gravy and biscuits video. The biscuit recipe is the first five minutes of the video. I’ve never made the sausage gravy but the biscuits have turned out perfectly every time. We cut them in half and ladle the stew on top.

Dark Chocolate Cake — I halve the recipe, making a single 9″ layer that I then cut in half to make a half layer cake.

Buttercream Frosting — This is identical to the Hershey frosting recipe we used when I was little. Still my favorite! Don’t forget to halve this if you’re making a smaller cake.

If You Can’t Be Nice …

Isolation Birthday

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Send help. We’re baking too much. Our neighbors can only eat so many baked goods. We’re in isolation: I can’t go out and buy larger pants!

Seriously, though, we (when I say “we,” I really mean my daughter; my only job here is taster) … anyway, “we” have made macarons with blackberry compote for the filling , banana bread, and chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies just in the last 5 DAYS. That’s in addition to all of the delicious savory dishes we’ve been making. I made a pot roast with lots of root veggies. She made stuffed pork chops. I grilled a flank steak. She made spicy baked chicken (with lots of garlic). It’s been fun and one of our biggest successes in all of this has been learning to cook smaller so we don’t have a lot of leftovers.

We’ve spent a few evenings playing scribble.io, an online version of Pictionary that allows you to create a private group. Since one of the family lives in an apartment, we can’t be together physically but that hasn’t stopped us! Because we’re also a gaming family, we put on our gaming headsets, create a group call on discord, and set up a private group on scribble.io. For at least an hour, we talk, tease, connect, and draw (some of us — me actually — quite badly).

If you are struggling to connect with family or friends, I recommend trying an online group game/tabletop simulator. Physical distancing may be a hellscape but technology does enable social connection in a variety of healthy ways beyond skype calls. Let’s all acknowledge here that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are not included on any list of healthy ways to connect.

This is the first time we’re going to mark a birthday without being together physically. I KNOW that many people are struggling with loss and distance. Missing a birthday together is part of my personal grief. It doesn’t dismiss the devastation felt by the first responders and health workers who encounter the virus and counsel the families and transport the sick and dying. It doesn’t devalue the grief and loneliness of the isolated, especially those who are alone and elderly. It doesn’t reduce the struggle, as real and relevant as anyone’s grief, of our extroverted friends who find ALONENESS as difficult as some find togetherness. Most of us are struggling. As some Twitter-stein said, “It’s okay not to be okay right now.”

So, what will we do to celebrate the 14th year since my son’s birth? I think we’ll have a meal he likes and a treat of his choice that we can make at home and for the rest, we’ll see. There will be no stress, though, no virus talk, no discussion of risk models and vaccines.

We’ve been taking more family walks, looking for good rocks, bird feathers, acorns, blossoms, and other hidden treasures. On Friday, we were walking our three dogs down a less frequented path in the neighborhood when we discovered a bird trapped by a fallen snow fence. I would have taken a picture except that I held all three dogs’ leashes while my daughter released the bird and the dogs tried desperately to .. er, help?

After I finish writing this afternoon, we’ll probably take another walk and then I’m going to work on my new backyard project. I’m dry-laying a brick raised bed garden. There are approximately sixteen gazillion (just an estimate) bricks all over our backyard from some long-ago project of a previous owner. (He also left approximately one and a half gazillion golf balls). After some planning (and stalling), yesterday, I broke ground, hauled a small fraction of those bricks (I’m hoping that I hauled the heavy portion yesterday and that all the other bricks are lighter), and then, started the work of removing roots and digging trenches. It’s great fun. I have an extra hoe if you’d like to come over and try it at a safe distance. In fact, just to be sure we’re appropriately distancing, I’ll stand inside the house and watch, while you’re digging.

Stay safe. Stay home.

Isolation Birthday