I probably jinxed myself when I wrote, “Fingers crossed the power stays on for good, and poor Otto can finally relax, meaning we can too.” Yeah, if only.
Yesterday, I spent a big chunk of time washing all the bedding for our bed. That’s king sheets, a duvet cover, a malaise quilted blanket, a top blanket, and Otto’s furry blanket.
When Otto is afraid, he pants and drools everywhere, buckets, it seems. After the two previous nights of him freaking out over the power failure, stuff need to be washed.
Whenever I make the bed with clean sheets and blankets, I can’t wait to crawl in and go to sleep. I am strange that I have to make my bed every day, even if it means right before bedtime. I can’t sleep in a wrinkled, rumpled bed. The wrinkles are so annoying to me that I can’t get comfortable. Now when it comes to a nap? I could sleep on a damn cactus.
At 10:45 pm, the power went out for the third night in a row! Then it came back on. Then it went out again. I am sure the other 81% of the residents in our town who lost power all said the words, “Oh, shit!” simultaneously.
Otto started his usual freaking out. I gave him Thunder-wonders right away. We waited to see what would happen. I went up to bed with Otto at midnite since he seemed to have quieted down. I lay there listening and waiting. I tried to meditate, but I couldn’t focus. I sang songs to the musical Hamilton in my head. Finally, between 1-2 am, the power came back on.
Otto didn’t freak out when the power came back on, thankfully. Marty came up to bed, and we could finally go to sleep. The bed was comfortable and smelled so clean! Just like bleach, I told you I am a little strange. To me, the smell of bleach equals clean. It’s ridiculous we have white bedding with a dog who sleeps with us, but that’s what the top blanket and Otto’s blanket are for.
I am not going to mention anything about the power today…at all! Enjoy your Sunday!
Ugh! It’s been a rough 48 hours! We live on the Southern Vermont and New York State border. Marty and I kept checking the forecast for the big snowstorm that was forecasted.
At first, they predicted 5-8 or maybe 12 inches on Thursday night, then another 4 inches on Friday. We were prepared for snow. We were so prepared that we doubled up on production earlier in the week and made deliveries first to the Rutland, VT area, then to Saratoga, NY, after production the next day.
Then wholesale orders started pouring in, which is what a business always wants, but we are a two-person team and felt like we were drowning in spätzle. Thank goodness we still had Friday to fill these orders.
I was following along on my friend Jon’s blog, Bedlam Farm Journal, his post on the storm’s track with a radar that seemed very accurate. Jon and his wife Maria, my friend and belly dance student, live right over the border in Cambridge, NY, only a few miles from us.
From what I could see on Jon’s radar, we were in for a big ice storm and not snow. Oh, shit! This is never good. 😖
Thursday, it rained all day with temps hovering around 44 degrees. As the day went on, the temperature began to fall. By 8 pm, the rain turned to ice. Everything was glazed over within half an hour. Dammit! The guys were on a rescue squad call, so I was nervous with them out there driving and walking.
Otto woke me up at 1 am on Friday. He is petrified when the power goes out and comes back on; along with fireworks and thunder. I feel terrible for him when he is so scared. Usually, I give him Thunder-wonders and wrap him up tight in a blanket.
Sam heard me up and filled us in on the scary situation. Power was out in the entire area. There was half an inch of ice on everything; trees were snapping and falling. No wonder Otto was so afraid. The sound was horrible and scary.
Friday morning our trucks were encased in ice. Trees were hanging over and some were split on their tops leaving big branches behind. A few of the new trees that we planted in the fall were crushed. I hope they can be saved.
Somehow, after a couple of hours, we all fell back to sleep until morning. In the morning you could not walk or get into your car they were so encased in thick ice. Sam had a class at the hospital that he had to get to. He chipped his way into his truck and let it warm up. He came back inside while the truck warmed up, then walking back to the truck, fell on his butt, scraping up his arm and leaving his pants soaked. He left with wet pants because he had to.
My ice gripper “rubbers.” Remember wearing the shoe kind of rubbers? Not the other kind! 😜
Of course, we couldn’t work in the production kitchen as scheduled. The simple act of walking was impossible; the only thing that saved us was ice grippers for our boots. We walked around looking at the trees down and accessed the damage.
I walked over to our neighbor’s house, who lives out of state, and took photos. A heavy tree limb ripped down the electric line from the street to their house. Definitely not good news to report to them on a Friday morning.
Our kitchen window last night.
By the time Sam got home from his class at the hospital, it was HORRIBLE! Bad, bad, bad out.! The roads were a blanket of ice, it was like a war zone with trees down, and things smashed everywhere.
Marty and Sam worked most of the day to get into our vehicles and work on the driveway. I stayed inside, trying to keep warm since we had no power.
Marty hooked up a small generator to our brand new heated water lines that blew two weeks ago due to zero-degree weather. We couldn’t afford to have that happen again. Literally and figuratively.
For the rest of the day, we felt like sitting ducks. Sam went to the rescue squad and heard the severity of the power outage. It wasn’t good. Our town’s sub-station was down along with many wires from all of the trees that fell or lost their branches. Fuck was all I could think when he told us that. He said we might be days without power.
It began to snow which made matters worse. The already heavy ice-covered branches didn’t need heavy snow on top of it. The town set up a warming area located at the local high school. However, it was hard to get the word out to people because there was no cell service or internet.
Before Sam left for his overnight shift, he helped Marty hook up our larger generator. All we wanted to turn on was our refrigerator and mini-split heater. We unplugged almost everything else not to make the generator work so hard. Again, we had no idea how long we would be without power.
Initially, Marty and Sam hooked up our gas fireplace insert to a small backup battery but had to shut it down quickly when the carbon monoxide detector alarm started going crazy with the word “gas” flashing on the screen. Just before that happened, I began to feel weird and light-headed. No wonder why.
I went out on the front porch with the dogs until the propane dissipated. That’s when the guys got the mini-split hooked up instead. At least we finally had a little heat which we were very grateful for.
Sam and I used a french press coffee pot. We had to go old school and look in a cookbook for the water to coffee ratio.Whenever we have to light candles for light, I imagine what this house would have looked like back in 1832.
I could cook through all of this; I just needed to light the gas stove with a match: not that I would make anything real to eat anyway under the circumstances. I wanted biscuits and gravy, but I wasn’t going to attempt that in the dark.
Finally, the hard-working Green Mountain Power employees restored our power after 18 hours. I ran around the house like a fool, showering and blow drying my hair just in case the power went out again. Trees were still falling, and it was still snowing.
81% of our town was out of power for 18-24 hours. It was a miracle the Green Mountain Power crews got it fixed so quickly. Teams came down from the northern part of the state to help, working outside for 12 hours straight in single-digit temperatures.
If it weren’t for all the road crews, who kept on top of the roads the best they could, the power company trucks wouldn’t have been able to maneuver around as easily. A big thanks to everyone who helped with the situation.
I use potato starch to make my roux. I had to add a pat of butter since there wasn’t enough grease from the lean sausage I used. The sausage gravy is done when your spoon leaves an open trail when dragging it across the pan.Finally!
After my shower, I made us biscuits and gravy since it’s all I thought about all day. I used a new gluten-free biscuit recipe that worked brilliantly! I finally had flakey biscuits that rose. Yay! The meal hit the spot on such a cold, miserable night.
We lost power again during the night. I knew immediately because poor Otto started freaking out again. The power came back on again around 4 am. We fell back to sleep eventually after he calmed down.
Out our bedroom window at 3 am. There were 7 power trucks parked down a line in front of our house.
We were now so far behind in production besides missing our farmer’s market; we still had those big wholesale orders to fill. We thought about going into production this morning, but something told us to hold off.
Trees look like crystal chandeliers! love the sunbeam shining through the trees this afternoon.
We briefly lost power a couple more times in the morning and early afternoon. If the power went out during production, that would be disastrous, possibly ruining our equipment and wasting expensive ingredients. Thank goodness we listened to our gut instincts.
Our window screen.
Sam and Marty figured out why the gas fireplace insert failed because the screen on the chimney top must have been covered in ice like the screens in the windows. Thank goodness for that carbon monoxide safety monitor. I kept thinking that the place could have blown up, or we could have been taking a dirt nap. 😵 We will be waiting until the ice melts before relighting the gas fireplace.
The beautiful sunshine today didn’t melt any of the ice. It looks pretty though.
So, it’s been a stressful couple of days. Fingers crossed, the power stays on for good and poor Otto can finally relax meaning we can too! Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Cheers!
Our freshly painted and updated kitchen isn’t quite complete as we are still waiting for a couple items to arrive. It’s taking forever but we special ordered those items knowing it would take longer.
Just moved all glassware to wipe the shelving! Freshly sanitized countertops.
I am out of my mind obsessed with keeping the white cabinets and shelves as clean as the day they were painted. This leads to constantly wiping down our honed black granite countertops that are already 16 years old. Best purchase eve by the way.
The countertops are in the same condition as the day they were installed. They look great when they are clean compared to the cleanliness of everything else.
Listen, I cook hard in my kitchen; I mean the way I used to in professional kitchens. Flimsy, home kitchen cookware and utensils don’t hold up to #10 cans and constant use. They all end up bending or breaking. For instance, this morning I was making a pot of sauce for Tuesday and my Oneida can opener shit the bed mid-way opening a #10 can of San Marzano tomatoes.
In the trash…
I was being so careful when I was frying up the Italian sausage and while making my meatballs to not make a mess. The more I try to be neat, the messier things get. Then I had to contend with this mid-open can issue. Shit!
SOB!
All I could imagine was while I was prying open the can with a cleaver and church key, cursing my head off, was the can would open and splatter the whole clean kitchen.
As I was struggling for over ten minutes with the cleaver and can I kept thinking maybe a newly painted and updated kitchen wasn’t such a good idea for me. It couldn’t handle it when I got into beast mode cooking.
Finally, I got one side opened a little bit; just enough to pour the whole tomatoes slowing into the blender a little at a time. Hallelujah! The rest of the sauce making went off without a hitch.
Yes, of course I deserve a nice and clean kitchen but I can’t let it make me turn into a crazy person. I have to cook the way I cook and clean up afterwards. Hell, the old kitchen held up pretty well for 16 years of hard cooking and making thousands of meals. I literally mean thousands. I figured it out one night while laying in bed trying to fall asleep with insomnia.
Now, the sauce is on a low simmer for the day and the house smells so good! The kitchen is clean and I don’t have to worry about messing it up again later since we were invited to Martin’s house for dinner tonight.
The three of us love having Sunday dinner together and playing an extremely competitive game of 5 Crowns; which turns out to be the most fun card game ever!
After I publish this, I will be sitting on the couch, still in my pjs reading my book, “I, Eliza Hamilton” which I am enjoying very much. I still have a few hours before I have to get ready to go to Martin’s.
Sharing the sectional with Klausie-boy and Otto.
We are back in the production kitchen early in the morning to fill a bunch of wholesale orders that came in over the weekend. Thank goodness the orders keep coming in; we are very blessed. ☺️
I love waking up to flowers on my dresser.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and weekend guys. We are one day closer to spring! I even bought myself a bouquet of flowers at Aldi the other day to remind me that spring isn’t that far away!
Today much of the East Coast is being pounded by a nor’easter, dumping over a foot of snow “down the shore” in NJ with more on the way! Yikes, they never get snow like this!
The Boston area has received a foot and a half of snow in some areas. Blizzard warnings are in effect until Sunday morning, with another 4-7 inches of snow expected.
Our area of the North East was spared from the blizzard snowfall by only getting an inch or two but fell into another deep freeze. Again! The last three Saturdays, which are our Troy Farmer’s Market days have had sub-zero temperatures not counting the wind chill. We are under a wind chill advisory tonight, with wind chill temps as low as 20-30 below zero. That is cold AF!
My sweet boy Otto watching me while putting on multiple layers for the market. His eyes said, “Come back to bed Mama Julz.” Or, “so long sucker!” Lol.
It was a cold, snowy ride to the market this morning. We got stuck behind a plow truck for miles going under 25 mph, making the ride to Troy feel like it took forever. I shouldn’t have been so eager to get there as I sat in Marty’s warm truck with heated seats.
The Artium building that houses the Troy Market isn’t used during the week; however, the heat gets turned on Fridays. Our spot at the market is 20 yards from one of the entranceways making it super cold without any heat.
We thought the last two weeks at the market were cold, but the cold was different today than the previous two Saturdays. It was relentless and unsympathetic with strong winds.
My Parisian mask Sue made for me!
We dress appropriately making me feel like the Michelin Man but it honestly doesn’t matter when you aren’t moving around for 6 hours. I usually wear a surgical mask but today I wore a heavy three-layer cloth mask; which seemed to keep my face from freezing. The market manager’s wife makes them from super cute fabric and gives them out to the vendors. Thank you, Sue!
Here is an FYI…we use toe warmers on these cold days and they really work keeping our toes from cramping up standing on the cold tile floor. I bought two six-packs of toe warmers and now can’t find the other package for next week. I put things away in easy-to-find places for when I need them; then I can never find them. 🤦🏻♀️
I use anti-fog wipes for my glasses that work brilliantly. You have to take your time and use them correctly. I wipe my glasses and let them dry, then repeat two more times. The problem I had today was instead of my glasses fogging up; they kept glazing over with a thin layer of ice. 😖
We found a warm spot in the building before the market started and set up a picnic area. We had fancy toast with avocado egg salad. Actually, we had toasted whole-grain gluten-free english muffins from River Canyon and they sucked! The texture wasn’t good but thank goodness the avocado eggsalad was lit!
I made my normal eggsalad but instead of using mayonnaise, I added mashed avocado. It had a great consistency with “good” fat from the avocado as opposed to “bad” fat in mayonnaise. I ended up eating some of the eggsalad off the english muffins. The package of 4 english muffins cost $6.99 a disappointing purchase. I never mind spending money on good things, but I was pissed about these. Now, what the fuck will I do with the other two? I hate throwing food away.
We made it through the long, cold market and were slapped with temps that felt colder than the morning. I stayed dressed in my down coat zipped up, my scarf, hat, and gloves on the entire ride back to Vermont. When we got home the temperature here was 5 degrees colder than NY. Is there really a difference when we are talking about such extreme bitter, and ungodly cold temperatures?
I had the tea kettle on as soon as I stepped inside. We were cold inside and out. I made Marty a cup of tea and a hot chocolate with a shot of Bailey’s in it for me. The plan was to grill wagyu burgers outdoors tonight but the hell with that idea! I have no clue what to make now and have no backup plan. It happens to all of us…the great dinner dilemma. It will probably end up heating up leftovers.
Stay warm my friends and don’t overdo it with the shoveling. The white stuff will still be there in the morning.
I cook dinner almost every night and usually make enough for leftovers. Sam’s question most days is, “What are we having for dinner, how much are you making, and will there be enough for leftovers?” Lol.
As I am cleaning up after dinner, I put some leftovers in a “Swanson’s dinner” type of to-go container for his work meal. It’s not extra work, and I am happy to do it.
Sam said when he reheats his food; his coworkers always say how good it smells. The other night, he told me his coworkers wanted to know when his mom would make them some food. 😂
I’ve made food for the emergency department, aka ED, before and planned to do it again. After Sam’s comment, I decided to do it this week.
Sam works as an RN on the overnight shift from 6 pm – 6 am most nights. I know that some people have restaurants deliver pizzas or donuts & muffins to the ED or make platters of food for the staff…the day shift staff, that is. The overnight crew never even gets leftover scraps.
Working in a hospital as a frontline worker or volunteer isn’t in my blood. Just the thought of medical issues makes me queasy. I can’t even look when someone has an eyelash in their eye. Noah, my older son, is just like me.
What can I do to give back, to show my appreciation to the frontline folks? Well, I can cook for them, of course!
Marty wanted to give back to the community after witnessing the brave fire and rescue workers on TV on 9/11. The next day, he went to our local rescue squad and has been a volunteer ever since. He is an advanced EMT; his calls are usually in the middle of the night, horrible accidents, very sick people, and lately, many suicides.
Many people aren’t sure how to give back to show their appreciation to first responders, firefighters, and hospital workers. These men and women make the difference between life and death in many cases. Some people like to donate to their local fire and rescue agencies each year.
Courtesy SVHC
A couple of days after I decided to make dinner for the ED, I saw a Facebook post that Sam’s hospital, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, posted. They set up a meal train for people who wish to donate meals to the hospital’s staff. Here is the link to the meal train if anyone is interested.
Courtesy SVMC
A meal train is a coordinated schedule that people can sign up for a specific day and time to have a meal brought in or delivered to the department of their choice. FYI…As I mentioned earlier, most people never think of the overnight night crews.
The hospital has been at or close to capacity and very busy with covid patients and many other very sick people. The staff are too busy to even think about food and sometimes don’t eat anything during their 12 shifts.
In Sam’s case, nothing is open in the middle of the night if he and his coworkers are hungry and want to order take out from somewhere.
I sent Sammy off to work yesterday with a big pan of Swedish meatballs, 59 to be exact, and a 4 lb pan of buttered spätzle to go with the meatballs. He would put the food out in the break area at the beginning of the overnight shift so his coworkers could grab some whenever they had a spare second. BTW…My Swedish Meatball recipe is available in the new Food & Recipes section of the blog.
59 Swedish Meatballs & 4lbs spätzle with a whole lot of gravy!
It doesn’t matter where you live; if you want to show your appreciation to any hospitals staff or fire & rescue agencies personnel for making a difference in their or their family’s lives may consider sending them a meal. It doesn’t have to be fancy; pizza is always a big hit.
You can call your local hospital, fire, or rescue squads to inquire how you can send a meal to their staff. It could be the ED, the ICU, labor and delivery, or medical-surgical floors. It can be anything from donuts or cookies to breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Courtesy SVMC
For anyone unable to send a meal, consider sending a handwritten card or email thanking staff members, which is also appreciated. Nurses and staff get awards and recognition when the hospital receives letters praising one of their employees for doing a great job or going above and beyond to help a patient. It takes a lot of dedicated team members, not only nurses or doctors, to keep the hospital running smoothly, safely, and clean.
Over the last two years, the pandemic has been very hard emotionally and physically on frontline workers who have seen more death and horrible situations to last them a lifetime. A small gesture from someone makes them feel like it’s all worthwhile, and their hard work is appreciated.
I don’t usually write posts like this one, but it’s important to share this with you. Hey, we will all get through these tough times, but in the meantime, making someone else’s day a little brighter can’t hurt. Hope helps. ❤️
Yippee! I am excited to announce in this 300th post there is a new section in the menu of my page, Food & Recipes. Thank you, Marty, for helping me with this. ❤️
This morning, I went through all my blog posts categorizing the food and recipe posts. So far, the posts that contain an original recipe have the word recipe in the title. I say so far because I may go back in the future and write the recipes for some dishes I only wrote about.
Some cooking posts contain links to websites I used to make the dish giving the recipe’s owner credit and not just copying and pasting as many food blogs do. This annoys me beyond belief that people claim a recipe as their own when they blatantly steal it from another site.
Creating your own recipe isn’t hard; the copy and paste folks could at least customize the formula even if it means changing the quantity of an ingredient. Do they not know this? Are they too lazy or don’t care? If they like a recipe the way it is, give the person credit; it’s as simple as that. Always give credit where credit is due.
I hope you like the new section and find it helpful. I am also open to cooking questions or suggestions for dishes you would like me to showcase or demonstrate.
Good morning! Normally, we are in production on Friday mornings but due to an issue with our special water supply lines out to the production kitchen and the negative degree temps coming, yesterday we produced enough spätzle for two days.
New heated water lines are coming in the next day or two after the original ones were damaged last week due to the sub-zero wind chill temperatures.
My blog turned one year old this week and this is my 299 post. I tried blogging every day, but with a busy business I missed a few days here and there.
My writing mentor Jon Katz said to always write when you have something to say, if you don’t then don’t write for the sake of writing and producing shit no one cares about. True, true true!
Thanks Jon for taking the time to work with me and help me improve my writing skills. I hear your voice in my head while writing and try to follow your advice.
So what’s new this year? I am finally going to categorize the recipes I’ve posted with a separate category titled “Recipes.” Clever name right? 😜
This morning I am going through my blog posts looking for ones with actual recipes. I have to change the title of each of those posts to make them have the recipe’s title.
Over the last few months I taught myself how to write a recipe directly on the page and not somewhere else then try to import it into the post. Much easier for a person not good with technology.
Marty is going to teach me how to create the new category and how to add recipes to the section. The new recipe category will be in the same menu section with “My blog” “About me” and “Support my blog” choices.
My goal is to also have someone help me figure out how to add a print button on my recipes. I know it can be done with a whatever you call it thingy but I am not sure.
So, thanks for reading my blog over the last year. Looking back I see improvement changes to my writing and positive changes as a person. Your comments and support have made the blog something I look forward to do on a daily basis.
Happy Friday! This is the first one of my blog’s new year and another year on my journey! Thanks again everyone. 😊
New tile. I took the pic quick and it’s too dark, but you get the idea.
Happy Friday! I only have a second to check in and show you a quick peek of the tile we chose. The tile work is done and the vent hood is installed. My stove back is in place; sparking clean and hooked back up to propane. Yay!
Today, we were in the production kitchen cranking out spätzle. Fridays are Broadway Fridays so production goes fast listening to fun broadway hits.
I went on a delivery run and Marty packed us up for the farmers market tomorrow. It’s going to be a cold one, they are forecasting -6 degrees when we will be leaving. Our spot at the farmers market is in a hallway near a doorway. The building isn’t heated during the week so it starts off very cold; we never feel the heat that comes on anyway. Needless to say, we will be freezing our asses off.
I am taking lots of layers with me to stay warm, but to be honest with you, I am dreading being cold for so many hours. Well, it’s part of the job and goes with the territory.
Have a great Saturday. Stay warm if you are in the Northeast and get out your snow shovels for Monday’s snowstorm. ❄️
Last night, I taught my first belly dance class of 2022, and it was awesome! Last Wednesday, I missed the first dance class of the year because I had a terrible headache and a sore throat. I took a negative covid test, but I was too under the weather to dance.
The last time I danced was in mid-December, so I was looking forward to dancing all week. I found out the night before class that I would have a new beginner student joining us.
Image from Pinterest.
Typically, we have new students show up to class as part of their New Years’ resolutions, 98% don’t stay long. Trish, one of our core students, is part of the 2% who stick it out. She came to the first class of the year six years ago.
I teach a 20-minute warm-up and strength-building class before our level 1 class begins. In this class, I make a different music playlist every week with all sorts of music from swing to Latino and everything in between.
I repetitively use many of our dance moves, along with exercises for our lats, shoulders, biceps, and triceps. We dance group improv style, so this class is as well. There is no routine for our students to learn; they follow along. For me, it’s the most fun 20 minutes I have all week.
I noticed a young man and woman come into the dance studio during the workout class. We weren’t expecting anyone besides a new woman who emailed us the day before, who had already joined us. Kathleen went over to talk to them while I continued.
The good news was, they were there to take belly dance lessons. Wow! Because of the pandemic, we haven’t had new students join us in two years. They saw a flyer in the Cambridge Co-op and decided to come. The couple was looking for something new to do together and decided to go to our class. Yip!
This was the first male belly dance student I have ever taught. Our dance troupe has always been open to anyone 16+, including men. No dance or musical experience is necessary.
The couple had some previous dance experience, and the male student brought his own zills (finger cymbals), which was a great surprise. He could play zill correctly after a few minutes while I was teaching the new group zills.
I love teaching belly dance just as much as I love dancing and performing. I am a good teacher and try always to make new students feel welcome, at ease, and laugh. I have them dancing before the hour class is up and leave them with a preview of what to expect the following week.
This group of three new students learned quickly, and we covered more ground than usual. I think they had fun and enjoyed themselves. I have felt this many times before; those students never showed up again. I thanked the three of them for joining us and hope to see them next week. Fingers crossed. 🤞🏼
After the newbies left, I joined the rest of the group for the level three class. We had Maria and Kat, who couldn’t make it in person to class, join us earlier with zoom. They can follow us just like they are in person, which is pretty phenomenal to me.
During level three, we drilled moves and corrected techniques. Maria, who stayed for the advanced class, followed along with the drills. I was able to watch her and the in-person students and help her with her technique as well.
When the classes were over, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Dance is my happy place. It’s my joy and the one thing I do just for myself. Teaching dance not only helps students learn, but more importantly, it makes me continue to learn.
This quote from Sensi Mochizuki Minoru couldn’t be more accurate, “A teacher is a student who teaches to continue his study.”
It finally feels like a new year and fantastic to do what I love. 💗
Yup, it’s that time of the year—the time when temps dip down into the negatives here in the Northeast. When I got up this morning, it was -1 degrees, but it felt like it was in the negative teens with the wind chill. The kind of morning when you step outdoors and the inside of your nose freezes instantly.
Artwork titled Moonlight in Vermont by Medana Gabbard. I love this, especially since Moonlight in Vermont was the last song played at our wedding.
As I walked the 38 steps outside to work in the production kitchen, I noticed most of the houses in my neighborhood had little puffs of smoke coming out of their chimneys. When we moved to Vermont from NJ over 32 years ago, I thought this was the quaintest thing I ever saw. I felt like I was living in a Currier and Ives painting.
It really does look like this here in Vermont! Image courtesy of Pastor Tom 3.
Where I grew up in NJ, the only smoke I ever saw billowing out of chimney pipes were from all of the refineries and plants nearby. I never remember seeing little puffs of smoke coming out of people’s chimneys.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings because I always did. When I used to walk to and from school or to a friend’s house, I would try to identify who was watching tv. I am guessing I could hear a high pitch sound of tv tuners. Then I tried to imagine what I thought they would be watching. This was long before cable tv, so all the programs were pretty clean-cut, all American tv shows except soap operas, perhaps.
My sense of smell would kick into gear whenever I was walking too. I could smell cigarette and pipe smoke coming out from people’s windows. Car fumes. Good smells coming from the bakery or Chinese take-out place. In the mornings, I smelled bacon some days. I could smell meats being grilled in the evenings, and I could always smell whenever some had a big pot of sauce on.
Most Italian families I know saved their pots of sauce for the weekends, but Wednesdays were Prince spaghetti days. I remember the commercial from when I was a kid. An Italian lady yelled out of the apartment window, “Anthony!” She said it like this, “An-the-nee!” Next, they showed Anthony running his cubby little ass off home for Prince spaghetti day. Good marketing when you can remember something 40 years later.
I also remember sounds. Kids playing ball in the street yelling, “Car!” Babies and younger kids crying or shrieking, and dogs barking. The thing that stopped me in my tracks and gave me a stomachache half a block from my house was my mother yelling. I hated when I heard her yelling at my father or the other child they adopted. I knew when I got home, I would get yelled at too.
It was so embarrassing knowing that if I could hear my mother yelling, the rest of the block could too. I knew other kids got yelled at; it didn’t matter because I still remember my cheeks getting red from embarrassment and the dread of the rest of the walk home.
Back to puffy little smoke clouds coming from chimneys. I don’t want this blog post to turn into a nasty memory piece; it’s supposed to be about looking for beauty we can find in our surroundings, whether you are in NJ, NY, Vermont, or anywhere else in the world.
I always make my family stop and look at beautiful sunrises or sunsets: rainbows, the moon, and the stars. I have them stop and listen to a particular bird or other sounds. I saw rabbit footprints in the snow this morning on my way to work. If it weren’t below zero, I would have walked to see where the bunny came from. Just looking up, you can see a whole different world around you and it can change your entire day. A world where everyone is on their fucking phones. Look up, dammit!
I feel fortunate to live in such a picturesque place. We chose to take the plunge and move here to live a simpler life, a place where we raised our boys in a more peaceful and safer environment. Marty and I chose to start our business, The Vermont Spätzle Company, here as well. This isn’t the place to make a lot of money, wear dressy clothes or shoes, or have convenient things around, that’s for sure.
I remember reading an article about when you start your day, it can be a good day or a bad day; it all depends on your attitude and what you see outside your little bubble. It’s for you to decide every single day. This is very hard to remember especially during these difficult times; noticing the small things in life helps to remind me of this, but not always. Some days I am bitchy, depressed, or miserable.
Good news! We are pretty close to completing the kitchen project! Yesterday, we did the tiling on the wall behind the stove, and it came out fantastic! Coming up with the pattern made my head hurt, but it looks good. Tomorrow, the tile can be grouted. I can’t wait to be able to cook normally again. Tonight, I am attempting French Onion Soup in Sam’s Instant pot, I am honestly not sure how it will turn out, but it smells good!
