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Feeding heroes…

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. ❤️

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300th post…

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.

Have a great weekend, everyone!!!

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Creating a new category…

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. 😊



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Potatoes what?

Being friends with a chef who cooks for us often has taught me not only about foods I have never heard of before but also the techniques.

Our friend Martin has been a private chef for the last 20 years but comes from a long history of working as the executive chef in restaurants in NYC, the Hamptons, NJ, and various other places. 

A couple of weeks ago, Martin had us over on a Sunday night, a Sunday night when the kitchen was torn apart. I laughed when he called to invite us; I told him I wished he would all day. 

We had Filet Mignon Steaks, Roasted Asparagus, and Potatoes Romanoff.

I eat small portions and get filled up quickly, but I ate almost everything on my plate that night. Martin was amazed while he watched me eat. It made him happy. It made me happy because the food was delicious and all the food we ate for the last week was either made in the microwave or toaster oven.

The steak was a perfect medium-rare and very tender. I love asparagus anytime, but those potatoes! Holy shit, they were good. They were also in the oven before we got there, so I didn’t get to see how he made them. 

I asked what kind of potatoes he made. He said, “Potatoes Romanoff.” Potatoes what? I had never heard of them before. I never play a food know-it-all with Martin and asked him about the potatoes. He told me he shredded baked potatoes added some shallots, cheddar cheese, sour cream, salt, and pepper. Everything is lightly tossed and piled high in a casserole dish, then baked until golden brown and crispy.

I looked up recipes and the history of these famous potatoes, and Martin was right on the money with the ingredients and technique.

Potatoes Romanoff originated in a restaurant in Greenwich Village in the city called The Strip House. A second location of The Strip House was located in Las Vegas; how fitting!

The Strip chef, John Schenk, made a special potato gratin that went perfectly with steaks. Chef John took a dish he remembered his mother making while he was growing up and turned it into an upscale dish. The dish his mother made was funeral potatoes.

I’ve heard of funeral potatoes but never really knew what they were. Well, duh, potatoes, but what else? Funeral potatoes were a side dish served at a luncheon after a funeral or at a potluck dinner.

Funeral potatoes are a hot dish and are popular in the midwest; however, I’ve seen them in a Pennsylvania Dutch Amish cookbook. The main ingredients are hash brown potatoes, cheddar cheese, cream of chicken or mushroom soup, sour cream, butter, corn flakes, or crushed potato chips. The casserole is usually served with baked ham.

Stuffed peppers with Potatoes Romanoff.

I decided to make Potatoes Romanoff this week, and the dish came out just like Martin’s. We didn’t have it with steak, but with stuffed peppers. I was going to make mashed potatoes but tried these instead. I will be making them again.

It’s late as I am finishing up this blog post. I got home from belly dance class around 8:20 pm; it was almost 9 pm when we ate dinner. I made corned beef earlier in the day and made Rueben sandwiches. This is how my brain works…On Saturday, I saw a vendor making Rueben panini sandwiches at the Troy Farmers Market. It wasn’t gluten-free, so I could only wish I could have one. Sunday morning, while grocery shopping, I bought a…you guessed it. A corned beef!

Dance class was great again tonight. The three new belly students from last week came back again this week! I was thrilled when they said how much they like the class and how fun it is. That’s always been my goal! ✅ Yip!

I am exhausted and will literally have to drag my ass upstairs to bed. That’s a wrap. Goodnight!

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Red Cabbage Recipe…

Last night I posted about the German meal I made for Sunday dinner. While making the red cabbage I took photos and mentally noted amounts and directions for a recipe I would write today. The red cabbage recipe is really for our Vermont Spätzle website, but I am also sharing it with you.

Today, while scrubbing our home kitchen floor on my hands and knees, I started thinking about why red cabbage is called red and not purple. The same thing goes for red onions, which are also purple.

The bigger question to answer is why the hell with the modern invention of a mop was I scrubbing on my hands and knees? The floor was so dirty from the kitchen project; a mop wouldn’t do the job correctly.

The color of red cabbage comes from a pigment called anthocyanins. Depending on the soil’s acidity levels, where it is grown determines the color. If the soil is acidic, the cabbage will be red; if neutral, the cabbage will be purple, and yellowish-green if alkaline.

So why is it called red when it’s almost always purple? There are many answers I found today when I looked up red cabbage. All colors come from primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, and are used to name things. For example, red cabbage and red onion peels and leaves were used to make a natural reddish-blue dye. Blue and red make purple. Germans call red cabbage after it is cooked blaukraut. Blau is blue in German, making more sense. Red hair is on the yellow side, giving redheads a golden orange-red color.

Some people think it is called red cabbage because of where you live; some places call it purple cabbage, apparently not here. There are dozens of other reasons why red cabbage is called red and not purple, so we get the point.

I use bacon fat to sauté the onions, apples, and red cabbage before the braising process for my red cabbage recipe. I always keep a jar of bacon fat in the refrigerator, which we refer to as liquid gold or porky goodness. The bacon fat gives the red cabbage a lovely flavor that can’t be mimicked with butter. However, butter can be used for vegetarians, and some kind of oil can be used for vegans I suppose. I use the real deal.

Mise en place of ingredients.
Melting the bacon fat and sautéing apples and onions.

I mise en place all the ingredients before I start cooking. The cut on the vegetable is a rough chop meaning the pieces don’t have to look like perfect dice for this braise. The apples and onions disappear at the end of the cook time.

Progression of ingredients.

The appearance of red cabbage after 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1 1/2 hours and 2 hours. Notice how the apples and onions slowly disappear.

My recipe is the perfect balance of sweet and sour, but feel free to add more vinegar if you like it that way. I use apple cider vinegar but have also used white and red vinegar; it’s up to you and what you have on hand. Please do not go out and buy a specific vinegar for this recipe.

The cooked red cabbage freezes well. We always have it for one meal; then, I freeze the rest.

Without further adieu…here’s my recipe.

Red Cabbage

Ingredients

1 head of red cabbage
2 medium apples
1 medium onion
2 Tbsp bacon fat
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp whole cloves
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Remove the outer leaves from the red cabbage. Wash and dry the cabbage. Cut the cabbage into quarters and cut out the stem. Thinly slice the cabbage.

Peel, quarter, core, and roughly chop the apples. Roughly chop the onion.

In a dutch oven, over medium heat, melt the fat of your choice and sauté the onions and apples until the onions are translucent but not brown. Stir in the cabbage, mixing thoroughly. Sauté for 10 minutes on medium heat.

Add the kosher salt, pepper, bay leaf, cloves, brown sugar, vinegar, and water. Stir to combine. Cover and simmer on low for 2 hours, checking and stirring the cabbage every 30 minutes.

Cook until the cabbage is tender and the apples are no longer visible. Check for seasoning, adding more kosher salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaf and any visible cloves. Warn your diners there may still be cloves in the cabbage while they are eating.

Guten Appetit!

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German Sunday dinner…

Roasted pork & spätzle topped with mushroom cream sauce and red cabbage.

We own and operate a German food manufacturing business called The Vermont Spätzle Company. You would think I made more German food than I do with a German company.

Yes, our spätzle is considered a German food; however, I use it as I would any pasta as our customers do. In Germany, spätzle is served with cheese, caramelized onions, or brown gravy.

Our spätzle can be made with pesto, shrimp scampi, topped with Bolognese sauce, with Asian sauces, casseroles, and soups; you name it. Basically, it can be as simple as sautéed with butter or as complex as you wish with endless possibilities.

Our newly updated kitchen is done but still needs a few things to finish it. When everything is complete and the kitchen is finished, I’ll do a reveal. Tonight, I will show you how gorgeous the new tile wall and hood vent look. The area is so bright, light, and airy. I no longer cook in a cramped, dark space with a vent hood that wasn’t appropriate and constantly over-heated.

Before.
After.

I’ve had a head of red cabbage in the fridge for quite a while and needed to use it. I decided to make a traditional German dinner. On the menu, roasted pork tenderloin with mushroom cream sauce, sauteed spätzle, and red cabbage.

Red cabbage, not something that everyone makes very often or at all for that matter. I make a very good pot of red cabbage with my recipe I adapted from an old German cookbook from Dr. Oetker. I’ve been making it for at least 30 years and have gotten rave reviews from Germans. We had a German garden railroad event at our house; I made German food for Germans. This was long before the spätzle business, but I still felt confident that my food would pass the taste test.

I got out the original recipe to see the amounts I changed years ago. I have since changed them again.

As a cook who has cooked for many other people professionally, you always have a little anxiety just before service. Every cook wants their dishes to be delicious and loved by the diners. This event was no different. I made a super-strong vodka drink when it was over and celebrated I pulled it off.

I remember I grilled different German sausages. I made hot German potato salad with red cabbage. I also made a Black Forrest sheet cake that was a huge hit. I kept busy while people were eating and were so proud when the guests all told me my red cabbage was better than their mothers and omas. This was a huge fucking compliment if there ever was one!

Back to tonight’s red cabbage, I decided to write the recipe for my dish to publish on our business’s website along with many other recipes I wrote. Customers always ask for German food recipes that go with our spätzle, so this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

I mentally noted quantities, directions, and cook times while making it this afternoon. I will sit down and physically write the recipe tomorrow. I’ll share it with you guys, too, if anyone has a craving for red cabbage. My recipe is the perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, and savory; plus, it isn’t hard to make. Jarred red cabbage is tasty, but homemade is the real deal and is much better.

As I started sautéing the red cabbage on my spotless stove surrounded by the new white tiles and light gray walls, I tried to be extra careful not to splatter. I guess this was a ballsy move, almost asking for trouble, but whatever, the stove is for cooking. During clean-up, I was happy I didn’t make a mess at all.

I took demo photos as I prepared the red cabbage and some pictures of the finished plate for the spätzle business. The German meal was perfect for a cold Sunday night with snow in the forecast, plus it was terrific too. Marty loved it! 🥰

Right now, I am going outside to make sure the hatches are battened down and pick up the dog’s balls. I’ll be sure to bring in some flashlights. 40-50 mph wind gusts will accompany the snowstorm forecasted to start soon. Terrific right? The power company is warning people for power outages already. Ugh. They say 8-14 inches of snow with wind, then turning to rain and ice. Ick.

A beautiful snowstorm when you have nowhere to go is one thing, but no one likes the shit show of a storm coming. Be safe and stay warm, my upstate NY and Vermont friends.

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Sneak peek…

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. ❄️

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Back to belly dance…

Image from Pinterest.

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. 💗 

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Baby, it’s cold outside…

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!

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Kitchen project update…

Before I begin, this blog post was supposed to be published yesterday; however, our Comcast was out from about 4 pm until 1 am.

Besides not being able to work on my blog we had a different issue. We have a smart home that needs the internet for things to go on and off. I didn’t realize how much we rely on the internet, but the smart home is fantastic when it works.

We’ve been working hard all week on our kitchen project. Each step of the project relies on the one before it.

I have a lot of kitchen gear and a well-stocked pantry bursting at the seams, making it frustrating every time I needed or wanted something.

A couple of days ago, I showed you the successful equipment pantry we built in the back room of the home in an unused loft area. I added the raclette machine we used on Christmas Eve and more serving platters and dishes to the pantry this morning. Funny note, every time I try to write the word raclette, it changes to racketeering. 😂

One of our goals of the kitchen project is to free up more counter space and give the kitchen an updated look. Yes, we had a lovely kitchen with red as a strong accent color, but 15 years later, we want a change.

Last week, we did some demo in the area near my stove. Back in November, when I thought my six-burner stove shit the bed, we realized that the vent hood located over the high BTU stove wasn’t strong or high enough.

Since Marty could fix the stove, saving us thousands of dollars, we decided to remove the upper cabinets and replace the vent hood with an appropriate one. One that doesn’t overheat and goes into panic mode. I have this stove to cook on; I don’t want to worry about not using all of the burners at once; that’s what it’s for.

A couple of months ago, Marty found the exact European vent hood from Italy that we were looking at on Facebook Marketplace. All of our spätzle business’ commercial kitchen equipment, furniture, and other miscellaneous things have come from Facebook Marketplace. I’ve mentioned before Marty is a master wheeler and dealer at buying and selling.

The vent hood was still brand new in the unopened box for half the price; the person we bought it from shipped it to us for a reasonable fee. They purchased the fan; then, they decided to go with a copper fan instead. Obviously, money wasn’t an issue if they could afford a copper vent hood and let our new vent hood go for a bargain. A huge score for us!

Since we removed the upper cabinets to make room for the new vent hood, we got to pick out new European tiles for the wall behind the stove. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted until we got to the store.

We went to a tile store in Albany, NY, with a certain look in mind, but then we saw all the options, different patterns, and materials the tiles were made from. We also had to consider the size of the tiles for a small area. Holy shit! I was overwhelmed, and my head was spinning. I had too hot of a sweater on and was sweating my ass off while in sensory overload.

I finally sucked it up, and we asked one of the designers, who are free of charge, to help us. She listened to us, showed us dozens of options, then found the perfect tiles. We ordered them and picked them up three weeks later. When the designer found the tiles, I asked her if anyone told her they loved her that day. She said no, so I told her I loved her for finding the perfect tiles. She laughed and was glad she made us happy.

The tiles we chose come in six similar patterns that can be put together in endless options. When I can’t sleep, I rearrange these tiles in my head for hours, it seems. It’s stressful because I don’t want to regret the pattern we choose. I will be looking at this wall whenever I cook and want to get it right.

This photo shows how dingy the white looked after 15 years. Ewww!

We’ve been painting all week; first the walls, then all of the wainscoting, shelving, and cabinetry. It was time-consuming because we did it correctly by taking off the cabinet pulls, doors, and hinges. The cabinets look fantastic and brand new. It was a pain in the ass but worth the effort.

Freshly painted food pantry organized and neat…for now!

Today, I stayed home from the farmer’s market to reorganize our food pantry. After moving all of the equipment to the back room, I could put the microwave in the pantry in the kitchen freeing up precious counter space. Everything is so organized, I wonder how long it will stay that way.

Hopefully, tomorrow we can start the vent hood and figure out the tiling part of the project; it’s the last part and the trickiest. We’ve renovated our entire home ourselves, but it’s always a little intimidating until we get going. You never know what kind of problems you can run into when renovating an 1832 home.

So that’s the update. My dining room is almost free of the chaotic clutter, and the backroom is back to normal for the most part. We are getting there, and I can start cooking for real again. Thank goodness for leftovers I froze and were either baked in the toaster oven or microwaved all week.