reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: cooking together


by Leave a comment

the new mandoline. [d.r. thursday]

i read the reviews. i always read the reviews. before purchasing. before booking. before going. before clicking.

this one said, “and the first thing we made was potato chips! because we could!” it made up my mind – that would be the first thing we’d make too. homemade potato chips. goodness! we were jazzed.

the new mandoline was a little bit of an investment for sparing people who already own cutting boards and knives. i kept the tab open on my laptop for about a week, pondering, for we do not buy in haste here. but in the middle of the indecision – and still, the middle of this pandemic – in lieu of restaurants, pubs, bistros – eateries of any kind – we felt we could justify it. plus it was on sale. plus it had a zillion reviews raving about how it changed the lives of the people who purchased it. plus, potato chips!

the slicing was a dream! it took little to no time to have thin slices of three large potatoes. tossed in olive oil (maybe avocado oil would be good too) with a bit of sea salt, we laid them out on the old cookie sheet. (note to self: buy new insulated cookie sheets) the recipe gave a raaaaange of temperatures in the oven so we went with almost the highest. and… bake!

having to turn each individual potato slice over to bake the other side was a tad bit tedious. i cannot imagine the lays people doing that with their baked-chips. we quickly realized that we needed fewer chips-to-be on the sheet in order for them to self-actualize. that would mean three potatoes of potential chips would take a few rounds in the oven. nevertheless, we persevered, knowing that this was an experiment and experiments are supposed to be, er, experimental.

they may not have looked like the homemade chips at red robin, but they did not require driving anywhere or concerning ourselves with a restaurant’s ventilation system. they were browned and crunchy and just sea-salty enough. even the ones that were not-quite-there were devoured. we figure we will try it again. and we can try sweet potato chips too.

cause this new mandoline is pretty cool, just like the reviews said. 2022. who knew?

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

peruse DAVID’S online gallery


by Leave a comment

the gov-of-georgia and plant-based foods. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

i woke up thinking i could have done a better speech. one does not run for the governor-of-georgia without a good speech. but the constituents at the rally seemed to appreciate it anyway, so i shrugged and promised myself to write a better narrative the next time. “they need to know the intentions i have for the office,” i told d, after sipping a few sips of coffee. he stared at me, likely envisioning what a move to the georgian governor’s mansion might look like, or, maybe what it would be like to be first-husband-of-the-gov.

alas, though it sure looked real for a while, things were not as they seemed and the details all started fading away the more coffee i sipped.

we are eating many plant-based foods these days. admittedly, not every day, but often. we looked back a few weeks and there were only three or four evenings our dinner was not plant-based. as we take this path, we’ll see if it’s entirely to the vegetarian-way-of-life. in the meanwhile, we are on a big learning curve. we have punctuated our veggie soup and plant-based sausage veggie hash and impossible burgers and red pesto pasta with a chicken soup here, one ribeye-split there. it is truly amazing what you can purchase now’days when you are trying to eat significantly less meat. you CAN buy anything that looks like something.

we bought the impossible burgers with some doubt. we’ve eaten black bean burgers for years – which taste like black beans and spices – so we figured that these burgers would also taste like something else other than a burger-burger. i wondered how plants-as-a-burger would taste grilled and salt-and-peppered. i had some trepidation. plus, the whole30 had encouraged us away from processed foods.

we were astounded upon first bite. we know these are not whole foods. there is a list of ingredients, some of which are those things difficult to pronounce, but all the ingredients are “derived from plants”. the beyond-meat sweet italian sausage in our veggie hash was pretty amazing, with seemingly a few less hard-to-pronounce ingredients.

i don’t know where this is all headed. we are experimenting with our diet and recipes and we are trying to be environmentally and animal conscious. we do know we love vegetables and fruits and can figure out ways to be more responsible to our world and all its inhabitants. more conscious consumerism.

if you have any recipes to share – or gubernatorial speech thoughts – please don’t hesitate to jot them to us. we’d love to hear from you.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


by Leave a comment

spinach leaves and shredded parmesan. [merely-a-thought monday]

a couple suggestions and, now, i owe her. they make all the difference. she, in some amazingly intuitive way, knows how to lift dinners, no matter the plate, to splendid.

leaves of spinach quietly waiting in a bowl for ladles of homemade chicken soup. and then, shredded – not grated – parmesan dresses it off. if soup can be called glorious, this fits the adjective.

in this time of pandemic – this never-ending-we’ve-never-done-this-before-therefore-we-all-need-some-grace-two-years – we are cooking to maintain sanity. and i have to agree with elsa (whose auto-biography “shocking life” i now want to read) that “eating well gives a spectacular joy to life.” though these two years have not been lavish in expensive foods for us, they have been rich in the experience of cooking and dining together on meals we have mutually prepared.

we love to cook together. and, lucky for me, david loves to chop. i can line up a festival of ingredients to be prepped and he, the mighty sous chef, takes them on willingly and, really, with a little bit of glee. that makes my cooking a wee bit like one of those shows where all the ingredients are in tiny and big bowls, measured and ready. we don’t have swanky pots and pans, but we have an abundance of zeal and, let me tell you, when we are hungry we are daaang focused.

if we feel we can do nothing else – no indoor restaurants, no pubs, no gatherings, no potlucks – then we can invest in cooking for each other or for ourselves. we can honor good food, plain or fancy-schmancy, placed in bowls or on plates, plain or fancy-schmancy, and time taken to savor and be grateful for being fortunate enough to sit at a table and eat.

it’s a bounty of goodness.

and spectacular joy.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


by Leave a comment

what’s for dinner? [saturday morning smack-dab.]

anticipation (noun): the action of anticipating something; expectation.

they say anticipation is everything. planning and devising and strategizing and dreaming – so much before actually executing. it all looks so good in your mind’s eye. getting there can be a let down, anti-climatic.

often we go out to hike at the end of the day. sometimes this is merely a walk around the ‘hood, along the lakefront. sometimes we drive to a trailhead and walk in the woods. it just depends on how much time we have before the mosquitoes.

there is one common denominator, however. we always end up talking about food. the conversation falls on dinner plans and seems to hang there, treading water in an eddy of food-possibilities as we get hungrier and hungrier.

on the trail and on the sidewalk we often have grandiose designs for dinner, thinking of some of the new recipes we would like to try or zeroing in on favorites that take time and are particular.

and then reality hits.

it’s like when you go grocery shopping and have a huge basket of groceries. you wander the store with your vast list, fuss over produce, price compare, fill the cart, stand in line, check out, load the bags in the car, drive them home, unload them and put them away. and then – the fridge and the pantry replenished – you no longer want to cook. you have had your fill.

the same happens walking. after talking so much about choosing a recipe, listing the ingredients, talking about how lovely it will be to prepare this dinner, we have exhausted ourselves. no longer is it possible to go all out and cross the fine dining line.

we give in. it’s time for charcuterie and a glass of wine. or take-out.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2021 kerrianddavid.com