Well. It's only Monday and already I've had my brush with danger for this week
(actually, it was on Sunday). Here is some gratuitous advice: you know those
tempered-glass casseroles and pots that are supposed to be safe for the stovetop?
Don't believe them. And when Mark Bittman (How to Cook Everything) tells
you to saute oil and garlic in a casserole dish, don't believe him
either.
I was attempting to make a beef stew (actually a Belgian
carbonnade, though I was still debating whether to cook it with beer, as
prescribed, or with wine) and the recipe said to take a casserole or deep skillet,
saute a clove of garlic in oil for one minute, discard the garlic, and then brown
the beef cubes. I chose to use a glass casserole dish that I *swear* said it was
safe for stovetop use on the theory that it would hold in heat better than my
aluminum frying pan (I don't have a cover for my cast-iron pan), sauteed as
instructed, put in the first batch of beef, then CRASH! SQUEAL! TINKLE! SHIT! The
casserole exploded, spraying glass onto me, the stove top, and the adjacent
counters. The squealing and the swearing was me, the rest was the glass dish
Rudder said it made a very pretty sound -- presumably not the swearing part -- but
since he said it while cleaning up most of the glass, I can't complain about his
misplaced aesthetic sense. (And anyway, it probably was a pretty sound.)
No injuries were received, except to dinner. Fortunately, my
wearing-glasses-to-rest-the-eyes-from-contacts day happened to coincide with my
got-spare-time-so-I-should-cook-something-real day, and I don't think the glass
sprayed that high anyway. We decided to throw out the meat rather than rinsing it;
even the beef pieces that weren't in the dish were on the counter right next to it
and we were afraid rinsing might not get rid of all embedded shards. So much for
beef stew; take-out burritos for dinner.
Saturday had its
disappointments, but less so. We were hoping to do some cross-country skiing up by
our property, but the snow wasn't quite deep enough. It was a very nice packing
sort of snow, though, so we went over to our place and left large snowballs and in
one case a snowman nearly my size by some of the more vulnerable young trees, to
give them a bit extra water. The whole thing would have been even more fun if I
could throw a snow ball well enough to actually hit anyone with it, and by anyone
of course I mean Rudder.
Note to bibliomanes: Do not buy
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/157959073X/qid=1075148137/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8916285-
1818501?v=glance&s=books">Living with Books -- if you want to read it, get it
from the library. The pictures are nice enough but the words are disappointing -
not illuminating, not always right (I noticed one caption described the wrong
photo) and prone to saying terrible things on the order of (quoting from memory.)
"It doesn't matter if access to books is difficult as long as it is not totally
impossible" Doesn't matter to whom?? It certainly does to me! Also, too many of
the setups shown focused on looks rather than storage -- a grid of boxes on a wall
in which one or two contained one or two books for instance. Certainly not my idea
of living with books - living with book, maybe. Instead, I recommend
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0517595001/102-8916285-
1818501?v=glance&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&st=books">At Home with Books if you want to
see beautiful, well-used, and well-loved libraries from Keith Richards' to the
Duke of Devoinshire's (I finally realized this was the book I had gotten from the
library and loved, and will probably eventually buy it) or if you are less
interested in pictures and want to read about books, ways to store them, and the
history and engineering of both, try Henry Petroski's
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/0375706399/qid=1075148452/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/102-8916285-
1818501?v=glance&s=books">The Book on the Bookshelf.