Category: Life

Events from J’s and N’s lives.

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Great/grandmother’s watch

My maternal grandparents died several years ago, and my mom and her siblings have been working to clear out the stuff from their house. I specifically asked her to keep an eye out for watches for me, and a recent effort turned up a very nice Bulova that belonged to either my grandmother or my great-grandmother (my grandfather’s mother).

I have not been able to verify a manufacture date, but based on styling, it seems to have been made in the late 1940s or 1950s. The watch is mechanical (no batteries to replace!) and must be wound by hand every day. (Newer mechanical watches can be automatic-wind, where the movement of walking or shaking turns a weight that winds the mainspring.)

Fancy molded plastic case, patent number D-162.364. Unfortunately, the watch itself has no apparent patent number.
My mom had the watch repaired (mainspring replaced) and cleaned by our local watch repairman, Mr. Bennett! Thank you!
It cost $39.75 in the ’40s or ’50s, so about $400 today.

I wish people were better at passing down items as they are needed. Too often, you find out only after your parents or grandparents die that they had an extra set of silverware or dishes or pans, a sewing machine, bedsheets, fabric.

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Goodwill adventure!

My mom and I went to the big Goodwill in Austin today. It’s smaller than I remembered from my childhood, but still has a good selection of furniture, kitchenware, and computers. Anyone want a laptop for $80?

We bought some cool stuff!

We’ve been playing the original 1981 version of Trivial Pursuit and it’s woefully out of date. It doesn’t even have questions on the Vietnam War! I found the 2002 and 2008 versions at Goodwill today, so we’ve moved 20 years closer to the present!
A cast iron takoyaki pan in the process of being cleaned. My mom actually got it for making æbleskivers, a Danish breakfast or dessert food. She’s tried making them before, using a muffin tin on the stovetop, but it didn’t turn out well.
Here’s a closeup of the octopus/spider decoration.

We say lots of other cool stuff (of course!): stainless steel popcorn/mixing bowl, cast iron skillet, pyrex pie dishes, pyrex baking dishes, empty pillow ticking, oak cabinet with curved doors (my mom says probably early 1900s).

Enjoy your local thrift store!

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Brownies to use up remnants

My parents have a lot of food around (definitely enough to last the recommended 3 days for an emergency. In fact, it’s probably enough to last months). Unfortunately, this makes it easy for things to get lost or forgotten. We’ve had the same jar of Nutella for years (it expired years ago too, and the lid was used in a past automobile repair project by my dad). I was searching for a way to use it up before it goes rancid, and decided on brownies! The recipe I found uses almond meal and instant coffee, other remnant ingredients we have.

The recipe doesn’t actually call for Nutella. It calls for cookie butter swirled into the top of the brownie batter, but I figured I could sub in Nutella. I also used about 2/3 cup Nutella in the batter, as a replacement for the chocolate chips (I decreased the butter and sugar by about 25% each to attempt to accommodate the Nutella. I also added an extra ~1/4 cup almond meal ’cause the batter seemed too wet).

The recipe calls for baking at 325°F for 20-25 minutes. This was completely insufficient, unless you like uncooked brownie batter. I cooked the brownies for an additional 15 minutes, for a total of 40 minutes. Even then, the brownies were wet and fudgy, and incredibly tender. They needed to be eaten with a spoon. However, they had great flavor! Next time, I’d bake these at 350°F for about 30 minutes.

The brownies had a nice crusty top.
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Pad thai for my parents

Since the last version of pad thai I tried didn’t turn out very well, I tried another recipe. It was sooo much better, and has very helpfully detailed directions.

I used Excellent noodles, which were a Christmas present from Sibling A! Super useful! They’re not actually the right kind for pad thai, but it turned out fine.
The dish! Those fried tofu were pretty yummy. They were fried in scavenged beef fat 🙂
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Spontaneous Napa Adventure

This weekend I went on a very last minute trip to Napa with Friend A and Friend B. We decided to go the night before, and somehow we convinced friend B to drive us there. It was a lot of fun!

I think you’re supposed to have wine while you’re in Napa, but we ended up not having any. Maybe next time.

We started the day off at some random winery that Friend A picked out called Artesa. We went inside but didn’t actually have any wine there. Friend A thought the tasting was too expensive.  Correction from Friend A: Through a thorough cost-benefit analysis, Friend A determined that the benefit didn’t outweigh the cost.

Continue reading “Spontaneous Napa Adventure”

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Draining fried food

Many people rely on paper towels to drain excess fat off of fried foods, like bacon, tempura, and fried tofu (the fried things that we make!). However paper towels aren’t ideal because they’re disposable, and must be purchased again and again. Instead, J and I drain fried food on a cooling rack, like what you would use for cookies. We place the rack over a pan or a plate to catch the drips.

Our cooling rack looks a lot like this and is ~12″ across.. $2 at Goodwill! Image from bbqgrillmesh.com.

Bonus tip: The cooling rack is just the right size to fit into our wok, so we can use it as a steamer insert too! I love items that do double duty.

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Pant project

I’m making a pair of pants for sibling C. We don’t have a lot of pants patterns around (and those that we do have are from a past era), so I drafted a pattern based on C’s measurements and Donald McCunn’s book How to make your own sewing patterns. (I have read another book of his that is slightly more useful for creating new designs from an existing pattern.)

Sibling C’s measurements and the drafted patterns for pants front and back pieces. As you can see, the back piece is looking a little odd…

To make sure the pattern actually makes an item resembling a pair of pants, I mocked up a mini version about 15 cm long.

They do indeed look like pants. It remains to be seen if they fit C well, so the next step is to make a full-size pair!

The pants will be made out of silk dupioni (or maybe it’s shantung? It was bought used from Austin Creative Reuse, so there is some question and I’m not well-versed in silk fabrics). C want them to have a drawstring closure – hopefully the fancy fabric will be able to pull them up to dress or party level! The pants will be lined with flannel, since C gets cold easily.

This will be my first time fitting a garment – wish me luck!