In which my job is SO fantastic, and I truly enjoy it. (What a blessing, to not hate one’s job!)
Last year, I worked in a cheese shop in Minneapolis.
It carried hundreds of domestic and European cheeses, and it was really fun. I learned a ton about cheeses and cured meats, my palate evolved, and I even took online cheese classes.
I got into cheese, you might say. (It’s so much more pleasant than taking calls for Comcast, or slaving for Home Depot.)
Anyway, we’ve moved across the country, and now I work in a creamery.
I work in an actual creamery for a man who actually makes cheeses. It’s so cool! There are about three tons of cheese in the store at any given time, and many of them are truly wonderful. The coffee cheddar, the aged Tipsy Jersey, the cider jack, the ricotta salata–!
And he’s letting me expand the front end, the retail cheese shop: I’ve ordered goat and soft cheeses, as well as crackers and a couple cured meats–
Which means: we can now do cheese trays! For the holidays!
The ‘exotic’ stuff (bries, and goat cheeses, and prosciutto) won’t be here until next week, but the trays themselves arrived and we’ve already started. Just LOOK at this beauty:
(The salami is Italian, but the cheeses are all ours, and the almonds are Californian!)
I very much hope to help turn the place into THE one-stop cheese shop in the region; even though it’s a bit out of the way we’re still in wine country and on the tourism maps, and we’ll be able to do amazing high end stuff with mostly local, artisan cheeses and soft and goat cheeses and cured meats. And nuts, fruits, local mustards, local honey, local wine vinegar made from local wine…
Much of what I do at work is typically done, these days, by machines: cutting, packaging, and labeling the cheeses we produce for retail sale; but I’m abjectly grateful to have such a job that hasn’t been replaced by mechanization.
What a machine can’t do is be a cheesemonger: one of the funnest experiences is selling a cheese tray to someone who says, when you ask what they want included, “Oh, I trust your experience and knowledge, please choose for me!”
I’m going to join the American Cheese Society in 2020 and am working toward becoming a CCP, basically a certified cheesemonger, the year after.
Because I’m in my 50’s and need a hobby, I guess? One with certifications? Because I’m originally from IT, and what’s a job if you can’t sit a test?
I love cheese.
In which THIS IS THE WEEK the washer and dryer come!!!
My favorite aunt bought us a washer and dryer.
We ordered them back in October, but they had to be shipped in, I guess, and we had to wait a couple months for delivery.
They’re due ON TUESDAY, and they’ll go in this very corner right here:
It’s stupid to be excited about what is typically a boring chore, but I’m really very excited to do a bunch of laundry! In my kitchen!
In which it’s perfect and I love it so much!
We got a kitchen table (from an old BMI co-worker of mine, who offered it via Instagram when I posted we’d gotten this house to rent and needed furniture — thanks, Mike!) and it’s in the kitchen now and it’s exactly the right size and shape and it’s so great.
Like, I couldn’t have gone out looking and found a table more exactly what should be in this kitchen. It fits the space perfectly. It’s sturdy and rectangular and comfortable and not too tall.
This kitchen is ideal. I don’t know if I’ve ever liked a kitchen as much as I like this one, even if the fridge is in a sort of weird spot. There are windows, and soon there will be a washer and dryer (thanks, aunt Sue!), and there’s tons of counter space and tons of cupboards and it’s both big and cozy, and there’s a dishwasher!
And over the table is a bank of daylight ceiling lights, so it’ll be a perfect place to read and write or watercolor or knead bread or mend or sew, even at night.
I ate Sunday brunch (pot of tea, oven roasted potatoes, and a broccoli & cheddar fritatta) at the table today! With place mats and dishes and everything! Hurrah!
The table is used and worn, but I fucking love it, exactly as it is. It’s like it was made to be in this house!
The only problem with this house is that it’s too great. Next time we move will be a disappointment no matter what, but hopefully it won’t be for years.
In which I’m already planning next year’s tomatoes!
While there is a back yard on the west side of the house so enormous it could support an absolutely giant garden, there’s also a huge shade tree back there, and tall fences, so I’m not really sure about sunlight.
Plus, to put a garden in the back, I’d have to do a lot of work, from rock picking to soil improvement to renting a tiller, and to be honest I just don’t have that level of interest when all I want are a few tomatoes and some fresh herbs.
There are already raised beds out front, plenty big enough to grow food in, so that’s what I’m going to do! They’re on the east side, but I think they’ll get plenty of sun, at least in the morning, even with the big tree in the front yard.
Right now, the raised beds are in shadow, but it’s late October. I think in the summer they’d be getting some sunlight this time of day, even if indirect, through the tree.
So I’ve been reading up on container gardening. Apparently I want to compost and mulch the beds about this time of year, so the soil can improve over the winter. Hopefully next weekend I can run to Ace or Home Depot and grab a few bags of each. Might also stab the dirt some to loosen and aerate it.
I’d like to find some sort of shrubby tomato breeds, maybe something called cherry cascade, and maybe one each of Better Boy and roma, too. Also edible flowers like nasturtiums and violas, some lettuces that can be harvested leaf by leaf, like endive, maybe a pole bean plant, and then fill it out with herbs: parsley and mint for tabbouli, cilantro for Mexican and Indian dishes, and basil and oregano for Italian. Perhaps some lemon verbena or thyme, too.
Just enough to be fun and interesting without becoming a misery to maintain. If it gets enough light!
zone: 7a
In which there’s sodium citrate, aka melting salt, in American cheese, so it makes great nacho cheese sauce.
You may be a human being who, from time to time, thinks to yourself, “I want some freakin’ nacho cheese sauce.” But when you look up nacho cheese sauce recipes online, they’re all roux-based, which is basically cheese gravy, and you’re like, screw this, there must be a better way.
WELL, THERE IS. THERE IS A BETTER WAY.
It’s really easy, too. It’s, like, stupid how easy it is:
1/4 c. milk or half & half
5 slices of American cheese, quartered
1/4 c. shredded any other cheese you like (how about cheddar, maybe)
1/2 c. can green chilis
salt, to taste
Put the first two ingredients in a bowl and nuke them for, oh, 40-45 seconds or so, then stir well, and nuke again for another half a minute or until it’s bubbling up a bit.
Stir in the cheddar until it’s incorporated. Stir in the chilis. Taste and add salt if needed. Serve.
If your nacho cheese sauce sets up while you’re doing other nacho-related stuff, just nuke it again for 25 seconds or so.
In which I love this goddamned appliance, okay?
I cooked three full meals in this kitchen today, for a total of eight courses, and I have not done the washing up.
Look at it. Just look. It’s spotless. No dishes anywhere. THEY’RE IN THE DISHWASHER, off the counter, out of sight.
It’s amazing. I never wanted a dishwasher, but now I doubt I could stand life without one.
This kitchen has tons of counter space, I could easily fill them up entirely with dishes dirty or clean — but I don’t have to! Because: DISHWASHER!
This house is so great.
In which I just don’t enjoy Facebook anymore because it’s full of disinformation and depression and conspiracy theories and none of that’s any fun.
Just logged into FB for the first time in a couple of weeks and my last post turned into the biggest conversation on my page in years.
I find this funny, for some reason?
And no, I don’t think you suck, babies. You’re all welcome to post whatever comments you like here, no censorship, or, hell, I’ll even give you a login if you want to post actual entries, I don’t care, but I do think Facebook sucks and fuck their AI and their algorithms and their entire whatever!
—
Update: scrolled the main page for half an hour and it’s still a dumpster fire. Headlines that are immediately seen to be garbage if a person’s even mildly rational. “Rifles” are not the problem in mass shootings, mammograms do not “cause cancer,” and no, CBD oil doesn’t “cure” autism. I wrote and deleted three replies, because “this is demonstrably untrue” isn’t fun or interesting and just ends up making everybody butthurt.
Delete the internet, it’s stupid!
Oh, AND I found out my college roommate has died. Facebook is depressing, y’all.
In which I’ve moved to Oregon, a state I haven’t lived in since the early 90’s!
We found a house in Milton (or is it Freewater?) and have moved into it. It’s an eight-block walk from the cheese shop for me, and I’m grateful that it cuts his commute in half.
Big old tree in the yard! Brick flower boxes along the whole front (in which I will probably plant food — tomatoes and herbs)! Tons of parking (there’s more around the far side you can’t see in this picture), in case we have, I don’t know, a small concert?
Our neighbor to the north is a creek and an apple orchard.
Our street is adorable:
Six houses on a dead end! No through traffic! Cute and quiet, and we’ll never see another fender bender! So far, the loudest sounds we’ve heard are dogs (this town is rife with canine Americans; there are at least a dozen who woof at me on my walk to and from work) and the engines of our neighbors’ vehicles.
Guys, THIS HOUSE IS SO GREAT. It’s so great. It’s positively lovely and I guarantee you I don’t deserve it. It has every amenity we could want, from two bedrooms to a garage to a second bathroom. There’s a dishwasher, tons of cupboards, a coat closet and a linen closet, and a built-in curio cabinet!
(The owner told me she’d kept Precious Moments in it, back in the day, and isn’t clear now why she ever did, but there it is: a place for my teapots and other random ephemera.)
Look at the light in this, the main bathroom! I love it! (And the fan actually works. It’s like a hotel bathroom, with a high shower head and plenty of room and shelves for products.)
The second bathroom is full-sized, and has a window and a shower with a sitting bench in it. I don’t know that we’ll ever use it much ourselves, but it’ll be handy if we have guest.
There’s also an enormous back yard surrounded by a privacy fence.
There’s no exit from the house to the back yard (you have to go outside and through a fence gate to enter it), and when I look at it all I think is “YARD WORK,” but my aunt let us take an abandoned lawn mower from the shed in the yard of a house she owns and my better half seems to be fine with the idea of keeping it up, so I intend to mostly ignore the entire space since there’s so much front yard and porch and concrete apron to enjoy. We’ve already discussed getting a BBQ, which I expect we’d never bother dragging into the back yard unless we were having a large gathering.
If there are any flaws, they are these: there are very few grounded outlets, the stove is electric (I’ve already burnt three dishes), and the glorious kitchen sink window looks into the garage rather than at the orchard.
The garage has a window, thankfully, but still, I’m sure the view was much better before the garage was built.
We don’t have any furniture except for the desk he bought for his computer, but the family is going to give us some chairs and a dresser!
The bedrooms have lovely wood floors, and built-in heating.
The LR has a heat exchanger in the wall and two windows. The place came with curtains, lace in the kitchen and living room and neutral panels in both bedrooms. So much storage. So well laid-out.
It’s so nice to be reunited with our stuff after nearly four months; I’m particularly happy to have my dishes and pots and pans, and the rest of my wardrobe. We’re 75% unpacked and very comfortable.
Yay amazing new house!
In which I’ve gone and turned 51, of all things, and here is a short paragraph about it.
I’m fat as hell, my feet always hurt even though I only work part-time, my skin has no elasticity and is just drooping like fabric on the bias, I have a nearly constant stabbing pain in the index knuckle of my right hand, my hips hurt, I have nerve issues in my feet due to, according to google hospital, either menopause or neuropathy that occasionally drive me bugnuts when I’m lying in bed trying to go to sleep, sometimes I can’t sleep, or I wake wide up for no goddamned reason at all, my teeth are yellow, my desire to go out and hang with people is nearly as low as my introvert better half’s, I’m more or less running out of British TV shows to watch, I’ve been so sedentary for so long that popping up two flights of stairs here in the house makes me pant for three minutes, whatever symmetry my face may once have enjoyed is well and truly over, HOT FLASHES, sometimes everything from ovaries to vestibule feels weird as hell because hormone changes and so-called sexual atrophy, there’s no fat at all on the balls or heels of my feet, vericose veins, I’ve actually sharted, something I always thought was either a joke or an affliction affecting only young, stupid beer drinking males, twice in the past three years, my hair is thin and brittle, my nails are ridged, I think about death a lot and find sex scenes and courting plots juvenile and annoying, I have actually heard myself say “nobody’s writing any decent sci-fi these days,” I’m freaked about the fact I’ve never made any money and owe more in student loans than I’ve saved for retirement, my nose and ears are enormous and are just going to keep getting bigger, my eyebrows have discovered what it is to be tufty, my ass has changed shape to such a degree that I now fart like a man, and my sweat smells weird and old.
But it’s also true that I’m not on any meds at all*, which I’ve been told by a doctor friend is “unusual” for “someone my age.”
*yet
In which where DOES the time go?
It’s September?!
I’ve been at the cheese shop for a month and a half now and really enjoy it. My friend got a job there too, so I have someone to ride to work with now that my beloved is working at the casino and can’t chauffeur me around everywhere.
We’re still at my grandmother’s house but are considering moving to Milton Freewater to shorten his commute and remove my need for a car. (I really don’t want to buy a car. They’re wasteful as fuck in terms of resources, and you have to throw money at them ALL. THE. TIME. Gas, maintenance, insurance, registration, parking. Yuck.) I also really want my stuff back, in particular my kitchen and the rest of my wardrobe, and we’ve been leaving the Ubox in storage until we’re fully settled.
I love living in this house in this neighborhood, but if we stay much longer I’m going to need a refrigerator and a hot plate and an area rug and MY CLOTHES and probably some other stuff I’m not thinking of right now. (I can and do cook in my grandmother’s kitchen, but rarely. I cook weird stuff at weird hours and I need my own kitchen space.)
I also want a proper desk and a second monitor and keyboard; I computer very little right now because it’s a pain in the ass. Mostly using my laptop for streaming, and do most of my internet fucking around on my phone. Could easily set up a workstation here in the basement, but keep not doing it because we might move out any minute AND OUR STUFF IS IN A UBOX IN PASCO OR RICHLAND SOMEWHERE.
I’ve seen both my parents, my brother, two aunts, an uncle, and of course my g’ma. I’ve seen TONS of friends and fans and gotten lots of hugs and kisses and emails and texts. I played at Marcy’s last Saturday and literally dozens of people came out to see me.
After living an almost entirely socially isolated life in Minneapolis for the past five years, I can’t even express how deeply fulfilling and satisfying it is to get to love on so many people!
I have a friend whose mom owns a restaurant, so I GOT CUSTOM ARTICHOKE COTIJA TAMALES, even.
It’s never what you know, and always who you know!
Plus the weather here, the goddamned amazing weather. Sure it’s hot during the day, but it’s dry, and it always cools down 20-30 degrees at night, so you can actually sleep even without A/C in the attic bedroom.
AND THE PRODUCE. OH MY GOD, THE PRODUCE. I’ve had a perfect peach, a couple of Hermiston melons, veggies from my aunt’s garden, and I made pico de gallo from heirloom tomatoes a cheese shop customer gave me — FOR FREE — because he didn’t sell them at market.
You don’t get produce like this in the city, you just don’t. There’s some amazing produce to be had in cities, sure, with co-ups and CSAs and stuff, but it’s nothing like living in farm country. You get stuff here that was literally in the garden that very morning, and it all tastes like happiness and sunshine.
We’ve been to a ball game, restaurants, bars, a couple shows, and people’s houses for BBQs. Look at this food I ate at Embo’s house!
We have A Social Life and it’s wonderful! We’ve been shopping, on Sunday drives, and across Stateline (between Washington and Oregon) too many times to count.
We’ve done more stuff in the past two months than in the past five years, probably, and it’s easy here because the whole town’s barely five miles across and the traffic is actually reasonable (rather than millions of passive-aggressive Minnesotans).
I’m so super happy to be home, to have people again, to have a good job, and my better half seems to like it here too! (I actually knew a couple of old online blogger people in MSP, but never managed to meet up with them. Somehow never felt like taking a few buses all the way to Saint Paul and back. Kind of regret it now, but obviously not enough to have actually done it in five whole years, so. I don’t know. Combination of distance and weather, I guess?)
Deeply looking forward to the season change, a proper autumn and sweater weather (there’s no fall in MSP, as I’ve complained for the past half decade), and then the holiday season rituals with family living nearby! We’ll probably GO to a Thanksgiving meal! Or a Christmas one! I’m so excited to be back that I probably won’t even briefly consider trying to get out of it this year!
If we’re in an apartment by X-mas, I might even splurge on a real tree, just for the hell of it!
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4 random books from my Library!
