More Life In The Time Of Coronavirus 8 October 2020 0839hrs BST
Am I a 'foodie' because I now own a pasta machine?
My life has always been somewhat restricted owing to my heart thingie(s) so the lockdown(s) and the 'restrictions' on movement, gatherings, etc, have been part of my life, always. I never really let my heart slow me down - I did what I wanted for the most part including serving in the USCG, having children, body and board surfing, horseback riding, tennis, and more. I simply understood from an early age I had to take things I wanted to do from an oblique angle rather than straight on. When I was tired or in pain, I stopped whatever it was and took a break - sometimes for days. I avoided climbing hills and stairs.
As a young unattached female, I knew I couldn't club 7 nights a week, knew I couldn't stand up to the rigours of festivals, knew I had to be more careful than my friends about casual liaisons (I've had to be a germaphobe almost all my life, and besides, I read the Harrad Experiment and Michener's The Drifters in high school). There were rumours I was trying to cultivate an air of mystery, playing hard to get, whatever. Completely untrue, I simply had to spend several days recovering if I'd been out on an all-nighter.
As a consequence I've always had non-strenuous hobbies and interests to keep myself from going mad during recovery times. I sew, I do yarn crafts, I embark on epic embroidery projects. I read both fiction and non-fiction. I use online forum message boarding. I keep busy in my own way. Hearties do that - we find ways to use our recovery time productively, we use tech to keep up with current affairs.
We learn early on to find and use tools and machinery to make our lives easier. We buy automatic transmission cars, we use lightweight but powerful vacuum cleaners and steam mops; we love a good tool like a dishwasher makes all the difference in keeping the kitchen clean, for example - for a Heartie, standing there doing the washing up after baking or cooking is exhausting but rinsing and loading the dishwasher is definitely doable. We avoid Venetian Blinds like the dust catching nightmares to clean that those are. We learn having to schlep garments and curtains to the dry cleaner is madness so we usually avoid clothing that can't go into the washing machine (at a hygienic washing temp - Hearties are germaphobes) and tumble dryer. We avoid fussy anything including furniture and ornaments (aka bric-a-brac) - if we can't clean it with a quick damp cloth wipe and maybe some lemon and beeswax polish, we simply don't have it.
Which brings me to my new pasta machine. During this latest pandemic, with its hysteria (yes, hysteria, it's all gone way over the top now, we're not in the middle of a Spanish Influenza or pneumonic plague style thing here, people!), though, even old-hand Lady Heartie me has had to cast about for inventive ways to fight off the crushing boredom of 'Can't Do That!'. So far I've learned how to bake blueberry muffins (don't laugh, blueberry muffins aren't as easy to bake as one would think, it's something of an art to keep the berries from dying the batter an unappetising bluey colour). I've made new curtains for every window in the house and ye gods, I've even used the leftover kitchen curtain fabrics to make toaster covers and double-ended oven gloves. I've been working on my seemingly never-ending quest to learn to speak Italian without slipping into the Spanish I've been speaking most of my life (growing up in Southern California in the 50s-70s made speaking Spanish a necessity). I've read books I thought I'd never read - I now understand why my father wouldn't let me read Dumas' The Lady of the Camellias now I've read it. (Still skipping Lady Chatterley, even I know when a book is too grown up for me)
Interestingly (or not, but if you've got this far surely you will find this interesting), my effort to finally learn to speak Italian didn't lead me to buying the pasta machine. My husband's Coeliac Disease did. He LOVES tagliatelle pasta - the true pasta for 'spag bol'. He loves fettucini (I admit I make a killer good Fettucini Alfredo in home-made sauce with julienne chicken filets and broccoli florets). He'd love ravioli but the only kind he's had is that tinned rubbish. I did find some 'fresh' ravioli in the upscale supermarket and he thought it was nice but then we discovered his mystery illness was Coeliac Disease and suddenly several years ago pasta meals became infrequent as I tried to find a reliable source of gluten-free (gf) pasta.
During lockdown I was wandering the Internet looking for the El Dorado of gf pasta and stumbled across pasta machines. Oh. Dear. That stumble became a dedicated hunt for information on pasta machines and the more I learned about pasta machines, the more I knew I needed one. Never mind I had/have NO idea where the hell I'm going to store this thing when not making fresh pasta, never mind keeping one hygienic clean is something of a nightmare (all those 'combs', wow!) - after a certain point I realised I HAD to have one.
So, now I do. Have one, I mean, and thanks to all the research I knew to buy one that came with the ravioli press attachment. (TIP - DO NOT press the dough too thin or all the filling will fall into the machine and onto the worktop when the dough tears and it will be a terrible nightmare to clean up the mess). I found a robust well reviewed 'bundled' one on offer at a very reasonable price - ravioli attachment+cleaning brushes+recipe booklet. Delivered and straight onto the worktop to be tried.
WOW! It's so fast and so easy to knock out a meal worth of fresh pasta that tastes so incredible we actually laugh out loud scornfully when passing the dried pasta shelves in the supermarket now. My husband asked me the other day if having it makes me a foodie (he was standing in the kitchen doorway salivating at the sight of fresh tagliatelle coming off the machine knowing spag bol was about to happen).
Does it? I wonder. I have my specialty baking tins and sheets (finally conquered Swiss Roll during lockdown - gf Yule Log Christmas Cake will be the dessert table centrepiece Christmas Day) and have three rolling pins, each with its own purpose - yes, I can make puff pastry and pie crusts and sugar cookies. I even have a biscuit press gun. I have a digital food scale and a mechanical one in-case the batt dies on my digi. I have three different sets of measuring cups and spoons+three different sizes of Pyrex jugs - in duplicate on the Pyrex, btw.
And speaking of Pyrex, I have two sets each of covered casserole and three sizes (also duplicates) of open Pyrex sheet pans. All my cook pots (and I have, ahem, many) and frying pans are catering trade grade stainless steel and yes, I have to have two knife racks to corral my kitchen knives. I have a a sharpening steel hanging from its very own hook on the pot rack. I have two sets of salt and pepper mills. My savoury spices and seasonings have their own cupboard separate from the baking ones in the kitchen as far from the hobs and oven as I can get them in my tiny 8x8ft galley kitchen.
And I have 3-ring binders with plastic pockets to hold my recipe cards so Paul can fend for himself should I be in hospital with my stupid heart thingies.
Oh hell, I may be a 'foodie' after all!
