In Which I Make Kasha Palatable

Tonight I tackled one of the biggest challenges on my weird foods list: kasha. I bought this one-pound bag of misery in the form of a grain product at my neighborhood Mexican/Polish/yuppie grocery store about a year and a half ago for reasons unknown.
Kasha is roasted buckwheat, which sounds innocent enough. I think I saw the word "buckwheat" and thought, "Hey, don't some people make buckwheat pancakes?" It probably sounded wholesome and vaguely Wild West-ish.

Well, for buckwheat pancakes you need buckwheat flour, not whole buckwheat groats, which were the type of kasha I bought. Still, Joy of Cooking called kasha "irresistible," so I tried one of the two recipes in the book, "Basic Cooked Kasha," which yielded something vaguely like brown rice only several times less appealing. I ate one serving and kept the rest of it in the fridge for a decent interval until I could justify throwing it out.

However, I still had half the bag of kasha left, and it lurked in the back of the cupboard like a portent of doom for over a year--until tonight.

The Joy of Cooking recipe used only beef stock and egg, leaving the essential flavor of the kasha basically pure and unadorned. Tonight I added a pound of ground beef, an entire onion, tomato sauce, and the strongest spices I could find that wouldn't clash terribly with the Slavic roastedness of the kasha. When it was finished, I sprinkled it with sharp cheddar to mask the taste even more.

It still tasted like brown rice, but it was good enough to save it from the trash heap. It made so much I'll be eating it for the next week.

How Little We Use

After purging many of my books about two months ago, I have approximately 244 books. I'm cheating big time with that number; I'm not counting a collection of about 200 paperbacks, nor a stack of books that I haven't decided yet whether to keep or discard.

But for the sake of argument, let's say I own 244 books.

How much do I use each of those books? How much use would qualify as adequate use of the book in order to keep it? Rereading each of them within a certain amount of time--six months, one year, five years--seems artificial to me. Many of my books are nonfiction books that I won't ever read again cover to cover, and others are favorites that I may not read for several years, but will then read several times in quick succession. On the other hand, if I look up one recipe in a cookbook in a particular year, it may not be worth keeping around.

So let's try to judge my entire collection of books based on the amount of time I spend using it.
Say I used each one for an average of an hour a year. That's much less time than it takes to read a book, but since I've already read all of my books and many are nonfiction books that I would use to look up particular facts for a total of much less than one hour, it'll do for an average. If I used each book for one hour per year, I would be spending 244 hours using my books. That works out to a bit less than five hours per week.

Do I spend that much time using my books? Not even close. Do I even want to spend that much time using my books? No; in general, I prefer to spend most of my reading time reading books I haven't read before. And an hour per book per year is awfully low--if I used a piece of furniture one hour per year, or used my computer one hour per year, would I keep it around? No way.

Based on this, I would judge that my book collection is still too large.

Seems like I should be able to apply this to other things--kitchen appliances, clothes. Some of my clothes spend hundreds of hours on my body per year; others see less than 8 hours of use per year.

Or I could calculate the number of items of clothing I have by the amount of time I would have to spend wearing each in order to get adequate wear out of them.

Obscure Interests + Family Far Away + Wanderlust + Limited Vacation Time = Augh!

I don't get how people do this. As R. often mentions, I have a really great job: great benefits, great pay, relatively easy, 35-hour workweek (!), and a theoretically generous 4 weeks of vacation (!!), plus 2 personal days, plus 2 days comp time after our annual conference. Nonetheless, I can't seem to shoehorn all of the travel I *really really* want to do into that time.

I haven't taken what I would consider a real vacation since 2006. All of my travel since then has been for a purpose of one kind or another--conferences, visiting relatives, unschooling camp. I haven't been to a new country since 2005. This is really appalling. I almost dropped out of college to be able to travel more. I lived on peanut butter sandwiches in an apartment with no heat so that I could afford to travel to Egypt! Yet I still haven't managed to get my butt over to India, despite having wanted to go there for almost ten years.

I was supposed to go there last year. Then I found out about unschooling camp and did that instead. I was supposed to go there this year. But I'm committed to visiting my parents in Korea, which really needs to be a two-week trip just to get over the jet lag (the aforementioned Christmas present), and I also want to do unschooling camp again if they'll have me back.

What about next year? My parents should be back from Korea, but they'll likely still be a plane ride away, as will my brother and both my grandmothers. I'll still want to do unschooling camp. That leaves me with maybe two weeks for India. India is huge. All of the major cities and sites are ages away from each other. And who knows if I'll ever go there again? Two weeks is not enough.

Everything requires giving something else up.

Here's what I've got planned out for my vacation time this year:
literary conference in March, where I'm giving a paper
one vacation day in Hawaii after our annual conference
trip to Korea (two weeks)
family reunion in North Dakota (? hoping I can do this over a three-day weekend)
unschooling camp (one week)

Here's what I'm not doing that I would very much like to do:
a convention of fans of my favorite author, happens once every five years
another literary conference I went to last year (probably better than the one I'm going to, but I committed to giving the paper)
National Novel Writing Month in a cabin with a bunch of teenagers (a friend of mine runs this and offered me a position on staff, but I obviously can't)
trip to India
another session of unschooling camp

Each of the things on the second list is a sacrifice for me to not do. Each one relates to a major interest of mine that I have few outlets for. And I don't see any way I could possibly do them all while holding down a traditional job.

New Year's Revolutions

I officially declare January 2009 to be the month of Using Stuff Up. I will be attempting to use up many of the aforementioned Weird Ingredients, personal care items, and a few odds and ends like the last roll of film for my old-style camera. I will also be decluttering in an effort to be able to fit our stuff into a smaller place.

January 2009 is also the month of Finding a New Place to Live. R. and I have been putting this off for almost a year. We've looked at several places but have never really dug into the project. Part of the problem has been that to find a similar place to ours in the same area, we almost certainly would have to pay more. R. really can't afford to pay more and I don't want to pay more. In the last week or so, R. told me that he doesn't think he can afford our place anymore and (without any interference from me, I swear) set a budget of about $600 a month for our new place. This changes the search dramatically, but also makes me much more excited about it. I'm looking into suburbs (! to anyone who knows me), much smaller places, and other alternatives. I think if I found a mobile home in a not-dangerous part of Chicagoland I could talk R. into it. Now that I've finished the draft of my novel and have it with my first reader, I have a half-decent chance of actually focusing on this and finding a new place by February 1st (oh, yeah, I'm writing a novel). I have a lot of research to do. Maybe I should start today, since I have basically no work to do.

What I Ate, 1/1/2009:
Breakfast: homemade mac and cheese
Second meal (eaten at around 4:00): "Soup Nazi" seafood bisque (gift)
Third meal: rest of mac and cheese
Snacks: one piece Walker's shortbread, small candy cane, two Andes mints (all gifts)

Slack-A-Doodle-Do: A post which eventually gets around to money

It's too cold in my office to work today. The temperature is reportedly adjustable, but I have never noticed the slightest change in temperature when I fiddle with the radiators against my wall.

I have a bad feeling one of the women who I supervise has overslept again. Two weeks ago, I had to call her and wake her up at 11:00. It wasn't the first time. Makes me feel like her mother, which is odd, because she's four years older than me, and also jealous, because I would love to be still in bed at this hour. I don't think I've ever slept through the beginning of work, a class, or anything else important. Oversleeping for me means waking up fifteen minutes before I absolutely have to leave the house and rushing out the door without showering. I must have an internal alarm or something.

She just called. Indeed, she took some cold medicine and forgot to set her alarm. She'll be here at 11:30. Well, at least I don't have to call her.

This week I'm continuing to work on using up my weird ingredients. I'm eating bacon burgers, corn chowder made with dry-milk cream soup mix (contrary to my expectations, the only unpleasant part of the chowder is the freezer taste of the frozen corn), and grits with cheese. Oh, and Christmas candy. I just ate a white-chocolate snowman as a morning snack.

I have mixed feelings about Christmas. I hate getting stuff I don't like as presents. Really hate it. Unlike a lot of people, I'm pretty okay with disposing of/regifting the stuff, but I just hate the phenomenon of something I don't like coming into my house without me choosing it. And since I'm not going to just throw away something brand-new, it takes time and/or energy to regift, donate, or use it up.

As a result of this feeling, which has increased sharply in the last couple of years, I'm becoming really careful about what I buy for other people. Family is easy because they give me wish lists, so I can know that the gifts I buy them will be un-annoying. R. and I decided not to buy each other presents this year--we'll do birthdays, but not Christmas.

But two of the women I supervise gave me little gifts this year, and though I really should get them something in return, I'm finding it hard. Special office supplies? Who really needs office supplies? I personally have at least a five-year supply of post its, not to mention a massive stash of paperclips, bulldog clips, pens, etc. Frog-shaped paperclips are cute, but never work as well as plain old paperclips. Lotion? God, takes me forever to use up, and what if they don't like the scent? Candles? Same scent issue, plus is that really a good gift for the one who has kids? I'm pretty sure I'm just going to go the chocolate/cookies route, even though I'm fairly sure one of them isn't big on sweets. As a New Year's gift, since I have clearly already missed the Christmas window.

The office gifts I got this year were pretty non-stuff: a Starbucks card, soap, and a tote bag, which I will probably eventually use. Over Thanksgiving, a friend's kids bought me "Christmas" presents that I threw away as soon as I got home. I felt pretty horrible about that, since they're kids, but what the heck am I going to do with a lip-gloss set made for tweens? My brother and sister-in-law gave me some great homemade gifts--fudge sauce and Christmas ornaments, which were personalized (i.e., cute animals and an ornament that says "I love Chicago").

And then there were my parents. Sigh. I hope they don't read this. I gave them the address once but I don't think they quite understand what a blog is. First and foremost, they gave R. and I one absolutely fantastic gift: a trip to Korea! Wonderful. I'd been angsting over how I was going to carve the money for that out of my poverty-line budget, and R. didn't think he could go at all unless I seriously subsidized him. I would have been over the moon with just that one gift. But there was some other stuff involved. A bracelet that, even if it were my style, would be seriously annoying to wear. Bookends shaped like teddy bears (what?). And a small stone rooster. I guess that was it. So not a total overload of stuff. But it was still irritating to get things I knew I would never use.

Am I the only one who's Scroogy in this way? I love Christmas itself: the music, food, family, pine trees, etc. But minimalistic me really hates the stuff aspect.

4.5 Miles on Lincoln Avenue

I walked home last night, 7.2 miles. It wasn't too bad. I mean, it did take forever. There was a lot of leaping involved, because there are huge slush puddles at every busy intersection. And
fellow pedestrians kept wanting to commiserate with me, but I wasn't feeling particularly social after, say, mile 3. But I did it. And I wasn't all that miserable or even particularly tired by the end, although I was absolutely exhausted this morning.

The last time I walked to or from work was in Lubbock, Texas. I was signed up with several temp agencies at the time, and one of them called me that morning with a job. Both my parents had already left for work. Mom worked an hour's drive away, and Dad wasn't an option either for some reason...maybe he didn't have a cell phone yet. There was a bus system in Lubbock, but the closest stop was several miles away from the place in question. So I walked.

I'm not sure why I didn't take a cab--I can only assume I didn't have any money. I don't remember anything about the walk, but I do know I got to work by the time I said I would and I got the job, which lasted for several more months and earned me enough money to get out of Lubbock. I started to walk home that evening, too, but before I'd gone more than a quarter mile a coworker drove past me and forced me to accept a ride. After that day, I worked out a system with my parents where I could either borrow the car or get a ride from Mom.

If last night's walk went well, I was going to consider doing it regularly. It didn't go well enough for that. In spring I might try biking. I'm terrified of being in city traffic on a bike but I'm sure I can get over that after a couple of tries. We'll be in a new place by then, anyway--although it's more likely to be farther away from work than closer.

My Weird Foods List

Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme has started a 30-day makeover series. I absolutely love it. Ramit at I Will Teach You to be Rich is just finishing up something similar, but I lost interest in that one pretty early. It wasn't, well, extreme enough for me.

One of Jacob's first posts is about grocery shopping. He recommends a "staples-based" diet--eating the same few meals over and over again. I'm interested in trying this out, but according to Jacob, first I have some housecleaning to do: "Before switching to a staples based dinner plan, I recommend getting rid of all the weird things in your cupboard. The best way is to not buy anything until your last strange ingredient is gone."

One of my weak spots is a tendency to go crazy at the supermarket buying things that I've never heard of and have no use for, but that look intriguing. Since one of our usual shopping places is an ethnic grocery store with lots of weird foods, this happens pretty often. Combine that with the low-carb diet I was on for a year, and I have an impressive (scary) number of weird things in my cupboard and freezer. I don't think I can actually not buy anything until they're all gone, since a number of them are things that can't be eaten on their own, but I can at least give it the old college try.

For my own recordkeeping and your horror/amusement, I herewith provide a full list of the strange foods I need to use up (along with a few possible uses). By including these foods on my list, I do not intend to cast aspersions upon the foods involved. They are simply weird because they do not make up a regular part of my diet (i.e., I have not opened the package for a month or more).

Weird Foods/Ingredients
soy nuts, sizeable bag
unpleasant protein powder (for protein shakes)
fiber/Metamucil, orange flavor
bruschetta (found a good pasta recipe that will use the whole jar)
pork rinds
sugar-free jello (three boxes)
marshmallows
corn syrup (apparently I can make this into fake Crunchies, which I wish I'd known a year ago when I purchased the corn syrup, as I have in the interim purchased several overpriced and disappointing imported Crunchie bars)
malted milk powder
sunflower seeds (could shell and mix in with my oatmeal)
mate
kasha (there seems to be only one actual recipe that you can make with kasha, and I didn't like it. Adding raisins might make it palatable.)
grits (just made most of these into an ok grits casserole)
onion soup
cous cous
generic Slim Jims (ew)
cream soup mix (homemade, but I never use it)
soy flour (the pancakes I made with this were hideous and I haven't touched it since)
flaxseed meal, way too much (flaxseed muffins were a pretty good breakfast when I was on Atkins, but they're not good enough when you're eating real carbs)
cocoa
cornmeal
rye crackers
mint extract (failed attempt to make generic vanilla ice cream taste like mint ice cream)
molasses
honey wheat germ
TVP (God, I think I've moved twice with this stuff)
lentils, small amount
whole frozen strawberries
roasting chicken
freezer-burned hot wings
buffalo chicken skewers
French fried cheddar onions (don't ask)
dry milk (I used to use this for cooking all the time, but now we almost always have fresh milk in the house)
2 sour cream containers full of pepperoni
hamburgers wrapped in bacon (nice idea, but the bacon never seems to cook)
3 round steaks, possibly too freezer burned to eat
frozen corn
whole cauliflower, frozen in a moment of desperation just before I left on a trip
whipping cream, ditto. Less likely to defrost successfully than the cauliflower
two kinds of sugar-free jam
malt vinegar
balsamic vinegar
red wine vinegar
white vinegar (WHY? Why FOUR kinds of vinegar?)
peanut sauce
tandoori chicken marinade
mild curry paste
sauerkraut, large container
dijon mustard
Frank's hot sauce
horseradish sauce
Gum (Juicy Fruit and Doublemint, can't fathom where we got this; I never bought it)
granulated Splenda, lifetime supply

Spices
chili powder (three kinds, huge amounts of all!)
Splenda packets, 50 or so
onion powder (I thought it was the same as dehydrated onions)
thyme
rosemary
5-spice powder (from when I lived in Chinatown)
coriander seeds
pod-like spice (cardamom?)
tons of colored peppercorns
bay leaves (what IS the point?)
hamburger seasoning (R. might use this)
feta cheese
mulling spices (which one would use for making cider, which I have never made)
pizza spice grinder
steak spice mix
Mrs. Dash (original), purchased in a wild phase when I thought I might cut down on my salt intake
Mrs. Dash (spicy), ditto