Now I’m Cookin’ With Ga — er, Wood!

My other “focus” project for myself this winter, in addition to the reading/decluttering project, has to do with cooking.  I’ve never been much of a cook, and now is the time to change that.  I’m not aiming toward fancy dishes, nor even toward a huge repertoire.  I just want to expand my list of what I can cook COMFORTABLY — meaning 1) in a hurry, 2) when I’m stressed, anxious or upset, and 3) without thinking too hard about it.  Without a cookbook would be nice, but some things are just going to need a written recipe — my goal is for it to be easy for me — meaning I know which cookbook it’s in, and what ingredients I need (without looking at the cookbook, so I can get the ingredients on a whim in town when I decide to make something) — or make sure I’ve stocked up so that I *know* I have what I need.  I think it’s also important that I develop a sense of what’s important and what’s flexible, for each meal, so that I know when I can substitute or do without some particular ingredient (as well as add extras!).

For example, a few years ago I decided that my “standard” potluck dish would be sauteed mushrooms.  It’s something that most people like, but it’s not a typical potluck dish so I never worry about someone else bringing the same thing.  I’ve made it often enough that I know what I put into it, I know whether I can make a batch with that partial stick of butter or whether I need more (and whether I can substitute olive oil for the butter if I want).  I know how little (or how much) garlic I want.  I know how much time it takes, how much of my energy it takes (ie how far in advance I need to start).  I’m comfortable with it, in other words.

I want to add ten dishes to my “comfortable” repertoire this winter.

Without getting too bogged down in rules, here’s what I’m thinking:

Stir fry, rice/beans, soup, stew, chili, bread, biscuits/gravy, pancakes, pie, cookies, lasagna.

Stir fry:  I’ve rarely if ever made a stir fry.  I want to make it often enough that I can ” throw a stir fry together” using whatever I have laying around.  I have a wok and want to get in the habit of using it (or get rid of it if it’s not the right tool, but from what I hear it’s an excellent tool).

Rice/beans:  Of course I’ve made rice and beans before.  But I want to experiment with some new kinds of beans, and a variety of seasonings.

Soup:  Ditto, I’ve made lots of different soups before.  But none that I can just “throw together”.  I’ve made some I really like (carrot-ginger, mmm!) that I just need to make a few more times so that it’s etched into my mind and I don’t need the recipe in front of me anymore.  With other soups I need to learn about spices, as the veggies turn out horribly bland, and the water isn’t brothy, so it’s just soggy veggies in water.  I think learning a few tricks about seasoning soups will do wonders for me.

Stew:  same as soup, just focusing on root vegetables (and perhaps a touch of meat if I can find local/organic sources — but perhaps not — I haven’t cooked meat at home for many years now, and haven’t decided to change that, but I’m not overly attached to it, as long as I’m happy with the source of the meat — oh, except for beef, I still boycott that).

Chili: I’ve only made chili once, and it was years ago and I’m pretty sure it had ground beef in it.  I’d like to learn to make a tasty vegetarian chili.

Bread:  I tried bread a handful of times in the past few years, and usually got something edible, but not overly.  I want to find a recipe that works for me and then make it regularly, matching however much bread I eat (which currently isn’t much, but the more soup I make, the more bread I will correspondingly want to have).

Pancakes:  I used to make them often when I was a kid, but I haven’t made them in years.

Biscuits/gravy:  I want to be able to make these on an early morning, knowing what I’m doing but not having to think too hard about it.

Pie:  I’ve made really good pumpkin pie a few times, but no other kind.  And definitely no homemade pie crusts — not sure if I’ll tackle that this winter or not.  But I’d like to add at least one other kind of pie to my repertoire.

Cookies:  I’ve rarely made cookies and I don’t plan to make them often — I just want to know how.  Sugar cookies seem to be what I want to know how to do.  The only successful cookies I can recall making were M&M cookies, which must have been about 35 years ago when I was a young teenager!

Lasagna — Never made it, want to know how.  Again, not that I plan to make it often, but it would be a good thing to make in order to have a week’s worth of “just heat” meals.  And, of course, I won’t be using meat, so I need to find a good vegetarian recipe.

Now, one twist to my cooking projects this winter is that I really want to emphasize non-traditional cooking methods.  Whenever the woodstove’s going, any stovetop cooking I’m doing will probably be done there.  And I’ll be interested in seeing how my solar oven works in the wintertime (it’s still sunny, after all!).  Further, I want to get more familiar with using my electric crockpot to slow-cook things — that way I can cook even on days I’m away working.

I’m not going to make a lot of strict rules about how many of these things I’ll get to, but they are all things I want to do/learn/add to my skills, so I’ll just do as many of them as I can get to.

Side benefits will be less money spent on eating out, more self-reliance, and a reduced chance of letting any of my stored food go to spoilage, once I actually follow the cardinal rule of food storage:  Store What You Eat and Eat What You Store.

Now I better go, because I’m getting hungry.  Let’s see if I can start on one of these projects tonight!

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

In one of my work situations, I’m in an awkward position — my immediate supervisor, with whom I usually work alone (meaning no other employees around) absolutely hates the “big boss”.  My supervisor, who I’ll call D, spends most of her time complaining harshly about the big boss, who I’ll call B.  D regularly and frequently doesn’t follow the rules and procedures that B has established, and therefore I generally don’t/can’t either, or I will appear to my supervisor to be 1) in defiance to her, and 2) allied with the hated B.  For similar reasons, I can’t directly tell B (with whom I don’t always agree, but generally have a healthy and pleasant relationship) about all the places where D isn’t following the rules — because D and I work in isolation from other employees, there would be no doubt of the source (me) if any tales of disobedience were to reach B.  This much I have explained to B and she understands.  Sometimes B or another employee joins us for a shift, but on those occasions, D’s behavior changes dramatically, so there is much less for B to notice (though the physical condition of the office, as well as the progress or lack thereof on assignments, would seem to be pretty blatant).

I’m sure this is really confusing to read — it’s confusing enough to experience, and although I’m quite sure neither of them would ever read this, I’m not going to be more explicit here anyway.  Too much at risk.

The bottom line is that, while I’m in a good spot in that they both think *I’m* doing well (and the big boss understands that she can’t ask me to elaborate on conditions in our office, she needs to interact with D separately), it’s mildly stressful to me for several reasons.  First of all, the potential hatred of D that would be aimed at me if she were to ever suspect that I don’t hate B with all the passion she does.  Actually, I’m exaggerating, she does know that I’m “cordial” with B, which makes me, in her mind, already suspect.  But D sees the world in terms of alliances, and if she ever thought that I actually was *more* on B’s side than on her own, I’m sure I’d never hear the end of it, and might even experience bad job juju as a result (bad review, misplaced blame for problems, etc.).  At the very minimim I’d experience the silent treatment and be on the receiving end of direct hostility at work.

The second (and primary, at this point) reason it’s unpleasant to me, is because D experiences her job as overwhelmingly stressful, almost to the breaking point, and that’s all she can talk about, and I’m the only one there to listen.

Ironically, D’s stress gets in the way of her doing a good job — the job is not so complicated, and D is fully smart enough, that she should be able to do it without much stress at all, even if she doesn’t like B’s rules or management style.  But D is one of those people for whom complaining is apparently her primary mode of being.  I’ve directly seen her choose complaining over fixing a problem — even a simple problem.  If she was the source of the problem, she’ll deny it and instead blame the boss or complain about the boss’ overbearing style (as if that negates her mistake?  hello?)  But if D wasn’t the source of the original problem, then watch out!  Especially if the problem came from B or anyone she thinks is allied with B.  D would NEVER dream of fixing a problem that someone else created, not when there’s the opportunity to complain about it instead!  Again, it puts me in a bind — each time that I move to solve a problem that she hasn’t solved, I’m at risk of “showing her up.”  As if my solving a problem in thirty seconds might make her huge blowup about it seem out of proportion?  Or as if my willingness to act instead of complain makes me appear to be on B’s side?  (these are MY thoughts, not hers — this is what I worry about that D might think when I step in to fix in thirty seconds what she has just spent an hour whining is an insurmountable hassle…)

The sad part is that this is in a work situation that involves dealing with the public, and wouldn’t you think that serving the public would be of primary importance here?  Certainly more important than pointing fingers or whining about the boss.  But no, not for D.

Ironically, as unpleasant a work environment as this creates, this job is my favorite of all my part-time jobs…  Go figure…  I think partly that’s because I truly enjoy the work, and partly because I’m in a favorable position in the sense that I personally am managing to get along with everyone, and I am productive and getting a lot done.  I think (biased though I might be, lol) that I do several *times* the amount of work that D does per shift.  She spends so much of her time complaining about the boss (and then complaining about how stressed she is) that it’s a wonder she gets any work done at all!

This situation has built to a head in the last few months, since a new computer system (and its attendant need for training) has caused the boss to join us frequently.  And during the boss’s visits, she has noticed some of the OTHER backlogs that had piled up in the office, and is now asking for those things to be taken care of.  While I think this is perfectly reasonable (the backlogs had bothered me too, see above for my view that D spends her time complaining instead of working), B’s interactional and management style have many people irked, D most of all.  B comes across as condescending, it’s true.  She talks to us all as if we were kindergartners.  For some reason I don’t understand, this doesn’t bother me, although I’ve certainly taken offense to being talked to like a child in other situations.  And for some other reasons that I also don’t understand, D is way beyond bothered by B’s style, all the way to hatred, hostility, and the edge of explosion.  She takes such great offense that she’s nearly reduced to tears each time B talks to her.  Each conversation revs the hatred up higher.  And yet D would never be able to consider actually expressing her feelings to B.  Because D doesn’t see the problem as herself being offended, so she’d never consider attempting to solve it from that angle.  Instead, D is so certain that B is “wrong” in every way shape and form, that all she can do is seethe and vent, before and after (and lately, even DURING) each interaction with B.

Seems to me that honest communication could eliminate this problem.  Or at least 90% of it – D might not ever like B’s style of interaction.  And B might not be able to change her style much (though I’m sure she would try if she realized how people perceive her).  But at least B could factor that in to her management style and actions, and D could learn to not take it personally.  I might have an opportunity to talk generically about this with B, and if I can, I will.

Another thing that’s so ironic about it is that, while D is offended by being spoken to like a child, she is, in fact, BEHAVING like a child, both in her pouty whining, and in her refusal to do her job in favor of finger-pointing and complaining.

Sheesh, you’d never know we are all adults here!

Anyway, as I said, things are coming to a head, and I personally think it’s possible that D might either tell B to “take this job and shove it”, or have a breakdown, or actually get fired, if B decides to pay more attention to the actual work that is or isn’t getting done.

Gonna be an interesting winter at “Dog’s Little Office”…