Tomato Pop

                  Do you know how to skin a tomato?

                  I do.

                  Oh, and by the way, it’s not the same way that you would peel a potato.  I got laughed at when I said I was going to do that.  I asked if Rex thought I could use a potato peeler on a tomato, and he laughed at me.  LAUGHED.  He said, “You’re going to get tomato junk everywhere.  Don’t do it.”  Of course, he didn’t offer up that criticism with any better ideas, but I digress.

                  Don’t ask me why I was peeling a tomato.  It really didn’t need to be peeled.  It’s been a long week, and I wanted to try some new domestic technique to cheer me up.  I read that peeling a tomato is supposed to be complicated, so I decided to try it.  One of my textbooks tells me that in order to peel a tomato, I should “hold it over a gas flame until it pops.”

                  I’m sorry…I need to do what?  Turn on my stove and roast the tomato like a marshmallow?  Is this some kind of sick version of a health food s’more?  I wanted to refuse, but it was too tantalizing of a challenge.  I pulled out a fork and skewered my tomato.

                  Rex asked what I was doing.  Peeling the tomato with a potato peeler didn’t seem quite as ridiculous now that I was roasting it instead.  I felt a little ridiculous myself, to be honest with you.  I turned on the stove and tentatively pushed the tomato into the flame.  I held it there for a few seconds, but nothing happened.  I took it out of the flame and looked at it.  Was it possible to roast a tomato wrong?  I put it back in the flame….held it there for a few more seconds….and….POP!

                  I jumped and screamed in surprise.  Rex laughed again (he’s always laughing at me).   I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly, but I hadn’t expected the tomato to pop.  In retrospect, the book did say to wait until the tomato “pops,” but I guess I thought that was an exaggeration or something.  Anyway, the tomato popped.  More accurately, the skin popped.  It was loud, and it startled me.  Once it popped, I easily slipped the skin off of the meat of the tomato.  It was way cool.  You should try it sometime.

                  So there I had it – a perfectly peeled tomato.  I was very proud of myself until I realized that I had absolutely no use for a peeled tomato.  Why do people peel tomatoes?  What kind of recipe calls for a peeled tomato?  Rex says that you need to peel tomatoes for canning purposes, but that’s obviously dumb since you can just BUY canned tomatoes.  I see no reason to can your own.  I asked Rex if he wanted the tomato, but he didn’t.  Neither did his friend Steven.  I’m pretty sure Elvis wanted it, but I heard somewhere that tomatoes are bad for dogs so I ended up just throwing it away. 

                  You might say that I wasted a perfectly good tomato, but no – it was a learning tomato.  Now I have learned how to peel properly.  Once I find a recipe that calls for peeled tomatoes, I am going to be absolutely ready.

Ironing Your Shower Curtain

The week gets really busy sometimes, so today I searched by books for a rule that would be relatively easy to follow.  I didn't have time to do something as extensive as my "seven step room cleaning program" (see post from 1/14).  Luckily, I found just the thing.  It's probably the easiest rule I have found in my books so far, and it takes me no time at all to follow it.  Ready?  Here it is:

Never, never, never iron a plastic shower curtain.

Do you want to know what's funny?  The fact that this is in the book means that someone did iron their plastic shower curtain.  The editors of this book found it important enough to warn people not to do that.  I can only imagine the stinky, gooey, melty mess that became of the shower curtain that got ironed.

Why would you iron a shower curtain?  Does a shower curtain get wrinkly in the course of normal use?  I mean, I suppose it has some creases when you first take a brand new curtain out of the package, but after your first shower the steam flattens them out.  I have never once had the urge to iron a shower curtain.  If I'm being completely honest, I never really have the urge to iron anything.  I try to fold my clothes well and/or hang them up right when they come out of the dryer so I don't have to iron them.  When I do have to iron, usually Rex does it for me because that's just how much I hate ironing.

Let's say for one second that your plastic shower curtain did get some wrinkles.  I'm not sure how...maybe you were singing and dancing in the shower, got tangled in the curtain, and fell over.  Then you didn't pick up the shower curtain after you ripped it off the curtain rod, and it dried all in a heap.  Why oh why would your first response be "I know, I'll iron it!"  That would be like ironing saran wrap - no way would it end well.  My best advice to that person would be to please stop dancing in the shower.  It's dangerous.  If you just use your shower for cleaning purposes, your curtain should stay wrinkle-free.

Looking My Best

I've been reading a new book lately:  Homemaking for Teen-Agers.  (That's really how they spell it: "Teen-Agers").  It is a high school textbook published in 1958.  On page 243, the book tells me that "An adequate wardrobe is one that includes the garments, footwear, accessories, and other articles needed to keep you suitably and attractively dressed at all times."

Dang.  I am definitely not suitably and attractively dressed at all times.  Sometimes I look like a downright slob.  Isn't a housewife allowed to have slob days?  When am I supposed to wear my old T-shirts and athletic sweats that I got in high school?

Today I decided that I was going to spend the entire day "attractively dressed."  I woke up this morning, showered, and looked my best.  I even tried to dress in a fifties style to fit with my project.  On the agenda for today was cooking and grocery shopping...not something I would usually dress up for.  It was kind of fun, though.  I felt like I was getting ready for a date with Rex.  It made grocery shopping way more exciting.  Here is how I looked before heading to the grocery store:

Have you ever grocery shopped in heels and a skirt?  It's kind of painful after a while.  I felt pretty sophisticated, though, with a hint of creepy.  Kind of Stepford Wives-y.  It was a good way to make me buy healthy food, though, because I can hardly tap tap tap through the aisles in my beautiful outfit and then buy oreos and coke.  I had to buy fresh produce and organic things so that other people would get the message that I am a good housewife.  I dress up to go to the grocery store AND I buy healthy food for my family.  Boom - beat that.

People were looking at me a lot, so I whispered to Rex "I think I look ridiculous.  People keep looking at me."  Rex whispered back, "No, you look fabulous.  You just don't look like normal WinCo clientele.  You look like you should be at Whole Foods or something."  I guess that's true...I did look a little bit overdressed for WinCo.  Still, the one time I went to Whole Foods I wore an entirely different outfit...you can read that story if you click on the link:  here.

So anyway, I had a good time looking great at the grocery store even though now my feet hurt a little bit.  That just means that I get to be barefoot while I cook dinner...  I haven't found a rule against that yet.  Homemade chili tonight - a new recipe!  I wish you were here to try some.  It smells delicious.

Setting the Table

Rex and I had a dinner party last night, so I consulted my books about how to properly set a table.  There were plenty of diagrams depending on the formality of the party.  Our party was pretty informal (we only had one person over, ha ha), so I decided to go with the less formal setting.

There was a circle in the setting diagram that I didn't recognize because the plates and cups were already set.    What other circular item had to go on the table?  I looked to the accompanying paragraph to see what I was supposed to put in that spot to the right of the spoons.  Do you know what it is?  Do you?  Take a guess.

............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............
............?????.............

To the right of the spoons is the proper place to put the ASHTRAY.  Ha ha!  I guess it was so common to smoke back then that it was customary to provide an ashtray for each of your guests.  I've never been to a dinner that had an ashtray at each setting.

Here's my question - between the constant smoking and the "asbestos mats," how did anyone survive the fifties??  This project is more dangerous than I thought.

Useful Facts and Figures

Inside the front cover of the Good Housekeeping Guide to Successful Homemaking (1961 ed) there are a bunch of facts and diagrams under the title "Useful Facts and Figures Needed in Every Home."  I went to Rex's school and used their copy machine to make a copy of the page so I can hang it on our refrigerator. After all, it is NEEDED in every home.  How has your home survived without it?  Some of the things were pretty useful, such as equivalent measures (3 tsp = 1 tbs, 2 cups = 1 pint, etc) or how to measure wet vs. dry items used in cooking.  Some of the other things listed were very strange, however.  I will share some of them with you here:

1. 24 sheets of paper = 1 quire.  A quire?  Have you ever heard this term? When would I have to use this term?  "I would like to buy a quire of pink paper."  Next time I'm in a craft store I'm going to ask for this and see what kind of response I get.

2. There is a section of the page that says, "50 Years of Dates on Which Easter Sunday Falls."  It gives the date of Easter Sunday for the next fifty years...which ended in 2001.  Why would you need to predict when Easter Sunday is going to be fifty years from now?  I'm sorry, but no one plans that far ahead.

3. There is a whole list of wedding anniversaries and what their symbols are.  I feel like most of us have heard that twenty-five years is the "silver" anniversary and fifty is the "golden" anniversary, but did you know that the sixth is the iron anniversary? The twelfth is silk? Fourteenth is agate? (What the heck is agate?).  Our next wedding anniversary is in May.  It will be our third, which is represented by "leather, or any leather-like article."  I will have to find some sort of leather-like article to give to Rex.  Thanks Good Housekeeping.  I might have gotten him some totally normal, but now I know better.  Good thing I have eleven more years to figure out what agate is!

4. The astronomical solar year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds long.  You're all saying "Happy New Year" at the entirely wrong time.  I'll have to fix that next year.

So anyway, lucky for me I now have this entire list of necessary facts and figures hanging in my apartment.  If you feel like something in your life is missing, this paper is probably what it is.  Let me know you want one and I can send you a copy.

$28 W's

From A Guide to Successful Homemaking:

"Beautiful silverware is a joy to own and an asset to any table decoration, but personalized silver is the pride of any discriminating hostess.  It is a family heirloom to be handed down from generation to generation with stories of the mothers and grandmothers who used it.  If you have recently purchased silverware, or if you have been fortunate enough to have received it as a gift, consider the advantages of having it monogrammed."  

After reading that paragraph, don't you want monogrammed silverware?  I do.  It's the pride of any hostess!  I want to have pride in my hostessing!  

I have a nice enough silverware set.  Well, I don't think it's real silver, but it gets food to my mouth pretty well so it's just fine.  I obviously don't have the money to have the whole set monogrammed  so I decided to just take the serving tools and have them done.  This operation required a wingman (because I didn't want to look ridiculous all by myself), so my friend Elle graciously offered to go with me.

We went to the mall because I know that the store Things Remembered engraves things.  A Snookie look alike asked if she could help us.  Once I recovered from the shock of her cloud of perfume and heavy eye makeup, I presented her with my silverware and asked if they could engrave it.  She took the pieces gingerly and asked if I knew what they were worth.  I said I wasn't sure.  She asked if they were antiques or family heirlooms.  I said that they weren't....yet.  I told her that they weren't worth very much (now) because they were from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  She said that she could do a single initial monogram on each piece for a total of $28 plus tax.

$28 plus tax?!  That's a little steep for two letters!  I asked if she knew of anywhere else that engraved.  She said that there was a kiosk on the lower floor that does engraving, but they could only do laser engraving.  She said that with disgust, as if laser engraving was the lowest of low.  Well, I was only engraving my serving utensils so that I could be a proper and proud housewife, so I figured that laser engraving would do just fine for me.

Elle and I went downstairs and searched for the kiosk that Snooki told us about.  When we found it, I presented my wares to the man at the kiosk and asked about having them engraved.  He told me he would do the job for $3 each piece (for a total of $6).  That sounded like a much better price, so I agreed.  The man asked me which way I wanted to have the W engraved.  Should it be facing the top of the handle, facing the bottom, or sideways?  I panicked.  I didn't know which way it was supposed to go!  I opened my book to see if it had any directions for me.  Yes, I had brought my book with me for such a  time as this.  Unfortunately, the book didn't have any pictures of the personalized silverware.  The man looked at me like I was nuts for carrying around a giant old book and searching it for answers.  I had a one in three shot of getting the answer right, and if I got it wrong then I would look like a total dweeb when anyone knowledgeable on this topic saw my silverware.  Freak out!

Luckily my wingman came to my rescue.  Elle said, "Don't worry!  I'll look it up on my phone!"  Using 2013 technology to solve a 1950 problem seemed a little bit like cheating, but I figured that I was at a disadvantage because I'd never seen personalized silverware.  People in the fifties probably saw a lot of it.  I decided that using new technology to make up for that disadvantage would be okay.  Elle found some great pictures, and all of them had the letter facing the fork or spoon part of the silverware.  I showed the pictures to the man and told him that's what I wanted.  He said alright.

Mission Accomplished!  Now I have my own personalized serving utensils, and I'm one step closer to being the penultimate fifties housewife. 

Matching Curtains

When Rex and I first moved to Vegas, I thought that the window in our room looked painfully bare.  I couldn't find any curtains that I liked, so I decided to make some.  I picked a fabric that matched our comforter, but I was worried that it might be a little bit too "matchy matchy."  Rex assured me that it looked fine, though, either because it really looked fine or because he wanted me to stop talking about curtains (or maybe a little bit of both).  I like how they turned out, but I've always wondered about how an interior design expert would react to my homemade match-the-bed-exactly curtains.  I was so happy when I read THIS in my home ec book today:

"Nothing could be lovelier in any bedroom than the use of matching fabric for the bedspread and draperies."

Whoo hoooooo!  Did you hear that, naysayers?  "Nothing could be lovelier!"  It says it right there in black and white on page 14.  So ha - my bedroom has achieved maximum loveliness due to a rule I followed before I even knew it was a rule!  Sometimes it's nice to read about something that I did right, since that doesn't happen very often in these books. :-)