So while watching my mom make it, I asked her to explain her gravy rules for a cooking simpleton like me.
This is what she said:
If you don’t want your gravy to taste like milk, you use water. Fried chicken dinner, you would want to use milk. I also use milk for a ham loaf. Water is used for beef dishes usually.
I can see my mother now, mixing up her flour and water in a glass. Half a glass of water and a tablespoon of flour. You want the flour mixed into the water like you’re making a paste, you don’t want the flour resting at the bottom.
Examine the bottom of your pan where you cooked your meat. You must be careful that there’s not too much fat. You want about two tablespoons of fat, so if there is more than that, remove it from the pan. This will be enough gravy for about four people.
Then you add it to the pan that you cooked your meat in, and scrape the bottom to blend the flour water with the drippings.
Turn up the heat until thickened.
(Note: At this point, my mom used the word “fond” here, which was beyond my understanding. I questioned her as to whether that was a real word, and researched it later on wikipedia. “In the culinary arts, fond is a contraction of fonds de cuisine which is loosely described as ‘the foundation and working capital of the kitchen.’ It refers to the flavorful solid bits of food stuck to a pan or pot after cooking. These bits are deglazed with a liquid in order to produce a gravy, stock, broth, or sauce.” So it is a real word, only further confirmation that my mom knows what she is talking about.)
You can add dashes of things, like Worcestershire or Kitchen Bouquet (seasoning in a bottle).
I used to use this special flour called Wondra.
Most of your flavor comes from what’s in the pan.
I hope this helps you on your gravy journey. And if you have your own tips and tricks, you know I will take them.
Forty really came in swinging last year, letting me know in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that I am aging.
At first there were little signs like the sudden ability to sit and stare at a bird feeder, watching the birds come and go and getting a real thrill when a new birdie showed up. “Oh! Is that a turtledove? Where is your partner?” This is said out loud as if I expect the turtle dove to answer me.
Or when I get home, I find I need to immediately slip a sweater on like Mr. Rogers. And every time, I say to myself, “I get it now, Mr. Rogers.”
My eyes are in a mutiny and reject contact lenses after wearing them since I was ten. I save them for special occasions or playing sports. Then my eyes get all dramatic, and not in the good way like with smoky eye shadow but rather by getting all puffy and swollen. Same goes for mascara, even the super-expensive-sensitive kind.
I soon began to notice that random cuts or scratches take approximately 743 days to heal. Like even my skin is too tired to patch things up the way it used to.
Then forty hit hard in June when I ruptured my achilles tendon. A real sucker punch because I wasn’t even looking—no previous pain, no warning that it was about to happen. I took a quick step during a basketball game and heard a sound behind me that made me think someone fell on the court. I felt pressure around my ankle, and asked my team if someone fell on me. They informed me that no one did, and using my detective skills, I figured out that the sound I heard was my tendon snapping. A tiny piece held on for dear life, but it was almost a complete rupture.
I have sprained many an ankle and am used to rehab and recovery. I expected something similar until I mentioned to people that I ruptured my achilles and their reactions made me realize I had a long road ahead of me. One friend said, “Dear God, that is a serious injury.” And I was all, “Is it???” It is.
But the (white) icing on the cake concerns my Canadian resident card. I have to renew it every five years, and for the first time this year, my photo was rejected due to “poor quality.” As this wasn’t my first rodeo, I carefully reviewed the photo and thought it looked like all my previous photos. Except I noticed that now my white hair and the white background sort of merge together in a weird way. But unless I was going to dye my hair, no amount of retakes would fix it. So I added “I_have_white_hair” to the file name of my photo and re-uploaded it to Canada. Lo and behold, it was approved.
I am not bitter yet although I can quickly see how bitterness seeps in. When I get home and get my sweater on and then look out the window to check for birds, I often see someone going for a jog or bike ride (or even just walking without a limp). I have to push the jealousy away; sometimes it’s a light shove but sometimes I have to wrestle her to the ground (carefully, though, so as not to re-injure myself). I keep things light by calling to the people, “Have you thanked your achilles tendons today? Do you know how much they do for you?” And then I usually sit and brush my white hair, fifty strokes on each side.
Thanks to this beautiful team for taking care of me on the night of my injury and getting me home. We played in a summer league made up of much younger teams (15-20 years younger than us, the other teams nearly all child-free and still in school, so we were pretty much the mom team). I am glad we used our age-old wisdom to go with “Time Out Squad” instead of “Victorious Secret” because the other teams had sporty names like “Elite Girls” and “Team Swoosh.”
Things got rough in a few games, what we call “scrappy” in basketball, but we held our own. I mean, we also yelled things like, “We have kids to take care of and jobs to go to tomorrow! Stop playing dirty! We can’t get injured!” In the end, this team won it all, which confirms what we all know: moms are champions. So you’re never too old and all that, except for when you rupture your achilles.
I am working hard in physiotherapy so I can get back to my hoop dreams. Here’s a fun fact: While my foot was in the aircast for three months, the inside of my skin became attached to my calf muscle, so my physio has to massage and separate them and that’s a lot of fun. But I endure it so I can get back to this crew on Tuesday nights, hopefully this season. Until then, play hard and box out and enjoy the quieter games without my hoops and hollers.
I will sign off by sharing one perk of my injury. Being immobilized makes you look for activities that don’t require movement. Would you look at this gorgeous spice drawer? Since I cannot run, an activity that helps me process life, I sometimes just open this drawer to silence the chaos in my mind. So thanks for that, Oregano.
A lot of John Irving’s books are adapted into movies, but as I read The Hotel New Hampshire I thought, “This one has too many bizarre things going on for it to have been adapted into a movie.” A lot of his books have bizarre things going on, but I was sure this one couldn’t work as a movie. Namely that one of the characters pretends to be a bear, in a bear costume, and people really think she is a bear. And I thought, “Who on this planet earth would ever believe a person could be a bear?” I finished the book and ONE DAY LATER this news story broke:
One day later! Crazy coincidence.
When I finish one of his books, I always miss the characters – they are so well-developed and intriguing that they feel like actual people in my life. So I did an Internet search to try to fill the gaping void in my heart and discovered it is a movie with Jodie Foster, Rob Lowe, and Beau Bridges, and I just have to see how they fit this story into a movie.
Our Endless Numbered Days taught me to always research a book before suggesting it for your book club to read. I can handle disturbing endings, but this one felt like a sucker punch to my brain. I am surprised my book club didn’t kick me out.
I also learned that Mary Poppins and Tinkerbell are pretty mean and intense. I feel like Julie Andrews softened up Mary Poppins a bit because there was definitely no “spoonful-of-sugar-helps-the-medicine-go-down” going on in the book. Also did anyone else know that Tinkerbell told the Lost Boys to shoot at Wendy when she was flying into Neverland and they hit her with an arrow and almost killed her?
Suite Francaise was an honor to read, especially considering the circumstances under which it was written and how it took 60 years to be found and published.
The Namesake was another Jhumpa Lahiri re-read because I was traveling and wanted to have an old friend with me.
I loved the David Sedaris book, as I knew I would.
And, lastly, I learned it’s okay to lie to your children in certain situations. Like if you agree to show your children any pictures that come up while you are reading to them from the hallway, but you have to walk over to their beds and use a flashlight because their rooms are dark, and the pictures look like this…
…it’s okay to tell them these pages did not have pictures so as not to give them nightmares. This was our second time reading Ollie’s Odyssey, and I waited for the part where the kid describes what adults are like at weddings. Too funny, too accurate.
After a five-year break from running, I kept saying I’d get back to it hahahahaha oh this is funny, I said I’d get back to it hahahaha really I can’t even finish this sentence, ok wwwwhew…I said I’d get back to it when I have more time. What a startling discovery: there will never be more time, it’s a matter of choosing to run over the hundreds of other things vying for my attention.
And I am better for it. Happy to report I reached my goal of 5 miles a week in 2022. 260+ miles (some weeks I ran more than five).
As suspected, it did a lot of good for me, mostly mentally but my strong legs are definitely a plus. If I’m feeling happy, I’m even happier after a run. If I’m not feeling happy, it turns out one can pound many things into the pavement – anxiety, anger, frustration, grief, disappoint, sadness, depression – they all swirl round and round in the head and as one runs they move down the body and out through the soles of the feet.
They may be waiting for me when I finish running, but I am always a bit better off than I was before the run.
Special thanks to my better half for helping me reach my goal. He’ll walk through the door and I’ll say, “I just need 30 minutes, keep the little darlings alive” and then I am gone, running like the wind…no, not true…running more like a cool, gentle breeze.
Upon reaching my 2022 goal, I told a friend there would be an increase in 2023. She said, “Oh, so you’ll do ten miles a week this year?” I looked at her like she had three heads and then confirmed, “Six” – paused here for dramatic effect – “I’ll run six miles a week this year.”
In search of a tiny ice scraper for eyeglasses, must be SMALL enough to scrape off ice from lens but BIG enough to fit between thumb and forefinger.
Coldest temperature was -2.2° F (-19° C), resulting in eyelash icicle.
Getting new gear, although when I wear my buff band over my face in the winter, I look like I am about to rob a bank.
They had a good life.Rude deer blocking my path.
Running at night for the romantic lighting.
Running my first race, joined by family – a 5k and then a 1k with my kids.
Fierce – her uncle confirmed this was the look my little girl gave to anyone who passed her.
My little boy would sprint and then would take a little walking break and then sprint again and so on and so forth.
Watching the ombre effect on the trees in the fall was very distracting for my running as I would have to stop and stare.
It’s not quite fair to the other books because this has been a favorite since I first read it in 2004, and this is my fourth time reading it, maybe fifth.
Second favorite: L’Assommoir
I read this because it’s one of my husband’s favorites, but at one point I threw the book down to go to him and ask, “Why did you have me read this? I’m so depressed for these people!” It’s so well-written, though, and truly transports the reader to another place and time so I kept going.
Read to my kids, standing between their two rooms at night, which is much better than having them come in and out for an hour:
The Secret Garden
My little boy’s review: “This is sooooo boring.” And I questioned how much my little girl was actually listening when she asked way too far into the book, “Who’s Mary?”
Ollie’s Odyssey
A gift from a dear friend, received when she came to Montreal right before Anna was born and I said, “I will read this to her one day” and that day finally came.
Ok, ok, I’ll read you: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
I’m in a FB book group and so many people are obsessed with this book that I grew annoyed by it. A friend offered to let me borrow it, and I was like, “Book, are you following me?” Then I was reading my college alumni magazine, and saw an article about someone I went to college with and how she wrote books and was pretty successful. I turned the page, and of course she is the author of this book and many others. So I read it out of support of a fellow college alum…and to see what the big deal was…which wasn’t so big after all. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an entertaining read, just a little overhyped.
Fooled me once: Daisy Jones & the Six
It’s written like a transcript from interviews of a band and after a couple of chapters, I tried to look up their music. Multiple searches on different music platforms yielded no results to only realize it’s a novel and she made it all up. You got me, Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Boston Public Library *most borrowed book of 2022*: The Midnight Library
A nice little find in one of those Little Free Library boxes, interesting concept.
My inaugural lifestyle post is for all of you out there trying to down those eight cups of water every day.
I love champagne, but good champagne is expensive.
Water is less expensive.
And it turns out, while I do love champagne, I mostly love drinking from a champagne glass.
I think you know where this is going, don’t you?
My first piece of lifestyle advice: drink water from a champagne glass.*
I keep mine next to the sink, right next to my avocado plant named Arthur. I checked the measurement and it’s exactly one cup. Now that body of yours is made up of about 60% of water, give or take, and it needs more every day. I know, so demanding. You may find yourself asking, “Body, can’t you just use what you have?!” It can’t. It needs you to give it at least eight champagne glasses (aka cups) a day.
Now did the guy who came to install our gutters last fall think I was tossing back champagne at 9 AM with two small children to take care of? Yes.
But did I get my eight cups of water in that day? Also yes.
*If you do not work from home, this may not go over well with Management. Please confer with them before proceeding.
coming full circle 