Dollywood

Posted on June 9, 2024January 19, 2025 by Leigh Ann

In June 2024, my mom and I booked a trip to Dollywood to celebrate New Year’s Eve. This is the ongoing story of my journey from total Dolly-ignorance to…well, I don’t know where this story will end up.

Part 1: Soul

You have to understand where I’m coming from.
The Gods of my childhood were Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. There were none above. They were the pinnacle, and Motown was their Olympus. My hometown Philly had it’s own Olympus, Philadelphia International Records, and it’s own Gods, Gamble & Huff & Bell. My earliest and happiest childhood memories all have Motown and TSOP playing in the background. Sinatra was there too, which, if we’re talking about lush arrangements and the finest session players in the world, it’s really not much of a departure.

When I was 5, my mom married a musician. He played drums, and while they were married, he went back to college, ultimately becoming an orchestral percussionist. There was a lot of jazz, and a lot of percussion-heavy classical music in the house. In my soul, these genres – Jazz, Classical, R&B, Soul, and even Disco – blend seamlessly.

I didn’t – I do not – listen to country music.
It makes my skin crawl.
There. I said it.
For one thing: I can not stand the violin, or fiddle, or whatever you want to call it. As part of a full arrangement: fine, okay, I’ll allow it. On it’s own, it’s shrill, whiny, and likely to trigger a migraine. But not all country music features the fiddle, so that can’t be the whole story.

I lean too heavily on the quote, attributed to Duke Ellington, “There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.” In my mind, “the other kind” is a lot of jam bands, people who can’t play their instruments, and country. All country. Occasionally I would hear someone absolutely tear it up on the banjo, and think, “Hm. That’s not bad!” but never enough for me to actually run to the record store.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to be less judgy.
I don’t yuck other’s yums. And I have learned to identify my own biases.

Part 2: Ignorance

Honestly, I think I made it to the age of 50 without knowing more than one Dolly Parton song. I knew “9 to 5” and that was it. Okay, yes, I knew Whitney’s version of, “I Will Always Love You” but I didn’t know that it was a Dolly Parton song for at least another 20 years.

Now, looking back, I’m curious how this is possible. How could I have lived through the entire decade of the 1970s and not know anything about Dolly Parton except for boob jokes?

My ignorance of all things Dolly has something to do with where America finds itself, politically, today. I find great significance in the fact that I was born in 1971, exactly one year and twenty-one days before Roe v. Wade was decided. I was born into a culture war. Trying to explain why I grew up believing that “country music” = “right-wing” sounds very second-wave and reductive now, but until recently I believed that if you listened to country music, you must agree with Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Regan, and Jessie Helms. Now I know this isn’t true and has never been true. Still, I’m not pulling this association from thin air. How many photos have you see of Regan on a horse dressed like a cowboy? Politicians and activists on the right claimed country culture as their own. So even if, as a child, I had been curious about the music itself, it carried the taint of regressive politics, hate mongering, and willful ignorance.

I guess I have Lil Naz X and Beyoncé to thank for opening my eyes. The same way that country music is not (and never was) all white, it isn’t and wasn’t always the exclusive property of right-wing politicians.

So, with a spirit of open-minded curiosity, I’m going to East Tennessee.

A Smoky Mountain New Year

Well. That went about as well as could be expected.

The theme park – actual Dollywood – was meh. It isn’t fair to compare it to any Disney park, but if not that, what? Six Flags? By any measure, the park was a little run down, not laid out in any way that made sense, and just generally difficult to navigate. Also, to be fair, it was cold AF, so we may have enjoyed getting lost and enjoying the sights more if it had been a lovely autumn day.

Anyway, I wasn’t there for the rides, I was there for “The Dolly Parton Experience” of which there was not nearly enough. The “The Dolly Parton Experience” is a small section of the park that functions as a mini museum. As far as I’m concerned, they can raze the entire property and rebuild as a giant museum, because the tiny bit we saw only made me want more. I could look at the tailoring of her costumes for a year. There should be classes. The bust darts alone!

There is Dolly as songwriter, and Dolly as performer, and Dolly as an actor, and especially Dolly the philanthropist-slash-saint. But all of her creative work exists now under Dolly, the brand. The thing is, I believe it is ALL under her design and direction. Certainly she has a small army, bringing her vision to life, but it’s all HER vision. I wish that I had learned more about Dolly Parton, both the brand and also the intellect under the wigs.

East Tennessee

Guns, God, and really big trucks. I’m not saying it was *exactly* what I expected, but…I wasn’t surprised by what I found. Lots of guns, lots of churches.

My exercise in cultural immersion started at the rental car counter, when the agent cheerfully handed over the keys to a brand-new Ram quad cab. No photo adequately conveys the enormity of this truck. Both my mom and I are short, so climbing into the cab required a combination of one-armed pull-up, with a box jump and mid-air twist. It was a lot. Without a bit of humor, my mom’s friend who lives in Texas told her that she should buy a step-stool to keep in the truck, but I didn’t understand how, once we got into the truck, we were supposed to reach the step-stool still on the ground. Maybe reel it in using a piece of string?

Mushroom Spinach Pesto Lasagna

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Leigh Ann

Last time I made lasagna, it turned out *exactly* perfect. I’m certain I wrote down my recipe at that time, but I can’t find it anywhere. So, I’m hoping this version turns out okay, and meanwhile I’m documenting every step.

Ingredients:
1 28oz can crushed San Marzano tomatoes
1 28oz can diced San Marzano tomatoes
1 large onion
10 TBS butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

8oz mushrooms
1/8th cup olive oil
salt & pepper

16oz frozen chopped spinach
4oz pesto

16oz mozzarella
16oz ricotta
4 eggs

1lb DeCecco lasagna noodles

Start the sauce first, since it takes at least 45 minutes to simmer.
Usual Marcella Hazan recipe.
Before I use the sauce, I like to remove the onion, then run the immersion blender for a moment, to make sure all the diced tomatoes are fully incorporated. This recipe makes more sauce than I needed, but it’s delicious and will get used for something.

Mushrooms:
Pre-roast the mushrooms to extract as much liquid as possible, while concentrating the flavor using the “Easy Roasted Mushrooms” recipe at https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-roasted-mushroom-food-lab-recipe
With an immersion blender, chop coarsely.
(Okay for this version, I only had 8oz mushrooms, but I suspect 16oz would be better. Time will tell.)

Spinach:
Thawed, drain, and SQUEEZE until absolutely all of the moisture has been removed.

Cheese Mixture:
Grate the mozzarella. In a large bowl, mix moz, ricotta, and eggs. Combine well, then divide evenly into two bowls.
Into one bowl, stir spinach and pesto.
Into the other bowl, stir mushrooms.
Refrigerate until assembly.

FINALLY! Pasta.
The sauce is nearly finished and the cheese mixtures are in the fridge. Honestly, at this point, I need a little sit-down. But then! Boil pasta for 4 minutes. Drain, plunge into cold water to keep noodles from sticking together during assembly.

Assembly:
This time, I layered, from bottom to top:
Sauce
Noodles
Spinach cheese mixture
Noodles
Mushroom cheese mixture
Noodles
Sauce
— Which is less sauce that I usually add, but I’m aiming for distinct layers. Also, those two layers of sauce were pretty thick. I’m not at all worried about not enough moisture. The remaining sauce (and the onion) will be reheated and served on the side.

At this point, double-cover the lasagna, and put it into the fridge overnight, to bake and serve the next day. Sure, I could bake it right away, but dammit. The entire kitchen, and every bowl, pot, and utensil is dirty, and I need a nap.

Next Day:
Take lasagna out of the fridge maybe 20 minutes before putting it into the oven. I like to top with a generous dusting (flurry? blizzard!) of freshly grated Locatelli cheese before baking.
Preheat oven to 350. Bake covered, maybe 45 minutes, maybe more or less.
Absolutely plan to take it out of the oven a solid 10 minutes before serving, at the very least. Can not serve lasagna right out of the oven. It needs time to rest. Lots of time.
Since my guests are due to arrive at 5:pm:
3:50 – remove from fridge, pre-heat oven
4:10 – start baking
4:55 – remove from oven

Thanksgiving 2023

Posted on November 20, 2023November 24, 2023 by Leigh Ann

Menu:

Baby Bella Mushrooms stuffed with
Rancho Gordo Christmas Lima Beans,
Blue Cheese & Walnuts

Grandmom Gladys’ Mashed Potatoes

Grandmom Jean’s Stuffing

Mushroom Gravy

Canned Cranberry Gelée

Noe Valley Bakery Pecan Pie with
Hand-Whipped Cream

Monday:

Grocery shopping for all ingredients.
Made the compound butter for the entree and the gravy, because those are the things that keep best for a few days. Still, somehow I’m drastically behind schedule.

Blue Cheese & Walnut Compound Butter
1 stick salted butter
2oz blue cheese
1/3 cup very finely chopped walnuts (think: dust)
1 TBS dry sherry
Generous snip of rosemary

Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature.
Stir, stir, stir. Stir more. Stir until you don’t really see any more streaks of plain butter, or until you just don’t care anymore.
Can be stored in a sealed container for 3-4 days before use.
Take a tentative, curious lick of the spatula. Lose all sense of decorum. Lick the bowl. Lick your fingers. It’s butter with cheese, nuts, and alcohol, FFS. It’s DELICIOUS. Keep licking. Why else could we possibly be on earth if not to revel in pleasure.

Mushroom Gravy
I basically followed the recipe from Serious Eats, with very few modifications:
– Veggie stock (used a vegan “beef” stock) instead of meat stock
– Hen of the Woods and portabella instead of crimini
– Rosemary instead of thyme
– Finally, I pureed it until it was silky smooth. I don’t want a chunky gravy.

Sooooooo. I’m washing and chopping 12oz of mushrooms, and I’m like, JFC, this is a lot of mushrooms. Did I buy too many? So I check the recipe, and no, I bought the correct amount. The recipe yields 12 servings, or 4 full cups of gravy.

Fortunately, it’s DELICIOUS, and after licking the spatula, I switched to a spoon and just started eating it like soup. Why isn’t it soup? It IS soup.

https://www.seriouseats.com/mushroom-gravy-sauce-recipe

Wanted to get more done today, specifically, I’d planned to cook the beans and prep the mushrooms for the entree. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty busy week for me and Mike, apart from cooking and cleaning and decorating. Tomorrow we have two (count ’em, TWO) appointments in the middle of the day.

Stay tuned to see if I catch up tomorrow!

It’s just a lot of gravy. “Normal size” mason jar for scale.

Planning gives me a chance to play with my pens!

Compound butter ingredients, adding the sherry.

Tuesday:

Garlic and rosemary in olive oil to start the beans.

Woke up to a text from my sister-in-law.

I had knitted Christmas stockings for all the nieces and nephews when they were born. When they were putting away their Christmas decorations last year, they asked me if I could repair a tiny hole in one of the stockings. Honestly, a 5-minute job. Of course! I’m happy to do it! They give me the stocking. I promptly put it aside, and don’t give it another thought until this morning, when my sister-in-law texted, asking if I had the stocking ready, bc they needed it for Christmas.

Dear reader, I have NO FUCKING CLUE where that stocking might be. It has not been repaired, unless the elf on the shelf has gotten out of the snitch racket and started being actually helpful for a change.

So, for those keeping score at home, today I need to:
– Catch up on the cooking prep I didn’t finish yesterday.
– Do all the cooking prep originally scheduled for today.
– TWO appointments outside the house!
– Find, repair, and ship the missing stocking.

It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I mean, the stocking situation is BAD, but the cooking is fine. I got up and immediately started the beans. As you know, I use the Rancho Gordo method, which for this batch went something like this:

Christmas Limas
1/2 lb beans
1/4 tsp baking soda, divided
2 TBS salt, divided
2 TBS olive oil
4 large cloves garlic, peeled
lots of rosemary
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

– I did a pre-soak, only bc I remembered. Put beans in a large bowl with 1/8 tsp baking soda and 1 TBS salt, filled with cold water, stirred, covered (only so the cats wouldn’t get into it) and let sit overnight.
– Woke up, freaked out over the stocking, poured a cup of coffee.
– Drained and rinsed the beans.
– In a large pot, sauted garlic and rosemary in olive oil, just until fragrant. Added beans, lots of water, 1/8 tsp baking soda and 1 TBS salt, pepper. Brought to a hard boil, and let ‘er rip for 10 minutes. Turned the heat down to as low as it will go, and covered, leaving the smallest crack to vent.
– Sat down to update the blog. Still haven’t finished my coffee. Start to wonder exactly what time I started the beans. They need maybe 45 minutes? IDK. It doesn’t matter, since I don’t know what time they started.
– Ah! But I took a picture of the beans boiling! So, check the time stamp, 8:22am, great, it’s been about 40 minutes, I should check.
– Yup. Done. Transfer into pyrex to cool. Try not to eat too many right now.

Stocking Update:

Found the hole.
Fixed the hole.
Ready to ship!

Wednesday:

I’ve typed an update each day, with the day of the week in large, bold type, but I still can’t believe it is Wednesday, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I’m doing fine with cooking, but I need to clean for company. Okay, yes, company isn’t coming until Sunday, but, still. I think Sunday will be the first “party” we’ve hosted since the before times, and neither my living room nor I am ready in any way.

ANYWAY. Wednesday. I’ve made the mashed potatoes, and they are perfection. They taste just like Grammy’s, even tho I followed the recipe from The Pioneer Woman, which I’m pretty sure is the same as Grammy’s. No real mods, I didn’t use Lawry’s, I did use white pepper.
https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a12083/delicious-creamy-mashed-potatoes/

Turns out, I don’t own a potato masher. I used a pastry knife to start, and switched over to my hand mixer to finish, which worked fine.

Checklist and timing for tomorrow:

12:30 – Pull mashed potatoes and compound butter out of ‘fridge
1:45 – Make stuffing
2:00 – Pre-heat top oven to 350
2:15 – Saute and stuff mushrooms
2:25 – Stuffing into top oven
2:50 – Mashed Potatoes in top oven
3:00 – Pre-heat bottom oven to 450
3:01 – Gently reheat gravy
3:15 – Mushrooms in bottom oven
3:25 – Everything out of oven, plate the cranberry gelée
3:30 – Sit down to dinner

…and whipping in the three different kinds of dairy.

Thursday: Thanksgiving Day

Like most days, I started today with a Prilosec and cold brew.
Unlike most days, I added a splash of Amaretto to my coffee, because it’s a holiday, dammit.

Grandmom Jean’s Stuffing.

Growing up, this was our all-purpose stuffing. We used it for stuffed peppers, braciole, and of course, Thanksgiving.

I was explaining the recipe to some friends, and they pointed out that this recipe is more like a savory bread pudding than stuffing. Great! Whatever. To me, this is stuffing.

The recipe is simple, but, in honor of Grandmom Jean, who died way too young and didn’t give up her cooking secrets easily, I’m not really able to give any exact measurements. It’s more of a, “keep adding things until it smells right” situation.

1 loaf good crusty Italian bread
12 eggs
4-5 cups grated Locatelli (ONLY Locatelli. If you can’t find it, do not make this recipe.)
1/2 – 1 bunch parsley (the whole bunch, from the grocery store) cleaned and minced
1/2 – 1 tsp black pepper

– Cube the bread, spread in one layer on cookie sheet, and leave out to dry or dry in the oven.
– Whisk together the eggs, and the rest of the ingredients, starting with the smaller quantities. Stir into the bread cubes. Stir, stir, stir. You want the bread to absorb all the eggs, and start to dissolve. You *don’t* want bread cubes floating in eggs. Give the mixture a good sniff. You should clearly smell each ingredient. Can you smell the parsley? If not, add more. Can you smell the cheese? If not, add more.
– Transfer into a greased casserole dish. It’s good to let it sit for a while (even overnight) in the ‘fridge, so that *all* of the bread has absorbed the egg, but this isn’t critical. Today I only let it sit about 30 minutes while I pre-heated the oven.
– Bake at 350 for about an hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

I didn’t get a glamour shot, so you’ll just have to trust me that everything was absolutely delicious!

Maggie’s Mushrooms

Maggie got naming rights to this dish because she gave me the idea to use the mini-muffin pan. Brilliant!

24 perfect crimini mushroom caps, cleaned and de-stemmed
Compound butter and Christmas Lima Beans (above)

– Saute the mushrooms just until they give up their liquid.
– Distribute caps into a mini-muffin pan. Stuff each cap with about 1tsp compound butter and exactly 3 Limas.
– Bake at 425 for about 12 minutes until sizzly.

I’ll be honest. They were much prettier before they went into the oven. Below is a “before” pic, the beans split in the oven, spoiling their cover girl good looks. But OMG so delicious!!! The balance of flavors was perfect.

The leftovers have been put away, and I’m typing by the twinkly holiday lights in our windows. Thanksgiving is over.

Really happy with how everything turned out. The mashed potatoes and stuffing with the mushroom gravy were *exactly* what I want Thanksgiving to taste like.

I’m always a little bemused when I plan and cook for three days, just to eat one dinner. Conversely, I know I could take the time to make mashed potatoes any time I wanted, but I don’t. Mashed potatoes make this Thursday special.

This year I feel like I found a good balance between cooking plenty of delicious holiday foods, without running myself ragged, or feeling let down when it was over. So in the spirit of the holiday, I am grateful.
– I am grateful for all the therapy (physical and mental) that got me to the point where I can take on a big project without burning myself out. I sit here now, with only the faintest migraine, and for that I am SO grateful.
– I am grateful for the abundant good fortune that brought me to this moment, here, now, safe and warm, with a roof over my head, and delicious food on my table.
– I’m grateful for the friends and family that saw me through the days (years) when I was in pain, out of balance, and dysregulated.
– I am grateful for Paco & Francis.
– I am grateful for Mike.

Mike always hand-whips the cream, with his ceremonial holiday whisk.

The Woman of Willendorf: why I’m fine with being fat, and why Google sucks.

Posted on November 4, 2023 by Leigh Ann

I went to a fancy, expensive, private, 4-year art college, so I’ve sat through many Art History lectures. One lesson I remember more than any other. The professor clicked to a slide of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. Because we were all educated and pretentious young women, the class immediately spouted off The Thing everyone says about Frank Lloyd Wright in general, and Falling Water in particular: Wright seamlessly integrated his buildings into the surrounding natural landscape.

The professor paused. Silence stretched. We looked at the slide. Finally she said, “Did he?”

That was my $500 per credit hour, “The Emperor Has No Clothes” moment. Just because everyone repeats the same factoid doesn’t make it true. It may contain a kernel of truth, or not. Maybe it was a popular fact, but now disproven. Maybe it was never true, but since history is written by the victors, it’s the only version we know.

How many times have you Googled something, and found nothing but hundreds of links to exactly the same, not exactly correct, information? It happens to me so frequently now that I’m hoping the next giant killer gets here soon with a better search engine. My most recent example: “The Venus of Willendorf.” Let’s start with her name. “Venus” is a gross anachronism, by tens of thousands of years. But she’s been saddled with that inaccuracy since she was dug up in 1908, and corrections to her name made in the past 40 years haven’t made a dent in search results.

It’s not the name that bothers me. It’s that One Thing we all know about the sculpture: she’s a fertility goddess, obviously, because of her “exaggerated” breasts, stomach, and hips. Clearly, the sculpture is about pregnancy and birth. Just Google it! You’ll see! Hundreds of identical hits, all telling you the same thing.

Please insert dramatic pause, while I leave the slide on the screen.

Is she pregnant? Are her breasts, stomach, and hips exaggerated? Because, my mirror says otherwise.

I’ve been a “small fat” for most of my life. There was a period in my 30s, when I “ate right and exercised” and was not plus size for the first and only time. I am the shape I am. I have always been this shape, although menopause has added more weight to my stomach. For the brief time that I was skinny, I still had large breasts and thighs. I could walk into any store and buy any clothing I wanted, but still: my breasts and thighs were several sizes larger than my waist. I was skinny, but somehow I was still shaped wrong. Maybe I wasn’t doing enough cardio. Too much cardio? More Pilates? More Yoga? Less weight training? I was inundated with advice for how to make my body right.

Trying to be ever-thinner and the right shape made me absolutely miserable. Eventually, suicidal ideation got me to a good therapist, and now, while I can’t say I love my body, I’m not trying to force it to become something it can never be. Recently, looking at my stomach, my breasts, my thighs, I had the thought, “I look like the Venus of Willendorf.” I don’t really. He hips are bigger, my legs are longer. I have feet and a face. But the overall shape, especially the shape of her breasts and stomach, mirror my own. In that moment I realized: I have always existed. My body. This shape. It isn’t new, and it’s not a result of GMO foods or a sedentary lifestyle. It simply is what some women look like, and have always looked like, for as long as humans have existed.

This realization sent me down the “Venus of Willendorf” rabbit hole. Reading link after link about her obvious pregnancy, I got kinda pissed. She simply does not look pregnant. I’ve seen pregnant bodies, and that’s not what they look like. On the other hand, she is exactly what I look like, and I have never carried a baby to term or given birth. The Woman of Willendorf was a crone, not a mother. Sure. She may have also been a mother, we can never know. But she looks more like a post-menopausal woman than a young woman at the peak of her fecundity. In order to accept that she is some sort of idealized fertility goddess, we need to agree that the sculptor accurately shaped the pendulous breasts, larger stomach, and wide hips common to older women, but decided to skip the front-protruding baby belly often seen on pregnant people. I’ll admit to not being a pregnancy expert, and (thanks to a quick Google!) I now know that all pregnant bellies look different. Some can be low and wide, as depicted in the sculpture. I can’t say, definitively, that she is not a fertility talisman. I can say, definitively, that I didn’t look like her until after 50, and now I do.

In this new world of Ozempic, which is more or less the same fat-phobic world I have always lived in, but with a twist, I’m seeing my body pathologized in a new way. Now, it’s not my fault that I’m fat. It isn’t my lack of willpower, or my affection for cheese. It’s a disease, for which I can take a drug! Which, leads to the inevitable question, why am I *not* taking this drug? I am a rich, white, fat woman with health insurance and a skinny Primary Care Physician. How hard do you think it would be for me to get Ozempic, if I told my doctor I was concerned about diabetes? Would I even need to go that far? I could simply point to my BMI, for which there are a whole list of medical billing codes. Even with a shortage of the drug, I’ll bet I could be injecting my first dose the day after tomorrow.

I don’t blame any fat person for making that choice. It is easier to buy clothing when you’re thin. You don’t need to worry about random chairs, and you can endure the cheap seats in the back of the plane. It is easier to get hired when you’re thin. You can eliminate one source of bias from your life. It’s a rational choice, but it’s not my choice.

My age, my wealth, my marital status, all afford me the privilege to be fat. I don’t need to interview for a job, and I hope never to have to date again. If it weren’t for the unrelenting cultural pressure and systemic biases favoring thinness, I could just exist within this shape and not give it another thought. Unfortunately, as I think of posting this essay, I wonder if I’m opening myself up to abuse. Fat is a neutral adjective, like tall or brunette, but it is also a slur. I am aware every day that I am fat, and that some people judge me critically because of my weight. It helps when I remember that there is really nothing wrong with me. Bodies have always come in all shapes and sizes, and my particular shape and size has always existed.

Garlic Prep

Posted on July 7, 2023 by Leigh Ann

There’s no substitute for fresh garlic. Sure, I cook with garlic powder, and even the little frozen cubes of minced garlic from Trader Joe’s, and they have their uses. But they aren’t the same as fresh. Don’t talk to me about that minced garlic in jars, that stuff is nasty.

The problem is, I hate peeling garlic. My fingers smell like garlic for the next 24 hours, and yes, I’ve tried peeling technique, and every scent removal hack. Now what I like to do is peel a whole mess of garlic, all at once, and then not worry about it again for months.

My technique, and no, I’m sure I didn’t invent this:

Grab a large mixing bowl that can go into the freezer. Add ice to the bowl so it’s about 1/2 full, then add water until all the ice is covered. Put the bowl full of ice water into the fridge or freezer.
Place a large pot (maybe 3-5 quarts) of salted water onto the stove to boil.
Peel and trim at least 3 heads of garlic. Go big or go home. This isn’t worth doing for just a few random cloves.
Blanch the naked cloves for 30 seconds in the now boiling, salted water.
Immediately drain cloves, and plunge them into your prepared bowl of ice water.
Fish the cloves out of the water, and let them dry on a clean dishtowel.
Once dry, place all the cloves into a mason jar, and pour olive oil until the cloves are just barely covered. You don’t want any peeking thru the top, but you also don’t want to have to dig through an inch of oil to find a clove.
Cover with a tightly fitting lid, and refrigerate. The oil will likely solidify, that’s fine.
Whenever you need fresh garlic, grab a spoon and dig out a clove. You’ll also have garlic-infused olive oil as a bonus. I can’t imagine what you’re cooking with a clove of fresh garlic that wouldn’t be improved with a little olive oil.

When I told my mom I was starting a blog, she specifically recommended this post. I think she classified it as “Life Skills Coaching” which I thought was maybe overstating things a bit. I don’t think I should be coaching anyone how to do anything, unless you want to learn how to knit backwards, which I seem to be pretty good at teaching.

But then…I laid in bed, not sleeping (yay age!) thinking of what, generally, these types of tips are called. It’s a “hack” but I hate that term. Maybe we are “leveling up” our skills. Why are all these terms gamer / coder terms? Didn’t people cook before Nintendo?

Prep is a restaurant term, and as a Capricorn I’m all about planning. So: Garlic Prep. Good enough.

Basic Beans

Posted on July 7, 2023 by Leigh Ann

When I cook dried beans, I use the Rancho Gordo method. But I remember when I first started cooking beans, I was really not sure about the whole process. So, here’s the Rancho Gordo method for cooking beans, but with more hand-holding.

Ingredients:

1 pound of dried beans
olive oil
1 onion
1/4 tsp baking soda
salt
seasonings

Soak, or don’t. See, already, I’m a big help. The truth is, if I plan in advance to cook beans, then sure! I’ll soak! But if it’s 4:30, and I suddenly realize I need beans for dinner, then I won’t soak. Does soaking help? IDK. It’s supposed to speed up the cook time, and make the beans cook more evenly, but I don’t really see a difference. Because I’m almost exclusively cooking Rancho Gordo beans, and they are as fresh as dried beans can be, I don’t think soaking is required. But IF I am going to soak, I put the beans in a big bowl with lots of water and a tablespoon or two of salt.
You’re going to need a big pot with a lid. I use a 5.5qt stainless steel. Maybe someday I’ll get one of those fancy La Creuset enamel dutch oven. Pour some olive oil into your pan, somewhere between 2 – 4 tablespoons. You know: glug-glug. I usually dice my onion, and saute until golden, but you don’t have to. You can use a whole, pealed onion. Or rough-chop. Sometimes I use garlic instead. Sometime I go the whole mirepoix. Use whatever you have, or nothing at all.
If you soaked the beans, drain & rinse. If you didn’t soak the beans, just rinse. Add the beans to the pot, right on top of the onion, and add enough water to cover by several inches. **Pro tip: I don’t have a “pot filler” so I use my electric kettle to bring the water from the sink to the pot. Since now the water is in the kettle…I boil the water in the kettle. It saves a few minutes on the stove.
Season. I add about 1 tablespoon salt, plus 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. Beyond that, maybe a bay leaf. Because I’m vegetarian, I almost always add a smokey spice, like powdered chipotle pepper or smoked paprika. Not too much, maybe 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon. Use what you like. Give it all a good stir.
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT STEP: Bring the beans to a hard boil. Let them boil, a good, strong, rolling boil, uncovered, 10-15 minutes.
Turn your heat down as low as it goes, and cover the beans, leaving the lid cracked just a bit. They will continue to boil, and slowly cool down to barely a simmer. I leave them like that for about half an hour.
Using an oven mitt bc boy that lid can get hot, check the beans. Give them a stir. Try one! How close is it to being done? If they are a thin-skinned bean, they may be done already! Or they might need another 15 minutes. Or, if they are old and ornery, and you didn’t soak them, maybe they need another 30 minutes. No matter what, I use the rule of 3: test three beans before making your decision.
Usually at this point, once I’ve decided they are done, I turn off the stove, and leave the beans covered for a minute. This is because I’m likely going to refrigerate some, if not all, of the cooked beans. There’s no reason to burn yourself trying to transfer hot beans to your storage containers.

That’s it! You have – without a doubt – the most delicious beans ever cooked, ready to eat.

Why blog, why now?

Posted on July 7, 2023July 7, 2023 by Leigh Ann

It’s July of 2023, and I am ready to quit social media. Again.

I quit FaceBook in 2019, because I was spending too much time arguing with total strangers. I didn’t like the obsessed, furious person I became when I was on the site. Moreover, I didn’t like the effect FaceBook had on our culture. Social Media in general, and FaceBook specifically, manipulated our emotions and our elections. Me, leaving, wouldn’t solve any of the larger issues, but it might make me less angry and anxious. Ultimately, deciding to leave was hard, but leaving was easy. I don’t miss it at all.

At about that same time, I started spending more time on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, I know: same-same. At least Instagram made it a little harder to argue with total strangers, and once I learned to curate my feed, I really enjoyed scrolling through pictures of yarn, cats, and more yarn. A common criticism of Instagram is that it shows a distorted version of the world, to which our own real-messy lives suffer by comparison. I never had that problem. If an account made me feel icky, I unfollowed. I filled my feed with fat activists, Black artists, and regular people sharing their creative pursuits. All that is great, and I expect that I’ll miss it, if and when I manage to delete my account.

My problem with Instagram is, “the algorithm.” If I could actually see the actual accounts that I actually follow, I might stick around and continue to give Zuck more eyeballs. But no. I see ads. So many ads. And I’m constantly inundated with what I’ll inaccurately call “bots.” Fake accounts follow me every day, which I have to remove and block. I’m tagged in ads for obviously fake companies. I get DMs asking me to represent some product, which again, is obviously fake. All of this is annoying, but then, Instagram tagged ME as a bot, which was really the last straw. I was put into “Instagram Jail” for two weeks, for reasons I’ll never know, without any recourse. One maker I know had the same thing happen to them. Because they relied on Instagram for their business, their solution was to pay to upgrade their account. Which, I’m sorry, is this a protection racket? Is Meta copying their business plans off 1940’s mobsters?

There are theories, of course, as to why I was put in jail. Too many hashtags? Not enough hashtags? Maybe my comments were too similar to each other? Maybe it’s because I like to use emojis? So many theories, no actual information. Which, of course, is the entire Instagram game: trying to figure out “the algorithm.” Post on Tuesdays at 10:am Pacific for best engagement, but don’t post too regularly, because the algorithm doesn’t like that, and it will throttle your posts.

I came to realize this all sounds like an abusive relationship: constantly trying to guess what’s going to make the algorithm happy, and walking on eggshells trying not to make the algorithm angry. I have had enough of that in my life, and I’ll be damned if I’ll stick around for more.

So here we are. Blogging. I’ve never blogged, but I’ve thought about it over the years. I want a place to compile my Beans & Rice research. I want a place to track my knit and crochet projects. If anyone else wants to see these things, I want to be able to share them.

Leigh Ann Parente

Color, cooking, and cats. Designing a vibrant (and vegetarian!) life full of joy. And cat hair. So much cat hair.

Creating