Today's Grouse: Rental Kitchens

Ahhh, I am enjoying a much-needed vacation at the beach for a week. I'm sleeping well, eating well, slathering myself with SPF 85, and generally not wanting to go home. The sun rises over the Atlantic just beyond the deck, where I sip my morning coffee (honestly I would rather be asleep at 6:30 AM, but when you have a toddler that fantasy goes out the window), and I love watching the water sparkle. The other day I even saw dolphins frolicking!

Ahem. There is always a fly in the ointment. Here, it is the stove. I have attempted to make a few meals for the family here and have been thwarted by a capricious electric stove. Not even the old fashioned kind with real, spiral burners, but the creepy glass-surface kind that gets hot all over when only one so-called burner is on. The main large burner doesn't even heat evenly. The center gets extremely hot very fast, but the outer rings remain moderately toasty. Very frustrating when you're trying to make freshly caught halibut in butter and lemon, or when simmering a ratatouille for an hour while everyone showers off the sand. And my least favorite part: the whole thing stays hot for an eternity after the burner is turned off. I tend to use the stovetop as extra counter space -- a necessity in NYC kitchens that is handy anywhere. But with this monstrosity, where am I supposed to put the (cold) salad when I'm plating the fish and I'm out of counter space? Grrr.

However, I can still make excellent dishes that do not require cooking, and one of them will be my next post.

Today's Grouse: My Tiny Kitchen

This kitchen sucks.
It's only 5 1/2 feet by 13 feet.
My total counter space is less than 3 feet wide.
Sometimes I really don't like New York that much.

Today's Grouse: Lettuce

I hate lettuce.

Well, ok, I don't actively despise it; it's more like a low-level antipathy. I don't like all the washing and chopping, and I get irked by its short shelf life. Too many times I have gingerly lifted a soggy bag of liquified lettuce out of the so-called crisper and into the trash.

So I have decided to just make salads without lettuce! What a huge relief to let other people bother with lettuce (which I will eat when someone else does the work) and happily chomp on my tangily dressed raw veggies that actually stay crunchy.

Grouse of the Day: Bloodletting

Dammit, I HATE cutting myself!

Where can I take a class on knife skills?

Would a vegan still eat the food if they cut their finger and bled on the food?

Grouse of the Day: Green Beans

I know that green beans are really good for you and all that, but they just don't taste particularly good. Plus, trimming the ends is tedious. I don't want to eat them. I want cupcakes.

Grouse of the Day: Wine Snobbery

There is a very nice wine and spirits shop around the corner from my apartment I frequent mainly because of its proximity, but also because their wine selection and prices are pretty good for a medium sized neighborhood shop. However, the owner of the store is never especially friendly, doesn't remember me even though I shop there regularly, and when I mention that I heard about a cheap wine that gets good ratings (for example, a $7 Barefoot chardonnay that got an 85 in Wine Spectator) he not only expresses minimal interest, but also makes me feel that I must have an amateur palate if I am tasting $7 bottles of wine.

What a snob! Perhaps if I were regularly dropping over $40 per bottle he would remember me, but that's not fair. Most of the people in Park Slope are interested in wine, and I'd venture to guess that a bargain white would warrant at least a taste-test bottle for them as well. I have decided to boycott this shop. There is another shop a bit farther down 7th Avenue called Shawn Liquors (even its name is auspicious!) that is smaller, but everyone who works there, including the blue-haired chick at the register, is very friendly and helpful. They will get my business from now on, dammit.