For several months I've had it in my mind to buy a gross of cloth napkins. I'd like to switch to cloth AT LEAST for dinners, thereby reducing unnecessary waste. Also, good table linens just make everything nicer and more homey. If I'm going to invest my time in shopping and cooking healthy meals...then I want an aesthetic accompaniment. You might be thinking about the laundry involved in this little change up. Me too. But so far so good. And it's been an entire week, so I'm more than qualified to judge.
I searched far and wide for cool cloth napkins. Far and wide on the Internet...which means I never had to leave my comfy study. For a while I even entertained the idea of making my own, but if you buy awesome fabric to MAKE the napkins...then you aren't saving any money really. Then, one lucky day, I happened across Oh Little Rabbit's screen printed napkins. These were just what I was looking for -- fun, graphic, and interesting. I ordered up a bunch just in time for my dinner party (including a set of orange bicycle napkins which (for some reason) didn't make the picture). Honestly, I love them. I may order more...depending on how the laundry situation works out. We have twenty now, so I'll have to see. I used 18 for the dinner party and threw them all in one load the same night. I wanted to wait up for them so I could take them out of the dryer while they were still warm (to avoid ironing...which I hate with a wild passion), but I was so tuckered from cooking...that I left them all alone in the depths of the dryer. The next morning I pulled them out and folded them up. The picture above was taken post-dryer. As you can see...no iron needed. And come on, who doesn't want a napkin with a vintage VW bus? No one I know anyway.
As for the potato fiasco?
One day up at camp I was going to serve baked potatoes for lunch. I'd bought the big momma potatoes from Costco and all the fixin's. Here's where you will see my utter stupidity for what is was (that being -- utter stupidity). I reasoned that normally it takes an hour to bake potatoes, so I'd allow double the time for so many potatoes (that were SO BIG).
UM. No. It actually takes about 4 hours. Quadruple time. So, so stupid.
Imagine me and 26 hungry teenage girls. I'm poking those potatoes. I'm moving them around a 500 degree oven. I'm sweating. I'm cursing (in my head). I'm utilizing the 15 year-old, 20 watt microwave oven intermittently. And still...those poor girls ate half baked potatoes. They were so sweet about it. They insisted they were fine. Just today Jordan told me it was her favorite meal.
But I'm here to tell you those potatoes were like rocks.
And I was shamed to the very core of my inner chef.
I think my formerly glorious relationship with the potato might be permanently damaged.
It's kind of like that part of "The First Four Years" when Laura Ingalls Wilder serves nearly raw beans to the workmen. Besides, Girls Camp is supposed to build character, right?
Posted by: Zoe | June 17, 2011 at 10:07 PM
I know what you mean. As a newly wed, I invited my in-laws over for dinner to show off my culinary skill by cooking stuffed bell peppers. My mother made them often and they were always a show stopper. The recipe called for mixing the meat mixture with rice. What I didn't know was that the rice must be precooked or minute rice used in its stead. The stuffing in my peppers appeared to have bits of gravel in it. The rice had not cooked at all and was uneatable. Everyone was so kind which made the situation even more embarrassing. What to do???? Gently making fun of the cook might have been better. I have been married 45 years and have never cooked stuffed peppers again. Even the memory is painful.
Posted by: rebecca Ellis | June 18, 2011 at 01:58 PM