Appreciation--Part VI--Spare Room

“Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I always loved that line.  The land of Spare Oom.  I love the land of Spare Oom.

At the condo I had for five and a half years, I didn't have a spare room, exactly.  I had a huge front closet with shelving that held an enormous amount of stuff.  I also had the building's storage space right outside my back door.  Granted, I shared that, but out of the six units in my building, only two others used it.

Otherwise, I have always had a spare room.  Even in my first rental, after Brittany was born and took my spare room, I had a basement and an attic.  At my parents' house, there was a spare room and several storage spaces, not to mention the shed and the garage.  If you've seen older posts, you'll know how packed full of stuff they were, too!

So when I moved and found I had one closet for the whole apartment and no option for storage nearby, I gave up a part of my bedroom to create more storage space.

Now that I have to move for the second time in six months, I am trying to get, if not the land of Spare Oom, at least generous closets (plural!) or storage space in the building.

Hard Water and Electric Heat & Cooking Addendums

I just have to say that Lemi-Shine is abso-posi-lutely fan-freaking-tastic!!!!  Note the mixed and divided adjectives and overuse of exclamation points!  I googled the stuff before I bought it and somewhere around page 7 of all the hits, I found one lone comment about using it for washing dishes by hand.  Basically, since the main active ingredient is citric acid, unless you're sensitive to it, it's not going to hurt anyone or anything.  I have been adding this stuff to my dish water, to the water when I hand wash my delicates, and I use it to clean my stainless steel sink.  My glassware is clear, my metal bakeware is spotless and my ceramic mugs are bright!  When I wiped the stuff in the bathroom, I sprinkled Lemi-Shine on my sponge.  I could go on and on.  It really gets rid of the hard water spotting and clouding.  Believe it!

I also have to add to my gripe session on electric cooking.  I forgot to mention the bloody burners!  When I set a burner to medium, I expect it to stay at medium heat.  Noooo, these stupid things keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter.  I have to keep turning the burner down as I'm cooking.  Very annoying.  Now this could just be this particular stove.  The blasted thing also has its burner knobs on the back on top, so I have to reach over the hot burner to turn it off.  However, I do remember the electric stove at my condo.  It wasn't as bad as this one, but I do remember having to watch everything when it was on the burners.  Since I had a young child at that time, I lost count of how many times something boiled over!  I like to see flame.  I adjust the flame height and it stays where I want it.  Fie on electric heating and cooking!!

Appreciation--Part IV & V

I’m combining Items 4 and 5 since they’re both referring to natural gas for heating and cooking.

I do not understand why anyone uses electricity to heat or cook with.  It is very expensive!  There is a reason for the expression “now you’re cooking with gas!”  The expression came from an early advertisement for gas stoves.  Of course, that was back when people were switching from wood or coal burning stoves.  Still…it has relevance when comparing gas to electricity.

So yeah, I’m complaining.  BIG time.  But what does that get me?  Nothing, really.  Well, okay, at first it got me some advice.  And partly it was bluster because I was embarrassed that it took me six weeks to figure out that each room had its own radiator.  Oops.  But the issue still remains, electric heat and cooking is inefficient.

I know that there was natural gas being used before electricity.  Case in point: gas lamps.  They were thought to be the greatest thing back in the late 1800’s.  And they were, compared to open flames on candles and torches.  When Tom Edison did his thing, the powers that be switched the gas lamps to electricity.

I will admit, electricity for lighting is cleaner.  I’ve burned enough candles to know what happens to your ceiling when you have an open flame.  But for heating?  Phooey!  Yes, I said Phooey!  It’s a perfectly acceptable word and it is appropriate in this case.

I’ve lived in enough places to have used both forms of heating.  Actually, I my first rental used steam heat radiators.  But something had to heat the water, right?  Unless you’re lucky enough to have a natural hot spring running under your home that you can tap into.  But I digress.  I’ve compared the cost of electric heat to gas heat.  My parents’ house was approximately 1100 square feet divided into two stories.  My condo was 1000 square feet sprawled out on one level.  The gas bill at my parents’ house was less than my electric bill at the condo.  Of course, I had lights and appliances…  Sheesh!  I’m giving myself a headache.

Forget the heat issue—for now.  Cooking with electricity is a pain in the tuchus.  I’m slowly getting the hang of it.  The first pan of brownies I made back in February ended up like warm pudding.  (Actually, it was pretty tasty—I just had to use a spoon!)  The second pan was too dry.

I’ve worked out that I have to set the heat a bit lower and check what I’m baking a couple of minutes sooner than the time in the recipe.  The thing is, the longer something has to bake, the more you have to turn down the temperature.  I’m sure there is some ratio of time to temperature that my brother, the mathematician, could figure out.  I just try different temps and cross my fingers.

Maybe it's the other way around?

On top of that, the consistency of my ingredients can make a difference in the timing.  I made pumpkin bread that came out just a bit dry.  It was good, just that little bit over.  A few days later, I made a sweet potato/rutabaga bread.  (Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it…it was very tasty!)  The sweet potato/rutabaga loaf was noticeably more moist.  The same recipe, different main ingredient, same temp, same time.  But the rutabaga was much wetter to begin with since it came from a can.  Don’t even get me started on the seasonings I used.  I should’ve used cinnamon, but the recipe called for pumpkin pie spice since it was a recipe for pumpkin bread…  More digression, sorry!

What was I saying?  Oh, yeah.  To bake a snack pan of brownies, I turn the temp down just a little for the 10 minute bake time.  For the sweet bread, I turn it down nearly 25 degrees lower for the 60 minute bake time.  I’m getting the hang of it—mostly.  But I don’t like having to do all that.  It’s hard for me to remember all this stuff, although I am writing more things down.

Thankfully, the weather has been pretty good.  I ran the air conditioner three times last week.  And I try to put off turning it on for as long as possible.  I don’t know how efficient it is.  The fact that this apartment has very little insulation doesn’t help.

I can hardly wait for next fall and winter—NOT!