Pretzels

(listening to "Cortege et Litanie," by Marcel Dupre)
I can't come up with a word that describes the way fresh pretzels smell. It's bread, but there is something else there. Pretzels are bathed in hot, slightly alkaline water before they are baked (for the glossy skin and chewy texture). Perhaps that makes the smell slightly different, but I don't know how to describe it. It smells like it did when I made pretzels with my late grandmother as a kid. Exactly the same. I baked these pretzels for a potluck at work, but I felt some very personal emotions when I made them. These feelings were strong when I struggled with the elastic dough, seeking the perfect amount of flour on my hands. Grandma's knobby hands, with their flowerpetal-delicate skin, subdued the dough with infuriating ease. You are not a true master of something before you've done it a lot. Her pretzels were slender, shiny and consistent. They were laid out to cool on towels beneath the high ceiling of the bright farmhouse kitchen. It was a thousand years ago, and it was this morning.
I squeezed mustard onto one at midnight, and I felt that I had not wasted my time and flour.
As with my stollen, the pretzels taste pretty decent, but they are uglier than Grandma's. It is my fond wish that people eat them and are happy. I would hope that Grandpa would have given a herzlich "Ausgezeichnet."

Just get the hell out of office already, you crook

I haven't bitched about this moron in a long time. I guess I just need isolate myself from any form of news if I don't want to be outraged.

The first shower has been taken

Everything seems to be working. I wanted to document it with photos, but Lindz resisted that idea. She locked the bathroom door and wouldn't let me in with the camera.

It was a hell of a lot of work. We could have taken shortcuts. I remember what my late paternal grandfather used to say about this sort of thing. He'd tell me, in his singsong Italian accent, "Well, eef you're gonna beeld a-sometheenk, eet might as well really be a-sometheenk."*

It seemed strange going into the master bathroom with the intention of showering, just as it would seem strange to go into the pantry with that intention. For such a long time, it has been a place of work, not of bathing.




*My grandpa never really said this, nor did he have an exaggerated Italian accent.

Credits

Lindz and I didn't have any of the bathroom remodel professionally done. It was a family job. She and I lived with the project, but it would not have happened without her parents. They provided a huge amount of support (both moral and elbow-grease), and I probably wouldn't have had the courage to demolish an entire room of our house without Hub's "That's not a problem; we can fix that" mentality.

Too Tired to Think of a Title

Dinner with my brother

Chicken piccata. This was a long-overdue dinner with Bryan, especially welcome after many dinners of processed foods, take-out or hastily thrown-together things as the result of working on the bathroom. Somehow the idea of this tasty dish arrived in his head, and he came over to prepare it. Lindz and I had spent the day working in the bathroom (we may be able to shower in the master bath, for the first time in some 18 months, in a day or two), and it was very nice to observe St. Patrick's Day in a more epicurean way.
The food was great, and it was very nice indeed to cook with the bro. He and I cooked it together. We all drank copiously and talked copiously, as it should be.

The recipe for chicken piccata was executed from The New Best Recipe. Lovely, simple, tangy goodness. During the course of the evening we polished off a bottle of Three Philosophers. We also enjoyed a wee bit of Absolut Rasberri, a nice tipple.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Almost done.

Better Light

I installed a recessed light fixture in the ceiling Monday night. I should have done it at the beginning of this whole project; we can see better to work, and the pics look better.

THE @#&*?! TILES ARE ALL IN PLACE

If you look closely, you will notice that we've done a bit of grout, too. Grouting among the river rocks will take a bit of time, but the wall will be transformed.

This trowel has worked very hard. It gives me great pleasure to put him out to pasture.

Lindz and I have worked extra hard on this the past few weekends. What remains? Grouting, attaching the fixtures, caulking and installing a recessed light in the ceiling.
This would be a good time to commit a crime; we've worn our fingerprints off.

I Hope Tile Dust Doesn't Cause Cancer

Lots of tile cutting. Almost there.

Meat & Potatoes

Grilled ribeye steak
Grilled red bell peppers
Gnocchi with garlic oil, spinach, walnuts and parmiggiano reggiano

MORE TILING ACTION THAN YOU CAN HANDLE!

(listening to "She's a Jar" by Wilco)
Yes, we're very cool people. This is what we do on the weekends. Every single weekend since Jesus was a corporal, it seems. It's been a very long time since a shower has taken place in this bathroom.


(listening to "Please Don't Talk About Murder While I'm Eating" by Ben Harper)
I spent a good bit of time at the tile saw today. I had to make the cuts to accommodate two shelves and the soap dish. It's a wet tile saw, so one gets a mixture of water and tile dust flying around. The tile dust is brown. By the time I finished all those cuts, I looked like I either got a great tan or was a native Pakistani. My hair was nice and gritty, too.

We're getting closer to completion all the time.
Changing the subject, I feel the need to describe what I'm drinking. I put some dried blueberries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker and added a bit of dry white wine to soften them. I smashed them up with a muddler and added a couple ounces of Absolut Pears vodka and some ice. I shook it and dumped the result, smashed blueberries and all, into a martini glass. It's quite tasty, albeit somewhat more foo-foo of a tipple than I usually drink. Lindz, a friend and I had something similar at the Duck & Dumpling last night. Last night's drink was excellent. The main difference is that last night's drink had regular vodka instead of pear. It was also ten bucks. It was worth every penny; we had a splendid time. Good Mooshu Duck. Good Crabcake. Good Green Papaya Salad with Grilled Lemongrass Flank Steak. The Tuna Tartar was too heavy on the wasabi, regrettably. Nevertheless, go and eat there. Immediately.