Had Rob put stainless steel brake lines on the GTi. How did I live so long without them.....?

With Helena working, I've been cooking a lot lately. I can follow a recipe no problem (thanks, Mom!) but I prefer to just show up at the grocery store and buy whatever looks good. I specialize in soups, stews and pasta sauces and I tend towards simple, organic ingredients since I vastly prefer to shop at the local Pacifica Farm's Market and they don't have a huge selection.

The secret to most of my food is that I make my own stock.

PEEWEE'S BASIC VEGGIE STOCK
2 lg. portobella mushrooms, chopped into 1" pieces
1 lg. yellow onion, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
1 lg. green bell pepper, seeded and chopped into 1" pieces
2 lg. carrots, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
2 med. jalapenos, seeded and rough chopped (optional)
1 bulb garlic, separated into cloves
whole black peppercorns
sea salt
bay leaf
fresh herbs (I use the ones I'm putting in my main dish so there are no leftovers...)

Put all the veggies and herbs into a dutch oven. Yes, put that entire bulb of garlic in! Trust me. You don't have to peel the individual cloves if you're lazy. Fill with cold water until the the water level is just slightly below covering the vegetables completely. Toss in a couple of bay leaves and generous amounts of black peppercorns and sea salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and brew, covered, for at least an hour. Remove from heat, let sit for about 30 minutes, strain and discard the solids. Betty Crocker would strain through cheesecloth, but I use a strainer.

W00T! New toilets! No more 1960s crappers!

We poop tonight!

We had a really bad customer service experience last week. We want to (at least partially) remodel our kitchen and we tried to give the job to a local business. Helena has written about it already so I'll just touch on a couple of things.

I was stunned into passivity at the woman's attitude. She assumed that we would be demoing the old countertop and installing the plywood base for the new one ourselves. WTF? That's what I'm coming to a contractor for! I don't want to do the work myself! At the time, the magnitude of the fail hadn't sunk in yet, so I sat quietly and watched her call and see if the installers would also do the demo and what the cost would be if so. "If" they'd do the demo?

I sat and tried to digest all this.

"Oh, they [the fabricators] won't install your plumbing. I can give you the number of a plumber."

Dude. Wait. What?

So let me get this straight. I have a working kitchen right now. I'm going to give you thousands of dollars to remodel it and, when we reach the end of your obligation to me, I won't have a working kitchen? I have to call the plumber myself??

So yeah, we fled.