#76 Traveling And Too Many Tomatoes
Although Sometimes You DO Get What You Pay For…
Have Pillow Will Travel
Arthur dent had his towel.
I have my pillow.
I find that there is almost no travel mishap or disappointment I cannot weather if I have my own comfy, squishy, free of other people’s germs, feathery cradle for my weary head.
We make a lot of deals with ourselves when we decide to climb into a bed that is not our own.
Especially if that bed is in a room that sees over three hundred other occupants during the course of a year.
Even more especially because there are whole television shows devoted to showing us how gross hotel rooms are - their twisted hosts gleefully trotting out special lights to show us hidden stains and other nasty lurking surprises.
I don’t watch those shows.
No one who travels a lot should watch those shows.
Not only will you want to take ALL your own bedding to said hotel room, you may decide never to sleep in another such establishment again.
My personal coping mechanism is concentrated on the upper reaches. As long as my face is embracing a personal pillow I can make my peace with whatever might be going on down there in the sheets and blankets.
It’s not just the germs.
There’s also that thing about getting the right neck support.
The above poem was written after staying in a series of hotels where, not only were the pillows lumpy and awful, I’m guessing some “innkeeper’s magazine” must have run an article convincing hoteliers worldwide that making the pillows square and cute would distract us somehow.
Nice try.
Copyright© 2024 Anne Morse Hambrock All rights reserved.
Tomato PSA
Once upon a time I subscribed to Martha Stewart’s magazine.
I don't know how relevant Martha is these days but, before her fall from grace (that pesky insider trading business), she had a following every bit as devoted as that of Taylor Swift.
Influencers? She might have been the first.
Her and Oprah.
Anyway, I never worshipped at the alter of Martha but I did subscribe to her publication because it was chock full of really useful information and recipes and DIY projects.
I return to one such recipe/DIY hack about this time every year - drying my own tomatoes.
It’s so incredibly easy and a great way to deal not only with abundance but produce that might be on the imperfect side. Particularly those tomatoes that have gone a bit round the bend and have big bad spots. (I should mention here that drying works best with cherry and roma tomatoes that naturally have not so much wet flesh.)
Martha had you cut the tomatoes in big thin slices but I found they dry a lot quicker (and don’t need to be snipped later for recipes) if I cut them into small pieces right at the beginning.
Preheat your oven to whatever your very lowest setting is (mine goes down to 170 F)
If using a roma, take a small slice off the side of the tomato so that you can take all the guts out. Then cut the tomato into smallish pieces and arrange skin side down on parchment paper. Cherry tomatoes can can either be cut in half or quartered. (I used to use a baking sheet under the parchment but lately I’ve switched to pizza pans with air holes and have had good results.)
Sprinkle the tomatoes with a small bit of white sugar, salt and pepper. (Not too much pepper because the longer the tomatoes sit in the oven the spicier they will get.)
Pop them into the oven and set the timer for 2 hours.
Check on them at the two hour mark and then every hour after that until they seem to be dried out and sort of like fruit leather. (The different size pieces often dry at different rates so every hour I pull anything that looks “done” and then put the rest back in the oven.)
You can make them as dry, or not so dry, as you wish. The only thing to watch out for is if they get really really dark they will taste burnt.
I let them sit for an hour or two after I pull them out so they can get a little drier before I put them in an airtight container. They should last this way for at least a month. (If I’m going to save them for longer than that I tend to pop them in the freezer to avoid any mold that might form from the moisture they retained if I took them out of the oven on the early side.)
I Wasn’t Kidding…
The zucchini is even BIGGER this week.
And if you didn’t belive me here is a picture of my shoe for scale :-)
Mark Your Calendars
I am pleased to be one of the performers at the upcoming Kenosha Performing Arts Festival! My show will be at the White Lilac on Sunday October 6.
Tickets for the festival are $10 for three performances, or $25 for a day pass, and are available locally at: The White Lilac, Anna’s On The Lake, BLAK Coffee, and Kenosha Tap House. Seating is limited so get your tickets soon!
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