jgarner53

Glad you're liking it - I'm digging it in my dish cupboards (I put cork in my pot/pan drawers).

Oh wow, that jerk pork looks fantastic! Tell us more about it please! Cut, seasonings, cooking method??? [holds out glass] Can I have a mangorita, too?

Oh! EW! I got the taste in my mouth just reading this! Not that I'd know what it tastes like to suck on a clean penny, mind you.

Wow, those look really yummy! Do you have a set of American measuring utensils, or are you comfortable enough to convert imperial to metric in your recipes? Your food photos are fantastic!

Thanks! It's pretty much together, except for installing the pendant lights over the sink wall (where the windows are). They have a ceramic cover plate that needs to be flush against the ceiling, and we're having some trouble making that happen. That, and a few missing shelves (that GC had better deliver tomorrow if he wants to keep his head intact ) are about all that's left. To answer your questions, the green dots in the tile backsplash aren't glass at all, but ceramic tile. I initially wanted glass, as I loved the look of glass tile and wanted to incorporate it somehow, but the smallest tiles I could find were 1x1" or else 1x6" liner strips, and I knew I wanted the liner to be no more than 1/2". I hunted and hunted for the right green; most modern tile manufacturers go towards a sagey green. There's a tile company down in Southern California (B&W Tile, in Riverside and Gardena) that has exactly the right shade, and I snagged the tiles on a visit to my family last summer. I think a glass subway tile backsplash would be lovely - a beautiful update to the traditional subway tile look. Here's a photo from my recent foodblog that shows the backsplash pretty well. As to the soapstone thing, whoever told you that soapstone is porous, or etches, doesn't know anything about the stuff. My soapstone doesn't etch, isn't porous, doesn't stain, is impervious to heat, and is as smooth as a baby's butt. Believe me, I am not a neat cook, and would be terrified to have marble countertops, but I don't even worry about the soapstone. I have never had marble to work on, so I can't speak for it, but from my brief experience with the soapstone (rolling out pie dough and pizza crust), it's just great! I don't understand its thermal properties or the physics behind it, but it doesn't seem to be as cold as marble or granite seem to be. I'd think that mixing soapstone and marble would be gorgeous in your kitchen! My hood is from Vent-a-Hood, their Excalibur model, painted in one of their stock colors. Painted, it was actually less expensive than the stainless version. The black bands are standard for the Excalibur hood. I chose it because 1) I like Vent-a-Hood and 2) the design worked well with my period style kitchen, and I thought it reminiscent of the old huge plaster hoods that were built into many older homes of the time.

I have a question about your instant dashi - how much do you use per liter of water? Do you just add it to boiling water? Does it need to cook any more than that? I use something like instant tea bags when I make dashi. I don't know if I've ever seen instant here (though I might have passed over it as well). The tea bags are filled with bonito flakes and seasoning, and you just drop one in about 3/4 liter of boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes. I made a similar soba dish last week to yours except I used the dipping sauce as a broth and added tofu, carrots and bok choy I'd simmered in the sauce, and fresh spinach. (I boiled the noodles in water). Tasty, but I realize now that I should have kept the noodles out separate! So fascinating to see the sake museum, too. I love the life-sized drunk mannequin! There is an all-sake store here in San Francisco, and I vowed when we returned from Tokyo last year to make more of an effort to learn about sake and enjoy more of it, but to date I've only been there once! Do you have a favorite style (sweet vs. dry, junmai gingo, etc.) that you prefer?

What a great blog! It's far more interesting to me to see what you eat on a regular basis than what is more familiar to me. I think you're doing a tremendous job! Seeing your Daiso shop reminded me that they opened one nearby, and I really do have to go visit it. San Francisco has a great Japantown, with one dollar-store, and a great Japanese grocery, as well. It appeared to me that you used two different brands of curry roux? One the first night, another when you added more? Or am I mistaken? Do you have a preferred brand of roux? I discovered curry rice last year when my husband and I went to Tokyo, and it's great comfort food! I've made it a couple of times since, just picking a box at random off the shelf.

Melissa, do you have the rolling racks like DCS has? I've noticed that mine are a bit sticky and had wondered about oiling them just a bit to make them glide easier. It's supposed to be this big feature of the range that these racks slide out so easily, and mine, not so much. Congrats on wintering in your kitchen! Good note about the butcher block - that certainly wouldn't have occurred to me. Lyon is one smart kitty! I doubt ours could even figure out which drawer the treats were in, much less get in there. He'd rather stand (or sit) by his scratching post and complain (he gets treats for using the post).

If you pass out or die, you can blame my GC and the city of SF. At what we thought would be the final plumbing inspection, the trap had to be reversed, and the house gas line test needed a fluid-filled gauge, rather than an air-filled one, so we need, yes, a third "final" plumbing inspection. Of course, GC has sworn that this is yet another "only in SF" thing. This also means that: I do not have the two missing shelves for one cabinet (which prevents me from completely unpacking the kitchen). They've been at the painter's shop for two months now, and GC has known to be looking for them for two weeks. The answer? His shop is really big, and they were behind other stuff. Uh, OK, but why, for the love of Pete, is every job not inventoried by piece when it comes in, so that when it goes out again, all the pieces go with it???? Five cabinets? Check. Doors? Check. Shelves?........Bueller? I also cannot install the real lights because the plumbing's not signed off (don't want to provoke the city at all, esp. at this point). And the dishwasher panel, which had to be redone, and GC swore up and down on a stack of punch lists that it would be installed on Tues just went to the painter's shop on Tues, along with a small bookshelf that got mangled when it was trimmed down to fit and had to be redone. When will GC return? It's anybody's guess, but I have a dinner party Sat. night, and I'm putting in the real lights, even if I have to take them back out again for an inspection on Mon. or Tues. Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying the kitchen! Everything was so out in the open in the old kitchen: pantry ingredients, utensils, mixing bowls, etc. It's very weird getting used to having things put away, though I do have a big crock of utensils next to the stove (whisks, wooden spoons, rubber spats, that sort of thing)

Have you looked at the Kenmore Pro line? I don't know if they offer a cooktop, but just seeing them in the store they look pretty nice (sorry I don't know more about them than that). I will vouch for my disposal -- it's really, really quiet! And I'm loving having the airswitch in the countertop instead of a wall switch.

Wow, what a story! I add my wishes for your wife to those of everyone else here and also really look forward to your blog!

I know my palate's changed through the years. I like food a lot spicier than I could have tolerated even a few years ago, and what others think is "really" spicy is just nice and piquant to me. I also find that I am preferring desserts that are a little less sweet, or at least more complex than I used to, not that I'm averse to the occasional Slurpee! I've heard and read that our ability to taste diminishes with time, and so we find ourselves seeking out sharper and stronger flavors. This helps explain why many kids don't like cheese except for maybe really mild string cheese or jack, or don't eat spicy foods. I know I didn't like spicy at all when I was little and could have eaten a bowl of sugar if my mom had let me. Keep trying new foods, and maybe one day you'll find you enjoy a fine bourbon, or black coffee, or durian!

I'm waiting (not very patiently) for the final sign off from the city. The electrical inspector has signed off, but the plumbing inspector is requiring a whole-house gas test. I don't want a change in light fixtures to trigger any red flags. Plus, I'm waiting for the workers to be done tramping through before I put out my fragile accessories (vintage jadeite and cake stands). Next week, fingers crossed!

Yeah, it's ribbed. The IKEA version is little dots. On my painted shelves, it's all but invisible. On the wood-finished shelves, it's translucent, but not very noticeable. The same company makes a less expensive (slightly thinner?) version that they sell at The Container Store. Maybe try a roll of that if you can get your hands on some and see how you like it.

Oooh, how exciting! Congratulations! When do you plan to start? How long do you think this will take (esp. since it sounds like you're going to do the work yourself)? Do you plan to live in the house during the remodel? That's about the size of my whole kitchen! What draws you to Corian? Do you have a color in mind? Do you plan on doing an integrated sink? Do you know what kind of wood and style you want the cabinets to be? How exciting! Do post pictures when you can! With a house like that, you pretty much have a blank slate. I bet ripping out that carpet will be fun.

I just lined all my brand new shelves with Life Liner. It's plastic, but non-adhesive, so if it gets sticky or whatever, I can just pull it out and wipe it down. It comes in clear (which I bought) and white. It's pricey, but there are less expensive versions of the same thing at The Container Store and Ikea. It even comes in wide rolls for lower cabinet shelves or deep pantry shelves. (LifeLiner's available at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Linens 'n' Things).

Well, not actually having made anything from the cookbook, I can't say 100% for sure (esp. since my copy is still buried). But I do know that our staff tested the recipes at home extensively for the cookbook, so they should be pretty accurate. The quantities we use for our cannelé batter are as follows: 6 L whole milk 6 vanilla beans 600g butter 1200g pastry flour 3000g sugar 1 lb. egg yolks 2 lb. 8 oz. pasteurized liquid eggs (honestly, I have no idea how this translates to whole eggs) 600g rum If you do the math and divide by even 6 to get a 1L batch, you'd have: 1L milk 1 vanilla bean 100g butter 200 g pastry flour 500 g sugar 2 2/3 oz. egg yolks 6 2/3 oz. whole eggs 100g rum Does that match up what's in the book? The book was done before I started, but many of the people shown in the back are still there, or have recently left. For me it's sort of like a yearbook! Aahhhh, yes, the "Yellow Bakery"! Very frequently when I tell people where I work, they don't recognize the name, but when I give the location and mention the blue front, they usually say, "Oh yeah, I love that place! I go there (or used to) all the time!" Oh, and for the Frenchily challenged, it's pronounced "KAN-uh-lay." Not cannoli, not quenelles. We hear it all. Just so you can be in the know when you go to buy them. (Edited to add reduced rum quantity - can't forget the rum!)

I don't always get to bake things. One person will make the dough, another will sheet it, yet another will bake it, someone makes the filling, and someone else bakes it. It's very rare that I make anything from start to finish. But as far as what I do at work, I enjoy the challenge of the cannelés - pouring them just right so you don't lose very many (my best so far is losing 3 out of 320). I used to like making pastry cream, but after making it every day, the thrill is kind of gone there. I enjoy making crème anglaise, which we send out to one of our restaurants that uses it to garnish the cannelés they serve. I like 1) how quick it is and 2) the finesse of knowing just when it's done (no thermometer). Much of what we do is brute labor - fill and bake - that there isn't necessarily much technique involved, mostly strength and stamina. Overall, I enjoy the challenge of multi-tasking. Having four or five things going at once and manipulating the timing so that the oven timer isn't going off at the same time as pots are starting to boil over! We have a pretty set repertoire, but the owner's been pressing us to change shapes, flavors and such, so things will be changing a little bit soon. We do new things for holidays, usually, so they have a limited run. No one wants a bûche de noël in July! (This last year, on the last day - the 23rd - we finished close to 500 bûches (a team of 3 of us), which included glazing with ganache, placing on boards, and decorating with plastic toys, and then boxing up. Thanks to everyone for the questions and interest in my blog! If you ever get a chance to try a cannelé, whether it's one of ours or elsewhere, I really recommend them.

Who builds a place like that?? That's just nuts! Even my tiniest apartments have had some drawers, somewhere. (The old kitchen had three) Hey, at least your silverware was convenient... (that's what I always said about my metro rack/pantry).

Sure! It's actually Alton Brown's Mac-n-Cheese recipe. I find that in the time it takes the water to boil for the pasta, I can grate the cheese and get the rest of the ingredients ready. It may not be as cheap as the blue box, but it's a lot better! It's a bit soupy when it's first finished, but if you let it sit a couple of minutes (tonight I used that time to wash the dishes), it's perfect! Good luck with it - I know that my nieces and nephews probably all went through phases where if it wasn't specifically blue box, it was icky. Thank you very much, Smithy. I wish I could post finished shots tonight! It is starting to look and feel more lived in. My crock of utensils is by the stove now, the toaster oven moved in today, and most of the non-food stuff is put away. I am seriously beginning to wonder, though, if I have enough food storage. It's still too early to tell because I want to have all the pieces (missing shelves) before I finish putting away the food. I never planned for a huge pantry, but things seem to be taking up more space than I'd anticipated. I guess nothing goes perfectly. The green, btw, is BM's Potpourri Green. The cabinets are BM's Mayonnaise (perfect in a kitchen, no? ) It works well in my kitchen because it doesn't get any direct sunlight (north facing windows), and with the months of fog, it will still feel light and bright in there. Yet another thing I tested out for months. I apologize again for the lack of photos today! I couldn't even take pictures of the leftover mac & cheese tomorrow. Aiki_brewer and I ate it all. It's so great to pull a pot out of its drawer and not hunt for it, or have to return it to the dining room when I'm done. We finished the pie tonight, too. For all my talk at the beginning of the week of craving lighter foods, I haven't done much to actually eat that way this week! Next week, next week (and it's aiki_brewer's bday on Wed, which means dinner party Saturday and bday cake!). It's been a lot of fun to write this, and a great challenge, as well. Between my work schedule, contractor issues, working to move into the kitchen, and just general time, I'm wondering where the week went! Thank you all for reading.

Yeah, there's a speaker in the ceiling in the kitchen, so I'll be able to have tunes in there without having to crank the stereo in the living room. I have an iPod speaker, which is pretty good for the short term, but I really wanted something off the counter. We got a Squeezebox, too, which wirelessly connects to the computer and our iTunes library and playlists. And now the bad news: I left my camera at work. I didn't even remember it until I was sitting on the couch after work, reading the paper. The only photo I'd taken, though, was of my croissant and almond croissant, and I was planning on photos of dinner, which will be my favorite stovetop macaroni & cheese, my ultimate favorite comfort food. For half a pound of macaroni, it uses an ungodly amount of cheese, something like 12 ounces. Keep your oven-baked mac, I'm making mine on the stove! I got Marlene Spieler's Mac & Cheese cookbook for Christmas and haven't even cracked it, except to drool over recipes on Christmas day. I won't crack it out today (don't even know where it is), but I can't wait! I could go back out and pick it up, but just like when you leave something at the office on Friday, you really, really don't want to go back later on Friday to pick it up - you want your weekend, right? I'll get it tomorrow when I'm out running the inevitable weekend errands, though I know it will be too late for this foodblog. I've been a lazy slug the past couple of hours, eating leftover pizza and reading the paper, and now it's time to get back to work in the kitchen and keep unpacking.

There are those who say you go into cook with the kitchen you have, not the kitchen you want. Most of the time in life, when you move into a new place, you have to fit your stuff into the kitchen you inherit, for better or for worse. Oops, this doesn't fit on that shelf or in that cabinet; I guess it has to go there. Things wind up in oddball places that eventually make perfect sense to you. Why, of course the silverware's on top of the fridge! Where else would it go? However, when you remodel, if you're anal like me, you figure out how much space you're starting with, how much stuff you have, and how much space you're going to have, not to mention map out where everything's going to go. There's time to put everything in the best spot because you are making that spot happen. Ultimately, when it comes time to move your now dusty things into your new kitchen, it's pretty easy because you have a handy map. I did this before I had the layout completely finalized. The full-sized pullout pantry was too expensive and not very period, so I went with a shorter cabinet with rollout shelves and drawers below instead. But the basic premise is the same. My new Bosch dishwasher has a great feature that allows you to wash just the top rack. Dusty glassware? No problem! Run a quick load of dishes! Dusty mixing bowls? Same thing! I have a feeling that this will get used a lot in the coming few days. Not surprisingly, the unpacking is going pretty quickly. GC still has to make adjustments to the doors on the lazy susan cabinets. Dan the Cabinet Man installed the doors with the hinges going the wrong way, and reversing them seems to be problematic. So I can't put anything (tupperware, small appliances) away in those cabinets for a couple of days, plus I need to figure out how to make a template so I can cut shelf lining, especially in the appliance portion of the cabinet. I also have to get some drawer dividers for the big drawer in the baking wall and figure out how to configure them. But oh, how nice to have the silverware handy, and the dishes put away! How did I figure out where things would go? In part, I kind of designed first, planned later. But I also had an idea in my head. I knew I wanted glass cabinets for the dishes, and I wanted them visible. That meant moving them from the wall next to the fridge to their new location. Two more steps from the dishwasher when unloading (I tested it out) but no great hardship. I've tried to put things where they're used - coffee near the coffee pot, flour near the baking center and mixer, and so forth, as much as I can. Little used items get put up high. To me, it seems like common sense, but then again, there are people with silverware on top of the fridge! And I'm sure some things will move around until they find their proper home (I'm kind of thinking the beer glasses and wine glasses might switch places, for example). Now, the key question is, will I remember that my cereal's now in the pantry when I get up tomorrow morning for work? Aiki_brewer is busy with the new receiver, and I was busy in the kitchen, so we did opt for takeout tonight (the counters are all aclutter). We got soup from the little pho shop a couple blocks away and started with fried imperial rolls. We both ordered the same thing because that's what sounded best: curry chicken with vermicelli. I'd kept out two of these bowls through the remodel since we have pho every few weeks, but I was happy to take them out of their new home! This curry is mildly spicy, with big hunks of chicken and potatoes. Nice and filling. I love regular pho, too, but this sounded particularly good tonight. Even little Pic is moving into the new kitchen! It feels so great to start moving things in, putting them away. The dining room is still utter chaos and has gotten worse throughout the week as I've disassembled the neat pile of boxes I had looking for an ingredient or a pan, and then had to put a clean pan back in the stack, without a home yet in the kitchen (drawers not cleaned out, liner not in, shelves not installed, whatever). I'm back to drinking my water out of a glass instead of a nalgene bottle. And the key step: I pulled out my tea kettle, wiped it off, filled it up, and placed it on the stove for the morning. No more microwaved tea for me! Just one more day, though I do plan to cook, believe it or not! I have one last thing I want to make for you, so don't stop reading yet! And tomorrow morning -- croissants!

We use our fingers! Really, you just have to touch it, and it pulls out into spikes. It's quite fun! We put a blob on with an ice cream scoop, then go to town. The meringue's pretty stiff, two parts sugar to one egg white, heated over a water bath until the sugar's dissolved. It takes about 5 minutes or so on the mixer on high.

Do weeds count as gardening? Aiki_brewer just harvested a mess o' organic dandelions for a batch of beer! Really, I have about the blackest thumb out there. We actually have a good sized yard for SF, but there isn't much in there except what the previous owners planted. Our corner of the city gets that famous fog most of the summer, so growing anything is a challenge. I had some luck with fog-hardy cherry tomatoes once, but that's about the extent of my gardening. My roses are an embarrassment to the neighborhood, and our front yard is not the worst on the block, only by virtue of a few houses that are far, far worse than ours. One day we want to relandscape the front to be more water-conscious (much of it is lawn now) and easier to grow (b'bye roses, hello lavender!) We don't even own any patio furniture because the back yard can be so unpleasant (55F, windy and misty) in the summer! Locally we're starting to get really good strawberries from Watsonville (about an hour and a half or so south), asparagus, and artichokes are starting to come in, too. All some of my favorites! Since I grew up in SoCal, I am very spoiled when it comes to produce and used to getting many things year 'round. Even not so long ago as the 70's, there were a lot of farm stands for great produce down there - strawberries and corn in particular. There are a bunch of great farmer's markets here in the Bay Area -- the famous chi chi one at the Ferry Building downtown, and other, smaller, not-so-famous, not-so-chi chi ones elsewhere. Unfortunately, with my schedule now, I really can't make it to any. I used to love going to one of the non-chi-chi ones on Saturday mornings and filling up my sack with all kinds of goodies for the week! Usually my eyes were bigger than what we could reasonably eat in a week. Rhubarb should start coming in soon, too. We'll be ordering it soon at work for a strawberry rhubarb tart, but it's still pretty pricey. I know I'll do a rhubarb pie as soon as I can get my hands on some. (I leave out the strawberries). When aiki_brewer and I went to Anchorage a couple of Christmases ago to spend it with his brother and family, who were living there at the time, I'd had lunch with a friend just a day or two before we left, and I got some great cheese at the Cheese Board, and had some great sausage. Some of the best plane food ever! I remember Berkeley Bowl from then, too! I moved to the Bay Area in 1989, just out of college, and lived in the East Bay at the time and would shop there every week. They weren't even open on Sundays then! When we moved back to SF in '96 (I moved back to SoCal in '92), the Bowl was still in its old location. I loved the funkiness of that old bowling alley, even if the new store is so much more functional. It just seemed so....Berkeley (not that it isn't now, but in a more upscale hippy way). Oh, it is, Abra, it is! It was all I could do not to have a piece for breakfast. Well, not recently . I go in spurts. Last year for Valentine's Day, I did a whole mess of stuff for people: cakes, decorated sugar cookies, tins of cookies. I usually try to make all our own cookies (aiki_brewer likes to take them in his lunch to work). With this convection oven and its capacity, I'll be able to crank out cookies like nobody's business! The past few years I've done a lot of candies and stuff for Christmas gifts as well. But there are definitely times when the last thing I want to do when I get home is bake more! After a rainy morning, the sun and wind have come out, and it's a beautiful, cool day outside. I managed to get out of work by 2, and am enjoying this while I type: The bakery reeked of smoke today, and I came home smelling like I'd been to a campfire, but without the fun of the roasted weenies and s'mores! The deck oven, where all the bread is baked(thousands of loaves a day), gets coated with flour from the loaves and the conveyor loader, and over time it builds up and eventually begins to burn. The oven is vented, but occasionally it can get really bad, and by the time I left, the bakery was visibly smoky and stinky. The first thing I did when I got home was to jump in the shower and wash off the stink! I had one of the last bagels this morning, topped with plain cream cheese and a dusting of cinnamon sugar, something I think I learned from someone in college. Saturday morning is our busiest day for production, and it's always a push to get everything done by 8, when the drivers have to have it all packed up to head out to our stores. Sunday mornings are busy, too, but usually just a bit less. When I said that we don't do any meringue for our lemon tarts, I kind of lied. We do some lemon tartelettes for one of our restaurants, and they get meringue. It's the same lemon cream in our full-sized tarts, baked in the small shells. I just love meringue, and how lovely and billowy it is. Once it's on the tarts, we spike it and torch it. If you do it right, you don't even scorch the parchment under the 'lettes! We got an order for one of our desserts with a custom banner on it. We usually do generic "Happy Birthday" and "Joyeux Anniversaire" banners, piped in chocolate on rolled out marzipan, but if a customer asks, we will do custom banners to order. Somehow, since my former boss, the old pastry chef, left, this has fallen to me. Needless to say, I got better at piping really quickly! I probably do a couple of custom banners a week, and the generic ones as needed. Here's one of each: I always find lower case "e's" the hardest even though I now pipe them backwards from how I'd write it (start at the bottom). It's hard to keep that hole open. For lunch I wanted some of the soup I saw floating around yesterday, since it was raining and gloomy, but I couldn't find it (not surprising). I decided on a croque monsieur, which I eat maybe twice a year, and once I'd finished, I remembered why: they're so rich! We use our pain de mie, plain sandwich bread, topped with béchamel, ham, cheese, the top slice of bread, more béchamel, and more cheese, then baked in the oven. Tasty, though. And now I'm back into the kitchen to really get at this unpacking! Without anything to cook for dinner tonight, I can focus on that. I don't know what's for dinner tonight. Maybe pho from the little hole-in-the-wall a few blocks away.

Ding ding ding! Nina wins the big prize! Though the lemon actually went inside the chicken, not in the pie, but you did get the right answer! Macarons are the lovely little Parisian cookie treat - kind of an upscale Oreo. Two delicate, chewy cookies made mostly of egg whites, sugar, and almond meal, sandwiched together with some kind of fabulous filling, like a lemon curd. We have a whole huge thread over in P&B. OK, dinner! Here's where we started this afternoon: I started by making the filling, a combination of sugar, cornstarch, and the juice from the jars of cherries. When it first goes on the stove, it's cloudy. Through the magic of starch, once it boils it becomes darker and clear. At this point, I added some butter, almond extract, and the cherries. Cooking the filling first means that there's no question that it will be set. Since the cherries are canned, they really won't release any of their own juice once they bake, the way a fresh pie would. I started to roll out the crust (sorry, no hands on shot - this was before aiki_brewer got home) You'll notice that I'm no Martha Stewart, and my crust does not stay perfectly round as I roll it. I even had to patch it a bit once I got it into the pie plate. And then put the lined pie plate into the freezer for a few minutes while I rolled out and cut the top crust for a lattice. I did a lazy lattice, just alternating strips back and forth so I didn't have to do a full weave. That's tricky, especially on a warm pie filling. I crimped the edges, brushed the top with an egg wash and dusted it with sugar, and it was ready for the oven. An hour or so later, I had this! Pie is really one of my favorite desserts. I don't make it often because with just the two of us, it can take a while to eat one. Cherry pie is a particular favorite. It's so pretty and red, and the cherries tart and sweet. And with the crust. Really, really hard to improve on. And it's something we don't make at work. Sure, we make tarts, but we don't make pies. At one point, I dropped a scrap of dough on the floor. I've commented elsewhere that the patterning in the floor and its coloring reminds me of pie dough when it's rolled out. I could NOT for the life of me find that scrap of dough on the floor. It was only about an hour later that I found it. While the pie was in the oven, I started putting in the shelf liner and put the shelves in the cabinets. Just as the pie came out, GC arrived to start installing the magnetic stops that hold the doors closed. I retreated to the computer for a little while, but before long I had to be back in the kitchen to get dinner started, working around him and his 5-year old son, with his ladder and my stepstool in the way as well. Well, that made my kitchen feel small. Additionally, I still had the shelf liner on the counter. But I managed to prep my chicken: butter under and over the skin, salt and pepper massage, and lemons and rosemary inside. Some cut potatoes underneath the rack, and it was all good to go. I started it off at 450F for about 20 minutes to crisp the skin and render the fat, and then lowered it to 350F (I thought - it was actually at 375) and turned on the convection fan (first time!) It was hard to be in the kitchen with all that was going on, so I read the paper and about half hour later thought I should check on the bird. Wow, done already? GC was just finishing up at this point, and I'm sure his little boy was hungry. It was after 7. I tented the chicken and threw some asparagus into the oven, under the broiler, to complete dinner. After we were done eating, I picked off most of the breast skin and ate it. Damn, that's good eating! I tried a little of the breast meat, and I think it was a bit overdone; it tasted kind of dry. But I hadn't brined the bird, which I normally do, and this was the first roast chicken. Not everything can come out perfectly. Besides, how can you babysit a chicken when your contractor's taking up most of the available floorspace? Finally, it was time for dessert. We invited our neighbors across the street over for some, and for their first look at the finished kitchen. The one neighbor had seen it in progress, but hadn't seen the counters, and his partner hadn't seen it at all. They both liked it a lot, and really liked the window to the entry. So, pie, which I ate while I was waiting for my photos to upload: Two more days of work for me; I hope tomorrow will be as easy, so that I can get home and start putting things away to show you a finished kitchen (or at least getting there) by Sunday, when this wraps up. And boy, do we have a lot of leftovers to eat!