Recipes from My Ugly Blue Kitchen: Garlic Roasted Chicken and French Beans

You don't need me to devote an entire paragraph to describe how hectic the dinner hour is in a household with two children under the age of three.  Add to the chaos a husband who gets home from work at 6:30 and then goes on a training run because he is running the New York City Marathon two years after you did and is hellbent on beating your time, and you have yourself a recipe for daily dinner takeout.

But who are you kidding?  You have a mortgage.

Enter quick and dirty recipes that require very little preparation and few ingredients.  Bonus if they're for food your toddler will eat, thus eliminating the extra step of having to heat up chicken nuggets in the toaster oven.

This recipe is adapted from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast From the Kitchen of Martha Stewart Living.  It is one of the first dishes I taught myself to make after I was married, and, four years later, it is still my husband's favorite dinner.  When he limps in from his run and smells the garlic roasting, it puts a smile on his exhausted face.  The best part is this meal requires exactly five ingredients to prepare, not including olive oil, salt, and pepper, which I don't count because I use them in almost everything I cook.

Of course I'm going to get on my soapbox and tell you that yes, the chicken you use matters a great deal in this recipe.  With hardly anything to mask the flavor, you have to use the highest quality poultry available.  It should be raised locally, without hormones and antibiotics.  Bonus points if it's free-range and/or organic.  Believe me, I am no vegan, but I do care about the quality of life my chicken enjoyed before it became my supper.  The brands I like are Murray's or Bell and Evans, or if you're fortunate enough to live near a Stew Leonard's, Stew's Naked Chicken brand.

This is what the chicken looks like going into the oven:

And this is what it looks like when it comes out:

Serve this dish with lots of crusty whole wheat bread (it's one of the five ingredients!) so you have something on which to spread the roasted garlic cloves, which become soft and buttery while roasting.

Garlic Roasted Chicken with French Beans (Feeds 2 adults and 1 toddler)

Ingredients:

1) 1 bone-in, skin-on chicken breast, halved.  (If you can't find chicken breast halves, find a whole chicken breast in the poultry case and have the butcher halve it for you.  This may sound obvious, but I didn't know you could do this until my husband told me so.  I lived a very sheltered existence before I got married.)

2) 2 heads of garlic

3) 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary

4) 1/2 lb. French beans

5) 1 whole wheat baguette

Plus olive oil, salt, pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Slice the tops off two garlic heads (reserve the bottoms) and place them cut sides down on the bottom of a square baking dish.  Place one sprig of fresh rosemary on each garlic top.  Arrange the chicken breast halves over the garlic tops.  Sandwich the two reserved garlic bottoms, cut side up, between the chicken breast halves.  Place the remaining two rosemary sprigs on top of the chicken.  Drizzle the chicken and garlic with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast the chicken for a half hour, then turn the garlic bottoms cut side down and rotate the pan.  Continue roasting the chicken for another half hour, or until the skin is brown and the juices run clear. 

While the chicken is roasting, bathe the children. Clean the bathrooms. Do a load of laundry.

About ten minutes before the chicken is done, trim and cook the French beans.

Did you know that when you trim French beans, you're only supposed to cut off one end, leaving on the stringy, elf-shoe looking end?  Well, I didn't, but that's because growing up the beans I ate came out of a can.  Thanks, Ina Garten, for teaching me this important lesson.

The way I cook my beans is I fill a shallow frying pan with about a half inch of water and bring it to a boil over medium heat.  Then I toss all the beans in the pan and allow them to steam for 3-4 minutes.  This method is a bit unorthodox, but I guarantee you will get perfect, crisp-tender beans every time.  

Serve the chicken with the whole garlic bottoms, the pan juices, the French beans, the bread, and a sweet, juicy red wine like Rex Goliath Free Range Red.  It's got a big rooster on the label; you can't miss it!

Enjoy!  Let me know in the comments if you try this recipe and what, if anything, you did to tweak it for your family.

Unwinding with a Catalogue

It's Monday night.

After a half dozen escape attempts, your toddler is finally sleeping soundly (albeit upside-down) in her bed. Your seven-week-old has just nodded off in her swing.  You've survived another day that included a tantrum in the cracker aisle at the supermarket, sore arms from rocking a fussy baby for four continuous hours, and a leaky pipe that required your plumber to take a sledge-hammer to the living room wall you recently spent thousands of dollars to paint.  And despite all that, you were still able to prepare a nutritious dinner for your family, even if the salmon was a tad charred and the quinoa a bit soggy.  You kick up your feet eager to indulge in the treat that arrived in the mail this afternoon: The Williams-Sonoma catalogue.

Pictured on the cover is the latest iteration of the iconic Kitchen-Aid mixer.  Like a Louis Vuitton bag it is something you must own eventually, even if you don't bake and wouldn't know the first thing to do with a dough hook.  The mixer comes in French blue and looks good on a counter; that's really all that matters.

On page 11 there is a suggested menu for a wine-tasting party.  You turn to your husband.  "We should host a wine-tasting party," you say.  "Sounds expensive," he replies.

Page 35 features several font options from which to choose for sets of monogrammed linen napkins.  You wish you had the disposable income for monogrammed linen napkins.  For now, it's paper napkins bought in bulk from BJ's for you.

On page 48 a picture-perfect stack of skull-shaped pancakes dressed in maple syrup and walnuts seems to mock you.  You do not have room in your ugly blue kitchen to store skull-shaped pancake molds and, therefore, will almost certainly never make skull-shaped pancakes for your children on Halloween morning.  You're starting to feel pretty crumby about that.

Before long you are accelerating down the self-deprecating spiral.  Two smiling girls on the following page are eating homemade organic whole wheat waffles off immaculate white plates resting on a reclaimed-wood kitchen table that also contains bowls of plump mixed berries, sliced apples, and a vase of fresh-cut flowers.  Breakfast at your house is cereal eaten out of (BPA-free) plastic bowls off an Ikea table that also contains a weeks' worth of mail and last weekend's New York Times.  On page 55 a child using a citrus press to make a single glass of orange juice makes you feel guilty for not serving fresh-squeezed juice to your children, even though you don't allow your children to drink juice because of the sugar content.  The gleaming espresso machines on pages 64-67 make you wish you knew how to make your own lattes, instead of spending $50 a month (according to your last credit card statement) at Starbucks.  Perhaps this is why you can't afford sets of monogrammed linen napkins.

Because of the braised ribs simmering in a slow-cooker pictured on page 70, you experience pangs of remorse that, due to its inconvenient location at the back of the cabinet above the refrigerator, you've hardly used the Crock-Pot you registered for when you got married.  The pictures of autumn wreathes on pages 98-99 remind you that fall is coming and you should probably think about how you're going to decorate the house, because you can already tell that this is the type of neighborhood where neighbors compete to have the best-looking seasonal house on the block.  The picture of the Miele rotary iron on page 104 reminds you that you should probably iron the stack of khakis in the laundry room so that your husband has more than one pair to choose from this Labor Day weekend.

And you're spent.  You decide to leave the Pottery Barn catalogue, waiting on the coffee table, for another night.

Recipes from My Ugly Blue Kitchen: Super-Delicious Chunky Marinara

With Peanut due to arrive any day (my swollen ankles and stretched maternity tees say the sooner the better), it was time for me to stock the freezer with a homemade favorite.

I am Irish and grew up on store-bought pasta sauce.  My husband is Irish-Italian and also grew up on store-bought pasta sauce.  After we were married and I lost my job as a law clerk, I watched a lot of cooking shows, both at home and- oddly- at the gym, where Food Network seemed to be a favorite channel among those using the treadmills.  During this time I became an enormous Ina Garten fan.  It is Ina who convinced me that making one's own pasta sauce is not only easy, but nutritionally necessary.  Have you ever read the label of a conventional jar of pasta sauce?  I guarantee you that the second ingredient, after tomatoes, is sugar.

There is no sugar in my homemade pasta sauce.  In fact, there are only ten ingredients total. and it is incredibly easy to make.  It is also astoundingly delicious, at least, according to my Irish-Italian husband.  Because I want you, too, to make your own pasta sauce and not consume freakish amounts of sugar, I am sharing my recipe, which I've adapted from several sources, including Ina, below.

CMC's Super-Delicious Chunky Marinara

Ingredients per batch (one batch serves approximately four hungry Irish-Italians):

2 tbsp olive oil (I like Colavita)
1 yellow onion
6 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup merlot or other robust red wine
1 can San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes
4 tsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 handful fresh basil leaves
Salt to taste

Directions:

Step 1: Dice the onion.  Or, better yet, if husband is around have him do it, so you don't have to touch up your eye makeup later.  Saute diced onion and salt in 2 tbsp olive oil in a Dutch oven over low heat until translucent, about 8 minutes.

Note: Don't worry about over-salting.  I took a cooking class once and the instructor declared that it is impossible for Americans to over-salt while cooking because our natural inclination to limit our salt-intake preventst us from using too much salt before it becomes a problem.

Step 2:  As the onion is sauteing, mince the garlic.  Of course you could use minced garlic in a jar, but why would you?  In my opinion, fresh garlic is worth the extra bit of effort, especially if you have a good chef's knife.  We use six cloves per batch, but we are garlic fanatics.  Adjust to your preference.

Step 3: Add the garlic to the softened onion, stir with a wooden spoon, and allow to cook for about sixty seconds, until garlic is fragrant.

Step 4: Turn up heat to medium-high, Add 1/2 cup of merlot, and cook until most of the wine has evaporated.

Step 5: Add whole peeled tomatoes and juices.  Crush each individual tomato with your hand before adding it to the pot.  You may want to wear an apron for this step!

Note, this recipe specifically calls for San Marzano tomatoes- the best on the market.  I've tried other brands, including Scalfani and Cento, and there is no comparison.  This sauce calls for so few and simple ingredients, t's important that they're high quality.

Step 6:  Add the tomato paste, stir, and bring sauce to a boil.  Lower the flame to medium-low.

Step 7: Add the herbs.  I use another dash of salt, 1/2 tsp of oregano, 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes, and about eight leaves of fresh Basil.  You can buy fresh packaged basil leaves at any grocery store, or, if your husband enjoys gardening as much as mine does, you can convince him to plant about twenty basil plants in your vegetable garden so you never run out.  Just make sure you rinse the leaves well before adding them to your sauce!

Step 8: Allow sauce to simmer on stove for forty minutes, until thick and saucy.

Step 9: Jar it!  Assuming you have leftovers (or you've made four batches, as I did), you'll need air-tight mason jars to freeze for later.  Santa brought me these mason jars last Christmas because Santa really likes my pasta sauce.

(Don't worry, Santa also brought me the J.Crew leopard flats and Fair Isle sweater I was pining for.)

The finished product!  Ready for post-baby consumption with my favorite portobello mushroom ravioli (which I buy at the Fairway.  I haven't ventured into pasta making just yet).  

The Nicest Neighbors on the Block

The day after we close, we go to the house early in the morning to meet with our prospective contractors.  The doorbell rings and I think it’s one of the painters we are considering hiring, but when I open the door, a lanky man wearing thick canvas gloves and a wide smile is standing on the stoop. 

“Hi!  I’m Jim, the garbage man.”  Jim thumbs toward the green refuse truck on the street.  “I’d shake your hand, but I’ve got my work gloves on.  Anyway, I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood and let you know that your trash days are Tuesdays and Fridays.  Recycling on Thursdays.”

I am speechless.  In the roughly thirty years I’ve been alive, I don’t think I’ve ever had a garbage man come to my door and introduce himself to me.   In the weeks that follow, our mail carrier and our UPS man will also introduce themselves, and compliment us on the work we are doing to the house.

A few days after we meet Jim, we are pulling into our driveway when we notice that the family next door- a mom, a dad, and three children- are playing together in the front yard.  When they see our car, they wave vigorously, as if they have been awaiting our arrival all day.  The kids run over to the Jeep and clamor over one another to introduce themselves.  There is an eight-year-old girl, a six-year-old boy, and another boy who is just about the same age as Minnow. 

“Do you have any kids?” the six-year old boy asks eagerly.  After living next to an elderly couple all his life, it is evident that he is hopeful for some new playmates. 

“Yes,” I say.  “We have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and,” I point to my belly, “another girl on the way.”

The kids are overwhelmed by this news.  The eight-year-old girl volunteers to babysit for me when she gets a little older and her mom lets her.  The six-year-old boy vows to let our girls come into his yard and play in his playhouse whenever they want.  The three-year-old boy smiles shyly and digs a toe into the grass.  Then the three of them run into their house.

The parents come over to say hello and we can tell right away that these are the type of people others dream of having next door.  The husband gives us their home phone number and insists we call them whenever we need a hand.  The wife rattles off the names of the best pediatricians, grocery stores, and soccer programs in the village. 

The kids bound out the front door carrying a stack of children’s books, including Pinkalicious and Fancy Nancy.  On top of the stack is a handmade card.  The six-year-old boy hands the books and card to me.    

“These are for Minnow,” he explains. 

“We know it’s expensive to buy a house,” the eight-year-old girl adds, “so we don’t want you to have to buy books, too.”

I am blown away by these young children’s thoughtfulness and generosity, let alone their mature-beyond-years sympathy.  They haven’t even met our daughter and already they are willing to share with her.

Not to be outdone, when our neighbors across the street hear that we have a toddler girl, they leave a mint-condition toddler-sized scooter on our stoop with a note that reads, “Welcome to the neighborhood!  Our girls have outgrown this and we thought you could use it.”

“What is going on around here?” I ask my husband.  I don’t mean to be skeptical, but, generally, I haven’t had many positive experiences with neighbors.  My parents’ next-door-neighbors in Northeast Philadelphia literally throw dog shit in my parents’ swimming pool for sport.  In Manhattan, our neighbors didn’t take much interest in us, and we didn’t take much interest in them, because Manhattanites are, as a rule, not interested in anyone but themselves.  When we moved to Bronxville we encountered some really great neighbors, and some challenging ones.  The man who lived directly below us waited all of two weeks before knocking on our door one afternoon and requesting that we all start walking on the balls of our feet, to reduce the noise on the hardwoods.  I told him that I would happily walk on the balls of my feet, and I would relay the message to my husband.  Then I pointed to Minnow.

“But…she’s fifteen-months-old, so….” 

In the weeks following our move to the new house, various neighbors come by to greet us.  Mrs. McConnell, our other next-door neighbor, tells us that she is available for late-night babysitting.   She is approximately 94-years-old.

“I’m lucky if I get three or four hours of sleep per night,” she explains.  “So if you go into labor in the middle of the night and you need someone to watch the little one, I’d be happy to.”

“Wow, thank you,” I reply graciously.  I do not intend to take her up on her offer, given her advanced age and the fact that we met twelve seconds ago, but what a neighborly thing to say.

After I meet another neighbor across the street, she drops by that very afternoon to present me with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and a warm welcome note.  The flowers, in cheerful shades of pink, purple, and yellow, last nearly two weeks in our ugly blue kitchen.

The neighbor who lives behind us, whose name I cannot recall but whose dog’s name is “Eddie,” stops outside our house one afternoon so Minnow can pet the dog and smother him with hugs.

“We moved to the village about thirty years ago, when we were about your age,” he says.  “Once you move here, you don’t leave.”  He says that last part in an almost Stepford-ish way, and I can’t decide whether I am comforted or minorly disturbed by his words.  I mean, we moved to Long Island, not joined a cult.  Right?

Then there is the party.  Last week as my husband is tending to our vegetable garden, a neighbor from down the block, whom we hadn’t yet met, hands my husband an invitation to a party she and her husband are throwing to welcome all the newcomers on the block.  We feel obligated to go, so that Friday night we nervously process to her house, where about forty other neighbors have gathered, with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails in hand to, in one neighbor’s words, “initiate us.” 

It is one of the most splendid summer parties I’ve ever attended.  Every neighbor we meet is down-to-earth and intent on making us feel welcome in our new town.  I discover that around here, friendliness isn’t an anomaly; it’s a lifestyle.  Neighbors are, for better or worse, genuinely interested in one another’s lives.  If, God forbid, tragedy were to ever strike our block and the local news came to interview some of the neighbors, you would never hear someone say, “We didn’t really know the family.  They kept to themselves.”

One afternoon I am chit-chatting with my neighbor across the street- the one who gave Minnow the scooter- when her next-door-neighbor exits her house and approaches us. 

“Have you met the new neighbor?” the woman with whom I’m chatting asks.

I don’t answer because I assume she is talking to her next-door-neighbor, who has joined us on the sidewalk.

“C, have you met the new neighbor?” she asks again.

“What are you talking about?” I respond.  “I’m the new neighbor.”

“No!  This is Kristy.  She and her family are from Mississippi and just moved in on Saturday.  She’s even newer than you.”

“I just can’t get over how nice everyone is around here!” Kristy drawls.  “Down South New Yorkers get a bad rap, but we are so impressed with everyone’s hospitality.”

As she continues I wonder whether we- no longer the new family on the block- ought to bake Kristy and her kids a batch of cookies. 

Catharsis

After the movers drop the last box in our new home (and I do mean "drop;" several Crate & Barrel wine glasses are sacrificed in the move), I walk from room to room, surveying the job ahead.  It is overwhelming.  My in-laws have agreed to watch Minnow until 8 p.m. that evening, and I quickly realize that we will not be finished unpacking by the end of the day, or even the end of the weekend, as I had naively hoped.

I can't decide which I find more loathsome: Packing or unpacking.  Wrapping everything we own in multiple layers of bubble wrap and entrusting their fate to the storage gods is draining- no doubt about it- but I am having a difficult time unpacking because I don't yet know where anything goes.  We went from too little space to too much space, it seems.  This box of cleaning supplies could go in the linen closet, but it would be just as at home it in the laundry room.  Should that framed photograph of the Natural History Museum hang in the living room, or the den?  This vase would look equally elegant in the dining room or in the foyer... Also, there are some rooms in which we cannot unpack at all because the painters- God love them- are still painting.  They're going on four weeks now.

"I don't know where to begin," I say to my husband as I pry open boxes and then push them aside.

"Start in one room," he suggests.  "Do as much as you can in there, and move on to the next."

But in which room should I start?  The nursery is a logical first step, because I want to ensure that Peanut's room is ready, should she decide to move in early.  Then again, maybe I should start in the kitchen, the hearth of the home.  But the idea of spending an afternoon filling old, decrepit cabinets with my gleaming stainless steel cookware saddens me, so I decide to seek solace in the most cheerful corner of the house: My master bedroom closet.

In a home this old, it is rare to find one spacious closet in the master bedroom; it is absolutely urban legend to find two.  I feel like my husband and I hit the Power Ball with our equally-sized His and Hers closets.  Having a place to hang my clothes in the bedroom is certainly an upgrade from our first New York City apartment, where my closet was in the living room.  Here, we kept the antique bronze doorknobs- an homage to the former owners- and added fluorescent lights to each closet and the double light switch outside.

Obviously, a new closet calls for new hangers.  A few days before the move Minnow and I find boxes of these fun hot pink hangers, which would perk up any closet, from Bed Bath and Beyond.  They are slim and space-saving, which is important because  I am using them to hang my silk blouse collection, which is sizable.

Like a hoarder, I am big on saving shoe boxes.  I use them to store my most precious shoes, including a few pairs from the J.Crew collection.  Luckily, this closet has adequate shelf space to hold numerous boxed shoes, as well as a laundry basket packed with handbags.

I've had the shoe rack below since my freshman year of college.  It couldn't have cost more than $10 at Bed Bath and Beyond, yet it has proven to be one of the most useful closet organizers.  I've removed the top rack so that my clothes have more room to hang.  To maximize the remaining space, I stack shoes one on top of the other and plan to switch them out seasonally.  Hello, espadrilles!

Because we don't yet have master bedroom furniture, I am temporarily storing folded items in these stackable hot pink cubes from Ikea.  This cube contains all my running gear, which is washed and ready for my first post-partum run in about eight weeks.

Focusing first on the master bedroom closet is cathartic for me.  After my wardrobe is organized, balance is restored to the universe and I feel energized to tackle the rest of unpacking- room by room and box by box.

Of course, we all deal with stress in different ways.  While I am busy getting reacquainted with the clothes that have spent two months hanging in a cedar closet in my in-laws' attic, my husband works on this:

Aside from ample closet space, another benefit to owning a home is having a little land on which to plant a vegetable garden.  The tall plants are Beefsteak and Sweet 100 tomatoes- perfect for summer!

Never again will I need to buy parsley at the grocery store, thanks to my husband's green thumb.

Thyme and rosemary: Two of our most frequently-used cooking herbs.

I've got big plans of preparing jars and jars of fresh basil pesto in my ugly blue kitchen...

...which is probably the room I should work on next.

Solace in the Mail

In this time of transition (five weeks living with my in-laws and counting), there are plenty of people and entities that are slowly driving me mad; at the top of that list is the U.S. Postal Service.  Despite arranging for mail-forwarding two weeks before our move in April, I am currently receiving mail in three different locations.  My student loan statements, credit card bills, and other mail that could affect my credit score are being sent to the Bronxville apartment, so every week, after dropping off Minnow at school, I have to go to my former building and retrieve a shopping bag full of mail that the current residents have left in the lobby for us.  Meanwhile, my New Yorker and American Bar Association subscriptions, as well as mailings from organizations such as The Human Rights Campaign and Food for the Poor have found me at my in-laws’ address, confirming my mother-in-law’s suspicions that I am, in fact, more liberal than I let on.  And at the new house, our mortgage lender, utility companies, and village have not missed a beat in sending us payment reminders, bills, and tax documents.  Welcome to your new home! 

This afternoon, as I opened the house for our painter (whom I adore but, let’s face it, is among those slowly driving me mad) I stepped onto a pile of mail that had been pushed through the mail slot on the front door (because, in addition to light switches and central air conditioning, our home lacks a mailbox).

“Well, here’s some mail,” I observed insipidly. 

“And there’s this, too,” our painter said, bending to hand me a small brown paper package sitting on the stoop.

I knew what this was, and it had nothing to do with monthly payments!  I tore open the paper and, after figuring out how to operate the rental car’s newfangled six-disc CD player, fed the CD into the stereo.  The smooth crooning of Josh Ritter poured through the speakers, temporarily melting away my frustrations with the world and everyone in it. 

One of my first encounters with Josh Ritter was watching an exclusive video performance of “Southern Pacifica” that he and his wife, Dawn Landes, did for Daily Candy in April 2010.  I remember crying the first time I saw it, and I still cry because everything about the video is pure: the music, their young marriage, their vintage Brooklyn kitchen.  Now I have a vintage kitchen of my own and it doesn’t seem nearly as hip because it’s not in Brooklyn.

The summer I was pregnant with Minnow, my husband and I saw Josh Ritter perform at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.  I sang along to every song off the So Runs the World Away album, which was the only album of his I owned at the time, and attentively listened to the rest.  It was one of the best, and definitely the longest concert I’ve attended, which would have been awesome if the venue wasn’t standing room only and I hadn’t foolishly worn my Coach platform sandals.  I’d never left a concert before the encore until that night.

For three years I have been yearning for Josh Ritter to release a new album, and in March of this year he finally did.  The Beast in Its Tracks immediately garnered airtime on public radio, and I once again fell in love with Josh Ritter’s soulful, narrative lyrics.  I imagine he had Dawn Landes, from whom he split in 2011, in mind when he wrote “Joy to You Baby”:

There’s pain in whatever

We stumble upon

If I never had met you

You couldn’t have gone

But then I couldn’t have met you

We couldn’t have been

I guess it all adds up

To joy in the end…

Listening to the album in its entirety tonight on the drive back to my in-laws’ from the construction zone that will eventually be our home was the best part of my day, and probably week.  Suddenly the fact that the electricians have been working for over two weeks and are still not finished updating our electric, the fact that the painters will be delayed at least a week because they have to wait until the floor guy sands the hardwoods before they put paint on the walls, the fact that the U.S. Postal Service really doesn’t give a damn where we live didn’t seem to matter anymore.  In a few short weeks this, too, will be a closed chapter in our family's story.  Or as Josh Ritter puts it in his new song, “Hopeful”:

She has been through her own share of hard times as well

And she has learned how to tear out the heaven from hell

Most nights I’m alright, still all rocks roll downhill

But she says I’ll get better, she knows that I will

And she’s hopeful, hopeful for me

Coming out of the dark clouds.

It's Electric, Boogie Oogie Woogie

During the course of our two year home search, my husband and I have watched a lot of “House Hunters” on HGTV.  As New Yorkers, it is frustrating to see homebuyers in other parts of the country bid on homes twice the size of ours for a third of the price.  It is also misleading, because the issues that those house hunters make you believe are important are, in reality, inconsequential. 

For example, in the typical “House Hunters” episode, a realtor will walk a married couple into a kitchen that has nineties style cabinetry and Corian countertops.

Wife: “Ohemgee!  This kitchen is SO outdated.  Where are the granite countertops?  I cannot LIVE without granite.  This is a total deal-breaker for me.”

Realtor: “Countertops are easy to replace.”

Husband: “We’re not interested in projects.  I don’t have time for projects.”

Really?!  If these people want to see an outdated kitchen, I invite them to visit our new home.  Our cabinets are from the 1930s and our counters are made to look like butcher block, but are actually laminate.  It’s not just old.  It’s hideous.

But that’s not really important.  What’s important, and what we didn’t notice until after we bought the home, is that there is no overhead lighting in the kitchen.  When our electrician pointed this out to us, after we had closed, I had a mild panic attack.  How did the previous owners cook at night?  Did they only eat during daylight hours?

Even more disturbing, our kitchen has a total of two electrical outlets.  The oven is plugged into one; the refrigerator is plugged into the other.  Why did I not notice that there were no outlets along the counters during the two open houses we attended?  Was it because, thanks to HGTV, I was too busy searching for granite countertops? Where in this kitchen am I going to plug in my 21^st century appliances?  How am I going to brew a pot of coffee?

After touring the kitchen, the realtor next takes the house hunters into the master bedroom, which boasts only one massive walk-in closet.

Wife, giggling: “Well this closet is big enough for me, but where are you going to put your stuff, honey?”

Husband: “Maybe you could get rid of some of your shoes.”

Wife, to realtor: “I do have a minor shoe addiction.”

Bitch, I’m sorry that your potential master bedroom lacks a second walk-in closet.  You know what my master bedroom lacks?  A light switch.  In fact, at second glance, none of the four bedrooms have light switches, a detail that escaped us until after closing.  Apparently the previous owners walked the halls at night with candlesticks like Charles Dickens characters. 

The realtor then escorts the couple into the spacious master bath, which, true, has a funky color palette and no tub.

Wife: "I cannot DEAL with these tiles.  They remind me of a Lilly Pulitzer catalogue.  And where is the soaking tub?  I thought this was the master bath.”

Realtor rolls eyes.

Husband reevaluates plan to buy a home with this woman and, instead, considers filing for divorce.

Actually, I empathize with the wife here.  I dream of a master bath with a soaking tub, too, but my master bath is the size of a coffin.  It is.  I measured it today.  It’s three feet wide by nine and a half feet long.  Actually, I think some coffins may be larger.  There’s barely room for a standing shower, but that’s really the least of our problems.  What’s troubling is that I can’t use my hairdryer in the master bath because there are no electrical outlets.  And I can’t dry my hair in the hall bath, which our two daughters- who will eventually be teenagers- will share because there are no electrical outlets in there, either.  I guess there were no such things as hair dryers or curling irons or electric toothbrushes in the 1930s.

To shuttle our house into the current millennium, our electricians have been working for four days, installing light boxes into bedroom ceilings, cutting holes in the plaster for new light switches and outlets, and running wiring from the current circuit board in the basement to the attic, where a second circuit board must be installed to support our electric-dependent lifestyle.  I have no idea what this will all cost, but I don’t believe the $500 we initially set aside for “electrical updates” is going to suffice. 

I really wish the house hunters on HGTV had discussed electricity.

Wrap Your Home in Flowers and Bows

The day after closing, my husband and I met with our contractors at the new house and assessed the work we need to do before we move in.  We knew we were buying a fixer, but I don’t think we realized the gravity of the situation until we saw the house empty.  The previous owners had lived in the house for 51 years, and I don’t think they had redecorated since the early seventies.  I feel like we're in over our heads, particularly when it comes to wallpaper.  Everyone who has come through the house- from the electrician, to the painter, to the ADT man- has commented on the previous owners' fetish for wallpaper.  They couldn’t get enough of it, and their choices were bizarre, to put it mildly.  

For example, here is the first floor powder room:

Notice how the paper extends to the ceiling, and wraps around the steam pipe?  They must have run out before they could cover the toilet.

Here is a close-up of the pattern: 

Don't adjust your screen; it actually is black with day-glo flowers.  Try finding hand towels to match that!

And this is my ugly blue kitchen, which really deserves a post all its own:

Unfortunately, we are not taking down the wallpaper in this room because we are planning a total kitchen renovation within the next five years.  But we’ll see how long I can live with the Burpee motif:

This is the dining room:

It's hard to tell from this picture, but in person you can see the stark outline of the previous owners’ breakfront and buffet.  It’s a useful guide.

I call this print Exodus in Flight.  I imagine the birds are working their way toward the window, attempting a furtive escape.

The foyer is enveloped in deep merlot:

  This is probably the least offensive of all the papers, which is fortunate because…

…it extends to the upstairs hall.  The painters estimate it will take one full day just to strip this paper.

Welcome aboard the guest bedroom:

We have a cruise liner theme going on in here.  Bon Voyage!

My house is like a gift you unwrap from the inside.

For the previous homeowners, wallpaper wasn't enough.  Most of the bedrooms have borders, too:  

And in case you think they forgot to paper the closets, they didn’t:

 I think the botanical print in the hall bath goes nicely with the maroon toilet, don’t you?

This is the master bedroom:

The room is huge, so there is a great quantity of wallpaper.  Even more than we bargained for, it turns out:

Their love for wallpaper runs beneath the surface.  Paper on top of paper: The gift that keeps on giving!

When we pulled at one loose corner, this is what happened:

Luckily, we hadn’t yet formed an attachment to either print

And, finally, this is Minnow and Peanut’s room:  

Minnow is actually fond of this paper because blue is her favorite color this week.    

Thankfully, they had enough bows for the closet, too:

I think the bumper sticker on the mirror sums it up.