cooking – Go Retire Psychiatrist

It’s Time for an Omelet from the Mister Chef Pizza Maker!

Sena got a Mister Chef pizza oven the other week and it works pretty slick. I’ve cooked a couple of frozen pizzas on it and it’s great for a guy like me—the guy the neighbors alert the fire department about when they get the first whiff of smoke. Some people have no sense of adventure. Hey, if I can operate it, anyone can.

This morning, Sena cooked a ham omelet in about 15 minutes. I guess it just felt like an hour to me because I was hungry.

It’s pretty simple. There’s only one knob. It doesn’t correspond to any specific temperature although the instructions call it a “Temperature knob”. You can pretty much crank it to any number although lower numbers mean you have to wait longer for your food.

You just plug it in, turn a temperature knob and wait for the green light to come on, which evidently doesn’t exactly mean you can toss food in it. You have to wait for the red light to come on next. Then you toss the food on the ceramic surface—uh, that’s the bottom surface, not the top, which is the lid. Things just fall down if you put food up there—something to do with gravity.

It comes with a little instruction manual. In one place it says you can cook frozen pizza in 15-20 minutes, but then in the cooking time guidance it says it takes 9 minutes. I can tell you; 9 minutes doesn’t melt most of the ice. It also gives you the weight in grams of various foods. I’m not sure how useful it is—we’ve never weighed our frozen pizzas.

Pay attention to the warning about steam release when you open the lid. I guess I have about 4 or 5 outpatient visits to the burn clinic to go—then the skin grafts should hold.

We think the manufacturer must have got wind of me using the Mister Chef because they included a small robot extraterrestrial (ET) assistant to make sure I didn’t do anything rash. It got really nervous when I used it. It tried to calm down the smoke detectors, but I don’t think they could hear it. That’s ok, because I can’t hear the smoke detectors. That happens when you get old.

MisterChef omelet and robot ET assistant (usually not included unless there’s a public safety risk)

The robot ET quit a few days later, something about union benefits not covering incompetent cooks. Wise guy. Anyway, have fun with the Mister Chef and remember what Red Green says; “If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”

Now is the Time for Kauai Coffee and Beignets!

Remember that Beignet mix and rolling pin Sena got back in May? She got around to making them yesterday. The use by date was November 1, 1892! No, sorry, actually it was November 1, 2023.

The day started out pretty cold and it even snowed. Birds and squirrels acted like they never saw snow before.

Anyway, we also tried Kauai Coffee for the first time in our Keurig machine. The pods look really different, but they worked. The flavors are subtle but they go well with Beignets. We’re not sure why they looked more like fried green tomatoes when they were done.

Beignets are delicious. Have plenty of powdered sugar on hand!

Extraterrestrial Grade Kewpie Mayo Corn Dish!

Sena made a Korean Corn Bake with Kewpie Mayo. There’s a spice in it that makes it special. On the label, it just says “spice.” One web article says the secret ingredient is monosodium glutamate (MSG). The author goes on at length to assure that MSG is safe. I guess it has gotten a bad rap. The author says you have to get the Kewpie Mayo made for the Japanese market to get it with MSG and went on to say that, in the U.S., yeast extract is substituted for MSG.

The Kewpie Mayo we have has extraterrestrial grade MSG in it.

That reminds me of a quote from the movie Beetlejuice. Lydia says, while eating Cantonese food:

“I plan to have a stroke from the amount of MSG that’s in this food.”

That’s not going to happen. Sena made this in about 15 minutes. She doesn’t need to measure anything. She just throws stuff together, a pinch of this, a sufficiency of that, etc.

She used peppers and onions, and butter, added the corn, condensed milk, and a generous squirt of Kewpie mayo. She loaded it with shredded cheese and popped it in the broiler on low.

It was great on crackers or just by itself. It did open up a wormhole portal in our kitchen and Bigfoot rushed in and tried to trade some beef jerky for the kewpie corn dish. He was too late.

We ate it all.

Jim Learns About Induction Cooktops

I’m learning about induction cooktops. I know I’m way late in the game. The house we bought a little over two and a half years ago came with an induction cooktop. It’s the first one we ever had; we always used gas or electric stoves.

The main topic here are the noises including clicking noises we heard when using the induction cooktop. I say “we” but I should say Sena because I am allergic to kitchens.

I had to search the internet about induction cooktops. I found out way more than I wanted to know about them. I guess I can summarize that in a few lines:

Induction cooktops:

They work using electricity, not gas. They generate energy from an electromagnetic field below the glass cooktop surface which transfers energy to the magnetic cookware, which causes them to heat up.
They’re more energy efficient than gas.
The electro magnetic field (EMF) they emit have not been shown to increase the risk for cancer.
Although some chefs say hard anodized cookware won’t work on induction cooktops, they will if the bottom of the cookware has a ferromagnetic surface (meaning it has iron in it).
You can tell most of the time if a pan will work on induction cookware by holding a magnet up to the bottom of it and checking to see if the magnet sticks. If the magnet sticks, you’re good to go.

I finally checked that last point about magnetism by suddenly realizing that we had a magnet. It happens to be the magnetized lid for the space holding a deck of cards and pegs on our large cribbage board. It stuck to the bottom of one of our new KitchenAid hard anodized pans.

The old pans we had clicked a lot and there are reasons for the variety of noises you can hear. Most of the websites I noticed which describe this problem also have videos about which don’t have audio. Many of the websites say that some clicking is normal. Others will make an effort to identify the cause for the noises.

Our new cookware doesn’t make any noise at all. And they heat up very quickly. You don’t need to crank up the heat and can keep the power level pretty low.

The sound of screaming is probably from the extraterrestrial you’re trying to fry. Don’t do that.

Chef Jim Makes Pizza!

It had been around 3 years since I actually made a pizza (see YouTube video “The Path to Pizza.”) rather than just sticking a frozen one into the oven. Yesterday, Sena and I put together a video of me (with more than a little coaching from the boss) making a whopper pizza.

Sena bought a new pizza pan for the occasion. In fact, she got a few new cooking pans, saying firmly it was high time for a change. We used to call the old pizza pan “well-seasoned.” But it was out with the old and in with the new.

Because I’m a guy, it was safer to let me use a ready-made pizza crust mix. I was sort of used to that, anyway. It’s a Great Value brand and it was pretty good—after Sena jazzed it up with a few things like a little sugar, sea salt, garlic powder, and Himalayan Pink Salt preferred by all the Yeti chefs.

We used Classico Spicy Tomato & Basil spaghetti sauce, which I understand is legal.The spices we used were garlic powder, basil, fennel, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, along with a couple dozen other things. You use what you like.

Sena also “suggested” different kinds of cheeses (“I woke up feeling the cheesiest!”) There was a shredded Italian variety made up of 3 different cheeses including parmesan, mozzarella, provolone, romano, and asiago. and we topped that with a different brand of provolone. Sena really likes added provolone.

I Offered to Make Dinner But…

Yesterday I offered to make dinner, but Sena made a counteroffer I couldn’t refuse. She made a special dish of big meatballs (which she did not allow me to juggle) and potatoes. She makes an out-of-this-world sauce that she must have got from Extraterrestrials back in the early 1980s. The image from pixabay doesn’t do it justice, but we ate it too fast for me to get a snapshot.

I can’t remember the last time she made it; it has been years.

As a matter of full disclosure, while I did offer to make dinner, “making dinner” for me is sticking a frozen pizza in the oven. I might throw a light salad into the bargain, but the whole affair is a far cry from actually making the pizza dough and getting my hands dirty. That almost never happens unless the moon splits in two.

I will occasionally add a little extra provolone to a Jack’s Pizza, a brand which tends to be a little light on toppings. My favorites are the Screamin’ Sicilian and Lotzza Motzza. I don’t need to add anything because they’re already loaded. Sena goes around to all the grocery stores in town when they have reduced prices, but restrict you so you can buy only 2 at one store.

Also, I’ll prepare soup—if I can figure out how to open the can.

I can’t give away the recipe without incurring some form of special punishment which might involve sharp objects and a chase across the state. It includes a lot of butter, for which she used creamery butter sculpted in the shape of a Christmas tree. There are unspecified amounts of ketchup, brown sugar, and a variety of spices which are probably not native to this planet. She keeps them in a locked drawer from which loud growls erupt if I get too close.

Even if I knew the recipe, if I tried to make it, the dish would end up tasting a lot like pizza.

Pancakes Come Alive Today!

After several decades of making pancakes flatter than a pancake, Sena made light and fluffy pancakes this morning. What gives?

It turns out that baking soda vs baking powder is touted as a real game changer. She’s used baking soda for years and she was never satisfied with the outcome—although I want to be on record as having always gladly eaten them.

Today she added baking powder with pancake batter mix that, curiously, had baking soda in it which was clearly for leavening. I don’t know anything about cooking, but leavening is what makes things like pancakes light and fluffy. She also added an egg, which was not called for but which she did anyway.

However; for leavening, baking powder is evidently preferred over baking soda by cooks. But then again, you can use both. On the other hand, one reference on the web said you can make fluffy pancakes without baking powder. Eggs are another way to make pancakes fluffy. Even though the pancake batter mix Sena always uses has buttermilk in it, which is also needed to make acid which reacts with baking powder-her pancakes didn’t come alive until today.

Baking powder, according to the experts, is baking soda which is bicarbonate soda, a leavening agent by itself, but is also supercharged with other agents that maintain leavening. This can be a powdered acid like cream of tartar, which doesn’t react with dry sodium bicarbonate. Other agents that make the ingredient part of the label for baking powder apparently include a mini-chemistry lab store: sodium aluminum sulfate, calcium sulfate, and monocalcium phosphate. It also has cornstarch to maintain leavening.

So, if you don’t have baking powder you can combine baking soda with cream of tartar, or use self-rising flour, or egg whites.

What made the difference this time for Sena’s pancakes? Was it because she used the baking powder instead of baking soda, and adding the egg? It pays to read the box.

A comment about advertising: the pancake mix Sena uses says it’s “complete.” The ingredients relevant for leavening include baking soda, sodium aluminum sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, buttermilk powder, dried egg whites, egg yolk powder.

Sound familiar? That’s baking powder. OK, all that prompts me to ask the obvious question. If the mix essentially already has baking powder and the other leavening agents in it, why were Sena’s pancakes flat and chewy until today when she added baking soda? Not that I mind flat and chewy; I’ll pretty much eat anything, even my own cooking. Don’t report me to the public health authorities.

Obviously, extraterrestrials are involved.

Make Perfect Poached Eggs-In Your Dreams

I’m the worst person to let loose in the kitchen, but I’m still trying to learn how to poach eggs. Sena gives me some supervision, but stays within shouting distance because we want to avoid kitchen fires.

I searched the web for guidance as well. Poaching an egg probably requires advanced college degrees in chemistry, physics, and biology. But they won’t help you poach eggs unless you abide by a few basic rules and sacrifice a fatted calf to the God of Poaching.

I do OK cracking eggs—as long as you don’t mind eating a few eggshells. I could probably learn how to crack an egg with one hand (like a badass according to one article), but I want to avoid exposing my fingers to salmonella as much as possible. I’ve seen those videos. The inside of the egg including the yolk pretty much explodes all over your hand. Like a lot of men, I’m pretty fastidious in the kitchen. I’m not sure why professional cleaners in Hazmat suits storm the house occasionally and occupy the kitchen for a few days.

That’s why it takes me several hours to poach what are supposed to be “3 minute” eggs. I save some time by cracking the eggs with your standard drill driver using a carefully chosen Phillips head bit. Always keep your tools next to the slotted spoons and spatulas drawer next to the cooktop.

My poached egg yolks are always either so hard they break your molars or so runny you can drink them from a glass—a small juice glass is fine.

I guess the freshness of the eggs is important. I’ve never tested them by dropping them into a pot of water to see if they float or sink. If they sink, they’re probably OK. If they float, you should throw them away. If they levitate out of the pot, you forgot to take your prescription medication.

Now, it turns out there are two opposing camps on the vinegar issue. Some say this will fix the wispy whites problem. Others say avoid vinegar at all costs because of the risk of explosions. I recently tried adding a few drops of vinegar to the water in the saucepan. I’m ambivalent about it because I still got the wispys although the whites did seem a little firmer. But that’s probably only because I cooked them too long—again.

I think I have better luck putting the egg into a little bowl and then slipping the egg into the water in the saucepan. I do this very gently—always wear a helmet. Sometimes the white parts still scatter all over and even outside of the pan, covering the cooktop, getting all over the floor, flooding the dining room and clogging the electrical outlets. Hey, it’s time for corn flakes!

I don’t use ramekins, which sounds like sheep from another galaxy. I didn’t even know what those were until I looked it up on the web. They’re little bowls.

You can even buy an appliance called an egg poacher. They cost around $32 at Amazon. If I buy that, then I might as well buy an egg cracking tool. It’s called an EZ Cracker Handheld Egg Cracker and it costs $10.

You want perfect poached eggs? Look in the want ads under Poachers for Hire. Don’t call them if their ads show snapshots of wild animals.

Back in the Saddle Again

This is just a short update on how phased retirement is going. I’m back in the saddle. Last Friday I went back on duty on the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry service. I’m at 50% time. My step counter today shows about 2 miles and 17 floors—a slow day. That’s fine with me.

Colleagues pass me in the hall and say, “I thought you were retired.” They don’t look happy when I tell them I’ll be fully retired in June next year.

But I’m a little happier. It’s taking a long time to get used to not being a fireman, which is what it means around here to be a C-L psychiatrist.

How’s the cooking going? Miserable but getting better, in a way. I can deal with things like “Just Crack an Egg,” which my wife, Sena got for me, as a sort of sympathy gift, I guess. I can handle it. And I made an omelet the other day, my first ever. The kitchen was not filled with smoke and it was edible.

How’s the exercise routine going? I’m still at it, 20 minutes every day, along with my mindfulness practice.

As I was giving my usual orientation remarks to the new trainees coming on the service this morning, I caught myself saying “I do it for the juice” when telling them why I do this schtick. I’ve said that to a lot of residents and medical students over the years.

I guess I should rethink that remark and the mindset that makes me say it so often. Pretty soon, I won’t be chasing all over the hospital anymore— “for the juice.”

I’ve been trying hard to find something else for the juice. Sena and I’ve rediscovered card games we haven’t played in over 20 years: Pinochle and Gin Rummy. I lost track of time playing Gin yesterday, I had so much fun. We just celebrated our 42^nd anniversary. It was magical.

I’m probably going to be OK.

Over the Double Rainbow

We saw a double rainbow while out for a walk during a gentle rain. I know they’re not rare, they form because light bounces off raindrops, and all that. I’m not after the science angle here. I’m just hoping this was a sign of good luck to come. I’m pretty sure I’ve probably seen a double rainbow before. I just can’t remember when. And I doubt it was as striking as this beauty was.

These days I’m wondering what’s over the rainbow or the double rainbow. Going for a walk the other day helped me put things in perspective—at least for a while.

Out for a walk in the fall

My life is slower when I’m not on service in my role as a general hospital psychiatric consultant. And I’ll be fully retired in June. I just came off service earlier this week, when I was going at my usual fireman’s pace. Things seem to move so much faster nowadays.

I’m on service at 50% time now. That feels a lot different than the previous two years, when I was at 65% time. When I’m on, I’m going at a dead run. When I’m off, I just mosey along. It’s a little jarring to go from 0 to 90 and back again every so often—even though it’s less and less often.

I don’t mind telling you, I get a little bored sometimes. It helps to do something different every once in a while. I hadn’t made a pizza from scratch in over a year and a half. I guess it’s not completely from scratch. I’m still better at just sticking a frozen one in the oven.