Unemployment!

Blessings, Darlings!

This last Sunday, May 17, at 3 pm, Corporate locked the doors at the restaurant Spawn and I worked at, closing the store.  No official advance warning, just a notice of a mandatory meeting about 'food safety issues'.  Oh, okay - for those who Googled the company, there was this announcement last month that they would be closing a bunch of restaurants. 

So Spawn is out of his only job, and I'm out of my #2 job.  He will qualify for unemployment.  I won't.  We will be able to see the severance package this weekend. Word is that we'll be offered two weeks pay (I worked there 19 months, he worked there 3 1/2 years), but what we'll have to sign away to get that isn't clear.  We MAY be offered jobs at other restaurants in the chain, but that's not guaranteed - nor if the Spawn gets hired is it at ALL guaranteed that he'll get his current pay.  He's gotten a LOT of raises while he was there, because he's that good.

Now, an $850 hit in our monthly budget is, of course, PAINFUL (that's what I was paid plus what the Spawn pays in rent). But we're applying for new jobs, and y'all KNOW that I can do the Cheap Bitch thing really well. Yes, veggies are going into the space I had meant to put a flower bed in. Yes, I spend this morning washing out 'lightly used' zip-lock bags for re-use.  Yes, I have bones and skin from chickens past browning in the oven now, for chicken stock later today.

You and I know the drill.  We've been around this block before. 

It's a real shame, tho', for many of our coworkers, who relied on this as their only job.  They really need good thoughts from all y'all for getting new jobs.

Frondly, Fern

Cool!

Blessings Darlings!

This past week - the first week of  May - temperatures here were around 90 every day and the humidity starting going up, up, up.  So now that a cool front has moved in and temperatures are barely 70, I'm catching up - and trying to get a head of - cooking.

Since I bake most of our breads, that means two or more loaves of bread a week plus some rolls.  After breakfast this morning we were down to 4 rolls and two slices of bread left.  So now I've got two new loaves of bread in the oven.  Bialys will wait for another day.

I also have been working on the alchemy of changing 1.5 cubic feet of frozen bones into stock.  That, too, involves the oven.  Ovens, actually - the 'regular' oven for roasting the bones and then the hay box oven for simmering the soup.  I'm about half way done with batches of stock, and will be continuing that this week.

Because, as you know, summer follows spring.  And I won't want to turn on the oven then.  I wish I could fill the freezer with more baked goods .... but I've got it so filled with sale-priced meat that there's no room.  I'll have SOME more room when the bones are replaced by stock, but loaves of bread a BIG suckers. 

Yeah. First world problems again.  I justify it by saying it's about using everything that come into the house down to the last bit.  But it still comes down to too much stuff coming into the house.

Frondly, Fern

Soup Stock Making

Blessings Darlings!

So, you already know I'm cheap/frugal/broke-ass. And Green.  So I made stock yesterday, from bones and veggie scraps.  Having an open can of tomato paste from a previous day I added some of that, which of course made the stock that much nummier. 

Husband and I discussed that nummier-ness.  I mentioned that Emeril puts tomato paste on veggies and roasts them before using them for stock.  But I use the peeling of carrots, ends/leaves of celery, etc in my stock (being cheap, ya know), etc so don't roast them.  OTOH, I NEVER have enough onion scraps, so I can put the tomato paste on sliced onions and roast THEM before making stock next time, along with roasting the bones.  (BTW, I tried putting tomato paste on the bones before roasting them, but the tomato paste burned before the bones were well browned, wetter veggies are the way to go if roasting tomato paste.)

So that's the plan for next time.  Which could be soon, because I sure go thru' a lot of stock in winter!

Frondly, Fern