out of touch

cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen, and raiding my own freezer

Feb 09, 2024

Ah, moving. It’s kind of like a really painful injury, or a pregnancy, in that our minds make us forget the intense discomfort and awfulness of it after it ends so that we have the strength to keep going, to put ourselves in such situations again. But everything takes so long and nothing fits right and there’s always more stuff to pack at the end than you think there will be, and even when most things go well there’s always some terrible misfortune that makes everything more difficult. Our moving day coincided with an atmospheric river, so we spent the day getting ourselves and our possessions drenched with rain, all the boxes and furniture coming up to our nearly-spotless apartment soggy and muddy.

The moving day pizza and beer combo is a classic that remains undefeated, and we introduced a couple new people to the intrigue of Panago’s veggie korma pizza. We also passed on our old bar fridge and microwave to two of our helpers— thank you Chris and Denai— and thank you to Tim, who showed up last-minute with a folding dolly when another helper had to cancel, and a huge thank you to Chris V, who watched me have a meltdown when I found out that all the plant pots I’d assumed we were leaving behind (and Jeff assumed we were bringing) were in the back of his truck, and kindly held onto them for a few days until we could pick out what we wanted and he passed the rest onto his neighbours. Also thank you to Steph for coming back to help me clean the old suite, a truly defeating chore to do on your own.

We’re making a bit of headway now, after getting some shelves built in the storage locker, and sending Jeff’s mom with a trunkful of stuff to be donated, and so on. Most of the furniture is set up and a good chunk of boxes are unpacked, which helps it feel more like a place we live and less like an airbnb we’ve just filled with all our stuff. But we don’t have a pantry and need to sort out some kind of shelf or cupboard solution for it, so all our non-fridge food is still in bins in the hallway, and the main bathroom is being used as a kind of interim storage area for things we can’t really deal with at the moment. So cooking and other parts of normal home life still feel pretty chaotic. But we’ll get there— making a home just takes time. And the great view from our windows is helping.

A view of a service road surrounded by grass and evergreens, clearly on a hill as there are more trees below it in the distance. Behind those is the inlet, shining orange as it reflects the sunrise in the right side of the frame. In the background, across the water, is Capitol Hill in Burnaby.

The Sunday morning after the move, the sun was shining, of course, mocking us. Jeff and I treated ourselves to breakfast at White Spot— his moving day tradition, dating back from when he used to work there, more than a decade ago. If you aren’t from the west coast and aren’t familiar with the chain, and are thinking ‘that name seems kinda sus’, you’re right! The restaurant has changed a lot over the years, as one might hope, and the classic diner breakfast does deliver. I like that you can choose pancakes or waffles instead of toast with your eggs and it doesn’t cost extra, because when I go out for breakfast I always want exactly one pancake (you get two, though).

A big plate of diner breakfast: three sausages, a ramekin of ketchup, two over easy eggs, two pancakes with a scoop of whipped butter, smashed potato hash browns, and a little metal jug of syrup. Next to the plate is a white mug of coffee, and across the table Jeff has his fork poised over a bowl of scrambled egg and vegetable hash with avocado.

In the evening, after an afternoon of sorting through things at the old house and driving them over to the apartment, we went to my mom’s for a casual family dinner for my brother Ken’s birthday. It feels surreal that my youngest brother is almost thirty when I can so clearly remember him as a baby, as a child in a Superman costume he wore until it fell apart; what is time? They apologised for choosing a weekend when we were so busy, but it was honestly so needed to just get away from everything for a few hours and have fun with people we love. My mom’s injured ankle is healing well, though she’s on her feet more than she should be (Mom, if you’re reading this, put your foot up right now) and she made a few things, including some lovely little puff pastry tarts with brie, pecans, and red pepper jelly.

A green patterned plate of the tarts described above.

The rest of the food was the ultimate spread for continuous grazing: platters of assorted sushi, charcuterie with crackers, sweet potato hummus with bread and raw veggies, tortilla chips with salsa and guac. Dessert was an ice cream cake that brought me back to every childhood birthday I ever attended, and my mom’s homemade, glorious chocolate chip brownies for the people who can’t eat ice cream. And best of all, we were sent home with leftovers, because my mom and stepdad were headed on holiday a few days later and Ken rarely eats them. It’s amazing what a brownie can do for your morale when you have dozens of thankless tasks ahead of you.

In the foreground, a plate of crudités and sweet potato hummus, surrounded by picked-at platters of charcuterie and sushi, and a basket of bread and crackers. On the far end of the table, Ken (long-hair, a short beard, and a grey checkered shirt) sits on the right talking to Trav on the left (short hair and wearing a grey sweater), who has a look of concentration on his face, his face resting on his hand. — brothers Trav (left) and Ken talking about nerd stuff probably

We’ve also visited the pub nearest us a few times, which has the most wonderful old-school veggie burger— a mushroom & rice patty that’s crispy outside without being dry, soft inside without being mushy— and amazing, lightly battered fries. Just make sure to order pickles on the burger, it’s the only thing it needs to go from excellent to flawless.

Perhaps predictably, at home I’ve been scouring the freezer for things I can make without having to search various bins and boxes for things in order to cook a complete meal, especially since emptying out the freezers for moving forced me to organise and evaluate the things in there. My first actual cooked dinner in the new apartment was a minestrone-esque soup I made out of wilting kale, leftover white beans, old carrots and potatoes, and some frozen peas, with a little tomato paste and a few dried herbs (I only have about 12 spice jars unpacked) in the broth. It was actually really good despite being made primarily out of almost-garbage.

A blue bowl of chunky vegetable soup next to a small plate with buttered toast, and a tall glass half-full of beer behind them.

I made a pretty nice pasta, too, with some leftover bits from a roast chicken I’d made in December and put in the freezer, and more frozen peas. I started out with a fairly lazy béchamel which I don’t need a recipe for anymore, I just mix butter and olive oil in the pan and sauté some finely chopped shallot or onion and garlic, and then add about as much flour as fat to make a roux. I used oat milk to turn it into a creamy sauce, and a little vegan yogurt to add acidity and thicken it, but lemon zest will thicken if too, you want a more neutral flavour. Then I stirred in a bunch of parmesan, a little dried basil and tarragon, lots of black pepper, and the aforementioned chicken and peas.

A blue bowl of short noodles in a creamy sauce with pieces of shredded chicken, green peas, and lots of black pepper. Behind it is a paperback novel, "Beautiful Ruins", and to its right on a coaster is a can of Four Winds beer.

Our new stove is much fancier than our old stove and it’s taking some getting used to, but I’m coming around on induction. I love that the front right burner (the one we all prefer to use, obviously) can be adjusted to single or double size, because even the largest burner on our old element stove wasn’t big enough for my 12” cast iron or stainless steel skillets. Things cook so much faster in the big pans now that they can be heated evenly! And the oven has convection capabilities, which I’m very unknowledgeable about, but I’m excited to get mad about the stuff I burn while I figure it out.

I made my standard vegan squash mac & cheese with two tiny little spaghetti squashes I roasted, and the dish turned out as tasty as usual, but with many frustrations along the way as I searched for all the various ingredients I needed, forgetting that they wouldn’t be where I was used to them being. And then I took the hot pan out of the oven, reminded Jeff not to touch the handle, and proceeded to burn all the fingers on my right hand by touching the handle less than a minute later. The human mind is an amazing thing.

I also made a surprisingly good ramen using instant noodles and making a soup base of peanut butter, genmai miso, rice vinegar, chili and sesame oils, and a bit of soy sauce, stirring that into a milky broth. To serve I added frozen corn, black garlic, a softly boiled egg, and roasted seaweed. I didn’t use this recipe, but the memories of all the times I’ve made it helped me while creating this pantry dinner.

two white bowls of ramen with dark wooden chopsticks sticking out. The top of the ramen has corn, a boiled egg sliced in half, a little pile of black garlic in the centre, and sheets of gim at the side. Sesame seeds and chili crisp garnish the top, and the sesame seed container is visible on the counter in the background.

And finally this week, I made a veritable slop— but a delicious slop— of a one-pot meal, quinoa with peppers, fire-roasted tomatoes, hot sauce, soy chorizo, and more frozen corn. Quinoa cooks pretty quickly, and the juice from the tomatoes provides some of the water needed, so you can use almost equal amounts of broth and quinoa, and then simmer it for 15-20 minutes, stirring it a few times to make sure it cooks evenly. I think this would also work with orzo or couscous for something even faster. The soy chorizo I have is the Trader Joe’s kind which is a crumble, so I stirred it in with the corn at the end to make sure it’d still have some texture, but a meat sausage would do better added with the onions & peppers. You could also do black beans or black-eyed peas at the end instead of sausage, and cook the quinoa with some smoked hot paprika to make up the necessary seasoning.

Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so any donations, especially while I’m still looking for work, are greatly appreciated. I’ll continue to post bi-weekly until we’re a bit more settled, and then I hope to get back to weekly updates. Anyway, I hate it here (society).

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