Karen Sandler

Tag: cooking

  • A Girl in Shop Class

    The other day, I was listening to an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on NPR’s Science Friday. (side note: I am madly in love with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If I wasn’t already married, I would woo Neil).

    Anyway, he got to talking about his childhood, how as a black kid he had to be an athlete in high school to fit in (he wrestled). When he told people he wanted to be an astrophysicist (which he knew from age 11), they told him oh, no, you should be an athlete. Neil said it wasn’t so much racism but the fact that that in those days (late ’60s, early ’70s, based on his age), athletics seemed to be the pathway for someone with his skin color.

    When asked what had kept him going despite society’s skepticism (although his parents did fully support his dreams) he mentioned he had/has a tremendous reserve of strength and self-motivation inside him. When he faced opposition or lack of faith from others, he would draw on his reserve to keep going. Sometimes his reserve got low, but he still kept going until he achieved his goals.

    One funny story he told was of being in shop class in junior high. All the students were to build a desk lamp. It was a simple design, with very clear instructions. But Neil didn’t want to build that desk lamp. He had a particular love of Saturn. He convinced the shop teacher to let him build a Saturn lamp. Neil glued together several blocks of wood, carved out a globe for the planet and a circular piece for the rings. He drilled a hole through the globe to run the cord through and rigged the ring to swivel so that the lamp would turn on when the ring was pressed. He still has that lamp on his desk at the Museum of Natural History. Here’s a video that includes a demonstration of his lamp. It’s at about the 1:10 mark.

    As he was talking about his shop class, he mentioned a reality at that time–that only boys were allowed to take shop. Girls were relegated to cooking and sewing classes. That brought back a memory for me.

    Somehow, when I was in junior high, I was allowed into a shop class. I was the only girl. I loved it. Our project was to design a floor plan for a house. Once we had our design, we were to use balsa wood to build walls. I created a house with a large courtyard in the middle and the rooms ringing the courtyard. I thought it would be cool to have a very private yard like that.

    I was able to draw the floor plan, and got two or three runs of balsa wood glued on. But then came the semester break. I was moved out of shop class (despite my objections) and moved into sewing/cooking class for the second semester. Although it turned out I also enjoyed cooking and sewing, the injustice of being booted out of shop class still stings.

    (Another side note: There was one boy in cooking class. I suspect he was ridiculed by his peers and looked upon with suspicion, just as I had been in shop class).

    I’m assuming that these days if a girl wants to do shop class, she can do it. I know boys take cooking class now in high school. They might still get razzed about it, but they at least have choices.

    So how about it? Anyone have an experience like mine? Or were you allowed to finish that cool project in shop class and you skipped learning how to cook and sew? Let me know in the comments.

  • Pumpkins & Dressing & Yams, Oh My!

    It’s time for that annual Thanksgiving ritual of the cooking & baking frenzy. I’m not even hosting the feast this year and I’m still in a tizzy over my culinary chores. I’ve signed on to bake a pumpkin pie, make a pan of dressing (it’s not stuffing unless it spent some time as turkey innards) and whip together a yam casserole.

    Of course, I can’t just pick up one of those pre-made pie shells at the market. My step-dad, Harry, who taught me the finer points of perfect pie crusts, would be spinning in his grave at the thought. Yet I have this love-hate relationship with pie dough. You’ve got to get the shortening cut in just right. You can’t add too much (or too little) water. And if you muck about too much with rolling it out, you’ll end up with a tough, hardtack mess. I barely even look at my pie dough after it’s mixed, and I roll it out so gently, it never even feels the rolling pin.

    Then there’s the pumpkin for the filling. Yes, I could get the canned stuff. But it is so cool to bake an actual pumpkin, peel it and moosh up the pulp, then throw that into the pie. Can anyone tell the difference after you add milk, eggs, spices and a ton of sugar? Well…what does that matter, anyway? With fresh pumpkin, you get bragging rights. People are that much more impressed with your pie.

    If I’m using fresh pumpkin for the pie, I’ve got to use real yams for the yam casserole. Not that my grandma, a fabulous cook, ever did. She’d buy those canned yams and she wouldn’t even mash them the way I do. She’d dump them into a baking dish as is, throw on some brown sugar and butter, shove them in the oven until they were hot. Then she’d top them with marshmallows and call it good.

    I, on the other hand, lovingly bake fresh yams, peel & moosh (see pumpkin, above), then mix in orange juice, cinnamon, ginger and brown sugar. I spread the mooshed yams into a casserole dish, heat them through, spread miniature marshmallows on top…then the real fun begins. Do you know how long it takes for miniature marshmallows to burn when you put them under the broiler? About 1.2 seconds. One moment you’re looking at white marshallows, the next, they’re black and about to burst into flame. It’s a real Thanksgiving tradition, the burning of the marshallows. One year, it took three applications of marshmallows before we got golden brown instead of black. No lie.

    But the dressing should be easy, right? Well, mostly. Other than having to bake a pan of cornbread for crumbs. And cutting up bread into cubes (store bought bread–I’m not a complete masochist). Chopping celery, onions, apple. Cooking sausage. Sauteing the vegies with some fresh sage plucked out of my garden. Then mixing the whole mess together. No marshmallows required, burnt or otherwise.

    That’s my day. Spending crazed hours in the kitchen. Ain’t I got some fun ahead of me?