Collected, and calm

A recently-purchased kitchen utensil had a rather substantial tag attached to it with a ball chain, which I removed, throwing away the tag and adding the chain to my collection. I keep them in a small metal box all hooked together in one long chain. I don’t know how many there are, but the last time I tried to measure it, it was over 24 feet long. I have no idea how or when or why I started keeping every ball chain I come across.

Collecting in my family was limited to the women, as far as I can remember, and they all pretty much limited themselves to one collectible each. My mother collected plates, which she hung on the walls of her kitchen and dining area. Her mother collected small cup-and-saucer sets, which I remember being displayed on shelves with the saucer standing up behind its matching tea cup.

I don’t remember Grandma Knez ever collecting anything, but Aunt Blanche collected salt and pepper shakers numbering in the hundreds, and Aunt Mae collected milk glass.

I, on the other hand, did and/or do collect all kinds of things, although some of my collections, like the ball chains, are more accurately described as accumulations. I don’t seek the items out but do add them whenever they come my way.

Except for the cribbage boards, of which I have a couple dozen, including two or three large ones, all the things I used to or still do collect are small: salt cellars, golf course pencils, bookmarks, shot glasses, squished pennies. Storing and displaying, therefore, does not require a great deal of space.

Then too, as an amateur genealogist, I also collect dead relatives. They take up no room at all.

Salt and pepper, to taste

There was a posting on Facebook yesterday in which someone wanted to share his or her pet peeves regarding recipes. I never found out what they were since the link didn’t open. But, of course, it got me to thinking about the things that irk me when reading recipes. (I bet you think I’m going to list them for you now, don’t you?)

Well, yes, I am.  Here are my recipe peeves, in no particular order:

The ingredients are not listed in the order they are used.

An ingredient is listed but we are never told what to do with it.

All the instructions that assume I am a complete idiot, some of my favorites being:

“Remove from oven and serve. ” Seriously? Take it out of the oven?
“Cover with a clean kitchen towel.” Won’t a dirty one do? I mean, really.
“Mix eggs and milk together in a bowl.” Why not in the sink?
“Ladle soup into bowls and serve.” Oh, so that’s how you eat that stuff!

I admit that it’s not just recipes that cause me to bristle when common sense is ignored. I hate being asked a question to which the answer is obvious, mostly because of the effort it takes to restrain from uttering the acerbic retort that bubbles to my lips.

When, for instance, someone asks me what I am doing when it is palpably apparent that I am washing dishes or reading a book or eating a sandwich, I have learned to reply very politely, “I’m sewing buttons on pancakes.”

And that seems to settle it.