Lessons in Compulsive Hoarding: The Collyer Brothers

I stumbled upon this Wikipedia article today. It's about the Collyer Brothers, Homer Lusk and Langley, who lived in a Harlem brownstone and hoarded over 100 tons of:

"...baby carriages, a doll carriage, rusted bicycles, old food, potato peelers, a collection of guns, glass chandeliers, bowling balls, camera equipment, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, a sawhorse, three dressmaking dummies, painted portraits, pinup girl photos, plaster busts, [their mother's] hope chests, rusty bed springs, the kerosene stove, a child's chair (the brothers were lifelong bachelors and childless), more than 25,000 books (including thousands about medicine and engineering and more than 2,500 on law), human organs pickled in jars, eight live cats, the chassis of the old Model T Langley had been tinkering with, tapestries, hundreds of yards of unused silks and fabric, clocks, fourteen pianos (both grand and upright), a clavichord, two organs, banjos, violins, bugles, accordions, a gramophone and records, and countless bundles of newspapers and magazines, some of them decades old."

They guarded these things vehemently, setting up booby traps all over the house to protect against intruders. They died in this gruesome manner:

Langley was crawling through a tunnel of newspapers in order to bring the blind and paralyzed Homer some food. One of his booby traps was set off and killed him. Homer died a few days later, of malnutrition, dehydration and cardiac arrest.

They found Homer first, because a neighbour called to complain about the smell. He hadn't been dead long enough in order to be the culprit, so they realised that Langley must be dead in the house as well. It took them several weeks before they discovered him, after:

"...removing 3,000 more books, several outdated phone books, a horse's jawbone, a Steinway piano, an early X-ray machine, and even more bundles of newspapers. More than nineteen tons of junk were removed, just from the ground floor of the three-story brownstone. The police continued to clear away the brothers' stockpile for another week, removing another 84 tons of rubbish from the house."

***

I don't really know why this sort of thing fascinates me as much as it does. It's not just hoarders, it's all sorts of stories that suggest the frailty of man. I laugh, often, because it's either that or cry; my heart breaks for these people at the same time as I am thoroughly irritated and/or titillated by them. It's just so ludicrously tragic.

Hoarders are just another example of human machines with faulty wiring: and there, but by the grace of fortune, goes any one of us, if we haven't already got faulty wiring.

***

I lived with a borderline hoarder as well as have known one or two socially. The crux of the disorder is that the hoarder (usually angrily or defensively) refuses to admit that their hoarding is a problem, seeing as it doesn't harm anyone. The person I lived with had t-shirts from the 8th grade - that he couldn't wear because he was a fat kid in the 8th grade and as such, the shirts were too big for him. They also had holes in them. He kept packaging materials from products he'd purchased, had several different collections of things and a permanent grudge - almost a vendetta - against his mother for disgarding some cherished childhood objects of his. He also had a storage unit full of stuff that he refused to talk about and that I was never allowed to see. Moving house was always a nightmare (at least more so than normal) because instead of the cathartic and traditional throwing away of crap you don't need anymore, he clung on to it, and so ended up packing boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of garbage. Someone else I knew would save the sides of dot matrix printer paper, coin wrappers and literally trash he found on the road - he picked up a road cone once.

Of all the hoarders or people with hoarding tendancies I've known, the common theme is that they are trying to cling on to some memory. As if the objects around them will help them keep something from fading away. Or they're stuck at some point in their life when something awful happened and they can't move past it. The inanimate object has become some sort of touch stone or remembrance. Often, the inanimate objects must be 'saved' in the emotional as well as the physical sense, as it often has become almost animate in the eyes of the hoarder. Here's a way to explore the reasoning behind hoarding. Think about people who name their cars - a lot of people do this. I, myself, feel sometimes, what I think is a strange attachment to my car. After all, it drove me back and forth to college, has made countless trips to the barn (whichever barn that happened to be), was given to me with all the love and affection a father could possibly have for his daughter and drove me and my new little family across these United States. I am sentimental about the old thing - I actually took a picture of it this morning as it had spent it's first night in the snow.

This makes evolutionary sense - our prehistoric brains are not designed to deal with inanimate objects that so closely simulate a living creature. We assign the same affection to our cars as would to domesticated animals. So then multiply that affection by a lot (due to say, some faulty wiring) and we have an unhealthy attachment to an inanimate object. What triggers this faulty wiring? Perhaps a specific incident or repeated specific incidents.

***

Anyway. Enough amateur psychology. I'm going to finish knitting a scarf.

Kilgore Trout and Dog Shit. Also: Need More Books.

I had a disappointing experience yesterday. I started to read The Loop by Nicholas Evans, which seemed like it might be an interesting book, all about wolves and what not. I remembered liking The Horse Whisperer.

Then I remembered, I read The Horse Whisperer when I was 14.

Because that's exactly what his books read like: romance novels for 14 year old girls. He and John Irving should have a slumber party together (I want the hours I spent reading Widow for One Year back, dammit!).

Which brings me to the current dilemma. Both Ryan and I spent a good portion of time over the last few days, standing in front of our bookshelf, frowning. We've either read (or reread) all the books on our bookshelf or they're a text book from college that one of us couldn't bear to part with. This was how I came to pick up The Loop, as I had been given it years ago and never bothered to read it. It made it all the way across the country, I thought I might as well read it and it seemed as if there was nothing else.

When this happened in Palo Alto, I would just go and peruse my parents library as my father for years has made a frequent habit of picking up books at libraries from the free pile and driving my mother nuts.

So the current dilemma. Need more books. I spent some time yesterday looking at what Google has to offer and there are some good ones but the tactile pleasure of curling up in bed, holding the book and turning the pages is lost when you are staring at a laptop screen. Libraries are terrible for me: I always forget to return the book.

***

Speaking of books, I reread Breakfast of Champions the other day. I also took the dog to the dog park. I thought about a story that Kilgore Trout might write. The story is about an alien who comes to earth and ends up arriving in a dog park. The people on the planet he comes from don't keep other organisms as pets, so he doesn't understand what the dog park is. He assumes that the dogs are some kind of livestock and the people are harvesting the shit, and saving them in plastic bags to preserve them.

***

Faith in Atheism.

The new "A" in the sidebar is a link to Richard Dawkins "OutCampaign." I think it's more important now than ever, to be absolutely open and clear about one's atheism. Not to waffle and hedge about it, in order to make other people feel comfortable. Our cultures spends so much time making sure that people of all religions feel good about themselves as long as there is some religious affiliation or even the desperate claim of being 'spiritual'. But 'god forbid' someone takes an active, informed, well thought out claim that they do not believe in God. From Slate:

"Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted."

Religious people often have a misguided belief that atheism is a negative, selfish, grim and morally corrupt way to be. That somehow, unless you answer to God, you are less capable of goodness and kindness. I think, however, a far more difficult person to answer to is yourself. Dostoevesky is correct in the quote Schlessinger uses, misguidedly, that "Where there is no God, all is permitted". Isn't it a much better way to be, to do good and kind things out of goodness and kindness, not out of fear of recrimination - because all is permitted and you can choose to be good and kind? Isn't it far more magical that this world functions, exists and grows all on it's own, with all it's amazing creatures, plants, organisms, systems, etc., than to believe that someone essentially waved his hand and created it just so? Isn't it far more elegant to study the world around you, learn about it and question it, be skeptical of it, and try to understand it and take responsibility for yourself in it than to lazily suggest it's all up to someone else?

Yesterdays adventure and why the "revoke the LDS tax exempt status" idea is stupid.

2 things.

My adventure yesterday:

I rode up to the top of a big hill (the locals called it a 'mountain') and down again, through the woods, with intermittent blizzarding, in search of a lost pony, Trixie, who is about the size and colour of a deer. We spent about 4 hours looking for her - at one point following her tracks for about half a mile - before giving up and turning around. We came to the edge of a clearing we had gone through several times already, when Raina stopped and swung her head to the right, ears pricked. Trixie was standing several yards away, partially hidden by trees. We shook the grain bucket and called her name. She paused and then burst towards us trotting that big trot that very excited horses have, with her tail raised high and her neck arched. She plunged her nose into the grain bucket, we put a halter over her and took her home.

Silly pony! She had spooked at some sheep the day before and literally run for the hills.

second thing.

Some friends on Facebook have joined a group called 'Revoke the LDS Church's Tax-Exempt Status' the grounds for this being that since they asked their congregations to participate campaigning in favour of California's Proposition 8, this was a violation of the statutes requiring seperation of church and state and therefore they should no longer be tax-exempt.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is small potatoes. It is also, I fear, an example of 'jumping on the morally outraged bandwagon'. I say that 'I fear' this because it is exactly this kind of pants wetting, energy wasting, misguided enthusiasm that results in liberals getting nothing done other than a tiz-woz. It's what the conservatives hate about liberals. It's also what lost the Prop 8 fight (the loonies won because they did not waste time clinging to themselves, being outraged and targetting people who already had their vote; they targeted the undecideds in the middle of the state who so unclear on what the matter at hand was, they were led to believe it was about "teaching gay marriage in schools").

I am just as appalled as the next person that some people feel that the sanctity of their own marriage is somehow threatened by men being allowed to marry men or women being allowed to marry women. I was angered that Utah was, essentially, able to change California's constitution. I kept my residency in California partially so I could vote againste Proposition 8 - I am a Californian at heart and I intend to return there. I am also usually not one to cry out "Stop picking on the Mormons!". I find the basic tenants of their religion - the misogyny, the racism, the rampant breeding and and virulent spreading of misinformation - offensive. But let's look at the big picture. The line between church and state is so blurred in this country, is so wrought with loopholes and hypocrisies, that asking the government to take away the LDS Church's tax-exempt status is like walking up to a group of bullies beating someone up and asking only one of them to stop, then walking away, leaving the rest to pound it's victim into the dirt; In short, it's Pointless.

Let's not pick on just the Mormons. Let's pick on all religions. Let's get rid of tax exempt status for all churches, unless they can prove that they truly fall into the category of a non profit organisation. There's a lot of people out there making a lot of money by that are taking advantage of others in the form of tithes or donations or whatever you want to call it. They do it by convincing people that they need to buy their own salvation. They do it by taking advantage of people who are poor, uneducated and scared. It's time that this ridiculousness stopped being virtually sanctioned by the government, and it's time churches, all churches, stopped getting their way with people who aren't idiotic enough to be a part of them.

Adventure.

I went on a proper adventure today.

A real adventure.

Apple tarts and red cardinals

More deliciousness was created in my kitchen yesterday as I made and subsequently ate an apple tart with a cream cheese filling.

I did this in order to avoid folding the laundry in the living room, although one can argue (and I certainly did, to myself) that the apples needed to be used and that laundry...well laundry is always going to be there. In fact, it's still there. And I'm going to go and ride, so it will be there a while longer.

Ithaca is amazingly, eerily and strangely beautiful right now. All the leaves have come off of most of the trees, leaving roads and paths and electrical wires visible where once they were hidden away. The footpath that leads along our Fall Creek is now completely exposed and noticeable from the street (which some how makes it seem less magical) and has a thick carpet of bright yellow leaves (which somehow makes it feel more magical). Since all the insects have stopped their buzzing, chirping and rattling and because we've had a lot of rain, we can hear the waterfall at night. It's much fuller and more energetic, almost angrier than when we first arrived, which makes me think that the crippling humidity and unbearable heat had perhaps made the waterfall a little lazier as it had made me not want to leave the couch.

We have a red cardinal and his mate that have visited our back garden twice now. They're quite cheerful and spend there time either flitting across the garden with the sparrows or else sitting patiently in a big yellow bush.

We're all going to be let down.

So I suppose I should comment on this election thing, seeing as it was quite a historical moment. I'm riding the current optimism wave as best I can, but to be honest:

I think Barack Obama is a smart man. He ran his own campaign, made smart choices and as far as foreign policy is concerned, at least it's no longer as embarrassing to travel to foreign countries. He at least appreciates the concept of diplomacy and we can finally rid ourselves of this ridiculous idea that America is somehow superior to the rest of the world or at least shed the fear based need to present itself that way. With Obama as president and winning as he did with such a resounding victory, we can sort of say "Um...yeah, those last 8 years... we're, really really sorry. Look, we've tried to fix it." This is opposed to McCain/Palin which would be like giving the rest of the world a big middle finger. I mean any vice president who gets prank phone called by a Montreal radio host with an outrageous accent and overly personal topics of conversation can't have a grip on reality. I mean has she ever had a conference meeting?? With anyone?? Let alone with someone important?? And anyone as deceitful as someone like McCain would not show any foreign country that the US is worth dealing with:



But and here's the secret: Obama won't be as great as we all want him to be. He's going to let us down within the year and we'll all be terribly, terribly sad.

I want one of these

Okay, I realise that this might not be the most exciting idea, but I really want a root cellar in the off the grid, partial subsistence farm that Ryan and I want to build.

Stores of food for the winter and a place to store the pickled things! Like very advanced squirrels!

Ravioli!

Last night I made ravioli from scratch, in continuing with this winter's obsession with squash.

I used this recipe for the pasta and these instructions for ravioli-ising it, it only required regular flour and eggs, which I had on hand. I also ended up adding a lot more water than the recipe recommended, to get the dough to the correct consistency. For the ravioli-ising, I think next time, I would use wax paper in order to be able to roll the pasta thinner than I was able to (or Ryan was able to, after I got tired of it). That way, one could pick up the second sheet more easily, for the "covering of the first sheet" step and also, one could use less flour which would make the sheets stick together more easily.

For the filling, I sliced a butternut squash in half, scooped out the seeds and stringy stuff (reserving the stringy stuff for stock and and the seeds set to soak in salt water overnight to be ready roasting and snacking on) put it face down in a baking dish in quarter inch of water. I put it in the oven at 375, for about 45 minutes. Once that was done, I scooped out the flesh into a bowl and mashed, adding about 2 tablespoons of butter, salt to taste, fresh ground black pepper to taste, oregano to taste and about half a cup to a cup of flour. I added 4 cloves diced garlic (you could add less if you don't like garlic) that I had tossed it in the frying pan with some butter, on a lowish heat, so as not to cook but not brown it.

This all got stirred vigorously until it was smooth and then turned into ravioli. It made enough for dinner last night (served with sauteed onions and broccoli in olive oil) and another batch to freeze for another evening when I have less time.

It was time consuming but quite fun and also delicious. I started thinking about all the other sorts of ravioli I could make: eggplant, fresh pea, red pepper, pretty much anything with a nice strong flavour that goes well with pasta.

I'll post pictures when I have a bit more time.

More cats!

In continuing with today's cat theme, the following was a post on today's Ithaca Freecycle Digest:

RECEIVED: cat absorber

Posted by: "C--------------- S----------------" ---------@yahoo.com

Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:50 am (PDT)

thank you so much for drop it off to our home and may god be with you alway amen c-------

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
Messages in this topic (1)

First of all, I'm very glad this man's prayers were answered and he received a cat absorber. Secondly, what's a cat absorber?

Ahh! A fluorescing cat!

F'reals!

"Named Mr Green Genes, he look likes a six-month-old cat but, under ultraviolet light, his eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans." - From the Telegraph

I wonder if Frank Zappa had any idea?

Homeless people walking around in pant suits.

When I first heard that Sarah Palin spent that ridiculous amount of money on clothes for the campaign trail and that "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign"according to a campaign spokesperson, all I could think about was homeless people walking around in pant suits.

Scarf

Injury update: I stayed mostly immobile today and yesterday and as a result am in much less pain. HOWEVER. I feel like a lazy slob as a result of this, so am not sure which is worse.

***

My husband has asked me to knit him a scarf. I love scarves. I love scarves so much that I have one of those Ikea shoe holder things just for scarves...I also have them for the various pairs of shoes I own, but that's another entry.

Ryan however, has never worn scarves. Apparently he isn't constantly cold, like I am. Of course I start knitting again and start having all these fantasies of knitting all my Christmas presents for everyone. Socks! Bags! Felted Slippers! Watch out, friends and family members! Start practicing masking your disappointment with fake smiles as well as the phrases, "Well, it's the thought that counts really. She meant well."

***

In other news, I have just learned that there are two kinds of biodegradable when it comes to biodegradable plastic bags for dog shit. The kind that actually biodegrades and the kind that is labeled "Biodegradable (except as defined by California)."

I discovered this by Googling '100% biodegradable except as defined by California' after Ryan pointed it out on the label of the packet of 120 "faeces bags" (as they are written on our shopping lists) that we bought today. How depressing.

further injuries to my person

To add insult to injury to pre-existing injury (the broken rib is from a few days ago), I have a problem of an indelicate female nature, in the form of a mild UTI.

After drinking a bunch of cranberry juice (which is fine, because I love it) and monitoring my discomfort, much in the same way that La Nina does in this entry, I finally asked Ryan to drive me to the drugstore, to get some of that stuff that makes your pee orange (I had to ask Ryan to do it, because, I remind you, I cannot turn my head left which makes driving a rather precarious activity).

I found the pharmacy version of Phenazopyridine Hydrochloride, called "Urinary Pain Relief" - very succinctly titled I might add. When I went to purchase it, after a bit of a kerfuffle about the bag, he said,

"Have a nice evening."

And I thought, clearly, based on my one purchase, my evening has been anything but nice. That's the one thing you can be sure of, when someone is purchasing a product labeled "Urinary Pain Relief." But I suppose one can't make assumptions like these, after all, I may have been purchasing them for someone else. I'll never forget my horror, when purchasing condoms at Target once, when the cashier (female) picked up the box, examined it and then exclaimed, loudly,

"Oh, I've never tried these. Are they good?"

As if they were candy or something. I mumbled something to her about not have tried them either and then fled the store and my shame.

Injured and watching Stephen Fry Documentaries.

I have a cracked or sprained rib and woke up this morning unable to turn my head to the left. After a hot bath and 2 aspirin, taken with watered down cranberry juice, I settled down to watching Stephen Fry documentaries. The first was about his secret life as a manic depressive, which was entertaining, but didn't really give me much information that I wasn't already aware of with regards to depressive disorders.

I am now on to Stephen Fry in America, which should prove interesting. The first episode starts with him driving from New England all the way to Washington DC.

Why is it that British comedians get old and then start making documentaries?

Ice Wine

I went wine tasting with Larke this weekend. It was so wonderful to see her and really exciting to find local wine I enjoyed!

We had a Cabernet Franc Ice Wine from Sheldrake Point Winery (Larke and I decided that we need vacation homes in Sheldrake Point, by the way) that was unbelievable. I'm still thinking about how delicious it was. We made our way all the way round Lake Cayuga and I think we are at the autumn "peak" where all the trees are in the midst of changing colours and the hills are a sort of tortoise shell of oranges, reds, pinks, maroons, purples, greens, yellows - it's truly everything everyone's ever told you about Autumn on the east coast. Wine tasting in the Finger Lakes costs a dollar a tasting and the whites are actually quite reasonable (I even bought a bottle of Miss Chevious from the Lucas Vineyards - which is maybe the first time I've ever bought a bottle of white wine that wasn't expressly for Nikki). Sheldrake Point even had some real red wines that tasted like red wines are supposed to - the others generally left a little to be desired. They were not full bodied enough and the wine didn't "sit on your tongue" as Larke put it, the way you want a red wine to. For some reason I have yet to find a Pinot Noir from here that is the right colour.

We went to dinner at Just A Taste, a tapas place that I've been meaning to try and was excited that we finally had a good reason to go there.

All in all, a very successful weekend.

Moving to Idaho

So...I don't know if it's because I'm spending time in a former communist country, or because I've been noticing how strenuously Sarah Palin is branding dissent as "Unamerican", or if it's because I'm expecting my period tomorrow and that usually guarantees one day of feeling completely hopeless, but I am suddenly scared about the possibility of America becoming a police state in the near future. And this didn't help at all:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

"They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control"

Um, anyone want to join me in buying fireams and forming a separatist militia in Idaho? Or something?

My friend La Nina sent that out today. I'm sure it was partially in response to all the uproar about Barack Obama's alleged ties to a Bill Ayers. I read about/saw it on the BBC news site - Sarah Palin smugly shrugging that she'd read about it in the New York times (like she reads the New York Times. Like she even reads). So smug, yet unable to do the math to calculate that Barack Obama was 8 years old when Bill Ayers was blowing up buildings. It was a little sickening to see how excited she was because she didn't really know what she was excited about, she was like a child who'd been given a pat on the head by a normally inattentive parent. The worst part though, the absolute worst part, is that it doesn't matter to the McCain campaign that no media person or anyone with a brain will take her seriously. All that matters is that there are some idiots - plenty of idiots (people cheering when she "revealed" this "dramatic" piece of sensationilistic tripe that has no bearing on anything whatsoever) - that will actually believe that this piece of information means Barack Obama has the intentions and connections to blow up the Pentagon.

ARRRGH. I've complained about it before and I'll complain about it again: WILLFUL IGNORANCE.

For extra creepiness, because it's nearing Halloween and I have yet to find anything scarier than this picture:


(I guess they have to use a lot of fake tanner in Alaska because of the lack of sunlight part of the year? Maybe it's a safety thing, being that orange, so you don't get shot? This is a seriously weird picture.)

Redemption! Acorn Squash! Apologies!

I have redeemed myself. Tonight I made the most perfect meal I've made to date. Not only was it delicious, it turned out exactly the way I'd planned it and looked beautiful too! You'll have to believe me because we ate it before I could think to take a picture of it.

I have given it the fancy title of Autumnally Themed Galette or How I Redeemed Myself From The Last Cooking Disaster* and it is based on this recipe.

Crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
8 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, diced
1 large egg, slightly beaten

Filling:
1 Acorn Squash, peeled (this is annoying and tricky but possibly with a potato peeler and sharp knife)
1 Crispin apple (any good baking apple would do, I happened to have Crispin apples handy - complain as I do about Ithaca, the apples here are plentiful and delicious)
1 small yellow onion, peeled but leave the root intact to hold it together (I love onions, but they don't really like me very much - this recipe allows thorough cooking though, which always helps mellow them out)
3 tbsp melted butter (I melted mine in a bowl suspended in boiling water as I do not have a microwave)
1 tbs1.5 tsp zata (you can just use thyme or thyme and rosemary or whatever. Fresh would be best. I used zata because I had no thyme, rosemary or anything really like that. Plus zata is delicious. The amount is approximate)
salt (to taste, I have no idea how much I put in, maybe 1.5 teaspoons?)
fresh ground black pepper (I started with about a teaspoon of peppercorns)
2 teaspoons real mustard (the dark coloured stuff with actual mustard seeds in it, none of this bright yellow crap. The original recipe called for more, but I really hate when mustard overwhelms things that are a little sweet already. This amount provided enough bite without making it too mustardy)
1/4 cup grated sharp chedder (what I had in the fridge - stilton or bleu would go wonderfully as well)

Measure out the flour in a large bowl and stir in the salt. Add the butter and mix with a pastry knife or fork until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal with a few bean-size bits of butter in it. Add the egg and mix it together more. The dough should be a little crumbly. If the dough seems very dry (as mine did), add a few drops of water, bit by bit, as you mix it in - do not over water. Bring the dough together by hand - if this is proving difficult, add a few more drops of water as needed. Form into a ball, the dough should be flaky but still sticky enough to do this. Flatten dough into a disk about 6 inches in diameter, wrap in plastic, and let rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (I did 1.5).

For the filling: Halve and core the apple. Cut each half into 8 wedges and put them in a large bowl. Slice the squash about 1/4 inch thick and add to the bowl. Cut the onion into wedges; some of the wedges may not hold together, but that's okay. Add the onion to the bowl. Add the melted butter, zata, salt and pepper to taste, and toss gently to combine.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface into a 12-inch disk, the dough should be about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet and brush with mustard. Starting 2 inches from the edge, arrange the slices of apple, squash, and onions, alternating and forming overlapping circles. You may have leftover filling, as I did. You can either roast them on their own or reserve them for a second galette or toss them in a soup or do whatever you like.

Fold and pleat the dough over the edges of the filling. Bake until the crust is deep golden brown, and the apple, squash, and onion are tender and caramelized, about 35 minutes. Scatter the cheese over the filling and bake until melted, about 5 more minutes. Cool the galette briefly, then cut into wedges and serve.

I served it with diced tomatoes, spinach and diced garlic that I steamed quickly while the galette was in the melted cheese step - I tossed the garlic in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil, then tossed in the diced tomatoes. Then I tossed in de-stemmed spinach leaves (put the stems in your container in the freezer that you keep for stock flavoury bits), squirt a bit of lemon juice over it. The liquid from the tomatoes both steams the spinach and, because it's acidic, picks up a some of the iron from the skillet. That combined with the high iron content of the spinach makes this a very good source of iron for those of you who are in need of it.

Once you the spinach is sufficiently wilty, serve it along side the galette for a great contrast.

*Samantha from Earthbound Farm commented on that entry where I grumble and groan about the butternut squash gnocchi recipe. She said that they had taken the recipe down until they could further test it. I'd like to say that I really appreciate the attentiveness and it furthers my faith in Earthbound Farm, even beyond their delicious boxed salads that I used to buy when I lived in California - theirs was the only packaged salad that I have ever found to be satisfactory. I would take them on airplanes with a 3 oz container of homemade dressing and be ever so happy. I did not mean my blog entry to reflect anything negative about the company, merely that I had had an unsatisfactory experience with that particular recipe - which I wouldn't have even tried, had I not felt it came from a good source.

Axel F and Williams-Sonoma styrofoam

Last night I spent about an hour with Ryan trying to cram our "new" mini couch in to the spare room. We ended up [sssh!] taking part of the door frame out because our house was built 100 years ago and I guess people were narrower then.

A fat person could not live in our house. Yesterday I was carrying bags of styrofoam packing material (damn you Williams-Sonoma! Can't you think of a friendlier way to pack wedding presents than stuffing the boxes full to the bring with such guilt-giving material??) and imagining what it would be like were those bags of styrofoam actually unshiftable collections of fat, attached to my body and yes, you would not be able to maneuver comfortably from the front door to the living room, nor would you be able to enter the spare room or reach the closet in the bedroom.

Morbid? Yes. But it was for science.

We took the bags of styrofoam to a dumpster near Wegman's because Ithaca has this really strange way of collecting garbage where they charge you by the amount as well as weight. You have to buy tags for each collection, which on one hand works great because we never had enough garbage in Palo Alto for weekly collection, but we had to pay for it anyway. This way, we put it out when we have enough and stick a tag on it and they pick it up. The tags are for 35 lbs of garbage per bag/can. The silly thing is, they will not take your garbage if it is more than 35 lbs, even if it's all in one can. This leaves you the difficulty of having even more garbage the next time - this has happened to our neighbour twice now. They don't even give you a "warning" as I'm sure they would in the litigious neighbourhoods of Palo Alto, they just leave your garbage. And if you have lots and lots of lightweight garbage (ie styrofoam), you have to put multiple tags on it anyway, despite it being under the weight limit by a lot, because it has to fit in so many conatainers. I'll be damned if I have to pay $16 for the garbage men to take away 5lbs of styrofoam! So we went dumpster hunting and were successful in thoroughly shirking our responsibility, in the name of being cheapskates, all the while pretending that we were doing something highly illegal instead of marginally immoral and that "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop was playing in the background.

Breast milk and arguing with hippies.

Apparently there's been a saga going on with regards to the breastmilk ad I saw on Craiglist:

re breast milk..

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Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-09-30, 8:38PM EDT

THAT IS JUST GROSS, AND I DO BELIEVE YOU REALLY SHOULDN'T DO THAT.MAYBE AGAINST HEALTH CODE.. SOMEONE SHOULD CALL HEALTH DEPT.AND HAVE SOME ONE ELSE FEED THEIR BABY YOUR BREAST MILK, UMMM NO.. NOT RIGHT... THROW IT AWAY.

I've complained before about people who TYPE IN ALL CAPS when placing an ad. Usually the ads written in all caps are the ones that make the least sense. Anyway. There was a response:

Those who are bashing my Breast milk

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Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-10-01, 8:30AM EDT


I'm sorry you are offended. I am trying to help someone in our area who would like to give their baby the best milk they can and can not breast feed themselves. Where do you think babies in NICU's get their milk from when the mothers are not able to BF. Most NICU's try not to give formula's (at least the one's i know.) that way they give their child the best start they can. You can buy BM threw banks so no it's not illegal to sell it. You want my medical records, i am clean and have been. They test you every pregnancy for any STD's or anything else you can transmit.

to the one who posted the link. Thanks...I never got a response from them when i did try and donate with them

Damn hippies, arguing without having all the facts again. It's still gross, no matter how wonderful you think it is - who knows what kind of crap you eat, drink or smoke and why should anyone believe you when you say otherwise?

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One time I got in an argument with a hippy who told me paying attention to politics was a waste of time - that the real path to change was communal meetings with other people, in the mountains and in the forest. He'd just got back from a "gathering" in New Mexico that was so awesome, I wouldn't believe. I told him that hanging out with your friends in the desert, smoking pot and talking about yourself for a week sounded like a lot of fun but it certainly wasn't an instrument for the sweeping reform this country needs. He said I didn't understand the power that can be created at gatherings. I asked him what they had accomplished during this particular gathering that he had just returned from. He said it was just the love that they all grew together. I said giggled and said no, that was from the mushrooms. He told me I didn't get it. I told him he was taking the easy route. It's disheartening and depressing to follow politics but going and hiding in the desert while your whole world is coopted by evil millionaires is irresponsible. He gave me a disgusted look. Or maybe it was disgusting. He did have horrible greasy dreads and hadn't showered or changed his clothes (admittedly! he admitted it!) in about 3 weeks.

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Addendum!

Breast Milk Is Best!

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Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-10-01, 9:18AM EDT


Studies have found that breast fed babies are healthier through life than non breast fed babies. They have less infections and colds and overall health and brain function is better. Hats off to you girl'! If you can produce it good for you and god bless the babies that get iT!