Jesus Had A Hammer, Mary Had A Saw

(I like to think Mary was a tool junkie* like me)

Of all the bible lore that has been discussed in my presence, the most interesting things aren't the mystical "miracles" that God and Jesus performed. I have always been much more riveted by the mundane things; things the bible never answers for me such as: did Jesus use a stick to brush his teeth? Did Jesus have lice? Did Jesus hate the desert? And obviously I'm intrigued by the fact that he was supposedly a carpenter. Doesn't it interest anyone besides me that he wasn't a lawyer, or a money changer, or a homeless leper?

Carpentry is one of those skills that man has depended on for as long as man discovered he didn't want to wander the earth all year long, every year, running from mastodons and saber-toothed tigers. There are only a few things humans really require for survival (besides avoiding being eaten by anything higher on the food chain...but we sure did take care of that problem by killing off everything that was higher on the food chain...yay us?): food (whether hunted, foraged, or cultivated, we require food), shelter (either under big rock over-hangs or shelter we build ourselves), a safe place to grow sperm and eggs into more people.

Clearly, humans have mastered the whole reproductive gig. But how many of us could provide ourselves with food and shelter if we had no one else to hand it to us on a golden platter?

Jesus was a carpenter and I wonder if there is any particular significance to that fact? It is one of the most basic and important skills humans can have. I like to think that Mary might have picked up a saw and cut herself some timber if need be. I've had my own hammer since I was nineteen years old. I relished choosing one for myself and telling the scoffing men in the hardware store to get lost while I got up close and personal with all of the hammers they had and pretended to bash them in the head to test out the feel of the handles and the weight. I chose a very nice hammer that has never once let me down.

Having a hammer has not, in itself, made me a handy person. In fact, I wouldn't describe myself as handy at all. I do aspire to it though. The dog is Houdini reincarnated and has many escape tricks up her tail. One of them is to quietly smash the fence to bits while we're not looking, as you can see above, her work is swift. In the past I would have grabbed my hammer and looked for some stray nails with which to fix this problem.

But that was before I got comfortable and capable with Philip's power drill. Women love to roll their eyes and comment about "men and their power tools" but I think most women, once they get a feel for them will understand the magnificent possibilities inherent in the ownership of such a tool. Women love power almost as much as men do and I admit that while it took me YEARS to even consider trying to use this tool, I am now at a point where I'm wondering if I don't need my own. (The answer to that is no. Because one power drill per household is enough. Sharing is good.)

This is my modest circular saw. I'm not a pro at using one but I'm proficient. What I have yet to master is to change the blade position to match the job I'm doing. I built a chicken coop from scratch a few years ago using this saw and the power drill. I also used levels, squaring tools, post hole diggers, and a staple gun. I wish my pictures of it aren't lost in the ether. I would show you what a woman can do when left alone with some wood, imagination, tools, and a need. It wasn't the prettiest thing you ever saw, but it was draft proof and provided a solid safe nest for my hens.

Our friend Jim came over yesterday to cut a pre-built fence panel in half for a bigger part of the dog containment project and he is a professional carpenter. He has things like chalk line and fancier skill saws and routers and things that are a huge mystery to me. I watched him cut that panel in two and wondered what it would feel like to have that kind of skill at my fingertips? Then I realized that I do. I do have some of the most important skills humans can have: foraging, growing, cooking, and preserving food is extremely important to humans in the same way as building shelter is.

Chick didn't bust this hole in the fence but once access to her other escape routes are closed off I know she'll find a way to wedge herself through here.

I might not be able to build more than a rudimentary shelter but I'm ridiculously proud that I can fix a hole in a fence like this.

The above picture required only that I screw the existing board back into place.

But for these two missing fence panels I had to cut a larger 1x6 board in half and then screw it into place. So easy to do. Yet a few years ago I would have looked at you like you were floating past me on the Nile holding up a sandwich board that says "Headed For Hell" if you had suggested I fix it myself.

Next up is some raised bed building. I am going to make them all by myself. The raised beds we made at the last house were made with the help of Philip and our very dear friends Sid and Dennis. This time it will just be me, the skill saw, the power drill, and a bunch of wood.

As a side note, I will have to take a picture of our pencil sharpener in the basement. Oh yes, oh my...it's the kind that schools have. The crank kind made of metal that are the only way to sharpen a pencil. If the porch facing the back yard didn't instantly make me want this house, the pencil sharpener in the basement did! I used it yesterday and it worked well and gave me the kind of small bright pleasure that a good life is filled with.

I am a tool junkie.

*I really wanted to say "tool whore" but then I thought that "whore" is still a pretty hard word to use without it coming off as deeply offensive. So then I thought "junkie" would be more appropriate. But if one is to really consider it seriously, is it less shocking to refer to oneself playfully as a drug addict or as a prostitute? Of course, either of them is better than saying "gosh I sure do love tools" which is really what I'm trying to say but is so milky and bland when it's stripped of all it's colloquial edge. I use language to weed out the hyper sensitive and gentle people because they make me itchy. I'm allergic to milky character. Wow, for a footnote this is impressively rambling and philosophical. I like it here in the footnote though. It's decorated exactly like a corner of my brain. I could stay here in this foot note all day talking to myself. Well, now I'm cracking myself up because I'm totally just talking to myself at this point and it always cracks me up how easily I can amuse myself when it's just me and a typewriter. If you happen to be reading this still then that's just incidental and you are now eavesdropping on my brain.

Shame on you!

The Yogurt Cheese Experiment

Once, a long time ago, back before the Universe decided I needed the excitement of my first broken bones and a renewed relationship with poverty, I discovered why Meyer lemons are not the ideal lemon. Many a Californian has a deep love for the Meyer*, but I'm going to go against the grain here and suggest that the ONLY thing a Meyer lemon is good for is for making lemonade. A Meyer tastes great...but they are lemons with all the fight and zap bred out of them. I suppose that most of the time it is not an attractive quality to be able to make anything curdle.

If anyone told me that I made them curdle inside I would feel very wounded.

However, one of the uses to which lemons are put is to curdle milk. To make most cheeses you need to curdle the milk. You can do this with rennet, a very disgusting liquid or tablet that is made from the stomach linings of mammalians, (I reckon we could harvest human rennet too, but for obvious reasons we don't), or you can use a vegetable rennet, vinegar, or lemon juice. If you are going to use lemon juice it must be the really sour kind.

Not Meyers.

I know this from personal experience.

This holds true for any baking in which lemons are featured. Lemon curd is best when the lemons are Eurekas or Lisbons. This is true of marinades too which involves the acid of the lemon to slightly cook the food you are marinating.

If you want to suck a lemon though, always choose the Meyer.

I am a little afraid of trying to make farmer's cheese again right now (paneer is basically an Indian farmer's cheese) because motivating to do anything that takes actual EFFORT will hurt my head, but I'm trying to work up the courage to make feta. (Do you hear the angel's singing?) Not sheep feta or goat feta...I like cow feta. I miss it. I want it. I need it. Feta is one of my all time favorite cheeses.

So here's the plan: make yogurt cheese which is similar in texture to cream cheese and is about the easiest cheese to make (I will tell you how in just a minute). Next I will make a farmer's cheese but give it the Riana treatment (she cures it in brine which makes it similar to feta) and then, lastly, after I have seen a new psychiatrist, I will tackle the more involved craft of feta making.

To make yogurt cheese you need:

2 pounds yogurt (32 ounces)- make certain it is a "live culture"** yogurt like Nancy's.
Cheese cloth
A colander
A bowl to set the colander in
A long wooden spoon
A tall pot
Fridge space

You line a colander with the cheese cloth. Set the colander in a bowl that is large enough to catch the whey that will drain from the yogurt. Dump the yogurt (or pour it if you're one of those more elegant types) into the colander and stick the whole mess of it in the fridge for a few hours.

My colander is not blessed with enough holes for this to work really well. So after a few hours I skipped to the next step which is to gather up the cheese cloth and knot it over the handle of a spoon like this, and rest the spoon on the edge of the tall pot. More pressure from being suspended will force more whey out which is what will make the yogurt thicken.

Put the pot in the fridge and let sit for up to twenty four hours. You can eat it at any time, really, it all depends on how thick you like it. I'm going for cream cheese consistency because I have some pepper jelly that I would love to eat (I would have to make homemade crackers for it too) and it's perfect with cream cheese. So I will check it in the morning.

It will last up to two weeks in the fridge. When it's at the consistency you desire, you put it in a container, and keep it in the fridge. Or just eat it.

If anyone else makes it, will you please tell me how it turned out and what you ate it with? I'll bet it would be incredible with home made bagels (Which Riana has written about making and included the recipe so you can troll her flickr pages for it if you like.)




*Don't be offended Claire! I do love a good Meyer, but I have to report the truth about their culinary usefulness. If I could give you a thousand Meyers...you know I would!!!

**"live culture" means that the healthy bacteria that makes yogurt what it is have not been killed off during the pasteurization process. If you are eating yogurt for health benefits, then it should always be a live culture kind. Otherwise you're just eating custard.***

***Yogurts that have stabilizers and sugar and weird crap in them are not the wholesome food many Americans think it is. My favorite of the yogurt impostors is Yoplait, but I haven't eaten it in years because it's total junk. For a brief period of time I let Max eat "Gogurt" which is a hideous fake yogurt for kids (by Yoplait) with all kinds of dyes in it that turned Max's poop blue. I draw the line at blue or green poo.