I can’t remember how I stumbled across this video earlier today, but it immediately piqued my interest.  It also made me laugh (I don’t know that it was supposed to, but I can’t help it–apparently garlic cracks me up), which made it doubly appealing.

So of course I ran right out and bought some garlic.  I usually buy the fresh, pre-peeled kind at Whole Foods (yes, I know–I’m a princess), but it’s always good to have a back-up plan.  And I hate (hate HATE) peeling those sticky little cloves, picking off the last stubborn shreds of papery skin.  What a pain.

I waited for Delaney to get home to test it for me (again–I’m a princess; I might also have–as Lee said–totally Tom Sawyer-ed her).  Besides, I didn’t want to irritate my knitting injury (yes, I have a knitting injury.  What?)  She did the first trial, but then I couldn’t resist taking a turn.

Our assessment:  that guy in the video must be a lot stronger than he looks!  The first tricky bit was smashing the head open–Delaney took about four tries; I got smart and used the bottom of a heavy pot.  Watch out for flying garlic.

The second tricky bit was–it takes a lot longer than ten seconds (and we’re not exactly 90-pound weaklings, either one of us).  I can claim handicap (what with the knitting injury–in my defense, I do think the initial tendonitis flare was a result of doing too many push-ups.  Stop laughing.), but Delaney is fairly strong–she is a softball player, after all.  Either garlic skins are a lot more tenacious than that video would lead one to believe (my theory), or I had somehow purchased defective garlic (Delaney’s theory).

In summary:  it works, but it’s not as quick and easy as it looks.  If you need a whole head of garlic peeled in a hurry, it’s probably quicker than picking at it with your fingernails, but be prepared for a good shoulder workout (and tiny bits of garlic parchment floating around your kitchen).

It might, however, be a useful diversion if you need to exhaust small children while you’re making dinner.  On the other hand, requiring said children to do the one-clove-at-a-time version of garlic peeling might take even longer.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all that garlic.

Yes!  Finally–someone with some clout (The New York Times, no less) has seen the light about the kitchen scale.

Read this article–it’s so much more persuasive than anything I could say on the subject–then go buy a kitchen scale (or pull that one you got for your wedding out from the back of the pantry).  Put it on the counter, and USE IT.  It will change your cooking.  I promise.

(The scale that best conquers the volume-to-weight quandary is this one; it’s the one I use every day, and it works like a dream.)

Here’s something cool:  an iPhone app that will analyze your moles and tell you if you ought to go to a dermatologist.

An article about the app, called Skin Scan, is here.

I bought it, partly because I’m just fascinated by the technology, but also partly because I have a couple of spots that I want to test it out on.  I just haven’t thought to do it during daylight yet (and it seems like the photography aspect of the thing might work better in natural light).

Lee, of course, tried it immediately.  He’s had a whole bunch of skin cancers removed, so it would be great to be able to check some things out in between mole-checks at the dermatologist.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on him.  He’s too hairy (not kidding).

(One would assume, of course, that it will always err on the side of caution, and recommend a doctor visit for anything remotely suspicious.  That remains to be seen–as soon as I remember to try it out.)

I did the most awesome-sauce thing on Tuesday.

I got a cortisone shot in my hip.

It was awesome-sauce for two reasons:

1) Cortisone shots are my new best friend.  I’m having a tiny little bursitis problem (gah–that makes me sound decrepit, which I am distinctly NOT), and ten days of NSAIDs did absolutely no good, so this was the next step.  I was a little nervous about it (Lee’s fault–he had a cortisone shot in his ankle once, and said it hurt like nobody’s business).  It was kind of intense, because it took a good thirty seconds or so, but it didn’t really hurt at all, so that was good.  Best of all–my hip is so much better.  I didn’t whine about it a single time yesterday.  Awesome.*

2) I used Duke Health’s new online check-in system–I’ve been secretly looking for an opportunity to try it.  This is truly awesome-sauce.  We’ve been going to Duke for almost all of our medical stuff for years now, and the only complaint I’ve ever had is the inefficiency of checking in.  It always involves standing in a long line, waiting forever, and having to pay prior to the appointment.  All of which is probably fine for normal, punctual people, but I’m not in that category.  I’m more in the I-was-on-time-till-I-had-to-wait-in-that-stupid-long-line category.

So when I got the reminder email about my appointment, I clicked on the “check in now” link, and bing-bang-boom!  I did all the paperwork/paying/standing in line stuff from the comfort of my own kitchen.  The system shot back a confirmation email, with a barcode, that I could use to sign in at a special kiosk (really just a tablet on the wall) when I got there.  I was hoping the kiosk would be able to read the barcode on my iPhone (because that would’ve made me feel uber-cool and technologically sophisticated), but it couldn’t.  Luckily I’d had the good sense to print the email before I left home, just in case.

The whole process took about two minutes at home, then about twenty seconds in the waiting room, leaving me plenty of time to have a small panic attack in anticipation of the dreaded injection in my hip.

Awesome-sauce.

*The only fly in the ointment:  the doctor said I should take a week off running, just to be sure the bursa settles down.  He clearly doesn’t have to live with me.

This is a mildly interesting concoction:  it’s sort of a mayonnaise, but without any egg yolks, with a whole lot of pureed garlic mixed in.

I made it a while back, in the middle of a slightly obsessive quest to duplicate the whipped garlic served at a Lebanese restaurant we go to sometimes.  The garlic, which they serve as a condiment with some of their dishes (but not all; you can ask for some, but it doesn’t just appear automatically), is a sort of amazing sensory experience–it’s creamy, but in a solid, substantive way.  The first time I tried it I was baffled, and immediately started trying to figure out how I could replicate it.

After a number of visits to the restaurant, and extensive grilling of various waitstaff, I started experimenting.  I bet I tried it half a dozen times in two weeks before I gave up.  I had gotten close, and had made some interesting dips/spreads/sauces (as well as some spectacularly awful ones).  But I hadn’t gotten it quite right.  Meh–win some, lose some.

We were back at that restaurant last week, and I was reminded how much I love that spread. Once again, I peppered our waiter with questions.  He finally went back and talked to the chef, and came back with a new tip that I hadn’t heard before (add some ice–yeah, I never would’ve figured that out), and the best affirmation ever:

Two out of three times, the chef screws it up, too.

Wow.  I feel so much better now.  It’s nice to be reminded occasionally that some things are just really hard to do, and require a lot of effort, even after you think you should’ve mastered them.  Really excellent work doesn’t come easily, even for people who are good at whatever the thing is. (Of course, I’m thinking about writers, and it’s good to remember that even the best, most gifted authors have to practice and draft and revise and sometimes even start over.)

I also feel totally justified in not messing around trying to make whipped garlic anymore.  I’ll just go to the restaurant when the craving hits.  They have better equipment than I do, anyway.

Lee and I went for a little get-away last week.  Delaney was on her class trip (Outward Bound; another story for another day), so we headed for the Lowcountry.

Note:  we chose Charleston for the following reasons:  it’s within reasonable driving distance, it’s warmer than home, and it’s a good foodie town.  We’re easy.

It was kind of magical, for a couple of reasons.  For starters, this whole idea of getting away without kids is totally new to us.  We didn’t travel without our kids when they were small; I think the first time we went away together overnight was when Delaney was six, and that was only one night (for my first marathon).  We were gone less than 24 hours, and I spent a big chunk of that running.  It wasn’t exactly a romantic tryst.  So this trip to Charleston–a history buff’s paradise–was a real treat.  Lee loves to sit in a coffee shop with internet and a computer, and I love to tour historic homes.  It was perfect.

Secondly, the weather was spectacular, and Charleston smells divine in the spring.  Confederate jasmine and pittosporum were blooming all over town.  It was sort of spectacular–and warm.  Warm is really, really important.

So.  Our assessment:  Charleston is great if you love history, or architecture, or pretty places, or gardens, or good food, or just wandering around finding interesting little nooks and crannies.

The most interesting thing, though, was my iPhone.  I was giddy.  Gleeful.  Charleston was totally the reason I got the thing to begin with.

I love the app store.

Before we went, I searched for Charleston apps, and downloaded a bunch.  My favorite was a haunted walking tour (but there were lots of different kinds of walking tours; I just happened to like that one the best).  It was user-friendly enough that even I could figure it out.  In a nutshell, I went to the designated starting point (which happened to be Philadelphia Alley), put on my earbuds and pressed play.  I listened to a little explanation of the haunting in this little alley that used to be a designated dueling spot while I wandered over the cobbles smelling the flowers and peering into the shadows.  Delightfully spooky.  When the tale ended, I tucked the earbuds into my pocket and followed the walking instructions to the next spot.

It was super-easy, highly entertaining, and much more customizable (in my opinion) than the haunted tour we went on one evening with a guide and a small group.  And at $1.99, it was a bargain compared to the $32 we spent on the guide.

I also made good use of a Charleston-for-foodies app, and a South-Carolina-heritage-trail app that has info about all the surrounding plantations, among other things.  And of course, I used the trusty Starbucks-locator app, but that goes without saying–I use it everywhere.

Travel, I’ve decided, is the perfect application for this amazing technology.  I love my iPhone!

Confession:  we have a cabinet full of unused medications.  I’m kind of compulsive about not wanting drugs to end up in either the water supply or the landfill, so I’m always at a loss as to how to get rid of things we’re not going to use.  And I’m not happy having it in my house–we have teenagers (they’re generally well-behaved, but still), and small nieces and nephews–no sense tempting fate.

We have expired prescriptions, leftover stimulants from a (wildly unsuccessful) experiment with Toby’s attention span, birth control pills that I stopped using when I stopped randonneuring, OTC stuff that’s just been hanging around for too long . . .

And I keep coming up against these bottles and boxes and blister-packs in my big stuff-purge, and not knowing how to get rid of them.

Problem solved.  I heard a blurb on the radio this morning about something called Operation Medicine Drop.  The North Carolina event runs from March 20th-26th.  Collection sites will be set up around the state; we can drop off expired/unwanted medications and they’ll be disposed of safely.

Click here to find a location near you.  Then go clean out your medicine cabinet.

So, as I mentioned in passing last week, I finally went over to the dark side:  I got an iPhone.

Thus far, I like it fine.  No need to re-hash obvious by going on about the user interface or operating system or all that other technological stuff that bores me to tears.

Bottom line:  I wanted it for the apps.  And thus far, I haven’t really had time *cough* to explore the possibilities.  I know I really want that thing where you can scan a barcode in the store and get the price.  That does exist, right?  And I have every intention of using it to put all my books on my Goodreads bookshelf (in my spare time).*  And the other day, when we were four counties away from home and I was desperately searching for a cup of hot tea, Toby told me there’s a Starbucks locator app, but of course we were so far out in the boondocks we didn’t have enough coverage to download it.  Note to self:  do that today.

BUT.  The thing I’m already in love with?  It’s the thing I already knew I loved, even before I got it.

Skype for the iPhone.  It’s freaking brilliant.

I went to the grocery store.  Toby texted me; he’d forgotten to put about 7 things on the sticky-note.  Fine–text me the list.  He did.  One item was:  ”Pretzel sticks and honey mustard.  Good honey mustard.”  Now how am I supposed to know what he considers good honey mustard?  This is not something I usually buy.  I texted back some words to that effect.

Then I clicked on the skype button, and told it to video chat with Toby.  I pressed the little button that switched over to the back camera.  Then I walked down the row of honey mustards, showing him each jar and bottle, until we got to one that satisfied him.**

I know I’m late to the iPhone party, but people.  This is brilliant.

*The thing that initially got me interested in switching from Blackberry to iPhone was our trip to Washington.  There are lots of travel apps for the iPhone, but pretty much none for the BB.  Next time we go to a big city, I’ll be set:  I’ll have all the museum guides, and walking tours, and restaurant recommendations, and subway maps–all on my phone.  Now we just need a trip . . .

**Sadly, the one thing Skype can’t do is tell a seventeen-year-old how that honey mustard is going to taste.  But at least it wasn’t my fault when he declared that jar unfit for consumption.

I’ve rewritten this post three times trying to figure out a way to make it amusing or entertaining, or even just not-boring.  Couldn’t make it work–sorry about that.  So I’ll just go with plain old boring transmission of information.

Important life rule:

Don’t go out of town and eat the same boring stuff you can eat at home.

Important life rule number two:

Life is short; don’t go to mediocre restaurants.

These two rules have held me in good stead for many years.  When I go to New York (Washington, London, Miami, Chicago–or that tiny little crossroads in the middle of nowhere) I refuse to eat in a restaurant that I can eat in at home.  That would just be stupid.  And boring.  And a wasted opportunity.

Chowhound.com is the best place I know of to get useful local restaurant reviews, written by ordinary people, most of whom happen to be as obsessed with food as I am.  You go to the board that represents your corner of the country (or world), and you can search for the name of your town (or the town you’re visiting), or just read back through the latest posts.

If you get into the habit of checking in on your local board with some regularity/frequency, you’ll start to recognize the names of regular posters.  You’ll learn to recognize whose opinions you can trust.  You’ll stay up-to-date with restaurant news and events in your area.  It’s a community, like this (or any other) blog, built on the notion of reciprocity–you’ll get more out of it if you contribute information and opinions–but it’s also really useful for doing a quick check to see if there’s anything good in the small town you’re passing through on the interstate.

The other beautiful thing about Chowhound is that the standard is good food, not fancy food.  An excellent barbecue shack out in the hinterlands is just as likely to get rave reviews as the latest celebrity chef hot spot.

I love Chowhound.  That is all.

Our friend Ketan just came back from a visit to India.  He brought me some treats–several varieties of tea, which I’m enjoying pretty much all day, every day in this nasty cold weather, and some interesting spices.

My favorites are the two above.  Any guesses on what they are?

***

***

*insert sound of crickets chirping*

***

Fine; I’ll tell you.  The tree bark (and I mean that literally) is cinnamon.  Did you know cinnamon is ground-up tree bark?  There you go–random new fact for today.

The other one (the one that looks like some kind of interesting coral formation) is mace.  For those of you who don’t bake much, mace, like cinnamon, is a spice that’s often used in baking in the West, but has broader application in the rest of the world.  It’s kind of like nutmeg, but a little different.  Interestingly, that filament you see in the photo, each little piece of which is called a “blade” of mace, is actually the outer covering of a nutmeg.  I’ve never seen them in situ, but now that I’ve gotten my hands on the un-ground version, I’d really like to.

It’s interesting to think about how bits of a tree on the other side of the world wound up in those little plastic bottles in my grocery store.