Cooking and Sewing

Here are two areas I am trying to refine my skills, cooking and sewing.

Now that I have been unemployed for over a month, I am feeling more and more freedom and relaxation.  I started making bread without the bread maker, popcorn in the dutch oven, and coffee in an insulated press. I also am staying in my pajamas until afternoon, and taking baths in the middle of the day, oh how wonderful it is.

We sold our microwave, toaster, coffee maker, waffle maker, ice cream maker, magic bullet, blender, rice cooker, and bread machine; this was a huge hurdle. I envision if we are not hooked to shore power, we will have to conserve energy. Instead of waiting until we get on the boat, we will start living life more conservative now (that is with less energy consumption and less space). It was hard to live without the microwave the 1st week, we got so used to using the microwave to quickly melt butter, warm leftovers, make popcorn, and other things. The toaster was not so bad to overcome, I just use the oven to toast bread or frozen waffles. The waffle maker I do miss, but we can have pancakes. The coffee maker was simple to overcome its absence because we love press coffee, it is so rich and bold.  The press is not as insulated as I had hoped, but it does a great job at coffee and tea too.  And the rice cooker and bread maker are somewhat missed, they do make cooking simpler, but more stuff to store and clean. All those other items were just stuff in our kitchen that we hardly used which just sat in the cabinets taking up space.

It is actually simpler to use the oven and less to clean overall. I am enjoying to cook by using basic ingredients and tools, however, I did keep the coffee grinder and food processor - for how long will be determined later.  Our next big decision will be to figure out if we live with or without refrigeration we imagine at times we do not have it and we will have to deal with this.

The sewing skills are not as refined, or exercised, as much as the cooking skills.  I did purchase a new Pfaff somewhat industrial strength sewing machine, in anticipation of making repairs to sails, dodgers and other canvas items, and upholstery stuff for cushions. So far I have used it to sew a few things and it works great, it goes through tough materials and does not stop. User error creates most of its short comings when a job gets too difficult. It is easy to operate, especially once I learned how to do it. I attempted to make cushions for our old boat, we sold that boat, but they looked so funny all crooked, however, the foam was covered which was my ultimate goal. This industrial strength sewing is a work in progress.