The Pleasure of a Jacuzzi.

A few years ago a went on an HGTV  kick which led me to remodel.  One of the items I couldn’t live without was a jacuzzi bath tub.  I have always enjoyed bathing rather than showering so this was one of the easier decisions in along list of decisions.

Not long after the house was finished, I bought a ticket to go on the Parade of Homes, and the most shocking thing I noted was that these humungus homes with their huge walk-in closets had the tiniest jacuzzi tubs!  A little terrier couldn’t fit in them let alone a middle-aged fat woman!

When I shopped for mine, I actually got in each one and imagined what it would be like with water, and if I could or could not stretch out.  I don’t think I have to say if I couldn’t stretch, I didn’t buy.

I love listening to my jacuzzi run; it seems to like bubbling in the key of G.  The winter is the best time to take a bath in it.  I turn down the heat in the house so I can really see and feel the steam.  It’s like being in a Shoshoni sweat lodge a hundred years ago, except I have a much nicer view than the backside of a buffalo hide.

I teach teenage boys so I need all the relaxation I can get.

There is just something about hot water, Estee Lauder bath oil, and thousands of little, massaging bubbles that I can’t live without.  They’re on the same par as chocolate chip cookies and a roasted leg of lamb on a Sunday afternoon.

I’m drying off now, but the scent of the bath floats around me like a childhood memory.  I  just can’t wait to get dirty again!

In love with French Day

Has anyone realized just how great cooking with Julia Child is?  A few weeks ago a friend of mine got Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and, of course I was jealous.  So I did the only thing I could do at a time like that–I down loaded a copy on my kindle–and voila!  I had my own copy which I devoured with as much relish as a warm cinnamon roll on a snowy winter morning just as the pink-lit dawn starts to bathe my picture window.

I always get hungary when I watch the movie “Julie and Julia.”  It was only natural that just reading about clarified butter would start my mouth drooling.  That’s when I came up with a brilliant idea–have a French night with my best friends on the week just after I get paid.  Of course Cathy, my bff, liked the idea–if I bought the food, chose the recipes, and cooked the food.  She thought it would be too expensive.  I spent $35 and fed nine starving mouths!

Last Saturday, after I bought the food, I started studying the rizotto recipe and got scared–almost as scare as my sister when she’s in an elevator.  I asked Doug, another friend who is a much better and more fearless chef than I to cook.  I was more than willing to be his sue (that’s not how you spell it–blat!) chef which I managed to do with surprising dexterity.  Needless to say we gathered round the table, kids and all, and we stuffed ourselves until we “just couldn’t take it any more” to quote the film.  It was so de-li-cious that even the 3 year old ate the rizotto.  Anybody with children will know that getting a 3 year-old to eat anything other than peanut butter and jelly is a miraculous event up there with the parting of the Red Sea.

Thank you Julia Child and my friend Captain Morgan!!

Do I have to say that French day was a hit?

Tomorrow I get paid.  I wonder what Julia suggests we cook next?  I can’t wait to find out.  I can say that my friends and my pups who cleaned the dishes with as much joy as the 3 year-old, can’t wait either.