We moved from our de-luxe apartment in the sky to a cute little rental home, the first house I’ve lived in since I left my parents’. (To give you an idea of how momentus this is, I left my parents’ house when I was 22. I am now 35. Yep.) The house is quirky, bright, and charming, and the perfect little place for us to be all grown-up and married.
I can’t believe how much this one change has changed everything. It has been a change snowball, if you will. We’ve become frugal (or perhaps a better way to say this is, we have become more realistic of the money situation). We’re eating so much better that the Bear dropped 10 pounds in the first month. And dare I say it, I’m getting crafty. I made curtains, for chrisssakes! No-sew curtains, but still. I made them with my own two little hands, a roll of Stitch Witchery, and an iron.
But again, it all comes back to food. Why did we end up here in the first place? Because of this:
It’s the Frigidaire Flair, “The happiest thing that ever happened to cooking…or you!” says the brochure from 1962. (Take a closer look, Bewitched fans — yes, this was Samantha Stevens’ oven.) Aside from the Bear, it is the most adorable thing in this house. There was a picture of this sweet little piece of the 60s in the “for rent” ad on Craigslist, and I was bewitched.
I love the way the range pulls in and out of the appliance – when you’re done cooking, you just wipe it off and slide it away. Like magic! I also can’t say how happy I am to be rid of that cold, black, glass-top range I used at the apartment for four long years — I never want one of those again. Tortillas taste so much better when you can singe the hell out of them directly on the range. We had to resort to microwaving them (sorry, Grandma). Well, no more microwaved tortillas for us! No more microwaved anything, for that matter, since the house doesn’t have one. We were sure, before we moved in, that we’d run right out and buy a nuke box within a week. But I don’t see that happenening now. We don’t miss the instant gratification of a 5-minute frozen dinner, and water boils fast enough in a teapot.
We christened the Flair with this first meal, a riff on something I used to throw together as a teenager: Indian potato wraps. Everything came from Trader Joe’s. The Lavash — this bubbly flatbread the size of a legal document – is the best wrapper for this application, superior to a flour tortilla, which I find too thick and chewy for the job. I cooked cubed Yukon Golds until soft with garam masala, curry powder, cayenne, garlic, salt and pepper, then added peas and caramelized onions to the mix. This was wrapped up with sauteed spinach, cherry tomato slices, raita, and a few goodly dashes of Tapatio.
It tasted like home.
