Adjustments

When you move to a new place there are inevitably adjustments that need to be made. As a person who thrives on routine, to me even minor adjustments seem like major ones at first.

The first and most pressing adjustment was shopping at a new grocery store. The closest one to us is called Shaw's and we had never heard of it. In fact all the grocery stores here in New England have names that are foreign to us: Super Stop and Shop, Market Basket, and Hannaford are the ones we've noticed thus far. Shaw's is HUGE and wonderful! Brett and I spent a long time going up and down every aisle looking at everything. The only thing we don't like about it is that you can't just buy a huge brick of cheese like we're used to. You've got to buy it pre-shredded or get a small brick of a fancy variety. We went the fancy way for mozzarella and both agree that next time we will go pre-shredded. There is also a little farm stand grocery store down the road a ways that seems to have good produce.

The second adjustment I've had to make turns out to not really be that big of a deal. I've cooked on a gas stove for my whole life, but now our apartment has an electric. Most of what I've cooked on the stovetop so far has been pasta, and I think that water actually boils faster on this stove. I can't tell any difference on the oven, except that it tells me exactly how long it will take to preheat, and it lets me know when it's ready. I like that.

The last adjustment is really a pleasure to make. Now I have lots and lots of counterspace!

When I chop vegetables I don't have to worry about banging my elbow on the fridge, or dropping things down into the void between the fridge and counter. I don't even have to precariously transfer handfuls of chopped veggies across the kitchen to where I'm preparing the pizza. I just chop right next to where I've rolled out the dough. And then next to that I grate my cheese! I told you I was excited to make pizza dough!

Even though we have only cooked a handful of meals thus far, we have already had an oops. When we make pizza we usually put cornmeal on the pizza stone and preheat it in the oven so it will be nice and hot by the time the pizza is ready to go on it. Well when we opened the oven door to put the pizza on the stone, the cornmeal was smoking ALOT. Usually it's not that bad. Of course, the smoke alarm started going off and I had to frantically figure out how to turn it off. Next time we will heat the stone without the cornmeal and add it just before the pizza goes on. At least we know our smoke detector works!