Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Broke Da Mout

In Hawaiian slang, "broke da mout" means something so tasty, you cried.
I ate a couple of things today that broke da mout. For one, a raw puree of tomato soup (salted, and then run through the food mill, then chilled with minced celery, shallots and cucumber... oh, gosh, it all came from the yard).
It was so good, we saved a little and strained out the chunks to make a Local Bloody Mary. Except I haven't perfected local vodka yet... (Stay tuned!)
We had, obviously, kitchen waste-age (cucumber scrapings, tomato skins, like that). And I put them into the garbage disposal. Which hummed, but didn't whirl.
Cranky thinks it's his fault for grinding up lime and lemon rinds a few days ago. He's surely wrong: a garbage disposal is supposed to be able to grind up rinds.
Well, clever me. I resorted to the "broomstick trick," where you attempt to loosen the gears with a stiff wooden implement.
And I broke da mount.
Plumber coming tomorrow.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

This garbage disposal thing is not big here in Oz, I've never encountered one (other than TV/Movies from the US) Do you get an "end product" that you can compost? Or is it a way of flushing stuff down the drains?

Monkey Wrangler said...

Oh man, that looks like a real pain in the okole!

cookiecrumb said...

DMMouse: It ain't cool. Everything gets munched up and swished down the drain, like sewage. I am trying harder and harder to scrap my scraps onto the compost pile or into the "green" take-away barrel... But, no, this is just a Jetsons convenience device. (Damn you, Mouse! Guilt.)

cookiecrumb said...

MW: Don't bring any garbage when you visit. What time you comin'? Plumber is 2-4 p.m.

michael, claudia and sierra said...

i just can't stand it when everydamnthing won't work alla the damn time...

Zoomie said...

Ooops! Your soup sounds wonderful but a big ouch on the GDU. Bummer!

Moonbear said...

I'm taking a solemn oath:
Next Saturday I will make your raw tomato soup thingy. I cannot b'leeve how tempting it sounds. Tomatoes were created shortly after salt, I think. The two are, well- just so amazing together, huh.
Thanks for the drool, and good luck with the GDU. I have threatened many times to yank ours out...

Anonymous said...

A studious-looking Japanese plumber once told me that he never puts anything raw down his disposal at home. Excuuuuuuuse me? It did keep me from grinding tough peels, seeds, and things but it makes me wonder why we have these devices if they are so ineffectual? I put way too much into the gobbidge.

Sam said...

our cleaner is always doing that - breaking the doo-dah - she puts the oddest things down there.

Katie Zeller said...

No garbage disposal here... but I've broken my share in the U.S.. Spinach always did ours in.
Here we have a BIG compost pile - it doesn't break... although I do have to take a stick to it from time to time...

El said...

Oy, girl. You need to compost it all. The true alchemy of spinning garbage into gold: your next-year's tomatoes will thank 'ee.

(Not to lay on the guilt or anything. But maybe this is a sign.)

peter said...

It's true. The first thing I did in this house was to take out the disposal and start a compost pile in a big thing I ordered & put together. The heap then becomes a wild card in the garden; ours has volunteer squash, tomatoes, and potatoes growing in it now.

Stacie said...

hee hee hee! i like the first definition better... i am going to chicago this weekend, and hope to eat some food good enough to broke my mout!

Kevin said...

CC,

Her: The washing machine broke down today.
Him: What happened?
Her: Sledge hammer.

Anonymous said...

When I look at that photo, I hear Bullwinkle saying: "Don't know my own strength!"

And I think it is so nice of kamarulzaman suief to give you permission to delete his/her comment.

Anonymous said...

In the summer I have no problem composting all my vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds and such (and by all, I mean ALL), and one hint I found in one of my gardening books is to shred (or tear) some newspaper, a few inches worth, and put that the bottom of your scrap container (I use an old 27# empty plastic cat litter bin). It keeps the peelings from getting all slimy, like they tend to, because of the carbon or something, and almost all newspapers use soy-based inks, so it's all good for the compost pile. I just keep it out on the deck or in the garage until it's full, and the lid snaps tightly so the racoons can't get to it, and I don't have to run out there every day to empty it.

Though we have a disposal, we also have a septic system , so this is a matter of necessity more than anything; those septic tanks are picky about what you put into them.

In the past, however, my best of the worst disposal clogs came from celery and spinach. Mostly spinach, what a mess.

~ Peggasus

cookiecrumb said...

Claudia: And wouldn't you know, this is the first garbage disposal I've had in years... Back when I wasn't quite so eco-conscious, I just put scraps in the barrel. Now, I'm inadvertently modern and making mistakes.

Zoomie: You gotta keep a mental (and fiscal) slush fund for these events. No new shoes this month. :D

Moonbear: The recipe for the raw soup comes from the Chez Panisse Vegetables book. I could swear, it sounds like it's got the fingerprints of Paul Bertolli all over it. We used Purple Cherokee tomatoes, snorf, drool...

Kudzu: I keep being on the brink of composting... Sigh.

Sam: What is she putting down there? Eek.

Katie: I didn't know that about spinach, but now that I think of it. Yeah.

El: No, no guilt. I truly do see this as a nudge, if not a sign. Silly new-age shit. Heh.

Peter: Wow, you actually took it out? Maybe when the plumber gets here... eh. I don't know.

Stacie: Yow, big city visit! Have a tasty time.

Kevin: Har! Good.

KathyR: Man, I ain't deleting fan mail like that, no sir!

Peggasus: Oh. Bink!! LID!!! Never thought of it. Gawd, I could probably begin now. Thanks for the idea.

Sam said...

plastic lemon slices? really. I have no idea what they are for.


I tried to start a compost heap on our deck the other day but fred put his foot down.

Zoomie said...

Tell Cranky it's not his fault - lemon peels shouldn't be any problem for a GDU - I'm always putting citrus peels down mine to "freshen" (yeah, right!) it. It smells good for about 5 minutes...

Dagny said...

Oh dear. I have always been picky about what goes down the disposal ever since I worked in the cafeteria in college. There we were told to never put pasta or rice down the disposal. I've also talked to repair folks who have said that some of the tougher veggie and fruit matter does not go down the disposal as well. Hope yours is humming and whirling again soon.

B A R T said...

I always thought the disposal was for mangling silverware, not a wood chipper for broom handles.

Anyway, our plumber told us that putting food in the sewer system is what makes it such a tasty trough for the rat population.

SteamyKitchen said...

LOL! Cute story!
My garbage disposal sucks too. We've had to replace 3 times now...but it could be due to my two boys throwng their small toys in the sink.

Who knows.

jen said...

I have broken many a disposal. Now I do not have one. The disposals and I feel that is best.

Next time you here the humming sound though (not this time since it's a little late with the broom handle and all) look and feel around the device and try to find a button. Usually there's one somewhere. This is a reset button that will start it up again, like a circuit breaker.

I have high hopes for these worm farms my daughters started, that they will grow into a larger worm bin I can use for compost. Like a garbage disposal only much grosser and cool. And no humming sound.

cookiecrumb said...

We're back in action, nearly $600 later. Great plumber. He almost talked US out of replacing it, saying our pipes would work much better without one. Also, he noticed the configuration of the pipes under the sink was a leetle not-quite-right (he squared that away, too).
So the way we see it, the *house* has a garbage disposal, but we are not going to use it. Much. Maybe to mangle spoon handles a little.

Anonymous said...

I've only ever lived in one place with a garbage disposal and the thing scared the heck out of me. Having grown up in a house with a septic tank and a father who freaked out if anything larger than a lemon seed washed down the drain I was trained to think in terms of compost pile.

Then I moved to a place in the city with no compost pile and a garbage disposal. Up to that point my only experience with such a creature was in horror movies. I used it twice and alway had this fear in the back of my head that it would just spontaneously come one at the wrong time.

cookiecrumb said...

John Michael: I'm scared to put my fingers in it, even when it's off. (Well, duh.)
I gotta tell you, this is just going to be such an instructive year: Canning and Composting.
What's next, Connestogas? :D

Anita (Married... with dinner) said...

Go Cookie!!

I have a cute countertop compost scrap pail that you're welcome to have; our new kitchen has a full-size bin for our scraps (which we fill a LOT).

Back before SF had curbside compost pickup, we had one of those round black backyard compost gizmos, and it worked like a charm. Animal-proof and not smelly at all as long as you kept the ratios right. Ours was free from a city giveaway, but I bet they're not expensive.