How to Charcook Aparagus

Fill bottom of pot with water.

Put steamer in.

Put asparagus in.

Put on stove, turn knob to "medium low".

Leave kitchen and forget about it.

When you happen to come back to kitchen hours later, the asparagus will be perfectly crisp and black.

Serve.

DISCLAIMER - IMPORTANT PLEASE READ

It has come to our attention that there has been some confusion between our subject, NDS (No Domestic Skills) and another all to common condition, NBS (No Brain Syndrome). I'm calling it to your attention to avoid any confusion the similarity might cause.

Symptoms for NBS include: vacant eyes, confusion, inability to use or comprehend language, acting irrationally among other things. Below is a picture of NBS in its most severe form. As you can see it is a very different disorder, and it's unfortunate that they have a similar acronym.

Beware The NDS Restaurant!

by angelica

as you might know i am in the city for a few days. this morning a friend and i went for breakfast in brooklyn. and it was so bad that i need to mention it here.
first the hostess tried to seat the people behind us before she seated us. then it took a half hour for the food to come out of the kitchen - only to be served to the people on the neighboring table. after they realized that they didn't order it the waitress took it away, brought it back into the kitchen, turned around and served it to us. when my friend pointed out that it is actually illegal to take food from other people's tables and serve it again she said they will fix new food but it'll take a while...
i asked for a refill of coffee and instead of getting a refill she brought me a new mug. i stirred my milk in and it turned out that an old lable from a honey bottle was floating IN the coffee. i still think they did it on purpose. the manager did not apologize, she just said that they are "having a bad day". not as bad as tomorrow when i'll alert the health inspectors!
beware this one: "two boots" on 2nd street just off 7th avenue in park slope, brooklyn.

Was It Her Fault?

by angelica

hi folks, i'm down in the city for a few days and happend to chance upon this window display up on madison avenue. now i am wondering if it wasn't my mother's fault that i am not more skillful in the kitchen because she never gave me one of these little toy kitchens to play in...

if that's the case she would of course not be able to answer the question on that wonderful mother's card that joan found.

i will keep you posted about what she said...

I found the perfect mother's day card!

Front of Card

keep scrolling

for

Inside of Card

How To Make Spaghetti Sauce:

A Ray of Hope

It may seem like a small thing to those of you who don't suffer with NDS, but every step gives hope to those fellow sufferers.

My friend came over and wanted a cup of tea. Of course tea is made by putting the cup of water in the microwave right? Just as I was about to do this the electricity went out. My friend said I could just boil the water on the stove. I felt the panic rising, but always wanting to at least try to be a good hostess, with shaking hands, I filled a pot with water, put it on the stove, turned on the flame, and in a few minutes the water boiled and I poured it into the cup over the tea bag.

Do you realize what a breakthrough this is?!? I MADE BOILING WATER FROM SCRATCH!

President Bush's Radio Address, April 20, 2007

“... Our society continues to wrestle with the question of how to handle individuals whose mental health problems can make them a danger to themselves and to others. ...”

our society does not have to wrestle with how to handle the most prominent case of such an individual:

impeach !

Don't Lose Perspective

by angelica

here I am blogging about something like NDS when we have much more severe and actually damaging syndromes out there!

take for example NTSW: No Thinking Skills Whatsoever. This serious disorder doesn’t stop at anyone, affecting head of states as well as whole populations!

it also comes in at least two forms: cNTSW, or congenital NTSW, and aNTSW, or acquired NTSW., which you acquire through public schools, print medias, tv, radio, even peer pressure.

there is no cure for cNTSW yet (sorry, george) but aNTSW can be treated by staying away from mainstream media and american newspapers, delving into literature and taking philosophy classes.

State of Fear

as probably every blog in the universe (at least the US universe) is commenting on Virginia Tech here are my 5 cents:

without strict gun control massacres like this will happen again. and again.

only a total moron can still advocate the "right to bear arms".

but what can you expect from a country full of morons - including the one at the very top.

Every Picture Tells A Story...

Learned Something.....!

by angelica

I am so excited: today I learned a new kitchen skill. soon I will be serving 5 course dinners, you just wait! I now know how to time the making of a hard boiled egg. thanks joan, for sending the advice:

She was in the kitchen, preparing to boil eggs for breakfast.
He walked in. She turned and said, "You've got to make love to me this very moment."
His eyes lit up and he thought, "This is my lucky day!"
Not wanting to lose the moment, he embraced her and then gave it his all, right there on the kitchen table.
Afterwards she said, "Thanks," and returned to the stove.
More than a little puzzled he asked, "What was that all about?"
She explained, "The egg timer's broken."

Broiling 101

by angelica

today I learned the meaning of “broiling”: intense heat from above. hence force the saying: I was broiling in the sun the other day at the pool.

in my case it wasn’t I broiling, but our breakfast croissants. a simple thing of warming up croissants – and I fail it. utterly.

I had them in the oven, set on warm, getting to the point where they are just right. but the rest of the breakfast (like: making tea) was lagging. so I turned the oven off in order to not burn the croissants.
and I hit ‘broil’ instead of ‘off’.

the birds are pretty happy…

Proud Multitasker

by angelica

I can beat this NDS thing: just today I explained to joan how I can actually multitask in the kitchen!!! look at breakfast for example.

I fill water in a glass container to be nuked for two minutes for my coffee. I fill instant coffee in my mug. I put two slices (pre-sliced) of bread into the toaster. I get jam and cheese out of the fridge. when the microwave rings I fill the hot water in my cup and add milk and put the mug back into the microwave for another minute. when the toast pops out I put jam on it and unwrap the pre-sliced cheese and add it. I take my coffee out of the microwave –voila!

and I do all this at the same time and everything is ready at the same time too!

now if that is not a miracle I don’t know about miracles…..

This is Just What We Need

Maybe we could get Judy to come and give a workshop for all of us that suffer with NDS
-Joan

This was posted on the Orlando
Sentinel Blog on Jan 17, 2007 6:25:02 PM

Hire that chimp

Wouldn't you just love to have a chimp like Judy to help with the
household chores - why she even likes doing toilets. According to The AP,
Judy escaped at the Little Rock Zoo raided a kitchen cupboard and did a
little cleaning with a toilet brush before sedatives knocked her out on top
of a refrigerator. The 120-pound primate, Judy, escaped Tuesday into a
service area when a zookeeper opened a door to her sleeping quarters,
unaware the animal was still inside. As keepers tried to woo Judy back into
her cage, she rummaged through a refrigerator where chimp snacks are stored.
She opened kitchen cupboards, pulled out juice and soft drinks and took a
swig from bottles she managed to open. Keeper Ann Rademacher says Judy went into the bathroom, picked up a toilet brush and cleaned the toilet. Rademacher says the 37-year-old Judy was a house pet before the zoo acquired her in 1988, so she may have been familiar with housekeeping chores. Judy wrung out a sponge and scrubbed down the fridge. It took a couple of tries, but the zoo sedated the chimp, who fell asleep on top of the refrigerator with half a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread she had pulled out of the freezer.

The zoo veterinarian gave Judy a drug to bring her around. Rademacher says
Judy was groggy but fine after the episode. The zoo says there was no danger
Judy would get out of the primate keepers service area and onto zoo grounds.

I'd Rather Power Drill...

by angelica

today I was in a sewing / fabric store. yes, you read that right, and yes, of course it happened accidently. I was walking along a strip mall and there were really cute easter things in front of one of the stores, so I went inside to look for more and found myself in a totally different universe!

I just wandered around in awe and saw things I never knew existed, let alone what they existed for: scrap fabric, dressmaker’s ham. seam roll. sounded like kitchen stuff to me.

then I discovered a “beginner’s sewing kit”. guess I’m a long way away from being a beginner – thimbles, gauges, bent trimmers, rippers, tracing wheels – are those english words???

then there were things in bulk that I once again had no idea what they were but it all reminded me of a hardware store and I immediately left for one to regain my equilibrium:

hex heads, bugle heads, screw eyes, eye bolts, hacksaws, wrenches, pliers – now we are talking!

yep. give me a power drill anytime, just not a sewing needle…

Got Evolution?

by angelica

I had an interesting idea this morning: maybe NDS is a mutation to correct an evolutionary flawed human trait: cooking.

think about it: there is no other species - that we know of so far – that cooks. no baboons sitting around a campfire boiling root soup, no chimpanzees having baboon BBQ.

and there aren’t many tooth decay problems in the animal kingdom either! and even if there is evidence that wild animals do get cancer, arthritis, and other ailments those are by far not as widespread and common as in modern day humans!

people with NDS might be natures answer to correct something that in the long run doesn’t work so well?

A Solution...?

by angelica

i might be on to something! today while browsing the net i found a site about a "raw food diet"! yep, raw food! that means NO COOKING? right?
i am excited, i will do some research, this might be a way out.
i hope it doesn't involve a lot of cutting, though....
i will keep you posted, just had to get this off my chest right away.

The Day The Microwave Stood Still...

by angelica

it happened on a saturday morning. I had just put a container with water for my morning cup of chai (it’s a powder, you just add hot water!) into the microwave when their was a noise, kind of a very troublesome “clunk”, and then the microwave was dead. absolutely and totally.

I decided to be brave, face the world without nuking and postponed buying a new microwave until monday, when a technical wizard friend of mine was scheduled for a visit. he would sure be able to fix the problem. and I would sure be able to survive for two days without a microwave!

boy, was I wrong!

saturday breakfast: I found a pot (in spite of not using a kitchen I still do have one and it does have equipment), filled it with water and put it on the stove. I did remember to turn the knob to make that thing that the pot was standing on hot. of course I turned the wrong knob so I had to switch out the metal cover. that had happened before, I do have plenty of covers available for just these occasions.

fortunately I also had a second pot as the first one looked pretty bad after standing on the hot oven without water for a while. while reading the paper I had of course forgotten that I was heating water in the kitchen.

I went to Denny’s and decided to try again sunday morning.

saturday lunch: I didn’t want to take any chances and just had a sandwich (pre sliced bread) with some cheese (single wrapped cheese slices) and an apple.

saturday dinner: I learned through experience that you have to take the meal out of the plastic wrap before putting it into the oven. it is not enough to just pierce the top. I ordered some take out.

sunday breakfast: I managed to boil some water (I did not leave the stove while I was doing so) and toast some bread without any incident! I took that as a good sign for the day and thought I’ll give it a try for lunch and have some spaghetti with tomato sauce (from a glass of course!).

sunday lunch: let’s just not talk about it. I will have to remember to buy heavy duty stove top cleaner monday.

sunday dinner: I always wanted to know how the food is at that new restaurant around the corner….

my new microwave looks pretty! and I got it really cheap, they had a monday morning early bird special…..

Got Diapers?

by angelica

a while ago we had a comment here on the site from the daughter of an NDS, suggesting that the syndrome might skip a generation as she apparently has great domestic skills herself. that might well be, as far as I know some research pertaining to that issue is actually underway and as soon as we hear anything we will of course post it here.

what got me thinking though was the fact that there WAS a daughter of an NDS sufferer to begin with. how did she survive???

I personally never wanted children – and for good reason as it turns out because how would I have fed them? dressed them? how could I have brought up kids without starving, maiming, displacing or who knows what doing or not doing to them …?

an incident that happened many years ago comes to mind: I was living in an apartment complex in the big city and one of my neighbors and friends had baby twins. I guess they were cute, I never really figured out what made people fawn over little screaming sausage-like things. and it seems to me that for several month you do nothing but constantly put something in at one end only for it to come out smelly at the other end. until one day the little sausage starts crawling along the floor and you have to put everything in your place at a height of at least 3 feet. but I’m digressing.

there was an emergency one day and my neighbor had to leave, without the babies and any time for explanations. my doorbell rang, she stuffed the babies in my arms “gotta go, here is the bag with their stuff (???), see you later”.

I won’t go into details but the kids did survive. no thanks to my “skills” of course but I guess babies are resilient and can live with a lot of shit. literally and up to their ears! (how am i supposed to know about diapers?)

my advice: if you are an NDS sufferer and are thinking of having kids – make sure you have the income for a full time nanny. and cook. and housekeeper.

The Kindness Of Friends

by angelica

whereas poor blanche always depended on the kindness of strangers I did so on the kindness of my friends. to cook for me, to help me mend clothes (helping means they would have to do it, of course), to explain to me various things ‘domestic’.

lately I noticed that my NDS syndrome seems to inspire certain behavioral patterns in my VS⁺ (very domestic) friends in spite – or maybe because? – of my obvious symptoms. for example: the innocent remark to a homemade soup elicits the statement “oh, this is easy to make, I’ll show you.”

NO, you don’t!

sometimes they don’t even wait for an answer and go on to tell me anyhow on how to do it by pouring a bucketful of chinese gibberish into my ears. “sauté the onions”, “scald the milk”, “heat oil in large skillet” – how am I supposed to understand that?

a month ago a friend came visiting, went into my kitchen and put a black thing on my stove. a gift , he said and it was, as I learned, called an iron pan.

I got instructions, they sounded easy enough, and I then looked at the pan for the next few weeks with a mixture of dread and temptation until I finally decided it was time to maybe fight NDS.

first try: smoke alarm went off, experiment was stopped.

second try: everything went well until I added the ready-to-go-come-out-of-bottle teriyaki sauce. as it turns out you don’t heat the sauce up in the hot pan but add it later.

third try: I didn’t realize you have to cook the rice first.

fourth try: I managed to prepare a meal consisting of tofu cubes with precooked rice (my neighbor cooked the rice for me), flavored with teriyaki sauce.

I’m eating rice with tofu and teriyaki for a month now and am considering asking my friend for another recipe because it starts to get a bit boring…..

I think I may have just taken the first step to eventually overcome NDS.

How I Found Out

by angelica

I had no idea that I suffered from NDS-syndrome (No Domestic Skills) until I reached my early thirties.

first my mother cooked and did the homework, then my various boyfriends and later my now ex-husband did the chores.

when I was single I hired a cleaning lady and ate out.

then came the day when a friend of mine was helping re-roofing my garage and I was too lazy to drive to a restaurant to get some take out for lunch.

after just having spent two weeks visiting another dear friend of mine who loves to cook and being subjected to watching her do just that for 14 whole days I decided to FIX LUNCH myself.

I had eggs in the fridge, and potatoes that weren’t too old, and frozen spinach. I always have frozen vegetables in my freezer cause they are healthy. every few month I throw the old ones out and replenish them with new ones. I do the same with the potatoes.

anyways – how hard could it be to cook some potatoes and serve them with spinach and scrambled eggs?

to make a long story short: if we’d been in an Italian restaurant this would have been on the menu:

potatoes al dente, served with spinach porridge and egg flambé.

and a look into the kitchen made the lebanon in 2006 after the israeli campaign come to mind.

this was my first hint that I might suffer from NDS-syndrome. and soon the evidence mounted!

to be continued…..