The Big Green House

Monday, May 19, 2003

 

Unleaded

As I believe I�ve mentioned before, Science Girl is overseeing the restoration of Stately Science Manor to its former level of splendor. In the course of this project, it has become necessary to scrape a little paint here and there. As it turns out, some of this paint has been around since the joint went up, circa 1932. Paint from that era, as I�m sure you know, is chock full of deadly, brain-softening lead.

This is very definitely Not A Good Thing.

However, Science Girl has risen to the challenge, as is her wont. I may be way off base here, but I think she kinda digs this wrinkle in the work. Not because she wanted to be exposed to lead, of course. Don�t be stupid. It adds a little hint of danger to the proceedings, and it�s vaguely Scientific, so I think it spiced up what was otherwise a somewhat tedious job. (Feel free to correct me if I�m wrong, sweetie.) She did an awful lot of research on the web on lead-based paint and its removal, and then we spent a good part of yesterday shopping for paint-removal equipment and some protective gear for her to wear while she�s using it.

Lead is bad for adult humans, yes, but it is especially Not Good for small dogs. Since they don�t make protective suits for dogs, (and I think we�d have trouble getting her to wear one anyway), this means that Lucy can�t visit Science Manor again until most of the work is done. She has a tendency to view small objects on the floor, like paint chips, as potential snacks.

What this all comes down to, for those of you still awake at this point, is that weekends will be spent at The Big Green House for the next few weeks. How does this affect you, the Big Green House reader? Well� it doesn�t, really. For us, it means that I�ll be cooking on weekends again (we only have one burner that works over at Science Manor, and since SG knows the ins & outs of its use I�ll usually defer to her while we�re there). Saturday night I prepared two dishes I�d never made before, in an attempt to match the meal to the Rafanelli I mentioned last week. The chicken in red wine (a variation on Coq au Vin, thankfully omitting the chicken�s blood, from Jacques Pepin�s Table, the cookbook I probably use more than any other) was OK, although I could have reduced the wine a bit longer, I think. To go along with it I tried making something I�d seen this guy make on TV that morning: polenta with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. Yeah, it�s a clich� � go ahead and laugh. It�s also pretty damn tasty. I think next time I�d add more tomatoes & try to incorporate the goat cheese a little better, though. Oh, and the wine was as advertised: Very Nice Indeed. Big & lush but still recognizably zinfandel.

Was it a perfect meal? Aside from the nice green salad SG whipped up, not really. It was good, but it could have been better. Next time, it will be so. It was fun to try out some different recipes, and it�s always fun to cook for and eat with SG, so I�d say that all in all it was a moderate success. I have learned not to ask for much more than that.

Edit: Upon conferring with Science Girl, I find that what I mistook for enthusiasm for the project was in fact fear-based zeal. SG is very, very scared of the lead, and rightfully so. She�s been living there, in what qualifies as a toxic environment, for the past month or two, while dust and paint chips have been spread about the house. Her research, while informative, was also terrifying � as such research often is. She was bombarded with tale after tale of the toxicity of lead & it�s effects on the central nervous system, etc. Rather than collapsing into a useless pool of terrified goo, which probably would have been my plan of attack, she saw what needed to be done and set about doing it.


bmarkey 5/19/2003 07:25:00 PM