msquixotic's Profile

Display Name: msquixotic
Member Since: 12/18/10

Latest Comments...

citygirlsf, I had a similar experience. A few years ago, I lived in an older, somewhat flimsily built apartment complex (a hard wind hitting the building would make my floor lamps sway). I had a downstairs neighbor who would start banging on the ceiling the second I opened my front door, and would often continue banging while I was literally doing nothing noisy (sitting on my couch or lying in bed reading). I had ignored all sorts of disturbance from him, including music so loud that the people upstairs from me (i.e. two floors away from him) could hear it, because it was an old, flimsy apartment building, and apartment life means dealing with other people.

Then one night, when I'd been in bed reading for the better part of an hour, this guy starts banging on his ceiling and cussing me out: "You fat f***ing bitch, you've ruined my life, you stupid f***ing cow." For a good 10 minutes he went on like that. Scared teh life out of me. I was sitting on the front steps of the office building the next morning when the complex manager arrived. We had a chat, I was backed up by another neighbor from the building who remarked on how loud this guy was, and soon thereafter, the dude no longer lived downstairs.

Which is a long way of saying, I understand that noise from an adjoining apartment can be bothersome, but a lot of that comes with apartment life. Try to be reasonable both in your own behavior and in your expectations of others. And if you really can't deal with any noise from adjoining units, find a single family home.


What To Do When You Are the Noisy Upstairs Neighbor? Good Questions
11/7/12 5:11 PM

Leave the cumin out of the dish, then have a small dish of it on the table and use it to season to taste, like salt and pepper.


Can I Make Great Mexican Food Without Cumin? Good Questions
9/20/12 3:11 AM

I like American cheese for grilled cheese, but tend to stick with Horizon's Organic American cheese. Nothing scary on the ingredient list, and I still get a grilled cheese that makes me feel 5.


Do You Use American Cheese Slices? If Not, Try Making Them At Home! Reader Survey
7/4/12 4:33 PM

Another fan of the Alton Brown method, though I've tweaked his recipe from "I'm Just Here For the Food." I use the rub he suggests, but use pomegranate juice or pomegranate-cherry juice as the braising liquid. When the ribs are cooked, the braising liquid and drippings are combined with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and Sriracha to make the sauce. But I will admit that if I had a smoker, I'd give the ribs an hour in there before moving them to the oven for the braise.


How to Cook Great Ribs in the Oven Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn
7/4/12 4:27 PM

One of the points the author of the Slate article seems to miss is that many digital formats don't give you the ability to make notes on the recipe, something I'm constantly doing in my cookbooks. I have dozens of online recipes bookmarked, but if I'm going to be using them at all often, they wind up getting transcribed onto notecards, as I'm not going to remember every peculiarity of or variation on every recipe if I can't put it down in writing somewhere.

The myriad other issues with digital alternatives to print cookbooks (cost, sensitivity to kitchen mess, formatting issues, etc.) have been amply covered by others here, but never seem to be addressed by writers eager to eulogize print media.


"Cookbooks Will Go Extinct One Day and That's OK." Agree or Disagree?
6/22/12 1:30 PM

@rucy: I'm pretty sure I saw a tray like that at West Elm last spring, but I'm not sure if they still carry it.


Lizzie's Wallpapered IKEA Lack Table
Pretty City Things

1/27/12 6:47 PM

For those either deriding the question as silly or just jumping to "buy a new matress," it's entirely possible that while the bed is in her budget, but a new mattress isn't right now. So the question is, can I make what I can afford work, or should I just pass up an otherwise great find? Which is never a silly question.

Yes, cheap mattresses can be found, but what you save up front you usually wind up paying for in back pain later.


Full Mattress in Queen Frame?
Good Questions

1/24/12 8:30 PM

Sausage cheese balls.


What Should I Make for the Office Christmas Potluck?
Good Questions

12/13/11 5:54 PM

Pumpkin bran muffins. They could even be baked ahead of time, frozen, and then warmed in the oven the morning of your breakfast. They're seasonal, moist (thanks to the pumpkin) and there are all sorts of healthy permutations you can try (all whole wheat pastry flour; sub in flax meal for some or all of the butter in a recipe(3:1 ratio); use half the sugar, but make it brown sugar for a richer sweetness, and replace the other half with more pumpkin). I'm still playing with my recipe to get it where I want it (mostly tweaking the spices and adding a bit more pumpkin), but it's a good way to go.


Help Me Plan a Post-Thanksgiving Breakfast Bar for a Crowd
Good Questions

11/10/11 5:33 PM

Not so much daring as daft. As noted by pretty much everyone above, spraying utensils with toxic compounds is beyond stupid, and the end result looks beyond cheap.


Spray Paint Silverware Handles for a Custom Look
Sania Pell at Home

11/9/11 4:30 PM

Betty33, you crack me up.


How To Declutter Your Home
10/26/11 1:38 AM

LOVE the red door. Wish I could paint my door, but that's not so much an option in my apartment. Boo.


Before & After: An Entry Door Gets a Sexy Color Makeover
Color Therapy

10/26/11 12:37 AM

On a non-book note: am I the only one who loves the look of open shelving like the picture at the very top of the page, but can't look at pictures like that without thinking "those people must not have cats?"


How To Declutter Your Home
10/26/11 12:35 AM

The clearest memories I have of my paternal grandfather, who died when I was 3, involve his library: two rooms with walls just lined with books and records, floor to ceiling. It was a wonderous place to a little girl who was obsessed with reading. When my grandmother sold the house, the my father and his siblings divided up the books they wanted and the rest (including my great-grandparents' law library) got donated to various libraries. While I didn't ask for anything out of the library at the time (I was 10 or so), I regret that now. It feels like I missed an opportunity to keep that piece of my history. I know my father will one day pass the books he kept on to my sister and to me, but the loss of the opportunity to keep something personal (and the loss of the legal books, since I'm now a lawyer myself) saddens me a bit.

When one of my uncles died, my aunt passed his Nero Wolfe collection on to me. That collection is one of my most cherished possessions, not just because of my love for the books (which are fabulous, every time I read them), but for the connection to someone I loved who is now gone.

Which is all a round about way of saying that books can be very emotional things (as evidenced by the rather spirited discussion here). For those of us who have that very personal connection with our collection, it feels like a personal attack when someone derides books as clutter. And comments like "you know, they have these things called libraries," or "you really can't find another copy of A Tale of Two Cities" rankle not just because of the snide tone, but because the speaker/writer so clearly feels free to judge us even though they neither know nor understand us.

My books are a lot like Rob's records in High Fidelity. They're more than just the information they contain-as a collection, they tell the story of me.

I don't want to get into whether the books=clutter meme is some sign of anti-intellectualism, the evils of TV (which I also love, perhaps unhealthily), consumerism, the downfall of civilization as we know it, etc. We all have crap we could stand to be rid of (she said, staring at the ever growing collection of papers that need to be shredded and recycled). But a little less judgment about what strangers keep, toss, or give away would be a good thing.

That said, it does physically pain me to hear/ read about books being thrown out. Can't they be passed on to a new home instead of being sent to a landfill? That's not said to judge those who throw books out wholesale--just a gentle reminder that that there are Goodwills and libraries (local, school, prison, bookmobiles) that might be willing to take some of your unwanted books off your hands, especially in a time when limited budgets restrict what new materials can be purchased.


How To Declutter Your Home
10/26/11 12:32 AM

Use buttermilk as the base for a chicken marinade. You get a wonderfully tender texture, and a slightly tangy flavor to the chicken.


What Can I Do With Leftover Buttermilk?
Good Questions

10/25/11 5:00 PM

In the middle of winter, there's something comforting about a big pot of sauce simmering. But, in all honestly, there's some pretty good jarred sauce out there, and after a long day, it just makes my life easier. I'm in love with Classico's Spicy Tomato Basil right now.


Make or Buy? Tomato Sauce
10/15/11 3:40 AM

I usually just use a Sharpie on glass jars, which erases fairly easily with a little vinegar on a paper towel. But this might be an interesting alternative.


Quick Tip: Keep a Grease Pencil In Your Kitchen
10/12/11 7:20 PM

While not the sort of "bad recipe" the article means, Alton Brown's baking book has a brownie recipe that calls for "tk" water. No idea what that's supposed to mean. A useless recipe is about as frustrating as a disaster of a recipe, but at least it's less wasteful.


Bad Recipes: Have You Ever Been Burned?
9/28/11 8:24 PM

I'd do the whole room in a peacock blue, and paint the picture rail a bright white.


Color Prescription: What Color Would You Choose?
The Color Cure

8/17/11 11:03 PM

If you a) use the right filters on the box (changing them regularly); b) scoop regularly (once or twice a day) and c) add some baking soda to the litter, odor shouldn't be an issue.


Setting Up Home: Making the Most of Closets
8/10/11 8:33 PM