Wednesday, August 29, 2012

bread! and registration!












I made what I thought was a pretty kooky salad last night, but it turned out to be pretty dang delicious. It was mostly based on the canned food I brought out with us in Komfy because I figured that it would be incredibly wasteful to throw out perfectly good food just because we were moving across the country. So this salad consisted of fresh cabbage and celery (purchased here), garbanzo beans, pineapple, pickled banana peppers, and water chestnuts, with a homemade dressing consisting of peanut butter, rice vinegar, garlic, mirin, and some Dave's Insanity Sauce. I was shocked when the bowl was emptied after dinner. We also had Rice-A-Roni with ground beef. And some feta. Because we're poor, but I put feta on everything.

Then I made The Bread. Flour, yeast, salt, and water (and a dusting of cornmeal in the bottom of the pan for that gritty goodness). Perfection in a loaf. My first batch of homemade carbs. It exceeded my expectations on all counts.

(Also, that's a random shot of turkeys in the driveway this morning. My ISO was set too low, so it's dark, but I got some flight feathers!)

We got our Tennessee plates today. We came to the County Clerk armed with passports, birth certificates, a marriage license, CA titles, CA registrations, our mortgage contract, and our social security cards for good measure. The Tennessee state website put the fear in my belly that we wouldn't have the documentation necessary to make our vehicles official (there was a list on the state website of these required documents, so I am not completely crazy showing up with a file folder full of them). Turns out, all we needed were the titles. No proof of residency needed. No proof of insurance. I drove back to the holler with a shit-eating grin on my face. (Forgive my filthy car -- it really is impossible to keep them clean out here. I don't know why Jaybird's truck is so much cleaner than mine.)

And, finally, the Nekster. I'm pretty sure he's a good three-feet long stretched out. (Also forgive the brassiere. I don't clean up before taking impromptu shots.)

7 comments:

  1. I feel you on the car registration issue. I showed up with a huge file folder at the prefecture when we imported our Swedish car here in France. Some papers from the list were ones I couldn't get, because the only list available was for importing a car you've just bought, not one you've owned for years, but I'd cleared that with them via e-mail and brought along copies of the e-mails too for good measure.

    That's where I stop sympathising, because we queued for an hour only to be told we were missing a piece of paper from our tax office. This paper, it turns out, was just a copy of some of our other papers that we did have with us, but with a stamp to show that we had paid VAT on the vehicle, even though we weren't supposed to pay VAT on it because it is old. :P

    Did I mention we also had to wait 3 months for Toyota to send us a piece of paper we'd paid 150€ for, to import the car? Meaning that in the end, we were driving illegally for failing to import in the right time frame.

    I'm totally never moving again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's insane! And I thought moving state to state was bad enough. I should have mentioned also that the total fees for the five vehicles we brought in to TN (two cars, two motorcycles, and the travel trailer -- ridiculous, I know) was exactly the same for ONE vehicle in California. Score!

      Delete
  2. OK, it looks like I'm cooking with gas now! I guess each time I have to make sure I plug in either name/URL or anonymous to get my comment to publish. That bread looks scrumptious! Make some of that salad dressing when we get there. Would like to try it! We, too, found registration of vehicles in Texas was so much less expensive than in CA! Yay, for states beginning in Te!! Luv-Ma

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was going to invite you to our new Meetup group, but can't seem to remember your email address and can't seem to find it on your blog. If you're interested, drop me an email (anna@kitenet.net) and I'll send you an invite. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose I should include my email addy when telling readers that I'll email them super secret recipes if they ask. ;) You can use sarahnoce@gmail.com, but I'll also email you because I want to ask you a question anyway about your water holding tank.

      Delete