Gas Lights and Garters

My gas light came on this morning on my way to work. I just stared at it for a while as I waited as a red light. It's been a long time since I've let the tank get low enough for the light to turn on. The last time I definitively remember the gas light coming on was the evening of my junior homecoming.

We drove all over that night. I drove to the restaurant, and then we went to the mall next door to take photos and then to our high school for the dance. After that, I drove back home to surprise my date with the garter I ended up making him even though we had said we weren't doing the mums and garters. (But I had bought one for myself anyway because I thought they were so pretty and wanted one.) And then I drove to our church where we hung out with a campfire, which resulted in the police coming and telling us we couldn't have the fire anymore, which kind of fizzled the rest of the evening out. And then I drove my date home because he couldn't drive yet, and then drove home. And somewhere between all those trips through Plano and Frisco, my gas light came on, I freaked out a little, and then decided I could make it through the rest of the evening. Quite gutsy of me...

My junior homecoming mum

A year or two prior to my first homecoming as a junior, an older friend at church was making his date a mum after our Friday night fellowsip. His parents were there, and most of the youth stayed around to socialize and watch. I knew his parents, and his mom turned to me and said in Chinese, "Oh yeah, these aren't that hard to make. Cathy, you know how to make these right?" And I shyly nodded my head, even though I had never made one before. In theory, it just looked so easy, but I didn't have any hands-on experience.

My junior date's garter was the first time I had ever made one myself. I was young and naive at the time, and I hadn't a clue where to start, so I fell for the "pre-made backing" and paid about $15 for that piece to start with. Little did I know it cost less than $10 to make and wasn't even that difficult.

The garter I made for my date - junior year.

It's not the most impressive homecoming garter, but for a 17-year-old who tried her hands at a first-time DIY, it's not bad.

For my senior homecoming the year after, my date and I agreed not to do mums and garters as well. Again, I really wanted one, because you know, it was a white and silver one instead of maroon and white, so it would definitely look better on a mum and I just had to have one. But instead of buying one from the drill team mothers, I made my own. I went out and bought all the materials and taught myself how to make the military braids (Which they now sell for $7.99 each! Proposterous for mere yardage of cheap ribbon.) I like it better than my junior mum, but I think that's my own personal bias because I made it myself.

My senior mum which I made by hand. I
think it looks much more impressive than the one
I bought the previous year. Notice that military braid?
Yup, handmade!

Coincidentally, I am making garters with the girls I disciple tonight in place of our normal studies. I really wanted to encourage them to make their own garters instead of paying to outsource it for a number a reasons.

1. I want to challenge them to be able to take on a task that seems great at first and to work through it, especially when the stakes are still low. There's going to be a lot of things in their future that might seem like giant hurdles. And it's true, some of them are hurdles you may not want to attempt or are best left alone. But there are others that might be worthwhile, you try to attempt, and you fail, and that's okay. And then there are the rest that you try to attempt, succeed, and leave with a sense of empowerment knowing you did something and proved yourself wrong, in a good way.

2. I want to teach them to use their resources wisely. Personally, my opinion is that the homecoming marketing is ridiculous, and I don't believe it wise to spend hundreds of dollars on a mum or garter. However, I do believe that it is more special to spend more time on something handmade to give to your homecoming date, especially if you're actually dating the person and he/she is more than just a friend.

3. Their mentor happens to be me, and I love making mums and garters, so I would like to share my knowledge and expertise with them to help them make it and teach them something new at the same time. Also, when she can make mums that actually look good, how can you go wrong? :)

I'll have to ask them later for their opinions of my theory and process behind this and their overall experience. Perhaps they'll let me share with you after. :)

The Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs

I can't remember anymore how I discovered this or who did it for the first time, but it was in China where I realized the secret to a perfect hard-boiled egg. Let's first define the perfect hard-boiled egg.

1. The shell has to peel easily. If the thin membrane underneath sticks even the slightest bit, you're going to lose part of your precious egg white. Or a lot of it.
2. There has to be no gray ring on the very edge of the egg yolk on the inside. If there is, you've overcooked it. Now, I know, for us Asians, there are many wonderful recipes out there for tea eggs and seasoned hard boiled eggs in stews, and you will see the gray ring in it. And that's just due to an extended amount of cooking time that the recipe calls for. And that's fine. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
3. The egg yolk is completely cooked through and opaque, not translucent. So we're not soft-boiling here. 

If you do a Google search or ask chefs or well-seasoned mothers, they'll tell you the tricks of timing it perfectly. They'll tell you to add vinegar to the water to make the shells peel easier. They'll tell you to dunk the eggs into ice as soon as you're done to stop the cooking immediately. They'll tell you to remove the pot off the stove and let it sit for x amount of time. But see, all these things require a very precise timing. Nobody tells you how to cook an egg in a kettle unless you ask them specifically about using a kettle.

When I was living in China, I discovered hard-boiling my eggs in my tea kettle. Here's the secret.
First, put however many eggs you want or can fit into a tea kettle with the automatic shut-off feature. This is key that it has the automatic shut-off feature.
Second, fill the kettle with enough water that all the eggs are submerged.
Third, flip the switch and boil the water.
Fourth, after the water boils (which is about 2-3 minutes), let the eggs sit in the water for at least 10 minutes. Anything longer than that is fine, AND, you will not develop the gray ring.

My five little eggs nesting after the boil.

You see, the reason why cooking hard-boiled eggs in the tea kettle is so much easier in my opinion than other techniques is that

a. you don't need to add vinegar to make it peel easily
b. you don't need to do any special timing methods. Once it's in, it's in.
c. If you have at least 13 minutes to wait, you're golden. If you have more than 13 minutes to wait, it won't ruin them either.

This came in handy last Sunday because Jonathan and I woke up earlier than normal for church. We had a good 30 - 40 minutes before we had to leave the house. So I suggested going out on a walk to enjoy the cooler weather. However, I also wanted to eat something decent for once in the morning instead of going to church on an empty stomach like we normally do. Conveniently enough, I popped three eggs into our kettle, filled it with water, and flipped the switch. We went out and took a stroll around our neighborhood for about 15-20 minutes. After coming back, I scooped the eggs out of the kettle, rinsed them under cold tap water to cool so I could eat it, and we had breakfast.

I will say, the one risk to doing this is that every now and then, I would say probably less than 10% of the time, you may end up having an egg explode in the kettle during the boiling process. This is more likely to happen if the egg already has signs of cracks along the shell (not actually cracked though). In my time in China, this happened once. The fortunate part is everything is cooked, so you just have to wash your kettle out.

Yolks cooked all the way through. No gray ring.

There really is no gray ring.

That's my secret to perfect hard-boiled eggs. :)