Wrapping up the holidays (and the moles)

It’s been a good holiday in the Pacific NW, time with family, friends, and merchants.  I think I got everything done on my list, the suitcase will be bulging with sundries, hard-to-find seasonings, and books.  Not much to carry on, though.  The airline is advising to take as little as possible: one sack, plan to leave it in the overhead storage during the first and last hour.

I had a brainstorm to expand my recipe file back in Maastricht.  King County’s library system is fantastic at finding and delivering books to the local branch, so I put them on the hunt for Dutch cookbooks.  They came up with three good ones, pictured, and I copied a couple of dozen traditional recipes.  The theory is that these will make good use of Dutch ingredients and cooking methods.  I’ll post the outcome.

‘making my daughter some gehakt balls tonight: there’s a dish OI can do with confidence.

The returns are done and the sales are spent.  The washer in my apartment is hard on clothes, and I need to recycle a number of shirts and pants.  The outlet stores had 60% off sales, so I stocked up on replacement bits to see me through the winter.  It’s still amazing how much wreckage the hoards do to a store: shelves in disarray, merchandise on the floor, discarded clothes filling the fitting rooms.

The warm weather has brought moles back into the yard, raising mounds beneath the winter moss.  I tried traps years ago, but have had better luck with trying to stink them out.  It’s a simple four-step process:

1)  Use a bulb planter to take the core out of the mound.

2) Feel around the walls to find the holes that lead in and out of the mound.  Stuff paper towel into the holes.

3)  Pour a quarter cup of gasoline into the hole, soaking the paper towel.

4)  Quickly cover up the hole and press the dirt flat with a heel.

Repeat on every mound and for a few days in a row.