Photo: _nur

You know all these cans of vegetable broth lined up on the supermarket shelves? — a quick way to start a soup, or make a sauce, or juice up a simple casserole, sure enough. But while the convenience factor is tempting, I’ve never actually broken down and bought a can.

Why?

Because some things are thrifty, and some things are easy, but to go out and buy something in a can makes no sense to me (or my wallet) when you can get the same thing cheaper and just as easily, right in your own kitchen. Bonus, no extra packaging waste to burden poor Mother Nature!

Here’s the thing: You already know that the best way to cook vegetables is to use as little water as possible, right? That keeps all the vitamins and other nutritional goodies from getting washed away. Roasting, stir-frying, steaming — these are all great ways to cook your veggies.

But sometimes, you’ve just gotta boil. Mashed potatoes, just for one example. Or to cook carrots that will be mushy enough to make a batch of Becca’s Uber-fabulous Carrot Souffle, for another example…

So here’s what I do — a kitchen tip I picked up from my ultra-frugal mother, and her mother before her.

Make you own vegetable broth!

Instead of draining away the water you use to boil the vegetables, simply save it in a plastic container and pop it in the freezer. Save your vegetable cooking water for a few meals’ worth — any vegetables will do, the cooking water can pretty much all go in together — and you’ve got yourself a stash of vegetable broth to pull out, thaw, and cook with the next time you want to make wonderful homemade soup or a casserole dish.

You know all these cans of vegetable broth lined up on the supermarket shelves? — a quick way to start a soup, or make a sauce, or juice up a simple casserole, sure enough. But while the convenience factor is tempting, I’ve never actually broken down and bought a can.

Why?

Because some things are thrifty, and some things are easy, but to go out and buy something in a can makes no sense to me (or my wallet) when you can get the same thing cheaper and just as easily, right in your own kitchen. Bonus, no extra packaging waste to burden poor Mother Nature!

Here’s the thing: You already know that the best way to cook vegetables is to use as little water as possible, right? That keeps all the vitamins and other nutritional goodies from getting washed away. Roasting, stir-frying, steaming — these are all great ways to cook your veggies.

But sometimes, you’ve just gotta boil. Mashed potatoes, just for one example. Or to cook carrots that will be mushy enough to make a batch of Becca’s Uber-fabulous Carrot Souffle, for another example…

So here’s what I do — a kitchen tip I picked up from my ultra-frugal mother, and her mother before her.

Make you own vegetable broth!

Instead of draining away the water you use to boil the vegetables, simply save it in a plastic container and pop it in the freezer. Save your vegetable cooking water for a few meals’ worth — any vegetables will do, the cooking water can pretty much all go in together — and you’ve got yourself a stash of vegetable broth to pull out, thaw, and cook with the next time you want to make wonderful homemade soup or a casserole dish.

One battered old-faithful dictionary on my shelves, published circa 1975, defines a geek as “a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken. ” You may be deeply relieved to know that I’ve upgraded to a squeaky-new Canadian Oxford, although I can’t claim it’s a whole lot more flattering:

geek noun esp. N. Amer. informal 1. An uninteresting, ineffectual, socially inept person; a nerd. 2. A person thoroughly devoted to one usu. technical interest, study, etc., often at the expense of social interaction (computer geek).

Whatever.

Point is, the 1970s chicken-beheading freak is not at all what I have in mind here (try wikipedia, maybe) when I say that 80% of the most fabulous men I’ve ever known were geeks.

Other top contenders leaned towards the arts or construction trades, but that’s a shaggy-dog story for another place and time.

Geeks? You may well ask, O-mouthed with shock and doubt — geeks are sexy?

Absolutely.

Consider the facts.

To begin with, and on the most facile level, all those years of hunkering down with twelve-sided dice or closeted with computers, far from the damaging sun, means that adult geeks — those mercifully past the curse of teen acne — have the softest, most touchable skin any woman would envy. (If our own complexions are showing the effect of too much quality time at the beach, second-best is to be able to enjoy someone else’s baby-smooth skin, am I right? Tactile enjoyment. It goes a long way to explain why you can still find clothing made of velour.)

Secondly, as oodles of experts on women’s mating preferences will attest, intelligence is pretty darned sexy. And the defining characteristic of the geek is, of course, intelligence.

True, as my dictionary points out, the geeks among us are often behind-hand in developing the social savoire-faire of other types of men — but is that necessarily a bad thing? Many have evolved over time to compensate with a quick wit (sexy), attentive listening skills (very sexy), and a keen if transient interest in absolutely everything (also sexy) including what the woman he’s with is thinking (devastatingly sexy)!

To all their other fine attributes, add the fact that many high-functioning adult geeks have a significant potential for long-term rewarding employment. Let’s be practical: a steady income is not a bad attribute.

Fashion sense? — Ah, that’s nothing. That can be bought — or learned. Geeks love to learn new things and problem-solve, of course. It just all depends on what they consider the most urgent (or intriguing) topic to get their undivided attention at any given moment…

And if you’re lucky, sister, that undivided attention could be on you!

Fact is, geeks are fairly unlikely to have spent their teen years mingling with perky cheerleaders and sinful intent. As a result, the young geek reaches his maturity without an inflated BMOC ego — in fact, without too much at all in the way of annoying habits trained into him by Barbie and Tiffany girlfriends in his formative years.

Moving out into the working world, where his skills and qualities are more widely appreciated, the geek gains a quiet confidence. He begins to come into his own — yet retains a deep appreciation of his female companions that is seldom seen in other subgroups of the modern male.

Geeks don’t take women for granted: they pay attention.
And that, my friends, is the bottom line for any relationship.

I rest my case.

Rebuttal, anyone?
Comments?
David Krumholtz’s private phone number?