housemate

[adrian_turtle]

Once upon a time, the University of Michigan asked 3 lifestyle* questions to match roommates.
Do you smoke?
Do you like to sleep with the window open or closed?**
Do you like raw or cooked carrots?***
The last question was either a subtle psychological attempt to predict SOMETHING, or it was a ploy to make new roommates feel they had something in common, rolling their eyes together at the absurdities of the university housing office.

I don't know how well it worked, overall. (My mother roomed with her twin sister, and they found one another exactly as annoying as they expected.) I just thought of it a lot, when I was wondering what to ask potential housemates. And what to ask the people they gave as references. There were some nerve-wracking false starts.

I finally found somebody just before going out of town last week. He's an academic, living away from his family for a year or so while he does a post-doc. I don't know him very well--I can't know him very well, on such short acquaintance, but I felt comfortable with the guy. He's taking over the second half of the lease from Sovay, and I really hope it goes well.

*It's amazing how many aspects of lifestyle one person might consider significant and another consider trivial. What time do you like to shower? Do you whistle? (CAN you whistle?)

**This was a great way for the housing office to prevent roommate conflict for 6 weeks. Then the roommate from a warm climate realizes those last few words of "with the window open, unless it's freezing outside," might not go without saying.

***I used to think the only options for carrots were "raw" and "cooked," but then I discovered pickled carrots. I recommend these: http://www.realpickles.com/products_carrot.html

Comments

[wild_irises]

Good luck with him!

[amaebi]

Humans are hard to live with. May this roommate match be better than seems conceivable!

[rinue]

I love pickled carrots! I made some last week and they are already gone. Consequently I can't really call pickling "preserving," at least not as practiced in my house.

[adrian_turtle]

Do you have a recipe? I am very pleased with the packaged stuff, and want to share it with Redbird...but I am daunted by getting it to Seattle. (Especially as the company says they only ship within the Northeast. Is there some reason not to ship further?) If something similar can be made without too much trouble at home, that would be very convenient.

[rinue]

In this particular case, the laziest recipe ever: I had just finished a jar of storebought spicy dill pickles (some standard grocery store brand, Claussen or Vlasic probably, I can't remember). I had some carrots around, so I rinsed them off, stuck them in the leftover brine, and left them alone for maybe two days. Worked like gangbusters.

I do sometimes make pickles from scratch, but in a similarly lazy, throw some water and vinegar and salt and spices in a jar with whatever I'm pickling, stick it in the refrigerator, look at it in a week, and eat it if it hasn't turned black and sometimes even then. (That's just a reaction of the iodine that makes it look less pretty and doesn't influence the taste; you can get around it if you buy pickling salts, but for me part of the beauty of pickles is their non-fussiness. This leads to uncertainty, but I guess you could say I take a wabi-sabi approach to pickling.)

With refrigerator pickles, you don't really have to worry about botulism or any of the dangerous stuff that can happen in fermenting, so basically, you just put whatever it is you're pickling in a clean jar, fill the empty space halfway with white vinegar and half with water, add a bunch of salt, and throw in whatever herbs (fresh or dried) you think seem appealing at the time. Stick it in the fridge. Wait two or three days. Done.

The only downside to this approach rather than the more labor intensive one is the preservative one - refrigerator pickles last maybe a few months, not potentially years. But as stated, I always wind up eating them within about a week of putting them in the jar, so it's never an issue.

[aedifica]

I'm glad you found someone too! My new housemate is sitting companionably near me and reading a book.