So, I find this letter I received from a major beverage company kind of funny and also kind of eye-opening. I applied for a position as a Receptionist at their corporate headquarters right when we got to Seattle (maybe before, when we were still squatting in Nate's sister's apartment in Sacramento, CA.)
January 12, 2011
Caitlin O. Nelson
(My Permanent Address,
which was still in NH at the time)
Dear Caitlin:
We have received your application for the position of Receptionist/Administrative Assistant. After careful consideration, we regret to inform you that you have not been selected for this position.
We will retain your candidate file in our database and may inform you of job openings that match your profile if you selected this option. We also invite you to visit the Career Section on our Web site regularly.
We thank you for your interest in (Name) Beverages Company and wish you all the best in your career.
Best regards,
Human Resources Department
(Name) Beverages Company
If I recall correctly, the job description wasn't anything fancy: answer phones, distribute mail, hand out badges for guests coming into the headquarters. Pretty much the exact same thing I do now. I find this letter kind of funny, because the company I'm working for contacted ME for an interview. They found my resume on CareerBuilder and wanted me to come in. As opposed to this company, which did not contact me for an interview, or contact me at all, until almost
four months later, to tell me I didn't get the position. Ya think?
In any case, it also got me thinking about what we would have done if Freeman
hadn't contacted me. I did receive another job offer before this one, for a part-time administrative assistant/reception relief position in a building pretty much equidistant, in the opposite direction, but the company, unfortunately, never got the go-ahead from their headquarters to hire me for the position. It worked out better, because I was looking for a full-time position, but I was thinking that I could "get my foot in the door" with these people, and hopefully they'd decide they had a job for me later on down the line. In any case, I was told I had a job with them on October 8, 2010 (which was, I want to say, about two weeks after my interview,) and told them I had received a job with Freeman on October 22, 2010, a full two weeks later. At this point, they still had not received the approval from their headquarters to do the hiring, so I had continued to go on interviews (because I couldn't wait around,) including retail positions for the holidays. It was all a crazy, big mess. So, it ended up that I had the part-time administrative assistant job offer, a part-time, seasonal retail job offer and my full-time job offer contending all at the same time. Obviously we know which one I chose.
The point of all this is that I am our financial security. I make enough to pay for our apartment and basic necessities, so Nate's pay winds up becoming spending (or soon, savings,) for us to do with what we please. But if Freeman hadn't contacted me? We might not be in Seattle anymore. We wouldn't have been able to afford our apartment. We would have had to at least go back to California and mooch off of Nate's sister's hospitality for a while, until we could find jobs there. Or we might have had to beg money from our parents to make it back across the US as quickly as possible to live in Tallahassee (where I always have a job, and I'm sure Nate could have, also,) Charleston (where my Mom isn't even LIVING anymore,) or Franklin, where we have a room set up for us to stay in whenever we'd like, and try to find a job in NH or MA (Nate could have had a job in Burlington, in probably one of two locations, at least for a while, but those would be kind of an extreme commute from his parent's house. As would my job, which I probably could have had back, if I'd asked really nicely, at
MiniLuxe.) What a FAILURE that would have been. Broke and right back where we started. It's kind of terrifying to think about, and makes me consider myself extremely lucky.
Enough bad stuff. Nate made biscuit dough yesterday (which turned out AWESOME -- we have his Mom's recipe to thank for that,) so that I could make chicken 'n dumplins for dinner. This is a recipe I've made before, that I found in
Southern Living, which normally calls for pre-cooked chicken, a can of cream of chicken soup and a can of chicken broth, which you heat, add carrots, celery and Pillsbury Grands biscuit dough to, and wahlah! Chicken 'n dumplins. Delicious. I discovered however, when I went to make it last night, that I didn't have chicken broth OR cream of chicken soup. So, here's what I wound up doing. It turned out superbly, just ask Nate.
Chicken 'n Dumplins with Cheesy Biscuit Breadsticks (this amount of food fed the two of us, with a little bit left over for lunch for me today. And we may have eaten too many breadsticks in one sitting.)
Ingredients:
1.5 tablespoons flour
1.5 tablespoons butter/margarine (we always use margarine, but butter is perfectly acceptable)
1.5 cups of milk
1 cup of water (or maybe 1.5 cups...I didn't actually measure the excess water I added. Really you just want enough water added to the base to cover all the things cooking in the pot)
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
Some white mushrooms, coarsely chopped (maybe 4 or 5, depending on size? We get ours pre-chopped, because I'm lazy and because it's the same price for a pound chopped as a pound whole at the market we go to.)
1/3 bag frozen corn (I'm sure you could use fresh corn, or canned corn, too.)
~1lb chicken breast (we had about a 2lb whole chicken breast, which I cut in half and tried to get rid of as much fat as possible from)
Half a batch of plain biscuit mix (but make a whole batch, cause you'll need the rest for cheesy biscuit breadsticks!)
Rosemary
Marjoram
Thyme
Oregano
(you can also just skip these four spices and use poultry seasoning instead, which also has ginger and sage in it. We didn't have poultry seasoning, ginger or sage, so those are the four herbs I used. Mine were dried.)
Salt
Pepper (if you like. I don't.)
Garlic (if you feel like it. I have a Garlic spray that I bought at a winery in the El Dorado Hills in CA. I use when I want just a hint of garlicky tastes. Or when I don't feel like chopping garlic.)
Directions:
1) Have you boyfriend/sibling/parent//friend/child/spouse/dog find a plain jane biscuit recipe and make it. Then have them cut it into strips. Ours varied in size from 1" to, like, 3". Don't worry too much about it.
2) Preheat the oven to 450.
Meanwhile....
3) Start your roux base with the butter and flour (easy roux recipe
here. But basically, just put the flour and butter in the bottom of your saucepan over medium-ish heat until they're fully combined and look kinda weird and lumpy.)
4) Pour in the milk on top of the roux base. Stir it some, while you bring it to a boil, then reduce to medium-ish heat so it's not quite simmering. (here's a recipe for a
cream sauce, if you need it. Though, I don't usually put "vegetable water" in mine, whatever that is.)
5) After the cream base is started, cut your chicken into medallions (or cubes...or, don't cut it at all) and cook over medium-ish heat. At this point, I seasoned my chicken liberally with aforementioned spices. Like, just dumped a whole bunch on either side. Most of it will come off and get cooked down into the liquid base, so you probably don't need to worry too much about over-spicing. Unless you're a crazy spicer. But I'm pretty crazy about spicing, so you'd have to be way crazier than me. My chicken was
coated with spice on either side.
6) While chicken is cooking (and you're flipping it, and occasionally stirring your cream sauce, to make sure the roux base is integrated and you aren't burning the milk,) chop up your carrots and celery (and mushrooms.)
7) Once the chicken is fully cooked, chop it finely/shred it with your knife until it's in smaller, bite-sized pieces. At this point, the cream sauce should be mostly lump-less, but shouldn't have thickened too much (if you need to turn it down to low while you fix the chicken, this is perfectly acceptable. It isn't going anywhere.)
8) Put chopped chicken, celery, carrots, frozen corn (if you're using fresh corn or canned corn, you probably can wait to put it in with the mushrooms,) along with about half the biscuit strips into the roux base. Add enough water to cover everything in the pot (you don't need to drown it, just mostly cover everything,) and turn the heat up to medium-ish. Just enough to simmer the pot.
9) Salt liberally (i.e.: salt to taste.) I tend to be light-handed when it comes to salt, but if you're heavy handed, you might want to skip salting the chicken and just salt the liquid base. Then you can taste it and make sure you aren't over-salting.
8) While the pot is coming to a simmer, saute mushrooms in butter or olive oil or medium-high heat until they're nice and brown and delicious looking. Once they're done, and the pot has come to a simmer, add them (and fresh or canned corn, if you're using it,) to the pot. Stir everything, put the top on and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes, continuing to stir occasionally. This will be enough time to thicken the base, cook the raw veggies, and warm everything up to the same temp. Done and done.
9) Once you've set your chicken 'n dumplins to simmering, have your helper (see first instruction for acceptable people,) hand roll out the rest of the strips to your preferred length. Take two and twist them around each other to make twisty breadsticks. Add A LOT of cheese (or less cheese, if you are not a cheese fanatic,) to the tops and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10-12 minutes.
Everything should be ready about the same time! Breadsticks are cheesy and delicious, and chicken 'n dumplins are hot and thick and everyone is happy. Serve and enjoy.
Besides the chopping, this recipe as super easy. Even substituting fresh ingredients, spicing everything and making the base myself, it didn't take more than half an hour to make everything. Especially with the boyfriend helping out with the biscuit part! Turned out ok, I'd say:
As for TPTP, today it is NASTY outside, and I still managed to look vaguely put together. It snowed, then rained last night, so I was hoping for a snow day (like all the Easter Coast-ers are getting today,) but alas, the roads were not icy and frozen, so I was stuck going to work. In any case, I wore more casual cords (and actually brought at extra pair of pants, just in case,) because the last time I tried to walk to work in wind and rain, not only did my umbrella break, but I was soaked from the waist down before I even got 100 feet out the door. It wasn't that bad today, thankfully, but it was pretty slippery, with all the water, snow and ice on the ground, so going down the hill to get to work was more like skiing than anything else.
It's been sadly slow at work, so I've spent a lot of time favoriting things on
Etsy and
ModCloth, deciding what I want to spend all my money on (when I have money again.) Love these:
-C
