Last Friday I suppose I was still in a sous vide mood and mode, and this time I had a couple of lovely (but a bit thin!) ribeye steaks to cook up for dinner. With garlic, shallots, and fresh thyme and rosemary from my kitchen herb garden, the steaks got to a perfect medium-rare temperature before I put a finishing sear on them in a hot iron skillet.
Crispy roasted broccoli and homemade red-skin mashed potatoes made it a terrific week-ending feast.
After some lingering showers that morning, the afternoon had been almost like a surprisingly sunny day in February: it was rather windy, almost blustery, with a distinct chill in the air. If I'd been looking for a merciful end to a brutal winter back in those late months of that most-hated season, I'd've relished the day, I'm sure. But it was a shock to the system after an early spring filled with lovely days. I took it as a mercy that my quarantine task jar produced some indoor kindness when a chore slip was drawn during morning coffee: "Roofing Estimates."
The roof is now around 11 years old and had been completely replaced as part of the 2008-2009 renovation and addition project. While the shingles might be rated for 30 years, my general contractor at that time did not paint or seal or protect the edges of the underdecking and they have absorbed a lot of moisture along the roof edge. So one problem is rotting.
Another issue has been leaking around the center front dormer, allowing water to drip down the inside front wall and emerge, sometimes almost in a stream, through seams in the ceiling drywall of the second floor main hallway. I've got a picture and brief word about that in this post-Hurricane Florence blog entry from 2018.
I'd say the most pressing matter requiring the attention of a roofer is the condition of the rubber roof that lies beneath the decking of the second story balcony porch. I have no doubt that we'll get into overlapping complications: the roof part needs to be replaced and possibly rebuilt to achieve a better slope; the guttering along the porch is definitely in need of correction and probable replacement; and we have to make sure we eliminate drips and run-off that are compromising the columns beneath them.
So it's going to be quite an undertaking and I've had a couple of false starts with unreliable roofers over the last year or so when I've been of a mind to get cracking on this. (For instance, the last guy showed up to check it out in order to work up an estimate, but he was sort of drunk, plus it was actually months after he'd missed our original appointment. And then I never heard from him again.)
"Sous Vide Steaks," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Chief Culinary Consultant of SeriousEats.com. [Published 03 March 2010 / Updated 13 April 2020]
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