Too Many Irons

    During our recent visit to the family in Massachusetts, I was telling my brother Steve how much we were trying to cram in. Steve said I had too many irons in the fire and reminded me of a story I had told him about Jerry Solom. Jerry was a machinist who lived two miles south of of us back in Wannaska. In a corner of his shop he had his grandfather’s old blacksmithing tools. 

   Jerry still used his grandfather’s forge for small jobs. I was watching him once as he heated several iron rods for bending. At one point he picked up a rod that had burned completely through the middle. “This is what happens when you have too many irons in the fire,” he said.

   I told my brother Steve this little anecdote as an example of seeing a cliché in action. We use lots of expressions without realizing where they come from. The word cliché itself is another example. It would be a bit of a cliché if I explained right now why cliché is a cliché.

   I tell Steve these little vignettes because I know he won’t forget them. Indeed he brought it up the other day after a gap of many years. Steve’s wife Jean then said, “Tell Joe what you know.” Steve said, “I know two things for sure: adsorption is like Velcro and absorption is like a sponge.”

   I had studied Latin in high school and remembered that ad means 'to' and ab means 'from.' Adsorption takes place at the molecular level so it was hard to picture atoms velcroing themselves to each other. I expected more from absorption.   

  I got my “irons in the fire” moment a few days later at another family gathering. I was making a big batch of carbonara at my son Matt’s place. Heather had started a pot of water for me and as I put in the first pound of linguini, I realized the pot was too small for two pounds, so I started another pot.

   I was a bit unsure of my measurements for eleven diners. The recipes on the internet were all over the map (cliché) so I took the middle ground. The first pound of linguini was cooked several minutes before the second. I drained the linguini and returned it to the pot then poured on half my cream and egg yolk mixture. I quickly realized I had been precipitate. There was far too much liquid in the pot even after stirring in the parmaesan cheese.

   “It will absorb,” Heather said. Heather always remains calm in a crisis. I covered the pot and left it on low heat. By the time the second pot was ready, the soupy cream in the first pot had been absorbed from the pot by the linguini. Ab can mean 'by' as well as 'from.' I realize this is not as good an example as Jerry's burnt out iron rods, but I needed a subject for this post so I struck while the iron was hot.

Saint Jerry, patron of fix-iters.