Life goes on

 

Benji resting by my desk

If you asked me how I feel today, I would probably say sluggish. Maybe tired. I have bouts of energy and then periods of fatigue. I tell myself I’ve had two major blows within a little over a month—the loss of my only brother and last blood relative and the loss of the dog I’d loved for almost thirteen years. It’s neither sacrilegious nor silly to say that I am not weighing one against the other—both have been real blows. Most of my life I have been known for a sort of “carry on no matter what” attitude—that’s gotten me into trouble when I ignored some physical symptoms until they became major problems. I think maybe this time I am listening to my body. I sleep well part of the night and then toss and turn, but boy do I sleep soundly at naptime. I’ve been taking two naps—my usual afternoon one (I slept two and a half hours today) and another about 8:30 or 9:00 at night, after which I get up and work. It’s a schedule that seems to suit me for now. A couple of small medical problems are not helping my frame of mind—the malignant place on my scalp is healing and itches like fury, but of course I can’t scratch, I am hoping next week I’ll hear that I can stop putting Vaseline on it—who wants Vaseline combed into their hair? But I have weeks to go with the medicine that is intended to stimulate the immune system and kill cancer cells—and it is the real cause of the itching storm. Also next week, I have a swallow test which I dread less because I’m worried about the outcome than because I am worried about swallowing the barium. I’m sure they have techniques for helping queasy people, and I tell myself it will be over quickly. But it looms. So that’s my sad story.

On the positive side, today marks one week that Benji has been with us, and he’s done a remarkable job of adjusting. So, I would modestly say, have I. This week he is apparently feeling enough at home to be a bit naughty—yesterday morning I found one of my shoes in the doorway to the patio. I showed it to him while repeating “No!” in the sternest tone I could muster. He looked appropriately chastised, whatever that means. A few minutes later, Jordan came in carrying the other shoe which she had found in the back yard. Since my hip surgery and broken ankle, my feet are so fat and swollen that I don’t have the usual wardrobe of shoes—this was my only pair of black. Stretchy, wide, easy to get on. I am keeping the closet door closed. I also caught Benji digging at the base of one of my new plants of muhly grass, and that’s got to be a no-no. He frolics among the grass, and I tap on the window each time and call his name. He’s so good he comes running to see if I really want him.

But he does not beg for food, even when we have appetizers on the coffee table—Sophie would have decimated that in nothing flat. And he puts himself to bed in his crate about ten o’clock, and stays there quietly until I get up, usually about eight in the morning. He’s responsive to his name and seems eager to please. When he’s outside, he frequently comes to the doorway to check on me. And, though he is right now barking, he’s toned that down a lot. With his wild energy, he is like having a teenager in the house—you know if you can just wait through this period, there’s a great person in there. Adjustment is a slow process for both of us, and Benji is distracted by all the people who love and fuss over him bigtime—and then go away. I’m here for the 24-hour long haul. He  seems to understand that—he follows me to the bathroom, lies by my desk at night when I’m working. He’s going to be a good dog.

I had a spectacular kitchen fail last night that was also a great learning lesson. It taught me how to make a good red wine sauce for hamburger steak, and it also taught me a lesson I should know: don’t multi-task when cooking. I was making sirloin patties with red wine sauce, but I was also trying to finish up some computer work. And I wanted to make sure Jordan’s pattie was not pink in the middle, because she does not like pink meat. So I let the patties brown too long, but gosh they had a nice crisp crust! Then the wine reduced about three times as fast as usual—it usually takes forever, especially if you watch it, but this time, I turned my back. Added the beef broth and it did the same thing, so by the time we served, there was little sauce. And the patties were surely not pink in the middle. Christian’s mom liked meat cooked to a fare-thee-well, so he once told me her salmon patties were like hockey pucks. He could have said the same thing about my patties last night, though he kept reassuring me they had a great flavor. I tried to steam one for lunch today and threw it out. I swear I’m going to try again next week—if I get it right, I’ll share what I did.

I have had my evening nap, and I’m feeling better, over my pity party. When I was young, my mom had migraines and would take to her bed for a day. But never longer. So I learned to say, “She’ll be all right tomorrow,” if someone asked about her. So that’s my motto tonight: I’ll be all right tomorrow. Thanks for letting me whine. Good night, you all. Good night, Benji!

A red trike, the pickle report, a lot of cooking, and not much else

 

Allow me a moment of nostalgia and excuse the blurry picture above—those kids were really moving. That’s Jacob on the trike and Morgan behind him, trying hard to unseat him. That trike was the cause of more battles when the grands were little! And it has a history of its own—it was some eighty years old when it was given to me by family friends whose children and grandchildren had enjoyed it. Repainted at some time by loving hands, it had solid rubber tires, and the front one had a huge hole in it. I can still hear Maddie, looking down one day, and exclaiming, “There’s a hole in my tire. When the playroom at my house was transformed to a TV room (what happens when grands outgrow hobby horses and trikes), the trike went home with Colin. I hope he’s still keeping it safe for the next generation.

Since someone asked about my kitchen experiment, here’s the report on the pickles infused with Hidden Valley Ranch Dip: pretty good. I let them sit for twenty-four hours in the fridge, as recommended, and served them with a bowl of plain Cheezits. Verdict was favorable, and we decided that the dip infusion softens the pickle flavor a bit. I used a 24 oz. jar of Claussen kosher spears. You may remember that I also tried the recipe where you coat Cheezits with a seasoned olive oil mixture and bake them---and I burned them to a fare-thee-well (and wasted a whole box of Cheezits).

Christian wants me to try it again at a much lower temperature than recommended. His theory is that my toaster oven, being smaller than a regular oven, burns much hotter—and I have noticed that before. The other night he brought out a chicken-and-wild rice casserole (their oven is broken) and said the recommended temperature was 350 but he wanted to do it at 300. I admit it was nicely heated through—and delicious. Christian is one of those cooks who needs a recipe to start with but then often branches out on his own, adding and subtracting ingredients.

It's been a cooking week. I fixed Norwegian hamburgers Sunday night, having forgotten that they are a bit of work although well worth it. Last night I did a hamburger Stroganoff—a lot less work and still very good. Yesterday, Melinda, who worked with me at TCU Press for years, came for lunch so we could catch up on families, publishing news—and, of course, politics. Melinda is, if possible, even more fierce about trump and the Republicans these days than I am. But cooking both lunch and dinner for others takes a chunk of time. I made salmon patties and a salad for Melinda and asked if she preferred Thousand Island or buttermilk dressing. At first, she chose Thousand Island because she hadn’t had it in ages. I proudly boasted that both were house-made, to which she promptly said, “Oh! Maybe I’ll just have lemon.” Seems she’s leery of mayonnaise, but my cooking ego was deflated.

Much as I like to cook, I am happy that we have leftovers today and Christian will be at a meeting during dinner. I’ll have Norwegian hamburgers and mashed potatoes for lunch, Stroganoff for supper, and somewhere I’ll work in something green. My mom believed you must have something green every day which led me once to sit across the lunch table from the man then in my life and exclaim in horror: “You don’t have anything green on your plate.” He had chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy. He rolled his eyes and said, “Once a mother, always a mother.” My current green favorite, besides salad, is the fresh frozen green beans I get at Central Market. Give them three or four minutes in boiling water, add butter and salt, and feast like they just came off the vine. Don’t get the microwaveable kind. Not as good.

Sweet dreams, everyone!

 

 

Monday trivia, some of it political

 

My favorite student of the week, a child I wish I knew, is the one who asked his teacher if a certain word needed a “flying comma.” He meant an apostrophe, of course, but I thought it a great description. And it leads me to one of my pet peeves: you don’t need a flying comma when you refer to a decade by numerals: its 1950s, not 1950’s.

My favorite meme of the week: Don’t give the nuclear codes to a guy who isn’t allowed to own a hot dog stand in New York City. Another similar one says Don’t give the reins of government to that same guy. And that brings me to the tackiest thing any of us have seen all week: a man who wants to head one of the most powerful countries in the world hawking glitzy, cheap-looking gold hightops with his logo at a political rally. Do you suppose he comes up with these ideas himself or has help?

I realized this week there is a new wrinkle in the manners we customarily observe with friends and neighbors: it used to be if you had the sniffles, you could still go to the party. Now it’s de rigueur to cancel because you might have covid, My neighbors missed a weekend party because of this and my happy hour guest tonight cancelled because he woke with the sniffles. I thanked him.

Something that seems odd to me: the Catholic Church is on a full-blown campaign to defeat Biden because he, a good Catholic, has not come out against abortion. (He does have a few other pressing matters on his mind.) So I guess the powers that be think it’s better to urge followers to vote for a proven rapist and fraudster who still faces felony charges? And they think they are following in Jesus’ footsteps?

Kitchen fail: I saw two recipes making creative adaptive use of Hidden Valley Ranch Dip. First called for putting a packet in the juice of a 24 oz. jar of dill pickle spears. I tried it, and it’s sitting in the fridge for the required 24 hours, so I can tell you if it is a keeper or not. The second called for mixing olive oil, dill weed, garlic powder and the dry dip mix, coating two boxes of Cheezits, and baking them. Now, I loved Cheezits as a child ….in fact I used to hide them under my bed until one night I heard a strange noise that scared me half to death: a mouse had found my stash.

Back to today, I thought this sounded great and I could make it first thing, easy and quick, and get to my desk. In fact, I dreamed about it too much of the night. But the logistics were off especially for my toaster oven. It called for a single layer, which I think would require a professional oven and half sheet pan. I only used one box, but they were two and three deep. I followed the recommended temperature—375 for 30 minutes, which is high heat and a long time. You can hear this one coming: burned you-know-what out of them. (It’s fortuitous that my happy hour guest cancelled, because that’s what I was going to serve). So tomorrow night, Mary D’s regular night, she’s getting plain, unseasoned Cheezits right out of the box.

And a dog crisis averted: at five this morning, I realized I did not have a can of dog food for Sophie’s breakfast. Sophie has her routine down pat, and if you deviate from it, she lets you know with indignant barking. In the evening, she gets two tiny milk bones for treats—and she counts. If you only give her one, she demands the second. So she would definitely know she was getting kibble instead of the canned meat she adores. It’s a holiday—President’s Day—no school, no work for Christian—so I assumed they would all sleep late, and I didn’t want to wake them for a can of dog food. (I didn’t know Jordan was up at four to see Jacob off to a golf tournament). I lay there, stewing about this until I finally got up, broke my cardinal rule about never waking a sleeping dog, and fed her dry food, more of it than usual. She did give me a funny look, but she ate it and went outside. Just after she came back in, I saw Christian letting their dog out, so he brought me the case of wet food, and the day was saved.

Except between the Cheezit project and the wrong kind of food, I couldn’t go back to sleep. As I write this, the day is half over, and I’m wondering what else will happen.

The day ended peacefully, with a chicken and wild rice casserole Christian made and me getting to write my daily thousand words. Life is good, and I am grateful.

A bit of borrowed wisdom and some kitchen fails

 

Sharon's happy hour

An online friend, one of those I’ve never met in person but consider a good friend, had a birthday recently, and for her birthday resolve she vowed to follow her mother’s advice to “look up and out” rather than look “down and in.” If you look up and out, you focus on the world outside yourself and what you can do to make it better. If you look down and in, you are focusing on yourself. Such focus leads to self-absorption as opposed to a lively interest in the world around you. I can think of lots of reasons to avoid self-absorption—the people I know that spend their days looking down and in tend to be boring, unhappy with their lot in life, obsessed often by minor illnesses. On the other hand, have you recently met someone who seemed genuinely glad to meet you, interested to know who you are and to share thoughts with you? That person is looking up and out. I thought it was such a perfect way of encapsulating attitudes toward life that I wanted to share.

But I must admit I’ve been looking down and in a bit lately. One of the ways I define myself is as a pretty good cook. I may not write recipes and I may be challenged by such things as crispy tofu in lemon-tahini sauce (really?) but I can tackle most basic dishes, even some fancy ones—okay I do really want to try Beef  Wellington. I can even often fiddle with a problematic recipe and make it work out. And I enjoy doing all that. So kitchen fails upset me more than I should allow them to.

Friday night I was dining alone and decided to treat myself to a piece of salmon. I’d seen a recipe for roast salmon filet with a horseradish glaze—I like horseradish as well as the next Englishman (perhaps an inheritance from my dad) so I tried it. Probably the recipe was a mistake in judgment on my part in the first place. The recipe was for four servings, and I was adjusting it to one. Plus the lovely piece of salmon I had was the tail end of what had apparently been a whole half—rather thin, so I adjusted the amount of glaze and the roasting time. Even so, I ended up with a piece of slightly underdone fish with a thick sauce. I dislike overdone, dry fish and I love sashimi, but this piece was just thick enough I wanted it done more. And the sauce didn’t make things better. Fail #1.

The next night I was expecting three people for supper—Jean, who often has supper with me, and Greg and Jaimie, who usually come for happy hour. I went all out—made an overnight salad the night before, spent a bit of time that day making broccoli/cheese soup according to a Southern Living recipe. Jaimie, who is an excellent cook, brought a spinach/artichoke dip, and I immediately sensed one problem. I should have provided the appetizer, so that the total menu had a plan. As it was, we had a lot of vegetables. As Greg suggested, a lot of roughage that might have consequences. And everybody ate so much of the dip, they weren’t hungry for dinner. Especially Jean,, who didn’t try the soup at all. Then it turned out Greg can’t abide broccoli. I said the soup had a lot of cheese, and he said he’d try it. But he didn’t. Jaimie and I were the only ones who ate it, and she took a baggie home for lunch, but I think she did that to make me feel better. Anybody want broccoli/cheese soup? I have it in the fridge, and I’m kind of soured on it now. It used to be my Jamie’s favorite, and I’d long been thinking I’d like some but hadn’t cooked it because Christian, like Greg, abhors it, can’t even stand to be in the house when it’s cooked. Jacob loves broccoli, but he’s not been around much for me to try it on him.

So tonight I sort of redeemed myself. Tuesday night is the night Mary comes for happy hour, and tonight we included longtime friend Sharon in honor of her birthday tomorrow. I stuffed mushrooms with my mom’s cheese mixture, made a spread with a cream cheese/curry base topped with cranberry chutney and garnished with green onions, and trotted out the rest of the ranch dip I’d served last night. I think Sharon felt well feted, and I felt redeemed a bit. The mushrooms were really good, but one problem with ordering your groceries is that you don’t get to choose the mushrooms—I have never stuffed such tiny “shrooms.”

Anyway I feel better about things now, maybe for having gotten this off my chest. Tomorrow, I think I’ll pitch the soup (my mom would be so horrified at the waste) and make the family spaghetti for supper. And maybe tonight I’ll dream of Beef Wellington.

An apology, a kitchen failure, and a leaky disaster

 

Living room mess to repair a/c  unit

If you are a regular follower of my Thursday “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog, an apology. I didn’t get it written this week because some kind of nasty stomach bug laid me low, and writing about food was the last thing I wanted to do. Which is kind of okay, because before the bug hit, the only thing I had to write about was a column on sardines (still to come—are you a fan?) and an epic kitchen fail. The two didn’t seem to belong in one post.

About the fail: I find recipes in all sorts of places, including culinary cozy mysteries, which are popular right now. So when the main character in a novel kept whipping up this dish (actually cooking it long and slow in a crockpot), I had no qualms about stealing it. (I won’t name the novel because I gave up on it before the end.) One of the other characters described this as Thanksgiving dinner in one pot. You season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put in your pot; dump in a one-lb. box of prepared turkey dressing and top that with a sauce made of mayonnaise, sour cream, chicken broth, and water, and top all that with some frozen green beans. Cook it on high for five hours. I thought it would be perfect for the day when we have a regular happy hour visitor.

I will confess I made a couple of mistakes: for chicken broth, I read cream of chicken soup and dumped it in before I realized my mistake, so later in the cooking process I added a half cup broth. I can’t see that should have done anything but make it better. But then, due to uncertain schedules around here, I let it cook too long. Finally ended up eating alone because this one had a sudden happy hour appointment and that one had something to do at the school.

I wished for a long cooking fork (lost in the downsize) to reach down and get to the chicken, but I used a long wooden spoon. At first, it felt like I was digging into concrete. I ended up eating dressing with sauce and green beans. Let me say the beans were delicious—must be the broth. The dressing was sort of crisp/mushy, if there is such a thing, and not very flavorful. Christian tactfully said later that it needed more seasoning. I just sent the whole mess into the house for the Burtons to deal with and haven’t heard a thing since. My guess is that Jordan and Jacob declined, and Christian ate it. There may still be some in their fridge. Catastophe #1.

Catastrophe #2 – as I was closing the patio door last night, I looked down and found the chair next to me had a big wet spot. Poor Sophie—when you’re the only dog in the house, suspicion immediately falls on you. I felt of it, sniffed, and determined it wasn’t Sophie. So I called Jordan because the next possible source was the ceiling-hung air-conditioning unit above the chair. She came out, determined that the entire chair was soaked, and began rearranging—the picture came down, chair cushion and pillow went outside, plastic bags covered the chair, towel, and bowl on the floor. After all that prep, she turned the unit off. The cottage stayed cool enough with the bedroom unit all night, but of course I lay awake worrying about critters eating the cushion. If they did, I would have to have two chairs totally recovered. They did not, but Sophie barked during the night, something she rarely does, and I suspect she was scaring off a critter. You learn to translate dog barks after time, and we do have a resident possum.

So this morning—for far too long—the repairman has been here. I’m beginning to worry about the bill. He’s affable, and I’ve now known him for years—can’t tell how many. But none of that makes him cheap.

I am hoping there is no Catastrophe #3, unless my stomach bug counts. When your bed keeps calling to you and you have no enthusiasm for doing anything, your mind wanders off on tangents. Mine began to assemble a book last night, called “My Scrapbook” (tentative)—a collection of short stories, poetry, quotes, lyrics, maybe some of my own posts, even hymns that have meant something to me over the years. It’s barely a work in progress, but so far it includes Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, Robert Flynn, Elmer Kelton, and Dorothy Johnson, lyrics by Joan Baez and Neil Diamond, and the refrain from “We’ve a Story to Tell the Nations.”

For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
and the dawning to noonday bright,
and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth,
the kingdom of love and light.

For some reason, that refrain has been an ear worm for me for a couple of days—not a bad one. I hear myself singing along as though I could carry a tune. But I think everyone should have a scrapbook like that. What and who would be in yours?