A cookbook, a funny luncheon, and a doggie spa day

 

I was thrilled today to get copies of Kitchen Table Stories II, a publication of Story Network Circle. It’s a compilation of recipes contributed by various SCN members, each with the backstory of the recipe. And it’s those stories that distinguish this book.

Many of the stores recall childhood memories, grandmothers who cooked treasured recipes from other lands, mothers who invented frugal dishes, and mothers who didn’t cook at all. As Gretchen Staebler writes, “We pass on what we know. From one generation to the other, we want to share the best of what we knew growing up.”

The collection is remarkable for its cultural diversity—pierogi from a childhood in Chicago’s Polish community; mamaliga—Romanian polenta; latkes for Hannukah; Hungarian baked cauliflower; arroz frijole negro—and the memory of sorting beans; a Piranha dinner from Peru—and instructions for careful handling of the flesh-eating fish; miners’ pasties from Pennsylvania; a special barbecue sauce from a joint in Muskegon; sanguinaccio or Italian chocolate pudding; even the much-maligned beef (dried) on toast is tempting when it’s a childhood memory. The stories made me laugh and cry. Gretchen Staebler remembers eating Boston baked beans while sitting on the living room floor. Did her mother really let them do that? She doesn’t want to know the truth. You can hear Erin Philbin laugh about sloppy Joe with “salad” in it—not known for her cooking skills (her husband usually did the cooking), she had added chopped celery and her young son said indignantly, “Why did you put salad in it? We don’t like salad.” I wanted to comment, question, talk back as I read.

Hats off to Susan Schoch who edited and Sherry Wachter who designed. And guess who wrote the Foreword? Yep, yours truly. You got just an excerpt of my foreword in the above paragraphs. Some of my family are getting this for Christmas—shhh! Don’t tell them.

Kitchen Table Stories II is available from Amazon.

Yesterday I had lunch with an old friend, really the brother of an old friend who is now gone. He is living alone in a high-rise retirement community, and Jean and I were his guests at lunch. Alex, troubled by pretty severe hearing and vision challenges, had his sense of humor about him, and we laughed so loud I was afraid the few others in the almost-empty dining room would stare at us. It seems there has been a mystery car parked in Alex’s slot for some time and repeated calls to the administration have not been successful. Alex’s daughter uses the spot when she comes to visit. So yesterday, he confided he was quite sure there was a body in the car. I told him he was encroaching on my territory as a mystery writer. Today, he emailed that the car had been towed, but there was no word about the body, and he was now convinced that it was a cover-up for a cryptocurrency mining operation in the parking garage (he was not serious about any of this). I am threatening to get him a dictation device so he can write his mystery by dictation. I thought the addition of the cryptocurrency was genius.

Sophie had a spa day today. Nathan, the groomer we all think is so great, came t the house at three (right in the middle of my nap time!). I think Sophie is psychic—about ten minutes before he got here, she began to bark occasionally, the bark that says “Someone is here.” I asked Nathan if he’d been parked on the street for ten minutes or so, but he said not. I have no idea how Sophie knew he was on his way, but she did. And tonight she is fluffy and clean, her coat as soft as a baby blanket. With a thick layer of leaves on the patio, it won’t take long for her to get dirt and twigs and leaves in that soft, clean fur. But I do believe dogs have psychic powers beyond our understanding.

Looking forward to a nice weekend, with company for supper Saturday and Sunday. Last night, Jordan made rice bowls with black beans (which I just read have great health benefits), chicken, and fresh vegetables. Tonight I made what looked like a huge pot of white bean chicken chili—the three of us ate it, with maybe enough left over for one serving.

Oops. In my zeal to make crab bites late at night, I just nudged a container of cherry tomatoes off the counter. As you can imagine, they rolled everywhere and my only option was to sweep them up, which rendered them inedible and headed for the garbage. I think it’s time for me to get out of the kitchen! And maybe off to bed.

How the other half lives

 

Hasselback kielbasa ready for the oven

Many of my friends, especially people from University Christian Church, now live in the downtown high-rise retirement community, Trinity Terrace. My good friends Jean and Jeannie live there on the seventeenth floor, next door to each other (which happened by serendipity). Despite my absolute delight with my cottage, I am sometimes a wee bit jealous of the social life they have there. Nobody needs ever to eat dinner alone unless they really want to.

Saturday night I was invited to dinner with friends there. We had happy hour in an apartment I’d not seen before. On the ninth floor in a corner, it has windows to the south and the west (I get so turned around in that building). The view is spectacular—from the dining table, from Morris’ office, and from the living room. For a one-bedroom apartment, it is spacious and open, with quite a bit of storage space (oh, how jealous that made me!). Morris’ special friend and my good friend, Kathie, decorated it for him and will tell you proudly that almost everything came from garage sales. Morris’ personal art collection decorates walls, tabletops, and display cabinets. The whole apartment is a marvel.

From there we went upstairs to the Blue Spire, the upscale dining area. It’s a social experience—people stop by the table for a chat, you wave at others on the way to your table. Everybody seems to know everybody. The menu is good, though I too often am tempted to have things I can’t ordinarily get—fried oysters, bone marrow, etc. Saturday night it was liver pate, which turned out not to be the coarse country pate I was hoping for but a buttery something—good but rich, so I settled for a large salad for my entrée. Of course, Caesar salad is not without its own richness, but it was an outstanding version of the classic. But then I completely lost my mind and had crème brulee for dessert. I paid for all this indulgence the next morning when the best way I could describe myself is sluggish.

I loved being there, seeing the apartment, meeting new people. (I have also seen Jean’s apartment which is equally unusual, full of her late husband’s artwork, much of it in a special wall of bookshelves). But in the long run, Trinity Terrace makes me grateful for my secluded little cottage, where I can cook to my own taste, keep whatever hours I want (at TT you have to be in your apartment by nine or ask for an extension). I know I am so lucky to have this living situation, and I am appropriately grateful. But I sure did have a good time Saturday night.

So Sunday night, a good friend from church (no, she doesn’t live at TT) came for supper. To indulge Jordan I made stuffed mushrooms with a cream cheese/Pecorino filling that was so good. For dinner we had spanakopita from the Greek festival at the local orthodox church. So delicious, and I know I could never make it that good.

I made a retro fruit salad over the weekend and took some of it to Kathie and Morris because I had a jar of hers to return (it had come filled with split pea soup). When I gave it to her, she, a deliberate eater (is that a good way to say it?), made no pretense that she would eat it but immediately said, “Morris will love it.” And he said the same thing, so I hope he did. What was in it? A can of peach pie filling, a can of fruit cocktail (drained), and three bananas (sliced). Told you it was retro.

I seem to be on a menu kick tonight, so here’s tonight’s dinner, in the oven as I write—Hasselback kielbasa with oven roasted carrots, potatoes, and onion. The vegetables were tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried thyme, the kielbasa basted in a mustard/honey combo. It smells heavenly. The recipe called for fennel, but I’ve never cooked with it, always put off by my notion that it tastes like licorice. Maybe I’ll have to try.

Kielbasa dinner plate