Tuna salad with emotional baggage

Yellow fin tuna

Who knew that the subject of tuna salad was fraught with so much emotion! Yet a long—and I do mean long—thread on the Facebook New York Times Cooking Community page demonstrates the intensity of feelings. As someone who has eaten tuna all my life, staring with plain with lemon and progressing to salad, I was amazed at the variety of suggestions. And the passion behind some choices. One woman wrote that she knew tuna salad would be an emotional and deeply triggering topic. She did? I had no idea.

The big thing seems to be the binder—and mayonnaise wins over Miracle Whip hands down. People who don’t like Miracle Whip were not iffy about it—they were downright intense. Like never, never, never speak those words. The second big choice was water pack vs. oil pack. For years I’ve sought out the best water pack I could get—I now order it from a cannery in Oregon, as I’ve said. But a woman from Oregon wrote that they know tuna should be packed in oil; otherwise your salad gets watery. I will admit that my friend Betty makes the best tuna ever with oi-packed, hard-boiled egg, sweet pickle (not relish), and onion. No lemon, and that surprises me.

Mayonnaise, onion, lemon, seem to be the usual, with the frequent addition of hard-boiled eggs, pickle (some choose sweet, some choose dill). A few add mustard—I’ve tried a bit of Dijon, and it does add a nice spark.

But some unusual additions: panko (doesn’t it get soggy?), fish sauce (really?), jalopeno (okay, I don’t like peppers much), olives, curry, Old Bay seasoning, raisins, and carrots (shredded we hope). A suggestion I intend to try—a pinch of sugar to lessen any bitterness, not that I find tuna salad bitter, but it might act as sugar does in a tomato sauce. My mom said it rounds it off, and I was never sure what that meant but it seemed to be a good thing.

In the United Kingdom, wrote one woman, they put corn nibletts in tuna salad and serve it in a “potato jacket”—your imagination can probably supply that. A man wrote he marinates a tuna loin overnight in herbs, olives and EVOO, bakes it and then, I suppose, flakes it—or maybe he slices it and isn’t talking about salad at all.

A local restaurant serves a “deconstructed” tuna salad—but to me, it’s regular tuna salad, with slices of cheese and tomato and melon on the plate. The salad itself isn’t deconstructed.

This thread went on for days and weighed on my mind, so I made tuna salad today and decided to be bold and add pickle. But I didn’t have Betty’s sweet pickles, so I put in sweet relish. It was okay, but I prefer my basic which is chopped scallions, salt and pepper, lots of lemon, and mayonnaise to bind. I’m a purist. And I have two sons-in-law who won’t either one touch tuna salad. I worry about what they’re missing.

That was my big preoccupation today, but I remembered what I was going to mention yesterday. Several years ago, my son Jamie registered me for 23andMe—the results were a bit skewed from what I expected, and I was disappointed—not much Scot in this proud Scot. But yesterday unexpectedly I got a summary—I am something like 99.9% from the northern and western part of Europe, mostly United Kingdom, followed by France and Germany (I have always thought I was half Scot, half German). Other things were minimal, and my Neanderthal heritage had shrunk to “trace ancestry” which I suppose is a good thing. Being part Neanderthal is hardly something one wants to put on a resume.

Lazy day—other than doing quite a few housekeeping chores like emptying garabage, hanging up clothes, mopping up the muddy footprints (I created more streaks—mopping is not one of my talents and it’s hard to do seated in a walker). But I devoted some time to an absorbing mystery I’m reading. Imagine my shock when I checked the Amazon reviews and found I’d written one in 2017! And here I am reading it again as though for the first time. I’m not sure if that’s a tribute to the author or not. When I was at TCU Press, a member of our editorial board rejected a mystery because, he said, mysteries are forgotten the minute you finish the last page. I would like to think that’s not true and that, instead, my re-reading is a tribute to the author’s skill at drawing me into a plot. I won’t reveal the title or author so as not to prejudice you.

Here we go into another week, this predicted to be chilly but no cold with slight chances of rain until the end of the week. Hope it’s a good one for everyone.

A day of little things, some not so good

 

A foggy, damp and gray morning kind of set the tone for the day to come. We’re expecting rain, but so far just the dampness—and what it does to the spirits.

TCU lost a valuable employee, many of us lost a good friend, and I lost a blog follower yesterday when Tracy Thompson was found dead in her home. Tracy was for as long as memory serves the liaison between retirees and TCU, and she was unfailingly cheerful, polite, and helpful in a role that surely would strain the best of dispositions. We were friends—not close, but friends. For a while we both belonged to a group that lunched together, and I think Tracy came to one of the memoir-writing classes I taught. I know she followed my blog and commented sometimes, and I was always glad to hear from her. I think the last time I heard she said she was anxious to try my salmon croquette recipe because her late mom had made those, and she missed them. Rest in peace, Tracy. I know your smile is brightening Heaven, even as many of us are left with a hole in our hearts at your sudden and unexpected leavetaking.

Dull, rainy days are good for proofreading, and I managed to get through another seventy-five pages today, so that I have only fifty to go. I have sudden anxiety attacks that I haven’t saved all my work, but every page seems to have a correction, so I guess that’s okay. Good friend Carol said she would help me proof if she weren’t snowed under with her own projects, but I told her, truthfully, it is something I need to do myself. I am making notes for whoever deals with my corrections. And I’m appalled that I didn’t remember how stormy the Custer marriage was—or how stormy I made it in my novel, which was based heavily on primary sources.

Jordan and I had another “girls night in” dinner tonight, as Christian had an office event. We chose scallops for dinner. Christian said last night at dinner he would eat scallops at Saint Emilion,, the fanciest, French-est restaurant in Fort Wowrth, but not anyplace else. I raised my hand, and he hastily said he would eat them if I cooked them. Jordan explained to our dinner guest that Christian has a big appetite and scallops are expensive—we save them for when it is the two of us.

Tonight, we made them in a au gratin sauce, which I kind of think is a poor man’s or lazy man’s version of coquilles St. Jacques—the sauce had butter, crème fraiche, white wine, lemon zest, and pinches of cayenne and salt. All would have been fine, except that the spoon overbalanced in the dish, splashed out, and I had sauce all over me, the butcher block, and the floor—Sophie took care of the latter, with an apologetic look at me.

We ran into cooking problems that I think we’re caused by trying to use a toaster/oven instead of a regular one. I usually don’t have a problem with that, but tonight Jordan, who has a horror of rare/raw meat or seafood, kept saying they weren’t cooked, even though we left them longer than called for. I have to give her credit—when we finally ate them, they were perfect—soft, not rubbery, and yet cooked through. Contrary to the recipe I topped them with some panko and pecorino. A good ladies dinner.

Seems like there were other things on my mind today, but I cannot think of them. I’m off to read a mystery. Have a good weekend, everyone.

 

A long day, a lazy day…and some political naivete

 

Sophie, listening to what I have to say

Yesterday was a long day. Jordan’s allergy were severe, and she took the day off and stayed in bed. I’m spoiled—used to her popping in and out periodically during the day. Gave me great empathy for those who live truly alone and went through long days of quarantine with no human contact. I had just a smidgeon—Jordan came out in the morning to tell me she was taking the day off, Jacob came out in the late afternoon chasing a dog who, with inadequate bathroom manners, is not supposed to be in the cottage, and Christian came out about seven bringing me the dinner he brought from King Tut. Other than that, it was me and Sophie—so glad to have her to talk to.

Last night was long too but not unpleasant. One of life’s many pleasures to me is lying in your bed, all cozy and comfortable and safe, listening to thunder roll overhead and a steady rain come down. I understand some parts of the Metroplex got hail and damage and I am so sorry about that, but here it was just rain—no wind, not much lightning that I knew. Just that thunder. As my mom used to say, “The gods were bowling.” Sophie was not nearly as pleased as I was.

Today all I wanted to do was sleep—maybe it was being awake so much in the night, but I kept trying to sneak a nap and Sophie kept demanding I get up. I got distracted from my morning routine making a “night-before” salad this morning that I should have made last night. Threw my whole schedule off, and I did no proofreading today. As a result, my conscience is suffering a bit. Not badly, though. I think I’m ahead of schedule.

I have had a political epiphany. It now seems I was incredibly naïve to think that once Joe Biden was president and trump gone, things would work themselves out. Not so. I cannot wrap my mind around the lies most Republicans are telling themselves about everything from who was responsible for the January 6 insurrection (no, it clearly was not Antifa and BLM) to the Big Lie that trump won the election in a landslide and it was stolen from him. They apparently can’t do the math that ties a raise in the minimum wage to the exponential rise in the cost of living, and they are opposed to COVID-relief, for reasons I yet cannot understand except that they, who gave the 1% huge tax cuts, claim we can’t afford to help those who work for hourly wages. They blithely ignore the record in some states where a raise in minimum wage has had widespread economic benefit. They also ignore that small businesses, about which they profess so much worry, suffer when people have no pocket money to spend.

If you read Heather Cox Richardon’s daily column, which I recommend you do (Find it on Facebook among other places), you learn that Biden’s approval numbers are astoundingly good. He’s doing the things America wants—vaccinations, legislation to help those who are struggling to feed family and pay rent, restoring environmental protections, the list is endless. Most Republicans, on the other hand, seem to have a death wish for their party and have dug in their heels as the literal opposition party. They have no plan, no platform, except they are opposed to Biden and Democrats.

The big trouble with Republican gaslighting is that the gullible among them believe what old white men like Ron Johnson, Louie Gohmert, Rand Paul and others say. And I’m not even talking about the extremists, though I did hear the other day about someone who claimed Biden has been dead for years and what we see is a clone who will be replaced March 4 when trump is inaugurated again. Oh, and they want to blow up the Capitol Building during the as-yet-unscheduled State of the Union Address.

Whatever will become of our beloved country?

The fun of communal cooking

 

Our fancy--and oh so rich!--pasta dinner

Jordan and I team-cooked supper tonight and had such a good time. I think it’s a particularly blessing of the mother/daughter relationship. Christian announced he had a work event and would at the least be late and perhaps not home for supper at all. While we love him dearly and miss him on these nights, we welcome the occasional evening when we can cook things he doesn’t like. Last night we were going over recipes, and he happened to look at the one we planned for tonight—pasta with artichokes hearts and goat cheese. He looked alarmed, “It has no meat! And it has artichoke hearts!” See why we like occasional “just us” meals?

The recipe was rich—farfelle, a bit of green onion and garlic, a lot of pasta water, cream cheese, goat cheese, mozzarella, French fried onions (I thought that odd—they were stirred into the sauce—but they turned out to be a good addition). Dill, parsley, salt and pepper, red pepper (which we omitted—the black pepper gave it just the right pep). When you combined it all in a casserole dish, you topped it with more onion rings and Parmesan and served it sprinkled with green onion tops. See what I mean about rich? All those cheeses. But so very good. In truth, though, it was a bit complicated, and I'm not sure I would have done it if left alone.

It’s been a pleasant if unremarkable couple of days. I survived the dental appointment yesterday and even came away with praise for taking good care of my teeth. I certainly had worked myself into a snit of worry by the time I got to the office, but as I later explained to Jordan, dentistry when I was a kid was a much different thing, and I had bad teeth—lots of cavities so I suffered a lot with the old, slow, bumbling dental drills. The teeth are thanks, I think, to my dad from whom I inherited that little problem. After the appointment, Jordan and I went to far west Fort Worth to pick up Jacob, and it was a treat for me to be out driving around—see what pandemic has done?

Yesterday evening our Tuesday night happy hour celebrated Mary Dulle’s forthcoming birthday with flowers, snacks, Prosecco, and, of course, cupcakes—strawberry because that’s her favorite. Forgot to take pictures, but it was lovely to sit on the patio in such pleasant weather and such good company. We are blessed with neighbors.

We were all worried about Sophie though—she clearly was not herself. So lethargic, and as I explained to the vet tech this morning via phone she is not by nature a lethargic dog. She didn’t walk to the gate to greet people nor escort them out; when Christian came out, she stayed on the deck instead of jumping wildly off it and racing to beat him to the cottage as she usually does. Finally, when he called, she came hesitantly down the steps, which led him to say, “I’ve never seen her use the steps before.” She also did not get up in her favorite chair to sleep, which made me think she had tweaked a muscle. When the vet called today, that was his diagnosis.

I spent a restless night worrying about her, getting up to check on her. Each time, her tail drooped, and she looked at me with big, pitiful eyes—talk about “Be still my heart.” It was a reminder to me of how much our lives are entwined with our animals—I really, in a bizarre moment, wondered what I would do if she died in her sleep.

Of course, she didn’t—and she seems much better today. Her tail is up over her back most of the time, she forgot she couldn’t jump and got on the couch in anger at the dog behind us, and she generally seems happier. Still slept a lot. I’ll check in with the vet again tomorrow.

And tonight I am in a spanking clean cottage. So glad to have the wonderful Zenaida come and reach all those corners, high up and down low, that I can’t. She makes the bed better than anyone I ever met, and her visits brighten my days. So I’m a happy camper tonight. And a busy one—proofreading 302 pages of my 1995 novel, Libbie (about Elizabeth Bacon Custer). The reprint will be out in June. More about that another time.

We’re in for a “cold front”—in the upper fifties. After last week, that is laughable, but it’s also supposed to bring welcome rain. No patio weather for a while, but that’s okay.  I have work to do—which is a good feeling.

Stay safe, everyone.

 

 

Warm temperatures, sunshine…and happy hour

 

What do you have for supper when Texas weather turns warm?
Why, taco salad, of course.

Last week seems to be fading like a bad dream—or was it? Too many people are still without water, and I heard of people who lost their power tonight. How frustrating—when you think it’s over and you’re finally headed back to livable if not normal, catastrophe strikes again. Still, for many of us, life in Texas is gradually picking up its pace. We wait now to see what will come from lawsuits and investigations—the family of the twelve-year-old boy who froze to death in an unheated trailer has sued ERCOT for $100 million, everyone from the legislature to Abbot and Paxton have instigated investigations into the power failure. It’s far from over, and it’s going to be interesting.

But today was Texas at its best—warm, sunny, inviting. My friend Jean came for happy hour. I’ll tell you how long it’s been since I’ve seen her—her birthday was January 12, and we just tonight gave her the small gift we had for her. We sat on the patio and talked of food and doctors (what else for old ladies?) and haircuts and travel and anything but the power failure, which we only briefly touched on.

The back yard is quite brown today, and frozen plants still droop in a few pots. Jordan has done a great job of cleaning up, but there is more to be done. Most of my kale survived, but the chard which was supposed to provide a tall, deep purple background for the lower kale plants now looks like a limp, overcooked green. The mowing crew came today, and I was going to ask them to clean it out until I read that critters hide in those now-dead plants. The plants become their winter refuge, and the article urged that we let spring cleaning of beds go until much farther into the spring. It is, after all, still only February.

Another sign of returning to life after our forced week of isolation—Jordan swore she wasn’t going to the grocery, but our list grew longer, and she went to the local Albertson’s today. The store where she goes for canned goods, cleaning, supplies, etc. She came home with some treasures—individual, fruit-flavored Greek Gods yogurt which we’ve never seen before (a doctor once recommended Greek Gods as the best brand, even for lactose intolerant people, and I just like the taste and texture better)—but reported such odd shortages: no frozen hash browns, no cherry tomatoes, no eggs. Lots of cleaning supplies, just when you’d think people were having to scrub their houses inside and out. She is going to try a quick run to Central Market tomorrow, early, to see what she can get.

And then, sigh, she’ll be home to take me to the dentist. I’m a bit of a dental phobe, and I’m worried that I couldn’t care for my teeth properly while in the hospital, so I’m apprehensive. After that, though, we hope to treat ourselves to smoked chicken salad sandwiches—Texas Monthly says they are a new invention of Fort Worth BBQ places. I read of one place where they use one-fourth smoked to three-fourths roast chicken so as not to overwhelm. And today I read of a place that sells smoked meatloaf. What won’t they smoke next? Anyway, I will report on the sandwiches.

In the “It’s always something” department: Sophie is limping and lethargic tonight. At one o’clock, she was full of energy, barking her head off and running indignantly from one end of the cottage to the other because the yard guys were here. But when she woke up from her afternoon nap (yes, she naps while I do) she wouldn’t put weight on her left rear leg. After a few steps it got better, but as we sat on the patio, I’d notice her favoring it again, and she was not her lively self, begging for attention. We couldn’t find anything in the paw, and tonight she is walking on it but slowly and tentatively. I’ll see what she’s like in the morning before calling the vet. But she was not too pitiful to respond when I tested her with a piece of cheese tonight. Times when we wish dogs could talk.

Sweet dreams, everyone. There’s good news abroad tonight. Things that cheer me: Merrick Garland’s performance at his first hearing today, President Biden’s courtesy visit to former Senator Bob Dole, the SCOTUS release of trump’s tax returns. Maybe this old world will right itself yet. And the most cheering thing? The return of Texas sunshine.

What is there about Sundays?

 

I often puzzle about why Sundays feel different than the rest of the week. For me, the only change in schedule is that I go to church, virtually these days, so that’s just a small bit out of a day. And yet from the moment I wake up, the day feels different—a slower pace, a kind of mellowness, a thankfulness. Perhaps it is remembering that God rested on the seventh day. Even Sophie feels the difference—she slept late this morning, went out briefly, and then let me linger in bed until almost 8:30.

This week, perhaps it is being grateful for waking up in a warm house with running hot and cold water and plenty of food, though those of us so blessed feel almost guilty when so many are still so miserable. Jordan and Jacob have made pbj sandwiches to support the neighborhood effort for the Presbyterian Night Shelter, and we are looking for other ways to help our less fortunate neighbors. Part of my effort, I hope, will be to cheer our neighborhood with a newsletter chock full of snow pictures. Berkely-ites of all ages turned out to sled, build snowmen, and even ski on the streets last week.

Had myself a little dinner party of one last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Made the tune casserole that I occasionally long for and my family won’t touch, although I admit this time, I got carried away trying to incorporate leftovers. I guess even a generation removed, I’ll never get over the Depression-mentality my mother instilled in me. But still, my dinner was good, accompanied by a glass of wine and topped off by some Godiva chocolates from a neighbor. I did eat in my pajamas, but they were brand new, spanking clean. All I needed was candlelight.

On my Kindle now, I’m reading This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, a memoir by Jacqueline Winspear, author noted for her WWII mysteries set in England and featuring Maisie Dobbs. The memoir gives an in-depth picture of rural life in Kent post WWII. Winspear comes from an eccentric family, always on the edge of poverty, and she worked hard from the time she was five or six—sometimes in the fields with her mom, sometimes at a variety of jobs from babysitting to receptionist to house cleaning. Chapters are topical and roughly chronological. She’ll say, “This is what I remember about….” and then she’s off describing the horses she’s loved, the disappearance of the railroad, the day her brother almost died.

As you read, you get the sense that, in spite of its hard-scrabble nature, hers was a childhood surrounded by much love and recollected with affection. Throughout there is a sense of closeness to the land, probably because for much of her “growing,” the family’s livelihood depended heavily on working with crops. But Winspear seems unusually in tune with the seasons and the ebb and flow of life. She also has a remarkable memory for nature’s odd little bits—plants and animals. A truly worthwhile book.

Sundays used to be “family dinner” when I was raising children—woe betide the child who missed dinner unless gainfully employed and earning pay. Perhaps some sense of that family togetherness lingers over the day for me, although my immediate, local family dines together in my cottage almost every night. We often try to have something special for Sunday dinner—like a roast or something Christian does on the grill. Tonight, we had a delicious Mexican-inspired casserole—refried beans, chicken, Rotel, corn, cheese--out of what we have in the cupboard, because this is a week to avoid grocery stores and Jordan has us well stocked.

Maybe what makes Sunday different is that, sensing it is a day apart for the world, we put aside some worry. Lord knows there is plenty to worry about in a world with too much hate and anger and misinformation. I am appalled—and angry myself—at what has happened in Texas and the way our politicians are trying to dance around it, but I’ll spare you the diatribe. I am also discouraged at the blindness of a lot of Texans who make sweeping generalizations—“we all know Democrats ruin everything they touch”—without specific support. When people ask why the public keeps voting in officials who don’t correct our problems but only exacerbate them, I can only think of the importance of education, of teaching people to think critically for themselves and not swallow blind platitudes. But I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

Happy Sunday everyone. Take a much-need break!

Bitter end to a good day

 

The sun came out, the snow started to melt, and my hot water came back on. Great day. But a nagging something in the back of my mind told me it wasn’t over yet. This afternoon Jordan and Christian were out for a long time, came home late, and she put a casserole in the oven—so it was 7:45 before she brought it out here. Christian followed and said in the most solemn voice, “Jordan. I need to see you right now.”

They and three teenage boys gathered around an access hole to the deck and, watching from my window, I was afraid a dog had fallen down the hole. Jacob came to tell me the pipe, repaired two weeks ago, had burst—Christian say it’s the connection came loose, but I think the plumber may think it more serious. Anyway, I told Jacob they’d have to turn the water off at the street. Of course, no tools, and it was so stuck they couldn’t do it. A neighbor came to help. So now, with my hot water newly back on, I have no water!

To complicate things, I’d been trying to call our plumber all week just to ask if waiting out the hot water was the best thing, and I kept getting that annoying message from the phone company that my call could not be completed. I’ve done business with that plumbing company for twenty-five years and hate to switch to one where I am an unknown customer. Tonight, I think I have the cell phone for the plumber who always answers our calls. Left a message but will call again first thing in the morning.

Jordan brought me one pitcher of water, very heavy, which she said was to use to flush the potty. I told her I’d rather use it to wash hands, brush teeth, etc. But it is indeed very heavy.

Yesterday a good friend emailed they had a pipe burst (also an old house) and were collecting snow in the bathtub for flushing. She sent a picture of icebergs floating in their tub. And that’s when I suspected that maybe getting rid of the tub in a remodeling wasn’t without its drawbacks.

In the melee, Sophie got locked out of the house. Talk about an indignant dog. She’s unhappy anyway because we have run out of the treats she usually gets with her dinner. They shipped, but we’ve had no deliveries. Can’t explain that to a dog, so she barks at me. She is now inside, and I have given her a bit of Velveeta as compensation.

I just knew we’d gotten off too light. But still, I am grateful. I think we are among the fortunate few. We’ll be fine.

Another cold day—and a tale for Texas secessionists

 

Our house on the second day of snowmageddon

So many are in so much worse condition than I am that I wouldn’t think of complaining. I have power and water—cold, but not hot. But I have devised a dish-washing method—heating water in the electric kettle and using my mixing bowl as a dishpan. Cold rinses are a shock; so is brushing my teeth and washing my hands; a shampoo is out of the question, and I am beginning to feel as bedraggled as I did after six days in the hospital.

My house is cold in the mornings—50 this morning, which was seven degrees better than yesterday. But the space heaters bring it up to the recommended 68. Of course, I turn them off at night. And I worry about Sophie—she won’t sleep on the bed next to me. Last night I found her curled into a cold little ball on the sofa. Tonight, she was cuddled closer to the space heater than I was comfortable with. I had soup tonight—a thick, rich white bean and sausage soup in my freezer, given by a friend some time ago. I thought it was thawed, but when I went to spoon it out, it obviously was not—a big spoonful flew onto the floor. Sophie loved it, and I loved the hot bowl I had.

I’ve never seen rescue measures in Texas like we are seeing tonight—warming shelters, the convention center and several churches open for overnight guests, the Presbyterian Night Shelter flooded (I hope) with donated pbj sandwiches, Jeep owners ready to rescue stranded people. In a crunch like this, the good in people comes out, and it’s really heartening. In my little neighborhood, people are running errands for each other, offering to shovel snow, loaning a desperately need shop vac. They find all kinds of ways to help.

I am angrily amused at the right-wingers who blame Texas troubles on Biden and his green energy plan. Do they read? Do they think? Biden has been in office three weeks, give or take, and no energy bill has been presented, let alone accepted and acted upon. Yet they are sure that he has targeted Texas for special pain. Texas, the state that has proposed legislation to withdraw from the union. In truth, when Governor Abbott, who eschews Federal aid in Medicare, etc., asked for FEMA relief, Biden immediately granted it. He didn’t care that Texas voted red; he did care that people were suffering and in danger of dying. He is a president for all the people, not just those who voted for him.

Speaking of secession, if Texas did, God forbid, act on that legislation, it wouldn’t be the first time. In 1867, during Reconstruction, Van Zandt County in East Texas seceded and drew up a document similar to the Declaration of Independence. General Phil Sheridan sent troops to quell the rebellion, but while Sheridan’s troops marched in orderly file up the road, the men of Van Zandt County hid in the trees and picked off the soldiers with well-aimed shots. The troops retreated, and the Van Zandt County men went into town to celebrate victory with a huge bonfire and more than one jug of whiskey. After a while, the troops came back, quietly surrounded and arrested them. Many of the rebels spent a long, cold winter in a stockade. When spring rains came, the logs of the stockade could easily be pushed apart in the mud, and one by one the men of Van Zandt disappeared into the night. Some never returned to the county; none were prosecuted.

I’m not sure if this is an object lesson for today’s Texans or not, but I can’t resist a bit of blatant self-promotion. One of my early novels was about that war—Luke and the Van Zandt County War. Recently I wrote about spending time at a guest ranch in East Texas—it was in Van Zandt County. Love these odd bits of history.

 

The Great Storm—and the dissolution of dinner

 

Snowy scene out the front door

Everybody in Texas—and elsewhere—has their storm story today. Here’s mine: the temperature in the cottage was 48 when I got up about 7:30 with Sophie. She didn’t stay long, and I went back to huddle under the covers. The cavalry arrived in the form of Jordan bearing a second space heater and a heating pad. With two space heaters plus my two ceiling-hung heating and cooling units, the temperature got up to the recommended 68 by noon, and I was fairly comfortable working all morning. Of course, I won’t leave space heaters on all night, so it will plunge again tonight. With extra covers, I was mostly comfortable all night.

I have no hot water. I understand its common for tankless water heaters to freeze, and I’ll call the plumber tomorrow to see if I should do anything but wait and keep the faucets off. I did my lunch dishes in cold water and considered scalding them, as my mom did at our cabin in the Indiana Dunes in summers. But I hadn’t had anything greasy and worked extra hard to make sure they were clean. May scald dinner dishes.

And there goes dinner—for almost a year, the Burtons have come out here most nights for dinner, and either Jordan or I have cooked in the cottage. It may be boredom with routine, or the extraordinary cold, or chili—but the custom is falling apart. In truth, I think it’s a pot of chili that Christian made last week—a big pot. All my life I have loved a good bowl of chili, with cheese and sour cream, but when my digestion rebelled a month or so ago, chili was one of the things that I just couldn’t eat. And the memory lingers. So when they’re eating leftover chili, I am cooking some of the things I want. Had scrambled eggs one night, salmon patties another (I do love the leftovers), and tonight will be the creamed chipped beef that I talked about and never made a while back. And if they’re heating chili inside for leftovers, it’s silly to carry it out here in bowls. So I will dine alone. I usually did that before pandemic, but now it seems a bit lonely to me. Jordan comes and goes frequently, and almost always watches the evening news and has a glass of wine with me, but supper is the only time I catch up with Christian and Jacob.

Our meal planning went awry anyway because we couldn’t get some of the things we wanted at Central Market this week—notably a pork butt for carnitas. So I guess we have to review the entire menu plan for the week.

Those who survived the great heat spell of 1980—29 days of record-setting high temps, including 117 in Wichita Falls—will remember the T-shirts that said, “I survived the summer of 1980.” Now we all need new T-shirts, but I can’t decide if they should say, “I survived the Pandemic” or “I survived the winter of 2021.” Maybe one thing on the front and the other on the back.

Stay warm and safe at home, folks. It isn’t over yet. New storm coming tomorrow, and no thaw until Friday.

 

 

Texas, Chicago, and Me

 

The house of my growing years

Last night I was reading the opening of Jacqueline Winspear’s memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, when I came across the passage where she talks of the land of our growing and how it is filled with meaning for each of us. Place, she writes, gives our lives meaning. For me, the place of my growing was Chicago, and for many years I thought I’d put it behind me. After all, I reasoned, everyone I knew there had either left or died. But it turns out I had not put it away from me.

I have lived in Texas fifty-six years, long enough I always feel to be considered a native. My careers as author and publisher have been inextricably entwined with Texas, and yet real Texas natives, those born on the soil, have not-so-subtle ways of reminding one that you are an outsider. In the seventies, there was a Born in Texas movement. You could sign up at booths in shopping malls and, for a fee, get a certificate and a T-shirt. While registering my four children, I felt a pang of jealousy. And there were other T-shirts that said, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.” Folklorist and award-winning author Joyce Gibson Roach and I used to do a dog-and-pony show where she talked about how being a fifth-generation Texan impacted her work, and I followed with “Notes from a Newcomer.” I wish today I had those notes, but they are buried in an archive somewhere.

Aside from fleeting thoughts, Chicago only came into my consciousness a few years ago. After five or more years writing and rewriting, I published a longish historical novel, The Gilded Cage, about Cissie Palmer (wife of hotelier Potter Palmer) who was one of if not the first woman to combine great wealth with philanthropy. The subject came to me first as an assignment for a children’s book. As I wrote, Chicago’s colorful history of the late nineteenth century came tumbling back into my mind—the Great Fire, the Civil War, the Haymarket Riot, Marshall Field and his store, the stockyards and the meat packers, Pullmantown, and, of course, the Columbian Exposition. I was wrapped again in my love for and familiarity with Chicago’s South Side.

And then, in 2016, my four grown children and I spent several days in the city so that I could show them where I grew up. Their reaction filled my heart with love—they exclaimed over my childhood home (sort of a red-brick brownstone that they, expecting poverty, estimated at over a million in worth), the elegant nineteenth-century houses of Hyde Park, the gray grandeur of Rockefeller Chapel and the other buildings of the University of Chicago. We dined at Berghoff’s and Rick Steves’ La Fontera, took the historical tour of the Palmer House, stayed in a suite overlooking Lake Michigan and the North Shore—I could gaze at the lake and fill something inside me that had too long missed that lake. It was, though short, perhaps the most memorable trip of my life.

In 2019, some unknown spark prompted me to move beyond Texas and write about Chicago in an entirely different vein—a contemporary cozy mystery set in Hyde Park, the neighborhood of my growing. And now I am, slowly, working on a sequel to Saving Irene, to be titled Irene in Danger. And I know, though a Texan most of the time, a part of me never left Chicago, and I carry that magnificent city in my heart.

Maybe Winspear’s insight will spur me to get serious about that memoir that I keep in the back of my mind. “Memories,” she wrote, “appear in flashes of light,” and I think that is what my memoir would be—not a connected, continuous narrative, but flashes of memory as they came to me.

Acquittal--and a good dinner

 

Baked whitefish that look prettier 
when it was one glorious piece

Everybody cozy on this cold night? I have a space heater in my cottage that makes a lot of difference. Supper tonight was sort of a buffet—Jordan and I had decided on baked whitefish (cod) but neither boy wanted it. Christian has had his second vaccination and didn’t want to eat; Jacob wanted leftover enchiladas, though he tasted a bit of fish, said it was okay, if it had been all there was for dinner, he would have eaten it. I thought it was really good.

Impeachment is over, done with, a not-unexpected but still disappointing verdict that speaks volumes about America and embarrasses us before the world. There’s not much more left to be said—or is there? I thought some highly relevant things came out toward the end of the trial, things even the House Managers didn’t include despite the brilliance of their presentation—and it truly was brilliant. Here are some things, in random order, that I think deserved more attention.

But did you know that just as the president always has the nuclear codes with him (boy, did we luck out on that one), so does the vice-president. So when Pence was being rushed to safety, the aide who carries his nuclear “football” (no idea why they call it that) was right behind him. Think what could have happened if that had fallen into the mob’s hands—no, they couldn’t have broken the codes and set off explosions, but they could have sold damning information to rogue nations throughout the world.

Trump apparently didn’t think of that when he made Pence a target of his anger—or maybe he thought and didn’t care. Another thing that came out yesterday—the then-president knew that the vice-president’s life was in danger. He called new Senator Turbeville to get him to stop the certification, and Turbeville said, “Mr. President, Pence has just been taken out. I have to go.” He swears those are his words, which means trump could easily have interpreted them to mean that the vice-preskdent had fallen into the hands of the mob, which probably would have meant his death. Nonetheless trump tweeted minutes later that Pence was a coward and afraid to stand up for democracy and stop the certification. He challenged the mob to make Pence a target, and at least one insurrectionist read the tweet aloud over a bull horn. Some sources have suggested that trump was writing Pence’s eulogy. Thank the Lord it was not true.

Representative Stacy Plaskett revealed that no parade permit had been given for marching from the Ellipsis to the Capitol—until trump himself approved the permit. He knew he was going to encourage his followers to march to the Capitol (and lie to them that he would be walking with them). Sound pre-planned.

On January 5, Steve Bannon predicated that all hell would break loose the next day. How did he know that, and what did he know? Was he part of the advance planning?

And then there’s that explosive and damning phone call between trump and Kevin McCarthy (he of the weak spine) where trumps says, “Well, Kevin, I guess some of them are more upset about the election than you are.”

Little things, but they add to the picture that was clearly presented of a carefully planned and orchestrated event on January 6. Where do we go from here? One hardly dares to suggest, except that I think details like the above will continue to leak, much to trump’s damnation. I’m disappointed, of course, but I think given the nature of the Republican party today, a conviction would have been too much to hope for.

My mom used to tell me the mills of the Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. I still believe karma is coming, and I still strongly believe in the strength of our democracy. Be of good cheer—this is far from over, and trump is far from a free and happy man.

An amazing day

 

If you watched the Senate proceedings today and listened to the news or followed it online, it seems there’s not much left to say. And yet, I can’t help chiming in. If yesterday was powerful, today was amazing. The House managers are so organized, so passionate in their delivery, so graphic in their presentations—no one with a conscience could ever find trump innocent. And yet many of the Republicans barely paid attention—I read reports of Cruz, Paul, Hawley and their ilk doing anything but paying attention to what was being presented. That makes me outraged. How could they? How can they ignore the most graphic videos? I think the one that is hardest for me to watch is the one showing the law enforcement officer being crushed and screaming for help—the unbelievable cruelty behind that scene is appalling.

On a more rational level, Republicans with a conscience should pay attention to the heavily armed nature of the invaders—they weren’t going to stop a vote. They were going to arrest and kill people—complete with body armor, zip ties, a noose, you name it. One episode I hadn’t seen until today was when Eugene Goodman, the officer who led insurgents away from Pence, saved the life of Mitt Romney, turning him around and heading him toward safety and away from the invaders. Every Senator in that chamber ought to be grateful that they survived—and yet, I think their fear of trump outweighs that for too many. I have a glimmer of hope—based really on a column by Heather Cox Richardson, whose judgement I trust—but it’s only a glimmer.

I took a day off from writing today, not that I’ve been burning up the computer. But I was slow getting going, and after I checked email and whizzed through Facebook, the Senate trial was on, and I was mesmerized, often in horror.

The reason I was slow to get started is that Sophie for the last three mornings has decided she has to go out at an increasingly early hour—seven, then six-thirty, and today, five-thirty. She needs to pee, I’m sure, but then she goes and lies by the back door to the main house. Nothing I can say or do gets her to come in, and softie that I am, I won’t go back to bed and leave her out there. Color me silly, but I am terrified of dognappers, those people who steal dogs to use as bait in dogfights. So I sit and wait for her to come in—sometimes staring into space, sometimes starting up my computer.

This morning at 5:30 I was firm—and probably impolite. I told her “no” a thousand ways in my harshest voice. When she wanted to be petted, I told her we were not friends at five-thirty (made me feel awful). She finally decided if she couldn’t go out, she needed water and banged her dish on the floor. I gave her a bare cup of water, not wanting to aggravate any potty problem, and went back to bed. We slept until eight, and I got some of the soundest sleep of the night.

I hadn’t slept well because of that second vaccine shot—I think I kept waking myself up to see if I felt all right, which I did. My arm is sensitive to the touch but not nearly as sore as it was with the first shot. Jordan has had a few more symptoms—slight fever, etc., and we both feel tired. But I am grateful we’ve done so well.

When I was wakeful last night I heard a new sound: a distinct “Whooo” outside the corner of my bedroom. Loud and clear. I told Jordan it was either an Indian signaling to his tribe or a really big owl. And of course the latter conjured up new fears—I couldn’t let Sophie out although at slightly over thirty pounds I think she’s too much for an owl. The Burtons’ Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, however, would be fair game, and I heard recently of a small dog picked up by an owl but accidentally dropped—the dog’s good fortune. Just to be sure, I did peek out my kitchen door window to make sure we didn’t have night visitors—those people who try car doors and scavenge during the night. All looked calm.

Little is remarkable about my life these days, except I do have to confess that I dumped almost the whole black pepper can on the butcher block I use as a work surface yesterday. Put it on the shelf above the butcher block, but it fell off, opened, and dumped. I never realized what a mess black pepper can make—nor how hard it is to get up. Nor how much it makes you cough.

Tomorrow I hope to restart my “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog—watch for a couple of recipes from the best country cook I ever knew.

Stay warm, folks. It’s cold out there and predicted to be wet and icy. Blessings on the doctor I’m to see tomorrow who said we can do it on Facetime. My kind of appointment!

That dreaded second vaccination.

 

This afternoon, Jordan and I got our second COVID-19 vaccinations. I feel almost guilty writing that because I know so many deserving people are trying desperately to gain access to the shots, applying countless places and caught in an endless vacuum of waiting. We are fortunate because our family doctor is a member of a network that is coordinating with the county to deliver the vaccine and therefore receives a supply. Obviously, I am more than qualified to be in the 1b group because of age, and Jordan qualifies because she is listed as my caretaker.

I sometimes bristle at the idea of calling her a caretaker, in spite of all that she does for me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate her; it’s more that I rebel against the truth that I need a caretaker. But when I take a bold, straightforward look at reality, that’s the truth. I don’t drive, so she drives me to various medical appointments, which are about the only things that get me away from the cottage. She does my grocery shopping, my laundry, cleans my cottage, and fusses at me to drink more water, be sure to take medications, etc. There are a lot of things I can’t do from a walker, and Jordan does them with endless good cheer. I need to shut up and realize that she, as a caretaker, makes my life easy and happy life possible.

So now we’re in that limbo: will we have a severe reaction or not. Facebook is full of stories by people recounting their negative reactions—it’s enough to scare anyone. My doctor reminded me, however, that only about one-third of recipients of the second shot have a negative reaction. It can range from that of a neighbor, healthy young man, who was in bed for two days to a slight headache. And I’m told that older people are less inclined to react because our immune systems are weaker. Still, it’s kind of unsettling to get a shot that you know might make you feel worse. Christian is going to make a comforting chicken dish in the crockpot for dinner tomorrow night, and we will return the favor Sunday after he has his second shot on Saturday (he is eligible because of an autoimmune condition).

And then there’s the question of what we can do after we are fully vaccinated, and the vaccine has had time to take effect. Dr. Fauci, in whom I have absolute faith, says still wear your masks, social distance, and wash your hands a lot. I intend to do that, because even vaccinated, we can be carriers and infect others. The statistics on vaccinated people who get the disease are slim, but it does happen. Still, it seems to me that we are dealing with a disease that is even yet largely unknown—maybe in ten years, we may know the answers, but we don’t now. So that lunch with my daughters will be postponed, and I’ll essentially continue to live in quarantine.

More than one person has said to me, “So if that’s what you’re going to do, what’s the point of getting the vaccine?” It seems twofold to me. By getting vaccinated, I am pretty much protecting myself, but I am also protecting others. Even if I might still be a carrier, I would think odds are less likely. And I do believe that increasing vaccinations are what are making hospitalization and death numbers go down. Being vaccinated is what you do for yourself—and for your family, your neighbors, your community.

I read a Facebook post the other day in which a woman vehemently said she was never getting the vaccine because it is poison and is part of Bill Gates’ depopulation plan (never did figure out why Gates would have a depopulation plan, but I wasn’t about to ask that woman). Such ridiculous thinking doesn’t bother me, but I have also read that large percentages of health care workers and first responders are declining to be vaccinated. And that worries me, because of the implications for continuing spread of the disease. What do they know—or think—that we don’t? I know the vaccine was approved in a hurry—desperate situations call for desperate measures—but I tend to trust science. I wish everyone did.

More later. So far, I feel just fine and ate a good dinner, but it’s too soon to tell. In a sense I feel like there is a dark cloud hanging over my head. Can I blow it away?

Stay well, warm, and safe, everyone.

 

The wrong side of history

 

When we talk today about people on the wrong side of history, we generally mean those alt-right types who would take us back to the nineteenth century when misogyny and slavery flourished, men could do no wrong, and the rich got rich while the poor suffered. But it occurred to me recently that I, who always consider myself liberal and progressive, am also on the wrong side of history.

I got back edits on a manuscript in which my language had been dramatically changed. My Indians became Native Americans, my settlers were Euro-Americans, and my slaves became “enslaved persons.” I objected, partly because of what the changes did to the flow of the language but more because they changed the story I thought I was telling.

My rather long writing career has focused on the experiences of women in the American West—Anglo women, those women who followed their men west, raised their families, saw too many babies die young, endured the terror of Indian raids, prairie fires, drought, and famine. And brought civilization to the West, settled towns, built schools and churches. They were strong women, and I admire them.

But since the 1980s the “new West” historians have told us how wrong these women (and their men) were. They didn’t “civilize” the West—they exploited it, conquered the natives, destroyed one civilization (yes, the native tribes had highly complex civilizations) to build another. And that, we are now told, is wrong.

It’s time to play “What if?” What if settlers had never come west? There be an unbelievable population jam on the East Coast. Time to go back a step, “What if Puritans had never landed on Plymouth Rock?” Well, yes, natives in North America might live in an undisturbed paradise, but what would have happened to the rest of the world? And if Columbus had never discovered America? (Okay, I know he really didn’t, but I used him figuratively as the symbol.) You see where I’m going? Maybe history just rolls along, one civilization replacing another. We’re too close to see it today, but our technological civilization has replaced that of the Industrial Revolution. Is that cause for rewriting history?

Two of the heroes of my life were C. L. “Doc” Sonnichsen, who called himself a “below the salt” historian, and Texas novelist, the late Elmer Kelton. Doc, a Harvard-educated native of Iowa, took on the job of teaching English at the Texas College of Metallurgy and Mines (now University of Texas, El Paso). Elmer was the author of probably over sixty novels, many award-winners, that chronicled the settlement of Texas and the American West from the early 1800s until the end of the twentieth century. One of lessons I learned from both men was the importance of text, fiction and nonfiction, being appropriate to time and place. You couldn’t, they both believed, blame Grandpa for plowing up the prairie and making possible the great dust storms of the Depression, because Grandpa was doing what in that time and place, he believed was right.

I like to apply that theory to my writing about the nineteenth century. Back then, an Indian was an Indian. That doesn’t diminish my respect for today’s descendants of the Kiowa or the Comanche or the Apache. But it speaks honestly about history.  What happened, happened, and changing the language or tearing down statues won’t change the past. The Monroe Doctrine, which called for extending American dominance over the land from coast to coast? Sure, it seems wrong and insensitive today, but in that time and place the American West was considered a bounteous wonderland just waiting for men to settle it and make their fortunes. We can’t rewrite history.

I admire the women I’ve written about, and I’ll keep telling their stories in my own way. Though there’s a caveat—several of them were married to men who were failures. George Armstrong Custer led his men into a trap and lost his golden curls; John Charles Frémont was a failure at almost everything he tried, from the conquering of California (he returned east in chains and disgrace) to his unsuccessful run for the presidency. But that’s another story.

Rant over.

PS: It’s now why I wrote this blog, but my historical novels, Libbie (Elizabeth Bacon Custer) and Jessie (Jessie Benton Frémont), will be available in reprint this May. And no, the language in them was not changed. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Living on Covid Time

For nineteen years, Story Circle Network, an international online organization that encourages women to write about their experiences, has published an anthology, Real Women Write, choosing a different theme each year. For the 2020 anthology, the choice of theme was clear; the book is subtitled Living on Covid Time. It contains 80 pieces of poetry and prose, written by 52 women. I got my copy in the mail yesterday.

In her foreword, Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press, suggests that for writers the time of isolation imposed by the virus may be a rich and focused period or one so filled with anxiety that writing proves impossible. Whereas authors usually write in retrospect, this past year has required many of us to write as we live through a worldwide, terrifying experience with no sure idea of the final outcome. Writers are capturing the present moment, recording history. As an aside, let me add that for novelists, this has meant a choice: do you allude to the pandemic in a novel or assume people are too tired of hearing about it and set the action just pre-pandemic (I chose the latter for my current work-in-progress). For memoirists and many nonfiction writers, there is no choice: you come to grips with the disease.

The stories and poetry in this collection “showcase a range of reaction,” including “grappling with illness, fear and death, with heartbreak and isolation, with the coexistence of ugliness and beauty.” Reading, Warner points out, is one way we listen, and writing is one way we start a conversation with vulnerability. She believes, and I do too, that we have an opportunity to come out of this more courageous, more honest, more productive.

In the final brief essay in the book, Susan Wittig Albert uses a hardy antique rose to make just that point. The leaves of the rose, on her side deck, turned brown, something that had never happened in 25 years. She realized she had taken it for granted and neglected it during a blistering hot and dry summer. But then came Hurricane Beta, with cooler temperatures, even if only a smidgen of rain for the Hill Country. Susan saw that as a lesson from nature, teaching us that the world is resilient but also vulnerable. She concludes that we will go forward. The world will never go back to what it was before the Pandemic, but we can move it forward with hard work and deep breaths, taking more responsibility, paying more attention.

Reading these selections is like listening to a chorus: Lynn Goodwin describes a physically painful episode during which she is convinced she has the virus (it was not); Jeanne Guy offers a prayer to be free of fear and not to have to go to the grocery store—apples and oranges, you think? Not on Covid time. Linda Hoye uses a trip to the grocery store to illustrate just how different life has become in lockdown—and how small things can grate on our nerves. Linda Wisniewski describes sewing masks while watching, for 111 consecutive days, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings and the reassurance she found in his constancy.

Yes, I have a short piece in the collection, a piece that made me face honestly some of my lifelong anxiety. It’s called “The Temptation of Quarantine.” At different times in my adult life, but more as I aged, some ordinary activities raised my anxiety to an almost paralytic level. Things other women did without thinking could cause me great agony. Suddenly one day, in quarantine, I realized that I was perfectly content. I didn’t have to step down that curb and fear losing my balance, drive on the highway, take self-service elevators, or a thousand other little things. I could stay home to write, read, and cook. While others gnashed their teeth over boredom and freedom and the like, I was a happy camper, more relaxed than ever.

The other day my oldest daughter said when I have had both shots, she wants to come to Fort Worth so that she, Jordan, and I can go to Neiman Marcus for lunch. I hesitated—I haven’t been to a restaurant since March 12 last year, and now, vaccinated or not, I’m not sure I want to go. But I will. As the saying goes, I’ll put on my big girl panties and go with my daughters—and enjoy it. But getting back into life beyond my cottage and yard is going to take some doing.

Real Women Write is a good book. You’ll see yourself, and you may come to understand others. It’s available through Amazon.

Some thoughts on frugality

 

A post on the New York Times Cooking Community this morning got to me to thinking about frugality. A woman wrote that she had cooked an Asian meal and, presumably for the first time, used water chestnuts. But she had half a can left over—not, she said, enough to freeze (do they freeze?). She asked what to do with them. Well, I could have told her: pitch them! It’s taken me years to get that attitude.

I inherited frugality from my mother, who lived through two world wars and the Depression. She saved bits of string and aluminum foil; she had a special cubbyhole right under her sink where she stored used—yes, used—paper towels. If she used one to wipe a counter spill, it went into the cubby; if there was a floor spill, she used her knee to open that cubby and re-used the paper towel. When we moved her out of her home, my brother was astounded at the number of tiny jars in the back of the refrigerator, many of them growing mold. She hated to throw away food—leftovers went into a soup pot.

When I was feeding a family of six plus Mom, leftovers had to be pretty generous before they were worth saving. Mom would ask what I wanted to do with such and such as we cleaned up after supper, and before I could answer, she’d say, “I know, I know. Pitch it.”

It took me years to get over the compulsion to boil the turkey carcass after the holidays (I did it again this year and was so grateful for the rich broth). I still save leftovers and, yes, I have a soup-pot container in my freezer. And bread—I must have a hundred different varieties, from breakfast breads to sandwich rye and dinner rolls. You never know when you’ll want to make croutons or need some fresh breadcrumbs. Panko? It’s just a fancy way of spending money when you can make your own crumbs.

But I will never be as frugal as my mom, and my kids are helping me see that I don’t need to. My oldest son, Colin, is a CPA, and I discuss financial things with him. Some twenty years ago, he and I were driving in Dallas, and I remarked on how much I’d like to have another VW bug. “Mom,” he said, “if it would make you happy, you should have it.” And I bought a bright blue Bug that some may remember.

When my four kids and I planned a nostalgia trip to Chicago so that I could show them the house and neighborhood where I grew up, I said there was a Best Western Motel nearby. They would have none of it, and the five of us stayed in a suite at the Drake Hotel which, all my growing-up years, was a symbol of luxury to me. We ate in fine restaurants, including the Palmer House, and we Ubered around the city like we were millionaires. That trip is one of the highlights of my life.

They buy me better clothes than I would buy for myself and they send generous gifts of flowers and chocolate. Colin keeps telling me I can afford a few things that I want, and sometimes I draw up a bucket list. Maybe it was the NYTimes thread but my bucket list often has to do with food—with pandemic and not going anywhere, I don’t need new clothes.

But I want to make gravlax from scratch (salmon cured with sugar, salt, and dill) and I want to waltz into Central Market and buy a whole leg of lamb. I already use real butter and whole milk, and I would like chocolate mousse with my dinner every night, please. I want to try my hand at Beef Wellington—and Salmon Wellington is pretty intriguing too. A bit of caviar? Of course, with cream cheese and capers. And lobster. Always lobster.

Maybe food and frugality are forever linked in my mind, but I’m trying. And I count my blessings every day. Thanks, Mom.

Another day, another dinner

 

Nothing much of interest goes on around here these days. I’m not sure if that means I’m still in the doldrums or if my life is really that dull. But that sense of sameness accounts for my sporadic blog posts. Other than giving you my daily word counts—I am writing a bit each day—or talking about politics, which I’ve forsworn for a bit, though I can hardly contain myself with subjects like Marjorie Taylor Greene, there’s not much left to tell except cooking news.

So tonight I fixed what was billed as a quick lamb ragu. Ragu is simply another way of saying a meat-based sauce, and indeed Jordan presented it to Jacob as like spaghetti with meat sauce. But there were a couple of differences—it was lamb, not beef or pork.

When I moved to Texas, I was astounded that no one eats lamb. Granted, I grew up in an Anglophile household where leg of lamb was a real treat, and I still relish a sandwich of cold, leftover leg of lamb. I’m not sure as a kid we ever had it in any other form, but in the years since I’ve had lamburgers, lamb casseroles, and lamb ragu. I mentioned this particular recipe to Jordan several times, but she always said it sounded too heavy or something. So when she didn’t object this time, I right away bought a pound of ground lamb.

A quick recipe it was not, at least for me. Cooking from a seated position simply takes longer, and it took an hour and a half for me to get the finished ragu to simmering on the hot plate. That includes time to sweep the kitchen floor with my kid-sized broom (so handy from my seated walker)—I’m a messy cook. And time to do the dishes and clean up my tiny kitchen. There was enough chopping of garlic and onion to take me a while.

At any rate, I had the ragu simmering on the stove and the kitchen cleaned up in time for a quiet glass of wine while I watched the news. We dined about seven, and I served the ragu on soft polenta. It takes polenta a while to set up, and Jordan thought I got it too runny. But by the time it sat a few minutes and then the plates were served, it was just about right.

This was a New York Times recipe, so I can’t directly share it. But you should be able to find it here: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020022-quick-lamb-ragu One thing that struck me—other than salt and pepper, there were no spices. But the one thing that many will be tempted to leave out and shouldn’t is two anchovy filets. Oh, go ahead use the whole tiny can—you’ll never know they’re in the dish, but they add great depth of flavor.

In my book, this was a winner. I’m looking forward to lunch tomorrow.