A cooking weekend

 

Jordan hard at work in Costa Rica

Fort Worth has enjoyed a lovely, rainy, dreary weekend, although I admit the temperatures are a bit cool for my taste. But I’ve enjoyed every minute, doing the things I love to do—writing, reading, and cooking. Lots of the latter, and some experiments I’m proud of.

Last night, friends came for happy hour, one of whom needs to eat carbs on time because of diabetes. So I was concerned to have something with bread. With my order from Central Market, I included a small jar of dipping spices. When the order came, they had removed that—apparently, they no longer had it. But my whole appetizer plan was based on those spices! I was going to put out individual dipping dishes (actually some lovely china coasters), a small pitcher of olive oil, a dish of Pecorino, and the spices. Somehow, cheese and oil didn’t do it by themselves. So I went online—often my savior—and found a recipe for making your own spices. I had almost all of them on hand, and I just left out the two I didn’t have—dried parsley and dried rosemary. There were so many other spices, it was just fine. In fact, really good. I also left out the fresh garlic, because everything else was dried. I served it with a sliced baguette from Central Market. I’m not sure anyone else was as enthusiastic as I was, but I thought it was great. I also put out a crock of pub cheese from Trader Joe’s, which I thought was sharp and good. As you can tell, I was pleased with myself.

And last night after everyone was gone, I fed Christian and Jacob British baked potatoes—more about that another time.  But we loaded them with bacon (yes, real bacon, chopped), green onions, grated cheddar, sour cream, salt and pepper and called that supper. So good.

smoked salmon appetzier

Tonight Jean came, and I fixed us appetizers of garlic-rubbed sourdough topped with goat cheese, softened, halved grape tomatoes, chopped scallions, and smoked salmon. It would have made a prettier picture if I had put the tomato and green onion on top—but then
everything would have rolled off. The salmon on top kept It in place.

For the main course: white bean soup, a new-to-me recipe for which I followed every step religiously. Well, almost—I did fudge a bit on the red pepper (and it was fine, not at all noticeable), and I wish I had not put quite so much chicken broth in it, but it was good. When I told her what the garnish is she balked a bit but then declared the garnish made the soup. It was pickled celery, with the celery minced. Pickling it was easy, and we both agreed it would not have been as good an accent if it were not pickled. I will admit the soup was a bit complicated and I used every pot and pan in my kitchen--and I don't have a dishwasher.

Kitchen sink 
after cooking

And my cooking weekend is not over. Tomorrow night, I have committed to fix schnitzel for the boys and me. Jordan will be home for Costa Rica but not until later in the evening. I’ll do roast potatoes and Christian will do Brussel sprouts. And Monday, when supper will be hamburgers on the porch, so we can be ready for trick or treaters, I’ll contribute a green bean salad. I’m a bit intimidated by the schnitzel, though I have an “easy” recipe. But the green bean salad is a snap (no pun intended).

First thing every morning, with my hot tea, I read emails, and that was the closest I came to work today. I read both for messages from friends and for news reports, though I recognize you have to be careful about what you accept as truth. Still, even on a lazy Saturday, that’s part of my day, and a part I enjoy because it keeps me in touch with the world. I am not these days reading the emails of hysteria from various Democratic campaigns. If one more person assures me they’re packing it up and going home, I will scream. We know that Mark Kelly and Val Demings and John Fetterman and others are not giving up ten days before the election. I know it’s a fundraising technique, but I think it’s a poor one, as likely to turn away undecided contributors as to convince them.

Reading rounds out my day, and today I’m lingering over Big Shot, the latest in Julie Mulhern’s Country Club Murders series. It’s a spoof on the eighties upscale, country club life as seen in Kansas City, Mo. It tickled me last week when our minister announced that our visiting preacher was from Country Club Church in Kansas City. Sometimes fiction hits close to home.

So now I’m going to read, but I leave you with a funny picture that popped up on my computer today. Two transported Texas middle-aged ladies comparing their turquoise What could be more of a stereotype?

Texas Literary Hall of Fame, 2010

It’s not Monday anymore, is it?

 

Y

Yesterday I had every intention of writing a blog but somehow the evening got away from me. But I would have begun by saying that I love Mondays. They always seem like a bright new beginning to me, and I am curious to see what good news they will bring. Mondays are almost always busy email days too, and I sometimes get 200 messages. It’s as though everyone else, like me, discovers that there’s a whole world of work out there to be done. Since I like being busy, following up on things, responding, etc. I am a happy camper.

I have a morning ritual. I start the day with emails, which include some columns I subscribe to—some writerly, some politic, a few about food—and I read those, plus personal emails and click through all those that pretend to be personal. I especially dislike the ones that pose as polls when all they want is your money. These days I get a lot from the Republican National Party asking how I like Biden and Harris—I know exactly what they hope for, but I always say I like them a lot. Then I get some that ask if I’m leaving the Republican party, and when I answer Yes—no need to tell them I can’t leave what I never joined—it flips me right to their fund-raising site, with pictures of trump all over.

Moving on to junk mail—I check it daily, usually 30-some emails, many I can click right through but some I move to my inbox—National Memo, Wake Up to Politics (written by a college sophomore who’s been doing this for ten years and is an impressive, mostly impartial, common-sense voice), and my very favorite, Kitchn, where I mine a treasure trove of recipes.

Then comes the separate email account I keep for writing organizations. Having two accounts is confusing, and sometimes I goof and write to family or a close friend on this account and they write back in alarm to ask if that’s a new address. I don’t respond to every email in this account, naturally, but enough that I keep my voice active. It’s good for me image as a writer and for my ego.

Yesterday it took me until noon to get this far, although in all fairness I admit some new “brush fires” came up, especially dealing with my neighborhood newsletter. But the last thing on my morning list—and really sometimes I am through it by ten—is Facebook. I don’t read new postings until late in the day, but I do check notifications and respond where appropriate. See why I don’t have time for the great American novel?

Tonight, I just meant to throw in a few comments about Monday mornings and move on to quarantine, but I got carried away (as I too often do). Quarantine is much on my mind. A close friend wrote to say she hated to see me spend the rest of my natural-born days in isolation. I responded that I’d hate to cut my natural-born days short by risking infection. And there you have it—those who will risk and those who won’t. I have discovered that the ones who will go on about life as usual are middle-aged (my kids' generation) or my grandchildren’s age. My contemporaries are like me—cautious, quarantining, sheltering in place. We’re too old to risk it—we don’t have as much time to recover, and statistics are not in our favor. Many of us have chronic conditions which would complicate an infection. And perhaps we’re a bit more susceptible, though I have a great deal of confidence in the vaccines. I did contact my doctor, and he advised me to follow the program I am. Which means I don’t see family except glimpses through the window or masked talks across an open patio as long as they attend high-risk events (the stock show).

So when I whine about isolation, bear with me and know that it is my own choice. I’d rather be safe than sorry. Tonight, friend Mary, who has not been any place except the optometrist, came for happy hour. We masked but gave it up in favor of eating and sipping wine. In a few days, my Canadian daughter (the one who was concerned about my natural-born days) will bring me lunch and we’ll eat on the patio. A friend is coming for supper tomorrow, but I know she too has been quarantining. I will continue to pick and choose who I see.

Would I love to have you come whisk me away to Wishbone and Flynt or the new Fitzgerald (in the old Café Aspen spot I loved so much)? You bet! Am I tired of my own cooking? Yeah, that too, a bit. But I’m okay, almost content, and optimistic enough to think this surge will pass, and I can get out again. Thanks for understanding. And I think I speak for a lot of old folks.

Today is National Live Creative Day

 

A day, so the article I read this morning said, to set aside to dream, discover, or invent. But by the time I left my desk and computer for a nap, about two-thirty, I realized I hadn’t been very creative. And that set me to thinking about my daily routine.p

Each morning, with a cup of hot tea at hand, I check my emails. Sometimes that takes quite a while—I have two accounts, one I’ve had for almost forty years (through TCU) and a new one that I try to keep for writing organizations. I belong to two groups that I get daily communications from, both organizational and members’ voices, and both use the relatively new network, io groups. TCU does not like the security certificate that io has and therefore won’t talk to them. I missed a lot of emails before I figured that out, and my son Jamie opened a gmail account for me. I get between ten and twenty emails each morning on each, and some require answers right then, others involve me in reading—including a few political posts.

Maybe my favorite is Wake Up to Politics, which Gabe Fleisher started when he was nine. He’s now a sophomore in D.C., studying I believe at George Mason University. Over the years he has acquired good journalism credentials, so he’s on top of what’s happening, and he presents a fairly balanced view. If your politics tend in the direction of mine, look it up and consider subscribing.

Sometimes emails lead me to articles I’m interested in. This morning it was a longish piece in The New Yorker, cited by Andy Borowitz, about Derrick Bell, whose thinking on racism spawned the critical race theory that is so misunderstood by so many. As a young lawyer Bell was with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He went on to be the first tenured Black law professor at Harvard but eventually left that school, over a matter of principle that involved faculty hiring and people of color,  to be a visiting law professor at NYU. The lengthy article traced the development of Bell’s thinking to the point that he decided what most of us saw as advances in demolishing racism really set us back and hardened attitudes. It’s complicated stuff, hard for me with a non-legal mind and education, to understand. But my thought was that if all those idiots who yell about take CRT out of our schools would try to understand what it is, they’d be surprised at how it supports them. The difference, as I see it, being that they don’t want history taught, and he did. But the absurdity of thinking a theory I can’t understand is taught in kindergarten made me giggle and reminded me of the elementary school teacher who said, “If I can get them to read, write, and do basic math, I’m happy.” Who needs CRT is grade school or even high school?

After email, I read the msn news briefs, mostly because they are the ones that flash across my screen. I used to move on to Facebook, but that really is a time killer—the morning had dwindled down to a few minutes by the time I tried to get creative. But even without Facebook, and maybe because of the Derrick Bell article, it was almost noon today before I settled down to my own work.

Often evenings are kind of lazy for me—that’s the time for Facebook and reading whatever is currently on my reading list. Not so tonight, maybe because I had creativity on my mind. But I was almost relieved when our weekly neighborhood happy hour cancelled and the Burtons’ schedule dictated we would not have family dinner. I can stay in my nightshirt and read some more Dorothy Johnson letters.

What about you? Creative today? There are lots of ways to live a creative life, and I probably should branch out to more of them.

Creativity at three o’clock in the morning

One of the blessings of my life is that I usually sleep well at night—and frequently in the daytime too. But last night about three o’clock, I woke and then my busy mind kept me from falling back to sleep. I’ve been known to write great fiction at such times, but the story line either disappears or falls apart when I try to reconstruct it in the morning. Last night I wanted to remember everything.

For years I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a memoir, but I never could wrap my mind around it. The closest I came was my first cookbook, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books. I divided my life into four cooking phases, although now I’d add a fifth. But ten years ago, the phases were childhood in Chicago with a British menu of meat and potatoes, Texas and two new foods—Mexican and Jewish, the casserole years when I raised four children as a single parent with little money to spare, and the years of the empty nest, when cooking really became prominent in my life as I experimented and entertained often. Today I’d add the years of the hot plate, because as most know, I cook on a hot plate or in a toaster oven these days. But that really was a book about food, not my life.

I’m not convinced my life is interesting enough to recount, though others seem to think it is, with raising those four children alone as the central adventure. And maybe it was interesting, and I just didn’t recognize it as I lived it day to day. There were of course gray days but there were many more filled with laughter and even silliness. Warm memories. 

I’m in a small, close-knit online writers’ group where the women mostly write memoir, and one thing I’ve noticed is that most memoirs deal with overcoming a serious problem—frequently addiction or the addiction of a child. We have one woman writing about losing her husband too early to a brain tumor, and another whose ex-husband stole her children. I look forward to those books, both of which are headed to print. But my life pales in comparison. I just haven’t had any big major problems.

So last night I hit on an idea: My Life with Dogs. For too long I lay awake, creating a list in order of the dogs who have meant something in my life. I came up with close to twenty—a pretty good record for eighty years. Oops, I just thought of one more and added him to the list, a dog I had less than a month but one I will never forget. And then I had to memorize the list, so it didn’t get away from me in the morning. That of course might well end up a book more about dogs than me, but it’s worth exploring.

My mind progressed to blog topics and came up with two—you’re reading one now, and the Lord willing you’ll read the second tomorrow night. There was a list of emails I should make today, and again I had to memorize it so that it didn’t get away from me. I am pleased to report that I have committed the list of dogs to a computer file, put the blog topics on my calendar, and sent the emails.

All of this deep thinking took until well after four, but I have a trick for those rare nights when sleep eludes me. I get up and go to the bathroom, whether I need to or not, come back and take two Tylenol. That somehow seems to break the cycle of sleeplessness. True enough, this morning it was 6:40 before I knew it and then I only knew it because Sophie wanted to go out. I got her safely back in the cottage, and next thing I knew it was 8:15—more than time to get up and write down all my three o’clock thoughts.

Excuse me—I think I’ll go take a nap.

My thoughts on Hillary Clinton

Nancy Reagan endorsed Hillary yesterday, so in the face of that unexpected but important support, I doubt my opinion makes much difference to the newly announced candidate. For months I've been lukewarm about this candidacy, figuring she had too much baggage--including her husband. Don't get me wrong--I thought he was a good president and he has done much good for the world since he left office. But some folk will never forget Monica. And then for Hillary, there's Benghazi which has been investigated to death but the conservatives cling to it like a bulldog with a bone, and those private emails--name me a politician on either side of the aisle who doesn't have private emails. Still, those issues could drag her down.
I resisted the "draft Elizabeth Warren" movement because I think she's much more effective in the Senate, and while I really like Bernie Sanders' ideas, I'm realist enough to know he wouldn't win. My son-in-law said scornfully, "He's a socialist," and when I replied, "I know. That's why I like him," even my daughter (who should be used to my views) scoffed. So I guessed I was a reluctant Hillary supporter.
But yesterday, after her low-key announcement and her emphasis on being the champion of every American, I'm much more enthusiastic. We need someone to fight for the poor, the underserved medically, those who have had dramatic cuts to their benefits and raises to their taxes. In short, we need to restore the distribution of wealth in this country, and if that's to be her focus, God bless her. She has a long record of dedication to us everyday folks, and apparently she's not going to abandon it, even while Republicans clamor about foreign policy and other matters on which they have no platform, no consensus.
It's going to be a long and bitter campaign, and Hillary's opponents are going to lie, deceive, throw everything at her they can. I have faith that she's tough enough to take it, but I also like that her announcement reminded us she is a grandmother. She's a tough woman, with a softer side, and I admire that.
I hope she can keep her head up and take the high road. She would be a blessing to this country, which badly needs blessings.