Recipes, weight gain, and water slides

Tonight I'm editing a portion of a cookbook with many recipes from an African-American woman who really broke color barriers and built a career for herself in the '50s and '60s as a teacher, caterer, and producer of food products. She was Lucille Bishop Smith, and I remember when I first moved to Fort Worth in the mid-sixties people used to serve Lucille's chili biscuits as appetizers. You bought them frozen at Roy Pope's grocery store (a still-existent stand-alone where "fashionable" Fort Worth shops, although they may suffer from Central Market now). Carol, who compiled this chapter found no recipe for chili biscuits, but I am tempted to try to recreate them with refrigerated biscuits and canned chili--Lucille would, I'm sure, squirm in her grave. But the recipes are wonderful--some I remember my mom making, like Seven-Minute Icing and Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. Others sound really weird--Japanese bean pie--yes, mashed pinto beans but mixed with sweet ingredients--and Banana and Pineapple Surprise Salad--the surprise is the addition of peanut butter, which sounds fairly awful to me. And do you know what dovering eggs is? It's beating them with an old-fashioned, hand-cranked egg beater. There are some recipes which completely baffle me--like the pumpkin chiffon pie which calls for serving it with Plymouth Sauce. What's that? My mom never did that for sure. Deviled round steak sounds pretty good. I am having such fun with these recipes.

But recipes get me into trouble. Instead of losing weight last week, I gained over a pound. I thought I'd been pretty good until the weekend, but that must have been enough to get me into trouble. Still, I was astounded when I stepped on the scales this morning. It can't have been the two handfuls of potato chips I ate at the party Saturday night. Maybe it was the salmon croquettes--another of Mom's recipes and a perennial favorite of mine. I gave a bit to Jacob Saturday night, and he said, "It's good, Juju!" And then I had one for lunch in a sandwich--add points for bread and mayo. And last night I fixed us lamb burgers with buns--okay, I really went over on points. So today I was fairly careful.

Last night we had a sort of late b'day dinner for Jacob because my present for him finally arrived. It's a Spiderman (what else?) water slide but of course he wasn't much impressed last night. Jordan just called to say that at 8:30 they hadn't had dinner, hadn't done anything but play with the water slide--and Jacob absolutely was having the best time ever. Nice to score a home run from time to time.

Success as a grandmother, a scary fall, and cooking

In spite of Jacob's screaming fit early in the evening last night, I am feeling like a success as a grandmother. Jacob went peepee in the potty twice last night and twice this morning. Then he insisted on putting on his "big boy" pants--you can't tell from this blurry picture (I had a moving target) but they are Spiderman, of course.


Just after this Jacob slid on the rug in front of him and kicked up a corner; I tripped on it and went flying so hard that I had to sit there a minute. He kept saying, "I want to help you up," and holding out his little hands, which gave me a vision of both of us going down in the other direction. Landed on an elbow and a knee which hurt at the time but now are fine. But I apparently pulled muscles in my back, so that it hurts to stand up, turn a certain way, etc. Most of all it scared me. I predict a long nap coming.

This has been another cooking weekend. I worked much of yesterday morning making mashed potatoes and salmon cakes--I ate a salmon cake and Jacob ate a small portion of one. One will make my favorite sandwich at lunch, and Jordan will take one home tonight for her lunch tomorrow. Jordan and Addie came back from the party after eleven last night, having eaten pizza and not interested in my cooking. We sat on the porch for one last sip of wine, and it was most pleasant. Jacob, bless him, slept until 8:15. Apparently he does better at my house about sleeping late and using the potty. No wonder I'm proud.

Hope I do better with a cooking audience tonight. I spent part of the morning mixing lamb burgers (they have mint in them) and making a French potato salad (vinaigrette, no mayo). Still have last night's broccoli, which Christian won't eat, but he'll eat the spinach/red onion salad that goes on the burgers.


Doing a lot with recipes lately as we're editing Grace & Gumption: The Cookbook. Katie's editing text, and I'm scurrying around helping one contributor get recipes from Mexican American restaurants--she says it's very hard because so few are written down. This morning Carol, who wrote the career women chapter, brought me the recipes (original plus Carol's version) of recipes from an African American woman who made a career for herself as a chef and caterer in the 1950s and '60s. I particularly remember her frozen chili biscuits when I first moved here--you just popped them in the oven and you had an appetizer. Carol never could find the recipe, so I'm going to call some other old-timers and make sure I't not imagining things. I may take a crack at the recipes today--or I may read a novel that someone sent us to reprint.

Later: my lamburgers, mixed with mint and paprika, topped with a salad of spinach and feta, were a success--and delicous if I do say so, so now I'm way over my Weight Watchers points for the day, because we also had potato salad with vinaigrette dressing. But it was good. Jacob was full of himself, mostly because his daddy was here, and he laughed and played and screamed and swept the floor endlessly--we kept having to tell him the floor only, not walls or tables. My potty training of earlier has gone to pot (sorry about that pun) but maybe it will have some longlasting effect. And he gave sweet kisses and hugs as he left.

When I got up from my long and happy nap, I thought my back was better, but soon realized it had stiffened up while I lay there. But now, by the time I've moved around a lot, it really is better. Christian fixed my alarm system for me, and all seems well.

Back to reading and a lazy evening.