Who needs sleep anyway?

 

I

The Walkathon in an earlier year.

t happens once a year. Today was the day. I was awakened at seven o’clock by the sounds of a marching band, complete with drum rolls. The high school marching band was tuning up or whatever they call it directly across the street from our house. We live across from Lily B. Clayton Elementary School, a historic school with an enthusiastic parent support program. The occasion today was the annual Lily B. Walkathon where all students who are able march a mile through the neighborhood, along with teachers, parents and friends. Neighbors sit on their porches or front lawns to wave and encourage the walkers. The parade is led by mounted police officers, the marching band, and often a city official in the requisite convertible. It’s really a terrific neighborhood occasion. And a fundraiser for the school. This year the kids raised $58,000 by getting people to support them in the walk.

But seven o’clock is awfully early, at least for me. I did doze, and then when they marched away, I fell sound asleep until I heard the drums returning at about nine o’clock. As I lay there listening to them, it occurred to me that it was like having an MRI, where you lie there and try to make sense or a pattern out of the sounds the machine is making. Only in this case there was a pattern. Those high school kids are pretty darn good.

To make it worse, four Amber Alerts about five o’clock in the morning brought me straight up in bed and alarmed Sophie who ran around the cottage barking at an enemy she couldn’t see. I’m not savvy enough on my iPhone that I could find out what child is missing, but I pray safety for them. Jacob tells me I missed a national alert last weekend over the Hamas attack on Israel. Perhaps what I missed this morning was a warning about the predicted Day of Rage. We are all grateful it doesn’t seem to have materialized, though when is at this point always leery of complacency.

All this on Friday the thirteenth. I don’t know about you, but I have never been particularly superstitious. In fact, I think it’s kind of silly that tall buildings never label thirteenth floor. No matter what they call it, that fourteenth floor is really number thirteen. But I read an interesting column this morning. Triskaidekaphobia is the name for extreme superstition of fear of the number thirteen. Writer Kait Carson (Scuba diving mysteries, the newest mystery of which is Deep Dive) points out that you never seat thirteen at a dining table (awkward anyway) and the number 13 is the death card in Tarot. She claims some writers refuse to advertise the thirteenth in a mystery series—how would you get around that?

But according to Kait, in eastern cultures the number is considered lucky, and she herself has had some lucky Fridays the thirteenth. Maybe it’s all in the way you look at it. Me? I think I’ll consider it neutral, just like any other day—almost. Then again maybe that marching band was trying to tell me something. How about you? Are you superstitious?

Meantime, I’m just going to try to learn to pronounce Triskaidekaphobia—I can’t even break it down into component parts that make any sense.

 

 

Another day, another scam

 

I woke up this morning to a text message telling me that USPS was unable to deliver my package and offering me a form to fill out to reschedule delivery. I’m not good at texting on my phone—clumsy old fingers—but I am a rule follower, so I began filling it out. I had to stop and start over once—this was before I had brushed my teeth or had my tea. I finally got a little suspicious when they wanted my credit card—if a package was coming through USPS there should be no charge. So why the credit card?

I checked Amazon and the package I was expecting had indeed been delivered—it was still in the main house and hadn’t made its way to the cottage yet. So when I got myself together for the day and finally settled at my desk, I decided to check out the web link on the computer rather than the phone. Wonder of wonders! That page wasn’t working right now.

Jordan came out a bit later, bringing the package, and said oh for sure to ignore such. This afternoon, the scam was confirmed by two more emails exactly like the first. The first came from Audrey—the next two from Margaret and Linda. They are clever, official looking forms, presented with a cheery, “The USPS team wishes you a good day!” So this is my warning to all of you!

I note with sadness the passing of California chef, restaurant owner, and vintner Michael Chiarello at the age of sixty-one from an allergic reaction. I remember watching him when he had a regular TV show. As his last name implies, his focus was Italian food, and he was charming and fun to watch. In my appalling collection of recipes, there is a worn piece of paper with Chiarello’s picture (much younger) and the title, “Mom’s Stuffed Eggplant.” It’s a different kind of recipe for Eggplant Parmesan, calling for hamburger. The eggplant is cut in half, hollowed out, and the eggplant meat, some hamburger, and tomato cooked together with seasonings and Parmesan and then stuffed back into the eggplant shell for baking. Yes, it’s a bit of work, but it’s so worth it. RIP, Mr. Chiarello—you brought joy to my kitchen.

It’s been another intense day for me, past noon before I finished reading new emails and the various news columns I follow, like Heather Cox Richardson. I value my exchange with members of Guppies, the online chapter of Sisters in Crime—today we got going on the pros and cons of Substack, the online platform that combines a blog, newsletter, payment system, and a customer support team. I have not for now considered moving this blog to that system, but I’m curious how many regular readers would follow. Substack offers free and paid content, and I would keep the blog free. At some future date, I might serialize the Food of the Fifties project I’m working on. And I might charge a tiny amount for that. I’ll welcome any comments. Substack seems to encourage back-and-forth conversation more than the blog does. On the other hand, I’m grateful for my blog readers and not anxious to shake up that readership. So I’m on that uncomfortable fence, but it’s not an immediate problem: the Food of the Fifties manuscript, tentatively titled Mom and Me in the Kitchen, is a long way from completion. Indeed, it may be such an ongoing thing that, like my Thursday cooking blog, “Gourmet on a Hot Plate,” will never be finished.

And the horror from the Israel/Hamas War continues to come into our living rooms. Weighty thoughts tonight. Count our blessings and pray for the ordinary people of Israel and Palestine.

Tangled thoughts between war and food

 

Creamed chipped beef on toast.

Tangled and unhappy thoughts tonight, and I know I’m not alone. The barbarity of the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians keeps me awake at night, as I am sure it does you. I simply cannot fathom cold-blooded, mindless killing of innocent strangers. Nor the execution of babies in their cribs. Those men are animals (I have not heard of any women among the Hamas terrorists, and I’m wondering if that’s a cultural thing.) I was glad today to hear President Joe Biden make the strong distinction: we must not confuse Hamas with the Palestinian people who are, perhaps even more than the Israelis, victims of Hamas. Netanyahu’s revenge will be swift and terrible—and that gives me pause, because he too will obliterate innocent civilians.

I did a bit of prowling about the background of the longstanding enmity. Perhaps you’ve done that too. In 1947, I was nine years old, far too young to care about what was happening in some far-away place. But that was when the land was divided into a Jewish state and an Arab one. At that time, the Arabs had most of the land. Over the years, the Israelis have taken over most of the Palestinian land, and they have not been gentle about it. They would establish a kibbutz on Palestinian soil and then react when Palestinians raided that village. Both were guilty; neither tried to find peace.

Today, if I’ve got it right, the tiny remaining Palestinian lands—the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—are occupied territories, occupied and controlled by Israel. And the Israeli military is not gentle, not even humane in their occupation. The only innocent victims in this are the ordinary citizens—particularly women and children—on both sides. And I weep and pray for them.

There’s so much disinformation too. No, the U.S. did not give $6 billion to Iran which Iran in turn used to fund the Hamas attack. That money, held by South Korea, has not been touched and can only be used for humanitarian purposes. The US facilitated the agreement—it never had the money, never gave it to anyone. Shame on Republicans for trying to turn this world tragedy into a political talking point.

Jacob came home today worried that we would be bombed for sheltering refugees. That’s what he heard at school. How to tell him to tell his schoolmates we don’t have many Palestinian or Israeli refugees, though we might get them, and neither Hamas nor Israel has the capability of bombing Fort Worth, Texas. I sympathize with him because I remember the Bay of Pigs crisis—I was not a lot older and was living in Missouri. I begged my parents to leave Chicago, a prime target, but they assured me they had lived through similar crises and would be fine. I suppose that is true today too—we have lived through this, but never untouched emotionally.

A side of this I haven’t heard mentioned in this day of anxious concern about the climate: war with rockets and destruction is bad for the climate. It is another way we do not treat the earth kindly. I’ve been thinking this week about slogans: War is bad for people. War is bad for humans and other living things. War is bad for the earth. Take your pick. There’s bound to be so much pollution of the air from the bombs and explosions.

It all makes me think how shortsighted men of violence are. They cannot see beyond the next battle to the effect on their own people, the earth and the world. I refuse yet to give up hope for mankind, but some days it’s hard to cling to.

I started out to say my thoughts are tangled between war and food, because most of the day food has been on my mind—not to eat but to write about. Tonight I fixed dinner for my friend Mary V. Creamed chipped beef on toast, or, as it is commonly known, SOS. Somehow it came up in conversation a bit ago, and I told Mary she was the only other person I know who would eat it, so I promised to fix it next time we got together. So simple to do, and so very good! All you do is make a white sauce, cut the beef into strips and add it, and serve on toast. With a green salad. Mary tells me she also loves liver, so that’s next on my agenda, but she insists next time she will bring dinner from Eatsi’s, and I’m up for that.

Eating a good dinner in a peaceful cottage it seems impossible that there is such horror half a world away. I often wonder why I am so blessed. You or I could be living in a kibbutz on the West Bank, we could have been at that music festival—and yet here we are, safe. It must mean, to me, that God wants us to do good, to fight for truth and honor, to love our neighbor no matter what.

Sorry, I’m getting sloppily philosophical, but I think it goes with this week.

A bit of writerly excitement

 

Cottage pie
Image courtesy Mary Dulle

For some time now, I’ve been fiddling with a project I tentatively titled, Mom and Me in Kitchen. I want to somehow capture the importance of learning to cook from my mom in the Fifties with all that decade implies about foodways in America. It was a time of vast change—WWII was over, the soldiers were home, the post-war economy was booming. America was optimistic.

Food manufacturers faced a challenge: realign their product from feeding the military to feeding the public. And thus fast food, convenience food, prepared foods—all those were born. The food industry launched a massive advertising campaign based on the premise that housewives did not like to cook. Cooking was a chore they had inherited, because of their gender, and they longed to have it simplified for them. The less time in the kitchen, the better. Advertisements boasted of prepared meals that could be on the table in fifteen minutes or less—think Swanson’s frozen turkey and mashed potatoes dinners.

Not all American housewives bought that fifteen-minute dream. Surveys and polls showed a lot of hold-outs, women who were still scratch cooking for most of their meals. My mom was one of those hold-outs. Oh, sure, she fell for some of the hype—we occasionally ate Spam, and when she and Dad were going out, she satisfied my BFF and me with cans of spinach and Franco-American spaghetti. We thought we were in food heaven. But mom still canned her own tomatoes, made her own applesauce, baked pies and cakes, even angel food, from scratch. And made seven-minute icing, which took patience and dedication. She made her own bread, and today my kids still clamor for her dinner rolls, with a pat of butter hidden inside each.

My cooking today reflects that. I make some of the dishes I learned at her elbow, but more than that, the dishes I make today build on what she taught me in that Chicago kitchen. So that’s what I wanted to write a cookbook about. Easier said than done.

For some time I have floundered trying to explain my culinary interest and to justify my weekly food blog, “Gourmet on a Hot Plate.” I enjoy the occasional challenge of a sophisticated and difficult recipe but mostly I want to cook familiar things, the kind of food I grew up eating. For instance, last night I made a meatloaf just for me—no one else was around for supper, and I figured I’d have leftovers for lunches. Tonight I made a shepherd’s pie—I don’t think my mom ever made that, but it’s in the spirit of the food she cooked. I just wasn’t sure what kind of label to hang on that approach to cooking in the 21^st century.

So I was reading Laura Shapiro’s Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, a wonderful resource, and I came across this line: “In culinary history, the ordinary food of ordinary people is the great unknown.” For me, it was an Aha! moment. That’s what I’m trying to talk about. Menus from upscale restaurants and magazine articles about the rich and famous tell us about gourmet food, but peoplelike my mom didn’t write about their dinner. So far in research about the Fifties, I find only the upscale or the bizarre, but not the ordinary—no tuna casserole, not chicken tetrazzini, no meatloaf. And that’s my niche.

I can bypass the bizarre—all those jellied salads and sandwich loaves iced with cream cheese and most of the convenience recipes. To James Beard’s horror, Poppy Cannon, author of The Can-Opener Cookbook, once made vichyssoise with frozen mashed potatoes, one leek, and a can of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup.

The more I read today and took notes, the more I realized that this was going to be a memoir about my mom. That’s okay. She’s a good role model. And I’ll have to delve into that. Born in 1900 (we could always figure out how old she was), she lived through two world wars, the Depression (and oh my, did the effects linger). She was widowed at thirty-four with a young son. I won’t put her on a pedestal, but I will say despite all she had a terrific sense of humor, and our kitchen episodes often involved laughter, if not the outright giggles.

So that’s where memory and Mom are taking me, and I’m having a good time with it. Writing can be fun.

I want to end tonight, though, with a hope that we all pray for both the Israeli and Palestinian people. Most of them are innocent pawns caught in a war fomented by men with power who court violence. It’s not a question of right or wrong—it’s a question of human lives and unbelievable suffering and grief. Pray for peace.

Fall temperatures—and influencers

 

A picture for the algorithms.
Jacob, much younger, and Sophie (pink collar).
What you do when there's no school and you're bored.
One of my favorite pictures.

These nice, lower temperatures we’re having the last few days seem to energize people. I’ve heard from several who are rejoicing in how refreshed they fell, celebrating because it’s finally soup weather, anticipating fall after the horrendous summer we have. Somehow though, it has the opposite effect on me. All I want to do is curl up in my bed and doze. I even turned on the heat, but shhh! Don’t tell Jordan.

Yesterday I took two naps—long ones, one in the afternoon and another for almost two hours after supper. Each time I slept heavily, and when I woke, I had to force myself to get out of bed. Once up and about I was fine, though aware that I was tired. Longtime friends came for happy hour, and I was energized by their company. But after they left, I kept thinking about a nap—ate leftovers, wrote my blog, and went back to bed. Somehow, I stayed up from ten to midnight, and then slept soundly until Soph wakened me at seven this morning.

Today I didn’t feel as tired, but I still didn’t want to leave my bed. I fed Sophie at seven, went back to bed, fed her again at her insistence at 8:45 (she usually gets a two-stage breakfast so we can time her insulin shot), and went back to bed for an unprecedented third time. After about half an hour, my old-fashioned work ethic dragged me out of bed, and I got going for the day. But by two o’clock I was back in bed for another nap.  Surely by now I’m caught up on sleep, but I can’t guarantee it.

What a quandary! I really don’t like summer’s high temperatures, but I perhaps dislike even more the extreme cold we’ve been getting in winter the last few years—I think that’s my Chicago background showing. But I do like the “in-between” seasons, so I hope I adjust soon so I can enjoy these balmy days.

Something that’s been on my mind lately: how do you get to be an influencer? I’m not even sure what an influencer is, but I think they are mostly on TikTok, with maybe some on Substack, Patreon, and other online subscription newsletter services. I have friends on Substack and a couple of columns I follow though I don’t know the writers—are they influencers? I’m not sure. Heather Cox Richardson is a columnist whose newsletter, Letters from an American, I read every day, but I wouldn’t call her an influencer. To me, she’s giving us history lessons that help us understand today’s political turmoil. And my friend Susan Wittig Albert writes about life in the Hill Country, nature, herbs, and aging—what she does not do, and I’m thankful, is try to influence you to buy her books (I’ll put in a plug—her China Bayles mysteries, now up to #27, are terrific reading). I also follow Ruth Reichl, the food writer, who offers recipes, memories of meals, old menus—all good fun, but I’m not sure she influences people as much as she interests and entertains them—and makes me want to be a better cook. Stephanie Raffelock also writes about aging and women’s issues and finding your core—good stuff, but it doesn’t influence me to rush out and do something dramatic.

I think true influencers mention, even push brand names. They have sponsors—I’m not understanding this enough even to cite an example. But I did read today about an influencer who did a heinous thing—she adopted an Asian child with special needs and then decided, two or three year later, to re-home him, as you should not do even to a puppy, let alone a child. The influencer part of that horrible story that interests me is that she lost all of her sponsors and her income dropped dramatically. But what did she, an apparently quite shallow person, do to get to that high-income pinnacle and to have those sponsors in the first place?

I gather it’s a bit more complicated than saying one day, “I want to be an influencer.” You have to have a field where you have some kind of expertise. That’s a stumbling block—I have a bit of skill at cooking and a lot of political opinions, but I don’t think either of those qualify me to be an influencer. I probably know some more than most about women in the literature of the nineteenth-century American West, but who would I influence? Three or four interested readers—among other things, I don’t see any income in that, not that income is my major goal at this point.

Maybe because I post on my blog more nights than not, I am already an influencer and just need to flaunt the title. But what am I influencing readers about? Sophie’s latest antics? What I’m cooking and eating? What I’m reading. I find this entire online world confusing to say the least, and for the time being I have decided to stay where I am: a non-influencer blogging most nights about some of life’s significant moments and a lot more about the trivia. Seems where I belong.

Now, I feel another nap coming on.

Busy days at the cottage

 

Kristine Hall, me, and Stephanie Raffelock

It’s been wonderfully busy around here the last couple of days. Today I had the fun of serving lunch to Austin author Stephanie Raffelock (Creatix Rising: Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women and A Delightful Little Book on Aging) and Kristine Hall, publisher of the online weekly newsletter all about Texas books, authors, and writing, “Lone Star Literary Life.” I had met both before, briefly and one time each, but we have ongoing email relationships. And I knew all along that Stephanie and Kristine also had an online relationship. So while Stephanie was in the Metroplex, it only seemed logical to get us together.

Besides, it gave me a nice opportunity to cook for guests. I had explained to Stephanie that no, I did not want her to take me to lunch. It’s easier for me to stay in the cottage and cook. So I fixed Coronation Chicken Salad—you can pretty much figure that one out. Developed in 1953 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, it reflects the heavy influence of the flavors of India on British cooking: curry, mango chutney, dried fruit, and sliced almonds. There is debate over whether it should have diced, dried apricots or raisins—I went with raisins, because cutting up dried fruit is a pain. Watch for the recipe on next week’s Gourmet on a Hot Plate (Thursday). I admit it was a bit of work: I cooked chicken breasts on Wednesday and cooled and diced them; Thursday I made the salad, so today all that remained was to serve it in lettuce cups, with a side of mixed berries. It was a hit—well, at least they cleaned their plates.

Coronation chicken salad

We talked of books and politics and food and aging and books again and Substack and it was all wonderful. We laughed a lot, were serious at times, and Sophie was in heaven because Stephanie played with her. Lunch went by way too quickly, and I’m wishing they’d come back once a week.

Last night I had dinner with long time friends Subie, Carol, and Kathie. We were celebrating two birthdays but more than that we were relishing the opportunity to be together. Like lunch today, it was laughter and stories, a bit of politics, a bit of life in the residential community where two of them live and the third spends a lot of time with her special friend. Our waiter, Matt, was young but patient with four old ladies who changed their minds a lot, tried to joke with him, and dropped things on the floor. I noticed that when we first were seated, there was so much background noise I resigned myself to missing much of the conversation. But I played with the settings on my hearing aids and ended up hearing everything perfectly and being able to participate easily in the conversation.

We had a good laugh over one of our number who asked the waiter what Dukes was—we three immediately, said, “Mayonnaise!” and she said, “I hate mayonnaise.” She ended up with the lobster roll which had medium mayo and loved it. I had oysters Rockefeller, which were really good. I longed for the half dozen oysters on the half shell, but I heard they were $25 and yet not enough sustenance for an entrée, so I resisted. A lovely evening, and we resolved to do it more often. And sometime I’m going to go back and have those raw oysters. For some reason, the oysters at this restaurant are all tiny and delicate, perhaps more palatable than big fat ones.

So tonight Soph and I are being lazy. I’m going to relish the last couple of days and sink into some pleasure reading. Looking forward to a long weekend.

Obedient Sophie when Stephanie said, "Sit."

Sophie gives me a scare

 

Sophie and Christian in happier days. 

Last night, writing about three-o’clock-in-the-morning thoughts, I confessed to my superstitious nature. Now, here’s another superstition: bad things come in threes. I’m holding my breath, waiting for the third.

Actually, the first wasn’t bad, except it was medical confusion for all but me—Jordan with her rash, Jacob with his swollen hand, and me with a sore arm from a flu shot and, during the night, a headache. But last night, a major bad thing: Sophie gave us a bad scare.

Now that she’s older and calmer, she mostly spends her evenings sleeping by the couch while I’m at my desk. But last night, when I was ready to lock up for the night, I checked on her—and she wasn’t there. I searched the cottage, but she was nowhere—the cottage is small enough I was not likely to miss a small black dog. Convinced she was outside, I armed myself with a piece of cheese and went to the door—she never fails to respond to the bribe of cheese. But this time she did, and I could not see her anywhere in the dark. I called Christian (my solution to so many problems).

He came out and wisely checked the cottage again. Nothing, so he started out the door, but said, “Here she comes.” Sophie came in, tripped over the threshold she’s crossed a hundred times a day, and went down flat. Her back legs were not holding her up, and she was stumbling. This had happened once before, and I thought I remembered the immediate solution was food. So we fed her a cup of kibble, some of that cheese I’d promised, and a lot of water, all of which she consumed. By the time I went to bed, she seemed better if not perfect. During the night I checked and was reassured that, as usual, she moved from favorite spot to favorite spot.

This morning, she let me sleep unbelievably late, but she did eat her breakfast and seemed fine. I called the vet nonetheless to report. About noon, she began to stumble, and I called in an update to the vet. They called back promptly, thought she was getting too much insulin, and advised me to feed her right away. I did, and once again she seemed to improve.

The culprit? The wrong size needles. Somehow, the vet had prescribed some needles I didn’t need (I usually order them online) and they were different from what we’d been using. The vet tech asked to see a picture of the box of new (isn’t email wonderful?)  and said “Yep, they’re wrong.” So tonight we’re skipping the shot and tomorrow beginning a reduced dosage.

But it’s never easy. Sophie, who is always ravenous, is not interested at all in her dinner. Maybe she’s full from having a dinner-size serving at lunch. I am leaving the food out, but I am also uneasy.

This world consists of dog people, cat people, and non-pet people. The former two, to me, lump together in one category. They understand that our pets have feelings and fears and aches and pains, that they are part of family, precious and beloved. Non-pet people probably can’t fathom the depth of my concern for Sophie. But for twelve years now, she’s been my best friend, my companion, my goofy pal who makes me feel loved and appreciated and often makes me laugh—and I try my best to return that feeling. She has taught me a lot about compassion and patience and love, not that I hadn’t learned from a string of probably more than twenty special dogs during my life. (I keep thinking I’ll write a book titled Dogs I Have Loved—so many books, so little time.)

So tonight I’m walking that thin line between being a hysterical dog parent and a responsible, concerned pet owner. I am playing the wait-and-see game, but I am worried. I would love it if she would pop up from the spot on the floor near me where she is lying and go eat her supper. And for her, the evening will only get worse—thunderstorms predicted.

Prayers appreciated.

The three-o’clock-in-the-morning blues

 

My brother and me at his ranch.

Several years ago my brother and I were having a deep conversation—I can’t imagine what about, since we aren’t given to such conversations, especially since politics is the elephant in the room for us. But I distinctly remember that he said sometimes, lying awake at three o’clock, he had the recurring thought, “Oops. Wish I hadn’t done that one.” Those words have stayed in my mind.

Three o’clock seems to be the witching hour, when all kinds of unwelcome thoughts occur. Not exactly night terrors, but along that line. Lately, I’ve found myself fighting what I call the three-o’clock blues, trying to make my mind accept that everything looks worse at three o’clock. An image that truly scares me may lodge in my imagination, like people trapped in a rapidly sinking car or someone in a cable car dangling in the air. Sometimes I am obsessed by something I’m planning, like a meal I’m cooking for company or maybe an evening out with friends. I get not an earworm (oh, I do get those—I may have mentioned that it took me days to clear “We’ve a story to tell to the nations” our of my brain), but a brainworm—an obsessive thought I can’t get rid of that keeps me awake.  Sometimes it’s a memory, either good or bad, but even a trip to the bathroom doesn’t break the cycle. I get back in bed and my brain picks up where it left off. I will admit that sometimes I write brilliant scenes for whatever I’m working on, or I plan out a blog—but those don’t often stay with me after my early morning “second sleep.”

What I am a past master at is manufacturing illness in the night. At three o’clock, I am a raging hypochondriac. I have had heartburn that I thought was a heart attack (In my defense, I’d never had heartburn before.) A cough and upset stomach turns into a severe case of covid; a headache is a sure brain tumor; the call of the bathroom indicates an obstruction; if the bathroom doesn’t call, I am convinced my kidneys are failing again. You can see I have to give myself a stern talking to.

This is particularly relevant today, because I’ve just come from the doctor’s office where I was told, “You sound wonderful!” He couldn’t find a thing wrong, and I had no problems to report. I simply wanted—and got—a flu shot (yes, my arm is sore, even though I thought I relaxed the muscles just before the shot). Sure, I have some chronic conditions, but they are controlled. I couldn’t run a 1K race if I had to, and as I just said to someone, I doubt I could ride a bike anymore.

But I am counting my blessings—for my age and history, I am in good health. And all those three-o’clock problems? They’re mostly in my imagination.

This has been a doctor day. Jordan had an appointment just before mine, because she has developed a peculiar rash (we’re hoping it has nothing to do with her new kitty, Charlie). And while we were at the doctors’ office (she sees a different doctor than I do), Jacob texted a picture of a swollen, puffy hand. Instant telephone diagnosis was a bug bite, but I haven’t heard what his pediatrician said. But “doctoring,” as I call it, does take a chunk out of your day and kind of gets you off schedule. I’m not sure I’ve gotten back on yet today.

Watch me develop all the symptoms of the flu at three o’clock tomorrow morning. It doesn’t matter—they’ll be gone by morning (knock on wood).

Saga of a soupy recipe

What goes into cube steak in a crockpot.

Earlier this week a friend posted a recipe on her timeline—at least, it was a partial recipe. A list of ingredients for a crockpot dinner. It didn’t have a cooking time or crockpot setting, so I posted a note asking. But I thought surely it was a no-brainer: six hours on low would cook some cube steaks. I told Christian about it, and he agreed it sounded good for Sunday supper. When we can, we like to make a family event of Sunday supper—something a little different from the usual weeknight rushed meal. I gave him a choice of which was easier: bring the crockpot out to me and I’d cook, or he could take the recipe inside and he’d cook. He often likes to spend Sunday cooking, so he chose the latter. And it’s a good thing.

This morning he came out with the recipe in hand and said, “I need more direction.” That’s the difference between us: whereas I tend to barge ahead figuring I know how to cook, Christian wants precise instructions. I told him the best my friend could offer was that she was looking for the recipe. He stood over my shoulder while I went back to the Facebook web site where she’d found it. It had no more information. With Christian pointing here and there, we explored on the computer. Finally, he threw his hands up in the air and said “I’ll do some research.”

It was a good thing he did. The recipe called for six cube steaks and a couple of soups. I had intended to put the steaks in the crockpot and pour the combined coups over them. When Christian found the recipe it called for layering the steaks with onions, so they didn’t just melt into one huge glop of cube steaks. Then there was one more soup than my sketchy recipe had indicated, and it had to cook for seven hours—that sent Christian scurrying to get it started.

We had dinner at seven-thirty, which is about the usual times for us (my goodness, it took me a long while to get used to that late dining).

Soupy cube steaks

Six cube steaks

One sweet onion

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 envelope dry onion soup

½ soup can water

¼ tsp. black pepper

Layer steaks and sliced onion in crockpot. Separately mix together two cream soups, water, and pepper. Pour over steaks. Sprinkle dry soup mix on top (Christian chose  to stir it into the soup mix).

Cook on low for seven hours. Serve with noodles, rice, or potatoes.

It was delicious. Both Jordan and Christian harped a little on cube steak being tough, but when they ate it their tune changed. Christian said it was the most tender he’d ever had, and I found it fork-tender. Plus lots of gravy—always important to me. It’s a keeper recipe.

And a big hat tip to @Harriet Gerick Hunt for sending starting us on this saga and yay to Christian for fixing a really good supper.

 

 

What I thought I posted last night

 

Oops! I thought I posted this last night, but apparently all that came through was the image. So now I've changed the image and will try again. The picture above is my oldest granddaughter several years ago reading in the rain--never too young to be a devoted reader.

Shepherd.com, a readers’ browsing site, has asked authors to choose and describe the three favorite books read in the past year. I liked the challenge and immediately began reviewing the books on my Kindle (if I didn’t read it on Kindle, it didn’t make this survey—my memory is not that good). First the site wanted to know how many books I’ve read since October 2022. The Kindle count seemed low, but I know that I average a book a year, so I took a guess at forty. Then for each book, the site wanted to know if I listened to the audio version of the book and if I read it as part of a book club. I never do either of those things, so that was easy for me.

Here are the three books I read and why I liked them:

Dinner with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg

Nina Totenberg spoke to three of my deep interests in this first-person account: politics (the inner workings of the Supreme Court), memoir, and food. I was fascinated by the up-close look at Justice Ruth Ginsberg in her later days and drawn by two conflicts: should Justice Ginsberg have resigned because of failing health and given President Obama a chance to appoint a justice, and where should Totenberg have drawn the line between responsible journalism and friendship. Memoir is currently a popular genre but difficult for some to define, and I am constantly looking for examles that go beyond self-flattery. This book gave a lively account of Totenberg’s own career along with her friendship with Ginsberg. The food—and lively company—at Totenberg’s dinner parties were fascinating.

The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux, by Samantha Vérant

Recipes and gourmet menus alone make this book worth savoring and keeping, but I was charmed by the setting—an ancient chateau in France that is a tourist lodge with two restaurants, a vineyard, and wonderful gardens. Sophie, a disgraced chef in New York, flees to her grandmother Odette but finds responsibility and a whole new way of life. The contrast between her two worlds—New York and France—is nicely done, as is Sophie’s own inner conflict. The cast of minor characters brings delightful variety—two grannies are Sophie’s main assistants, along with an old, alcoholic man who is a genius with desserts. If the hint at romance is a bit formulaic, I overlooked it because I was so charmed by the people, the place, and the food.

The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscan, by Lori Nelson Spielman

I was fascinated by this tale that weaves together an ancient curse on an Italian family, a fierce nonna who has ruled her granddaughters, and an aunt who has been ostracized by the family. It’s hard for us to understand the power of of an ancient curse, but these women have lived with it their whole lives. They flaunt tradition and travel to Italy, with its lush gardens and marvelous food, from their stark Brooklyn neighborhood back to Italy. Refusing to accept the curse, they reveal its source—and the reason the aunt was banished. There’s a strong feminist note here, along with lessons in growth and self-confidence--and love. A slow start, but I loved this book.

And waiting for me tonight is a clever cozy mystery with just enough suspense: Stone Cold Killer, by Lena Gregory.

Nothing better than Saturday night with a good dinner (chicken tetrazzini tonight—remember that relic of the Fifties), a glass of wine, and a good book. What are you reading tonight?