A siblings/spouses’ potluck lunch

by Pat Laster

 

“What is so rare as a day in J”… January when one finds oneself in the pleasant situation of preparing a “pot” for a gathering of one’s siblings for a Sunday lunch?

Let’s see, now. According to Sister Hostess, I’m to bring a vegetable. But before we break the phone connection, I blurt out (I’ve been accused of being blunt; is blurting similar?) “Oh, deviled eggs!” I knew she loved deviled eggs. “But eggs aren’t a vegetable!” I said. That was OK, she assured me.

           I boiled the eggs the night before. But what about a vegetable? I DO have a head of cabbage in the fridge. Brother-in-law loves cabbage, so I take down from the back hall shelf (that’s half-filled with cookbooks) Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking,  a wedding gift from 1960. I’ll have to be careful—b-i-l will NOT touch any food to his lips that has been cooked in wine.

            The old book’s back is loose, the pages are yellow, and now and then I see a notation of a date and occasion for a certain recipe.

             I don’t cook much now-a-days, (except this past Christmas) but as long as I breathe, children and grandchildren, do NOT snitch that book from my domicile. You may fight over it afterwards if you wish. Draw straws, perhaps. Or maybe no one will want it, preferring to zap frozen foods in the microwave, order out or eat out.

             The index of this thick book is a work of art--if details can be construed as art. Under “cabbage,” (page 957) are 27 entries. I mark the index with a paring knife lying nearby and turn to “Boiled, p. 275.

            Here is Irma  Rombauer’s helpful introduction: “Lemon juice is good added to sauces for the cabbage family. The old way of cooking cabbage is to cut it in sections and boil it for hours. The new way is to shred it finely and barely cook it, allowing only 7 to 8 minutes.”

             Decision: whether to cut in chunks (as I’d envisioned) or shred finely, which would take as long to do as it would take to boil the chunks. I opt for the chunks.

            (I look away from the computer screen to the book to see what comes next in the recipe and the accursed cursor moves to the end of the last sentence. I move it back. This happens THREE times! The next time, it moves up into the body of this piece. Grrrr! If it were a child, I’d send it to its room!)

           I drop the wedged cabbage into one-half inch of boiling water, cover the pot and cook it for 10 minutes “until tender but crisp.” Drain it, the recipe continues. Arrange the cabbage into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Dress it with one stick of melted butter (1 tablespoon per cup of cabbage: I eyeball it) into which I shake some croutons (instead of bread crumbs), 3 shakes of dried parsley flakes (instead of a teaspoon of chopped), the juice from an eighth of a cut lemon and several dashes (to taste) of Greek seasoning (my addition instead of salt).

            I pour the above ingredients over the cabbage, then sprinkle a package of bleu cheese crumbles (my addition, not Irma’s) over the top.

            ‘Twas a hit with those who liked cabbage. The leftovers I gave to two of them, the hostess and the brother-in-law.

             Other delicious foods included smoked pork, black-eyed peas, pasta salad, broccoli salad and homemade rolls from our mother’s recipe. This sibling also brought carrot cake and apple pie.

            Now, I ask you, which smells up a kitchen more? Cabbage cooking/cooked or a bowl of vinegar sitting out to “take up” the aroma, er odor of cabbage?

            I believe I’ll take the cabbage.

Weather trivia from MY readings, not the almanac

 

 

by Pat Laster

             January is a good time to study/deal with/ wish-it-were-different weather. The following are facts I've jotted down while reading during the past couple of years.

* The ozone season typically runs from Memorial Day Weekend through September (OTHER DAYS feature, 2002)

* In January, 2010, the United Kingdom was the coldest in thirty years. The lowest temperature was minus 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Norway was the coldest in two decades at minus 44 degrees, F.  [Understatement: “It’s cold. It’s just cold.” ––John Lewis, National Weather Service meteorologist, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, hereafter known as ADG] --article by K. Heard.

* The “Acqua Alta” phenomenon denotes exceptionally high tides that often flood most of Venice in the winter.

* The 2010 earthquake in Haiti at 7.1 on the Richter scale was the worst in 200 years. [Joe Downey, New York fire battalion chief, describes the earthquake in Haiti as of “a magnitude at least 100 times worse than Katrina. Leonard Pitts, in an ADG column January 16, 2010, said, “Sometimes, the earth is cruel.”]

* “I’m not going to miss the sight and sound of rain and thunder in February to sit inside a church building and wish I were outside.” – Pat Laster, on a Sunday morning after retirement as music director.

* Any time the earth moves under one’s feet, it’s scary.” – Scott Ausbrooks, on Guy, Arkansas’s earthquake swarm, October 2010. About 100 earthquakes were recorded since September in Faulkner County—all near the community of Guy.]

* Any earthquake less than 43 miles deep is considered shallow.” – Ibid [That seemed unfathomable to me until I looked it up.]

* “We took on Mother Nature. She threw everything at us but the kitchen sink, from timber, to boats that were sunk, to tree branches,” said George Pavlou, acting regional

administrator for the EPA. “We prevailed in the end.” (ADG, October 12 2009)[Did we?]

            * Two phenomena caused the extremes of weather during winter 2011: La Nina and a large high pressure system over Greenland.

            *How can I tell without looking which direction the wind blows? By placing the folded newspaper so that it doesn’t flutter or blow open.

            * On February 28, 2011, I actually felt the 4.7 magnitude earthquake, one of the Greenbrier-Guy swarm. First, my recliner shivered, then the strangest sound began, centered in the dining room. By the time I arose, the sound was dying, and I could see the gentle shaking of the dishes in the china cabinets. It was over in an eye blink.

            *April 2011 was the deadliest tornado outbreak since March 1932 that killed 332.

*The Mississippi River crested at 59.2 feet in Arkansas City on April 21, 1927 and in Helena, 60.2 feet on February 21, 1937.

            * Sand boils . . . can cause cavities to form in levees, especially if the pressure on both sides is not the same. Sand boils with sediment seeping is NOT good. Clear seepage is OK.

            *One definition of tornado: “indifferent destruction of the wind.” – S. McCrummen

A reader responds to last week's post: serendipity

 

 

by Pat Laster

 

SHE: Another great post! How interesting, starting with the name “Edward F. Dolan.” That was my daddy’s youngest brother’s name – Edward Frank Dolan. He was killed at the age of 18, working for Arizona Power and Light (how he got there, no one ever told me). He started up a power pole, threw the switch to turn off power, and unfortunately, someone had done it before him, so he actually turned it back on. He was burned horribly and died a few days later. I never knew him, but my grandmother used to tell us about him. His picture showed a handsome, dark-haired man with beautiful blue eyes. All daddy’s siblings had the black Irish coloring, but he got red hair and green eyes and wasn’t remotely handsome. The two sisters and two brothers were all good looking. Too bad I didn’t inherit their looks. Ha

You always find something interesting at flea markets, etc. and share them with your readers. You are a born writer!

My grandmother’s sister and her husband lived on a farm about 2 miles out of Crossett and we (grandmother, little brother Jack and I) spent the better part of the summer on the farm, helping can the vegetables and fruit. Those were the happy times in my young life. I can remember Uncle Louis checking the Almanac religiously. I thought it was some kind of magic book and would take it out on the back porch in the afternoons and try to fathom what they found so interesting. You really brought back some good memories. Thank you! Love, J

 

ME: You must give me leave to use your glowing letter in my next post. Any time I evoke memories for myself or you or anyone, I am a happy camper. Don't denigrate your beautiful Irish looks, m' dearie!

 

SHE: Of course you may use my letter! You can’t imagine how delighted I was to read the post and recall those happy childhood days. Jack was very fragile in his early years, having been born prematurely and weighing a hefty pound and a half at birth. (Our mother had died shortly after his birth.) My grandmother fed him goat’s milk with an eye-dropper until he was strong enough to suck on a bottle.

I often felt “put-upon” because I had to pump water, wash canning jars and bring in firewood, but now that I think about it, I really didn’t mind. I spent the afternoons in my favorite Chinaberry tree which had a perfect fork for sitting and leaning back to read. The adults, worn out from the morning’s work, always took naps after lunch. How hard they worked! And I don’t recall, as a child, feeling the least bit grateful for all their hard work. Isn’t that just like a child!

Oh, I have to tell you my grandmother and aunt’s full names--Grandmother Zada’s name was Ada Kinzada and Aunt Tena’s name was Tena Albertine. Why would anyone name their daughters such names! The brothers had sensible names like James, Norman and Edward.

See what you stirred up – all those memories! Ah..... Love, J

 

            Serendipity, indeed!

Is it spring yet?

by Pat Laster

 

                Now that the Christmas things are put away and the snow has come and gone, I’m ready for warmer weather—at least 50 degrees, Mother Nature, if you don’t mind. Then I can get the last 4 kitchen cabinet doors--plus the end pieces—painted and be done with the project that’s taken thirteen months.

                Alas, I know it’s not to be, except for an occasional warm-up, and that the coldest part of winter is still ahead. In Edward F. Dolan’s The Old Farmer’s Almanac: Book of Weather Lore I found these older sayings about months and their weather: predictions, both optimistic and pessimistic.

                “January warm, /The Lord have mercy.”

                “January wet, / No wine you get.” (grapes won’t produce?)

                “If you see grass in January, / Lock your grain in your granary.”

                If the following proverb/belief ever works out as true, credit goes to coincidence, Dolan says: “The date of the month on which the first snow falls gives the number of storms that the winter will bring.” Oh-my-goodness! If that be so, we’re looking at 25 more winter storms! Let’s hope . . . . [insert your own hope in this space.]

                Contradictions in much weather lore makes for a fun read, but 4 other factors play a part in these adages about January weather: local weather, times of the month, religious hopes for what the weather on a feast day portended, and local interpretations of what was intended by certain wordings.

                “March in Janiveer (January), / Janiveer in March, I fear.”

“Remember on St. Vincent’s Day, (January 22)/ If the sun his beams display, / Be sure to mark the transient beam, / Which through the casement sheds a gleam; / For ‘tis a token bright and clear/ Of prosperous weather all the year.”

                “If St. Paul (St. Paul’s Day January 25) be fair and clear, / It promises then a happy year; / But if it chance to snow or rain, / There will be dear all sorts of grain; / Or if the winds do blow aloft, / Great stirs will vex the world full oft; / And if dark clouds do muff the sky, / The fowl and cattle oft will die.”//  

                According to the Trivia feature in this month’s Arkansas Living, January is National Soup Month. The 3 most popular soups are tomato, cream of mushroom and chicken noodle. We consume nearly 10 billion bowls of canned soup each year.

None of those is my favorite-- homemade vegetable with a can of chili added does it for me.

From the same page, we learn that celebrating the arrival of a new year dates back 4,000 years to ancient Babylon.

The first New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square took place in 1904 and included fireworks. In 1907, because of a ban on fireworks, a 700-pound iron and wood ball that was illuminated with 199 25-watt lightbulbs was lowered in the square at midnight, marking the beginning of a celebration that continues today.

This last item is unfathomable: The Times Square New Year’s Eve ball is designed by Waterford Crystal. It weighs 11,875 pounds, is 12 feet in diameter and has 2,668 Waterford crystals. I wonder where it is stored during the year? Does anyone know?

A benediction from another flea-market book, Prayer Poems, compiled by O.V. and Helen Armstrong, published by Abingdon/Cokesbury in 1942:

 “For bringing us this fair New Year,/ We lift our love and praise./ Go with us, Father, every mile,/ And bless us, all the days.” – Nancy Byrd Turner.

Amen and amen.

The post picture NOT where it needed to be, but still

 

 

for "Needle-nosed pliers, level and measuring tape" post. Better late than never. Spent most of two hours fiddling, asking, experimenting and finally, finally getting this on a new post after not being able (smart enough) to get it where it belonged. Maybe I'll learn someday.  PL 1/8/13

Discovery of a new, healthy, non-alcoholic drink

I bought some dollar-store vegetable juice when they were out of tomato juice. The first glass tasted blah (it might not have been stirred up enough) so I went online to find out how to make it more tasty. This is what I used after viewing several sites.    
 A glass (I used Old-Fashioned size) of juice,
3 shakes of Worchestershire Sauce
and two pieces of (already) cut lemon wedges (1/8th of a lemon)each.
I could have added a celery stalk--but for myself, I didn't.

A good way to ingest vegetables as is recommended for healthy living.
It tastes like a virgin Bloody Mary.

It took needle-nosed pliers, level and measuring tape…

[COULDN'T GET A PICTURE. THE BROWSE BUTTON USUALLY FOUND WHEN I CLICK "PICTURE" HAS DISAPPEARED. I CAN GET THE PICTURE, BUT CAN'T TRANSFER IT TO THIS BLOG. ANY HELP APPRECIATED. ]

by Pat Laster

 

                On the last day of 2011, I made a list. (What? Another list?) No, these were not personal resolutions like eating healthier, though I’ve done that.  Well, yes, I suppose they could be called resolutions. The document was titled: COUCHWOOD UPGRADES IN 2012.

* Add 2 overhead lights on front porch—1 over the swing; 1 off the south fascia to light the steps/driveway. NOT DONE. CARRY OVER TO 2013.

          * Repair/ replace dining room fan & Kid Billy’s bedroom fan & light. He had jury-rigged the light so it wouldn’t come on. NOT DONE.

            *Clean bedroom/hall carpets. NOT DONE.

            * Re-sand, etc. hardwood floors. NOT DONE.

           * Paint dining room/hallway door to blend with paneling when open. NOT DONE.

           *Neaten the shed to store more things. BEGUN.

           *Tear out metal shelves in the shed, replace with wood. CHANGED MY MIND.

           * Neaten the attic for a writer’s station. DONE.

           * Fill chinks in mortar on outside walls. NOT DONE though I have the filler.

           *Brick veneer the outside of the back porch. NOT DONE.

           * Paint the kitchen and all things brown in it. DONE! DONE! ALMOST DONE! Though it took all year.

 Before Christmas, though two doors still needed two coats on the backside, I decided to reposition the shelves in the cabinet over the washer. The inside was finished and the shelves required only one coat, being unpainted 1-x-8s.

            Problem: During painting, I’d knocked off two thing-a-ma-jiggies –clips, I decided were what they were called-- that held the shelf in place, one on either side of the strips. I was never very good at spatial distances, but I eye-balled the matching clip and proceeded to affix it. From a step stool, I didn’t have enough hand/arm strength to mash the metal into the strip.

           What to do? What to do? No one here to help me. Aha! Something in the tool drawer should work. Hence the needle-nosed pliers. With brute strength and fortitude--and the pliers--I pushed upward on the clip until it clicked. Ditto, the other clip on the other side.

            OK, ready to lay the shelf on them. Oops! One side’s lower than the other. Redid the above steps. Still not right. Aha! Dad’s old level hanging on the back porch. Couldn’t find the bubble anywhere, so out comes the tape measure. 15 inches on one side, 14 on the other. But it LOOKS level. I left that job for some other.

            Christmas and the ice/snow storm blew in, blowing out the power for several days. So, on to 2013. I'm waiting for the temperature to rise to 50 or above to finish painting the doors. Then, I'll deal with the crooked shelf. 

             Happy two-thousand-thirteen to everyone!