Venison, tuna, and salmon, oh my!

                Not that I want to join a recipe site, but when I attempt something new, I like to share.  Please allow me to tell you how I used the other half of a frozen stick of HOT WITH PEPPER venison sausage, a gift from my hunter son in Hot Springs

                The first half stick I used in a vegetable soup that was so seasoned with the sausage that no salt or pepper was needed. The second half, after thawing of course, I sliced into patties and fried, ala regular sausage.

                Too hot! Too hot! Someone suggested chili. So here’s my “Venison Sausage Chili” (using what’s on hand in the pantry.)

                In a plugged-in crock pot ( wedding gift in 1960) set on “low,” pour in a 15-ounce can of tomato sauce (I don’t remember why I bought this unusual type of tomato). Add a 15-ounce can of beef chili with beans, and a 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes.

                Sprinkle liberally dried onion flakes (in lieu of an onion) and add eight patties of the sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces. If chili is too thick, add tomato juice. Cover and let “cook” or heat till suppertime.

                By suppertime, with only a taste, the heat tingled my tongue too much. Something else had to be added. Aha! Research said potatoes and dairy would lessen the heat. Luckily, I had a can of potatoes and a can of corn in the pantry. I dumped veggies and liquid into the mix, plus an unused packet of au gratin sauce.

                Now, it’s more of a soup than chili and it’s still hot, but with a cold drink at hand and cheddar cheese chunks added, it is manageable. And it’s lasted quite a while. Alas, I have one more stick of the hot sausage, but I found that Becky likes hot venison sausage. She’s already come by for it.

                Keeping to the subject of meat, I’ve lately read and studied Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to a Large Tuna in a Market” as part of a poetry workshop. Neruda is Chile’s most famous poet. I own his Book of Questions and may order his book of odes. Odes are praises to something or someone and when he saw a lone fish among the vegetables, it struck him oddly enough to write a poem about it. I envisioned a roundish, squatty fish, but no, it was a bullet tuna, long, narrow and dark. And dead. Then appearing as a clue in a crossword puzzle, a 3-letter “bluefin.” The answer? “Ahi” pronounced “ah-hee.”

                My aging cat, Greye, suddenly last fall, refused to eat the dry food he’s eaten all his longish life. One day, he brought the bottom half of a rabbit to the door apparently wanting to bring it inside. NO WAY! I threw the poor animal’s remains as far as I could. From that day to this, Greye will not eat dry food. Whether his mouth and gums were sore from eating the front half of a rabbit, I’ll never know and he’ll never tell, but I decided to try canned food. After several different fish combination cans, he’s settled on Friskies Salmon Dinner. Nothing else.

                Shall I write an ode to canned salmon?

c 2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Cajun potato salad for a Louisiana-type meal

Sis Carolyn and Pat in Cajun country, but no photo of potato salad

                Recently I was part of a group invited to a potluck luncheon in which the host announced the main dishes would be gumbo and po’boys. When the hostess mentioned other possibilities for us to bring, the first thing she said was “potato salad.” I immediately volunteered. Not because I knew that potato salad along with rice, was sometimes dropped into the gumbo. No, I call myself a good potato salad maker, and I love to eat it.

                I’d eaten gumbo twice in my life—once in Louisiana and once when friends brought over a meal. On the appointed day, the group found—by scent–– the sausage and chicken in a roux with rice and the potato salad next to the gumbo.

                By the end of the meal, only a cup or so of potato salad remained. I asked the hostess, a Louisiana “girl,” if she would take it. She readily agreed. “I love it,” she said. Only one other woman commented that she liked it. Men don’t think to say such, do they?

                Here’s how I made it: Since it was a Cajun-type meal, I Googled (Bing-ed on my computer) “Cajun Potato Salad” and copied off the recipe that I thought I could manage. It is by HeatherFeather at www.food.com/recipe/cajun’style’potato-salad-202238. But, as usual, I adapted it to what I had on hand.

                “8 small potatoes, peeled and cut into fourths, boiled and still warm.” My adaptation: I prepared two packages of instant, Idahoan-brand mashed potatoes. I’ve discovered these are as good as Schwan’s, which, until I “divorced” them, were a freezer staple.

                “6 large hard-boiled eggs, still warm.” Why still warm, I wondered, since the event was the next day and not the next hour. My adaptation: I already had four boiled eggs; I boiled four more.

                “3 large dill pickles, chopped.” I’d bought a quart of kosher whole dills for a Thanksgiving relish tray, but I didn’t need them. Perfect! These were not large; I had no way of telling how many would equal three large ones, so I estimated.

                “3 tablespoons yellow mustard (or more).” I measured the amount called for, but with only a little bit left, I emptied the container.

                “1/4 cup canola oil.” I used what I had on hand.

                “1/4 to ½ cup mayonnaise (or more).” I didn’t measure; I rarely measure.

                “salt to taste; pepper to taste.” No need for this; potatoes are seasoned already.

                Here’s where the Cajun part came in: After peeling the eggs, cut in half, take out the yolks, chop the whites up and add with the pickles, to the potatoes. Done. “Mash the egg yolks, add oil, mustard and mayo and mix till smooth. Pour this mixture over the potato mixture and toss to coat. Chill well before serving.” Done. I refrigerated it in the mixing bowl covered with a plate until time to leave. Then I would transfer it to a large Fostoria crystal bowl.

                I’ll probably use this recipe-with-adaptations if and when I make potato salad again. 

Part of an earlier Jacksonville mission team at UMCOR in Cajun country checking school bags

c 2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

The book world is full of compendiums

                And yet a writers’ group to which I USED to belong refused to critique MINE. After that-- to prove a point to myself-- I searched for book collections of trivia, sayings, quizzes, quotations, etc. And I found many such volumes.

One year, in Eureka Springs at Echo, a thrift store, I found two assemblages, “The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (in Two Lines or Less)” edited by John M. Shanahan, and “The 2548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said,” selected and compiled by Robert Byrne. Both are more than an inch thick.

Let’s see how far down the alphabet we get with a sampling of Shanahan’s collection of brilliant thoughts.

A – Adversity introduces a man to himself. –Anonymous.

B—Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend. –Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw}, 1818-1885.

C –Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. –Henry Louis Mencken, 1880-1956.

D –Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason. –Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 1694-1773.

E—Everybody wants to be somebody: Nobody wants to grow. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1834.

F –Fortune does not change men; it unmasks them.—Suzanne Necker, 1739-1794.

G—Good families are generally worse than any others.—Anthony Hope [Anthony Hope Hawkins], 1863-1933.

H—He who is most creative conceals his sources the best.—Anonymous.

I – If you don’t bring Paris with you, you won’t find it there.—John M. Shanahan, 1939- ––.

J –Jesters do oft prove prophets. – William Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

K –Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom. – Herman Hesse, 1877-1962.

L –Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from. –Cornelius Tacitus, c.56-120.

M – Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. – George Savile, Marquess de Halifax, 1633-1695.

N—Nobody forgets where he buried the hatchet. –Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard, 1868-1930.

O – One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. –Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900.

P –People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.—Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 1694-1773.

Q—Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.—Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680.

R—Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength. – Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983.

S—Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.—Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862.

T—That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent. –Aldous Leonard Huxley, 1894-1963.

U—Upper Classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.—Ayn Rand, 1905-1982.

V—Vows begin when hope dies.—Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519.

W—Wit makes its own welcome and levels all distinctions. –Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882.

X—Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.—Aldous Huxley (see T above).

Y—You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother’s milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.—George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950.

Z—Zest for living is an antidote to dying.—Pat Laster, after searching in vain for a Z word, 1936-––.

 By the way, my compendium was published in 2019 by Cahaba Press: A COMPENDIUM OF JOURNAL JOTTINGS: A Sourcebook for Writers. It's available in softback and e-book at Amazon.

c 2020, PL dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA