This is the last day of the Old Year, 2014. Seems as if it was just a few days since it was the New Year. It was my first full year alone without Theodore. And it still seems strange to be alone. I don't know why I haven't adjusted better.
I spend the morning changing some things around in the kitchen. Then, at 11 I dashed off to the movies because I wanted to see Into the Woods, and figured if I went then, it would still be light when I got out...otherwise I'd have to wait till 3 and it would indeed have been dark when I came out.
After I got to the theater I found that I'd mistaken the time; the movie started at 1:40, not 1:10...how boring. Nothing to do so I bought some popcorn and an Icee of cola flavor. Boring. Did not finish either. There were about NINE previews preceding the movie when the film finally started. Boring, boring boring.
But I liked the movie, full of flaws though it was. It is also full of truth about life and people...so it brought me to tears from time to time.
I bought a torta de res at the little Kotija on the way home, and thought that I'd begin the Whole 30 (with modifications) tomorrow, January 1st. But I ended up eating only the meat and the lettuce as it was...the bread is sitting there, nice roll though it was.
So for tonight, the I Ching, which I do every New Year's Eve or the next day....and lots of thinking about the time past and my new resolutions, of which the modified Whole 30 will be just one. Welcome, 2015!!! YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Saturday, December 20, 2014
What to Eat at the Old Folks' Home
Yes, my dears, we've all seen the glossy brochures from the 'best' of the residences for seniors. They are filled with pictures of fifty five year olds who are leading glamourous lives in "Luxury" surroundings, swimming and drinking champagne in large blue pools,and ordering meals like there is no tomorrow,--meals prepared and planned by a chef.
Yes, a chef, my dears...
Let me say this. I never led a luxury life even when we were in the chips. And the only chef I ever had was myself (aside from my fastidious and discriminating best-cook-ever mother, in my early years). I am that chef still. I decide the menu and one thing I have definitely decided on is this:
NO PACKAGED FOODS OF ANY KIND.
All those luxury places, with chef-planned meals, are, I am quite sure, serving up meals --however beautiful they look--that are quite poisonous, especially for old people. Well, for anybody, but right now I am thinking of old people.
So, if I ran the Old Folks' Home, here is what we'd eat.
For breakfast, we would have organic non GMO oatmeal and fruit. Period. Even if we had to order the oatmeal from Europe. For the sake of my favorite food, we could have a piece of toast (white of course) with butter.
Coffee and tea would be allowed, but if you wanted orange juice you'd have to eat the orange. These suggestions (mandates) are from the latest of health and dietary discoveries, and they are surprisingly unanimous in their findings.
OK, could there be sugar? Why not. We're old, we deserve it. Our teeth are already about as shot as they're going to get. But if we have diabetes we could only have saccharin, the pure chemical, as a sweetener instead. Saccharin is sweet enough to please us a bit, but NOT full of the additives and extra chemicals that affect our brain. Nobody who eats a saccharin-sweetened product would ever be confused as to what it is. This knowledge is important; it reflects what our brain/body knows.
Could we have milk? Well, heavy cream is so fat-heavy that the amount of milk solids is very very small...so, even on a dairy-free diet it couldn't hurt to put one teaspoonful in a cup of coffee. Argue with me if you must.
Luncheon will be served promptly at noon. "Anyone who is late will not get fruit cup." That's a quote from High Anxiety, one of my favorite nutty movies. You won't get fruit cup in any case, but you will get a first course. My reasons for having a first course are these: it slows down the meal (everyone complains that three hours are spent on preparation and the meal is wolfed down in ten or fifteen minutes. If you have a first course, the meal is immediately made more leisurely.
What to have? There are myriads of great first courses, but I think the best ones will focus on using lots of vegetables in some form, because everyone is ravenous and will eat them. Bruschetta with tomatoes, a plate with asparagus and lemon, broccoli with a brown butter sauce...lots of ideas come to mind. Shake out your napkin and dig in. You can always have soup (half a cup is the usual serving standard), or salad with plenty of celery, cucumbers, and so forth to add different vitamins to it....
After the first course will come the "second plate," where the main protein offering will be served. Any meat, fish or fowl accompanied by some rice or potatoes or Italian-grown wheat pasta, plus another vegetable or two. This course will be the main protein of the day, so it should be adequate for the needs of the elderly, who need more protein than one might think.
Dessert will be fruit. Yes, fruit. Here is a fried apple dish I made last night...sliced apples including the peel, simmered in a little clarified butter or ghee, with a couple of dates cut up, sprinkled with real cinnamon and a few specks of nutmeg. Add a very few grains of salt and your recipe is enhanced for natural sweetness. It's true.
How good that dish is! There are other good dishes like berries cooked with arrowroot, that will make you think of pie without the crust! Or, put on the crust in the form of a small triangle of crispy baked pie dough to garnish the top. Yum. In the summer, sliced strawberries with balsamic vinegar...
At my old folks' home,e veryone will want a snooze after that meal, but by four they'll be up for tea, and tea will be served. This is the time to bring out the cake or cookies or other pastry offering. Just enough to remind us that there will be a heaven.
At five thirty, supper will be served. "Breakfast for Supper" was always a favorite in our old age, so you 'll get your eggs now. There 's an infinite variety of egg recipes from boiled to baked..all good. And one or two pieces of toast, a dab of jam to make it all worth while...More fruit if desired but not too much.
And that's it. Unvarying from day to day, but always good. Nothing pre-cooked, pre-packaged, or instant. Everything from scratch every time. Does that not sound heavenly? If they could promise me that at some aspiring "Manor," I'd put my name on the list tomorrow, give up my chattels, and GO.
Yes, I would. YAZZYBEL
December 20, 1957
Today's the 57th anniversary of Theodore's and my wedding marriage.
We'd been living in Berkeley, and we drive over to Reno for the occasion. Theo chose Reno...so thither we went in his '52 Chevy. We left on the Saturday in cold, bright weather, and returned the next day in a snowstorm, over Donner Pass.
I'd bought a pretty ivory faille suit with rabbit fur collar of the same color. And I'd had my hair cut and curled...We got a wedding picture made in Reno, so there I am looking very unfamiliar, with curly short hair around my face. And Theodore looked handsome in a dark blue suit and tie.
We were married by the famous Judge Beemer, of Reno,in the courthouse, at about four p.m. Judge Beemer was a large handsome man with a shock of gray hair, who I later learned was famous for marrying so many eloping movie stars. We went out to get our photograph taken afterward, and then went to dinner.
The next morning we arose and departed for Berkeley, amidst dire warnings about the weather on the Pass. But we plunged on, as usual, and as usual, Theodore never let me down. At one point we were being followed by several cars as we drove through blinding snow, and as we charged onward, later I saw five cars in a meadow off the road, where the lead driver had missed staying on the road and driven off into nowhere followed by his faithful sheep.
There's a place on that road where you are in the mountains and then go up over a rise and below you is the East Bay, and Berkeley. It was all woods in those days, and little villages, and little winding roads. In the summer you'd come out of intense heat and drop thankfully into the blissful cool below. On that winter day, we came out of the snow into the gray, rainwashed familiarity of the Berkeley Hills, and down into the lower depths where we lived. It was such a blessing.
Our whole marriage was not that tranquil. Wish I could say that it was!! But at the last of our lives together, we did come up over a steep and terrible rise, and descend together into a place of tranquility and peace. Might everyone's Christmas and New Year's wish contain that hope! YAZZYBEL
We'd been living in Berkeley, and we drive over to Reno for the occasion. Theo chose Reno...so thither we went in his '52 Chevy. We left on the Saturday in cold, bright weather, and returned the next day in a snowstorm, over Donner Pass.
I'd bought a pretty ivory faille suit with rabbit fur collar of the same color. And I'd had my hair cut and curled...We got a wedding picture made in Reno, so there I am looking very unfamiliar, with curly short hair around my face. And Theodore looked handsome in a dark blue suit and tie.
We were married by the famous Judge Beemer, of Reno,in the courthouse, at about four p.m. Judge Beemer was a large handsome man with a shock of gray hair, who I later learned was famous for marrying so many eloping movie stars. We went out to get our photograph taken afterward, and then went to dinner.
The next morning we arose and departed for Berkeley, amidst dire warnings about the weather on the Pass. But we plunged on, as usual, and as usual, Theodore never let me down. At one point we were being followed by several cars as we drove through blinding snow, and as we charged onward, later I saw five cars in a meadow off the road, where the lead driver had missed staying on the road and driven off into nowhere followed by his faithful sheep.
There's a place on that road where you are in the mountains and then go up over a rise and below you is the East Bay, and Berkeley. It was all woods in those days, and little villages, and little winding roads. In the summer you'd come out of intense heat and drop thankfully into the blissful cool below. On that winter day, we came out of the snow into the gray, rainwashed familiarity of the Berkeley Hills, and down into the lower depths where we lived. It was such a blessing.
Our whole marriage was not that tranquil. Wish I could say that it was!! But at the last of our lives together, we did come up over a steep and terrible rise, and descend together into a place of tranquility and peace. Might everyone's Christmas and New Year's wish contain that hope! YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Waldorf Salad
For supper I made Waldorf Salad. No dressing.
If it has no dressing, is it really Waldorf Salad? Or just a bunch of cut-up stuff in a bowl?
The basics of Waldorf Salad, leaving aside the question of dressings, are: apples, nuts, celery. My nut of choice is pecans, but walnuts are good too.
You can add things to Waldorf Salad and it only makes it better. In England they added green grapes and called it California Salad. Green grapes make it sweeter, which is nice.
You can add chopped dates, which makes it richer and sweeter both.
You can add avocadoes, which makes it blander but pretty.
You can add strawberries, which makes it downright exotic and threatens to turn it into Fruit Salad.
You can add cut up orange slices but see above.
You can add pineapple, ditto.
Or just add them all and eat up. It's delicious!
YAZZYBEL oh..I forgot to write my haiku. Shall we try it with Waldorf Salad?
Apples, cel'ry, nuts
We call it Waldorf Salad
It's really yummy!
(arf, arf)
If it has no dressing, is it really Waldorf Salad? Or just a bunch of cut-up stuff in a bowl?
The basics of Waldorf Salad, leaving aside the question of dressings, are: apples, nuts, celery. My nut of choice is pecans, but walnuts are good too.
You can add things to Waldorf Salad and it only makes it better. In England they added green grapes and called it California Salad. Green grapes make it sweeter, which is nice.
You can add chopped dates, which makes it richer and sweeter both.
You can add avocadoes, which makes it blander but pretty.
You can add strawberries, which makes it downright exotic and threatens to turn it into Fruit Salad.
You can add cut up orange slices but see above.
You can add pineapple, ditto.
Or just add them all and eat up. It's delicious!
YAZZYBEL oh..I forgot to write my haiku. Shall we try it with Waldorf Salad?
Apples, cel'ry, nuts
We call it Waldorf Salad
It's really yummy!
(arf, arf)
Monday, December 8, 2014
Poem a Day?
Imperfect Things
I like things imperfect,
Things bravely started
Then left behind as the maker
Started something else;
I like things that don't quite rhyme,
Or scan: things that are a little off.
Dissonance in music, the right dissonance,
Is the best music to me. It rings
Somewhere where perfection and formality
Lie silent and unheard.
I like the lopsided tree, the branch
Bent in the wrong direction; I like
The last dog left in the pound whose mates
Have all been taken in preference.
I like the painting gone askew but signed
By a loving painter anyway.
"Glory be to God for dappled things,"
Said the poet, and when I read it
I had to read it twice. "He thinks like me,"
Thought teen-aged I. Nothing is perfect;
Nothing is all right; no edges are true;
Things are not square. Oh, yes!
YAZZYBEL
I like things imperfect,
Things bravely started
Then left behind as the maker
Started something else;
I like things that don't quite rhyme,
Or scan: things that are a little off.
Dissonance in music, the right dissonance,
Is the best music to me. It rings
Somewhere where perfection and formality
Lie silent and unheard.
I like the lopsided tree, the branch
Bent in the wrong direction; I like
The last dog left in the pound whose mates
Have all been taken in preference.
I like the painting gone askew but signed
By a loving painter anyway.
"Glory be to God for dappled things,"
Said the poet, and when I read it
I had to read it twice. "He thinks like me,"
Thought teen-aged I. Nothing is perfect;
Nothing is all right; no edges are true;
Things are not square. Oh, yes!
YAZZYBEL
Early December Rumbles
Hello!
I have been frantically searching on the computer for a poem I wrote. Searching in real life also, for the concrete version. (Sounds heavy, doesn't it?)
The trouble with looking on the computer is that you are staring at an amorphous gray mass and sticking it with a pin, fruitlessly.
The earth poem should be easier to find, but even thought I KNOW (maybe) that it's in a white ring-binder with big brown and green stripes on the outside, I can't find that either. Ah well. Shall keep looking.
Lots of things to do in December. I have my bills to pay, Christmas presents to worry about (strange and bad that that should be a WORRY), dr's appts to keep, donuts to avoid,...but no singing lessons or singing to do. I cancelled the lessons till the New Year. A little voice in my head says, maybe for ever. Whatever kept me singing daily for10 months seems to have taken off, leaving me voiceless and unmusical. Ah well, we'll see as time goes on.
My eating regimen of Whole30 is now on Day Eight. I looked at the array of goodies and doughnuts at church yesterday with deep indifference. Can you imagine what a step that is? From Craving Insanity on Day 4, to Deep Indifference on Day 7. Incredible. It means that I am getting to the point where I will no longer look at sugary things as Food.
I was there once before, on the Atkins in the 1970's. I could look at a three-layer cake frosted with a curly ocean of fluffy white peaks with perfect detachment. I went on the Atkins in October, and by early spring I had the most gorgeous knees ever. All the puffy "dirty-water" had exited my tissues and I was a lean mean good-looking gal. I was about fifty then. Who knows what it'll mean when I am eighty-five as I now am. Dried up? Shriveled? I'll still welcome those knees. YAZZYBEL
I have been frantically searching on the computer for a poem I wrote. Searching in real life also, for the concrete version. (Sounds heavy, doesn't it?)
The trouble with looking on the computer is that you are staring at an amorphous gray mass and sticking it with a pin, fruitlessly.
The earth poem should be easier to find, but even thought I KNOW (maybe) that it's in a white ring-binder with big brown and green stripes on the outside, I can't find that either. Ah well. Shall keep looking.
Lots of things to do in December. I have my bills to pay, Christmas presents to worry about (strange and bad that that should be a WORRY), dr's appts to keep, donuts to avoid,...but no singing lessons or singing to do. I cancelled the lessons till the New Year. A little voice in my head says, maybe for ever. Whatever kept me singing daily for10 months seems to have taken off, leaving me voiceless and unmusical. Ah well, we'll see as time goes on.
My eating regimen of Whole30 is now on Day Eight. I looked at the array of goodies and doughnuts at church yesterday with deep indifference. Can you imagine what a step that is? From Craving Insanity on Day 4, to Deep Indifference on Day 7. Incredible. It means that I am getting to the point where I will no longer look at sugary things as Food.
I was there once before, on the Atkins in the 1970's. I could look at a three-layer cake frosted with a curly ocean of fluffy white peaks with perfect detachment. I went on the Atkins in October, and by early spring I had the most gorgeous knees ever. All the puffy "dirty-water" had exited my tissues and I was a lean mean good-looking gal. I was about fifty then. Who knows what it'll mean when I am eighty-five as I now am. Dried up? Shriveled? I'll still welcome those knees. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Easy Waldorf Salad
Well, I've started on the "Whole 30", an eating plan devised by the Hartwigs, husband and wife. Demons that they are.
It isn't as if I'd been deprived of food before. And I do find elimination diets the easiest way for me to alter my food consumption. But, with all of those, there'd always been a little OUT, a corner of former bliss and ease, with which you could manipulate the diet for youself. As, in Atkins, which is quite straight-laced, you can have your teaspoon of heavy cream and your packet of sweetener in a cup of coffee...and that's heaven after a day of nothing but meat and veg.
On this regimen, there's no recourse. No dairy at all, even butter. You can make ghee, which in my case comes out imperfect, a little opaque...does that mean I should throw it out and start all over with another two cubes of butter...? Why ghee, and not butter? you well may ask. Because butter has milk solids in it (that's what tastes so good plus the salt.) When you make ghee, the milk solids burn off leaving you, after a lot of manipulation, with a clear amber colored liquid that solidifies like a stone in the refrigerator. You cook with it.
Read the book...It Starts with Food is the name of it. The Hartwigs will tell you all you want to know and more. This diet is for health, not for weight-loss, yet when I weighed at my diet group I'd lost 2 1/2 pounds in 5 days. I'll have to do something if I keep losing at that rate...don't know what, yet. The Hartwigs are very young, judging by their pictures, and maybe they don't know that 85 year old boneless ladies don't need to lose weight that fast.
I had phantasies of donuts, cookies, bread, cakes, for the first four days. Day five was better. Today they're back (the phantasies, not the cakes, alas.) We just need to try. I had a doctor visit on day five, and he was pleased to learn about the plan. He encouraged me to stick to it and then we'll test me at the end of the month (that's the 30 in the plan) to see what's become of my "numbers," the be-all and end-all of US medicine nowadays.
You get primitive on this plan. Waldorf Salad has been reduced to a half-apple, some celery sticks and a few pecans eaten out of hand. I could put it in a bowl with some of my homemade mayo, which you can have since you're allowed olive oil and eggs...and salt. But why elaborate it? Simple is good. You get so hungry that it's easy to kid yourself that an apple, a stick of celery, and a few nuts is a Waldorf Salad. And it's GOOD FOR YOU.....YAZZYBEL
It isn't as if I'd been deprived of food before. And I do find elimination diets the easiest way for me to alter my food consumption. But, with all of those, there'd always been a little OUT, a corner of former bliss and ease, with which you could manipulate the diet for youself. As, in Atkins, which is quite straight-laced, you can have your teaspoon of heavy cream and your packet of sweetener in a cup of coffee...and that's heaven after a day of nothing but meat and veg.
On this regimen, there's no recourse. No dairy at all, even butter. You can make ghee, which in my case comes out imperfect, a little opaque...does that mean I should throw it out and start all over with another two cubes of butter...? Why ghee, and not butter? you well may ask. Because butter has milk solids in it (that's what tastes so good plus the salt.) When you make ghee, the milk solids burn off leaving you, after a lot of manipulation, with a clear amber colored liquid that solidifies like a stone in the refrigerator. You cook with it.
Read the book...It Starts with Food is the name of it. The Hartwigs will tell you all you want to know and more. This diet is for health, not for weight-loss, yet when I weighed at my diet group I'd lost 2 1/2 pounds in 5 days. I'll have to do something if I keep losing at that rate...don't know what, yet. The Hartwigs are very young, judging by their pictures, and maybe they don't know that 85 year old boneless ladies don't need to lose weight that fast.
I had phantasies of donuts, cookies, bread, cakes, for the first four days. Day five was better. Today they're back (the phantasies, not the cakes, alas.) We just need to try. I had a doctor visit on day five, and he was pleased to learn about the plan. He encouraged me to stick to it and then we'll test me at the end of the month (that's the 30 in the plan) to see what's become of my "numbers," the be-all and end-all of US medicine nowadays.
You get primitive on this plan. Waldorf Salad has been reduced to a half-apple, some celery sticks and a few pecans eaten out of hand. I could put it in a bowl with some of my homemade mayo, which you can have since you're allowed olive oil and eggs...and salt. But why elaborate it? Simple is good. You get so hungry that it's easy to kid yourself that an apple, a stick of celery, and a few nuts is a Waldorf Salad. And it's GOOD FOR YOU.....YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Thanks Be for Thanksgiving!
Tomorrow's big day is almost everybody's favorite holiday.
Feasting without guilt...
Historical reminiscences...
Family memories...
Coming together...
Crispy cool weather...
Love all over the place.
This year, I am alone, so am going to eat with a friend and her other friend...Three of us. The hostess is making Cornish Game Hens, the other lady is bringing sushi, and I am bringing a sweet potato/pecan dish which I hope isn't too sweet! I think it'll be okay.
When I was a child, we ate our sweet potatoes in the form of pie. That was the Southerners' way of making them palatable. Asked whether I preferred pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie, I always chose sweet potato pie. Don't know why...maybe it was the way mama spiced it (or didn't) that made it preferable. Anyway, it's worth making...it has a separate kind of texture and flavor that's real good. We never used marshmallows in any sweet potato dish at that time, so we were spared that inundation of sweetness. Then I went to college and I had marshmallow/sweet potato casseroles, and, Lo! I found them good.
Good they were not, but they sure were tasty. Made the idea of pie kind of redundant.
When I was about forty I found the deliciousness of baked potato, split, with a spoonful of finely-diced fresh salsa(tomato, jalapeno,onion) on top, equally yummy and probably much more healthy. I ate them that way for several years. Now, this year, I parboiled the pieces that I got in a bag from Trader Joe's, put them into a ghee-smeared glass dish, and topped them with a mixture of ghee, honey and water boiled down a bit, and the pecans on top . I hope they are not sweet, as I tried to put in just enough honey to pique the flavor. Tomorrow we'll see, when I go to eat my Thanksgiving dinner with two other old ladies. YAZZYBEL
Feasting without guilt...
Historical reminiscences...
Family memories...
Coming together...
Crispy cool weather...
Love all over the place.
This year, I am alone, so am going to eat with a friend and her other friend...Three of us. The hostess is making Cornish Game Hens, the other lady is bringing sushi, and I am bringing a sweet potato/pecan dish which I hope isn't too sweet! I think it'll be okay.
When I was a child, we ate our sweet potatoes in the form of pie. That was the Southerners' way of making them palatable. Asked whether I preferred pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie, I always chose sweet potato pie. Don't know why...maybe it was the way mama spiced it (or didn't) that made it preferable. Anyway, it's worth making...it has a separate kind of texture and flavor that's real good. We never used marshmallows in any sweet potato dish at that time, so we were spared that inundation of sweetness. Then I went to college and I had marshmallow/sweet potato casseroles, and, Lo! I found them good.
Good they were not, but they sure were tasty. Made the idea of pie kind of redundant.
When I was about forty I found the deliciousness of baked potato, split, with a spoonful of finely-diced fresh salsa(tomato, jalapeno,onion) on top, equally yummy and probably much more healthy. I ate them that way for several years. Now, this year, I parboiled the pieces that I got in a bag from Trader Joe's, put them into a ghee-smeared glass dish, and topped them with a mixture of ghee, honey and water boiled down a bit, and the pecans on top . I hope they are not sweet, as I tried to put in just enough honey to pique the flavor. Tomorrow we'll see, when I go to eat my Thanksgiving dinner with two other old ladies. YAZZYBEL
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Restored to Life
I begin this posting with a--not with an explanation ("Never complain; never explain."), but with an apology for letting it go at all.
I meant to start a new blog page: "Haiku a Day," which I may add to the present address. Or may not; it's all that I can hardly drive this vehicle (my computer) at all and so had to stay on Bkfst W Yazzybel. SO BE IT.
I went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to visit my eldest son and his wonderful wife, and had a lovely visit. I got to see my oldest grandchild, Miranda, on a quick visit to Iowa City where she's a senior at IU. I got to spend time, precious little of it, but TIME, with my grandson Daniel. What a fabulous guy he is. I did not get to see Isabel, off to her freshman year at Ames, IA, at ISU, but she was never far from my mind and heart which is true of them all.
Weather was incredible..cold, cold, the coldest weather I've ever been in. Snow all over. Ice--rivers, lakes, creeks, puddles...frozen. With kind help, I maneuvered over it all without calamity. I got to see Daniel's Show Choir presentation, which was simply astounding. If I can find it on the web, I'll send it to those interested. He's the tall guy on the right.
I 'm ba-a-a-a-ck! Back from Cedar Rapids, with a detour on the way home to see my friends the Longnecker girls in Denver (thanks to a serendipitous missing of connections on Tuesday and catching the plane out on Wednesday.) What wonderful people they are, they and theirs!
So I'm here at home astounded and pleased. Love to ALL...I won't quit again any time soon. YAZZYBEL
I meant to start a new blog page: "Haiku a Day," which I may add to the present address. Or may not; it's all that I can hardly drive this vehicle (my computer) at all and so had to stay on Bkfst W Yazzybel. SO BE IT.
I went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to visit my eldest son and his wonderful wife, and had a lovely visit. I got to see my oldest grandchild, Miranda, on a quick visit to Iowa City where she's a senior at IU. I got to spend time, precious little of it, but TIME, with my grandson Daniel. What a fabulous guy he is. I did not get to see Isabel, off to her freshman year at Ames, IA, at ISU, but she was never far from my mind and heart which is true of them all.
Weather was incredible..cold, cold, the coldest weather I've ever been in. Snow all over. Ice--rivers, lakes, creeks, puddles...frozen. With kind help, I maneuvered over it all without calamity. I got to see Daniel's Show Choir presentation, which was simply astounding. If I can find it on the web, I'll send it to those interested. He's the tall guy on the right.
I 'm ba-a-a-a-ck! Back from Cedar Rapids, with a detour on the way home to see my friends the Longnecker girls in Denver (thanks to a serendipitous missing of connections on Tuesday and catching the plane out on Wednesday.) What wonderful people they are, they and theirs!
So I'm here at home astounded and pleased. Love to ALL...I won't quit again any time soon. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, September 28, 2014
A Vacation at the End of the Known World
The I Ching makes us aware that our lives are really made up of constant changes. Tension builds up and things tip over and re-start constantly. Sometimes this happens almost unnoticeably, and sometimes it is sudden and precipitate.
When my husband died, my life turned over in a normal way. It's to be expected. Often, what is not expected is the completeness of the turn. Like a roto-filer, a device that used to be in all offices and held the names of clients, let's say, and could be turned by hand so that the cards came up and flipped over, our days after such a huge event can seem to be flipping over without much impact. But the impact was there, and made itself known again and again.
I went on a vacation to my old old world, the world of my childhood and girlhood. Cards that seemed in the past to be flipping over in a fairly orderly way gave a big THUMP, and suddenly came to a stop. Things that come to a stop unexpectedly have the effect of making one pay attention.
When the wheel stops, a movement of the hand will make it start up again, or the very momentum of time will restart it. But things are not the same. A new life has begun; a new life begins every day actually but we often do not pay attention to that fact. A jolt makes us see with new eyes; we restructure; we reprioritize. This is good for us. But it hurts.
So, this is the end of Breakfast With Yazzybel. She will or will not breakfast again, but she will not be back under this chatty format. Time to see with new eyes. Yes, it is. I was ending this blog post with the last paragraph but I realized that that was not all I had to say. Thanks for reading with me so far. YAZZYBEL
When my husband died, my life turned over in a normal way. It's to be expected. Often, what is not expected is the completeness of the turn. Like a roto-filer, a device that used to be in all offices and held the names of clients, let's say, and could be turned by hand so that the cards came up and flipped over, our days after such a huge event can seem to be flipping over without much impact. But the impact was there, and made itself known again and again.
I went on a vacation to my old old world, the world of my childhood and girlhood. Cards that seemed in the past to be flipping over in a fairly orderly way gave a big THUMP, and suddenly came to a stop. Things that come to a stop unexpectedly have the effect of making one pay attention.
When the wheel stops, a movement of the hand will make it start up again, or the very momentum of time will restart it. But things are not the same. A new life has begun; a new life begins every day actually but we often do not pay attention to that fact. A jolt makes us see with new eyes; we restructure; we reprioritize. This is good for us. But it hurts.
So, this is the end of Breakfast With Yazzybel. She will or will not breakfast again, but she will not be back under this chatty format. Time to see with new eyes. Yes, it is. I was ending this blog post with the last paragraph but I realized that that was not all I had to say. Thanks for reading with me so far. YAZZYBEL
Monday, September 8, 2014
Episcopalian Lectionary Readings, 9/7
Good morning.
Well, first there was Exodus. Exodus is very very interesting and contains so many of the Bible Stories we read as children. Today's reading, Exodus 12:1-14, is about the intiation of the Passover. God instructs his people through Moses and Aaron that they must slay a lamb and mark their doorways with the blood of that lamb. God intends to wreak havoc on the firstborns of all creatures, and the Israelites will be spared, God will pass over, if their doors are marked so he will know them. God did not have ESP apparently.
The instructions are quite specific. I find this a very interesting story. But Passover is in the spring, which makes me wonder why the Lectionary organizers put this lesson in the fall. There must be a reason...we are after all leading up to Advent, the little Lent...it's coming sooner than we think, especially this year which seems to have zoomed by very very fast to all us little folk. I don't know the reason.
I liked last week's story of the burning bush much better, and meant to write about it, but I didnt. The Fire that Burns but Does Not Consume. Interesting concept.
The second reading was St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 13: 18-14. Strange order of verses. That's what it says in the bulletin, however. It is all about love, and loving each other. We are commanded to love one another. It is not an option, and it does mean everybody. Oh my. That is so difficult a concept, especially to live it.
We are winding up our discussion of Romans and last week it was brought to the attention of all that St Paul in this book seems to completely ignore the human story of Jesus Christ. No lambs balooing in a stable, no weddings, no hunger issues where fish are divided in miraculous ways to feed a hungry crowd. No, it is all about divinity. Perhaps this attitude was fueled by the manner in which Paul became a Christian--struck down by the side of the road, whence he became a changed man. He wasnt raised with any stories, maybe. Again, interesting.
I shall not deal with the Gospel, which is from Matthew and is about forgiveness. A very difficult subject and I'm not fit for dealing with it. I try to live it, though. Here we must take Matthew's words quite literally and just humbly try to live them out. I have always been pretty good as a forgiver; it is harder now. Perhaps I am old and cranky. Well, no perhaps about it. Perhaps I should forgive myself. YAZZYBEL
Well, first there was Exodus. Exodus is very very interesting and contains so many of the Bible Stories we read as children. Today's reading, Exodus 12:1-14, is about the intiation of the Passover. God instructs his people through Moses and Aaron that they must slay a lamb and mark their doorways with the blood of that lamb. God intends to wreak havoc on the firstborns of all creatures, and the Israelites will be spared, God will pass over, if their doors are marked so he will know them. God did not have ESP apparently.
The instructions are quite specific. I find this a very interesting story. But Passover is in the spring, which makes me wonder why the Lectionary organizers put this lesson in the fall. There must be a reason...we are after all leading up to Advent, the little Lent...it's coming sooner than we think, especially this year which seems to have zoomed by very very fast to all us little folk. I don't know the reason.
I liked last week's story of the burning bush much better, and meant to write about it, but I didnt. The Fire that Burns but Does Not Consume. Interesting concept.
The second reading was St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 13: 18-14. Strange order of verses. That's what it says in the bulletin, however. It is all about love, and loving each other. We are commanded to love one another. It is not an option, and it does mean everybody. Oh my. That is so difficult a concept, especially to live it.
We are winding up our discussion of Romans and last week it was brought to the attention of all that St Paul in this book seems to completely ignore the human story of Jesus Christ. No lambs balooing in a stable, no weddings, no hunger issues where fish are divided in miraculous ways to feed a hungry crowd. No, it is all about divinity. Perhaps this attitude was fueled by the manner in which Paul became a Christian--struck down by the side of the road, whence he became a changed man. He wasnt raised with any stories, maybe. Again, interesting.
I shall not deal with the Gospel, which is from Matthew and is about forgiveness. A very difficult subject and I'm not fit for dealing with it. I try to live it, though. Here we must take Matthew's words quite literally and just humbly try to live them out. I have always been pretty good as a forgiver; it is harder now. Perhaps I am old and cranky. Well, no perhaps about it. Perhaps I should forgive myself. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, September 6, 2014
"You may be right."
Good morning.
My husband and I went through considerable marital torment, and luckily--or unluckily--we experienced this in the midst of the greatest surge of "help" for marital woes ever created by a society. We Southern Californians had more counselors than if we'd been queens and kings. There were literally hundreds of groups and individuals, religious, public, private, who were all willing to stick their beaks into our business in order to straighten us out and get us happily on our way.
I remember telling one famous psychiatrist, "I've discovered a magic phrase that quells my husband's wrath..., " and it was: "You may be right." I remember when I first said it to my husband, and saw its magic effect on the argument at hand. The waves calmed. There was nothing more to say. Magic, indeed.
I am moved to write of this by having recently watched "The Taming of the Shrew" on tape, with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I have the tape and have watched it many times for the beauty of clothes, interiors, houses, architecture, etc. Alas, the movie was roundly panned and rightly so. Some of the acting is good, but Elizabeth Taylor was terrible as an actress. It did not help that Elizabeth and Burton were still in love at this stage, for being in love never helped acting in any performance that I know of.
But Elizabeth was just awful. It was her voice that was so bad, I think. She never took the necessary training to develop it. It is a shame that she did not, for her beauty was indeed exceptional.
The theme of the play, the changing of a shrewish badly behaved girl into a loving and well-mannered wife, is an eternal plot. Katherine, the shrew, did a lot better than I did. Without the help of any marriage counselors at all, she managed to figure out how to make the circumstances she found herself in work in favor of her own happiness.
Her famous speech at the end: "....thy Lord, thy governor,...,"--is it said with tongue in cheek? Of course it is, I think. Nobody could be that subservient, and it is to be noted that her husband did not take it in flat truth either. He was just glad not to be harangued every day of his life and he was open and generous with his little wife, possession as she was in those days.
That's what I think about it anyway. If you don't agree, let me say that you may be right. YAZZYBEL
My husband and I went through considerable marital torment, and luckily--or unluckily--we experienced this in the midst of the greatest surge of "help" for marital woes ever created by a society. We Southern Californians had more counselors than if we'd been queens and kings. There were literally hundreds of groups and individuals, religious, public, private, who were all willing to stick their beaks into our business in order to straighten us out and get us happily on our way.
I remember telling one famous psychiatrist, "I've discovered a magic phrase that quells my husband's wrath..., " and it was: "You may be right." I remember when I first said it to my husband, and saw its magic effect on the argument at hand. The waves calmed. There was nothing more to say. Magic, indeed.
I am moved to write of this by having recently watched "The Taming of the Shrew" on tape, with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I have the tape and have watched it many times for the beauty of clothes, interiors, houses, architecture, etc. Alas, the movie was roundly panned and rightly so. Some of the acting is good, but Elizabeth Taylor was terrible as an actress. It did not help that Elizabeth and Burton were still in love at this stage, for being in love never helped acting in any performance that I know of.
But Elizabeth was just awful. It was her voice that was so bad, I think. She never took the necessary training to develop it. It is a shame that she did not, for her beauty was indeed exceptional.
The theme of the play, the changing of a shrewish badly behaved girl into a loving and well-mannered wife, is an eternal plot. Katherine, the shrew, did a lot better than I did. Without the help of any marriage counselors at all, she managed to figure out how to make the circumstances she found herself in work in favor of her own happiness.
Her famous speech at the end: "....thy Lord, thy governor,...,"--is it said with tongue in cheek? Of course it is, I think. Nobody could be that subservient, and it is to be noted that her husband did not take it in flat truth either. He was just glad not to be harangued every day of his life and he was open and generous with his little wife, possession as she was in those days.
That's what I think about it anyway. If you don't agree, let me say that you may be right. YAZZYBEL
Monday, September 1, 2014
A Labor Day to Remember
It was early September, 1933, and I was four years old.
I lived with my parents in my grandparents' house in San Benito, Texas, where my grandfather had a variety store. We lived back of the store, across the alley, in a wooden house that faced the other street---what was its name? Travis? Maybe. All the streets of that town were named after Texas heroes.
I remember standing in the front of the store watching the Labor Day parade which was staunchly parading by down the main street, Sam Houston Boulevard as I remember it. I remember the sky darkening, and the parade beginning to break up under an onslaught of rain. That was in the morning.
Next, we flash into evening, when we were eating cold baked beans out of a can in the kitchen of our house. It was darkish because the power was all out. There was much talk of the hurricane which had struck, and worry about the stability of our little wooden house. Finally the grown-ups decided to go across the alley and take shelter in the brick store. I remember that we hunkered down and did that. There must have been some kind of lanterns because I remember faces barely lit, darkness and feeling ill. And anxiety in the air.
When the big winds took the roof off the store, rain poured into the balcony second story, ruining as we later found out all the stock of school supplies my grandfather had laid in to sell the next few months. I also found out later that that was the ruination of his business as he had no insurance and never overcame the economic calamity.
At about that point, the 'eye' of the hurricane passed over San Benito, and we had the opportunity to get out of the now unprotected store. I clearly remember running down the street to a dry-cleaner's establishment where a number of other people were hunkering down. My grandfather carried my little sister Olive. I remember 'hugging' the side of the building as we ran. There were about a half dozen people other than ourselves, and everyone became worried about the lightning, which might strike the dry cleaning fluid standing about and blow us all to heck.
I remember little more, except that I felt miserable. My mother later told me that I'd thrown up all night, probably from those cold baked beans...perhaps from the anxiety. When morning came and the hurricane had passed, we went back to the house.
I remember standing in the kitchen, and everyone was talking about how remarkable it was that the house had stayed up perfectly okay, the roof intact and no inside damage to speak of. That was my Labor Day to remember. My father was working in Mexico at the time, and got a newspaper from the USA the next day that said, "South Texas Wiped Out in Hurricane." But he came home to find us all safe and sound, though a bit shaken. He took us driving through the flooded streets, where we saw lots of poor folk driven totally homeless by the storm, and lots of wind damage. A Labor Day to remember!!! YAZZYBEL
I lived with my parents in my grandparents' house in San Benito, Texas, where my grandfather had a variety store. We lived back of the store, across the alley, in a wooden house that faced the other street---what was its name? Travis? Maybe. All the streets of that town were named after Texas heroes.
I remember standing in the front of the store watching the Labor Day parade which was staunchly parading by down the main street, Sam Houston Boulevard as I remember it. I remember the sky darkening, and the parade beginning to break up under an onslaught of rain. That was in the morning.
Next, we flash into evening, when we were eating cold baked beans out of a can in the kitchen of our house. It was darkish because the power was all out. There was much talk of the hurricane which had struck, and worry about the stability of our little wooden house. Finally the grown-ups decided to go across the alley and take shelter in the brick store. I remember that we hunkered down and did that. There must have been some kind of lanterns because I remember faces barely lit, darkness and feeling ill. And anxiety in the air.
When the big winds took the roof off the store, rain poured into the balcony second story, ruining as we later found out all the stock of school supplies my grandfather had laid in to sell the next few months. I also found out later that that was the ruination of his business as he had no insurance and never overcame the economic calamity.
At about that point, the 'eye' of the hurricane passed over San Benito, and we had the opportunity to get out of the now unprotected store. I clearly remember running down the street to a dry-cleaner's establishment where a number of other people were hunkering down. My grandfather carried my little sister Olive. I remember 'hugging' the side of the building as we ran. There were about a half dozen people other than ourselves, and everyone became worried about the lightning, which might strike the dry cleaning fluid standing about and blow us all to heck.
I remember little more, except that I felt miserable. My mother later told me that I'd thrown up all night, probably from those cold baked beans...perhaps from the anxiety. When morning came and the hurricane had passed, we went back to the house.
I remember standing in the kitchen, and everyone was talking about how remarkable it was that the house had stayed up perfectly okay, the roof intact and no inside damage to speak of. That was my Labor Day to remember. My father was working in Mexico at the time, and got a newspaper from the USA the next day that said, "South Texas Wiped Out in Hurricane." But he came home to find us all safe and sound, though a bit shaken. He took us driving through the flooded streets, where we saw lots of poor folk driven totally homeless by the storm, and lots of wind damage. A Labor Day to remember!!! YAZZYBEL
Friday, August 29, 2014
Walking in Water
Good afternoon. Have I written about this before?
I need to move my body, and I need to make it move in order to move it, because it is inclined to just loll around if it does what it likes.
I started walking in water again. I love water, and it is much better to walk in than just old air...though I used to love that too. I did not want to drive far, and finally I settled on going back to Paradise Village in spite of the fact that it's fifteen minutes going and fifteen minutes coming home in order to spend fifteen minutes in the water.
Yes, fifteen minutes! I am so weak after this quiet year...so move I must. I am worn out when I come out of the water, because water-walking is deceptive in that it feels easy while you are in there but you are working your muscles harder than you realize. So I have to ration myself to fifteen minutes.
I joined the evening arthritis exercises and they are actually forty five minutes, and I come home and go right to bed for I can do no more. But when I go alone, I just walk for fifteen or twenty minutes which I'd advise for any beginner whether you think it's enough or not.
Pretty soon it's going to be too dark to go to the classes as I don't drive at night much....and I'll return to fifteen minutes three times a week until I build up some strength.
Paradise Village is the senior residence next to Paradise Valley Hospital, and the pool is in there. Inside. Huge, huge. Shallow. Warm (ish). Protected from the wind...beautiful...with a lovely painted mural and windows looking into the salon of the residence. All so beautiful. And often so deserted.
I am telling anyone who lives within driving distance of that pool that they should get themselves over there and join up. You don't have to be a resident of the hall...you pay a reasonable fee as a member of the Fitness Club. It is wonderful. I am looking forward to getting stronger! YAZZYBEL
I need to move my body, and I need to make it move in order to move it, because it is inclined to just loll around if it does what it likes.
I started walking in water again. I love water, and it is much better to walk in than just old air...though I used to love that too. I did not want to drive far, and finally I settled on going back to Paradise Village in spite of the fact that it's fifteen minutes going and fifteen minutes coming home in order to spend fifteen minutes in the water.
Yes, fifteen minutes! I am so weak after this quiet year...so move I must. I am worn out when I come out of the water, because water-walking is deceptive in that it feels easy while you are in there but you are working your muscles harder than you realize. So I have to ration myself to fifteen minutes.
I joined the evening arthritis exercises and they are actually forty five minutes, and I come home and go right to bed for I can do no more. But when I go alone, I just walk for fifteen or twenty minutes which I'd advise for any beginner whether you think it's enough or not.
Pretty soon it's going to be too dark to go to the classes as I don't drive at night much....and I'll return to fifteen minutes three times a week until I build up some strength.
Paradise Village is the senior residence next to Paradise Valley Hospital, and the pool is in there. Inside. Huge, huge. Shallow. Warm (ish). Protected from the wind...beautiful...with a lovely painted mural and windows looking into the salon of the residence. All so beautiful. And often so deserted.
I am telling anyone who lives within driving distance of that pool that they should get themselves over there and join up. You don't have to be a resident of the hall...you pay a reasonable fee as a member of the Fitness Club. It is wonderful. I am looking forward to getting stronger! YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Time Still Goes By
Qu'el fou! I have not been writing. Not because I had nothing to say...but because when I tried to log in I'd forgotten my password.
And my book of passwords is lost. Of course it is.
So today, I drew a blank again, but a few seconds later I drew again and came up with the password. It was the right one! Right now I do not remember what I wrote and I did not put it down, so this may be the last you see from little old Yazzybel as I retire into the convent of nitwits.
Have been reading a lot about something called excitotoxins, things that we eat and put into our bodies which over stimulate our pleasure centers in the brain and cause them to burn out, thus causing us to develop Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or any number of other awful conditions. The main culprit is MSG which apparently can be put into food under many guises nowadays, causing our brain receptors to get over excited and crave more more more of the bad stuff before it shuts down the master board.
There are so many different guises under which this MSG-type stimulant appears. One of the main ones is aspartame. Another one is hydrolyzed vegetable (soy or wheat or whatever) protein. There are others. Supposedly all quick-fix foods have these bad molecules in them, put in deliberately by the bad guys who want to make lots of money and see us go down to obesity, ADHD, Parkinson's, Alzheimers, ALS, and any number of other nightmarish conditions.
The answer? Dont eat any more pre-packaged or pre-prepared foods. No mixes. No handy boxes of sauce. Get out your 1936 cookbook and roll up your sleeves. If you want chicken buy some chicken, not fake chicken patties made of soy granules. If you cannot afford to eat fresh meat, just eat vegetables then. You'll be the healthier for it.
Sounds depressing? Don't be depressed except for the future of the children of this country, and that is plenty for us to worry about. We older folk will do just fine eating out of the 1936 cookbook if we are careful of what we buy, utilize the Organic section of produce, and even make our own ice cream and catsup. Don't worry, cream, sugar and strawberries, mooshed and frozen in a tin bread pan, taste absolutely delicious and we'll never miss the Haagen-Daz.
For lunch today I am making something I've never made before: bocoles. Bocoles are an ancient Mexican dish made of masa mixed with refried beans ( I gotta read the label on those refried beans because who knows what La Rosita put in them)..you put in a little salt and a little baking powder, make tiny gorditas, and grill them, topping them with queso fresco, hot sauce, tomatoes, chopped cabbage or lettuce...they are about 2 inches across and they will be delicious. And if I knew exactly what excito-flavorings were put into those frijoles before they canned them, I'd feel absolutely secure about my lunch. Next time, frijoles from scratch!!! YAZZYBEL
And my book of passwords is lost. Of course it is.
So today, I drew a blank again, but a few seconds later I drew again and came up with the password. It was the right one! Right now I do not remember what I wrote and I did not put it down, so this may be the last you see from little old Yazzybel as I retire into the convent of nitwits.
Have been reading a lot about something called excitotoxins, things that we eat and put into our bodies which over stimulate our pleasure centers in the brain and cause them to burn out, thus causing us to develop Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or any number of other awful conditions. The main culprit is MSG which apparently can be put into food under many guises nowadays, causing our brain receptors to get over excited and crave more more more of the bad stuff before it shuts down the master board.
There are so many different guises under which this MSG-type stimulant appears. One of the main ones is aspartame. Another one is hydrolyzed vegetable (soy or wheat or whatever) protein. There are others. Supposedly all quick-fix foods have these bad molecules in them, put in deliberately by the bad guys who want to make lots of money and see us go down to obesity, ADHD, Parkinson's, Alzheimers, ALS, and any number of other nightmarish conditions.
The answer? Dont eat any more pre-packaged or pre-prepared foods. No mixes. No handy boxes of sauce. Get out your 1936 cookbook and roll up your sleeves. If you want chicken buy some chicken, not fake chicken patties made of soy granules. If you cannot afford to eat fresh meat, just eat vegetables then. You'll be the healthier for it.
Sounds depressing? Don't be depressed except for the future of the children of this country, and that is plenty for us to worry about. We older folk will do just fine eating out of the 1936 cookbook if we are careful of what we buy, utilize the Organic section of produce, and even make our own ice cream and catsup. Don't worry, cream, sugar and strawberries, mooshed and frozen in a tin bread pan, taste absolutely delicious and we'll never miss the Haagen-Daz.
For lunch today I am making something I've never made before: bocoles. Bocoles are an ancient Mexican dish made of masa mixed with refried beans ( I gotta read the label on those refried beans because who knows what La Rosita put in them)..you put in a little salt and a little baking powder, make tiny gorditas, and grill them, topping them with queso fresco, hot sauce, tomatoes, chopped cabbage or lettuce...they are about 2 inches across and they will be delicious. And if I knew exactly what excito-flavorings were put into those frijoles before they canned them, I'd feel absolutely secure about my lunch. Next time, frijoles from scratch!!! YAZZYBEL
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Things to Read
My book club is reading All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. When we were assigned it (I didnt vote for it) I thought, "That old thing. Why re-read it now?"
Well, I didn't read it then, though I read reviews and such. Wasn't interested in politics at all. So now, I read it, and came upon it as a new thing and the main thing I felt upon reading it was--nostalgia.
So much of it was evocative of my youth--the upbringing of the kids and young folk, the attitudes toward women and girls, the expectations of all that the young men were going to look forward to a world of opportunity, the prejudices kindly and not-so-kindly towards black persons and poor persons. The hordes of uneducated plain people, men mostly, who supported and responded to the call of Willie Stark who was supposed to be Huey Long in disguise.
The weather in the novel even made me feel nostalgic for that time...(the forties and fifties, my time, though it is set in the thirties). The houses, the neighborhoods...the lighting on the streets, even...the farms and the country people more prevalent than they now are...The respect for the "Judges"...there were several in the book and they all had their important niches in that society.
I liked the hero in spite of his being a worthless fellow. He did the right thing in the end and had a 'happy' ending with his lady love. And was good to take in his old father, who it turned out was not his father, who needed a home at the last. It was nice to see servants in the houses, quiet, busy, respectful people doing needed work. Anyway...the book is very worth reading.
"Florid and overwritten," I thought as I read it, but nonetheless I read on. And I do not always do that nowadays. I kept reading because I wanted to keep sharing in the protagonist's thoughts. Read it.
I also want to recommend The Summer Kitchen by Louise Andrews Kent. Mrs Kent was a New England lady who conjured up "Mrs Appleyard." "Mrs. Appleyard" was a New England lady who liked to write and liked to cook and did a wonderful job of both. There are any number of Mrs Appleyard books, so read them!! This book is divided into May-June-July-August, with three chapters in each section, each detailing a summer event or activity with recipes included!! Pleasant even delightful reading. I just noticed that my book split apart when I opened it...it is falling into ruin. That is how I know I am 85 years old; that, and the fact that all my music is also gone to rack and ruin. French sonatinas and Debussy albums which I remember as fresh and new in their pastel covers have deteriorated into something a little scary when I realize that something similar must be happening to me. That is the way of time, and of paper and of flesh. So they tell me....YAZZYBEL
Well, I didn't read it then, though I read reviews and such. Wasn't interested in politics at all. So now, I read it, and came upon it as a new thing and the main thing I felt upon reading it was--nostalgia.
So much of it was evocative of my youth--the upbringing of the kids and young folk, the attitudes toward women and girls, the expectations of all that the young men were going to look forward to a world of opportunity, the prejudices kindly and not-so-kindly towards black persons and poor persons. The hordes of uneducated plain people, men mostly, who supported and responded to the call of Willie Stark who was supposed to be Huey Long in disguise.
The weather in the novel even made me feel nostalgic for that time...(the forties and fifties, my time, though it is set in the thirties). The houses, the neighborhoods...the lighting on the streets, even...the farms and the country people more prevalent than they now are...The respect for the "Judges"...there were several in the book and they all had their important niches in that society.
I liked the hero in spite of his being a worthless fellow. He did the right thing in the end and had a 'happy' ending with his lady love. And was good to take in his old father, who it turned out was not his father, who needed a home at the last. It was nice to see servants in the houses, quiet, busy, respectful people doing needed work. Anyway...the book is very worth reading.
"Florid and overwritten," I thought as I read it, but nonetheless I read on. And I do not always do that nowadays. I kept reading because I wanted to keep sharing in the protagonist's thoughts. Read it.
I also want to recommend The Summer Kitchen by Louise Andrews Kent. Mrs Kent was a New England lady who conjured up "Mrs Appleyard." "Mrs. Appleyard" was a New England lady who liked to write and liked to cook and did a wonderful job of both. There are any number of Mrs Appleyard books, so read them!! This book is divided into May-June-July-August, with three chapters in each section, each detailing a summer event or activity with recipes included!! Pleasant even delightful reading. I just noticed that my book split apart when I opened it...it is falling into ruin. That is how I know I am 85 years old; that, and the fact that all my music is also gone to rack and ruin. French sonatinas and Debussy albums which I remember as fresh and new in their pastel covers have deteriorated into something a little scary when I realize that something similar must be happening to me. That is the way of time, and of paper and of flesh. So they tell me....YAZZYBEL
Saturday, August 2, 2014
A Day of Perfect Eating
Sometimes you can't cook anything wrong.
It usually comes from having a bunch of stuff about that you haven't been dealing with, and you've got the energy to work with it at last. And you don't have the urge to go out and buy a lot of other stuff.
This morning I had a delicious tiny omelette of one egg with bacon bits rolled into it. I scrambled the egg in a bowl and added it to a coconut-oil-sprayed tiny skillet where it spread out to just the right depth, cooked, had the Hormel 'real bacon bits' shaken over it, rolled, and turned out and eaten. Very satisfying!!
Then at lunch I came into the house a bit late, but there was time to boil up some pieces of a raw cauliflower and 2 green onions....then to puree them in the blender, put one egg and 1/8 cup half and half into the saucepan, add puree, stir, and heat. I added a good dash of fines herbes...Yum yum and plenty left over for tomorrow.
I was hungry in three hours, so made a smallish sandwich of Boar's Head Low Sodium Roast Beef, mayo, and shredded iceberg lettuce..Very good.
Then I had boiled a sittin'-around potato this morning as I ate the omelette, so I made a super scrumptious potato salad . If I get hungry for a supper, I'll have some of that. There is nothing better than potato salad if the proportions are right...so here is how I made it though the proportions will have to be your own.
One large Idaho baking potato, cut in two and boiled. Peel it. Cut it into cubes in a bowl. Not too much mayonnaise. One sweet pickle minced. Some yellow mustard including the liquid that always comes out when you squeeze the bottle. Salt. Pepper. Minced white onion. Boiled egg yolk that I had there wrapped in plastic for a couple of days. Yes, you can boil just the yolks of eggs if you have had to use the whites for something else. So there it is...oh yes...I like celery but not too crazy about it...but it adds crunch to potato salad so I like it in that...and I added dried parsley because it is raining and I didnt want to get any wetter by going out to pick some...I'd already gotten soaked by the hose when I watered earlier...who knew it was going to rain ever again??
And...I ate a brownie, the last frozen brownie of the recipe I made last week...thank goodness those are out of the way. They were so absolutely wonderful that they reminded me of why I do not make them...but it was nice to taste them again. YAZZYBEL
It usually comes from having a bunch of stuff about that you haven't been dealing with, and you've got the energy to work with it at last. And you don't have the urge to go out and buy a lot of other stuff.
This morning I had a delicious tiny omelette of one egg with bacon bits rolled into it. I scrambled the egg in a bowl and added it to a coconut-oil-sprayed tiny skillet where it spread out to just the right depth, cooked, had the Hormel 'real bacon bits' shaken over it, rolled, and turned out and eaten. Very satisfying!!
Then at lunch I came into the house a bit late, but there was time to boil up some pieces of a raw cauliflower and 2 green onions....then to puree them in the blender, put one egg and 1/8 cup half and half into the saucepan, add puree, stir, and heat. I added a good dash of fines herbes...Yum yum and plenty left over for tomorrow.
I was hungry in three hours, so made a smallish sandwich of Boar's Head Low Sodium Roast Beef, mayo, and shredded iceberg lettuce..Very good.
Then I had boiled a sittin'-around potato this morning as I ate the omelette, so I made a super scrumptious potato salad . If I get hungry for a supper, I'll have some of that. There is nothing better than potato salad if the proportions are right...so here is how I made it though the proportions will have to be your own.
One large Idaho baking potato, cut in two and boiled. Peel it. Cut it into cubes in a bowl. Not too much mayonnaise. One sweet pickle minced. Some yellow mustard including the liquid that always comes out when you squeeze the bottle. Salt. Pepper. Minced white onion. Boiled egg yolk that I had there wrapped in plastic for a couple of days. Yes, you can boil just the yolks of eggs if you have had to use the whites for something else. So there it is...oh yes...I like celery but not too crazy about it...but it adds crunch to potato salad so I like it in that...and I added dried parsley because it is raining and I didnt want to get any wetter by going out to pick some...I'd already gotten soaked by the hose when I watered earlier...who knew it was going to rain ever again??
And...I ate a brownie, the last frozen brownie of the recipe I made last week...thank goodness those are out of the way. They were so absolutely wonderful that they reminded me of why I do not make them...but it was nice to taste them again. YAZZYBEL
Thursday, July 24, 2014
One Year Has Passed By
Well, I was thinking about what to write about the first anniversary of Theo's passing. It's a big thing. So I'll ramble about a bit, if that's OK. My thoughts are not collected, since I got sick and have spent the large majority of the time since noontime yesterday lying down worrying or being asleep. I was going to visit Theo's burial site-ito today with a bouquet of flowers, but it is not meant to be. Manyana, say I with confidence; manyana.
You can see that I have forgotten how to make a tilde on here.
For today, I am just thinking about my husband. I am remembering the last week of his life, a bitter and frustrating one for both of us. Off to the hospital he must go, though he did not want to. And a change of direction, for they were going to send him home right away until his condition suddenly took a turn for the worse and they pronounced him moribund...not in so many words, but with dire enough words of their own...all saying: Watch out.
So he went, gave up the ghost, expired, passed away one year ago tonight at about ten thirty. "A year ago at this moment he was still alive," says the voice in one's brain, but we all, Theo and voice and I all know that his clock was ticking forward and it was just a matter of time. And to the clock it doesn't matter.
The kids console themselves with the idea that it was all just a result of lifestyle choices that he made for the last thirty years...that he should die of kidney failure brought on by diabetes and its neglect. That it was inevitable..well, it's true, our deaths are inevitable...but he might have enjoyed a few more years. Maybe.
I 've told everyone that I've flunked Widowhood 101, because my year has gone by and I do not feel any more ready to "go on" than I did. But that is not true. I always have said after observing my own parents' end of life, that the first one who dies, dies as a married person. The second one dies a single person. The work of this first year has been to find that single person who is surviving the trauma. So maybe I am not so far behind after all, maybe I have not flunked entirely even though I am not yet out 'in the world,' and still wondering what to do next. But I now realize that that single person is here and I 've gotta take care of her the best I can. All of her.
I was thinking of the best things I liked about my husband, and as I go over them I think they are about the best marriage advice one could ask for. Of course there are always negatives, and we won't deal with them today. But here were the positives about my husband.
1. He was the brightest person I have ever known, and was quite fearless in many respects. He would go anywhere, (except into water), drive off into any weather, pitch a tent in any situation, and never worry at all about it.
2. He had an incredible, funny sense of humor. Quirky. Quiet. Ever present.
3. He didnt believe in going into debt for things (it was even hard to get him to buy a house at first)...and we were in agreement in our attitudes about credit and so forth.
4. He was perfectly neat and clean in his person. This is such a 'given' that it seems out of place to mention it in this list, but many men and women don't hold to the idea of the daily bath and it does make such a difference in the physical intimacy of marriage.
5. He was always agreeable to buying a bouquet of flowers when we did our supermarket shopping. He always wanted to come along so he could frown at olives and sardines and other food items out of the Oklahoma diet..but he never, not once, said no to the flowers and would even remind me that I wanted to get them.
Simple things. All were a matter of chance as to 'knowing' a person before you hook up...or was it a matter of instinct? One wonders. In those things, though, I was very lucky to have had him. Very very lucky.
He once complained that I didnt appreciate him, and I think I confounded him (and myself) by saying, "Don't you think I appreciate you? You gave me my life." And it was true, as I just realized that when I said the words to him.
He did give me my life, and my children, and all the things I now own and have, except for his physical self. He also gave me pains in the kazoo beyond recounting, but that is another story, the whole story of our life as we shared it. YAZZYBEL
You can see that I have forgotten how to make a tilde on here.
For today, I am just thinking about my husband. I am remembering the last week of his life, a bitter and frustrating one for both of us. Off to the hospital he must go, though he did not want to. And a change of direction, for they were going to send him home right away until his condition suddenly took a turn for the worse and they pronounced him moribund...not in so many words, but with dire enough words of their own...all saying: Watch out.
So he went, gave up the ghost, expired, passed away one year ago tonight at about ten thirty. "A year ago at this moment he was still alive," says the voice in one's brain, but we all, Theo and voice and I all know that his clock was ticking forward and it was just a matter of time. And to the clock it doesn't matter.
The kids console themselves with the idea that it was all just a result of lifestyle choices that he made for the last thirty years...that he should die of kidney failure brought on by diabetes and its neglect. That it was inevitable..well, it's true, our deaths are inevitable...but he might have enjoyed a few more years. Maybe.
I 've told everyone that I've flunked Widowhood 101, because my year has gone by and I do not feel any more ready to "go on" than I did. But that is not true. I always have said after observing my own parents' end of life, that the first one who dies, dies as a married person. The second one dies a single person. The work of this first year has been to find that single person who is surviving the trauma. So maybe I am not so far behind after all, maybe I have not flunked entirely even though I am not yet out 'in the world,' and still wondering what to do next. But I now realize that that single person is here and I 've gotta take care of her the best I can. All of her.
I was thinking of the best things I liked about my husband, and as I go over them I think they are about the best marriage advice one could ask for. Of course there are always negatives, and we won't deal with them today. But here were the positives about my husband.
1. He was the brightest person I have ever known, and was quite fearless in many respects. He would go anywhere, (except into water), drive off into any weather, pitch a tent in any situation, and never worry at all about it.
2. He had an incredible, funny sense of humor. Quirky. Quiet. Ever present.
3. He didnt believe in going into debt for things (it was even hard to get him to buy a house at first)...and we were in agreement in our attitudes about credit and so forth.
4. He was perfectly neat and clean in his person. This is such a 'given' that it seems out of place to mention it in this list, but many men and women don't hold to the idea of the daily bath and it does make such a difference in the physical intimacy of marriage.
5. He was always agreeable to buying a bouquet of flowers when we did our supermarket shopping. He always wanted to come along so he could frown at olives and sardines and other food items out of the Oklahoma diet..but he never, not once, said no to the flowers and would even remind me that I wanted to get them.
Simple things. All were a matter of chance as to 'knowing' a person before you hook up...or was it a matter of instinct? One wonders. In those things, though, I was very lucky to have had him. Very very lucky.
He once complained that I didnt appreciate him, and I think I confounded him (and myself) by saying, "Don't you think I appreciate you? You gave me my life." And it was true, as I just realized that when I said the words to him.
He did give me my life, and my children, and all the things I now own and have, except for his physical self. He also gave me pains in the kazoo beyond recounting, but that is another story, the whole story of our life as we shared it. YAZZYBEL
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Drinking Smoothies
Hello--
For the last few days I've been drinking smoothies. I do not care for the texture, generally, but if there are frozen elements in there, the frozen-ness makes them more acceptable, I find.
My first recipe included a nectarine, some frozen wild blueberries, some chard leaves, some kale leaves, some parsley, and some mint...all those leaves are from pots in my yard. And a little orange juice as liquifier.It was the best and the most beautiful, being a dark wine-color and very delicious!!
Next I made one with tomatoes, onion, cilatro, all the leaves mentioned above, and orange juice. It was a nice beige color and also was very delicious. I had a bunch left over and ate it again yesterday, though I supposed most of the vitamins fly out the window if it's in the refrigerator overnight.
Today I made Waldorf Salad smoothie, using apples (no peel as I dont think these are organic apples), celery including leaves, pecans, plus all the leaves above. It is pale green and beautiful but tastes a little boring I guess because apples are not the most flavorful fruit in the world. I used coconut water as the liquifier...ok but not flavorful. But I',m drinkin' it down.
The good thing is that, after you drink/eat one of these, you are not hungry until lunch time. It deeply satisfies more than just your taste buds. Your body is grateful not to have to do all the work of chewing, and it got to have all those greens plus apples and nuts and berries. And believe me, it can tell the difference!!! YAZZYBEL
For the last few days I've been drinking smoothies. I do not care for the texture, generally, but if there are frozen elements in there, the frozen-ness makes them more acceptable, I find.
My first recipe included a nectarine, some frozen wild blueberries, some chard leaves, some kale leaves, some parsley, and some mint...all those leaves are from pots in my yard. And a little orange juice as liquifier.It was the best and the most beautiful, being a dark wine-color and very delicious!!
Next I made one with tomatoes, onion, cilatro, all the leaves mentioned above, and orange juice. It was a nice beige color and also was very delicious. I had a bunch left over and ate it again yesterday, though I supposed most of the vitamins fly out the window if it's in the refrigerator overnight.
Today I made Waldorf Salad smoothie, using apples (no peel as I dont think these are organic apples), celery including leaves, pecans, plus all the leaves above. It is pale green and beautiful but tastes a little boring I guess because apples are not the most flavorful fruit in the world. I used coconut water as the liquifier...ok but not flavorful. But I',m drinkin' it down.
The good thing is that, after you drink/eat one of these, you are not hungry until lunch time. It deeply satisfies more than just your taste buds. Your body is grateful not to have to do all the work of chewing, and it got to have all those greens plus apples and nuts and berries. And believe me, it can tell the difference!!! YAZZYBEL
Monday, June 30, 2014
The Importance of Courses
Good morning.
Here I am back from a long stay in Northern California. More about that in another post.
Today, I am going to write about eating in courses.
Serving meals in courses. Ways to have courses without help in the kitchen, even.
I was reading a good cookbook about how the Italians eat their main meal. If you think about it you can remember the familiar words, even familiar to those who don't really know Italian, like me.
First course in Italian is: Antipasti. What is served before the pasta. This includes all appetizers, plain or fancy, raw or cooked. I have come to the conclusion that the lack of an antipasto is the main flaw in family meals in the USA. (If there are indeed family meals. Well, I know there are, if only between old couples who are used to the former ways of sitting down together to eat.).
The antipasto's main function is to take the edge off the appetite. And to prepare for the main meal. This sounds so simple it's stupid, but it is important because, one, it does give the innards a chance to get prepared. And, two, it slows down the pace of the meal. Too often, more than an hour is spent preparing dinner, and then we wolf it down in ten minutes and adios Jesus. What's the sense in that?
If everybody sits down ( it's important to be seated for that course) then we get to come to the realization that dinner is served. We sip our drink, our wine or our cocktail, eat our two crackers and an olive, chat a bit, anticipate, and take in a breath or two. What's not good about that?
The cook is going to have to jump up for the finishing of the rest of the meal, but that just gives the diner or diners a chance to have another olive. Or another spoon of soup. Or another bruschetta. Everyone takes a breath, and, voila!! fifteen minutes has been expended on appreciation of all the effort that has taken place on the kitchen to feed us all. The simplest antipasto I ever saw was the big bowl of cut-up apples that a young woman served while we waited for a stew. They were nice, they didn't take away the appetite, and they certainly calmed down the kids who were wild after a day at the zoo.
Second course in the Italian meal is the pasta. That is what logically comes after the antipasto. It can be any free-standing pasta dish, or rice dish. It is not a hog sized share. That means, nowhere near a main course serving. But it is another chance to appreciate the cook's efforts in another sphere; it gives us something new to talk about, something new to pour a drink for, and another chance to breathe. Right here let me say that for the family meal, this course can meld right into the next course, which is the main course...primi piatti.
Primi piatti means "first plates," and means the main course. This is where the meat comes in if you are serving it. From a practical standpoint, the family meal should be melded with the pasta or rice course. But people are always writing in to Dear Abby telling how disturbed they are by their loved one's habit of eating all of one type of food on their plate, then the next, then the next. Do they not realize that those eaters are just trying to provide themselves with a pasta/rice course, a meat course, a salad course, and that that is a very natural way of eating?
After the main course, it's salad or fruit. Salad instead of dessert? Yes, and it's very satisfying. It freshens the palate, and you don't need anything more. You really don't crave it, once you are out of the habit of sweets at the end of dinner.
Italians mainly eat sweet pastry, pies and such, in the afternoon with coffee. Like merienda. That keeps that heavy sugar out of the end of the evening and besides, it is really delicious to have a sweet and coffee at four o clock.
I guess the main point of this, in such busy households as we have, with such harried cooks, is that we should have a seated appetizer before the main meal. This doesn't include the peanuts and cocktails or wine that some people have as they cook or anticipate dinner. But every meal needs a prepare yourself and take a breath course before digging in to the main dish.
Alas, in many households, dinner means rushing out, rushing in, and dumping a huge sack of semi-inedibles out onto the table so that everyone can grab for themselves. This prospect makes me feel so sad that I don't even want to contemplate it further! YAZZYBEL
Here I am back from a long stay in Northern California. More about that in another post.
Today, I am going to write about eating in courses.
Serving meals in courses. Ways to have courses without help in the kitchen, even.
I was reading a good cookbook about how the Italians eat their main meal. If you think about it you can remember the familiar words, even familiar to those who don't really know Italian, like me.
First course in Italian is: Antipasti. What is served before the pasta. This includes all appetizers, plain or fancy, raw or cooked. I have come to the conclusion that the lack of an antipasto is the main flaw in family meals in the USA. (If there are indeed family meals. Well, I know there are, if only between old couples who are used to the former ways of sitting down together to eat.).
The antipasto's main function is to take the edge off the appetite. And to prepare for the main meal. This sounds so simple it's stupid, but it is important because, one, it does give the innards a chance to get prepared. And, two, it slows down the pace of the meal. Too often, more than an hour is spent preparing dinner, and then we wolf it down in ten minutes and adios Jesus. What's the sense in that?
If everybody sits down ( it's important to be seated for that course) then we get to come to the realization that dinner is served. We sip our drink, our wine or our cocktail, eat our two crackers and an olive, chat a bit, anticipate, and take in a breath or two. What's not good about that?
The cook is going to have to jump up for the finishing of the rest of the meal, but that just gives the diner or diners a chance to have another olive. Or another spoon of soup. Or another bruschetta. Everyone takes a breath, and, voila!! fifteen minutes has been expended on appreciation of all the effort that has taken place on the kitchen to feed us all. The simplest antipasto I ever saw was the big bowl of cut-up apples that a young woman served while we waited for a stew. They were nice, they didn't take away the appetite, and they certainly calmed down the kids who were wild after a day at the zoo.
Second course in the Italian meal is the pasta. That is what logically comes after the antipasto. It can be any free-standing pasta dish, or rice dish. It is not a hog sized share. That means, nowhere near a main course serving. But it is another chance to appreciate the cook's efforts in another sphere; it gives us something new to talk about, something new to pour a drink for, and another chance to breathe. Right here let me say that for the family meal, this course can meld right into the next course, which is the main course...primi piatti.
Primi piatti means "first plates," and means the main course. This is where the meat comes in if you are serving it. From a practical standpoint, the family meal should be melded with the pasta or rice course. But people are always writing in to Dear Abby telling how disturbed they are by their loved one's habit of eating all of one type of food on their plate, then the next, then the next. Do they not realize that those eaters are just trying to provide themselves with a pasta/rice course, a meat course, a salad course, and that that is a very natural way of eating?
After the main course, it's salad or fruit. Salad instead of dessert? Yes, and it's very satisfying. It freshens the palate, and you don't need anything more. You really don't crave it, once you are out of the habit of sweets at the end of dinner.
Italians mainly eat sweet pastry, pies and such, in the afternoon with coffee. Like merienda. That keeps that heavy sugar out of the end of the evening and besides, it is really delicious to have a sweet and coffee at four o clock.
I guess the main point of this, in such busy households as we have, with such harried cooks, is that we should have a seated appetizer before the main meal. This doesn't include the peanuts and cocktails or wine that some people have as they cook or anticipate dinner. But every meal needs a prepare yourself and take a breath course before digging in to the main dish.
Alas, in many households, dinner means rushing out, rushing in, and dumping a huge sack of semi-inedibles out onto the table so that everyone can grab for themselves. This prospect makes me feel so sad that I don't even want to contemplate it further! YAZZYBEL
Saturday, May 24, 2014
don't fall down
How often do we senior citizens hear those words!
We hear them and quail inside because we know all too well that we have heard an injunction with which it's beyond our power to comply, endeavor as we may.
Nobody falls thinking about it, until in the split second as we are falling, we may think, This time i am falling. Then we hit and with a bang, and think , "This time it is serious."
I fell in my garage at 2:30 in the garage on May 16.
I was alone and really hit hard flying through the air headfirst into the pantry shelves. I felt my head and felt a wound and lots of blood. I immediately realized that my left wrist was broken and that I had to get into the house and the phone, so I inch-wormed my way up the steps, flipped onto my back and pushed into the living room in pools of blood, to the phone. I pulled the cord, phone fell down, called 911 and within 5 minutes was in the hands of the most capable very young First Responders you could want.
They sent me to UCSD Trauma Center for an evening of patchwork. Thank God that I did not get worse injured, that I did not lose consciousness, that the phone was on its hook as it almost never is---and for the wonderful young lifesavers. Since then, with wonderful neighbors, friends, and nurses, i have been eking along okay. What an ordeal. Thank God. YAZZYBEL
We hear them and quail inside because we know all too well that we have heard an injunction with which it's beyond our power to comply, endeavor as we may.
Nobody falls thinking about it, until in the split second as we are falling, we may think, This time i am falling. Then we hit and with a bang, and think , "This time it is serious."
I fell in my garage at 2:30 in the garage on May 16.
I was alone and really hit hard flying through the air headfirst into the pantry shelves. I felt my head and felt a wound and lots of blood. I immediately realized that my left wrist was broken and that I had to get into the house and the phone, so I inch-wormed my way up the steps, flipped onto my back and pushed into the living room in pools of blood, to the phone. I pulled the cord, phone fell down, called 911 and within 5 minutes was in the hands of the most capable very young First Responders you could want.
They sent me to UCSD Trauma Center for an evening of patchwork. Thank God that I did not get worse injured, that I did not lose consciousness, that the phone was on its hook as it almost never is---and for the wonderful young lifesavers. Since then, with wonderful neighbors, friends, and nurses, i have been eking along okay. What an ordeal. Thank God. YAZZYBEL
Monday, May 12, 2014
Something I Forgot about Tortilla Soup
I forgot to say that chicken tortilla soup should be made from simmered whole chickens, or at least big chunks of chickens with bones, and the meat falls off the bones and is shredded into the soup.
Chicken tortilla soup made of boiled chicken breasts that are cubed into the soup is just plain not as good. The shredded texture goes so well with the bits of drowned tortilla and vegetables and cheese (not too much) and the broth should have a rich quality of tortilla and Mexican spices within the rich chicken caldo.
That's all I had to say. Cut up cilantro and plenty of garlic and onion and tomato are good with me, and I love a hint of comino in everything. Some zucchini is not amiss but no fillers like potato or rice or frijoles, por favor. That's all. Shredded, not cubed, chicken meat and I like some dark meat. YAZZYBEL
Chicken tortilla soup made of boiled chicken breasts that are cubed into the soup is just plain not as good. The shredded texture goes so well with the bits of drowned tortilla and vegetables and cheese (not too much) and the broth should have a rich quality of tortilla and Mexican spices within the rich chicken caldo.
That's all I had to say. Cut up cilantro and plenty of garlic and onion and tomato are good with me, and I love a hint of comino in everything. Some zucchini is not amiss but no fillers like potato or rice or frijoles, por favor. That's all. Shredded, not cubed, chicken meat and I like some dark meat. YAZZYBEL
Tortilla Soup and Shrimp Cocktails
Good morning. I thought I'd write about a few delicious things I had to eat in Texas...tortilla soup, and shrimp cocktails today.
Shrimp cocktails used to appear on American menus in one form. There was a cup of rich, thick tomato sauce, spicy and sweet. Sometimes there was horseradish in the sauce. And there were big fat shrimps hanging over the edge of the bowl to dip into the sauce. These were simply very tasty, and all of course depends on the quality of the shrimp. I am glad to say that good shrimp can still be had, though I'd avoid farmed shrimp at all costs and still would vote for wild Gulf of Mexico shrimp if possible.
Nowadays, the Mexican Shrimp Cocktail is finally taking over on the US side. This cocktail still depends on fat huge shrimp to be excellent, but the rest of the picture has changed. Most often served in a large-bowled goblet, the sauce is now an "agua," tasty and thin, in which the shrimp are immersed. Chunks of avocado, and bits of chopped radish, are in the sauce. The seasonings are pleasant but incisive. Chili (jalapeno?), vinegar, tomato, hierbas..You fish around for your next bite and when all the bites are gone you drink your agua and sigh with pleasure. I drink it anyway. Couldn't leave it. Which cocktail do I prefer? The Mexican, I guess, though I must say I never complain about any well put-together shrimp cocktail. Low in calories, high in flavor and satisfaction.
My first tortilla soup long ago was made by my mother, with a whole chicken making the broth, and each ingredient adding to a full-flavored chicken soup graced with sliced fried tortilla strips. I had a few tortilla soups on my trip, and there are the common ones (the stock was something other than whole-chicken based) and a very exceptional one I had with a rich, chicken-ful broth and just the right vegetables and chicken. I have had no chicken tortilla soup compared to the good one I had on this trip and I'm sorry I can't remember just where it was!!
YAZZYBEL
Shrimp cocktails used to appear on American menus in one form. There was a cup of rich, thick tomato sauce, spicy and sweet. Sometimes there was horseradish in the sauce. And there were big fat shrimps hanging over the edge of the bowl to dip into the sauce. These were simply very tasty, and all of course depends on the quality of the shrimp. I am glad to say that good shrimp can still be had, though I'd avoid farmed shrimp at all costs and still would vote for wild Gulf of Mexico shrimp if possible.
Nowadays, the Mexican Shrimp Cocktail is finally taking over on the US side. This cocktail still depends on fat huge shrimp to be excellent, but the rest of the picture has changed. Most often served in a large-bowled goblet, the sauce is now an "agua," tasty and thin, in which the shrimp are immersed. Chunks of avocado, and bits of chopped radish, are in the sauce. The seasonings are pleasant but incisive. Chili (jalapeno?), vinegar, tomato, hierbas..You fish around for your next bite and when all the bites are gone you drink your agua and sigh with pleasure. I drink it anyway. Couldn't leave it. Which cocktail do I prefer? The Mexican, I guess, though I must say I never complain about any well put-together shrimp cocktail. Low in calories, high in flavor and satisfaction.
My first tortilla soup long ago was made by my mother, with a whole chicken making the broth, and each ingredient adding to a full-flavored chicken soup graced with sliced fried tortilla strips. I had a few tortilla soups on my trip, and there are the common ones (the stock was something other than whole-chicken based) and a very exceptional one I had with a rich, chicken-ful broth and just the right vegetables and chicken. I have had no chicken tortilla soup compared to the good one I had on this trip and I'm sorry I can't remember just where it was!!
YAZZYBEL
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Two Strawberry Cakes
Listen! say my hordes of listeners. Weeks away from the blog, and you come back with tales of cake?
What better say I? I have spent the last few weeks in Tucson and San Antonio eating delicious food. Came back weighing one pound more than when I left. Not bad, not bad. And I am going to talk some more about the food of Texas among other things.
The two strawberry cakes were eaten in restaurants in El Paso and San Antonio. They were very different from each other, and very different from the fake flans and fake lava cakes that are proliferating in our middle class restaurants now.
The first one was eaten in a tiny restaurant outside of El Paso in a market/antique mall kind of place. Can't remember its name but the food was very good. I ordered Strawberry Cake for dessert. This cake was a very pink strawberry-flavored cake as in a cake mix, but very tasty. Between the layers was spread a generous layer of strawberry jam; over the top and sides was a pale pink strawberry buttercream frosting. The cake was huge; I'd guess the slice was nearly a pound in weight. I ate it all.
Then in San Antonio, at Crumpets, I ordered Strawberry Cake again. I prayed it wouldnt be shortcake, and it wasn't. The cake was white and pleasant; there was a creme anglaise filling and a whipped cream filling (three layers) with whipped cream covering all. There were mashed strawberries in the cake batter, baked in. The whole thing was moist and rich and refrigerated and was just scrumptious.
So there. I could not wait to tell people about that delicious cake. I rarely see cake offered in a restaurant and of course I hardly ever make one any more; last one I made I think I mixed up my gluten free biscuit mix with flour so the whole thing was coarse and tasted like garbanzos. Not too good.
I ate several tortilla soups on the trip and will discuss those later. Also ate my favorite meal: shrimp cocktail, which makes a surprisingly satisfying lunch all by itself. And makes you feel virtuous too when everyone else is eating fried things with fries on the side. YAZZYBEL
What better say I? I have spent the last few weeks in Tucson and San Antonio eating delicious food. Came back weighing one pound more than when I left. Not bad, not bad. And I am going to talk some more about the food of Texas among other things.
The two strawberry cakes were eaten in restaurants in El Paso and San Antonio. They were very different from each other, and very different from the fake flans and fake lava cakes that are proliferating in our middle class restaurants now.
The first one was eaten in a tiny restaurant outside of El Paso in a market/antique mall kind of place. Can't remember its name but the food was very good. I ordered Strawberry Cake for dessert. This cake was a very pink strawberry-flavored cake as in a cake mix, but very tasty. Between the layers was spread a generous layer of strawberry jam; over the top and sides was a pale pink strawberry buttercream frosting. The cake was huge; I'd guess the slice was nearly a pound in weight. I ate it all.
Then in San Antonio, at Crumpets, I ordered Strawberry Cake again. I prayed it wouldnt be shortcake, and it wasn't. The cake was white and pleasant; there was a creme anglaise filling and a whipped cream filling (three layers) with whipped cream covering all. There were mashed strawberries in the cake batter, baked in. The whole thing was moist and rich and refrigerated and was just scrumptious.
So there. I could not wait to tell people about that delicious cake. I rarely see cake offered in a restaurant and of course I hardly ever make one any more; last one I made I think I mixed up my gluten free biscuit mix with flour so the whole thing was coarse and tasted like garbanzos. Not too good.
I ate several tortilla soups on the trip and will discuss those later. Also ate my favorite meal: shrimp cocktail, which makes a surprisingly satisfying lunch all by itself. And makes you feel virtuous too when everyone else is eating fried things with fries on the side. YAZZYBEL
Monday, March 31, 2014
How Food That I Fed My Kids in the 70's was Better
Yes! The food that I fed my kids in the 70's was better food than any mom can feed her kids today.
At the typical Safeway, say the one on Washington St. before it turned into Von's and then halfway back again, the meat counter alone was a miracle of choice and diversity. There before you was spread the treasure of a rich continent, and the only thing holding you back was cost and talent. Nothing held me back in those days, fortunately. I was still in my honeymoon of motherhood, in the seventies, when my husband lived at home, earned good money, and I didnt have to leave my little children in order to be liberated at work. And I loved to cook!
There before us was:
1. Veal shanks--oh how yummy to make osso bucco!
2. Veal chops and stew meat. Veal is delicious and was not criminal in those days.
3. Seafood in great variety: West Coast fish, oysters in little glass bottles if you wanted to get them that way, shrimps huge and pink from Texas or the Pacific, crayfish/lobster tails from South America (anybody remember those?),
4.Beef both young and mature, huge steaks with BONES those anthropological mysteries that have disappeared from the grocer's meat counters, roasts of all sorts including seven bone roast which can be put into the oven in the am with a little onion and water, and left all day at two fifty degrees while you go to the zoo and aquarium and wherever else you choose to, returning home to the most delicious dinner ever at five or six...
5. Pork, pink and yummy...it was different. Pork chops were different. Or, I should say that pork is different now, for then they were of the quality that pork has been throughout the millenia...something just delicious and not hard as a brickbat after it's been grilled as now.
6. Lamb! Exotic, innocent lamb..delightful tiny chops, wonderful roasts and even wonderful lamb shoulder stew..(NOT exotic, but GOOD!)
7. Ground meats of all sorts...that did not give people e-coli for some reason even though processing was not what it now is...hmm...think of that...it was local and fresher, that's why!
The vegetable bins were less full of colorful stuff. Asian products were not in evidence much. But the vegetables that existed were huge, fresh and fine. Nothing had yet been genetically tampered with. Imagine that! If you didnt eat it expediently, it would rot or die...It was real.
The bread you made your 2000 cheese sandwiches or beef sandwiches or tuna sandwiches or chicken sandwiches with was MUCH better food than what it is today. It's probably, with oils, one of the most genetically altered substances that we are eating now. Watch out. We must either give it up or go to a great deal of trouble and watchfulness to buy good flour and make out own.
I havent covered all foods (focussing on meat I know) because what made me think of all this is:
Veal Marengo. Veal Marengo was invented by Napoleon's cook when they were out on the battlefield; The General was hungry, and the chef didnt have much at hand. It must have been during the Italian campaign because what evolved as the chef desperately threw a dish together was Veal Marengo. Pimentoes are the crowning mark of Veal Marengo for me. I love pimentoes, the ordinary jarred kind by Dromedary, which I always have around.
I invented Chicken Marengo before I heard about the veal version, using chicken, onion, mushrooms, wine, and pimentoes. It was one of those dishes that you remember all your life when the flavors come together just right and it's perfect. When I read about Veal Marengo in a cookbook, I knew that I'd invented a good thing and Napoleon would have enjoyed it.
I thought about all that this morning when I made my egg, gently fried on a thin thin glaze of butter in the skillet, with a generous spoonful of pimentoes sizzling beside it. Try it. You'll like your Eggs Marengo. It will take you back to the days when food was actually better and could stand on its own in a simple, simple dish just like that. YAZZYBEL
At the typical Safeway, say the one on Washington St. before it turned into Von's and then halfway back again, the meat counter alone was a miracle of choice and diversity. There before you was spread the treasure of a rich continent, and the only thing holding you back was cost and talent. Nothing held me back in those days, fortunately. I was still in my honeymoon of motherhood, in the seventies, when my husband lived at home, earned good money, and I didnt have to leave my little children in order to be liberated at work. And I loved to cook!
There before us was:
1. Veal shanks--oh how yummy to make osso bucco!
2. Veal chops and stew meat. Veal is delicious and was not criminal in those days.
3. Seafood in great variety: West Coast fish, oysters in little glass bottles if you wanted to get them that way, shrimps huge and pink from Texas or the Pacific, crayfish/lobster tails from South America (anybody remember those?),
4.Beef both young and mature, huge steaks with BONES those anthropological mysteries that have disappeared from the grocer's meat counters, roasts of all sorts including seven bone roast which can be put into the oven in the am with a little onion and water, and left all day at two fifty degrees while you go to the zoo and aquarium and wherever else you choose to, returning home to the most delicious dinner ever at five or six...
5. Pork, pink and yummy...it was different. Pork chops were different. Or, I should say that pork is different now, for then they were of the quality that pork has been throughout the millenia...something just delicious and not hard as a brickbat after it's been grilled as now.
6. Lamb! Exotic, innocent lamb..delightful tiny chops, wonderful roasts and even wonderful lamb shoulder stew..(NOT exotic, but GOOD!)
7. Ground meats of all sorts...that did not give people e-coli for some reason even though processing was not what it now is...hmm...think of that...it was local and fresher, that's why!
The vegetable bins were less full of colorful stuff. Asian products were not in evidence much. But the vegetables that existed were huge, fresh and fine. Nothing had yet been genetically tampered with. Imagine that! If you didnt eat it expediently, it would rot or die...It was real.
The bread you made your 2000 cheese sandwiches or beef sandwiches or tuna sandwiches or chicken sandwiches with was MUCH better food than what it is today. It's probably, with oils, one of the most genetically altered substances that we are eating now. Watch out. We must either give it up or go to a great deal of trouble and watchfulness to buy good flour and make out own.
I havent covered all foods (focussing on meat I know) because what made me think of all this is:
Veal Marengo. Veal Marengo was invented by Napoleon's cook when they were out on the battlefield; The General was hungry, and the chef didnt have much at hand. It must have been during the Italian campaign because what evolved as the chef desperately threw a dish together was Veal Marengo. Pimentoes are the crowning mark of Veal Marengo for me. I love pimentoes, the ordinary jarred kind by Dromedary, which I always have around.
I invented Chicken Marengo before I heard about the veal version, using chicken, onion, mushrooms, wine, and pimentoes. It was one of those dishes that you remember all your life when the flavors come together just right and it's perfect. When I read about Veal Marengo in a cookbook, I knew that I'd invented a good thing and Napoleon would have enjoyed it.
I thought about all that this morning when I made my egg, gently fried on a thin thin glaze of butter in the skillet, with a generous spoonful of pimentoes sizzling beside it. Try it. You'll like your Eggs Marengo. It will take you back to the days when food was actually better and could stand on its own in a simple, simple dish just like that. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Sunday Thoughts
Good morning. Well, if you read my Facebook entry of today, you know I went to church. I was a little late and missed most of the first Reading. I guess I was late because I was writing on Facebook.
The Forum, long called the Borum by my kids, (not meant for them)..was very good. It was about prayer and kind of tied in with what I wrote on FB.
After church, I came south and went to Von's, where I purchased lots of paper products, soap, etc., and a little food. Came home and made Huevos Revueltos a la Mexicana. I used cubed up yellow pepper, green pepper, green onions and the family jalapeno. I call it that because it is huge and I can keep it in the vegetable bin and cut it up for my modest jalepeno demands. No tomatoes in my Huevos a la Mexicana, thank you. I also, in loyalty to my adopted state of California, laid a slice of cheddar cheese over the top when done. It melted nicely down and I ate it with a gas-toasted tortilla. Yum YUm YUM.
Then I noticed in the paper that my favorite SF movie, Galaxy Quest was on and I'd missed almost all of it, so I turned it on and cried over my huevos a la Mexicana as I watched the ending of it. Why do I cry over a silly movie? Because it comes out perfectly, that's why; I mostly cry I think because of the unappreciated teenaged boy, a fan who gets his vindication in the success of a zany space journey. It's all there, folks: good and evil and laughs and chills, and very good actors playing very bad ones. Needless to repeat, I just love it.
The wind is stiff and chill again today; that is what spoils many days in my back yard here...well, we had some really balmy ones and perhaps we'll have them again...I'll be waiting. YAZZYBEL
The Forum, long called the Borum by my kids, (not meant for them)..was very good. It was about prayer and kind of tied in with what I wrote on FB.
After church, I came south and went to Von's, where I purchased lots of paper products, soap, etc., and a little food. Came home and made Huevos Revueltos a la Mexicana. I used cubed up yellow pepper, green pepper, green onions and the family jalapeno. I call it that because it is huge and I can keep it in the vegetable bin and cut it up for my modest jalepeno demands. No tomatoes in my Huevos a la Mexicana, thank you. I also, in loyalty to my adopted state of California, laid a slice of cheddar cheese over the top when done. It melted nicely down and I ate it with a gas-toasted tortilla. Yum YUm YUM.
Then I noticed in the paper that my favorite SF movie, Galaxy Quest was on and I'd missed almost all of it, so I turned it on and cried over my huevos a la Mexicana as I watched the ending of it. Why do I cry over a silly movie? Because it comes out perfectly, that's why; I mostly cry I think because of the unappreciated teenaged boy, a fan who gets his vindication in the success of a zany space journey. It's all there, folks: good and evil and laughs and chills, and very good actors playing very bad ones. Needless to repeat, I just love it.
The wind is stiff and chill again today; that is what spoils many days in my back yard here...well, we had some really balmy ones and perhaps we'll have them again...I'll be waiting. YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
A Danger Averted
Wow. What a narrow escape!
I just returned from the CV Pound...er, Animal Shelter...empty-handed.
My friend Lee has just adopted a dog at the urging of her kids...she went to a shelter to view the desired animal, and fell in love with the wrong pooch. That's the way it is for dogs, poor fellows that they are. It's the luck of the draw.
So, I overcame my better nature and went to the CV Animal Shelter yesterday afternoon. It was not an entirely fruitless endeavor because it enabled me to see that I can be totally hard-hearted where these poor creatures are concerned, and concentrate on my own needs and capabilities with remarkable aplomb.
Rule 1: no puppy, because Foxy Angus taught me that I do not pass the Agility Rule for Capturing Wayward Pups.
Rule 2: no barkers. This elimnates practically everybody right there.
Rule 3: no males, because they lift the surreptitious leg here and there even when supposedly trained.
They also are somewhat more likely to bark.
Rule 4: nothing big, because they can pull the pore old Yazzybel and make her fall down and break something.
It has to be something small and female that isnt likely to shed too much hair and can justifiably answer to the name of Lady. Actually I found Lady yesterday, but her name was Belle...and she was a trifle large for a chihuahua...and she didnt really pull me into wanting her. But I thought about her in the night and I went back to see her this morning. In the morning light, she didn't seem to be Lady after all...so I hardened my already stony heart and walked on. Someone will like her, I reasoned. Hope I am right.
Most of the dogs at the shelter were male (8-1 preponderance?) and many of them were huge adult male pit bulls who were glaring out with lowering brows and barking their fool heads off. I would not let a person who wanted such a dog even have a dog. The female pit bulls were also quite hostile and aggressive in manner. Good looking dogs, though.
When I went through the cattery on the way out I foolishly asked about kittens. Not kitten season, I was informed (yes, there is a kitten season at least in CA) but if I would return at the end of March or the first of April, there will be kittens in the new kitten window by the front door. Good to know.
As I left the shelter, two different people were literally dragging their reluctant dogs into the front door...oh how those dogs can read the minds of the other inmates and know they don't want to be there! Both dogs were medium large, unattractive and hairy. So were their owners, actually. I hated to see them. Such a reminder of impulsive dog decisions.
So I left, pondering my visit.. It's a terrible toss up. Note to self: do NOT return to the CV Animal Shelter any time soon, and especially do not return at the end of March or the beginning of April.
YAZZYBEL, who may be lonely but is free as a bird. (for now.)
I just returned from the CV Pound...er, Animal Shelter...empty-handed.
My friend Lee has just adopted a dog at the urging of her kids...she went to a shelter to view the desired animal, and fell in love with the wrong pooch. That's the way it is for dogs, poor fellows that they are. It's the luck of the draw.
So, I overcame my better nature and went to the CV Animal Shelter yesterday afternoon. It was not an entirely fruitless endeavor because it enabled me to see that I can be totally hard-hearted where these poor creatures are concerned, and concentrate on my own needs and capabilities with remarkable aplomb.
Rule 1: no puppy, because Foxy Angus taught me that I do not pass the Agility Rule for Capturing Wayward Pups.
Rule 2: no barkers. This elimnates practically everybody right there.
Rule 3: no males, because they lift the surreptitious leg here and there even when supposedly trained.
They also are somewhat more likely to bark.
Rule 4: nothing big, because they can pull the pore old Yazzybel and make her fall down and break something.
It has to be something small and female that isnt likely to shed too much hair and can justifiably answer to the name of Lady. Actually I found Lady yesterday, but her name was Belle...and she was a trifle large for a chihuahua...and she didnt really pull me into wanting her. But I thought about her in the night and I went back to see her this morning. In the morning light, she didn't seem to be Lady after all...so I hardened my already stony heart and walked on. Someone will like her, I reasoned. Hope I am right.
Most of the dogs at the shelter were male (8-1 preponderance?) and many of them were huge adult male pit bulls who were glaring out with lowering brows and barking their fool heads off. I would not let a person who wanted such a dog even have a dog. The female pit bulls were also quite hostile and aggressive in manner. Good looking dogs, though.
When I went through the cattery on the way out I foolishly asked about kittens. Not kitten season, I was informed (yes, there is a kitten season at least in CA) but if I would return at the end of March or the first of April, there will be kittens in the new kitten window by the front door. Good to know.
As I left the shelter, two different people were literally dragging their reluctant dogs into the front door...oh how those dogs can read the minds of the other inmates and know they don't want to be there! Both dogs were medium large, unattractive and hairy. So were their owners, actually. I hated to see them. Such a reminder of impulsive dog decisions.
So I left, pondering my visit.. It's a terrible toss up. Note to self: do NOT return to the CV Animal Shelter any time soon, and especially do not return at the end of March or the beginning of April.
YAZZYBEL, who may be lonely but is free as a bird. (for now.)
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Daylight What?
Daylight Savings Time is here this morn;
Let sound the celebratory horn!
But time hath left me in the lurch;
I woke too late to go to church!
When I was a schoolteacher, I had ample time to observe the effects of our arbitrary time system upon the systems of our harrassed American children. No sooner were they subjected to the really awful sugar barrage of Halloween than they were put to the test of the return of 'normal' time, and went to school drugged and confused. Then in the spring, when they'd begun to wake up normally in the morning light, they were thrown back into dark, still chilly mornings when they were forced to arise and stagger off to school (well, in the car mostly) to blink their way through morning. By far the harder situation on the children was the spring reversal to Daylight Savings Time. I don't know why. I just know that, Halloween sugar and all, they got through the fall transition more easily than the spring one. It was easily observable in practice.
I just overslept for church, in spite of having set the alarm last night after dutifully putting the clock forward as instructed by Big Brother. Who is Big Brother, anyway? Who tells us we have to do this? Why do we do it?
Arizona is the first sensible state I know of. They refuse to participate in the DST boggle. They refuse to participate in lots of other things too; guess they are just a contrary-minded lot. Good for them. That's how you spell independence, folks.
I am drinking my coffee and now have time to decide whether or not I'll try to make a later service somewhere. Perhaps I will. Perhaps I will.
After all,I have all the time in the world. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Clients and Customers without Respect
Perhaps that's an ambiguous title up there.
Does it mean that the clients have no respect for anyone? It could.
Or does it mean that clients and customers no longer get any respect from the business they patronize? That's the meaning I meant it to mean.
I was thinking along these lines before I went out to the movies this afternoon. Being much alone, I spend more time with the television than ever before. Therefore, I am an able judge of the quality of service (respect) from those whom I pay for this television. I was so disgusted with the programming on the television that I've been offered lately that I decided to go to the movies, of which more later.
Who exactly decided for Cox TV that we subscribers to Basic Cable (39.95 a month) deserve no better than hundreds of viewings of Braveheart,
Scarface, Mama's Big House, Halloween in all of its incarnations, and a list of other foolishness that no one in her right mind needs to see even once.? These and other second rate films play over and over again on this Basic Cable set of channels, as if there were not thousands of other good films available in this world. Were I to choose to upgrade, as both my sons have, I'd only have another list of second-rate stuff to choose from, and be hard-put to find one evening's entertainment in a month. It's true. Violence, sadism, gore, all proliferate in a general climate of sinking boredom.
Ghost stories have been proliferating to try to bring some relief to the general show of earthly beastliness and hatred. They too are depressing and have almost no point except to show moods as blue and black as the colors they are filmed with. What is this? Why do we buy this? Why do we take this trash that we're offered?
I am ready to call it off with Cox, and go back to bunny ears just to see the news...but it occurs to me that I can learn to see the news on the computer where I am only bombarded with many many commercials an hour and only as much gore and sleaze as I cannot avoid.
So I went out to the movies, to see a docile movie, Philomena, today. First I was disrespected by being asked to pay $11.25 for the smallest coke and butterless popcorn I could get. Then I was disrespected by being shown a large number of loud and baffling previews ("chosen to be shown with this feature"---how? why?) before my movie of choice came on.
I spilled quite a bit of my over-filled popcorn container over the floor around my seat. I left my over-filled paper cup of diet coke in the hole in the arm of my chair, proving that I can be disrespectful of both the theater and myself. I am only sorry that it's the poor flunkies, who have no vote on policy, who have to clean up after me.
And, did I like Philomena? No, I did not like it. And, respectfully, why did I not?
If I get around to it later, perhaps sometime I'll bother to tell you. If I feel like criticizing a movie. Hasta la vista, Baby. YAZZYBEL
Does it mean that the clients have no respect for anyone? It could.
Or does it mean that clients and customers no longer get any respect from the business they patronize? That's the meaning I meant it to mean.
I was thinking along these lines before I went out to the movies this afternoon. Being much alone, I spend more time with the television than ever before. Therefore, I am an able judge of the quality of service (respect) from those whom I pay for this television. I was so disgusted with the programming on the television that I've been offered lately that I decided to go to the movies, of which more later.
Who exactly decided for Cox TV that we subscribers to Basic Cable (39.95 a month) deserve no better than hundreds of viewings of Braveheart,
Scarface, Mama's Big House, Halloween in all of its incarnations, and a list of other foolishness that no one in her right mind needs to see even once.? These and other second rate films play over and over again on this Basic Cable set of channels, as if there were not thousands of other good films available in this world. Were I to choose to upgrade, as both my sons have, I'd only have another list of second-rate stuff to choose from, and be hard-put to find one evening's entertainment in a month. It's true. Violence, sadism, gore, all proliferate in a general climate of sinking boredom.
Ghost stories have been proliferating to try to bring some relief to the general show of earthly beastliness and hatred. They too are depressing and have almost no point except to show moods as blue and black as the colors they are filmed with. What is this? Why do we buy this? Why do we take this trash that we're offered?
I am ready to call it off with Cox, and go back to bunny ears just to see the news...but it occurs to me that I can learn to see the news on the computer where I am only bombarded with many many commercials an hour and only as much gore and sleaze as I cannot avoid.
So I went out to the movies, to see a docile movie, Philomena, today. First I was disrespected by being asked to pay $11.25 for the smallest coke and butterless popcorn I could get. Then I was disrespected by being shown a large number of loud and baffling previews ("chosen to be shown with this feature"---how? why?) before my movie of choice came on.
I spilled quite a bit of my over-filled popcorn container over the floor around my seat. I left my over-filled paper cup of diet coke in the hole in the arm of my chair, proving that I can be disrespectful of both the theater and myself. I am only sorry that it's the poor flunkies, who have no vote on policy, who have to clean up after me.
And, did I like Philomena? No, I did not like it. And, respectfully, why did I not?
If I get around to it later, perhaps sometime I'll bother to tell you. If I feel like criticizing a movie. Hasta la vista, Baby. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Farewell to Freckles
This morning I was awaked at five thirty by an animal screaming outside my house, down in the little area between my house and the next door neighbors'. It was a repeated cry of an animal in agony, and it sounded like a little dog.
I got up and looked out my newly venetian-blinded window to the street, but everything was shrouded in fog. It was creepy out there. I decided to get up even though it was so early; I'd be ready to turn on some lights, drink some coffee, let the cat in. He's been sleeping outside at night lately because of his bad interior manners lately. But he's always forgiving, ready to come in at any hour and yell at me for some food.
This morning he did not come in. I called at all doors, with no response. The fog lifted by eight, and I decided to go to late church at ten thirty...was dressed and ready but knocked at the neighbors' in case someone else had heard the screaming. Ricky, the fifteen year old son, offered to come after his breakfast to look for the cat. When he came, he found the cat right away, in a spot I'd already looked at from above.
Freckles was dead in a place underneath the Palo Verde tree...very dead, and stiff. One of his ears was missing. He had two large holes in the fur of his side abdomen, and two more smaller just further on. Ricky buried the cat for me just now. Actually he placed him in the garbage. We didnt know what to do with him as the ground is too hard from lack of rain for Ricky to dig a hole. Oh, there was no blood anywhere. Looks like the chupacabra to me.
I am feeling leery because I'd thought to God yesterday that I would let Freckles' existence determine whether I'll be moving on myself. If Freckles died, I'd move out, but not until then. The answer came with devastating swiftness. I'll miss my cat because, though a pest, he was my only company, my only family and almost my only friend. I'll have to get rid of his hairbrush, his leftover food, and the catnip crab he didn't appreciate. This changes the whole picture, folks.
It does. I didn't know what I was expecting when I thought that thought. Goodbye, Freckles, the only other one around here who still knew Gregory when Gregory was alive. Benjamin and Foxy Angus will miss you when they come. The Neffs from Iowa got to know him last summer though they have lived so far away. Freckles, I am going to miss you and think about you for sure. YAZZYBEL
I got up and looked out my newly venetian-blinded window to the street, but everything was shrouded in fog. It was creepy out there. I decided to get up even though it was so early; I'd be ready to turn on some lights, drink some coffee, let the cat in. He's been sleeping outside at night lately because of his bad interior manners lately. But he's always forgiving, ready to come in at any hour and yell at me for some food.
This morning he did not come in. I called at all doors, with no response. The fog lifted by eight, and I decided to go to late church at ten thirty...was dressed and ready but knocked at the neighbors' in case someone else had heard the screaming. Ricky, the fifteen year old son, offered to come after his breakfast to look for the cat. When he came, he found the cat right away, in a spot I'd already looked at from above.
Freckles was dead in a place underneath the Palo Verde tree...very dead, and stiff. One of his ears was missing. He had two large holes in the fur of his side abdomen, and two more smaller just further on. Ricky buried the cat for me just now. Actually he placed him in the garbage. We didnt know what to do with him as the ground is too hard from lack of rain for Ricky to dig a hole. Oh, there was no blood anywhere. Looks like the chupacabra to me.
I am feeling leery because I'd thought to God yesterday that I would let Freckles' existence determine whether I'll be moving on myself. If Freckles died, I'd move out, but not until then. The answer came with devastating swiftness. I'll miss my cat because, though a pest, he was my only company, my only family and almost my only friend. I'll have to get rid of his hairbrush, his leftover food, and the catnip crab he didn't appreciate. This changes the whole picture, folks.
It does. I didn't know what I was expecting when I thought that thought. Goodbye, Freckles, the only other one around here who still knew Gregory when Gregory was alive. Benjamin and Foxy Angus will miss you when they come. The Neffs from Iowa got to know him last summer though they have lived so far away. Freckles, I am going to miss you and think about you for sure. YAZZYBEL
Sunday, January 19, 2014
In Memory of Sosthenes Berdeja
Good morning.
Do you ever think of the shadow-memory people in your lives? The ones you never really knew but whose path crossed yours more than once? I sometimes do, and today was one of those days.
Today is the Second Sunday After Epiphany, and the reading of the Epistle for this Sunday is from St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: "Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth.....". Paul knew a Sosthenes too.
Sosthenes's name is pronounced SOS-ten-es, with the stress on the first syllable. In proper Spanish it is written with an accent on the o, but I can't find it in the alts. It is a Greek name, and beautiful. I remember the first time I saw Sosthenes. My father and I were driving from San Benito to Brownsville, on some business of his, on a Saturday morning long ago. He was going to meet Sostenes Berdeja for some reason, probably having to do with the cotton business, which was my dad's calling for most of his life. As we drove along, we met another car, and instant recognition caused much mutual honking; the cars turned around toward each other at the side of the highway (there were no other cars on that highway; that's how long ago it was). Sosthenes and my father performed the abrazo (the Mexican meet-and-greet) there on the side of the road, and leaning against the other car, they began a leisurely discussion.
"Stay in the car," had been my father's order when he abandoned me there, but of course it was an order no eight year old child could reasonably be expected to obey, out in the country on a perfect spring morning. I was shortly out and in exploration of nearby territory, which included an irrigation canal full of running water, lots of bushes and birdsong, and a bridge over the canal where I soon found myself lying face down, staring into the water. That is where and when I saw that magical little creature that I think I've mentioned to you before: a little tube about eight or ten inches long, of living crystal, snoozing in the water just below my eyes. I know he was snoozing because I had plenty of time to look at him before his eyes opened, he panicked, and swam out of there. I think he must have been a tiny baby gar, because I thought he looked like a little dragon in the water and there werent many alligators in the Valley back then. Dragons either.
Some time later, my father came to me in panic because he hadn't found me in the car and was sure I had drowned in the canal. I hadn't but I had to endure much recrimination all the way back to San Benito. That was my first memory of Sosthenes.
Five or so years later, my father took me and my sister no. 2 to Monterrey, N.L., to get us out of our mother's hair for a few days, as she was great with child and exasperated. This time I was thirteen, and Sosthenes rode along with my father over the night-dark roads of northern Mexico. I remember him as a huge, kindly figure, the lights from the dashboard dimly lighting the contours of his face, as the Spanish conversation drifted towards the back seat. Nothing more happened on that ride, except for having to stop so that Sister no. 2, who was High Maintainance, could decide whether or not to throw up. (She didn't).
That's nearly all for Sosthenes in my memory. There's one last memory where my father was in the kitchen telling my mother that Sosthenes Berdeja had hit a hog on the road, driving those same roads we had traversed in the night, before. (Everyone drove at night because it was too hot to drive in the day and there was no A/C!!) I thought it was funny but my father said it was serious and I think there had been a hospitalization as a result.
Funny the things we remember. A pleasant voice speaking a language I didn't understand much, a huge dark shadow with a kindly aura (children always know, you know), a beautiful name...which I am sure came from that very passage of St Paul I mentioned before. That was all. But I will not forget him, and on the Second Sunday after Epiphany I'll always be reminded of his name.
YAZZYBEL
Do you ever think of the shadow-memory people in your lives? The ones you never really knew but whose path crossed yours more than once? I sometimes do, and today was one of those days.
Today is the Second Sunday After Epiphany, and the reading of the Epistle for this Sunday is from St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: "Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth.....". Paul knew a Sosthenes too.
Sosthenes's name is pronounced SOS-ten-es, with the stress on the first syllable. In proper Spanish it is written with an accent on the o, but I can't find it in the alts. It is a Greek name, and beautiful. I remember the first time I saw Sosthenes. My father and I were driving from San Benito to Brownsville, on some business of his, on a Saturday morning long ago. He was going to meet Sostenes Berdeja for some reason, probably having to do with the cotton business, which was my dad's calling for most of his life. As we drove along, we met another car, and instant recognition caused much mutual honking; the cars turned around toward each other at the side of the highway (there were no other cars on that highway; that's how long ago it was). Sosthenes and my father performed the abrazo (the Mexican meet-and-greet) there on the side of the road, and leaning against the other car, they began a leisurely discussion.
"Stay in the car," had been my father's order when he abandoned me there, but of course it was an order no eight year old child could reasonably be expected to obey, out in the country on a perfect spring morning. I was shortly out and in exploration of nearby territory, which included an irrigation canal full of running water, lots of bushes and birdsong, and a bridge over the canal where I soon found myself lying face down, staring into the water. That is where and when I saw that magical little creature that I think I've mentioned to you before: a little tube about eight or ten inches long, of living crystal, snoozing in the water just below my eyes. I know he was snoozing because I had plenty of time to look at him before his eyes opened, he panicked, and swam out of there. I think he must have been a tiny baby gar, because I thought he looked like a little dragon in the water and there werent many alligators in the Valley back then. Dragons either.
Some time later, my father came to me in panic because he hadn't found me in the car and was sure I had drowned in the canal. I hadn't but I had to endure much recrimination all the way back to San Benito. That was my first memory of Sosthenes.
Five or so years later, my father took me and my sister no. 2 to Monterrey, N.L., to get us out of our mother's hair for a few days, as she was great with child and exasperated. This time I was thirteen, and Sosthenes rode along with my father over the night-dark roads of northern Mexico. I remember him as a huge, kindly figure, the lights from the dashboard dimly lighting the contours of his face, as the Spanish conversation drifted towards the back seat. Nothing more happened on that ride, except for having to stop so that Sister no. 2, who was High Maintainance, could decide whether or not to throw up. (She didn't).
That's nearly all for Sosthenes in my memory. There's one last memory where my father was in the kitchen telling my mother that Sosthenes Berdeja had hit a hog on the road, driving those same roads we had traversed in the night, before. (Everyone drove at night because it was too hot to drive in the day and there was no A/C!!) I thought it was funny but my father said it was serious and I think there had been a hospitalization as a result.
Funny the things we remember. A pleasant voice speaking a language I didn't understand much, a huge dark shadow with a kindly aura (children always know, you know), a beautiful name...which I am sure came from that very passage of St Paul I mentioned before. That was all. But I will not forget him, and on the Second Sunday after Epiphany I'll always be reminded of his name.
YAZZYBEL
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Something Bad and Something Good
Good morning.
Yesterday I had the yearning to make some brownies...but since I had no regular wheat flour (thanks to my anti-Gluten conversion), I decided to use Bob's Red Mill biscuit mix instead. Now biscuit mix, as in Bisquick, makes a perfectly good substitute for flour in a recipe where you don't use a lot of regular flour anyway...as my recipe which calls for a half-cup flour.
Anyway--I made the dough, but that stuff never made it to the oven because I took a bite and it smelled and tasted TERRIBLE. Probably because Bob's Red Mill uses garbanzos in the flour along with rice...and there is just something in garbanzos that doesnt mix with brownie fantasies, in my opinion. I dumped the entire batch of dough away.
So today after church I decided to start over because I was still craving brownies. I had to use cocoa because I didnt have any chocolate, but have done that before so I know it's fine. I used less butter than the recipe says (it says 1/2 c.; I used 3/4 of 1/2 c.)...I would have used all the butter but the ghost of my mother rose up inside me and reminded me, "Your heart!!"
I didn't have the flour but remembered some Bob's Red Mill coconut flour I bought and have not used, so I used that. There is only 1/2 cup flour in the recipe so I added just a little to make sure the cookies would hold together.
I spread my brownies out on a baking tin because I like them that way...a bit thinner than from an 8x8 pan...and I baked them for only a short time...till they were browning at the very edges..and I just had some with a glass of cold real milk from a cow (I hope)...and they were just delicious. A nice pre-lunch snack!!! So..just shows: don't give up hope, try something else, and it'll turn out very well. If you're lucky!!! YAZZYBEL
Yesterday I had the yearning to make some brownies...but since I had no regular wheat flour (thanks to my anti-Gluten conversion), I decided to use Bob's Red Mill biscuit mix instead. Now biscuit mix, as in Bisquick, makes a perfectly good substitute for flour in a recipe where you don't use a lot of regular flour anyway...as my recipe which calls for a half-cup flour.
Anyway--I made the dough, but that stuff never made it to the oven because I took a bite and it smelled and tasted TERRIBLE. Probably because Bob's Red Mill uses garbanzos in the flour along with rice...and there is just something in garbanzos that doesnt mix with brownie fantasies, in my opinion. I dumped the entire batch of dough away.
So today after church I decided to start over because I was still craving brownies. I had to use cocoa because I didnt have any chocolate, but have done that before so I know it's fine. I used less butter than the recipe says (it says 1/2 c.; I used 3/4 of 1/2 c.)...I would have used all the butter but the ghost of my mother rose up inside me and reminded me, "Your heart!!"
I didn't have the flour but remembered some Bob's Red Mill coconut flour I bought and have not used, so I used that. There is only 1/2 cup flour in the recipe so I added just a little to make sure the cookies would hold together.
I spread my brownies out on a baking tin because I like them that way...a bit thinner than from an 8x8 pan...and I baked them for only a short time...till they were browning at the very edges..and I just had some with a glass of cold real milk from a cow (I hope)...and they were just delicious. A nice pre-lunch snack!!! So..just shows: don't give up hope, try something else, and it'll turn out very well. If you're lucky!!! YAZZYBEL
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