Good morning!
I thought I'd tell you about yesterday's lunch. It was good and had some interesting things in it.
I re-heated the tender steak from Sunday's dinner, for the meat course.
With the leftover corn, which I cut off the cob, I made esquite...Esquite is popcorn, but it is also pan-toasted corn kernels fried up with green pepper, onion, red pepper, jalapeno. You understand, when I say fried I mean stirred around in a pan moistened with spray oil. Very little fat. It would be more delicious with more fat, but it is good.
I boiled up some baby bok choy for the green vegetable.
And on the side I made a travesty of Mama's fried corn bread. To make it, put some white corn meal and salt in a good sized bowl. I used a cup but half a cup would have done for us. You boil up a saucepan full of water, and pour it into the white corn meal, and stir. Go for a little at a time. I remember that Mama said, each time, "It's not ready. Keep pouring." The point is that the water cooks the corn meal gradually, and it softens and puffs up. You don't want it to be too wet. It has to be cooked and softened but still malleable like clay. When you can handle it you make it into oval cakes. I still remember the prints of Mama's fingers on the cakes. Then she would heat up Crisco in a black iron pan, and fry these cakes until they were golden and crispy. Oh, how delicious they were! They should be eaten with cold golden butter melting into the hot corn cakes.
Mine were not as good because I made them too moist I think, and just put the batter onto the skillet in dabs. Also, using spray oil cuts down some deliciousness right there, but I do try to watch it. My little cakes fried up very nice and were a good adjunct to the meat and gravy, but they were not as golden and crisp as Mama's were. Can one of my sisters tell me if these cakes were dipped into flour before being fried? That might have made them more golden.Tell me how Mama did it , in your memory. And I'll share it and give you credit, by the numbers.
Three of my sisters will be seeing each other this week, as no's 3 and 5 and their husbands drive down to Brownsville and the Nasty Beach for a few days. Lucky them. The nasty beach got its name thanks to my mother, who complained about her only outings being to "that Nasty Beach." My cousin no. 1, who was a great razzer, picked up on it and that is what the beach was called from then on. I loved the beach, nasty or not. They've missed the 26th of June, Dia de San Juan, (the Baptist), when everyone goes to the water. The beach is very popular that day for sure...but I loved it always. The sun comes up over the beach instead of going down over it as in California. It's wonderful to be out at dawn with the sun coming up, in a moment of cool air at the beginning of the day...I still remember the little tiny rainbow-colored clams we used to dig up for their beauty. How we loved them. When we took them home, they never looked as lovely as they had there in their brown sand. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Monday Morning Morals
Good morning!
Yesterday evening, Diane Sawyer came on with a young lady who, as everyone in the US knows, was kidnapped as a child and forced to bear children for a mad man and live in his back yard, for years and years.
My husband turned off the station and declined to listen to this interview. You know, he was right. If he'd left it on, I'd probably have listened through indolence and low-level curiosity and participation in the sad details. But you know what? We do not have to listen to this.
We don't have to listen and watch the trial of a young mother for the murder of her little girl. We don't have to seeth with anger, nor burn for revenge. We were not there. We don't know what happened. As it turned out, the prosecution did not prove its case. Which is it obliged to do. Cases are not judged on whether or not we believe that such-and-such happened. They are determined on the prosecution's need to prove that the person charged is guilty. Obviously, it did not convince the jury. End of trial.
Let it go. Let the girl who was kidnapped, raped, and forced to bear children GO. Let her have her life and suffer what she had to bear, and get over it as best she may. Let Casey the mom go. If she murdered her child, our business with it --the trial--is over. Don't we have enough to do in our own lives, enough work, enough worrying, enough caring?
Sometimes I see a child in a store whom I believe is being seriously harassed by a caregiver. If I do nothing, I feel terrible about it. But, if I do anything, folks say it will be worse for the kid....I have devised a strategy. I wait for a lull in the haranguing. Usually it is fairly surreptitious so I'm not supposed to have over head. In the lull, I smile broadly at the child and say to the (usually) mother: "Your little girl is so cute." Usually this provokes a moment of shock in the mom, as she takes in the world outside her own skewed mentality. Then, most often, she says, sometimes grudgingly, "Yes, she is." Usually she adds a qualifier, "Sometimes."
"Well, I remember when my own kids went through stages, " I say, as we sort through clothes or dishes at the (usually) thrift store or grocery store. "They can really get to us, can't they?" By this time, you can often see the mom, who's had a break in her thinking, relax somewhat. Sometimes they even smile at the kid and seem to accept their situation a little more easily.
At a distance, that is the most we can do for our crazy world. Interfere a little in a way that might do a little bit of good, if only alleviating a bad situation for a very short while.
Listening to trash-talk on the television reminds me that Jesus says that bad deeds done vicariously are marked up against our own records. Oh-oh. Adios stories of serial killers, adult porn stories, thriller novels of detailed gore and lust and degradation. Adios, interviews of child victims of rape, and minute descriptions of the details of child murder. Of possible child murder. Somebody probably killed little Kaylee once, for sure....but how many times has she been killed since, in our minds?
What do you think? Am I wrong in this? YAZZYBEL
Yesterday evening, Diane Sawyer came on with a young lady who, as everyone in the US knows, was kidnapped as a child and forced to bear children for a mad man and live in his back yard, for years and years.
My husband turned off the station and declined to listen to this interview. You know, he was right. If he'd left it on, I'd probably have listened through indolence and low-level curiosity and participation in the sad details. But you know what? We do not have to listen to this.
We don't have to listen and watch the trial of a young mother for the murder of her little girl. We don't have to seeth with anger, nor burn for revenge. We were not there. We don't know what happened. As it turned out, the prosecution did not prove its case. Which is it obliged to do. Cases are not judged on whether or not we believe that such-and-such happened. They are determined on the prosecution's need to prove that the person charged is guilty. Obviously, it did not convince the jury. End of trial.
Let it go. Let the girl who was kidnapped, raped, and forced to bear children GO. Let her have her life and suffer what she had to bear, and get over it as best she may. Let Casey the mom go. If she murdered her child, our business with it --the trial--is over. Don't we have enough to do in our own lives, enough work, enough worrying, enough caring?
Sometimes I see a child in a store whom I believe is being seriously harassed by a caregiver. If I do nothing, I feel terrible about it. But, if I do anything, folks say it will be worse for the kid....I have devised a strategy. I wait for a lull in the haranguing. Usually it is fairly surreptitious so I'm not supposed to have over head. In the lull, I smile broadly at the child and say to the (usually) mother: "Your little girl is so cute." Usually this provokes a moment of shock in the mom, as she takes in the world outside her own skewed mentality. Then, most often, she says, sometimes grudgingly, "Yes, she is." Usually she adds a qualifier, "Sometimes."
"Well, I remember when my own kids went through stages, " I say, as we sort through clothes or dishes at the (usually) thrift store or grocery store. "They can really get to us, can't they?" By this time, you can often see the mom, who's had a break in her thinking, relax somewhat. Sometimes they even smile at the kid and seem to accept their situation a little more easily.
At a distance, that is the most we can do for our crazy world. Interfere a little in a way that might do a little bit of good, if only alleviating a bad situation for a very short while.
Listening to trash-talk on the television reminds me that Jesus says that bad deeds done vicariously are marked up against our own records. Oh-oh. Adios stories of serial killers, adult porn stories, thriller novels of detailed gore and lust and degradation. Adios, interviews of child victims of rape, and minute descriptions of the details of child murder. Of possible child murder. Somebody probably killed little Kaylee once, for sure....but how many times has she been killed since, in our minds?
What do you think? Am I wrong in this? YAZZYBEL
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Dinner de Domingo
Good morning! That's how you say, Sunday Dinner, en español. Or, rather, in Spanglish.
Yesterday we went to the Supermercado Foodland, of which there are many in Chula Vista. It amuses me that the supermarket industry in this burg is becoming overweeningly Mexican. It's only right, you must agree, since the Mexicans have long taken over the labor--and then the management-- of the produce departments of supermarkets, that they should have the running and I hope the ownership of them too.
Our most sensational Mexican store is the Gonzalez Market...mariachi music is blaring and the whole shopping experience is like a visit to our neighbor country...but these smaller places like the Foodlands are coming right up. You go into the store at the newest Foodland, and there's the cafeteria lineup right at your left hand. It all looks and smells wonderful, from the Pollo en Mole to the Sopa de Verduras...Just across the entry path to the store are a few small booths where you can take your food and enjoy. Next time, we will.
There are the usual aisles of canned foods, which I havent had time to fully explore yet...Lots of salsas, I'll tell you. And there is a meat counter with great cuts of meat. There is ground beef of the 90% lean variety and of the 75% variety. We got a blob of the good...and there are cuts and roasts of different styles from the American. I got a large steak which looks like a chuck steak. I mean, this steak is huge. For $3.50. It's thin, and when it cooks down it will feed me and Theodore but n ot many more. It's got bones in it--no problem. It has a seven-bone and another large bone. I cut it into about seven pieces.
I have browned it and am simmering it with onion, salt and pepper, and am counting on it to be delicious at Sunday dinner.
In the produce department there are all the usual fruits and vegetables, plus whole fruits of the prickly pear in both red and green colors. And huge papayas. And mangos. And leaves of the nopal all ready for YOU to take off the thorns and go for a meal after slicing them up and sauteing with onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers...and there are leaves whose thorns have already been removed for you. The best part of the fruit section is the prepared fruit section with clear plastic boxes of sliced juicy honeydew melon or watermelon, or pineapple, or mixed fruit, all deeply powdered over with dried chiles. Yum yum.
For lunch I'll have cooked zanahorias and fresh raw rabanos along with tortillas and the meat. And watermelon which I already had and will cut up and serve with ground cayenne pepper. Yummo.
I went to church but did not stay for yet another tour of Turkey with St. Paul; I'd rather be there than listen about it once more. Happy Sunday! YAZZYBEL
Yesterday we went to the Supermercado Foodland, of which there are many in Chula Vista. It amuses me that the supermarket industry in this burg is becoming overweeningly Mexican. It's only right, you must agree, since the Mexicans have long taken over the labor--and then the management-- of the produce departments of supermarkets, that they should have the running and I hope the ownership of them too.
Our most sensational Mexican store is the Gonzalez Market...mariachi music is blaring and the whole shopping experience is like a visit to our neighbor country...but these smaller places like the Foodlands are coming right up. You go into the store at the newest Foodland, and there's the cafeteria lineup right at your left hand. It all looks and smells wonderful, from the Pollo en Mole to the Sopa de Verduras...Just across the entry path to the store are a few small booths where you can take your food and enjoy. Next time, we will.
There are the usual aisles of canned foods, which I havent had time to fully explore yet...Lots of salsas, I'll tell you. And there is a meat counter with great cuts of meat. There is ground beef of the 90% lean variety and of the 75% variety. We got a blob of the good...and there are cuts and roasts of different styles from the American. I got a large steak which looks like a chuck steak. I mean, this steak is huge. For $3.50. It's thin, and when it cooks down it will feed me and Theodore but n ot many more. It's got bones in it--no problem. It has a seven-bone and another large bone. I cut it into about seven pieces.
I have browned it and am simmering it with onion, salt and pepper, and am counting on it to be delicious at Sunday dinner.
In the produce department there are all the usual fruits and vegetables, plus whole fruits of the prickly pear in both red and green colors. And huge papayas. And mangos. And leaves of the nopal all ready for YOU to take off the thorns and go for a meal after slicing them up and sauteing with onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers...and there are leaves whose thorns have already been removed for you. The best part of the fruit section is the prepared fruit section with clear plastic boxes of sliced juicy honeydew melon or watermelon, or pineapple, or mixed fruit, all deeply powdered over with dried chiles. Yum yum.
For lunch I'll have cooked zanahorias and fresh raw rabanos along with tortillas and the meat. And watermelon which I already had and will cut up and serve with ground cayenne pepper. Yummo.
I went to church but did not stay for yet another tour of Turkey with St. Paul; I'd rather be there than listen about it once more. Happy Sunday! YAZZYBEL
Friday, July 8, 2011
Dinner and a Movie, and Books, and a Story
For dinner we had chicken tacos. The tortillas were old, so I fried them in a little olive oil. It makes the tacos so much better to have fried tortillas. So I take any excuse.
It was okay to have fried tacos because I was starving.We'd spent the previous two hours at the cinema, viewing a movie called " A Better Life." This movie was, in a nutshell, corny. Ostensibly it was the story of a poor inmigrante mexicano in LA, trying to make a life for himself and provide for his son a better life than he'd had so far. The fact that this migrante spoke perfect English and communicated in English with his son--well, the movie really lost me there. No Mexican has ever learned English that well in just six years spent at manual labor in gardens of Los Angeles, in the first place. That he'd bother to converse with his high school aged son in English just for the convenience of American moviegoers was the last straw. No, it didn't happen. The only good part was the last scene was when the immigrant, having been deported to Mexico after a lot of shenanigans involving a truck, is returning to LA on foot with a lot of his compatriots--returning "home," to the only home he has on this earth. I could buy that. But it was too late.
Too late.
Now to the books of the title. Lee Child is the author, and someone had given Ben a handful of thrillers,one with "Bad Luck and Misfortune,"in the title. These books are purchased at airports by persons desperate to occupy their minds with something other than their present reality. Anyway, that book is GREAT....very readable...very suspenseful. Not too much gore or prurient action...very very good. So next, I read the first book in the series, The Killing Floor, and enjoyed it a lot. It is a book that you cannot put down, and that is a very desirable quality in the circumstances described above. And the author can write, very well. I brought the third book home with me and it succumbed to the very forces I have mentioned as being so undesirable in books in a series--over-familiarity. Over-familiarity of the hero and his mannerisms or quirks...his taste in women...his moral code...his chivalry...and his determination to revenge himself on everyone who crosses his path in the wrong way. He's a killer, folks. His name is Jack Reacher and he makes Elvis Cole and his strong stalwart sidekick Joe Pike look like amateurs.
But--over-familiarity is a killer too, and as a result I will never know what happened to the Vice President of the United States back in eighty-something....
The story is a story whose title has slipped my mind, as has the author's name. I read it in one of those compendia of stories that are culled from all over as "Best Stories of....," in all different genres and years. In this story, the heroine is in Spain perfecting her Spanish and struggling with the subjunctive case of verbs. In the background of her thoughts if the lover she left at home who was crumbling before her eyes as a result of the onset of mental illness. Now, the subjunctive case is the form used for the unknowable, the improbable, the possible. For life, in other words..It's too bad we stopped using it in English. It opens up the mystery of our world as nothing else does. People "take" Spanish, and learn it from the Indicative point of view---our English viewpoint---that's the way it is, so take it or leave it. However, that is NOTthe way life is. Life is unpredictable, un=understandable, unknowable. You can't pin it down in the Indicative Case. It's NOT the way it is, and you have to take it. Thus, the Subjunctive Case, which tells us as we speak that we don't really have a clue, folks. Anyway, her bewilderment and sorrow and tragic sense of loss as she loses her lover to his destroyed mind--are perfectly expressed in her struggles with the Subjunctive in Spanish. Good story. I keep looking for it but haven't found it yet in my welter of books. If you love language as I do, Spanish and English both....I hope you find and appreciate this remarkable short story....Hasta manana, and..Buenas noches a todos. YAZZYBEL
It was okay to have fried tacos because I was starving.We'd spent the previous two hours at the cinema, viewing a movie called " A Better Life." This movie was, in a nutshell, corny. Ostensibly it was the story of a poor inmigrante mexicano in LA, trying to make a life for himself and provide for his son a better life than he'd had so far. The fact that this migrante spoke perfect English and communicated in English with his son--well, the movie really lost me there. No Mexican has ever learned English that well in just six years spent at manual labor in gardens of Los Angeles, in the first place. That he'd bother to converse with his high school aged son in English just for the convenience of American moviegoers was the last straw. No, it didn't happen. The only good part was the last scene was when the immigrant, having been deported to Mexico after a lot of shenanigans involving a truck, is returning to LA on foot with a lot of his compatriots--returning "home," to the only home he has on this earth. I could buy that. But it was too late.
Too late.
Now to the books of the title. Lee Child is the author, and someone had given Ben a handful of thrillers,one with "Bad Luck and Misfortune,"in the title. These books are purchased at airports by persons desperate to occupy their minds with something other than their present reality. Anyway, that book is GREAT....very readable...very suspenseful. Not too much gore or prurient action...very very good. So next, I read the first book in the series, The Killing Floor, and enjoyed it a lot. It is a book that you cannot put down, and that is a very desirable quality in the circumstances described above. And the author can write, very well. I brought the third book home with me and it succumbed to the very forces I have mentioned as being so undesirable in books in a series--over-familiarity. Over-familiarity of the hero and his mannerisms or quirks...his taste in women...his moral code...his chivalry...and his determination to revenge himself on everyone who crosses his path in the wrong way. He's a killer, folks. His name is Jack Reacher and he makes Elvis Cole and his strong stalwart sidekick Joe Pike look like amateurs.
But--over-familiarity is a killer too, and as a result I will never know what happened to the Vice President of the United States back in eighty-something....
The story is a story whose title has slipped my mind, as has the author's name. I read it in one of those compendia of stories that are culled from all over as "Best Stories of....," in all different genres and years. In this story, the heroine is in Spain perfecting her Spanish and struggling with the subjunctive case of verbs. In the background of her thoughts if the lover she left at home who was crumbling before her eyes as a result of the onset of mental illness. Now, the subjunctive case is the form used for the unknowable, the improbable, the possible. For life, in other words..It's too bad we stopped using it in English. It opens up the mystery of our world as nothing else does. People "take" Spanish, and learn it from the Indicative point of view---our English viewpoint---that's the way it is, so take it or leave it. However, that is NOTthe way life is. Life is unpredictable, un=understandable, unknowable. You can't pin it down in the Indicative Case. It's NOT the way it is, and you have to take it. Thus, the Subjunctive Case, which tells us as we speak that we don't really have a clue, folks. Anyway, her bewilderment and sorrow and tragic sense of loss as she loses her lover to his destroyed mind--are perfectly expressed in her struggles with the Subjunctive in Spanish. Good story. I keep looking for it but haven't found it yet in my welter of books. If you love language as I do, Spanish and English both....I hope you find and appreciate this remarkable short story....Hasta manana, and..Buenas noches a todos. YAZZYBEL
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Thursday
Up betimes and to the Witt Lincoln to get our poor car. It needed work...(surprise).
Then we went to the IKEA and exhausted ourselves creeping about on just one floor. We got a pillow, a cushion, a baking dish (I only have about fifty), two tiny stuffed toys for James, (grand-nephew), and a breakfast for 99 cents. IKEA has great food at a cheap price. My breakfast consisted of a good-sized portion of scrambled egg substitute, a tiny portion of bacon, and a generous portion of really nice breakfast potatoes. And an iced tea for 1.49. Taterton's coffee was free as it was before the store opened. When the store opened we abandoned the cafeteria and plowed about looking for a particular pillow that he wanted, though to no avail.
I am going in to change my clothes as I can see that the day will be hot and even a tee shirt and summer jeans will be too much. I am still looking for a picture of Kitty Blanco to put on here. That picture above is a picture of what to do with the marketing when you have plenty of silver and onions. YAZZYBEL
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Kitty Blanco
Good evening!
Today we had to go to the Witt Lincoln, formerly Witt Lincoln Mercury, because our car (as previously described) konked out thrice in the midst of LA freeway traffic on Sunday as we came home.
So that's why I could not blog today.
I'm writing to tell you that that white cat that hangs around here now has a name. Naming animals is n't easy and you might as well wait till its name comes to you and it has named itself. This cat's name is Kitty Blanco.
Kitty Blanco is a charmless creature, large and without grace. It is lots skinnier than it was earlier in the summer, and that is why I am making sure it is getting plenty of wholesome Chinese cat food. I cannot say that I like him or dislike him. Or that he is a him or a her, actually. It's too skittish to let anyone get a good look. However, I find him amusing. The day we came home I was sitting on the bed and looking toward the front hall I saw a white shape enter the front door and make its way into the heart of the living area. I got up to see, and it was indeed Kitty Blanco, going through the house and out to the patio, making its supper upon the scraps from Freckles. Freckles is a turn-up-your-nose sort of cat who eats just when and where he pleases. Or not. The presence of hungry Kitty Blanco is having an effect, however, and appetites are improving all over the place.
I'll end this piece by finding a picture of Kitty Blanco and putting it on this page. Perhaps I've done it before. He's kind of cute.
Well, the functions of the little toolbar at the top of the blogging page are not working, so Kitty Blanco must, for the present, languish unknown to you all. I will try to get one of my faraway sons to give me some advice about getting that mini toolbar to wake up. Hasta la vista, kitties.
Today we had to go to the Witt Lincoln, formerly Witt Lincoln Mercury, because our car (as previously described) konked out thrice in the midst of LA freeway traffic on Sunday as we came home.
So that's why I could not blog today.
I'm writing to tell you that that white cat that hangs around here now has a name. Naming animals is n't easy and you might as well wait till its name comes to you and it has named itself. This cat's name is Kitty Blanco.
Kitty Blanco is a charmless creature, large and without grace. It is lots skinnier than it was earlier in the summer, and that is why I am making sure it is getting plenty of wholesome Chinese cat food. I cannot say that I like him or dislike him. Or that he is a him or a her, actually. It's too skittish to let anyone get a good look. However, I find him amusing. The day we came home I was sitting on the bed and looking toward the front hall I saw a white shape enter the front door and make its way into the heart of the living area. I got up to see, and it was indeed Kitty Blanco, going through the house and out to the patio, making its supper upon the scraps from Freckles. Freckles is a turn-up-your-nose sort of cat who eats just when and where he pleases. Or not. The presence of hungry Kitty Blanco is having an effect, however, and appetites are improving all over the place.
I'll end this piece by finding a picture of Kitty Blanco and putting it on this page. Perhaps I've done it before. He's kind of cute.
Well, the functions of the little toolbar at the top of the blogging page are not working, so Kitty Blanco must, for the present, languish unknown to you all. I will try to get one of my faraway sons to give me some advice about getting that mini toolbar to wake up. Hasta la vista, kitties.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Home At Last!
Good morning!
Yes, THANK GOODNESS we got home yesterday after a relatively tranquil drive. It was Ben who suggested that Sunday morning of a four-day weekend might give us the easiest drive--and he was correct..
We left at seven thirty and got home at five. It would have been earlier but for three--or was it four?--separate stall-outs of the engine on the freeways of Los Angeles. Pretty scary, that, once! And multiples, scary times three. Each time when we'd coasted over to the right for a modicum of shelter in the non-existant side of the freeway, and had given ourselves up for lost but for the ministrations of the triple A, Theo was able to start up the engine again and get us back onto the road. A miracle! We made it! (A little later than we might've otherwise.)
Coming down Hwy 5 from the Bay Area is a blast. You drive through miles and miles of cow country, grass country, mountain country, oil country--and you are in a low broad valley in the midst of it all. From time to time there is a pullout where you may take refreshment. Yesterday we took it at Carl's Jr, where I'd had a good burger on the way up. I had a turkey burger, no mayo. Verdict: not edible. (Viz my crunched up sack afterward). The elements were good, as the lettuce, tomato, pickle and purple onion were excellent. Bun--bad. No one wants to eat cracked wheat type buns...! Turkey patty--so so. It was only about half edible, as it was just huge HUGE and very dry. So I put the lettuce tomato onion and pickle between the cold crunchy leaves of iceberg and ate that, plus some of the turkey. I never make turkey burgers, but by coincidence had made them twice while at Ben's. (He and I are both trying to eat less fat/beef.) They were derned good: Jennie-O's ground turkey has flavoring in it but was OK. And the secret to a decent turkey patty is to make them small and cook quickly. If you want a big burger, pile them in. But thin and quick is good, thick and dry, NO.
I also had a banana strawberry milkshake minus the whipped cream and it was not good either. When I think of the Blizzards I had in TX on our last foray!!! I had banana pie Blizzard that was just delicious and included small crisp bits of crust in the array. Delicious. All in all, I had no delicious food in Concord, and that included what I cooked myself. Benjamin is on dietary restrictions, trying to change his eating habits. Theo is on dietary restrictions, trying to fool his pancreas. (Not succeeding.) I am trying to lose weight, or at least not trying to gain it. Those three conditions preclude a lot of deliciousness right there.
I'd like to remind everyone that my Mama fried nearly everything she cooked, and weighed about 110 for most of her adult life. I mean, that lady FRIED! And she ate of the results. And lived to 86! And was beautiful. Riddle me that, folks.
Today James H. Kunstler has a great essay on American's birthday. It is not a feel-good bunch of boloney, I must warn you now. But we all need to read it. Happy Fourth of July, everybody! YAZZYBEL--at home.
Yes, THANK GOODNESS we got home yesterday after a relatively tranquil drive. It was Ben who suggested that Sunday morning of a four-day weekend might give us the easiest drive--and he was correct..
We left at seven thirty and got home at five. It would have been earlier but for three--or was it four?--separate stall-outs of the engine on the freeways of Los Angeles. Pretty scary, that, once! And multiples, scary times three. Each time when we'd coasted over to the right for a modicum of shelter in the non-existant side of the freeway, and had given ourselves up for lost but for the ministrations of the triple A, Theo was able to start up the engine again and get us back onto the road. A miracle! We made it! (A little later than we might've otherwise.)
Coming down Hwy 5 from the Bay Area is a blast. You drive through miles and miles of cow country, grass country, mountain country, oil country--and you are in a low broad valley in the midst of it all. From time to time there is a pullout where you may take refreshment. Yesterday we took it at Carl's Jr, where I'd had a good burger on the way up. I had a turkey burger, no mayo. Verdict: not edible. (Viz my crunched up sack afterward). The elements were good, as the lettuce, tomato, pickle and purple onion were excellent. Bun--bad. No one wants to eat cracked wheat type buns...! Turkey patty--so so. It was only about half edible, as it was just huge HUGE and very dry. So I put the lettuce tomato onion and pickle between the cold crunchy leaves of iceberg and ate that, plus some of the turkey. I never make turkey burgers, but by coincidence had made them twice while at Ben's. (He and I are both trying to eat less fat/beef.) They were derned good: Jennie-O's ground turkey has flavoring in it but was OK. And the secret to a decent turkey patty is to make them small and cook quickly. If you want a big burger, pile them in. But thin and quick is good, thick and dry, NO.
I also had a banana strawberry milkshake minus the whipped cream and it was not good either. When I think of the Blizzards I had in TX on our last foray!!! I had banana pie Blizzard that was just delicious and included small crisp bits of crust in the array. Delicious. All in all, I had no delicious food in Concord, and that included what I cooked myself. Benjamin is on dietary restrictions, trying to change his eating habits. Theo is on dietary restrictions, trying to fool his pancreas. (Not succeeding.) I am trying to lose weight, or at least not trying to gain it. Those three conditions preclude a lot of deliciousness right there.
I'd like to remind everyone that my Mama fried nearly everything she cooked, and weighed about 110 for most of her adult life. I mean, that lady FRIED! And she ate of the results. And lived to 86! And was beautiful. Riddle me that, folks.
Today James H. Kunstler has a great essay on American's birthday. It is not a feel-good bunch of boloney, I must warn you now. But we all need to read it. Happy Fourth of July, everybody! YAZZYBEL--at home.
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