Rating: Edible

Good morning!


Last night we ate at Coco's because Ben had our car all day and we could not go to the supermarket.  If all these people didn't have to have such peculiar diets,  I could well have made a good supper at home without another market visit.  And it would have been better than Coco's fare.


Edible is the lowest positive rating, for restaurants, for me.  Edible applies to a lot of my own cookery, may I say?   So  I am not being stuck-up.  It's just that. Edible. Above edible, we can have good, very good, and delicious.  When we ate the Thai dinner, it could have been delicious but it was not, quite.  It was good--fresh foods, prettily presented.  The tastes were little pallid, I thought.  So--good.


The very good rating applies in my memory to individual dishes I have made or eaten out, rather than to a place or a meal as a whole. I have not had a meal which tasted uniform on the rating system, even Chez Panisse.  There was a lot I did not fall for in my meal there, even the dessert.  It was all very good but not all delicious. It's easy to make a delicious dessert, for example.  Not easy to make a delicious meat course: too many shifting elements go toward the whole; it has to be balanced carefully.  Not easy for me to make a good salad, especially now, for some reason.  Too much water on  the greens? That is probably my big flaw.  In a restaurant, too much sugar in the dressing, especially in these days when the Old Devil Sugar has entered menus big time.  But my dressings tend to be watery a lot of the time. 


I used to make the perfect dressing every day. I tore my own romaine and tossed out the hard white stuff. Then I followed the advice of the cookbook writer George Bradshaw:  add the olive oil first, just a little bit. Toss until every leaf is coated and it takes quite a while if you just use a little oil. At that time we could still buy Spice Islands Tarragon White Wine Vinegar which they no longer produce for some reason.  I'd sprinkle a little of that onto the salad and toss some more, and last would add salt and pepper and toss and serve.  Sometimes I'd add a little dry mustard to it, but never never sugar. My kids loved it and Ben has recently asked me about it trying to identify the elusive anise-like hint of just the right amount of tarragon.


I think that the vogue for Indochinese cuisines has made the sugary taste popular.  My mother always told me that the Chinese cooks used sugar as a taste enhancer, and they have gone overboard in the USA for sure.  


My sister no. 2 used to make the best Texas-flavored salads I ever ate. She used iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, green bell pepper rings,  onion rings, and a dressing of (not olive) oil, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper.  Perfect served icy-cold,  at midday dinner on a hot Texas day.  Doesn't sound any beyond edible, does it? But it was. I guess you just had to be there.  YAZZYBEL

What a Funny Summer

Good morning my friends.  


Here we are still in Concord.  Ben is healing. Today he goes for a bandage change and more PT.  Friday he goes to the surgeon to have the stitches removed. Still has to wear the (hot, hot) splint for some weeks more.  After the doctor has made a pronouncement, we'll see about going home.  But we have already stayed until another holiday's due to come up.  We hung around Texas through the Memorial Day holiday.  Now we are hanging around Northern CA through the Fourth of July. Maybe.


When we go home, we'll try driving east by Tahoe and going south on the 15.  It will be more interesting than the 5 and Central Los Angeles again.


Yesterday we went to Kaiser North and received satisfaction. We met with a young doctor, a beautiful petite young woman from...who knows? Some place where dark young women who are supposed to be more oppressed than Americans somehow manage to study and become physicians.  She was most intelligent and alert, a good thinker.  You could see her visibly sorting out the conflicting and confusing array of facts shot her way by Theodore and me simultaneously.  But she got us down to the lab and to the right tests. Now we just have to wait for some kind of message from Above (don't know whether Above is north or south) and see what's going on with him.


We have found a good thrift shop, Annie's Attic, which is an offshoot of Hospice of Contra Costa County.  Lots of nice stuffe at bargain prices.  Yesterday Theodore got a machine, one of those green metal things that you roll around on the ground to spread seeds or fertilzer.  He definitely thought it was worth cramming into the car.  I bought a bunch of books, good paperbacks that will keep me busy till we go. Poor Anna Karenina.  She just can't compete with the thriller mentality.


I also bought 2 lamps, one to partially lighten Benjamin's gloomy domain, and one to take home for the piano. I always need more light at the piano.  Benjamin does not need light, because if it's nice he is outside and if it is stormy he is looking at the television.  I asked him today for an envelope because I need to send Daniel's orthodontia payment to Cedar Rapids, but no envelope appeared. I think the younger generation do not need envelopes because they do all their financial stuff online and all their personal correspondence as well.  Ben also has Skype, which is wonderful because he talks to his friend Shashi in Orange County and there is Shashi's adorable little daughter Keily talking to him too, and singing her little nursery songs and just being cute. Right there in the window in front of you.  Lovely.


Today Benjamin has our car because he has to go to the PT again this morning for a long session. So we are taking the day to wash his sheets and towels and personal clothing....Then, tonight, perhaps that means we'll eat out.  Maybe Thai, again. I really like it because it tastes so pleasant and is about 90% fruits and vegetables disguised as a main dish.  So healthful.....Hasta manyana, my dears. YAZZYBEL

Sunday Yet Again

Good morning~We are still here in Concord.


Sometimes it's difficult to find time to get onto the computer. Especially someone else's computer.


We ate lunch yesterday at the Hometown Buffet, which is a kind of cafeteria with stations...you can get a Southern menu, a Mexican menu, an Italian menu, a cold buffet, a "grill" station (which means hot dogs et cetera, but there is someone there to grill it I guess), and a regular USA menu which includes mashed potatoes, carrots, and all that stuff plus "chicken fried steak," which bears no resemblance to either chicken or steak though it is fried. I think I'll tell you how my grandmother made chicken fried steak later in this post, just to balance the bad with the good in this world.  I only saw one fish dish, which were the world's tiniest filets of delicate flesh swimming in a damp sauce....looked as if they had ransacked the Bay Area's fishbowls to make it.  After you have eaten all you wish of the foregoing, you can go to the dessert station, which gives you the best thing about Hometown Buffet: tiny portions already made up, of puddings, pies, cakes, brownies, --you name it.  Also you can have squeeze ice cream in several flavors, plus chocolate sauce, plus nuts...My rating for all this is: Edible.  Edible is the lowest of the positive ratings in my book.  You can eat it and some of it is tasty. None of it rates as good.  However, for a bachelor like Ben, it's good because you can get a ton of salad, and an assortment of vegetables scattered over the stations, along with whatever entree you decide upon.  It's hard to get vegetables in an ordinary restaurant, for sure.


We are lingering at Benjamin's house because his car broke down Thursday afternoon.  So far, it is not diagnosed.  Like Theo with Kaiser.  So we wait.


Kaiser has been trying to call us from SoCal but now 
Theo is in a pet and won't call back.  Otherwise, we are not doing much. We are very familiar with the supermarkets in the area. We have gone to a few thrift shops, but have bought little.  Did buy two lamps for this very dim house, which Ben can toss after we go.


Poor little Anna K lies neglected on a table in the bedroom, while I have been reading Bad Luck and Misfortune, a revenge thriller by Chris somebody. It was very very readable. I have decided that vengeance is one of the most human satisfactions.  And our Creator asks us to forego it!  Frustrating, to say the least.


Let us get to Granny's Chicken-Fried Steak.  If I have told this before, please forgive me.


Take one or two large round steaks.  Trim them of fat and gristle, please. Cut them into pieces about the size you'd like to see on your plate. Get out the family ball-peen hammer and set to work. You want a nice resiliant strong surface, because this is exacting. You begin hammering at one end and keep going to the other, and then you go back and get all the little plump  bits where your hammer missed before. Try not to bash completely through the tissue, but really get close to doing that.


As you finish hammering each piece, throw it into a bowl of ice-water.  After a time, take the pieces out, dry them, and dip them into a large bowl of flour, salt and pepper. Lay them out to await the frying.


Get a big iron skillet, and put in at least one inch of good fat.  Do you know that Spectrum makes a very nice snow white coconut shortening that fries things up very nice?  Heat this fat to---350, I think it is...or till your test crumb of meat bubbles up convincingly. Put in the pieces of fat, not too crowded in the pan.  Crisp them up, turning when needed. Lay them out on a platter covered with brown paper.  Serve, and serve and serve till they are gone, saving one nice piece for yourself or else you'll never get any.  Oh my.  Talk about delicious. Talk about nourishing.  Best steak in the world.


Today we are going to SF...hoorah.  And right now I am going to get a cup of Keurig coffee in Ben's kitchen.  A costly machine that turns out a nice cup of Joe. Love, YAZZYBEL

Stranger and stranger

Good morning!


Here we are in suddenly cooler Concord.  Good sleeping weather.


Yesterday we dealt with the complexities of Kaiser Health System. North is North, it appears, and South is South, and never the twain shall meet.  We are waiting now for confirmation from the South that Theodore does indeed need certain lab procedures, so there we are in a holding pattern.


As we drove up day before yesterday, and confirmed yesterday driving around Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek and Concord, there is still something wrong with our car.  Something in the front gives out squeaks and groans and clunks as we steer along. So today we go to the Shell where Ben takes his car, to see what they can do to confabulate our trip.


In the meantime, I am dealing with a stranger's kitchen, and the stranger has RULES.  He has one skillet ( I have six or seven.) (Not counting the iron skillet, which I can scarcely lift any more...but that's another matter.) This costly skillet is non stick and cannot be scrubbed out with a handy stainless steel scrubber which I use on all my clean, lightweight Revere Wear.  And stuff sticks to it all the time.  


There is a new dishwasher which has more little electronic things on it than you can imagine. And a new refrigerator which is fairly normal. Seemingly.  I pointed high on an unused section of the cabinet to where Theo reached to unearth a couple of plastic plates. Good. They will do for the two of us.  Ben's two-ton very pretty Chinese made pottery can stay on the shelf except for dinner. And if we go to a Goodwill, and I see a large light-weight skillet, will I get it. You bet.


There are no saucepans that I can find. A couple of Danish enamel steel casseroles that I gave to Ben when he moved here will have to serve us as saucepans.  We do like his stainless steel cutlery which is huge and heavy to go with those two-ton dishes.  I am functioning as well as possible with these unfamiliar tools.  Last night we had turkey burgers on dilly bread, Moroccan salad of cukes and the usual accompaniments, string beans and artichokes from his garden on a plate with seasoned olive oil, more tomatoes and lettuce for the burgers, and corn on the cob which I cooked for seven min. in the microwave wrapped in wet paper towels (good)..and for dessert, diet raspberry jello with raspberries which do seem to add an alien touch of nature to such a chemical dessert.


I need to get dressed because we are going to the Shell to see what is wrong with the car. (Do we really want to know?) Hasta cuando, YAZZYBEL

Wednesday

Good morning!


Yesterday we spent the day driving up the 5 to Concord. So, greetings from the Bay Area! That's a misnomer though. It's really, greetings from the Sacramento Delta, for that's our weather here in Concord.  It was 100 degrees yesterday coming up through the Central Valley, well, over the Grapevine...and about the same here I guess. Ben's garden is doing fine. His artichokes are huge. We will have some for dinner.


It's bright, beautiful and bushy-tailed up here.  I see little sign of the fabled depression anywhere. I have the feeling that it's a private, secret, personal kind of depression where folks are keeping up a happy face as they struggle against a swamping economy...Lord preserve us.


We have errands to do this morning so guess I'd better get onto them.  I am glad we came. Ben can use a little help although he does not feel too bad thankx to the medicine they gave him for pain. We'll try to organize a few things, do a little garden work, and prepare some food before we take off.  We'll be here perhaps a week unless he sends us packing.  Hasta manana...YAZZZYBEL

Monday, Already

Dear Readers,

Good day!  Again, it's after lunch --or, rather, during lunch. I am eating deli coleslaw mixed with deli potato salad.

Another busy and baffling day yesterday. Son Ben called in the late afternoon (we'd been out grocery shopping) from the ER in Walnut Creek. He'd been out in his yard putting together one of those little sheds you get at the home stores...and severely cut the inside of his wrist. Fortunately his friend Huey was with him, and he drove him to the ER. Benjamin got first aid and lay patiently waiting for the surgeon to come at nine p.m. to join back his wrist tendons. Gadfrey!  So we waited until this morning and he called from the hospital. Operation accomplished, and he is waiting for the word from above to find out what his restrictions will be. He does not want us to come. (Who could blame him?) But this is what happens when one does not have a girl friend handy who would like to be maid, cook, nursie, and coddler all in one. Perhaps he does. Perhaps that's why he does not want us to come. The main point is that we are in limbo until he calls us and a decision is made as to whether we can go tomorrow or not...the car is being redded up at the Christian Arabs' station nearby. I am half packed already; Theo will be when his laundry is done. Rosie has been called and can come feed the cat for a while. Or her husband, who "sits," can come. We shall see.

Today I am brooding over Kunstler's blog, Clusterfuck Nation.   He wrote today about a man who immolated himself on the courthouse steps in New Hampshire last week.  This man was and had been for many years embroiled in the nasty business of domestic violence and state takeover of the children.  I read the fifteen page suicide note that he sent to the local newspaper, and found it lucid and rational for the most part.  He was far  too rational a person to have been pursued to the point of suicide--or was he? He said not a word against his wife, except to point out that she was forced to go  along against him so as not to have the kids taken away from her, too.  If true, this is horrifying. I certainly believe it can be true. Go to http://www.sentinelsource.com/ and look for the story...it is there. 

The man theme of K's blog today was men, manhood, and the lost of manhood for American men. I tend to agree with him.

Kunstler goes from there to marriage for gay men, which he's against, for more rational reasons than one sometimes hears.  He thinks that legal union should be enough...I do too.  After all, legal union is all that our country offers to any of us.

My mother told me, once, and I don't know how it came up but it made sense to me then and it makes sense to me now: A marriage is made between the man and woman who contract for it. The government can only make it legal.  The church can only bless it.

Think about it. Kunstler thinks that advocates for gay marriage are promoting adifferent agenda entirely...and I also pretty  much agree with this too...the different idea is that homosexual marriage is equal to heterosexual marriage, or even better.  I don't think those two things belong in the same ball game, frankly.  As an Episcopalian, I can agree with my church's humane view of co-habitation and commitment for EVERYONE...call it marriage or whatever.  But push me too far into the equal but better game and I get nervous. YAZZYBEL

Saturday Already

Good morning....

I did not write yesterday because I could not find the poem I meant to put in to polish off the Friday posting. I did not look very hard, because I was busy all day. Little accomplished.

So often this blog goes more unembellished than  it might be, because I cannot find a poem, a photograph, or a drawing,  that would go so well with it. "Organization is the key to success," was one of my father's maxims which I might well have profitted from if I'd learned it.

Another of my father's maxims was, "Always fly first class."  I can only give a wry smile in response to that one.  I have flown first class, and do love the luxury of it. Compared to the squeezing and cramping of regular class, it's great.  But I don't drink much and don't have a great yen to eat food while flying, so other than for the space I can't really appreciate it enough. My companion the last time I flew first class was a young man who was returning from Minneapolis where he had made a Christmas visit to his ex-wife and young children. He was a home building contractor who had "made a shit-load of money," as he gracefully put it. Now in the depths of the recession, some  years later, I wonder if he is still as complacent about his status and if he still flies first class.  Perhaps he's come out smelling like a rose.

The good news from here this week is that the neurologist who examined Theodore on Thursday said that he didn't find signs of Alzheimer's (though there were memory problems.)  He said that there was some Parkinson's perhaps and offered L-Dopa, but did not press for it.  But when asked to name as many animals as he could in one minute, Theo said, "Cat, dog, rat...," and then ran out of steam.  "Think of the zoo," said the doctor, and Theo got out, "Camel, bear....," and I said, "Desert," and he said,"Lizard....," so there was definitely a problem with gathering his wits....Otherwise he discoursed in a sane and witty manner, much like the kid who's been coughing for a week but would not produce one little sound for the doctor if his life depended on it, and the doctor could not say there was anything terribly wrong with him. The doctor did not say he could not drive.  So now we can drive off for another vacation. Yahoo. YAZZYBEL