On this day I would like to thank Aurora, Neil Simon and Jay Sandrich, Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase for Seems Like Old Times.
I write a cooking and other blog and have been getting a lot of hits for Aurora’s Chicken Pepperoni.
Give it up, guys, I’ll take the dogs, Aurora, if you’ll give up the recipe! Cheers! Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged Chevy Chase, entertainment, food, Goldie Hawn, hollywood, Jay Sandrich, Neil Simon, Seems Like Old Times
I wish I could be on the front lines for this because it is so important to all of us. Now, I’m writing about it. I worked as a volunteer for six years in probably the best outdoor volunteer clinic, where I did unofficial duty as volunteer administrator, duty to transport ansaethetized cats, monitor volunteers and train them, monitor breathing and allow them to go back to their colonies at the end of the day. I worked “Recovery.”
Sadly, as I moved to the Rockies and midwest, I find that neighbors feel that shotguns are the only solution to feral cats. Even in dairy lands while they drank a bit of spilled milk they also killed mice.
I have one dog, used to have a dog (spayed) two cats, both neutered. My dog was spayed at five weeks of age, early even by my standards as I’d prefer eight weeks. But we’ve had her for nine years, had to take out her hips as a pup, and she’s a gem.
All were from shelters. I know my dog shouldn’t breed so am thankful that this hipless wonderdog trait is not going to have pups. As Coach Parseghian said in the movie “Rudy,” I paraphrase by saying that I wish the heart of my dog would go into others with better hips.
Unless you are actively involved in showing and breeding dogs, please have your pet spayed or neutered. It is essential to their lives and ours as well.
If we had a home in the country, I’m sure every stray cat would be outside and I’d get a couple of Tomahawk traps that are not lethal at all, some stinky fish and get them spayed or neutered before I fed them. This is a mission that I can only now do now by word. Please help. Dee
Up very early this morning, I turned to a Guitar Center sponsored channel, trying to get back to learning acoustic guitar, and happened upon a heavy metal band.
When I think of heavy metal, I dream of the pots and pans Julia Child amassed in Paris in the 1940’a. I can not find them now, but certainly if I could no-one would be able to re-line them as needed.
I believe there is a place in this world for non-stick cookery, but that some critical work must be done with the good stuff. A saucier, perhaps? Not that I’d use one as I don’t really do dessert or butter sauces. But I was taught to clean copper with lemon juice and salt and why let that knowledge go to waste?
When I have the money and space to store good, vintage copper pans I’ll do so. In the meantime I make good food with quality pots and pans. When I get my vacation home in Tuscany, I’ll hang the good stuff. I hear that GEICO pigs are flying these days so can’t use that euphemism. Happy weekend! Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged copper pans, food, quality pots, tin-lined copper pots and pans
Yes, these are the reports that go from management up the chain of command. Of course they never reveal the long-term strategies because everything is determined by a quarter.
Why is business so messed up in the USA? Quarterlies. And yes, we have ways to measure certain things bi-weekly. But no-one wants them because they’d actually have to change and admit their ineptitude.
Every manager wants to dismiss his/her underlings as inefficient. Nuns told me that patent leather shoes reflect up. Get it?
If you rely on quarterlies, you must get bi-weekly’s to keep you on track. Just a wife who’s about to do our taxes. Dee
Yes, I have been in Vatican City and have visited, unfortunately when the Sistine Chapel was undergoing renovations and the Pieta, which I had the good luck to see at the 1964 World’s Fair, had been shot.
As an ex-Catholic I wonder why a pontiff would abdicate, over 600 years after this had ever happened.
Political pressures endure, as always. Scandals, say no more. Bad health? Die in your pontifical bed and be sainted. I’m thinking a disease not of the body but of the mind, dementia or Alzheimers. Or a Nazi past.
Do I think any Pope is infallible? No. Who votes on saints? Humans. Rumor has it that flan is no longer an accepted dessert, check www. slate.com for that funny and fake report. That’s all for now, Dee
It started with SoHo lofts then grew to “soft lofts” that said, hey, it’s OK to show the HVAC and put everything out there, like stained concrete floors.
We don’t have to pay to cover it up! And they’ll pay more for it!!! Wow. Less work for more money. It’s sad to say that it didn’t only play in NY City, people have tried it across the country to varying degrees of success, depending on the real estate and stock markets over the past few years.
I am a fan of “open concept” design especially when the dishes are hidden from the dining table. That means a granite or other (non-marble) countertop with chairs that block that view.
On marble. For kitchens or bathrooms it is a mistake because it stains. Marble floors in a bathroom are very cold as well.
I can’t wait to design a home. I’d have a great kitchen and gas top, outdoor wood stove (indoor double convection ovens) and wood floors that are heated underneath, throughout the home. Otherwise it would be designed to the climate. Just hopin’ and wishin’. Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged design, food, kitchens, loft living, marble countertop, real-estate
As the wind swirls and screeches around us and the snow blurs the streets, I think that Sunday is the Academy Awards. I always love watching them, especially having girlfriends over beforehand for a cocktail before dinner while dissing the entire red carpet. Of course we are watching it, duh.
Looking at a ballot, I’m thinking “why don’t I know any of these movies?” The answer is that we spent time moving and have not seen a movie in the past year. There, it’s said. We’re movie buffs. We usually go to the movies nearly every weekend.
What has changed? Weather? New environment. Summer movies, we generally avoid the Bruckheimer Blockbuster. Living downtown where there are smaller venues and having to go out to the suburbs to see something new.
Hey, I can go see Rocky Horror Picture Show up the street, I just don’t stay up that late anymore.
The Oscars will be interesting to me because they may give insight into what films to see on Netflix or Amazon Prime next year. Aye, there’s the rub. No, we don’t have a 60″ flat screen projection HD thingie. You go, Hugh Jackman! Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged amazon, blockbuster, Bruckheimer, entertainment, Hugh Jackman, movie buffs, netflix, Oscars, RHPS
I remember growing up having books lent to us by the school, throughout high school, for the year. While I don’t recall the publishers offhand a mere guess would suffice.
That said, they were old and worn. We never learned modern history or reading.
What concerns me the most now, is that I believe when I went to grade school there were different history textbooks for the north and south, and don’t know about the wild west back then.
We learned about HOMES, which are the Great Lakes of Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. My husband, why grew up in Texas, spent much time on the Civil War, or as his father calls it, “the war of Northern Aggression.”
We probably spent one class period per year on the Civil War. It was over and we had to know dates and battles but that was it. In the South, it’s in the psyche as we live and breathe.
To lighter things, in the South if one was wealthy when sugar was in short supply and there was no refrigeration, having sugared iced tea on the porch was an honor. Now sugar is in everything even though Emeril says Southern cornbread has only salt, no sugar.
Coming from the North, our coleslaw has no sugar. Our iced tea has no sugar unless we choose to add it, and I never understood “sweet tea” before tasting it.
That’s just how we all grew up. I wonder if our old history books had something to do with it. I can tell you something, these ladies make killer desserts. OK, another, that it was torture for me to find something to bring to the family reunion that wouldn’t offend any of the ladies I hadn’t yet met 11 years ago when all my husband said was “family that flies in doesn’t need to bring anything.”
Lesson One: I brought two things for the kitchen table for noshing between the feast and the leftover feast (this can be a 12-hour affair). It was a success and I gave one recipe to a new bride in the family before she joined it so she’d have success the next year.
Lesson Two: don’t ever listen to your husband! Now my mother-in-law and I have three-day cooking extravaganzas for that annual event. The guys go out and fix fences, corral cattle or split wood.
As all these Lincoln books and movies enter the public space it is important to remember our history. My father-in-law is a Civil War maven and so we took him east to Saratoga and Ticonderoga and through the Green Mountains a few years ago. I’ve a haunting photo of him at the Saratoga battlefield.
We can only tell the truth as we know it, taught by our families and our teachers. Today I believe north and south are still separated but if I can sip sweet tea, we can do anything. Cheers! Happy Monday. Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged history books, history textbooks, killer desserts, southern cornbread, war of northern aggression
I wish you the best of luck as your fate is decided in the US Supreme Court in a case regarding genetically modified seeds. At age 75, living in Indiana as an independent farmer, I’m sure you’ve seen many changes in the industry.
Do I have legal expertise to lend? No, sadly. But I do eat grain and meat raised in the mid-west. My father-in-law ran a dairy for 30 years and now runs a cattle ranch and spends much time planting, cutting and baling hay.
It is time for the family farmers to stand up to huge companies like Monsanto and say that we provide America’s food. When the wind blows seed ten feet over to our neighbors’ they should not be sued for stealing from huge companies like Monsanto.
If the seed is self-perpetuating, so is the greed of this company that says it needs to gain back its R&D moneys. I can only hope that the Supremes vote in favor of the American family farmer, and not huge conglomerates who don’t care about us or our food supply, only money. Not happy about this right now, Dee
I have to do this now as it’ll be my 1,800th post on this blog. I have “met” so many interesting people through this exercise. I thank you for reading and responding.
As a kid, I was very shy and told I was not smart and no-one wants me as a friend. I read voraciously, reading both Death Be Not Proud and The Diary of Anne Frank at age eight, of my own volition.
I never thought that I could write. Yet here I am, writer of now 1,800 blog posts and if the thought comes to me I get up in the middle of the night and do those 500 words in 15 minutes that used to take hours or days.
Of course, I’m writing for you and for me, and enjoy reading your blog and knowing I’m a member of a community that accepts me for who I am. Thanks so much, Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged books, cooks, diary of anne frank, literature, thanks bloggers. writers, writing
Cooking with Dee 