Memories of a lifetime. I wish you and your family well. Dee
ps Special thanks to J for making many of the felt ornaments and giving me the mouse (on our “tree”) in a walnut shell. She has always loved mice. Her husband married us and she signed the marriage declaration. We love them.
Sadly, our AJ is gone and we went to his burial at Annapolis, his alma mater. Rest in peace, dear friend. Best holiday wishes, Dee
Posted in Editorial
My husband arrived unexpectedly. He showed up for a new client and his boss was fired mid-day and so were others. He never had a chance to make an impact and help the client.
I reached into one area that cheers his mind, heart and stomach. Tonight we’re having Beef Carbonnade. Beef, onions, bacon and beer. Over noodles we make ourselves now.
My family had a tradition that all the kids got their own ornament for the tree every year. I don’t have many of those or access to many I’ve received since we met.
Every year I’ve bought two ornaments for us that celebrate who we are and where we are at the time. Yesterday I found a few and when he got back from a walk with old dog Zoe I had placed them with our Christmas display. No tree this year. Our neighbor, retired architect, trimmed his tree and gave me branches that I have all over the house. They give me the scent of Christmas. I added a few ornaments and have an eclectic holiday from an eccentric woman.
I turned on the lights and asked my husband to cover his eyes. When they opened I asked him about the ornaments I placed. He got most of them. Santa with a lariat, must be Texas. Santa in a kilt, must be Scotland. Moose riding the trout must be the day I tried fly fishing, drowned my cell phone and Dee had to go fishing for steak for the neighborhood because I was gone 12 hours without a phone call to home base.
Of course the ornaments that involve whisks and copper pans are mine. Stockings are a cardinal (the red male bird), and an angel.
When I mentioned cell phones, we finally, after years, got new ones and I still can’t get mine to work. This is our “tree” with a recycled glass star from the Eco Center, a tie clip of a Euclid tractor from Euclid OH circa 1960.
Oh, that’s me on the top with a plate full of cookies. For Santa, of course! Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Be well, and with family. Dee
As far as I’m concerned the glass is half full. My husband of glass half empty has gone to 3/4 full and I’m needing to pull him back a bit.
His mother was right when years ago she gave me a hand-carved wall hanging of a hot air balloon with him and his ideas, and me standing on the ground supporting him and also making sure he didn’t go too far.
I put my life in his hands every day. He places his trust in me to do the same. Here’s a song. So Christmas is cell phones, not here every day, some on back order, you’ll get them one day.
That was our holiday gift for both birthdays and Christmas. We’re practical. Dee
She used to make turkey, then switched to her father’s British roots and did prime rib with roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding.
Then I thought up and made all the sides each year, my siblings were out at the latest movie matinee. We probably had a pinot noir at dinner and got to spend some time talking.
Of course the desserts were fantastic, none were made by me. Mom and sisters had me on that one, I was only a cook.
Tomorrow I’m making a panettone trifle with vanilla cream, raspberries and blackberries. It is a gift.
My husband and I do not exchange gifts for birthdays and holidays. His birthday is next week and we did get new cell phones, after many years. I think this was our Christmas and birthday gift and all we’re missing is family. Happy holidays! Dee
Posted in Editorial, Education, loving life, Recipe Ideas
There seems to be none in life or in the workplace. My husband calls me sneaky because when he’s away and I’m new to a neighborhood I find my way around traffic snags and road closures to get the best groceries for dinner.
The sneakiness is in my mind. I think outside the box to do whatever I need to do to help us live our lives and take care of ourselves. Nothing illegal, I assure you.
I recently worked through two fighting governments to build a crosswalk. Don’t worry, no-one ever stops for us. I helped a child who wanted to work with his Dad in Revolutionary War re-enactments, because his mere presence would make him eligible to the National Guard, at age 11. At 3 a.m. I got the idea and ran to work to to re-write the law to make it happen. Today it would be Afghanistan. Think about it. I fixed it.
I created an event that re-invigorated an arts institution by having all the tumblers in place, and they made me a Trustee for that (that means working for no money) then dumped me because I made things happen and they wanted to be sentient for a decade. I was a breath of fresh air most organizations fight and can not accept.
Always brought in as an agent of change, it stops the moment of hiring. Resistance, hatred, one client even keyed my car. I was fired after making a small-time business into a big one though events, press et al. A day later the new exec called me in, demanded my key and said he wanted everything I knew about the organization, including documents secret from the board and everything (he had copies of everything else). I gave him the key.
I told him he should have asked me for what was in my brain yesterday, when I was paid, and that even if I was being paid I’d have to go to the Board meeting with him and get a majority vote to divulge that secret information. He was upset.
The former chairman, to whose office I drove, laughed and the new exec was canned within a month. Come on, he used to call my office at 8:55 to say I was late for a 9:00 meeting. What a jerk. He may be working in fast food now. I’ll have a double burger with cheese. Fries and a Diet Coke.
Few are loyal. The circle of trust (thanks, DeNiro) works many ways. Be in it with your family and friends this season. All good wishes, Dee
We saluted the flag, in every classroom and said the Pledge of Allegiance. They didn’t tell us what it meant. “With liver tea and just us for all.” That was what I gained from my early childhood classroom. I knew it because the meaning was never taught or understood, only rote learning. I applaud that now because it made me study everything, including people, literature, law, art and helping people and animals as a volunteer.
There is never any “just us” as we’re all together. To our troops, please come home to your families. Stop everything in Afghanistan, Syria and bring weapons elsewhere. Better yet, destroy the weapons and stop.
To the guys and gals who made my life miserable it’s not just us. I was a little kid and was corrected by my parents on the liver tea and just us. Now I only believe in liberty and justice. From an independent voter, Dee
Posted in Editorial, telling the truth
Around this time of year we all think about family and friends. Someday I’d like to create my Mom’s prime rib, Yorkshire pudding and a few desserts. I always did the side dishes, a number of them, so I know my permutations of those. Perhaps a post on sides, though your family already have plans.
I think of food and family, and sitting down to a wonderful meal together.
My holiday wish is that every family sit down for dinner together, all together, without any electronic device. Spend a half hour together and talk about your day or anything else, show an art project from school. Tell the story of the latest soccer game or piano lesson.
I’ve thought about my experiences and recommendations and the only one I added about dinner time was “electronic devices.” It was mentioned because I believe meals, especially dinner and holiday meals, are sacred events that should not include texts or calls unless one is a cop, firefighter, or doc and it is an emergency.
My family had dinner every evening, before computers or cell phones. Every year we’d receive spice cookies from an uncle in Switzerland over the holidays. He’s long gone now, as is my mother.
Enjoy your family. Happy holidays! Dee
My husband wants to start to learn how to cook. He can now make a grilled cheese sandwich (likes mine better) and last week he learned how to make oatmeal. Yea!
After 14 years of me bringing in my entire kitchen, fully equipped (he brought one plastic colander from college) he wants to make pancakes with whipped egg whites, and homemade pasta. Not together, of course. It’s great because I’ve never been able to use the hand-cranked pasta maker I bought before we met, for counter thickness. Now I enjoy his rolling and cutting the pasta I made while I work on other dinner items from across the bar/island.
He wants beef. I want fish and can’t even cook it here because he’s allergic to anything that swims. So I eat beef. Over the years I’ve integrated pork, lamb and chicken into the dinner mix. No, not all together.
I started with large plastic drink cups for the road so we’d recognize my Diet Coke from his Dr. Pepper. Mine was pink, his blue. I don’t like tasting his beverage and he hates mine.
Our first iPhones were the same, except for the cases. Mine was hot pink. His was a black Otter box because he drops it all the time, or drowns it, that’s another story. I didn’t want him to grab my phone off the counter by mistake else he’d have little to deal at work with my contacts. After seven years I got a new phone and my laptop is so old I cannot complete activation. But mine is rose gold and his is black, so he won’t pick up my phone in error. Red and blue toothbrushes, for the road. Separate, but together.
As people are together for years there are routines and this is my space and this is your space. You want to watch a war movie and I want to watch a cooking show. Thinking about it he must have had a bump on the head or something because now likes Alton Brown from Food Network – so do I! Heaven forbid he find Harold McGee’s book on my various cookbook shelves. I may have to place a different cover on it, get a romance novel from a thrift shop….
My husband says after 14 years I have created a “food snob.” I’m afraid I have. Until recently he only came into my kitchen to get water and ice.
I think that by being different we come together. He’s learning to cook a bit. I know a lot about what he would call “soft skills” in his work. We talk. He reaches for the upper cabinets for things I can’t get, and I plumb the lower cabinets for what he can’t reach, as in where are picture hangers and a hammer. It’s teamwork. Yes, I did put all his toolboxes in storage so he only has a hammer, screwdrivers, picture hooks, tape measure….. It’s a galley kitchen, little space!
On the other hand, I’ve a set of ten of my mother’s china. Also a set of 8 from Nanny (my husband’s grandmother). We have a table that seats four. Do the math. We usually eat alone on melamine plates or historic Pyrex bowls for pasta or true Texas Chili. Yes, M-I-L bought me the incomplete Pyrex set from a Texas antique store then donated her coveted smallest blue bowl to make a full set, the blue is always the one that breaks first. My aunt gifted me my grandmother’s blue bowl. Today, after years of use I can’t tell one from the other but use them for his breakfast eggs. Differences can work. Cheers! Dee
Set designers do it all the time. Read the play or screenplay. Set the scene. An older couple might be in an original craftsman-style place with wallpaper and draperies. Young hipsters might be on the beach in an avant-garde window-filled home with modern art.
When one looks for a home, rural, suburbia, city living one generally knows the difference between a “man cave” and even an apartment lived in by a couple.
There is framed art on the walls, whether it be photographs or quilts or whatever. There is kitchen equipment. The place looks “lived in” in a good way, like a couple or a family enjoyed life there and got a new job and has to move, or need a bigger place for family.
There is also the question of location. When I met my husband he was on the first floor and his windows looked out on the back of the mailboxes and a parking lot. He kept black shades closed all the time, built a computer (dual-brained, no-one did that back in the day) and worked in his underwear. He drank Dr. Pepper and ate individually wrapped string cheese. I know because the wrappers went from the frig to the computer, dual huge (for the time) monitors as well.
In the frig was said cheese and one 72 oz. Dr. Pepper from a convenience store and the freezer contained one box of lasagna purchased by his mother, visiting from afar, three months earlier.
Aside from the computer, resting on file cabinets on an old door, he had a used barcalounger chair. The bedroom hosted a mattress on the floor, and his only towel was a thin beach towel with Scooby Doo on it. Laundry method was clean pile, dirty pile. I organized everything as he moved away three weeks later. After he left I even paid to get a maid in so he could get his security deposit back. He came back after giving the barcalounger to his neighbor. Neighbor asked why he came back after two weeks? Her.
It’s a little different now. I moved in a partial kitchen and an office to the new place I found him while dog-walking. Years, cities, countries later we have a dining room, living room and lovely bedroom. I’ve had nearly everything we enjoy framed, great photos, art my father started painting at age 80, and one of mine in crayon (Wizard of Oz) at age five that is his favorite. Great choices, single, double and triple matting. Quilts, one from his mother, after a few visits we finally agreed on a seasonal quilt. There’s also a beautiful quilt a few feet behind me from a great great great grandma (his) of flowers in a hexagonal pattern.
Viewers of the old quilt ask where it came from. Apparently the quilter began suffering from dementia. Whereas everything was pristine, beautifully sewn and orchestrated, there are two unusual “flowers” on the edges. That’s what I tell people about how we met. We had to work our individual ways through perfection, to be together.
There is no longer a man cave, we always have a view, a fully-appointed home and precious (at least to us) things on the walls. No more string cheese. Hubby now chooses between four-year and five-year cheddar. I’m a great cook and he critiques my recipes! This from a guy who ate burgers every day….. Dee
p.s. We even have matching towels for each bath, including a set for the dog! And somehow laundry/drycleaning magically shows up in his dresser and closet daily. No more clean/dirty piles. I match our socks and even wash them in cold water and hang them to dry. D
My great aunt gave me a book. Her husband was a cook. Not a professional cook, just a philosopher, pundit, genius and kind man.
The book is A Concise Encylopaedia of Gastronomy by Andre L. Simon, from Collins, St. James’ Place, London. There is no year on it that I can see. I only know the the smoke begins to go away after 35 years and I do not want to handle it with other than kid gloves.
This book was so dense with smoke I’ve kept it closed for 15 years after O’s death near age 100. It is and will be on my bookshelf as long as I am here on earth.
O was always an inspiration to me. She taught me how to live, how to be empowered, how to love someone with no reservations, and how to accept others who are different.
I would like to try to recreate, in her memory, John’s dish of Canadian bacon with pea meal and beer. I may have to call my cousins! This book reminds me of us, going out to dinner, motorcycle friends… She was my great aunt, and we went out on bikes from dinner at a fancy restaurant. She is my heroine and will always be so. Here’s to O! Dee
Cooking with Dee 