Category Archives: Education

Food Poisoning

Posted on January 22, 2011 | 1 comment

I was sick all day yesterday. It wasn’t the flu. I went over what I ate and forgot that I always cook/make my own lunch and I was running really late so picked up a sandwich and took it home, five minutes from checkout to opening the sandwich. Jim always says we never become ill eating my food.

There is no cross-contamination in our kitchen, and I wash my hands every time it’s needed. If I could nail it to a slice of turkey (cooked to the wrong temperature or left out too long) or shred of lettuce (prep cook didn’t wash hands) I’d do so but can’t, only know what I ate the last 24 hours and that my husband wasn’t sick.

Yes, we do have favorite restaurants that are very mindful of their ingredients and preparation (and, I hope, storage). We don’t normally get to see those kitchens but enjoy the results of their creative efforts. In the meantime I’m at the stove, frig and pantry for our family’s needs. Hope you are as well! Cheers, Dee

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Netflix Picks

Posted on December 18, 2010 | 1 comment

Jim’s still moping around sick, and hasn’t shaved in three days. My work here is stymied and we’re not going anywhere this weekend so one of my instant picks on Netflix (one you don’t have to get in the mail) was Food, Inc.

It is a highly educational, sad, frightening look at most of the foods we eat today and the few companies who grow them, all of the institutional food companies denied interviews. We get a lot of our food locally through farmers markets six months of the year and through a local delivery company year-round. We even get fresh milk in glass (returnable) bottles, eggs, bacon, sausage, apple juice (unfiltered and fresh-squeezed) and orange juice delivered to our door weekly.

One thing I learned is that our food supply is not safe and the Feds are doing nothing about it; the second is harder to get through this thick skull, that if we consumers demand change, changes will be made. And enact Michael’s Law, which would allow (hopefully impel) the FDA to crack down on repeat health code violators who give salmonella and e coli to customers, sickening some and killing others.

The quality (or lack thereof) of the food we eat has a direct result on our wallets, our health, our future, our world. Good viewing, Dee

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Reservationist

Posted on December 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

I’m already not loving Chicago, as this is the first time I’ve heard that term. What it means is that there is a human on the other end of the phone line telling you there’s no way you can get a table for two at this restaurant with several weeks notice. Then there’s the online option which tells you that you might have an opportunity for a table next May, on a Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

And then there’s Grant Achatz, did I say a** hole? He sells pre-paid tix for dinner and you have to reserve in advance to get notice of tix becoming available and be e-mailed to pay for the opportunity.

Hey, it’s food, dudes. I say that also to Ms. Izard of Girl and the Goat, which has a months-long waiting list. We all need food every day. Ms. Izard graced these pages after she won Top Chef. Now I can’t get into Topolobampo, Charlie Trotter’s, Girl and the Goat, or anything else I’ve researched since we got our plane tix for our first view of Chicago, the city we may call home someday. It’s good to know we’re welcome, even to perhaps live in 850 sf with no closets, laundry or garage for $4K per month. Thanks, windy city! I hate that I wrote an entire paper on you in fifth grade quoting Sandburg.

I guess it’s down to Chicago dogs and deep dish pies. Forget the fancy dining. We’ll stay in a 4.5 star hotel and eat hot dogs. Hey, the hotel is $81 per night. Can’t argue with that. As for the race for the top dining experience and its quest to keep people away, go for it. In this economy your guests are probably lighting their cubans with hundred-dollar bills. Cheers, Dee

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Blue Skies

Posted on December 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Just as I’ve always loved Frank Sinatra, I always wanted to sing like Rosemary Clooney. My parents had an album of hers, Mono of course, that I had to bring to school for some kind of project. Mom saw a hint of cleavage on the album cover so covered it up with masking tape with my name on the tape.

My favorite moment on screen was in White Christmas with Bing Crosby, talking about liverwurst and buttermilk and singing about counting your blessings instead of sheep.

I didn’t know that 80’s pop icon Debbie Boone was married to her son until now, and as she and her father have wonderful voices I can’t wait to hear her tribute to her late mother-in-law. Rosemary Clooney, I met her once in Four Girls Four with Rose Marie and Helen O’Connell. When I think of her I’ll always see her at the piano with Bing singing White Christmas. So, get your decorations going, we expect a tree and a red velvet gown with white fur trim for caroling. Let’s get this holiday season rolling! I’ll start by counting my blessings instead of sheep, Dee

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Surprise!

Posted on November 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

I graduated from college thirty years ago. For 34 years I have known a man, my advisor and department head and inspirational professor. Out of the blue, today he called to wish me a happy thanksgiving. No he didn’t ask for a gift to the annual fund! Fr. Cap is definitely my favorite priest. I wanted him to marry us but the whole Catholic thing (my husband is not Catholic) got in the way. Plus we eloped, with four days notice and he was 3,000 miles away.

He’s been ill of late but is in good spirits and doing much better, helping out in the campus church and elsewhere. It is so good to hear from old friends and mentors over the holidays. I don’t go back for reunions, I just told him I’m not much for seeing who aged better, who got a tummy tuck, whatever. I’d rather just go quietly and see the people who meant something to me during those formative years. I nearly forgot that my desire for internal “beauty” is much stronger than that for a pretty external shell and that is probably a direct result of his teachings. Yes, the infamous “Barbie” lecture that mesmerized students for decades. It was his trademark and rightly so.

After teaching us dumb kids all year, he’d go out west and help at the Hopi reservation. Atop a room full of bookshelves was an array of papooses, a funny thing for a Catholic priest to have on display.

There are so many people I am thankful to have in my life this Thanksgiving, and I just got a call from one of them. God bless you, Fr. Cap. Cheers, Dee

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I Love You, Son

Posted on November 2, 2010 | 5 comments

If you don’t know, my in-laws got in a bad car wreck late last week and my father-in-law has been in the hospital awaiting surgery for several days. Back surgery, pins and rods et al. Tonight I was on a call with his eldest son, my husband, and he said “I love you, son, I’m proud of you.” We got off the call and called Jim’s younger brother, who lives nearer by so can stop by the hospital from time to time.

I was very upset as I thought with those words my stronger than Superman father-in-law had given up. Both my husband and brother assured me that he says that all the time. I grew up in a family where a 98% on a test brought on questions about why I couldn’t have done better. An A? Why not an A-Plus? My mother has been gone two years now but a year before she died she told me I should have never been born, that I was never invited to any family holiday but only crashed them.

While that crushed my soul I still sat by her bedside at hospice even though the only words she said to me that week were “get me some water, please.” I should be grateful for the “please.” I got her a priest and fought my siblings to allow her to make that decision through the hospice chaplain. That’s another story.

No-one ever said I love you, daughter, and am proud of you. My family never touched, except for us kids to provoke each other on car trips. From the day my husband and I met nearly ten years ago we link arms or hold hands on the street, and always say we love each other, at least several times a day.

His family is actually happy we met and married even though we have not been able to provide them grandchildren. I know that my husband loves me, my father loves me and we’ll go from there. My husband and his brother are lucky to have grown up on a dairy farm, worked hard but their parents wanted them to go to college and not work on the farm. Their love and pride drives their sons’ lives today and makes all of us want to do anything to help out after this setback. Surgery is on the calendar after some complications are resolved, and there will be months of rehabilitation. I love these people. They took me in as family, Jim’s Nanny took me in as her grand-daughter because I’ve never known a grandmother.

So let’s all make a wish to let Joe go back to tending his cows, running the farm and loving his dear wife, kids and grandkids. Cheers, Dee

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Cool Music

Posted on September 29, 2010 | 2 comments

I took up acoustic folk guitar last year because I knew it would be a long winter and no-one was around and music had always interested me from violin to piano to dance. Both my instructors were more comfortable teaching grade school students but found raw talent even if it came with an adult mind and body.

My first private instructor taught me basic chords mainly via childrens’ songs, Johnny Cash and others. My second was a rock & roll drummer and we were all over the place. For both, I brought in songs I wanted to learn, just to be able to strum with family and have a sing-along. I don’t think any song I chose to learn was written after the 70’s.

Then one day I was driving home from errands, turned on the radio and “Hey There, Delilah” was playing. I loved the tune. A few weeks later I was able to download the lyrics and vowed to figure out the chords for a beginner guitarist. I do that. But the best thing was being able to tell my teacher that I finally found a song from this decade, this century, that I want to learn to play!

Quit guitar for a while but bought a nice one and keep it in shape and hydrated. My husband told me weeks ago about a work function we have to attend and I kept it in the back of my mind, but tonight he told me it’s a concert. Plain White Tees! I jumped up and down (ask him!) and told him this story. I hear Delilah in my head but have to put it to paper before Friday and the private company concert. I’m going to do it without listening to it and make it work for beginner guitar. That’s my challenge. Aside from heating up my butternut squash and carrot soup, making sharp mac & cheese and a green salad, all I have to do is wash the dog and 12 other things. I’m best under the gun (figuratively, of course).

I hope you’re doing what you want in your life. It’s probably cooking. These days you may be one of the few to eat Concord grapes freshly picked. I ache for those days when I had them fresh off the vine. I need to find the site where they’re freezing the pulp and winnowing out the seeds. If I could get frozen Concord grape pulp, I’d learn how to make a great pie and use it for savory dishes as well. Cheers, Dee

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Locavore, loca-date?

Posted on September 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

Date local. My favorite prof., a Friar, in my Marriage and Family course, talked about meeting someone who’s nearby, like the boy next door. He called it “propinquity.” Except it was the other way around. They tried to make propinquity into some sociological value to make it scientific.

I didn’t marry the boy next door, or anyone I would have thought of marrying. I married a genius from Texas, a nerd. To all those gals who didn’t look at him in high school or college because he was too smart, boo-hoo for you. We did meet locally, far from where we grew up.

There’s now a site for local dating that I applaud as I do cooking and eating local foods in season. I’m just glad I’m no longer “out there” on the market. Packing for a trip isn’t a really big thing, but I’ve a list for the dog (who is going elsewhere) and for us. And my love has not packed a bag in ten years! But that’s OK. We each have our strengths. He’s in charge of electronics.

So eat local, and date local. Long-distance relationships are a pain anyway. Cheers, Dee

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Opportunity Knocks

Posted on August 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

New colleagues have an eight year-old daughter who would love to sit for our dog while we go on vacation. They came by this afternoon, toured the art fair, tried to see the red foxes at their den and actually saw the cranes (the family) this evening.

We bought sodas et al. Also ground beef, hamburger rolls and chipotle sweet potato fries. Everything else we had on hand. First I made a jicama salad with Meyer lemon and olive oil dressing with parsley and green onion slices.

The menu included cheeseburgers with hand-made patties and slices of havarti and emmenthaler cheeses. Whole wheat rolls, grilled. Grilled radicchio with olive oil s&p, iceberg lettuce wedges with yogurt Thousand Island dressing, and grilled peaches with butter, sugar and cinnamon.

Thank you, Bobby Flay for grilling this morning while my husband was asleep as those peaches were fantastic. Everything else just came naturally and easily to me and there were just a lot of dishes to wash and tea towels but that’s easy.

This lovely girl enjoys our dog enough to take good care of her for a few days when we’re away. Our dog is a very happy and excited dog, also very demanding. Both sides were seen tonight, but Zoe was showing off as she usually does for guests.

I guess I try to show off for guests too, but it’s just something I like to do, prepared things I had on hand quickly and tastily and had time to enjoy our dinner. No great French flair, all simple dishes that just require good ingredients. Now I feel guilty. They went to the art fair while I prepped and for a walk after dinner when I cleaned up. My husband went with them, as did the dog on the evening walk. I hope they don’t think I’m anti-social, as I wanted them to have a pleasant evening and have everything prepared at both ends of the meal.

In the end we are thrilled that our young potential sitter enjoys her charge. She’s a smart gal and will be able to negotiate Zoe’s mind games. Plus, she tried a few things I made tonight and disliked most, but did enjoy the grilled peaches even though she didn’t want to like them at all. Cheers! Keep trying new things for your kids, and make them taste before telling them what’s in it. It will change their world. Dee

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MYOB

Posted on August 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

Griswold v Connecticut, 381 US 479, 486 (1965) (“Marriage
is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring,
and intimate to the degree of being sacred.It is an association
that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not
political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social
projects.Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any
involved in our prior decisions.”).

Yes, I’m being politically incorrect on a cooking blog. But we’ve been through more than this. Yet I may turn more than a few off this blog here and for that I apologize and wish you well.

This is part of the ruling that a Federal judge had striking down Prop. 8 in California. Prop. 8 was an initiative passed by 52% of California voters to prohibit gay marriage. Utah-based LDS church raised a lot of money to pass this law and now it has been struck down and stayed (meaning nothing can happen in the meantime) pending appeal. It is thought this issue will go to the Supreme Court.

Much in past law has dealt with prohibiting inter-racial marriage, which was wrong and is a wrong that has been righted, at least on the books. But marriage was created in our laws to make the husband the provider and the wife, who gave her dowry and had no property or voting rights, the duties of housework and child-rearing.

We don’t live in that world anymore. My husband and I have no children (we met and married late). When I call to deal with things to do with work benefits they will not talk to me. Even if I get him on the phone and he OK’s whatever I want to do he must stay on the call the entire time and OK the final result. And we were married in a civil union. I pay the bills but sometimes when there’s a problem and the bill is in his name they still will not talk to me.

Imagine if we weren’t married but together for ten years. Hospital visits, personal papers such as wills and DNR’s… we would have no right to do for one another. Taxes, insurance, buying a home, inheritance. If it’s this tough for us being married for years, imagine how it would be for a gay couple with two kids to figure out.

I know life’s not fair, but if there are people who are going to be good neighbors, raise their kids well and benefit their community I don’t care if they’re straight or gay. That’s how I feel, and I’m currently residing in … Utah, home of the people who funded Prop. 8. If I’ve offended you, sorry.

Tolerance has always been my position, from protecting the kid from getting beat up in grade school (yes, for being gay, though I didn’t know it at the time) to befriending the nerd who is way better for the girl to go out with than the football quarterback (I know that brilliant nerd, as I married him).

What I can say to the people who want to keep Prop. 8. Well, I worked on a totally unrelated issue years ago, for about six years and the most organized people ready to take on an issue were… gays and lesbians. Let’s just say religious right-wingers vs. people who’ve fought the AIDS crisis from medical to legal and beyond, I’ll bet on the gays.

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