Everything has a meaning. You and Mom gave us each an ornament a year. I finally got all those back but have not even tapped through the last twenty years.
You’ll see items from Kids for Kids, Texas and western memorabilia, and cooking things for me. Also a handmade mitten for Zoe, to benefit an ecological cause. Yes, I have a jingle bell wreath (2) inside, one with a recycled glass star.
Is it a Texas star? I don’t know. I love you, Dad. Merry Christmas. Dee
2012 Wreath
Posted in Cooking Utensils, Editorial, Education
Tagged Christmas, ecological cause, home, jingle bell, recycled glass, texas star, thanks giving, western memorabilia
I am used to going to a local condo meeting room and having all the ladies welcome me, “Good morning, Dee” then I’d sign my name and vote.
For a few months we’ve lived in a new state, and I registered to vote over two months ago and got my registration card in the mail from the City with directions to call the Government Accountability Board if there’s any trouble.
There’s trouble a-plenty. I went with my shopping cart because I was going to stop at the grocery afterwards and walk home as I knew I needed flour and other heavy things.
So they made me leave my empty bag up front and I took my wallet with Drivers License, Passport, utility bill and they gave me a green card with a number on it. One person told me to go to the line on my right. I’m a new voter and have lived here for over thirty days AND am on the voting rolls.
I showed them my registration card issued by the City. They made me go to the line on the left, which went way out into the parking lot. I went back to my bag to get my hat, scarf and gloves as I knew I’d be outside for a while.
All they did was keep coming out to ask if anyone’s last name began with the letters N-Z. Mine doesn’t so I stayed there for about 10 minutes until the first lady came back and got me and put me in the other line, which looked more promising as it was indoors and shorter. It turned out to be the registration line and took at least ten minutes per person.
Still in the longer line of long-term residents and voters, they kept calling N-Z? No-one? OK, we’ll let people just walking in the door go in immediately because their last name is from N-Z, making everyone angry because we’d already been there 45 minutes.
We keep waiting. I show a fourth person my voter registration card and he says to stay where I am. Finally I’m allowed to stand behind someone who is registering. It’s over an hour now. I finally get to sit at the table and place my voter registration card in front of the volunteer. She hands me an application and I ask her to look at the card and tell her I’m on the rolls (I checked online).
She went over to the “Registered” table and I was afraid she’d send me back in the hall where they were still only calling “N to Z” but she didn’t. She made me 2nd in line in the A-M and all I had to do was verify my address and sign my name and get a ballot.
The ballots were unclear as to how to vote and I messed up but asked the monitor before submitting it and corrected my mistakes.
When I emerged from the room, the gentleman who had told me to stay in line apologized for the wait. I told him it was OK, it would have taken just as long because my last name isn’t N-Z.
Dear Voting Regulators:
Before I contact you I had to let my readers know what I and many others are going through this morning. It appears as if you do not want people to go to the polls and you want them to be discouraged and go home frustrated.
That is not the point of elections.We vote with a pencil that is not designed on a string to have enough room for a left-handed person to vote easily. The instructions, for a first-timer, are obtuse. They don’t say draw a line from here to there. I placed X’s and my vote would have been invalidated if I hadn’t asked if I did it correctly.
Doesn’t the government know the percentage of eligible voters whose last names start with any initial? You should be able, by now, to calculate and eliminate early voters.
The voting books don’t need to be evenly split between the alphabet. The books have to be evenly split depending upon the voting population!
In our local library, there were four poll workers in the “green card” section. I had a green card but no-one asked me for it or told me what it meant. It says “32.” One “green card” voter sat across from each poll worker until business was concluded. The poll workers had to call out the name and address of the applicant in a loud voice for the supervisors to hear. The lady told me she’s on an 8-hour shift and I may have to drop by some throat lozenges for them later on today. Sincerely, Dee
It’s creepy. My dad just called and I told him we were all going into a secret room, one by one, and it felt like a Holocaust precursor.
That’s when I realized what an insular world this is and that people are born here, live and die here and rarely go more than a couple hundred miles away during their lives. They distrust “foreigners” even from other states.
Am I a plant by one party to vote in a swing state? No way, I’ve been here for several months now and judging from our reception, don’t want to stay much longer unless things change for the better. We do have some very nice neighbors from around the country and world so feel more comfortable now.
Voting is a right first, and a privilege because we get to live in the USA. My first time here at the voting booths, I’d say we were all treated like cattle off to the slaughter. The parameters are all wrong, people don’t know what they’re doing and voters will give up and leave because they have work to do and kids at school and waiting a couple of hours to do their patriotic duty is shamed by their treatment by this obtuse voting system.
Please prioritize your alphabet and teach poll workers not to place someone with a valid voter registration card with unregistered voters.
Thank you. a disconcerted voter, Dee
must know how to shoot. So my school gave me a BB gun and had me point it at a box filled with paper, with a small target up front.
I was the slowest person on the track team at the time, also a willing but not so able gymnast. I ended up as gymnastics captain junior and senior year at another school north of the Mason-Dixon line but was always a better leader than gymnast.
My teacher knew I was the girls’ JV basketball team’s short “mascot” and helped them win every “killer” volleyball game by getting the balls back to them while they had my six.
With guns, I was pathetic. Because I was good or trying to be good in other athletic areas, the coach asked me to take out a plain gold earring and put a mark somewhere outside the target area so she could give me a D, not an F, for at least trying in Shootery. I shook as I held that gun and never even hit the box, much less the target. To this day I thank her for her kindness and hope I made it up in other after-school sports.
But a Southern Gentlewoman must know how to use a gun. We don’t have one in the house, even though my husband grew up on a farm/ranch and knows how to use one. I, on the other hand, would probably shoot my foot first then ruin my nice appliances if there was an intruder.
High school memories. Just thought of it as the laundry winds down. Aside from raising my husband, my father-in-law did two great things for me. Bought me roses at our first meeting (but that was Margie), told my Jim the next day it was ok to go ahead and make it official, and drove up and yelled to pick me up. He took me to see a 14-point stag. We missed him but did see a doe. He didn’t have a gun as he only shoots what he has to, in order to protect his cattle. He has such a sense of cattle and wildlife that he wanted me to see a little slice of his world. Even though we disagree on politics, I’ll always love him. Hear that O’Reilly?
Hey J, I think someone is going to be trounced in tonight’s debate. I know you don’t take wagers J, even a quarter, just asking. Cheers! Dee
It’s rumored in Italy that they’re good luck, or maybe that was just Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun.
Ten years ago we had one tomato plant out on our back deck. It was being eaten by bugs and we didn’t want to use pesticides. At the local hardware store we found 1,500 ladybugs for a few dollars.
We let about half of them go out back. They cleaned up our tomato plant nicely and flew away after a couple of minutes. What are we going to do with the remainder?
Well, I was charged with taking care of the many plants of our next door neighbor (no, not SK the suspected Serial Killer, the other one who was friendly and nice) and he was not at home so my husband climbed over onto his balcony and released the remainder of the ladybugs.
We haven’t seen that neighbor in ten years and never told him about the ladybugs! He’s coming for dinner tomorrow night and it will be good to catch up with each others’ lives.
Many neighbors were probably helped that day and they had no idea where the ladybugs came from. Now, if they read this, they’ll know.
I was the self-appointed dog and cat rescuer in our neighborhood. Find an owned dog or cat, see if it has a collar, if none take it to the local shelter and have it scanned for one of three kinds of microchip and call the owner.
Another neighbor took care of birds, snakes and once, an iguana. We had each other on speed dial. He’d call about the cat, I’d call about the pet bird. It worked great.
The ladybugs were a one-time thing so far. If we do a lot of planting in the future (winter is coming) I’ll remember our lovely bugs. Cheers! Dee
Yes, it was an EZ Bake Oven that cooked with a 120 watt light bulb. I made their pretzel mix and had goo all over my hands and had no clue I could fool their stupid mix and just add more flour! Now I make dough every week and compensate for humidity. I even have a magnetic hygrometer mounted on the frig (check online for cigar supplies, they’re about $12, it’s a Caliber III) and add water until it’s right. I got it to keep me from electrocuting myself when we lived in the Rockies and it was usually under 20% humidity.
Back in the day, we didn’t cook by our mother’s side. We had our own kiddie kitchen (in the basement) and EZ Bake Oven. I did make a chocolate cake in it that turned out well but probably only used it a few times.
I prefer today’s method where the parent actually teaches a child to cook at the child’s pace so that when he/she goes to college or sets off for a first job, they know how to feed themselves, frugally and without fast food.
That was what I was trying to volunteer for last week when I was dismissed for knowing the boss’ email and about their need for volunteers and was demanded to explain myself and why my cell phone area code is from out of state. I’m a cook, trying to install community gardens in schools in poor neighborhoods so these kids can have their own culinary firsts; first fruit or vegetable; growing things; and eating fresh and healthy foods. Mine is a nefarious quest, to be sure. The boss probably runs the local fast food joint!
A couple of years ago I was tasked to make a packaged blueberry muffin mix at my in-laws for Thanksgiving weekend. My young nephew volunteered to help. I taught him how to fold, telling him it was a batter and not a battering ram and to fold as not to crush the fresh blueberries. They weren’t fresh, it was a mix, but he got the point instantly. Here this summer, he made pizza dough. I love seeing his cooking “firsts.”
For years my sister and I tried to surprise Mom with sweet rolls and breakfast in bed. She always knew what we were doing and came out to eat our creations, usually refrigerated orange-glazed and cinnamon rolls. We were allowed to turn on the oven but not to use a knife, luckily because back then it would have been an awful knife that was dull and could really have hurt us.
Let me tell you about my second first date. My first date I was sixteen and this boy, 18, was cute and very popular. He went out with me twice then took spring break and slept with a cheerleader he saw for the next two years. Let’s just say she probably knew what my parents were worried about when they made me be home by ten.
After I spent a year in college, the first week home he called and asked me out again. We went to a fish place and as I loved salmon I ordered a salmon steak. Skin and bones and I had no way to negotiate it delicately. So I decided to learn. Oh, we almost married several years later but I called it off. Luckily as now I have Prince Charming, nearly ten years since our wedding day….
But I digress. To make a salmon steak easy to eat, as the French would do, put a raw salmon steak squarely in front of you with the spine at the top. Using a sharp fish knife or boning knife, cut down around the bones all the way to the bottom on both insides.
Remove the frame and discard. Lay the piece of salmon skin side down on your board and using your boning knife parallel to the board take off the skin. Make sure there are no pin bones remaining. If so, take your needle nose pliers, yes the ones in your secret kitchen drawer not those in the garage, and take them out. Rinse the fish to make sure there are no bones or scales.
Dry it, place each piece so that they fit together in a circle (oval) and wrap the skinny pieces around. Secure with 2 toothpicks. Season, grill or bake. Of course, remove the toothpicks before serving.
I like to season first with olive oil, salt and pepper, and one of my favorite preparations is just slathering one side with whole grain mustard and baking it or cooking it on a closed grill just ’til done, about eight minutes for medium rare.
This is what I would do if the fillets in the fish case look old and the salmon steaks are fresh. And while there will never be a third first date with Anonymous, if the Prince and I go to dinner and I’m faced with a salmon steak, I know exactly where the bones are and how to eat it… delicately. Ask your butcher about knife sharpening. Get good knives – they’ll last a lifetime. As Jacques Pepin would say, Happy Cooking! Dee
Posted in Cooking Utensils, Editorial, Education, Recipe Ideas
A bit of cooks’ wisdom, and caution that when you cook you deal with heat and knives so let’s not get hurt……
Some may say that the cook’s essential tool is his/her knives but it is hands that win, hands down. Hands that shape, measure, and a brain that connects cooking elements together are key to success even in the home kitchen.
But a hand needs a knife. Please do not purchase “laser edge” or “do not sharpen” knives. They ruin food. And don’t buy a knife block full of knives that take up counter space and that you will not use.
Your first purchase should be a high-end chef’s knife, 10-12″ and a paring knife, 3-4″. That is the blade length. I tend to use my 8″ Santoku knife more than the 10″ chef so consider that.
Go to the back of the store and ask staff to let you handle knives in the locked case. Take time to find out what fits your hand, what feels comfortable for you because this is a lifetime purchase and the $100 is worth it. Of course you’re looking at forged steel and good blade and being able to place your thumb and forefinger above the handle for a chef’s. For the paring knife you need to know if a 3″ or 4″ blade is best for you to peel an apple or take the skin off an orange.
I’m not being paid for this but Henckels Four Star works for my small, stubby hands. You’ll learn what works for you, whether it be a rounded or rectangular handle.
Make sure that the knife is forged then it’s up to you. Right now I really use my Henckels Four Star 8″ Santoku and Kyocera ceramic 7″ Santoku more than anything else but my bread slicer ($12) and paring knives. Know that Santokus have to be professionally sharpened at a different angle, especially those with a Granton edge, and that ceramic knives must be shipped back to the manufacturer for sharpening. Also, ceramics can’t be used to cut through chicken bones or smash garlic or they’ll break.
As for butchers’ knives, ask your butcher. Mine never cost more than $10 and I’ve one boning knife for chicken (rigid) and another for fish (flexible).
Please have the right equipment to sharpen your knives. A steel is essential for realignment. If you don’t want to sharpen them yourself, ask your butcher and for about $1 per inch of blade, if he does it or refers you, that should do it. A dull knife cuts your finger off. A sharp one, when used wisely, does not.
Don’t ever forget knife skills. Look into it and practice on carrots, celery and onions and make some broth with those frozen chicken bones with them. Look up knife skills online before doing this.
As for storage, counter and drawer space have always been minimum. I prefer a magnetic knife rack mounted to the wall so I can pick what I want to use immediately, then place it aside to be washed. Never submerge your knives in soapy water unless you’re washing them immediately, otherwise you may not see them and be cut. Of course a ceramic knife will not stick to a magnetic grid, so get a knife guard and place it in a drawer where it’s easy to reach. Remember the knife guard. It will keep your kids from cutting themselves when they reach for a spoon.
When was I allowed to use a knife? Probably around age 8 when I started cooking. I’m sure it wasn’t sharp, probably dangerous, but young kids need to start cooking with their parents, even with a spoon or a butter knife.
I taught my nephew about “folding” last year, with a blueberry muffin batter and It was compared to a battering ram and people storming the castle with a tree trunk and I said he’d never want to do that to a blueberry. So, learn to fold.
I love my kitchen and knives, but even more I love cooking for my husband, family and friends. If you have the right tools, it’ll cut (ha ha) your time significantly so you can enjoy your dinner and guests. That’s what this whole cooking thing is about, really. Cheers, Dee
Thank you, parents (Mom, rip) for bringing me into this world. I love waking up in the morning (yes, I’m sleeping again) and thanking folks for the life I live.
I love my parents, our families, friends. I love the trees, flowers, birds. I love everything about my husband, cooking for him all but his iPhone alarm.
Walking the dog even in the middle of the night. Seeing the floats in the pool across the way and the sailboats on Lake Michigan. Reading a cookbook and having new friends over to dinner.
Making my own olives with seasonings and olive oil. Reading a spy novel in bed. Watching Top Chef Masters. Wanting an old-fashioned bicycle with a basket in front with a big plastic flower.
Maybe a bell, too. I want to go see the only grandmother I’ve ever known, my husband’s Nanny, and give her a great big hug on her 86th birthday.
I have a hammer and I have a bell, and I have a song to sing all over this land. Justice, freedom and love between my brothers and my sisters.
Thanks to my brothers and sisters from several families (you know who you are) and friends everywhere. Much love, Dee
I met these two young boys years ago, they’re hopefully college grads by now but when I met them there was chain link fencing around a tot lot that was being re-done and a lot of rebar sticking up and I yelled at them and said I’d call the cops if they didn’t get out of there because they could hurt themselves.
A few years later I caught a dog in the park and put my dog’s collar on him to take him home. The woman was on meth and yelled at me and told me never to touch her dog.
A few weeks later the boys left her place with a Razr, new at the time. I called them over to my yard and told them if I ever saw them talking to her I’d tell their mother, as I knew where they lived.
Years later, they asked me what kind of puppy to get. I went inside and got them my AKC breed book and tasked them to do some research. A couple of months later after they brought Sparky, a Jack Russell, home the first place they came was my place, to introduce me and return my book.
Here’s the kicker. I was out in the Park stretching one morning in my Tevas, which I don’t wear anymore, and they challenged this then 40 year-old to do a cartwheel, which I did. Then as I resumed stretching the dew on the grass kicked in and I did an involuntary split. They left. I walked home without saying a word and holed up for two weeks with ice packs due to my first ever (hopefully only, I just knocked wood) groin pull. How many ways can you spell misery?
A couple of years later my dear dog fell out the door and I had a tile guy lift this 89 lb wonder into my Jeep. We went to the hospital and they said she’d bled out. They gave her anaesthesia but she stood up five times begging not to leave me and I couldn’t leave her or have a button to call a tech or vet. She died in my arms.
The next day I had to go out to the Park to see all her friends and tell them what had happened. En route home I saw J & J and called the younger one in (the older one was becoming an irate teen) behind some bushes. He asked where my dog was and I told him she was gone. He asked me to tell him exactly what happened. I did. He cried and I told him to tell his brother and friends that I yelled at him for something.
So, if any man comes up to me and says he has a groin injury, I’ll make him chicken soup and be sure he has enough ice packs to get through it. L made me write this, thought you would enjoy my humiliation and pain. Thanks! And thank you for reading and writing in. Dee
http://www.lajollafriendsoftheseals.org/controversy.html
The new seal pups are being harassed by locals who want that 200′ of beach back, and by tourists. Everything is done by multiple agencies who don’t care about the seals or people, only their power. Feds, State and multiple local agencies and many judges and politicians have battled this out over years against advocates of the seals.
If you want to do something about it please contact the site above. For me, what the officials have done is close the sluice gates because someone was killed decades ago so no-one swims there though it was endowed as a Children’s Pool, and it has become a rookery for seals. Tourists come to see them but local politicians don’t get the environmental and tourism tolls of calls to eradicate the seals.
Let them know what you think. Cheers, Dee
I just started watching Glee and see who I really wanted to be in high school. Yes, I was in choir and led the gymnastics team but if we had such a club, if I had the guts I’d have been in it.
Not that I’m competitive, more of a team-builder but they have to be off the charts and so talented because they’re tv professionals.
The words to all the songs are familiar to me, like family, well, not. When I hear an intro I know from my great prof in American Musical History what song it pairs with. Please do Someone To Watch Over Me.
Ballet, violin, piano, guitar, choir. Did they help in my adult life? YEA! I grew up when the arts were there in public school and am still in touch with my grade school music teacher where we sang The Happy Wanderer.
Another teacher who is gone now called me in after school (first and only time in my life) and asked why I didn’t audition for solos. She tested me, told me I have perfect pitch and gave me the lead on Bridge Over Troubled Waters.
And my violin teacher needs her space here, she took me on at age 6, my father is a violinist. So do my guitar teachers, a Mormon then a drummer. Yeah, I took that up at age 50. But even after not picking it up in 18 months I can lay in bed and not look at it and have lyrics bring the music up and I just make up the chords.
There’s no talent talking here, just that if I would have had a Glee Club in high school my voice may have been heard. But then I wouldn’t have had my career or met my husband or gotten our dog. We make choices.
Here’s to my, our (husband is physics/software) fellow geeks everywhere! I’m with you, always. Dee
Cooking with Dee 