Cooking with Dee

I give, rarely get. I don’t look forward to getting anything we owe to each other and our dog, love and forgiveness for eating a shoe while stressed at being flown halfway across the country in “crate class.” Yes, that was the dog, not my husband. She is too old to fly.

I’ve an “entitlement theory” where people think they are more important and/or raised better than the rest of us. They cut in line at the grocery store, even run on the side of the highway fleeing from a Cat 4 hurricane. Without speaking at all, we stayed in the right lane and one guy took his truck to the right along side the road and we kept pace with him and traffic, about 2 mph. We thwarted the people who thought they were more important than everyone. They had to get back in and wait for the police that were holding M-16’s to safeguard gas stations. We couldn’t get gas for miles after that.

Every hotel, motel was filled and every gas station was empty. Luckily we stayed with his parents. Even the no-tell motel had a parking lot filled with luxury cars. The motel soon re-painted with the money they made from that hurricane.

In work and in life, I never kick the person below me down the ladder. Neither does my husband, which is part of why I married him. We bring people up and allow them to be what they can be. Years ago my father met a truck driver for whom he had an intelligence test taken and he was a genius! Dad got him a scholarship to college. He ended up with a doctorate and successful career, and was a mentor to me.

The end lesson is that it doesn’t help to bring people down, but to bring them up. That is the role of a leader. Leaders don’t force people off roads in a hurricane. They help, Dee

Years ago I’d walk down the street and have a marvelous sandwich at a local restaurant. I am not trying to re-create it here, it’s just something I’ve never tried and would love to make one and check it out. After all, it might get my husband off a lifetime meat & potatoes kick for at least one lunch!

I’m thinking at least 12-grain toasted bread. It’s vegetarian, not vegan, so slather some homemade guacamole on both sides, layer with perhaps butter lettuce, sprouts, and room-temperature Brie. Sauteed sliced mushrooms would be a good touch, but a duxelles would be better as it wouldn’t squish out. As would sliced tomatoes.

Hot toast, veg, warm Brie or Camembert, greens, what’s not to love? Oh, fried green tomatoes on the side with a quick pickle of thinly sliced European (seedless) cucumber with French breakfast radishes, also sliced and pickled, a bit of apple cider vinegar and splash of salt and pepper. Sugar, a pinch. I know Bobby Flay would do honey but I do organic sugar. So be it from the church of Dee.

My husband ate an entire mini-meatloaf last night, I substituted turkey for beef. Tonight we’re having a spatchcocked Cornish game hen (I’ll cut out the backbone and crush the chest bone, I think my butchers appreciate that, as they do the meals I bring in for them to taste) marinated in lemon grass and garlic and chiles. I think we’ll cook it indirectly on the grill. With it will be small multi-colored potatoes and that is to be determined. We just may place the potatoes in a cast iron pan on the hot side of the grill to roast, along with some heirloom carrots. That’s just salt, pepper, a little thyme and olive oil.

Lunch is fajitas, at least for him. I’ll make salsa and guacamole and have a chicken breast in the frig. Breakfast is either smoked bacon or blueberry sausages, eggs and toast with local jam. He’s been gone for two weeks and leaves again in 24 hours so I have to make sure he has home-cooked foods because he eats in restaurants all the time. I loved my father, still do even though he is gone, but he traveled also and got used to the thought that Mom could make him a dish he desired in an instant. No, I don’t have any veal chops or heavy cream.

I made my father a classic cassoulet once which is a two-day process with duck, sausage and beans and veg and crust that has to be dealt with every hour. He said it was his favorite meal of all time. That means a lot to me.

When one gets in from an airport he can not ask for cassoulet at home and have it done in 1/2 hour. It’s simply not on the menu. There is your answer. Sorry, hon. My husband has never had a classic cassoulet. I don’t mind cooking one, it’s just that it might be an out of the blue request when his plane lands at 11:00 p.m. Don’t worry, I go to the gas station up the street and get him his favorite frozen thin crust pizza and a 2 liter Dr. Pepper. All he has to do is call me from the airport and I’ll turn on the oven. Cheers from the cook, Dee

My pup is on her way out, but for six years she has provided treats for her fellow canines. After hearing of our efforts, a couple of neighbors have chipped in with small bags of goodies.

Zoe’s treats go in to a big cookie jar, the latest are Charlee Bear’s Bear Crunch, grain-free. one dog refused one of the specialty treats and wanted Zoe’s choice. Do we have a mascot or not?

Unrequited love? No, I have it in an intermittent husband and forever dog. She was attacked yesterday but seems OK.  She’s an Aussie mix and her ruff is thick so I don’t think the teeth ever got in there. She hates for me to comb her ruff (chest fur).

Yes, I slept with my hand on her belly for breathing, and searched for blood much of the night. She is still old, mainly deaf and with cataracts but seems to be OK until the vet sees her.

I love my family, always will. Dee

I was young, a mere child, during the civil rights movement. If I had my feet under me I’d have been on those buses.

Likewise when my father said I was going to college for a MRS, to be a wife, degree, yeah, I fooled him for over 20 years after I worked for others, then for him. As a consultant.

Back in the day I helped with the first legislation to allow same-sex couples to have a home and a job. Decades later, they can finally get married. I’d like to think I was a part of that. Job security on the NYC building code was essential so we required 42″ netting. Privacy was my goal and it has been eroded as now cell phones can hear what we say on the phone as well as off the phone. I hope the NSA likes me talking or signing to my deaf dog.

Today, I spent several hours talking to our bank, an account I placed my husband on over 15 years ago. They actually talked to me today and set an appointment for business and personal accounts. They did not say, as usual “we need your husband’s approval before we can speak with you.” But it’s my account! I had it for years before we met.

We’re legally half-owners of both the marriage and the business. I was forced to give up my consulting business to move everywhere with my husband, so now I cook and arrange flowers, feed and walk the dog and go to a museum from time to time. And pay bills and do taxes et al.

I always made less than the guys I worked with, and was told that they were married or they had kids as an excuse for paying me less. I worked more hours than anyone (I was assigned to cover for them in the office until their bill was to come up on the floor, sometimes until 4 a.m. and we all had to be in by nine no matter what and had three times the bills to carry) and was propositioned in elevators by elected officials and had to properly deflect those requests. My job should have required more pay, rather than less. Dee

Welcome Brazil and Chile!

My husband will have been away for two weeks this time, for work and will be home tomorrow night.

As he always eats in restaurants during the week, I thought I’d try an old favorite and perhaps a new one. Dinner.

Meat loaf. He hates leftovers but loves a meat loaf sandwich the next day. Spatchcocked Cornish Game Hen marinated with lemon grass et al. If it’s not snowing/sleeting/raining on the same day we may be able to cook it on the grill.

He’s been gone for two weeks. I like for him to have some home-cooked foods on the weekends. We try to get out for lunch.

Oh, he found this game we played at a restaurant/beer place a while ago. It arrived this evening and I decided not to cook, rather go to the place where we played it with the entire box and let them know that we now have one as well. Bears & Babies. I had the wrong glasses so could not even read the rules, but I won.

This one is sealed in plastic, that he will open tomorrow. It was supposed to be sent to his family but it ended up here, where it will remain. He’ll send another to family. I’ve better glasses so can read the rules while I make a stew or something in the slow-cooker. Dee

of people and things. I preserve art by framing it and placing in under 98% UV preventive glass.

We have sconces here that are under my husband’s height so I’ve placed thickly framed artworks under badly placed sconces so that he will not hit his head and need to go to the hospital. He would not wish to ruin one of my photographs in the hallway, so he won’t hit his head. Don’t question me, it’s worked for years.

I’ve now 14 works of art stacked in our kitchen because when he is home, he likes to make spaghetti and meatballs and inevitably gets tomato sauce on the walls. I call that self-preservation. The paint ain’t all that great and regular scrubbings would probably take us through to our neighbors. Right near the trouble spot is now a framed photo of him in high school at Christmas, by the tree, putting together a grill his father got for his mother. It’s a favorite photo for both of us, as it shows his personality. Driven, methodical.

Canine preservation. A dear pup who loved our Zoe has grown up. In less than a minute last evening (we call it “last chance” outing because after that she wants to be lifted up to our bed right away to sleep as she has no hips) she was attacked twice by said dog. The owner never apologized but I told him Zoe did nothing to provoke the attack and he agreed. He’s a good guy and has never seen that kind of behavior before. Zoe is 100 in “people years” and was just standing there at the time. They sniffed noses, he attacked.

Just as “Mama Bear” protected her cubs, my husband and his younger brother, I take care of him and our old dog as best I can. I’ve also made limoncello once, and a blueberry/blackberry ‘cello still in the frig for tastings, so that is preservation as well. Right now I don’t have room for canning equipment but when I do, I’ll ask my mother-in-law about her pear preserves. Pears with cinnamon. Delightful! Dee

No, I’m not talking GFCI, electrical outlets. OK, perhaps I am. We keep people and things safe through grounding.

My dog was the first official photo to be sent out on Instagram by our lessors. That was about 15 minutes ago. She wore her Greyfriars Bobby collar and brought the book that I just received. Greyfriars Bobby is buried next to his master at the kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. We went there, saw the church, cemetery, statue and his favorite pub where little Skye terrier would go every day for a free meal at the 1:00 cannon to place all the ships in harbor on the same time. The Scots are frugal, why have a 12:00 gun and waste 11 cannonballs when you can make it 1:00?

Bobby has been grounding children for 150 years, by a book and movies of him sitting on his master’s grave for fourteen years. While I’m not in the grave as yet, our Zoe has been by my side for fourteen years and I need to be by hers as she loses her sight and hearing. She has grounded me.

My family has grounded me in a way, one parent said I could do anything and the other said I could do nothing. They’re both gone now.

My husband of over 15 years, a genius, has provided a GFCI for me, that is a ground fault circuit interrupter for those overseas who have more advanced systems. He is the rock my life is built upon.

My brother the other genius is there, intermittently, Over the past ten years we’ve only seen each other at our parents’ funerals.

I think about grounding as I do food, even flowers now. Food requires a French education (see my cookbooks) then an Italian tempering with a Greek je ne sais quoi. Once you know the rules, you can stretch them, even break them. Grounding.

Flowers are not easy, nor is picture framing. Everything requires a brain, an eye, a heart and a soul. Life and loss are not easy. I put up flowers every week for my immediate family in small vases, and always have two to remember Dad, this week it’s sunflowers. Greens help ground my food, flowers, family as they are a base on which to build.

Dad built great institutions and they were always grounded in purpose and perseverance, ingenuity and imagination. I inherited some of that, learned more from him and to think outside the box. I am a thinker and a problem-solver.

My husband’s family grounds me. They think he’s in an air balloon and I’m tethering him. As a joke we have a hot air balloon piece of art next to an abacus. While they’re both magnetized now and on the refrigerator I’ve never been the abacus, I’m up in the balloon. So much for grounding! Dee

Yes, it is one of my favorite Nat King Cole songs I hope my husband will play at my funeral.

I was up early and the ancient dog was sound asleep but breathing properly, so I saw the movie Mona Lisa Smile. It was set in the early 50’s at Wellesley College with Julia Roberts as an art history professor. All the students cared about was getting married to a wealthy man and having a spectacular house and probably less spectacular kids.

When I decided on a college, at the tender age of 16, my father said I was going for a Mrs. degree. I went at age 17. I married at age 42. Dad knew he made a mistake there, and agreed on my choice of husband and never gave him the “eagle eyes.” Believe me, every boyfriend was scared to death of him, but I always knew he was marshmallow inside.

I’ve actually asked Pope Francis to give blessings for two of my favorite professors, both Franciscan priests and both with Him now.

Mom used to vacuum in a dress, pouffed hair and heels and that was the 60’s. What they did not say in the movie, outright, was that the days of Rosie the Riveter were over, the men were back and needed jobs, so they made marriage, babies and appliances a way of life. My mother lived it. I did not, and set out to work after I graduated from college. I considered law school or even a doctorate in fine arts or even government administration, not right at the time.

Thank goodness I never did any of those things. I wear pants, shirts and sweaters now, and am retired but still looking for work, at least volunteer work. I believe that people have to talk to other people and learn at least one thing new per day.

I cook for my husband and take care of old dog Zoe now. This weekend (he’ll be gone two weeks this time) he’ll perhaps have my homemade from scratch pizza, next night his favorite meat loaf. Last night before leaving again, a spatchcocked Cornish game hen in a lemon grass marinade. Perhaps next weekend it’s leg of lamb Robert (look it up on google, great marinade) from Jacques Pepin. My butchers are good to me not only because I look around, but because I cook their meat and bring back tastings.

Be nice to the folks who provide you with good food. Cheers! Dee

Childhood games. I would like to welcome Azerbajian as a reader of this post. My younger sister and I had a puzzle of the world and we would compete to get half done. I nearly always drew north and south america, and she drew europe and the east and africa. I usually won. That was because Canada, USA and South America was easy.

So many countries have changed during that time. She could still possibly beat me at the game but so many countries have changed, broken up like Russia and the Czech Republic. I’ve been in government and politics, they’re not necessarily the same. Think about what’s happened in Africa over the past decades.

We thought that as children, through paper we were putting the world together when it was being taken apart before we were old enough to know of national and world affairs.

As to poker, Dad taught us. We used matches at first, then pennies. All the matches and pennies were collected along with the cards. No-one had anything but bragging rights. That’s how Dad dealt with his kids. I don’t remember how to play poker and would be horrible at it.

We did plays and dance recitals in the basement and issued two tickets for our parents. Plays were a no-go even through hours at the local library. Instead we turned to Peanuts and I was always Lucy, sister was Charlie Brown and three year-old brother was Snoopy.

We made our own world back then with creeks and swings and working with a sand pile. Wouldn’t we love to go there again. Dee

Hello India! Welcome.

I took the dog out this morning. It was raining and so windy that I thought we were going to go over a split rail fence and down a large hill. With arthritis, a bad ankle and wrist I was unable to open the doggie bag to pick up after, ten feet from our front door.

We were both soaking wet and I asked the person on duty to keep old Zoe for sixty seconds. She opened the bag and said she didn’t feel comfortable taking care of our dog for sixty seconds so I took her out again with me, into what seemed like hurricane-force winds. No-one here would have gone in to have a bag opened and gone out again with a 30# dog to be swept into a crevasse, just to pick up her poop. As it was, half of it was swept down the crevasse.

I feel bad for asking for permission, not forgiveness. I could have shut her in the downstairs bathroom for one minute while I picked up and no-one else here would bother to pick up or would have known that she was there.

A few years ago I had her out and it was windy. There was a gust and I immediately wrapped her leash around my hand three times and placed both arms over a concrete bridge rail, head down. I think today was just a gut feeling. If the wind had taken her under the split rail fence down the hill or across the street into traffic, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.

There’s something to be said for Martingale collars. She has three. She’s an Australian Shepherd mix, quite small, and has had her hips removed as a pup due to severe hip dysplasia. She’s also over 14 years old, 100 in “people years.” She can get out of any collar but this, because it is two loops, one around the neck and one for control. No snap closure. Combined with a 6′ leather braided leash (no stitching) I can keep her safe even in heavy winds. Martingales are made for dogs with small necks and pointy noses, and Zoe looks like a fox, color and all.

During Cat 5 Hurricane Ike all the dogs went swimming in the Bayou except Zoe, because my husband insisted on giving her a bath, before we lost water for a week. Then she joined them in the pool. My husband and Zoe slept through the entire hurricane, where every loft in the building was damaged but ours. Once I stopped being afraid, for no good reason because all the downtown windows were blown out, that I did not know, I got out of bed and blogged Ike until the power went down. It took some folks weeks for power, us only a few hours as we were on the mayor’s grid.

Next morning four of us took the task upon us as there was no help for days. Our husbands got standing water out of the garage and cleaned storm drains of leaves. We wives went door-to-door on the flooded first floor making sure all residents were OK.

The sun is coming out, here and now. I still can’t tell the wind because the trees are bare and they take down the flag for six months every year. Still tiny whitecaps on the lake. I was just so afraid that with her age, loss of eyesight and hearing, that she’d be swept away. That is a mother’s duty.

Staff would not help me this morning. It might have been inappropriate to ask for one minute of assistance but we’re old and I went out to clean up after my dog in horrific weather. From now on, it’s forgiveness, not permission. I’ve been through storms of storms and we are old and infirm. We’ll do what is needed to be safe. Dee