Cooking with Dee

There are parents, teachers, grandparents et al. Our family was different. Let me talk about grandparents. My father’s Dad died a few weeks before I was born, my two grandmothers died before I was a year old. Papa was left and with us part of the year until he died in 1984 when I was a wet-behind-the-ears legislative person who could have used his assistance!

I got my first grandmother in ML, who smothered me with kisses and had the first Texas accent I’d ever heard. She was always the life of the party and it was a joy to go to the place in San Antonio where she and her sister used to dance as teenagers. Not that kind of dancing, I can assure you.

Her husband B, was more introverted. During one of my aunts’ parties he could be found outside on a bench near the gardens. I’d get out of the fray and we’d talk a bit then he’d ask what’s wrong? Oh, the girls at school are being mean to me. He’d advise and the next time I saw him everything was OK. They’re both gone now.

I had an “interview” with my husband’s grandmother, Nanny, before we married. It was brief and she asked me to make sure her grandson worked for the same company for fifty years and got a gold watch. No, ma’am, I cannot promise you that as the software industry is fluid and changes every day. I cannot promise you fifty years. Life, hopefully, eternal employment, no.

She then made me an honorary “Grand” which is truly an honor as there are only five immediate descendants from her five children (many younger since that post that original comment as she now has greats and great-greats). Her and our uncle’s welfare are first and foremost these days. Nanny deserves a platinum watch, for lovingly watching over her family so many years. I love grandmothers! Dee

I don’t remember the name, but it was an Italian dive restaurant downtown in our small village that served pizza when I was a kid. It started with a C, Cimino’s I think. I doubt my younger siblings would remember it, and my parents are gone now so they are of no assistance. They also had one of those electric bowling machines I got pretty good at, at age six, enough to beat several guys at a pub at college years later.

When I visited home during college, Mom started making pizza from a quick bread mix with sauce and everything in the package. I think she was still using the green can of so-called parmesan cheese back then.

Now I go to a beautiful Italian market and buy OO flour, full-fat mozzarella which we grate at home, and have them slice pepperoni to order. Only the best Parmigiano Reggiano will do.

I’ll never forget my college roommates. When we moved from dorm to college-negotiated apartments with a free bus to and from campus every 20 minutes I was named the cook. I stretched every cent. Noodles with meat and tomato sauce, brownies, you name it. We had $10 per week per girl and other neighbors would happen to stop in, “oh, it’s dinner time?” Come on in, I made enough. You’ve only done this all semester.

My roomies were astounded that I could make things like pasta or brownies, from scratch. They grew up thinking everything came from a box or a can. For two years I never cleaned a pot, set or cleared the table. Shopping was a different matter. There were supposed to be six of us living in a three bedroom apartment. Then there were nine. Then there were neighbors who conveniently arrived for dinner and a game or two of Uno.

I sent the girls with an extensive list that after menu planning, I had painstakingly listed by supermarket department. I asked for a 50# bag of potatoes, knowing it would be gone within a week and not grow eyes. They returned with canned potatoes, because they were only $.20 per can! Do you know how many raw potatoes I can get for that money? From then on I pushed one cart and asked the rest of them to grab things for which I asked.

To this day I shop at least every other day, not weekly, or monthly as my mother-in-law does. I look for what is fresh in produce, meat that’s on sale for chili and stews, and stock up on dried pasta, rice and Israeli couscous and broth (for the dog) as needed.

Back to pizza. Thin crust. I normally do not use tomatoes. Perhaps I’ll make two this afternoon, one with tomato, mozz and pepperoni (perhaps sausage as well) for my husband. One with par-cooked (by me, not canned) potatoes, a bit of mozz, fresh rosemary and a sprinkling of Parm. There should be plenty to go around for the staff here, as they’re always hungry. No, not personal staff.

Heaven forbid I’ve that many folks helping me out in our household! It’s small, just enough for a husband, wife and dog so they’d be tripping over each other. They do appreciate my food, which got much better after I quit the NYC rat race and spent my life savings on cooking school, even sold my car to make that dream come true. It was a dream since age eight, and Mom didn’t want me in her kitchen. She certainly didn’t want me anywhere near a knife. I think her knives were so dull they could have taken off my arm.

Now I’ve a hardware store and a butcher in walking distance who can sharpen anything. The butchers love me because I buy, create and bring in tastings. Hey, I’m the only customer that brings food into a grocery store. Hardware, I help choose for the culinary and pet departments (as a retiree) and that keeps me in good standing with the owner. It helps that I spend money.

Now when my husband is posted for a few months to a foreign land and I accompany him, when our tiny apartment has a glass cutting board and those “laser” knives that never need sharpening, I store the junk and go to the nearest housewares store and buy the real deal. Before we fly home, I make sure that our new friends have the good stuff.

Here’s to pizza! I watched a show early this morning on Netflix, created by Chef David Chang of Momofuku, about pizza in Brooklyn, Connecticut, Tokyo and elsewhere. Brooklyn chef says only sourdough crust, sorry but I love the smell of regular (not rapid rise) yeast proofing and baking. And the point of my story is…….

I moved to NYC, worked in mid-Manhattan and found a nice place to live, by myself, in Brooklyn. All the shops were closed both when I went to work and slogged home at night. I had guests coming for dinner and they loved pizza. It was 1987. On Saturday the Italian deli was open so I went in to ask for some cheeses.

Nonna said no. She asked why I wanted the Bufalo Mozzarella. “You’re not going to make any of those Yuppie pizzas, are you?” “Of course not.” That day I made three. One with potato and rosemary, another with spinach, goat cheese and roasted garlic. I forget the third. It was probably a pure Brooklyn pizza with tomato sauce, cheese and basil. Cheers and make your own dough! It’s fun, especially when you make 17 toppings and have families over with little kids as it shows you what they’re going to grow up to be. Adventurous or timid. Pizza is a window into a soul. Buon appetito! Dee

Oh, I forgot Sweden. I learned to make Kottsbullar (Swedish meatballs, to us) from a neighbor. In turn I taught him to make a true Texas Chili. We were supposed to test each other on our lessons without assistance but he met a gal (yea!) and moved elsewhere. I spent a couple of days with his dad who flew in from Sweden, he was a peach! At dinner with father and son I told my husband I did things with G’s father that we’d never done. It was a bad turn of phrase I realized immediately. We went to the art museum, saw eco-gardens and drove by historic homes, for heaven’s sake! It’s not anything you’d like to do. You’d rather see airplane engines.

Now we have a company and it has a book and there is nothing in it. We have a certificate of good standing. Where is it? Dropbox. Drop what?

We need printed papers in these corporate filings for articles and bylaws, dear. They’re online, you just don’t have access. We’re equal partners in life as well. I need to print these papers in case anyone who has the right to see them can see them, including me.

I think he may be slightly embarrassed that he let Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws be drafted by someone else on the fly and not by me, or even read by me and that’s my job. Print them and ask me to place them in the book, review and edit and we can vote on the results.

There is no rift, it’s just that he is away so much we only talk by phone when he’s on the road, and I don’t want him to get into an accident even though he has ear buds. I’ve come up with a supposed schedule so we can get work done in an hour then enjoy our weekends together. I’m thinking art museum this weekend. He’s thinking NOT!

Ah well, that’s the way it goes with old married folks, Dee

Hello USA, Nigeria, Germany and Ukraine!

I’ve been calling them, reading them, absorbing them all day until I was too tired to even cook myself dinner.

Then I got the best number of my day, 156. As I ate half of my sauteed mushrooms and toast and sipped a beer (keeping the rest for an omelet tomorrow morning), not the one beer, I deserved that, I was given a ceremonial membership key to my favorite neighborhood eatery.

Aunt Dee is here and hopes to be so with Miss Zoe if she’s still with us when the patio opens, Ms. Dee doesn’t like to be known by number but is known by name and I’m trying to get local businesses to work together toward greater good and reward. Let’s hope it all works. Cheers from Dee, excuse me, #156.

Mentally, I am giving her permission to go when she wishes to do so. Zoe has always followed me everywhere within two minutes. That is no longer the case.

Thinking of “next” is difficult and it must be because if there’s a pup to be saved it’s up to me to do so. Worker or herder? I’m getting older and have arthritis so may go to the larger docile breed rather than the smaller loving, smart, demanding and staring mutt we have now. I love her dearly and will miss her. Now her head is shaking. I hate to leave her home alone even to run a few errands for an hour because she stands by the door awaiting my return.

I will not bring a pup into our home until she goes with dignity, with me at her side as she is our girl and always will be our girl. I’m old and infirm and hope I’ve one pup left in me to raise, train and love, and leave to my husband. Herder or worker. Dee

ps I have to talk with my husband but I think smaller and smarter, I don’t mind being herded or care about excess fur, have dealt with both for many years, even before Zoe. She awakened just now after two morning walks, in the afternoon.

I have to go to bed now because there’s a lot of work to do.

Love is something I thought I never had. There are many I love and who have loved me back and many are gone now. Mentors et al, no-one was of a romantic nature.

Today I will give you only two. My father loved me. My husband loves me. OK, our dog loves us both and we love her as well. All for now, Dee

First, thanks to Mexico, Czech Republic and Brazil for reading. Also O Canada, my home and native land.

Sunday evening I went into our closet and found a basket of plastic flowers with a bunny, so I placed in front of our door until Easter. Today I walked out to do four neighborhood errands that lasted an hour, and I left the dog at home after taking her for another outing.

When I arrived home the arrangement was pulled away from the door, turned around and one “flower” snapped off and thrown on the carpet a couple of feet away. I know all my neighbors and the two other dogs who are nearly as old as my own.

There was a thief here a couple of years ago, sneaking into residences and stealing money, credit cards, cell phones, anything she could carry. There is video of her counting money. The D.A. declined to prosecute. Our residence was never invaded.

There was a robbery about 50 feet from our front door last weekend. I wonder if someone is stalking us once again. The gal used to use unlocked doors to get in when people took out their dogs, trash, recycling or went to get their mail and thought it was OK to leave the front door unlocked.

Yes, I now have a stick under the door to deter anyone from entering and double-check both doors, stove, oven before I lift the hip-less dog to bed. My husband says it must have been one of our dog neighbors but these dogs are nearly as old as Zoe (fourteen) and have no interest in plastic flowers. Someone is sending a message.

If I am being targeted because of disability, I have informed all who need to be concerned about my safety of a potential threat to all of us. I need to walk and my husband wants to assure that I can do so with Ms. Winnie, a three-wheeled cart with brakes my Aunts gave me over the holidays. It can hold a few groceries. Perhaps someone saw me leave with that and thought that I was an easy target.

Be certain that for years I have locked my door every time I leave and when I re-enter I add the stick. The hinges are inside, they’d have to make a lot of noise to get in here and I’d have time to call 911. Don’t worry, be happy! Dee

First, welcome readers from Australia, Brazil and Sweden. G’Day, Ola and Hej!

Our dog Zoe is getting quite old and I’ll probably be here alone with her at the end of her days. Right now she seems healthy and happy whilst losing her sight and hearing.

Sir Paul McCartney wrote:

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise”

I think our “hip-less wonder-dog” is happy in the moment and doesn’t see the future. She knows the present and remembers much of the past. We have had her with us since she turned six weeks of age, from a shelter. That was 14 years ago and I hope she doesn’t remember the squalor she grew up in for several weeks before she and her litter-mates were dumped at the downtown shelter.

She now lives a “sheltered” life and sleeps on her beds and ours, including an orthopedic bed in my car from which she pops up from sound sleep at off-ramps and stop lights. She can jump down from our bed and looks out our windows early morning to catch the squirrels. That would be a virtual catch from far up, she’s never gotten a squirrel.

She killed two mice, yes, years ago. Sorry, mouse families. She will have to pay retribution for that but she already has on earth. My husband took both mice from her mouth immediately and tossed them onto a nature preserve for the Greater Sandhill Cranes to feed their young colts. Zoe eats frozen raw lamb and dry (for travel) duck or turkey kibble. We can’t get dry ice here so I keep her on some frozen dried so her tummy is OK when we travel.

I will be there for her, nonetheless, at the end. I always have to make the decision and be there. My husband is a big, strong guy and has been a pallbearer for many humans, but not necessarily one who has been in the trenches at decision or death. I have done so more times than most and insisted before we adopted Zoe that if he is to be a “pet dad” he must participate in the bad things as well as the good. He’s already good at long walks and picking up the poop, and even though this real genius cannot change a roll of toilet paper he always puts the seat down! OK, twice in nearly 17 years I fell in.

Bye, bye blackbird is an old song I somewhat remember. Dad’s mother used to sing it to me as a baby and she died before I was a year old so I never really knew her.

“Pack up all my cares and woes, here I go, singing low, bye by blackbird, where somebody waits for me, sugar sweet so is (s)he….”

I can tell you that in heaven Zoe will meet many canine, feline and human friends. Yes, she likes cats and hopefully she’ll meet my former dog Chani who raised a cat, Mick, who raised many more dogs who visited him all the time. He taught himself to fetch crumpled post-it notes from my work and drop them at my feet to toss. Hey, Chani raised him, I let her do so.

Zoe is not ready to go yet, at about 98.5 in people years but I will look for it, get no unnecessary treatment and be there for and with her before she suffers. Dee

I heard of a comment by director/actor Ron Howard on why he likes movies based on true stories. Apollo 13 was a true story starring Tom Hanks and many others.

Apparently they had a public pre-screening where everyone filled out a card on what they thought of the film. Nearly all said it was wonderful. On used awful words to deign a great film. In the end the critic said that the Apollo 13 crew never would have survived so it was an awful ending.

The critic never knew that it was a true story, a nail-biting story our country and the world went through with, not with in person but in hope for, these three astronauts, who were saved through their own ingenuity and that of NASA.

Where is History in the classrooms we pay for with our taxes for decades even though we do not have kids?  It has probably gone the way of art and music as unnecessary. Are math and science the next to go? I’m sure English is already a casualty. Ah, I’m certain sports will continue without any intellectual basis to achieve success and teamwork. If math and science are still on the frontier, music and art help both. After all, could Mozart have composed his first work at age five without a mathematical and creative brain?

What were the educational building blocks for our leaders today? Rich father? Check. Deferred military service. Check. Our artists and scientists and mathematicians had and wanted way more than that and worked themselves through school or fled their countries and a few even created the atomic bomb for the USA. I knew one.

Imagine our elected leaders after education is gone. I’ll be gone, too but your children will grow up in a different world. We’ll just have national walls, many guns and forced marriages for procreation. The current reality sounds more like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and should never take place. As Archie Bunker would say, this is only “a pigment of your imagination.” Dee

I’ve so many. Only one biologically. I love him dearly and he was a frustration for the first half of my life and a blessing for the rest. He took care of Dad in his late stages, who was like a brother when we were working together in a business and never outside working hours, whatever they might be. He was still Dad.

My husband is like a friend especially when he makes fun of me or puts chick flicks on Netflix when he is away on business in the states or overseas. He is my best friend.

My brother-in-law has retreated a bit. We used to talk to each other regularly but he is so busy these days with work he only calls us on the road, like my husband does with me. Originally we had nothing in common but realized that we did so, and now he calls me “sis.”

My brother G was a neighbor when I was a kid. I was allowed to see him for five minutes once a week and he’d give me a psychoses to define and report back. I wanted to get back to him in the hour, but was not allowed by my parents to do so. I just wanted more.

This is about a genetically-aligned brother and other brothers, none fictitious, that I love or have loved.

Tommy was my brother up the street. We were the same age. He came to all my birthday parties but I was told he was away at his aunt’s or at school. Before we were eight, he died of a brain tumor and no-one ever told us and I wasn’t allowed to see my friend or even know that he was sick.

I’m not talking about a few dates, but real friends. Matt was my brother and had a crush on me when I was eight. He carved a wood violin as a holiday ornament and never gave it to me. He called me out of the blue, literally as he is a pilot, the day after our honeymoon and said he was getting divorced (I hadn’t heard from him in decades) and I said “bad timing.” He’s a great guy and we keep in touch from time to time via email and phone. My husband understands. We were little kids who connected educationally and emotionally. Kindred spirits.

Ross and all his siblings and cousins were my brothers and sisters in grade school. They saved me from the bad guys who harassed me on the bus one day. Between them first and the Principal, to whom I was sent because I was crying, those three brothers never got near me again. They were twelve, between families across the way running a dairy and put a stop to the bad guys without any bruises. My brothers and sisters. I married a man who grew up on a dairy and ended up a physicist. Hard workers, hard-headed, loving and kind.

I met a guy first day of college orientation, first minute. We spent a while talking and had a couple of beers. I left him to go to my dorm room, locked it and slept across the room with my Bio roomie gal. At morning I had to go to the bathroom and stepped over this body in the hallway. He’d gone to his dorm and gotten a blanket and pillow and slept in front of my door.

He protected me for four years there and still does, 38 years and tears later. He made me drive him hours to his home to meet his girlfriend, to seek my approval for their marriage. They’ve two adult kids, successful in different realms. He is brilliant and doesn’t know it. That’s my brother. H brought two chairs and stopped the elevator and we talked until dawn about women and girls. He asked questions, so did I. Now he has a girl who is getting her doctorate.

He found me online years ago from a tech conference I attended, called me and I thought it was my future husband of 15 years now just messing with me. I think he mentioned Led, our friend and member of the clan, which I am not allowed to join because I’m a woman. I still think I should be at least an honorary member without shaving my head or carrying a paddle for six months. Nearly 40 years later hazing might kill me.

I have a great husband and only old dog Zoe, Greek for life, who may have a Masters in mouse chasing out of hard snow. He and my family, friends and priests helped me negotiate life. There are more brothers, then sisters and that will take forever!

Home to the armadillo, yea Jerry Jeff Walker, Dee