Cooking with Dee

is when you know that all you’ve learned and achieved in your lifetime comes to fruition. At my age it comes in small tidbits, getting the City and County to agree on a pedestrian crosswalk. I still have to remind them to paint it every year. No-one ever stops a car for a pedestrian.

I’ve Italian micro-greens growing in small pots, seeds that I’m supposed to re-plant every two weeks and use in salads (or over meat, as I would do for my husband). Knock wood, I am the original brown thumb.

They’re little things, when it comes to the big things I undertake and accomplish. Today I’ve a little treat, a floral class where I can be more of an individual than the shy girl in grade school. We’ll see how I do, but I’m doing it on my own (my husband is only home 2 days a week from work and will miss me for two hours) but after fifteen years of him buying me flowers, it’s time to turn things around. Yes, I’ll put my 1962 Pedernales chili on the stove and re-season as needed after I get home at five. Thank you, Lady Bird!

Choosing is the key, outside aisles for everything besides rice, beans and such, flour, basics. The occasional chocolate bar is OK.

Food, art history, writing all include adding and/or removing. I just saw a Chagall for the second time at a museum last week. I thought the person in the shroud was a man. It was a tribute to Golda Meir. I’m not Jewish and do not practice any relegate faith, but appreciate the horrors the Jewish people have endured in the last century and many other religious cultures before, including Christianity. Trying to remove anyone from our world was horrific and something my family abhorred.

My grandfather fled Hitler’s Brownshirts in the late 1920’s for the USA and it is told that he jumped ship in the NY harbor. He didn’t want to be sent back, married his German bride from Switzerland and couldn’t get across a border to see my parents marry. I missed him because he died six weeks before I was born.

As to history, it can only be added, in good or bad ways, hopefully not removed. Art, painters add, sculptors remove. As for everything else it is a balance. Decide on yours. Cheers and have a great day! I’ve got my own pruning shears out for my floral class! Dee

Forget Mapplethorpe, who gained prominence and disdain for one federally funded work of art. Before and since then the conservative sorts have already cut all art and music from our schools, and have sought to cut budgets for symphonies, ballets, opera and other art forms.

My brother leads a ballet company. His significant other was a prima ballerina in a major ballet company and now is artistic director. They do excellent work, and travel the world to gather the best dancers.

I talked to my brother tonight and he says that ballet is very popular, I wouldn’t have thought as much as I was just a kid when I was taught basic, toe and tap. I was built like my father, look like him. He was head of a major ballet company. He never danced, I never had the body or talent of a dancer or a gymnast, who I tried to become. I ended up captain of the team, a great one but not a dancer or a gymnast.

Now my brother jokes that everyone said he looked like tiny Mom. He looks just like Dad, who died over a year ago. I almost lost him at Rockefeller Center over the holidays a decade ago going through a crowd by the ice rink. My husband is a foot taller than me and all I asked of him was to look for someone who looked like Dad. We found him and continued on our way.

Music and art are how I got through grade school. Also private lessons in ballet, piano and violin. They teach kids so much, intellectually and instinctively and mathematically. The fact that they are gone from public schools now is a travesty. Art and music are not throw-aways. They are building blocks for children to learn.

Now both parents must have jobs and there is little time for the kids. Perhaps a bedtime story. We pay taxes. Heck, we pay school taxes and only have a dog! Mozart started composing at age five. It was mathematics. His brain was only wired better than mine or most others, and his ear was better. How do you think Beethoven’s Ninth was born of a deaf man?

Music, dance, opera are necessary to let children and adults know what is out there, artistically. Please attend and support artistic endeavors. Thank you and Zoe is telling me to lift her to bed. Now! Dee

Years ago I walked dogs and took care of dogs for neighbors. I still do for a very few nearby friends, for free. These had two dogs and salt-water fish in a 60-gallon tank that were the husband’s pride and joy.

I went to walk the dogs and feed the fish and was caught up by SWAT Teams outside who made me hunker down under a blanket behind barricades for six hours. I was a consultant and was making $10 for this visit which was a gift to these neighbors because I had to come home between meetings to take out my own dog nearby. My friend said I had to charge them something.

As I was standing in the police line, they said there was a hostage situation two doors down, and a gun involved. After six hours of me being a witness the hostage was let go and the perpetrator killed himself. In the meantime SWAT had placed tear gas in all the townhomes. I  stood in line to ask about the dogs and fish. SWAT  broke through the living room window and said they placed the dogs in the garage so they’d be OK. I asked about the fish and they assured me that tear gas doesn’t penetrate an aquarium. What about when they come up for air? Can’t answer that, ma’am.

I called the homeowners several times on their cell, no answer. Finally I got them and the wife had no concern for the dogs, husband got on the phone frantic for his fish. Strange folks, indeed. I told them anyone could get in and steal their stuff as their living room window was smashed in order to allow in troops with machine guns. No response. They didn’t even want to come home. No way I was going to stay overnight upstairs in a space that was invaded by anyone or anything, or that could be, including tear gas and now, looters or even in their garage or sadly, bring them home with my dog.

Fed the fishies, they seemed OK. SWAT let me in after my waiting a couple more hours for them to check the premises and said these supposedly aggressive dogs were the biggest weenies they’d ever met. I took them out through the garage, fed them and moved new water for them washed in the kitchen and filled outdoors, to the garage where they would stay overnight and fed them, of course, and the fish.

Leaving the dogs in the garage overnight because of toxic fumes, there was no way I was lifting a 60 gallon tank of fish. SWAT boarded up the living room window and nearly nine hours after the hostage situation I was back home to take care of my dog and two cats only to leave home a few hours later getting back to the fish and dogs. Another $10? No. Not yet. No hostage-takers for morning walk and feeding but full police presence and questioning me being on site. Another few hours later I talked to the property owners again asking about when they planned to return and assure the safety of their property and animals.

When they arrived they acted as if the hostage and police action was all my fault because I was walking towards their home ten feet from the door and a SWAT officer bundled me up and took me away and never let me leave. And after 12 hours of my work, the couple, upon their arrival home, grudgingly gave me another $10 dollars for my time and extraordinary efforts on their behalf and that of their two dogs and precious fish. I was a consultant and was doing this as a favor for a friend. Let’s see, I don’t remember the friend or couple or dogs or fish names anymore, nor the name of the officers who grilled me on who might be around there to take hostages. I know I made a lot more as a consultant than $20 for all that time on behalf of their pets and home security.

That’s a good thing. It is also good that people who walk dogs and are doing just a favor for a friend should know what she/he is dealing with. The shooter was wacko, and I’d only visited the neighbors once beforehand to assess dogs and fish for a brief visit. Turns out they were wacko, too. They were so concerned about themselves and their furnishings and status they forgot what matters, each other and family, even if it’s fish. I just hope they didn’t have kids.

I never spoke with those folks again, they never even thanked me or paid me more than $10. They just saw it as a problem I caused because I happened to be on the sidewalk nearing their door and there was a gunman two doors away with a hostage, ready to shoot anything that moved and I was hauled off by police and forced to hang out there for nine hours. I told them and the cops that I had responsibilities as well, at my home and at work, and they said they might need me for questioning. Go figure.

From fish and dogs they didn’t care about, these usurpers took my life, work and family and held me hostage so I could not take care of my meetings and other responsibilities. There was no night’s sleep even at my home. It was a crime site so I could not see the dogs or fish until morning and I worried for them and their place being broken into by other nasty elements of society and sprayed with tear gas. I was Mary Poppins for those dogs. They were my charges for an entire weekend and I was graced $20 for the privilege of being detained by law enforcement for 12 hours. I heard they got rid of the dogs shortly thereafter. They kept the fish.

A paid vacation with paid pet care for my guys would have been appropriate. I’d say a small boat in Greece for a week, with staff. $20, no apology for not coming home and leaving me in charge for 48 hours instead of two pet walks and fish feedings, and no thanks at all, if you treat your peers this way you must be way down on the food chain by now. Just know I would never let you walk my dog.

My husband and I ended up living three doors down, a few years later. They were gone, thank goodness and the younger son of the couple across the street who called in the incident was in the hostage home, young, happy and healthy. Life and death and wasted time. We looked at that place but there was no way I could ever live there. Dolly lived next door to the death place, she was a pit bull. I’d go out on the stoop to put on my shoes, her owners would open the front door and she’d run to see me. Hugs and licks, Dolly was a sweet gal. They don’t call me the dog lady for nothing! Dee

ps Goodbye of course to dear neighborhood dog Gigi, The Captain, and now “the Admiral,” he used to call his dear wife who will be interred with him at Annapolis where they met and married. I met them through Gigi, The Captain married us and “the Admiral” has now moved on.

pps We lived in a great neighborhood.

What is it? From my gallery visits as a kid to art history in college and many museums later, it is the art of adding and of taking away.

Painters add paint to canvas with vision, skill, nuance and God-given talent to create masterpieces such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Sculptors have the same traits but they take away, as Michelangelo did when he saw a huge block of marble at Settignano and envisioned the statue of David inside and chipped away until he found him.

I’ve no such artistic prowess but over the years have learned to think for myself. I add and subtract in writing, cooking and now framing. My parents and aunts critiqued my writing. Add and edit. My sister and I had a pact in high school that she would do the grammar in French class and if she told me the basics of a story I would write it and she would translate both our stories.

As to cooking I won’t ever order one of those boxes of food for a certain number of people and make it according to their recipe. I paid my life savings to go to cooking school, look for what is fresh and good and make something up or update a childhood favorite. What’s the joy of cooking out of a refrigerated box? Everyone here gets them. When I was growing up, our cousins, aunts and our family used to meet for summer vacation. Dad said all us gals did was talk about breakfast, lunch and dinner. Well, they wouldn’t have eaten otherwise.

I think that creativity is the key to good meals, friends and family and conversations. I do so now with art. My last artistic endeavor was on construction paper in crayon, at age five, The Wizard of Oz. I had it framed for my husband and with all the art here, it’s his favorite work.

K, my framer, and I have it down to a science. I bring a couple of things in and we discuss potential choices, I decide, we do UVA and UVB-proof glass (98%) and usually double-mat and choose from framing options. I was afraid of this for so long, making lifetime decisions. Now it’s just creative, and fun.

Just as I go to the grocery store and shop the outside aisles to see what’s fresh, local, good and hopefully on sale I can make anything (besides puff pastry, I’ve “hot hands” that melt the butter but now there’s frozen). I can take a photo or sketch or painting in to K and choose what I wish to do with it.

Once I got the analogy between art and food it all came together. I’m afraid that Dorothy, the cowardly lion, scarecrow and tin man are the end of my career as a five year-old artist but the art I’m given, photos I take are all mine to frame to my heart’s content.

Flowers were another fear. I still make some simple arrangements. Today there are three “ashes of roses” for three mini-milk bottles in a cute metal cage (my husband grew up on a dairy) for our immediate family. A bunch of daffodils for Dad’s memorial vase. On the counter is a St. Patrick’s Day melange of heather, dianthus, bells of Ireland and three spider mums. I’ve a Spring class on Saturday at my talented florists.

I like to come in and pick and choose. If something dies, as dead flowers are prone to do, I fill in and come up with new arrangements. Today I had one live gerbera daisy, cut it short and placed it in a shot glass in the guest bath. Of course I learn new techniques in an annual class but I know how to choose stems for myself and what goes together in what vase, and how. I’ve good pruning shears and a number of vases over the years (my husband always brought me flowers in a vase). Now I buy flowers for him every week and he never noticed until I started buying surplus 1970’s scientific flasks, then he noticed.

Here’s to using your mind for complex tasks like reading accounting books and doing several states worth of taxes, and creative ones like cooking, floral arranging and picture framing. Not to mention writing. Cheers! Dee

There is labor involved in college student cooking, in order to save money and feed people who all, hopefully, chip in. My rule is that I was asked to cook all the meals, but never set the table, cleared or did dishes. I was not supposed to shop either but they were so bad at it every week I pushed the cart and read off my list and instructed them to get 50# of potatoes, not fifty cans. Six of us were supposed to live there but the numbers went up and neighbors happened in for dinner and we played UNO every evening. The only thing we didn’t have back then was pets. Thank goodness for that. I don’t think my $10/week allowance would have paid for our food and my feminine products and pet food.

College kids do better with a chef’s knife/Santoku and a paring knife, cutting board and a couple of pots and pans, utensils and fresh ingredients. They can eat better without cans or pre-prepared food. Please check out my cookbook selections, utensils and essential pantry on this blog. There is no remuneration to me for these efforts on your behalf.

Manual labor is one thing, a culinary manual is another. We help him through private school and it’s a couple of years to college. As “Aunt Dee” I would like to get him some tools to get through. After all, his father grew up on a dairy farm and grandpa now has a cattle ranch. He has to know how to cook, at least a good steak.

I think a few recipes each for breakfast, lunch and dinner are a good start. I can enhance oatmeal with the best of them. If it’s OK with his parents I can include a “date meal” but only if he lives with three other guys and has no privacy. Cheers! Dee

I took Zoe, our ancient dog, out for “last chance” at nine and it was raining, snowing and sleeting all at once. Needless to say, she did not wish to be out there. I watched from above and the streets and sidewalks were just wet. Ten minutes later they were covered in snow as well, along with rooftops and park grass. At one-o’clock this morning I awakened to snow plows, an unusual sight/sound in this town. I’m thinking the roads were icy so usually they just salt the heck out of things so they don’t have to plow.

Zoe is sound asleep on our bed while I’m in the den writing. She’s not hearing or seeing so well these days but is still a chow hound and everything else seems good.

I heard sounds, not dog scratchy nails on floors or cat stealthy walking-around sounds, but thumping, hippity hop, like a rabbit or two. Then I got up and found tiny things like a watch and key ring and other stuff on the carpet around the bed and checked the doors. Then I awakened to the snow plows. Of course there were no rabbits or things on the floor as that was just a dream. The doors were securely locked and Zoe never awakened.

My chili got a good reception, before the tasting. I brought a small amount of chili, spoons, napkins, sour cream and lime for my butchers at our local grocery who ground and re-ground 4# of chuck and tri-tip coarsely for my Texas chili. There’s nothing like walking to the butcher station to have one of the guys ask “what do you want, Dee?” “I come bearing gifts.” “Really?” Yes, I’m the one customer who brings their food back in as gifts. Perhaps I should check out our local fire station and cook for them.

Then everyone calls out “Thanks, Dee!” Well, check the seasoning and let me know if it needs to be spicier. My place smells like cumin right now, dirty socks. I ate a bit for lunch today, cold and it held up. On Friday I’ll heat a frozen container up and re-season for when my husband arrives home from a week away at work.

Now don’t get the idea of hopping around here in the middle of the night. First of all, I have no watch and have never had a keychain like the one I found in my dream. I do have a clean home and look forward to making a pot roast in the slow-cooker (second time a charm?) for the weekend. Perhaps also a roast chicken. I do love cooking for people, especially my husband. Chicken with roasted potatoes/rosemary, and roasted heirloom carrots. Sounds good. Keep cooking! Dee

No, I never had one formally. But I did. They’re called Aunts. Real Aunts, great Aunt, friend Aunts and motherly Aunts.

Mostly, as I lump them into a pile here, they taught me to believe in myself and others, and that learning is the key to strive and survive. At times at work, I thought that all the guys who golfed and got off work hours before I did (I was single) had a mentor and I’d never had one. I was wrong. I had Aunts.

Great Aunt O introduced me to my first gay man, let me put on a helmet and take a motorcycle ride with him. I can say that now that Mom’s been gone nine years as she never knew I rode a motorcyle! I’ve been a “gay magnet” ever since. O’s husband used to say “if there’s a gay man within a mile he’ll find my wife.” I love my gay friends. I love my Black friends and that’s not someone I ever saw in our little village of 400 folks. Tolerance.

Aunts AL and J, education. We moved away before I could be taught by them Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, the Holocaust, and Native Americans. That is not right. They taught me every day we were together. When we were helping out and needed to use the “loo,” we had to find a word in the dictionary we’d never heard, pronounce it, spell it, verb or noun then use it in a sentence.

I just gave a condensed 1973 edition of the OED to local kids, and have a Webster’s Collegiate edition in our guest “loo” for errant children like I might have been. I don’t think I was errant, probably too complacent before I evolved but interested in education.

J the friend Aunt helped me to think for myself and believe in myself and for that she deserves my never-ending thanks. J the godmother always gave me praise and in doing so, helped me on my way.

You know how kids always ask “when is there going to be a children’s day?” The adult always says “every day is children’s day!” When is there going to be an “Aunt” day? All the pets in the neighborhood call me “Aunt Dee.” Cheers! Auntie D

First of all, I’ve little jewelry. Yes, a wedding band, Claddagh ring and several bracelets, some magnetized to minimize arthritis. Also one wooden guitar pick on a leather rope inscribed with a Celtic knot (infinity) that I wear every day to memorialize my father.

My husband always says “I don’t know what kind of jewelry you like, so I stopped by the airport gift shop and got you a refrigerator magnet.” I have them from Wyoming, California, Texas, Minnesota, Hong Kong, Bangalore, and others.  I’ve moose and Indian chefs, ships in Hong Kong and Indianapolis horses/colts, we had a contest on that one as we left separately, he got the black horse, I got the white one. One went to a deserving child.

Many have springs so they all move when I open the frig, like when I will put the pedal to the metal and make my Texas chili (no beans) for tonight. Remind me to save some for my butchers, who are so good to me. I’m the only person who brings food into the store, for them. Today’s Pedernales Chili will not only have tomatoes and its’ sauce, I’m adding one beer, a Corona Light, for braising liquid that does not taste like water. Check out the recipe on the LBJ Presidential Library, Pedernales Chili. I make my own riff on it.

As to food, I moved away from home for three years without one of my 200 cookbooks. Bereft, when we finally got internet service I looked up ideas for dishes. Then I had my own ideas that included whatever was fresh at the market. Later, I got my books back but aside from reference for sauces or roasting or anything by Julia Child, I do my own thing.

Yesterday I bought specialty carrots and radishes, as well as a new apple variety for my husband, who is home for the weekend. Sleeping, Shhhhhh. I’ll make the chili in a couple of hours.

Flowers. Just as with food, I pick and choose. I’m taking a class next weekend. Thanks to the ladies there, I’m no longer afraid of flowers. It’s like food, pick and choose. I made a lovely arrangement for St. Patrick’s Day with heather, dianthus, Bells of Ireland and white spider mums. There are two red roses next to me on my desk for my dear father.

There are three Gerbera daisies in tiny milk bottles (a dairyman’s son) and we are yellow and our old pup is white. At the bottom of the metal cage the milk bottles came in, are three hand-knitted (not by me) finger puppets/ornaments. My husband grew up on the dairy so he is a cow, dog is a dog and I’m a horse, probably with no name, get it?

Pick and choose. Forget the frozen and most of the canned food aisles aside from tomatoes, rice and couscous and know what foods are in season. Know what flowers are in season and find a great florist, as I have, where you can purchase by the stem and make your own arrangements.

Find out if your spouse wants expensive gifts or airport mementos for the frig. Cheers! I just got a wiggly plane from So Cal. Yee haw! Dee

like a red rubber ball. Beatles. Sad song, alas.

Given that, the sunrise was glorious. Z and I took our two-minute walk (she wants breakfast and back to bed, she’s trained me over 14 years) and said hello to folks well before 7:00 a.m. She’s now licking her bowl and coming to see me.

There are priorities in life, love and dog-parenthood. I’m not ready to tell you what they are because I haven’t prioritized them as yet. Cheers! Dee

Yesterday I wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt (with pants of course) and a very light, long microsuede coat, and the weather was gorgeous. The “bluebirds of happiness” are now on our front door, replacing the moose, evergreen and bear plaques my husband hates.

Flowers. This is a sin I will pay for, Fathers Cap and John (may they rest in peace) but I picked heather and delphinium, bells of Ireland and spider mums for St. Patrick to round it out. These floral ladies are teaching me to think about flowers. I bought the first ones but needed white spider mums to make it come to life. Yes, I’ve a class there next month for a Spring arrangement.

I have never ordered the boxed refrigerated food delivery. In cooking school I learned to shop produce, fish, meat, dairy on the outside and only go inside for cereal, oatmeal, pasta, rice et al. I used to have a service that provided great milk and apple juice, bacon, and as a surprise I got the package, which contained ingredients that were local, fresh and in season. It was my task to make that butternut squash work. Local, fresh.

The thing about flowers and food is that in order to be creative one must learn the basics then use them to their advantage, one veg or meat or flower at a time. I bought daffodils at my organic grocery, placed them in vases within 20 minutes and in four hours they were dead. I’ll get avocados, steaks, salmon, brussels sprouts there but not flowers. My flower experts are a block away and let me choose by stem. That’s what they are teaching me as it’s the same as cooking, with a different skill set.

After 15 years of my husband buying me flowers, he’s away all week on business so I buy him flowers. He never noticed them until I found some flasks online. He’s a physicist. He arrived home one night and said “That’s a Florence flask, Erlinmeyer flask, graduated cylinder and pipette!” Yes, Dear. I also framed him a 1970’s drawing of many flasks. If I place a Gerbera daisy in a chemical flask, he’ll notice.

Just like making him true Texas chili, no beans. So here’s what I’m up to, culinarily.

Salmon en Papillote

Salmon steak or fillet, individually portioned and seasoned with s&p, take off skin if preferred

Leeks, whites and light green only, halved, sliced, washed and sauteed, seasoned, in butter

Grainy mustard

Parchment paper. I fold a piece and cut it into a heart shape, place leeks on the bottom, salmon and mustard on top and fold the paper, I’ll have to show you how to do so. Place on a sheet tray and cook at 375 for about eight minutes. Remember, the leeks are cooked.

* * *

I’m also looking into a bake of flour tortillas, beans, cheese, homemade salsa and guacamole. How that’ll go, I don’t know.

My framer awaits, as I’ve similar destinations for other works I’ve found and been given over the years. She gives me ideas and I choose, just as at the grocery and florist. The last one I did was mostly on my own, without her. I had to choose everything myself except for the fillip (I only thought that was for vehicle gas tanks) and I called the next morning and my friend was in. It is a charcoal drawing of dancers Dad gave me nearly 30 years ago and it was in the winning college art student’s “uniframe” all that time. When she answered the phone she said she loved my choices and couldn’t wait to get started on it. Really??? I wanted to send Dad a photo of it but he died before I could send it.

Confidence builds. One makes choices and sometimes, like me, thinks outside the box. Enjoy your life. Express your unique personality. Cheers! Dee