Excessively Wordy

The pinnacle of food perfection.

/ wvfurandroot / 14 Comments

Gustatory perfection.

I’m not sure I would even call it comfort food. It’s my favorite meal of all time. If I’m ever to be executed, I will request tacos (cooked and assembled my way) as my last meal.

Oh, sure, I love roasted turkey and all the trimmings; I love Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s pear salad; I love a perfectly grilled steak; and I adore lobster. But tacos (cooked and assembled my way) are the crème de la crème – the very pinnacle of my own personal haute cuisine pyramid.

Cooked my way is a long story.

Half-a-century ago when I was born, my parents were stationed at 29 Palms, California – a Marine Corps base tucked into the Mojave with the nearest place of any size being Palm Springs. As my dad tells it, the only thing in Palm Springs they could afford was gas, because gas was dirt cheap everywhere. [Yes, I remember free “china” at gas stations – anything to persuade you to buy their gas – attendants who pumped it, washed your windshield, checked your oil, and topped your tires. I remember the outrage of $1/gallon gas. I’m digressing.]

The Tay-Cos King & Burgeoning Family

For fun, the parents would drive into Los Angeles – quite a distance – and splurge on hamburgers. I came along and ate up what disposable income they had for hamburgers in L.A. That’s when the folks discovered tay-cos (rhymes with pay-toes). Now when I was 7, you could get tacos, um, tay-cos, 12 for a $1. I imagine they were even cheaper 7 years earlier.

My parents were from the Ann Arbor area of Michigan. My mother was a picky eater. My father was not, but he’d grown up poor so there wasn’t much variety. Southern California cuisine was about as exotic as they’d ever encountered. It could only have been the abject poverty of a private’s pay and the desire to have some sort of nightlife that provoked them to try them there tay-cos.

Well, my brother came along and 10 cent a gallon gas (plus china!) and 12 tay-cos for less than a buck was Too Much Money.

Here the adventure begins.

They decided to make them at home with my dad dreaming of becoming the King of Franchised Tacos. (This was way before Taco Bell.)

Being in Southern California, the ingredients were easily enough purchased – the ingredients as they derived them to be, anyway.

Tor-till-ahs

Armed with tortillas (tor-till-ahs), ground beef, onion, tomato, cheese, and iceberg lettuce, they commenced.

There was an immediate snag.

After a few failed attempts, they couldn’t for the life of them figure out how to fry the tor-till-ahs so that they could be filled without a) the tor-till-ahs breaking, or b) the tor-till-ah sticking to itself once folded.

They set to thinking. [My parents are not stupid people. You won’t believe this after the following paragraph, but, really, they’re not.]

Now I told you that my mother likes to sew. I’m not sure which of the two of them came up with the idea, but she got out the sewing machine and sewed those suckers.

[I’ve had nearly 50 years to wrap my brain around this and I still can’t fathom how they thought that was going to solve the problem. The both of them get to laughing so hard, their explanations can’t be understood. I did ask them about the thread. They manage to gasp that it pulled out easily enough once they were cooked. And then they collapse into fits of maniacal laughter again.]

How to fry a corn tortilla.

About that time or a few years later, my dad developed a friendship with another Marine who was married, they say, to the world’s stupidest woman. Isabella was a good-hearted woman, friendly, loved her husband and children fiercely, but, to hear tell of it, her husband and my parents lived in real fear that she was going to accidentally kill someone with her stupidity. [This from the people sewing tor-till-ahs to make tay-cos.]

I’m not sure how it came about, but I imagine it was because Isabella was Mexican, but one of them grilled Isabella about tay-cos making or, perhaps, Isabella happened to be around when they were being made. After snickering a bit (I’m sure), she corrected their pronunciation and showed them.

[To this day, I’m not sure if Isabella was made privy to the sewing debacle or if they kept that to themselves. Probably not – I get my ability to laugh at myself from my folks. A good story is a good story.]

The fixin’s.

After my having talked to a couple of Mexicans and learning what a proper taco is, Isabella probably sneered at what they were filling those tacos with, but if she was she kept that to herself. [I don’t think Isabella was as stupid as she was made out to be though I’ve heard some doozies of some stories from the tay-cos/tor-till-ah people. Isabella is a legend.]

I’ve had authentic tacos. They’re okay. [Trust me on this – there is no place in West Virginia you can get an authentic taco. If Mexicans weren’t the fastest growing ethnic group in Appalachia, I’d go so far as to say there is no place in Appalachia to get an authentic taco. I will say that anywhere other than the just north of the Mexican border is going to prove difficult to find an authentic taco.]

Southern California and the first day of school with Ringo.

So. I grew up on tacos that were an amalgam of Isabella’s teaching and my parents’ food preferences. They were my favorite food long before my first day of school.

Thursdays at school were always tacos in the hot lunch line. I almost always took my lunch, but on Thursdays I had my 15 cents firmly clutched in hand. We moved from California to Hawaii and tacos at school ceased. That was kind of okay, because they didn’t do them right at school, but a bad taco is better than no taco. I begged tacos all the time; and, if dinner was at home, I always had tacos for my birthday.

Tacos started moving into the mainstream and our at-home tacos morphed and changed (with some aspects inviolate). We went from unseasoned ground beef to packets of taco seasoning. We went from shredded American cheese to sharp cheddar. At some point, “taco sauce” (the precursor to mass produced salsa) was added. More importantly, I’m not sure what Isabella taught them about frying tortillas, but what I grew up with was corn tortillas fried very briefly (just enough to make them really limp) and then stacked on paper towel to absorb the grease. (No folding.)

It has to be CORN tortillas. Those flour things are dreadful – ack, spit, ugh.

Once, we bought one of those taco kits at the store and were appalled.

Anyway.

Half the fun of tacos is the assembly. We all do it differently.

I’m insistent that the proper order is as follows:

The order in which God decreed.

Fold the shell in half and while keeping it folded but open with your left hand, spoon in seasoned ground beef followed by iceberg lettuce, THEN tomatoes, THEN onion, THEN cheese, and finally taco sauce (or salsa, these days). Any other ordering of the ingredients changes the taste, changes the texture, and makes me cranky.

My mother insists that the cheese be put directly on top of the meat, followed by the salsa and the rest of it whichever way the bowls are going around the table. Dad, too, likes the cheese on the meat and is just as persnickety about the order of the rest of it. My brother doesn’t seem to really care.

I can flat out put away some tacos. I love ‘em – grease and salsa dripping down my chin, the cold of the cheese, the hot of the meat, the crunch of the lettuce. I’ve been known to groan with delight.

My parents have switched to those crunchy, nasty things in a box that are called tortillas, because real corn tortillas get harder and harder to find.

I eat a lot of tacos in the summer. Homegrown ‘maters turn an already perfect food into something that rises beyond what words can describe. In the winter, I’ve taken to using those canned diced tomatoes. Like I said, a bad taco is better than no taco.

If I’m really jonesing for a taco and can’t, for whatever reason, make them myself – I’ll do a run through the Taco Bell. Though I order “crunchy tacos,” I don’t delude myself into really thinking of them as tacos. It’s akin, I think, to alcoholics and those alcohol-free beers. It’s better than nothing and wards off the shakes.

Too full to move.

Today I just had to have a taco. I absolutely had to go out and get some groceries (I was down to green bean omelets) and decided to get the ingredients and make them tomorrow. But while putting away the food, I kept looking longingly at those tortillas (tor-tee-yas) and decided to make tacos (tah-cos). Even if it was late. Even if I had things to do.

I do love tacos. The kitchen is a mess and I’m too full to move. I will not embarrass myself by enumerating the number of tacos I had.

I’ve got enough stuff left over that I can gorge on tacos for the next two or three days. I’m a happy woman.

Fine in ’09, Whine in ’09

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

This time last year, I was sitting on HMOKeefe’s sofa, probably into a bottle of wine and watching a movie. Periodically peering out the window to look at the snow.

I was to have left Massachusetts on New Year’s Eve, but my flight was cancelled due to an impending storm. I was confused as I could be. The Yankees were acting like a bunch of Appalachians in panic over snow that hadn’t started yet. My flight was cancelled hours before the first flake.

It had been an eventful trip. Leaving Charleston, I missed my flight because I couldn’t find a parking spot (yes, at Yeager) and I couldn’t get through security in time (yup) to make my plane. It seems that the VFW from Logan, I think, had decided to go on a cruise. Everyone in town went to the airport to see them off. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get through security when you have to explain, describe, and tut tut about every metal piece involved in knee and hip replacements? Appalachians are nothing if not chatty and polite. There was no way to hurry those folk and nothing for security to do but listen to tales of surgeries.

Anyway. There I am in Yankee-Land with a cancelled flight and no snow on the ground. The snow did arrive – six to eight inches of it – certainly not a big deal by their standards.

Originally, I had wanted to leave New Year’s Day. There’s a tradition that you should be doing at midnight what you want to be doing for the whole of the year. As scheduled, I was going to spend midnight leaving the parking garage of Yeager. But I was told, definitively, all the flights for the 1st were booked. And, so, alas.

The snow came, the snow plows came, and USAir rescheduled my flight for the 1st. Go figure. I went.

HMOKeefe and I had celebrated New Year’s Eve on the 30th with lobster and champagne at home. We’d burned logs in the fireplace, had carnal relations, talked and laughed a great deal and were probably sound asleep by 10 p.m. There are some aspects of middle age I really like – in this example, the leaving behind of midnight frenzies with bunches of drunks.

I’ve had my fair share of midnight frenzies with bunches of drunks. I’ve been one of the drunks. I’ve been single, married, and about to be divorced on New Year’s. In retrospect, the New Year’s Eves I’ve enjoyed the most have always been the ones I spent at home.

My New Year’s as a single person must have been decidedly uneventful, because I can’t bring anything to mind – good or bad. I never sat alone at home and I only remember a couple of big bashes, but there’s not a Woo Hoo or an Oh No in my memory.

My married years were mostly uneventful. Sometimes, we’d go out for dinner. Sometimes not. Sometimes I’d cook a lavish meal. Sometimes it was take-out pizza. For many years, New Year’s Eve was spent in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin with extended family – sometimes a quiet time; sometimes a big house party. A few times, the party petered out and everyone was snoozing long before midnight.

One memorable year, 1999/2000, I got my one and only speeding ticket in Kentucky escaping the Great Frozen North. It had been a week where the family dynamics had gotten completely out of hand and I needed to be home. I had fumed through Wisconsin and Illinois. I had seethed through Indiana. By Kentucky, I smelled home and the mountains were wrapping themselves around me like an old, comfortable quilt. The speed was exhilarating. The thought of my house, my bed, and people I liked was intoxicating.

The cop cut me a break. I had been clocked at 89. I must have been coasting at that second, because I had been doing 93. He wrote the ticket for 74. I never disputed the ticket; paid it gladly. I was home or near enough.

A few years ago, before the bone marrow transplant, HMOKeefe and I dressed to the nines and went to dinner at Savannah’s (Huntington’s fine dining restaurant). I wore full-length Donna Karan, pearls, and spectacular shoes. He wore a great suit and a crisp white shirt. We spent hours eating, came home, and were probably actually awake at midnight. It was lovely. Really lovely. I wouldn’t want to do it every year, but I would like to do it now and again.

It’s the first time I can remember seeing in the New Year in years and it was the last time since.

So. There’s this tradition that at midnight you should be doing what you hope to do all year.

I’ll be sleeping. Despite hours and hours of sleep the past week, I still can’t get enough. It seems I’ve settled into a pattern of long, winter naps. I get up for a few hours, attend to some cleaning and organizing, and crawl back into bed for a couple of hours. Rinse and repeat. I would like to wake tomorrow fully rested and restored. That would make for a terrific 2010.

There is no intention, whatsoever, of seeing midnight tonight. There’s a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator left over from my birthday party. I’ve taken it out a few times thinking to open it and then put it back. I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter twaddling on about how pathetic it is to be spending New Year’s Eve napping and checking friends’ status updates.

It doesn’t really feel pathetic. It’s kind of nice.

I was supposed to be in Massachusetts today. It didn’t work out. While I’m distressed to have broken the tradition of seeing HMOKeefe at this time of year, I have also enjoyed this week at home. It was downtime sorely needed.

I am a homebody that doesn’t get much home time these days. I’ve been a homebody for decades now. Even when single, I spent far more time at home than did my friends. For years and years, my idea of a good weekend has been one where I don’t have to leave my hill.

The holidays always wipe me out. I am tired of it all long before Christmas Day arrives. The hustle and bustle just gets too intense, too frenzied, too loud, too-everything. I am ready to close the year down, pack it up, and whip out a new calendar. I don’t want to erase the year, but I do want to put it away and reflect on it later. Maybe.

I’ve had a week of not leaving the hill.  I’ve wallowed in the quiet peace of it.

This has been an exceptionally challenging year; 2010 looks to share some of the same problems.

This has been an exceptionally good year. 2010 looks to share some of the same blessings.

Fine in ’09 and Whine in’09 have been the yin and yang of the past 365 days. The coming year, I have dubbed Total Zen in 2010. Every year, my wish is to be bored, for just a day or two or three, and every year I am everything but. Still. For 2010, hope springs eternal. The Drama Queen pines for a drama-free existence.

May midnight find you where you want to be, doing what you want to do, with those you want to be with.  May your only drama be that spent in a floodlight accompanied by applause.

I love Christmas trees.

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Telling ornament stories.

This year I’m going to have to glory in the Christmas trees of years past as I don’t think I’ll be able to do much more than get the “little tree” up.

The “little tree” is thus monikered because it is small in comparison to the “big tree” and because it is a consolidation of numerous tabletop trees I had scattered about the house.

At one time my goal was to have a Christmas tree in every room. I did a pretty good job of that, but then discovered that I spent so little time in many of the rooms I was missing out on some wonderful ornaments.

I have loved Christmas trees for as long as I can remember. Putting up the tree was one of my favorite aspects of the holiday – I looked forward to that with almost the same intensity as I did Christmas morning.

The Big Tree. There's been an explosion of urban growth since this picture was taken. The village is out of control. All of it's out of control.

When we lived in Hawaii, there was a neighborhood kid who in retrospect was probably grossly neglected by his parents, but who, nevertheless, was a character. And he adored my father – another character. Matt would knock on the door and ask if “the big fat dum dum could come out to play.” My father was not fat. He referred to my mother as “Her Highness.” My mother was not royalty. To my knowledge, he didn’t call me anything.

He was little. Like 4-years-old little. And he often had his younger brother in tow.

One year he showed up at Christmas time and wanted to see our tree. Her Highness explained to him that the tree wasn’t decorated yet. That was alright with him. He sat on our living room floor and gazed at it for the longest time before leaving for the next house and the next tree.

There’s a lot of Matt in me.

I love Christmas trees.

I bought my first ornament to celebrate my first apartment – a spun glass angel. It was cheap, I was poor. I didn’t even manage a tree that year, but I had my first ornament. I also had begun the tradition of ornaments that had significance.

I was brand new pregnant the year I put up my first Christmas tree. I conceived on Thanksgiving Day and December found me shopping for ornaments to decorate the humongous tree I had bought. It was a “real tree” – I was contemptuous of my mother’s capitulation to artificial trees.

A sparse room, a sparse tree.

The tree was huge and we were poor. We had just bought the house and didn’t even have furniture for most of the rooms. Just buying lights taxed the budget, but I pressed on and bought some Victorian-ish ornaments and “popcorn” garland that the ex insisted on. He’d had no interest in the Christmas tree and, indeed, found the whole undertaking ridiculous. But he was insistent on that damned, plastic popcorn. We bought every string they had and it wasn’t enough, but careful arrangement made it look like enough as long as you didn’t look behind the tree.

While out shopping on a brutally cold Saturday, I found the ornament of my dreams – a white iron Victorian baby carriage about 5” long. It was the last one – Gimbel’s didn’t even have the box for it. It was expensive and we were broke, but I was pregnant with the child we weren’t supposed to be able to have. I bought it.

And promptly left it somewhere in Milwaukee’s largest shopping mall.

I was pregnant and hormonal. I sobbed as though my heart was breaking – it was.

Giving up on finding it, I returned home still a hormonal mess. The ex who didn’t get the whole Christmas tree thing certainly didn’t get the tragedy of a lost ornament.

Later that evening, the phone rang. A woman had found my package, tracked me down with the credit card slip in the bag, and called. She understood. She said she took one look in that bag and new the ornament was important. I jumped in my car, drove across town in the brutal cold and retrieved my ornament.

Can you see the baby rattle?

While putting it on the tree, I remembered the baby rattle.

After telling the ex that yes, indeedy, I was pregnant, he rushed out of the house. I had told him Thanksgiving Day that I had just conceived, but he didn’t believe me. He rushed out and returned a few hours later with a pink baby rattle. He said, “I wanted to be the first person to buy something for the baby.” I questioned the pink of the rattle and asked if he wanted a girl. He said, “Oh? Is it pink? There was just so much baby stuff and finally I just grabbed something.”

I hung the baby rattle on our first tree next to the baby carriage. The tree wasn’t much – lots of gold lights, a few glass bulbs, some glittered, plastic snowflakes and the pink rattle and baby carriage in the place of honor.

I look forward to those two ornaments every year.

It was also that Christmas in 1984 where it dawned on me that Christmas ornaments need not have been intended as Christmas ornaments. All sorts of stuff ends up my tree – if it signifies something important in my life and I can get it to hang on the tree, up it goes.

Witches and popcorn

Through the years, I’ve added so many ornaments that the whole project has become daunting. I’d exhausted space on the tree and that’s when the little tabletop trees began. These were significant in their own right, but also just plain fun. Chef Boy ‘R Mine and I were wild about the Wizard of Oz, so we had a tree. (There are an astonishing number of Wizard of Oz ornaments available.) He and I were also quite enamored of Alice in

Wonderland, so there’s that tree. We also were fond of the Nutcracker Ballet, so there was that one. There was the “all-natural” tree decorated with dried flowers and grapevine. A tiny advent tree.

I still love the Nutcracker Ballet.

Child-of-Mine loved Christmas trees too. The year he was 18 months old, I gave him a small table top tree with battery-operated lights and hung his small stuffed animals on it. I also purchased some fabric ornaments for the tree. He dragged that tree around and decorated and re-decorated it for weeks. His tree, too, got larger and more ornate as the years went buy. Featured strongly were his Star Trek ornaments. When he got to be a manly man of about 12, he lost interest in his tree.

Not too many years ago, I realized that the big, family tree was stuffed to the gills with ornaments and was missing the whimsy that I delight in. But I loved it. So one thing led to another and I purchased a pitiful 6’ pre-lit tree and consolidated all the little trees onto it. It’s a hoot and a holler. It lives in the family room and is stuffed to the gills with Alice, Dorothy, Spock, Ninja Turtles, Godfather Drosselmeir, Popeye, and all manner of things to make a child’s eyes sparkle. And that stupid plastic popcorn that I had so hated is now a beloved component.

Matt would have loved it.

It wasn't exactly a planned-development village.

As the trees grew and morphed and got completely out of control, the Christmas Village trend began with small ceramic lighted houses. I was wild about them. The first year, I had four, I think.

My “little houses” have experienced a bad case of urban sprawl – I think we’re at about 30 buildings now. I have no overriding theme – the igloo sits next to the Ice Palace and bait shop sits next to the Cathedral. I have very expensive “collector’s items” and cheap, badly-painted Dollar General versions. It’s all good. I’m of the opinion that the proper place for the village is under the tree – my silent night sky is faux pine branches and the starry glow of tree lights.

Years ago, I decreed the big tree too full for even one more house or one more ornament, yet every year more ornaments and more houses were added. I’d reached critical mass long before the artificial tree (yes, I capitulated too) officially died. In 2006, I bought the artificial tree of my dreams. It’s a monster. It’s such a monster that just assembling the tree sans ornaments is a major production. Assembly and decorating plus erection of the little houses will take 4 full days of work.

His tree in my house before he took it home to be a year-round addition.

One of HMOKeefe’s wonderful qualities is that he enjoys Christmas trees and décor nearly as much as I do. He was supposed to have come here for Christmas and I would have put up both trees to delight him, but Thanksgiving week rendered a stroke and so I am going to his house.

The big tree is not going up this year. I have neither the time to put it up nor the time to take it down. The little tree can be assembled in about a day. It’s going up, maybe today – maybe this weekend.

When I get to Boston, I know that the palm tree-ish Christmas tree I gave him one year will be up – it’s always up. HMOKeefe has an island fetish and I knew he had to have that ridiculous tree. It’s a long story, but two Moose named Mort and Milly are the primary decorations.

One of these years soon, I will have the time and the energy to return to my habit of decorating this house from top to bottom for Christmas. This year isn’t it. But I love Christmas trees and this year I’m glorying in the memory of Christmas trees past.

Over the Top Award for Me, Me, Me (and some of you)

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

over_the_top_awardHot damn and cold succotash! For the price of answering a few questions in one word or less (more if I cheat like Buzzard Billy), I can have the Over the Top Award. I love awards – they make my Warm Fuzzies sweat.

Buzzard Billy, whom I’m determined to meet (we’re soulmates even if she doesn’t think so), received the award and tantalized me with the possibility of getting it. Woo Hoo! I can only get it by contributing to the meme with one-word answers to 35 questions. (That sucker is mine. Mine, mine, mine.) The complete rules are as follows:

Copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on.

•Answers may be one word only.

•Once you have filled it out be sure to pass it on to 6 of your favorite bloggers.

•Alert them that they have been awarded!

•Have fun!

1. Where is your cell phone? Buried

Yes. It does weigh 50 lbs.

Yes. It does weigh 50 lbs.

I normally do not carry a purse purse, but something so big as to veer toward satchel status. Last spring I decided once again to try the Small Purse Experiment. It’s lasted longer than ever, but due to recent events, I gave in and returned to the Briefcase Disguised as a purse. HMOKeefe and I scoured Boston in search of it – primarily as a means to get home the laptop he gave me for my birthday in 2008.

I’ve always been a big purse person. As a teenager, my first purse was a giant carpetbag tapestry kind of thing. While I never use 99% of it, I’m not comfortable unless I’m carrying everything I own with me. Chief of these is my agenda – a large binder containing all the paper of my life – bills, calendars, cards, fortunes, amusing horoscopes, and a medicine bag that detached just yesterday.

Though there is a designated pocket, I most never use it. Without fail, the cell phone migrates to the bottom.

2. Your hair? Flamboyant

My hair. Other than my height, it’s probably my most distinguishing feature. Waist length, dark brown, straight as a devout Christian, and becoming streaked with white and silver. Folks seem to want me to dye it. I, however, love the white and silver. At my temples, I have white streaks that now extend to the very ends of my hair. In the Cherokee tradition, these are termed wisdom locks. In others, they’re witch’s locks. Take your pick.  Note:  I meant straight in the sense of moral, free of really bad vices – you know – the old straight and narrow.  I know several devout Christians of various sexual orientations.  Viva la difference!)

3. Your mother? Resilient

Barefoot in West Virginia

Barefoot in West Virginia

My mom is a marvel. After a miserable childhood, she managed to become a dynamic woman. At 69, she wears pink chucks, kayaks, and plays with power tools. I oscillate between being thrilled and aghast that the older I get the more like my mother I become. (I wear black chucks, but I’ve been pining for red ones – no kayak yet, but it’s more appealing than it once was.)

4. Your father? Amazing

After a childhood even more horrific than Mom’s, Dad is alive and kicking – no mean feat given four tours of Viet Nam. Presently, he’s developed a walking addiction. After two knee replacement surgeries and damage done in a car wreck when he was 8 (and his father was killed), Dad is walking at least 7 miles a day on terrain that is extremely hilly. He expects to make 1500 miles by the end of the year. Did I mention he’s 71? Continue reading →