food

The Mantra of My Life

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

For years, I’ve said, “More time, more time, more time,” is the mantra of my life. But upon recent contemplation, I’ve had a Eureka! moment and now know why “more time, more time, more time” should NOT be the mantra of my life.

I feel stupid and silly to just now be realizing this.

Mantra’s root meaning centers on that which protects the mind. My mind is not protected by scurrying about chanting Moretimemoretimemoretime like the White Rabbit on cocaine.

“More time, more time, more time” might describe the great need of my life – for decades now – but pleading endlessly for it has not worked. In the tradition of affirmations, I should be muttering “I have all the time I need.”

Or so they say.

An empty closet! Hah! So there!

I don’t think I could say, “I have all the time I need” and not break into hysteria-tinged laughter which would, no doubt, defeat any power the phrase had in terms of positive thinking.

Here’s what I know: I’ve been running at 90 miles an hour for weeks now and I’m not even close to caught up. On anything. The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get. (I’m not sure who said that and I’m too exhausted to look it up.)

For all of my behindedness, I am getting some things accomplished. I scheduled recreation this weekend and I scheduled chores. I completed all the recreation, but I’m woefully behind on chores.

Friday, Terrific Trudy came home from the vet.  Her surgery was successful in that the vet thinks he got all of the cancer.  While the incision(s) looked horrible, she acted as if she felt okay.

I also spent one-on-one time with my best friend. She and I killed a pizza and discussed life in general over glasses of wine.

On Saturday, I puttered in the garden weeding and planting all the little darlings I bought last weekend. Just before heading in to shower, I moved the houseplants outside and put them in the ground. (You should hear them all giggle when I do that. They get so excited – it’s like a summer vacation camping trip as far as they’re concerned.)

After showering, HMOKeefe and I headed to Charleston for our first date night as a couple who lives together. We had dinner with friends at the Tidewater and then ambled over to see Saint Stephen’s Dream: A Space Opera. Dinner and the performance were spectacular.

 

Mission Accomplished!

Today, HMOKeefe and I did (alert the press) empty the little closet and begin moving his togs into it. He no longer is living out of a suitcase in the guest room. After the closet triumph, I ran around in a White Rabbit on Cocaine Meets June Cleaver frenzy and vacuumed, scrubbed, laundered, dusted, sorted, scooted, corralled, set-up, tore-down and dejunked.

Alas. All the crap that was in the little closet is now spread all over the guest room. If I were a different person I might be tempted to say I have too many pieces of footwear.  But we all know that I am never ever, not ever, no way Jose going to say something that silly.

It’s just after midnight – technically Monday already.

OK. Maybe a few too many pairs of shoes.

I still have to shower and figure out what I’m wearing tomorrow. Put in another load of laundry. Give Trudy her meds.

Moretimemoretimemoretime.

I swear. If I could just get caught up, I could stay caught up. But way too much life keeps happening. Still and all, these are the good old days. I think. No. I’m sure of it.

Perhaps that’s my mantra – These Are the Good, Old Days.

In any event, it’s now my earworm.

High Falutin’ Beans and Cornbread

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

Braised and crispy fried pork cheek, leek puree,
warm lentil salad, microwave brioche and smoked ham hock jus.

Chef Boy ‘R Mine works at one of the top 20 country clubs in the country. As Sous Chef, he is sometimes called upon to choose (and prepare) food that complements particular wines. Planning and executing the wine tastings are something he enjoys doing and, according to the wine reps, something he does well.

He told me that for his next tasting, he wanted to sneak some “beans and cornbread” onto the menu. I howled with delight and was anxious to see and taste the result. Since he’s in Charlotte and I’m not, I didn’t to get to taste. (But doesn’t it look lovely!) I’m a teeny-tiny bit disappointed that he didn’t use pinto beans as that would have been a nice nod to his Appalachian roots.

[Lentils, kid? Seriously?]

My disappointment is slight as it is, but also tempered by the fact that I am often the recipient of some of the left-over wine as (shock, gasp, choke) Chef Boy ‘R Mine doesn’t like heavy, dry reds.

My son prepared this wine tasting yesterday, which was also his birthday. He is now the same age I was when I gave birth to him. I felt so old when I had him and, when I look at him, I see just how young 26 is.

And, yes, folks.  I do love it when he comes home and cooks for me.

Brand new favorite winter comfort food (Italian style)

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

I love these things beyond reason.

Tonight was HMOKeefe’s last night here. We’ve done absolutely nothing and both of us seemed to enjoy that. Lots of sleep (no! really!) and lots of down time. I also, saints preserve us, cleaned out most of my kitchen cupboards. [I’ve only been trying to get around to this for several years – why I picked this week is a mystery.]

My DSL has been down. In fact it’s still down. If you’re reading this, I’ve actually managed to upload it via dialup – or it’s several days after the fact.

For his week here, we’ve mostly just been noshing on this and that – cheese, fruit, bread, Christmas cookies, etc. Tonight, I prepared a recipe I ran across quite by accident a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t even looking for a recipe – I think I was looking for a blueray player.

Anyway, the recipe was for a soft polenta mounded on a plate with a deep well to hold a tomato sauce. I thought it sounded awfully yummy. I showed it to Chef Boy ‘R Mine and he made some suggestions to improve the flavors and textures. [I say frequently that I taught him everything he knows – he’s a damn fine chef!]

I made some more changes. The end result doesn’t bear much resemblance to the original recipe.

Winter Salad

While my son was growing up, I prided myself on the fact that we had dinner at the table nearly every night. Recent research suggests this is one of the most important things you can do to raise well-adjusted kids and strengthen family bonds. My son is fabulous, but my marriage ended a few years ago. After cooking daily for nearly 30 years, I was tired of it. And summoning the energy to cook for one was too much to expect. Besides, not having to cook has been an illicit pleasure. My diet’s gone to hell, but I’ve wallowed in the freedom to feast on Cheez-Its for dinner.

While I was never keen on fixing Tuesday’s meatloaf or Thursday’s tuna casserole, I did enjoy real cooking. Usually on Saturday or Sunday, I’d pull out recipes I’d gathered from here and there – or go web surfing and find something I’d never tried before. Many were good, some were awful, others were fantastic. Very few achieved fantastic the first try.

I’d decided to make the polenta thing while HMOKeefe was here.

I’ve been pretty scatterbrained lately. While I’m pretty sure I bought portabella mushrooms, fresh garlic, and scallions – they were nowhere to be found. I flat out forgot the wedge of parmesan. At 5:30 I did the 50 yard dash to my little local grocery store and procured a 5-cheese mix of Italian cheese, canned portabellas, ground garlic and heavy whipping cream. For the life of me, I have no idea why I thought I needed whipping cream. It’s in the freezer.

Not an auspicious start.

Mmmmmmmmmm

Nonetheless, I soaked 1.5 cups of stoneground yellow cornmeal in 2 cups of chicken broth. I brought another 2 cups of chicken broth to a boil, mixed in the cornmeal mixture, tossed in some sea salt, white pepper and garlic and brought it to a boil. I then turned the heat down to nearly nonexistent, stirred frequently and began the sauce while the polenta cooked the required 40 minutes.

I formed ground Italian sausage into small balls, browned them, dumped in crushed tomatoes, basil, onion, the sub-par garlic, crushed red pepper and heaps of oregano. (I love oregano.) I set the sauce to simmer.

I dragged out romaine lettuce, red grapes, red onion, oranges, black olives and pumpernickel croutons. It became a salad dressed with an excellent, but bottled Caesar. (Radishes would have added a lot to it.)

I boiled some rigatoni in case the polenta was a disaster.

I checked the sauce, added more oregano and tossed in canned chunked portabella ‘shrooms and black olives. I found one of the microwave steam bag thingies of whole green beans in the freezer and set them to nuking.

I cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I took out the loaf of Tuscan flatbread the fine bakers at Kroger made, sliced it, heated it and drizzled it with a really kick-ass peppery olive oil my son gave to me a year or so ago. (I tend to save the really good stuff.)

I dumped some water into the polenta as it looked too thick, stirred in a cup of the 5-cheese blend and mounded it on the plates making a neat well for the sauce. I ladled the sauce – so chunky it was more of a ragout bordering on a ratatouille – and decided next time eggplant was going to be necessary.

I put rigatoni on the plates and dressed it with olive oil and more of the cheese. I fished green beans out of the bag with salad tongs and put them on the plate. I arranged the bread on the plate. HMOKeefe opened a nice Malbec and we sat down to eat.

Oh my.

We even had flowers on the table.

I am never ever pleased with something the first go-around. Considering I used nasty cheese, gross mushrooms and <gasp> dried garlic, I’m astonished. This was one fine plate of food. The addition of eggplant and the use of fresh ingredients are things I’d change.  Those changes would take fabulous food and catapult it into the realm of foodgasm.

The textures were beautiful. It was a lovely stick-to-your-ribs heap of comfort food for a cold winter’s night. The Malbec was stout enough to stand up to the strong flavors and what’s not to like about sneaking red grapes and oranges into a salad?

A lovely, lovely meal I’ll be making again.

HMOKeefe has retired for the night (I wore him out), I’m finishing the Malbec and wishing my camera did a better job photographing food. I’m going to attempt to post this, but I’m expecting a big bunch of cursing at Frontier as I try to coax dialup to upload. We’ll see.

Happy New Year, y’all. Eat well, love well, and other good wishes to you for this brand new year.

[Woo Hoo!  2011 is looking good!  Dialup was a whole lot easier than I had even hoped for!  It’s a good day to be me!]

Hot Toddies and Blathering

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

You had to drink beer. I didn't matter that you didn't like it.

I lived in the great frozen tundra of Milwaukee for seven years. I did, rather painfully, eventually acclimate to the winters, but it was slow process. The first year I was sure I was going to die. The second year I just wanted to. By the third year, I grumbled more than the natives, but could, on occasion, set foot out of the house between October and May without long johns.

Compared to the buckle of the Bible belt that is West Virginia, folks in Milwaukee drink a lot. I think by anybody’s standards, they drink a lot. The cold has something to do with it. Nevertheless, beer is a perennial favorite. No kidding, I went to a church social one time and they served beer.

Milwaukeeans drink beer year-round, but in winter, usually at the holidays, the hot drinks start appearing. Another Milwaukee passion, schnapps is poured into hot chocolate when not drunk straight. Schnapps in one guise or another will appear all year, but Christmas and New Year’s is the time for Tom & Jerrys, hot buttered rum, eggnog and assorted warmer-uppers with a buzz.

Me. Cold and liquored up on something.

I’m not a fan of eggnog, but a nice Tom & Jerry on a cold winter night is sublime. Below is one recipe – for whatever reason, the drink isn’t popular around here and I don’t know why. It’s so ubiquitous up north that you can buy the “batter” in just about any store.

6 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:  Separate eggs, beat whites until stiff, add sugar. Beat yolks until foamy. Fold together and add spices. Refrigerate until serving. To serve: fill mug with hot water. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons of mix per mug and 1 oz. liquor (brandy or rum).

Now folks in Milwaukee are also the biggest consumers of brandy in the nation, so anytime I had a T&J it was always made with brandy and not rum. The “not rum” part was important. I once got raging drunk on rum & cokes while eating popcorn and it wasn’t pretty. I didn’t drink or eat either for years.

In order to keep up with all that drinking, there’re a lot of bars in Milwaukee. In quiet, otherwise staid neighborhoods, there’s often a house on a corner where the owners have turned their living room into a bar. These little places were scattered all over the city and put the hop in bar hopping.

One time, on a bitterly cold night, my date and I popped into one to try and get the feeling back into our feet. I had a bad head cold and the barkeep, entranced with my southern accent, was determined to doctor me. He insisted I needed a hot buttered rum. I protested I didn’t drink rum. He insisted. I demurred. He sat one in front of me. I was new enough to the town that I hadn’t yet learned how to impose my will on strong-willed Germans. I couldn’t stand rum and the idea of putting butter in hot rum really turned my stomach. I decided to take a sip to be polite.

Hot damn, that was good stuff. It didn’t just involve rum and butter, but included spiced cider. Knowing my history with rum, I stopped at one and, later, convinced myself the head cold disguised the taste and under normal circumstances rum was not going to go down my throat without bringing up the contents of my stomach.

Years passed. Twenty-five or so of them. My boycott of rum continued.

A few years ago, I arrived in Massachusetts with a bad head cold. Between sniffles, coughs, achoos, chills and general unpleasantness, I told HMOKeefe the rum story. The next thing I knew there was a hot buttered rum in a large mug in my hands. I had several. – muchly much better than Nyquil and I slept all night.

We branched out to mulled cider, which near as I can figure is a more heavily spiced version of hot buttered rum minus the butter.

I’m a fan of mulled cider both with and without rum. The other night the first really cold snap of the year arrived and I pined for mulled cider. I couldn’t find fresh cider, but I did find an old bottle of cider in the pantry. I had a very fine rum on hand (Appleton Estates) and some old, half-stale mulling spices. I decided bad mulled cider was better than none.

I made way too much of the spiced cider and ended up freezing the leftovers in ice cube trays. This was genius! I can now have spiked spiced cider anytime I want. With the cold and rain of the past few days, I have enjoyed my less than stellar cider although freezing did much to improve it.

I'm fixin' to snuggle with Babette and read a novel.

I’m getting used to having a hot toddy in the evening. This weekend I may play around with hot chocolate and brandy (Schnapps is just hideous.)  But right now, Babette and I have a date to curl up on the sofa and enjoy some quality time together.  She’s one happy puppy these days and is no longer shy about demanding attention.