I was living in New Hampshire at the time, in a cozy little wooden house near a sleepy little town, on a snaky, hilly New England road. This morning my daughter had just gotten on the bus to go to school and I was enjoying an unusually idyllic moment, sitting on the steps….the spring sun cascading gloriously over everything and the lushness reaching up to meet it, the breeze moving the light and the scent of the lilacs in currents all around and making everything look like it was swaying gently under water…….

I had a cup of tea and nothing better to do than to sit in that sun and listen to the crickets singing in the lawn, I was practically singing myself I was in such bliss surrounded by the beauty of nature. And those crickets – there were hundreds, thousands! of them, I had never seen so many of the cute little buggers at one time, such sweeties with their little antennae…backward bending knees…shiny armor…. they were blissed out too, reveling in the beauty of nature. And feasting! They were fantastically busy eating….but what was it? Hmmmm, maybe clover flowers…let’s see. I bent way over to take a look – they were definitely chomping on something white and succulent…a root of some sort. And then, I saw it. A grub. Alive! Being feasted on merrily at one end by a cute little cricket…..writhing in silent agony at the other end helpless to get away. And this scenario was being repeated thousands of times all over the lawn! I actually recoiled in shock and horror, all my Disneyland visions of nature shattered, and behind all the beauty I had just been reveling in I perceived the cold heartless advance of the life process and the silent screams of all those helpless white grubs being eaten alive. My naiveté had been exposed and I was left trying to reconcile my love for the exuberance and awe inspiring beauty of the life force and the reality of the violence inherent in creation.

Fast forward ten years, it’s evening, I am sitting on the steps again, but this time they are marble and they look out over a kitchen garden at the peak of summer. I have just finished cooking a big dinner for about sixty people and have come out to cool off and enjoy the duskiness of the evening. This time of night the air takes on a substantive quality that makes me feel like I can touch it and breathe it in like smoke. We had a big thunder storm that afternoon and the plants are so vibrant they have created their own field of consciousness – I can feel their aliveness beckoning. Everything is so perfectly beautiful I can hardly stand it!

The fire flies are glinting all over the place, at my feet is an earthworm at least six inches long, making its way along the wet stones. In the spring I put some clay pots upside down in the garden to attract some toads and I have been watching them get bigger and bigger as they eat the slugs….here’s one now, at least as big as my fist…..a handsome toad if I ever saw one. He makes his way slowly and deliberately towards me and the earthworm. I think it’s cute; the earthworm begins to wriggle madly in a fantastic effort to get to cover, clearly fleeing for its life. Before I know it the toad is calmly standing over it, and then, faster than I could have imagined, bites it quickly three times. The worm’s wriggling slows, the toad sits calmly staring into space, and then, with the deftest movement of its head grabs the worm and swallows it in two gulps. Done. I am sitting there with my jaw dropped, another idyllic moment vaporized by the life and death struggle I have just witnessed.

There’s nothing like seeing a living creature being eaten alive, or running to save its life, to bring you face to face with reality, and the bigger question of how to interpret that reality. No matter how many times I have heard the saying, “Life is just one big restaurant.”, I can never quite get my head around how this all works and that we are just as much a part of the food chain as anything else that exists.
What seems like excruciating violence to me is how creation happens. And I can’t somehow remove myself from it out of squeamishness or misplaced superiority. As a cook and a chef, a mother and a wife, someone who is responsible for feeding others, I find this compelling to think about. Inherent in this contemplation are our deepest connections to life and survival and our place in the world, as consumers and creators, and ultimately, as food.

An auction that saw some of Bernie Madoff’s prized possessions up for grabs caused a feeding frenzy at auction houses with over 2,000 dealers and collectors placing bids online and sales exceeded all expectations…

Source:
http://www.cxo.eu.com/news/madoff-auction/

Ein kleiner Fisch frisst sich ganz nach oben.

>> Feeding Frenzy jetzt for free online spielen

The Pomegranate Cosmo is the perfect drink for me, for the holidays.  It’s been well established that I’m a lightweight, when it comes to alcohol so when the fruity martinis became popular, a few years back, I couldn’t have been happier.  Considering that I will usually only order 1 cocktail at dinner, and many times not even that, I was so pleased to be able to add an endless  array of new and fun drinks, to my short alcoholic beverage list.  Prior to the martinis I was stuck with ordering margaritas and let me just say, they’re not always appropriate or tasty.

I would like to enjoy wine but wine doesn’t like me and I’m over trying to pretend otherwise.  As for beer, I shunned it many years ago and will never lift the moratorium on it.  That doesn’t leave me with a lot of choices so you can see how excited I would be to dine out and know that I have martini menus available, just about anywhere I go.  These little jewels don’t come cheap so I started making my own, at home and found that 1) they’re more economical and 2) the skies the limit on just how many variations you can make.  This year it’s going to be this little beauty and since I’d like you to enjoy it along with me, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups (16 ounces) good vodka (Skyy, Stolichnaya or Finlandia)

1 cup (8 ounces) orange liqueur (Cointreau)

1 cup (8 ounces) pomegranate juice (Pomegranate juice blends are nice too and keep it from being too tart)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (3 limes)

Lime peel strips, to garnish or you can float a few fresh pomegranate seeds, as well

Combine the vodka, orange liqueur, pomegranate juice and lime juice in a pitcher and refrigerate until ready to use.  Pour the mixture into frozen martini glasses with a twist of lime peel and serve immediately.

If you’re wanting to make single martinis/cosmos:  Adjust the ingredients as follows:  1 oz. each of vodka and Cointreau, 2 or 3 ounces of pomegranate juice and a squeeze of lime.  If you’re not a lightweight like me, you may want to reduce the pomegranate juice some, but if you do, plan to stay home or have a designated driver.

Here’s to the holidays and great holiday cheer!

The countdown begins, Turkey Day is 9 days away, are you ready or are you one of the lucky ones, where you get to show up and your only requirement is to bring an empty belly?  I am not one of those lucky few but that doesn’t mean I feel cheated and in fact, I love putting together a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, for my family.  For years, my Mom and I have made Thanksgiving dinner together.  In the early years I was the  help but over the years, as my confidence in my Mother’s kitchen grew, I became an equal partner.

We take this holiday very seriously, making our spreadsheet on all the grocery requirements, laying out which cook will prepare each item.  What to serve the day before, the morning of and the days that follow.  Pouring over new recipes and taking a vote on whether or not they should be allowed, on the menu.  You might think I’m exaggerating but no way, we take this as the serious event, that it is.  Sure, there might be a better dressing recipe out there but we’ll never know it because our Mother’s recipe is the best and Thanksgiving would not be complete, without that familiar taste.

Case in point, one year my Mom did the unthinkable, she made Swedish potato sausage instead of turkey and dressing.  My brother and I are still not over the trauma.  Imagine instead of a beautiful glazed turkey you get meat and potatoes, rolled into a long tube, wrapped in plastic wrap and boiled in water.  My brother and I dubbed it the floating meat.  It looked like a log of gray dog pooh and at my tender age of 11, it tasted like it too.  When I called my Mom to ask her what that dish was actually called, considering that I had only known it as the floating meat, she suggested that I might actually like it now.  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Not when I can now produce a turkey like the one in the picture, which is last year’s turkey that I so lovingly brined, roasted and enjoyed.  

This year’s menu is nearly complete.  We’ll make a few more adjustments on the appetizers and desserts and then we’ll be ready to put forth a meal we can truly be thankful for.  So here it is:

Cocktail: Pomegranate Cosmos

Appetizers:

Cheese Rolls with Crackers and Summer Sausage

Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Main Event:

Perfect Roast Turkey

Bread Dressing and Cornbread Dressing with Giblet Gravy

Fresh Green Beans from this year’s crop

Smoked Chile Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Mashed New Potatoes

Cranberry Snow

Deviled Eggs

Cranberry relishes

Relish Tray with pickles, olives, etc.

Desserts:

Red Velvet Cup cakes with cream cheese icing

Banana Bread

Chocolate Sheet Cake

Pumpkin Pie

Golden Nugget Cake

Apple Cake

White Chocolate Cherry Chunkies

It will take days to prepare and merely 20 minutes to stuff ourselves and in the end, it’ll all be worth it.  You can’t help but be thankful for all the luxuries life can afford you through your hard work and dedication.  This is one of those times so here’s to turkey day.  Gobble Gobble.

At long last, I’ve got a new illustration in the running at Threadless.  It’s called Feeding Frenzy.  It’s… well… hopefully it’s self-explanatory:

“And that’s when the attack comes… Not from the front, but from the side… from the other two mermaids you didn’t even know were there.

The point is, you are alive when they start to eat you.”

Other recent Greatest of the Latest news, I give you: A Logo, a Mascot, and a Very Strange Tee…

Yesterday I had the distinct privilege of hosting Jon Harmon presenting a webinar to our PIER Strategy Forum. Jon is the former chief of PR for Ford trucks and was the lead crisis communicator for Ford during the infamous Ford/Firestone crisis of 2000. Jon has written a very compelling book about this event called “Feeding Frenzy.” The book has just been released and I can tell you having read some of the early chapters it is one of the best crisis management books out there. What makes it stand out, in addition to being dead center in the middle of one of the biggest crises in American corporate history, is that Jon tells the story like a novel. All the characters, conflicts, and plot twists are there to make it a great read but in the process Jon pulls out the important lessons learned.

The participants on the call yesterday with us, including a participant from UK, had the benefit of Jon’s wisdom and observations as an insider during this event. Here are a few key lessons I gleaned from Jon’s presentation:

1) Trial lawyers will drive the news cycle. While the company(or companies in this case) are eager for the story to fall off the front pages, trial lawyers have become very adept at stretching out a story. They would leak key documents shortly before the nightly network newscasts with another supposed “bombshell” prompting Dan Rather and others to call for quick comment by Ford or Firestone with little time to research and prepare a response. The link between accuser and media is a happy marriage from their perspective because the coverage furthers the aims of both lawyers and media.

2) The anti-big and anti-corporate mentality means you start a crisis like this deep in a hole. It’s tough to try to protect reputation and credibility when the media and the public has an underlying perception that if you are big, powerful and for profit you are evil and ill-intentioned at the core.

3) The differences between Ford and Firestone made the situation worse. The crisis caused a bitter end to a business relationship that had lasted for over 100 years. It is very useful to see the vast differences between Ford’s approach to communication vs. Firestone’s. The fact that Jon as PR lead was at the table in critical meetings where no Firestone PR people were is just one indication of the management and cultural differences–differences that worked strongly to Ford’s advantage and Firestone’s disadvantage. This is one reason why PR leads should by this book and send it to their CEOs as Christmas presents.

4) The emergency of online networking. The year 2000 was before people were talking about social media, web 2.0 and all that. But this was one of the first events where blogs, activist web sites, and the viral nature of web communications starting playing a role. Now it has emerged as a driving role but the signs were there of what this could mean as others who different agendas and axes to grind against a major company networked together to pressure and seek more negative publicity.

5) Emergence from the depths. One of the most interesting parts of our discussion with Jon was how the company emerged from this event. While it cost Ford over $3 billion in direct costs, the very next year was a record sales year for the Ford Explorer. And now, Ford stands alone as emerging with strong hopes from the current economic crisis among the Big Three. One reason was the serendipitous introduction of the completely redone Explorer with many added features including enhanced safety. No doubt having the NHTSA exonerate the Explorer as not causing the rollover accidents also contributed. But I would have to say, having gotten to know Jon and understand his commitment to truth, honesty, transparency and credibility, and reflecting on his statement about how their legal team and PR team worked effectively together, I would also give more credit to Jon and the Ford management than perhaps he did or would.

Jon can be reached via his blog at Force for Good Communications. Do yourself a favor and get the book.

Here are six  great games to think about for the holidays. The complete reviews of these award winners are on our site, www.toyportfolio.com

Active Fun Games

Dr. Seuss Super Stretchy ABC Game (I Can Do That Games)

Boochie (Gamewright)

Pure silly fun

Feeding Frenzy (International Playthings)

Ring-0 Flamingo (Gamewright)

Concepts and Strategy Games

eeBoo Color Dominoes (eeBoo)

Double Shutter (Blue Orange)

No doubt you’ve noticed the growing popularity of fruity martinis, on all the restaurant menus.  Sex and the City can lay claim to bringing back the Cosmopolitan but I wonder what brought on the influx of the fruity martini craze.  Whatever it was, I’m thankful for it.  Being a lightweight when it comes to anything alcoholic, I am relieved to have a cocktail that I can not only enjoy but makes me feel like a grown-up, at last.

I never acquired the taste for beer and can honestly say that the only time it has touched my lips is when my husband has one and then kisses me.  I truly do NOT like the taste.

As for wine, I’ve finally acquired a taste for it and really like it but the feeling isn’t mutual.  Wine does not like me and it reminds me every time I try and spend the evening with it.  Recently I had several glasses of a very tasty chardonnay and felt not only grown up but excited that I had found a wine that I could really enjoy.  However, the pain induced by those fermented grapes was enough for me to remove it from my enjoyable beverage list.  It has something to do with the mold, fermenting or what have you and it induces the worst headache, ever.  I’m not talking about a hangover either, just a terrible headache.

You can rule out shots too since I just can’t bring myself to do more than sip it and that really makes me look like a loser.

So light and lively martinis it is and it doesn’t hurt that you get a little appetizer, in the form of fruit, perched on your glass.  The men in your group probably won’t ever be caught ordering a fruity martini but trust me, they all want a taste of it!  I try out new ones all the time and have even started making many of my own variations at home.  One of my favorites is a raspberry martini.  The recipe is:

• 1 oz. of Skyy vodka (for a stronger martini:  2 oz. vodka, and reduce the Sprite by 1 oz.)  I told you I was a lightweight.
• 1 oz. of Razzmatazz Raspberry Liqueur
• 3 oz. of Sprite
• fresh squeeze of lime

In a stainless steel shaker, add ice, vodka, razzmatazz and a squeeze of lime and shake vigorously.  Remove the lid and add the Sprite.  (Don’t shake, it will lose all the carbonation if you do) Stir the Sprite with the other liquids, return the lid and pour into martini glasses.  Garnish with raspberries, watermelon, grapes or whatever you like.

Fresh watermelon martinis are amazing, in the summer, as are pomegranate martinis.  You can find plenty of recipes, on the Internet, to help guide you.  My guests really love having a martini before we sit down for a great meal, I hope yours will too.

Dinner last night was quite yummy.  I have always wanted to make Chicken Piccata and finally did last night, using my lemons from my very own lemon tree.  I’ve been giving quite a few of them away since all 30 of them ripened, at the same time but I’ve kept some for our house, as well.  There is something so elemental in growing your own food and using it to flavor your life, as well as your food.

Along with my Mom, I put out a very large vegetable garden where it does require a great deal of work and often, a lot of luck, to have a good crop.  This year we had an enormous crop and actually with all the rain we had, we had the garden produce a second showing, which had us scrambling to either use up the produce or give it away.

When you labor for weeks to have a cucumber or tomato grow, you feel a great sense of accomplishment and know that without your efforts, the fruit would not flourish and would die on the vine.  You watch as the tiniest shoots emerge form the ground and you marvel at how quickly they grow into life-sustaining plants.  It’s a natural high but with my lemon tree, all I did was watch it, for months on end with no results.  Oh I watered and fertilized it but still, all 30 of the lemons that were dangling from the branches stayed green.  I checked more than once to make sure that I hadn’t bought a lime tree.  I even planted impatiens at the base of the tree, so that it didn’t look so bare.  The impatiens did so well that they nearly covered the entire lemon tree but that was OK, since I had gotten tired of looking at the drooping branches.

I read conflicting reviews on how and when lemons ripen but I was preoccupied with weddings and parties this summer, that I didn’t investigate fully and thought, why not just be surprised.  I was and am.  I’ll be moving my lemon tree inside soon, so that it can survive the winter and hopefully start it’s new crop, in the spring.  I’ll get to watch the blooms emerge and bring with them the tiny green fruit and it’s OK now that those green orbs stay green, for so long, because I’ll know what’s awaiting me, in the Fall.

I have always hated the grocery store and grocery shopping, which is a bit of surprise because I love cooking and even more, I love a well stocked kitchen.  I think it all started early in life, when I would shop for my Mom, on the weekends, once I could drive.  At first it’s fun and liberating, imagining you’re buying all the groceries for yourself, to take to your own home.  The fantasy doesn’t last long because the drudgery of shopping overtakes it, by a landslide.  My Mother doesn’t enjoy it anymore than I do so I thought it was genetic until my daughter started shopping and declared her love for it.

She must, she shops nearly every day but only because she lives in a location where she uses mass-transit and therefore must carry her groceries, by hand.  Still, she seems to enjoy it, so genetics are out and for her I’m happy, it isn’t fun feeling this way about grocery shopping.  I treat it like it’s the equivalent to going to the doctor for 15 vaccinations, at once.

When I’m in a cooking mood I don’t mind so much especially when I’ve decided to pour over recipes I want to try, making out my lists and buying all of it, in one visit.  Once I’m there, I don’t mind shopping or at least that is how I use to feel about it.  Now though, it’s all about dodging the damn motorized carts.  Not all individuals that have disabilities are apparent, therefore someone who seemingly looks healthy using a cart is not under my scrutiny.  But I have to question the woman, who sat SIDEWAYS, on her motorized cart swinging her legs back and forth and then backed up, doing a K-turn like she was attempting to avoid the authorities and looking pissed because I was in her way.  The only thing she looked to have a problem with was me and the fact that she was 100 lbs. overweight.  I’m not trying to be prejudice against overweight people either but I have to say, if you can walk, you should.  Being overweight is not a disability and it can be rectified by walking.

I know this because nothing inspires me more than watching those shows where someone morbidly obese gets up one day and decides to start walking off, all that weight.  Hundreds of pounds worth and they do it the old fashion way, they walk and start eating better.  Seriously, this is amazing to me because I find it one of the most challenging issues for myself, which is staying on a workout routine.  Imagine weighing that much and making yourself get up everyday and walk.  Inspirational, for sure.

Anyway, back to my main gripe and please don’t think me some shopping snob but when did it become acceptable to shop in your pajamas?  I see at least one individual each shopping session wearing pajamas bottoms, to the store.  I’ve come to expect it during air travel, if not accept it but now the grocery store too?  Do these people fall out of bed and leave straight for the store?  I guess there could be something liberating about it by just not giving a damn but for the life of me, I can’t see the appeal.  It would feel like somehow you’re too sick to dress.  Do you also just fall into bed, at the end of the day?

What about bathing?  Evidently if you’re in your pj’s, you’re not showering first because I refuse to believe that someone would then put back on pj’s to shop in, thus no bathing.  A few years ago a friend of mine asked me if I thought it weird that she held her breathe while passing people in public.  Ok, so she wasn’t holding her breathe continually just in short spurts I guess when she deemed it necessary.  I told her no and confessed that I did the very same thing!  I felt a kinship and knew it wasn’t such a strange thing to do.  While shopping with my sister recently, who has the nasal equivalent to a blood hound, was nearly undone by all the Walmart scents she was being forced to endure and I have to say, I was right there with her.

It isn’t just the bad smells, like body odor or stale cigarettes that get you although there is plenty of that, it’s also the perfumes.  When will society decide that gardenia perfume is actually chemical warfare and ban it from production?  Along with all old lady scents, like the hair spray that creates that perfect white helmet head.  Surely there is a product that can produce the effect without the brain cell damage.

There’s also the elderly shopping day, at our local grocer and although I am not annoyed by the elderly I do try and avoid this day.  I love the elderly and think all due respect should be paid but that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to shop with them.  This is a huge event and one I think they really look forward to and I can’t blame them because it’s probably the only day they get released from their retirement home leash.  I was shopping one day and noticed that the store was literally crammed with elderly shoppers, on every aisle.  Typically if you start shopping at the same time as another individual, you’ll do that shopping dance through the entire store.  Maybe you beat them to the pasta aisle but they make up the difference by getting to the bread aisle ahead of you, so you’re still mamboing together. With the elderly shopping day, you don’t dance with one team though, mainly because you can easily out walk them but all your doing is changing dance teams.  When I say each aisle is littered with elderly I mean every aisle.

They are almost always in couples and this is where it gets interesting.  I always imagine myself and my guy years from now, doing the same thing which keeps me from getting annoyed and kind of makes me smile.  I’d like to put those years off as long as I can but they’ll come, if I’m lucky and I want to spend them with my guy, shopping for the best pickle price too.  There is a procedure for the elderly couple which is the man stands smack dab in the middle of the aisle declaring that the product doesn’t exist, while the woman declares that it does while she moves circles around him, intent on proving him wrong.  If that scenario isn’t playing out the other option is the man holding his brand, which is always cheaper while the woman holds hers as she attempts to sway him to her side of the aisle.

Getting around the couples is the major issue and quite an accomplishment too if you manage to do so without banging into them or scaring them silly.  Nothing freaks me out more than when I scare an elderly man, at the grocery store.  The cans of beans are like a mental hypnotist to these elderly gentleman and nothing short of a loud BOO gets them unfrozen.

I also miss the days where you could have the check out clerk put your groceries on the conveyor belt, scan them, bag them and have the bag boy bring them out to your car.  I miss those days!  It’s not about being lazy, it’s just a convenience I miss and a reminder of the old ways.

So as I sit, making out my list, I’ll take my chances once again, and be thankful for all the conveniences that it provides me and try to leave the annoyances behind.  That or I’ll just out run the damn carts.

Hail the almighty Keurig……I know we’re not suppose to worship idols so says the Bible but trust me on this, the Keurig Platinum is worth worshipping.

I love coffee and although I didn’t start drinking it until the age of 30 I have made up for the lost time with pure devotion.  I do not drink a lot of coffee but I do drink it daily and treat it like the magical property it is, the elixir of life.  That first sip in the morning, the aroma, the heat and the feeling of well being when it moves through you.  It is not the caffeine that I’m addicted to, although that is a nice bonus, it is the beauty of a natural substance given to our world that we have chosen to love.

Which brings me to the Keurig Platinum B70 Brewing Machine.  If you’re a fan of coffee shops and love going in for a fresh brewed cup of coffee then this machine will be perfect for you.  It is not a coffee maker but a brewing system that brews by the cup, which means no large vat of coffee, being warmed by a heating element.

As always I was researching heavily on a new coffee maker when I stumbled across the Keurig.  It’s been over a year now that I’ve had the Keurig and I’m surprised to think back on my reluctance, at the time, to try this new system out.  Old school says you buy a coffee maker, not a machine that requires K-cups or little pods but now I could never go back to the old ways.  It’s the equivalent to saying you prefer a VHS tape over a DVD, you can’t possibly  justify it when one is so superior to the other.  Now I know there are probably amazing coffee makers out there but just let me tell you why this brewing system might be a better choice.

1.  It takes about 40 seconds to make a perfect cup of coffee, tea, hot chocolate or iced beverage, with plenty of sizing options.  Lift the lever, drop in a K-cup of your choice, close the lever and push a button.  It’s still a thrill to watch as that wonderful brown liquid drops into your cup.

2.  There is no clean up and no waste.  Fill the water reserve, as it uses water for brewing.  Throw away the K-Cup after you’ve brewed your cup or recycle it.

3.  Endless coffee and tea varieties to choose from and the cost is less than .50 cents a cup.  I pay only .35 cents per cup by ordering through Amazon.com, where it comes directly to my home, with no taxes or shipping charges and no obligation if you choose to discontinue ordering, from Amazon.

It really is that simple.  I love knowing that each cup is going to be perfection and that there is never any waste and never any clean up.  I love coffee but hated cleaning and stacking the coffee maker to get a single cup.  I really love deciding each morning whether I’m in the mood for Kona, French Roast or one of my new favorites Coffee People’s Wake Up Call blend.

Now that Fall is here, Ill enjoy the hot chocolate K-cups.  I usually can’t finish hot chocolate because it just seems too much but the K-cup hot chocolate seems perfect and not too sweet.  The teas are fantastic as well and I really love those on cold nights, like the Chamomile blends that are so calming and help you sleep.  Another great option is to simply leave out a K-cup and use the brewer for an instant cup of hot water, which you can use for your favorite tea bag or when you need to add water to a soup, but don’t want to use tap water because it brings down the cooking temperature too much.

My family finds it quite funny now when someone inquires about my Keurig because they know I’ll start praising it and probably boring the poor soul that didn’t know what he was getting into when he asked what he thought was an innocent question.  I will tell you this though, I have sold enough of these brewers that I should be on commission, that’s for sure.  It hasn’t really been my infomercial like spiel that has sold the brewers to family and friends, it’s been the coffee, itself.  Once you have a cup you’re sold and so off you go to start your own Keurig worship program.  I hope you’ll consider it, it’s a great way to start your day.

Nothing says summer to me like swimming and eating outdoors.  We do a lot of both, for as long as the weather allows.  Easy favorites are hamburgers and hot dogs and lately we’ve really been into the hot dogs, also known as gut bombs, in our family.  One of my husband’s buddies called them this and the name has stuck now, in our family too.  Yes I realize how unappetizing that sounds but it hasn’t seemed to deter us, even a little bit.

Recently I was talking to my daughter about it and she mentioned that they had bought fake dogs, which I can only assume were tofu dogs or something like that.  She and her new husband have recently started eating vegan and he had mentioned how he found it ironic for some to put down or make fun of someone for buying a fake dog, instead of what constitutes as a real dog.  Think about it, you know what goes into a tofu dog but what about a hot dog?  I totally see his point.  Because it’s as American as apple pie, we aren’t suppose to question it, especially since it tastes so fantastic and somehow makes you feel patriotic, which I don’t get but it does, doesn’t it?

If we all knew what was really in a hot dog, we’d probably never touch one.  Heck, who am I kidding, we live in a country that consumes everything in abundance, especially if it’s bad for us.  Still, if I knew I’d never touch one, which is why I hope I never find out.  I’d even try a tofu or fake dog because I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have ground up cow lips, in it.  Same for sausage which I’m a huge fan of too.  I know it’s probably a terrible thing for me to eat and yet I can’t seem to stop buying them or consuming them.

I’m making a few concessions though since I’m only putting them on those little sandwich thins that Orowheat makes.  Have you seen these little flat buns, yet?  They look like a hamburger bun that’s been baked without an ounce of leavening added to it.  I have to say they’re quite tasty or at least what I put inside them is so tasty I don’t notice I’m not getting a mouthful of doughy bread.  I’ve been reluctant to slide a burger between those anorexic buns because that would surely put me off of them, forever.  The tomato you put in your burger is thicker than these buns but hey I look at it like the compromise you make when you order a big mac, fries and a diet coke.

I also add my very own homemade pickle relish to my hot dog sandwich.  We had an abundance of vegetables from our garden this summer and after my Mom made enough refrigerator pickles to take up all of our extra frig space, she suggested pickle relish, for the left over cucumbers.  We canned all kinds of goodies that day but I mainly worked on the relish and I have to say, it turned out beautifully.  The process of canning is time consuming and requires  sterilization akin to a surgical procedure.    You’re in for a full days work but the pay off is worth it and the pride you feel is second to none.  If there had been a county fair to enter I can promise you I would have entered my relish and expecting nothing less than the blue ribbon.  I would have beamed with pleasure then handed the ribbon to Mom.  I might have made the relish that day but only under her tutelage.  Thanks Mom, for teaching me how to can and prep for surgery, all in the same day.

Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya

I decided to fix one of my favorite dishes on Friday night, Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya.  Being from Louisiana but living in the Midwest means if I want an authentic Cajun dish, I have to cook it myself.  This is a simple dish but it is such a favorite of mine that I end up eating every last morsel and it makes a lot.

Having joined the Facebook community last Christmas, I have reconnected with old high school friends who still live in Louisiana and aren’t punished, for months on end, with the lack of our unique cuisine.  If you have moved away from Louisiana and expect to get authentic Cajun food you will be sadly disappointed.  I guess that’s the only kind of disappointment since I doubt you’d expect to feel happy disappointment.  Anyway, you get the point.

Once my term of punishment began years ago, the only way I could enjoy crawfish was to enlist my sister into bringing me a “fix,” which would consist of a ridiculous amount of boiled crawfish.  She would buy them, ice them down and drive 6 hours where upon I would hug the crawfish, then her.  She understood I think.

I would then get the bugs as far as the sink and dig in.  Twisting the heads, squeezing the back, pinching the tail and no, not sucking the head.  Just can’t do it, never have, never will.  I’m sure that somehow makes me less than a full Louisianan but so be it.  There’s just something wrong about eating the brain of another animal, it’s pretty gross too.  It didn’t matter that the bugs had been sitting in the back of a truck for 6 hours, I had to have them so risking a bit of botulism was not a deterrent.  After I had consumed 2 to 3 lbs. of these lovely crustaceans and my fingers were properly cut to shreds I could come up for air.

I’ve since quit hounding my sister into bringing me the marvelous mudbugs but my desire for them hasn’t waned.  The town I live in actually has crawfish festivals from time to time or at the very least a crawfish boil, on their menu but it just isn’t the same.  They’re not as good as when they’re from home and they’re so overpriced that you come away feeling like the pleasure you had, was completely faked.   I have even reduced myself to buying that little frozen bag from Walmart with tiny little crawfish tails, frozen flat inside the package.  Like looking at butterflies pinned to a wall, what’s the point?

So I’ll continue to feed my soul and my stomach with my own Cajun cooking.  It gives me a feeling of home and roots and isn’t that what food is all about, anyway?

With the weather turning cooler my desire to make and eat soup escalates.  Last night I made my version of a tortilla soup recipe that was printed in our local newspaper, a few years ago.  It was a little on the light side and since I wasn’t wanting to go light I decided to give it an extra shot of carbs.  It’s still healthy but a little more filling than its original version.

That’s all cooking really is anyway.  There is probably about 10 recipes total, since the beginning of time and 77 million versions of them.  I should know I read cookbooks like their novels.  I’m also surprised by the genius of chefs or just great cooks, to come up with new and unique recipes.  After reading so many books though, you do start to know just what ingredients are likely to show up, in any dish.

Still, just when I think I’m a decent cook  I get a new book or see a show and start to feel like a newly married housewife trying to wow her husband  with a new recipe, after a hard day’s work.

Cooking is mostly a love for me but sometimes it’s just a means to an end.  I don’t like when I feel that way because it kills any creativity you might have.  I like fixing a new recipe and feeling great when it’s worthy of going into the meal rotation, at our house.

I think I would love it all the time if I could cook exactly what I want without thought to fat content.  No I don’t have to have a lot but a little extra sure is nice.  I feel this way especially after seeing the movie Julie and Julia.  All that butter!  My little sister use to dip her finger in the butter dish and eat it like it was icing from a cake.  I didn’t get that then, I do now.

Yum...

I buy the butter lover’s popcorn and then melt butter over the all ready buttered corn and I’m pretty liberal with the amount too.  I then seek out the wet kernels and sigh.  Partly because it’s yummy and partly because I know just how bad I’m being.  As I’ve said before, if that bus hits me tomorrow I hope I’ve had my share of butter, the night before.

This trailer for a documentary about cat ladies is scary enough, I don’t think I could make it through the whole movie. As a kid, I didn’t like cats, mostly due to having a strong allergic reaction to their presence. I am not better around cats, but seeing a house with them everywhere gives me the heebie jeebies. It makes me worry they will go evil and eat their owner. That nearly happens in this video:

With a 3 day holiday weekend coming up, we decided to spend it with family.  My sister and her family are coming for a visit.  Our family is quite laid back so there will be lots of sitting, eating, sleeping, eating, sitting, eating, moaning because we ate too much, eating and lots of laughter, spread throughout.  It is not the only thing that will spread, however.

My Mom has already declared it a frying weekend.  That’s not actually accurate, my Mom would fry every day if  I would let her.  She now lives two doors down and with the exception of my constant concern of my bum going into double digits, it has been the most wonderful thing.  My Mom’ s bum has defied the laws of physics and remained the same size as when she was 25!  Yes I agree, the unfairness is beyond difficult to swallow and yet I must, along with all the fried foods she tempts me with.

The menu will consist of fried catfish, fried hush puppies and fried potatoes, along with mayonnaise drenched coleslaw and whatever else she can think to fry.  It is one of my favorite meals so I will gladly go buy the fixing’s.  Let the hardening of the arteries begin and the unbuttoning of my jeans.

Hösten närmar sig. Det är dags att väcka liv i det projekt som jag faktiskt vunnit pris för: Feeding Frenzy. Målet är att starta upp denna burroughska maskin senare under hösten/vintern.

(må verklighetsstudion darra av rädsla inför mitt satsförstörelsevapen!)

När jag skickade in idén till FFKP:s tävling i våras var jag i det närmaste besatt av Burroughs och hans Novatrilogi. Sedan dess har sinnen och medvetande degenererat och sakta trubbats av med underkastelse och konformism som följd – jag känner behovet av mental genomsköljning och sträcker mig efter tre fantastiska böcker: Den mjuka maskinen, Biljetten som exploderade och Novaexpressen.

Här finns så mycket att hämta, man kan bläddra fram vilken sida som helst i någon av böckerna och börja läsa, låta sig uppslukas av intensiteten, fantasifullheten, galenskapen, gåtfullheten och språket. Språket som är såväl hotet – viruset i sig – som befrielsen – medicinen mot detsamma, mot sig själv. Låt mig bjuda på ett magnifikt stycke “vanlig” prosa (ingen cut-up) från andra kapitlet i Den mjuka maskinen:

Du kan inte fatta vilket jävla liv det var när jag drog från Staterna – Jag kände den här langaren som vägrade ha nån skit på sig tryckte det bara i armen – ett till två gram över hans egen absorberingsnivå allt beroende på vilken rutt han jobbade på och pissade ut det i flaskor till sina kunder så att de kunde komma undan som ett gäng perversa typer om snuten slog till – Så Doc Benway utvärderade situationen och kom på den här idén “En gång blev jag stucken av en skorpion i Övre Babianröven – upplevelsen var inte helt olik en fix – Hummmm.” Så han importerar den här speciella skorpionarten och föder upp den på metall och skorpionerna fick en fosforescerande blå färg och liksom hummade “Nu måste vi hitta ett värdigt kärl” sa han – Så vi raggade upp den här gamla pillerpundaren och satte skorpionen på honom och han blev liksom blå och man såg att han fixade direkt på metallen – De här skorpionerna kunde styras via radar och betjäna klienterna så snart Doc fått degen – Det var schysst så länge det varade och snuten kunde inte komma åt oss – Hur som helst började alla dessa skorpionknarkare att lysa i mörkret och om de inte fick sin fix exakt på klockslaget förvandlades de direkt till skorpioner – Så det blev ganska jobbigt och vi blev tvungna att dra vidare maskerade till unga knarkare på väg till Lexington

När jag läste det här första gången blev jag så lycklig – nästan extatisk – och på samma gång dyster. Denna ambivalens möter jag varje gång jag verkligen snöar in på något, när besattheten sätter sina klor i kroppen. Det handlar om lyckan av att ha blivit rörd i grunden av något briljant och genialiskt, något som på en sekund jagade apatin och cynismen på flykten, känslan av att ha fått en glimt av något djupt mänskligt och betydelsefullt. Men så genast kommer dysterheten, övertygelsen om att inget bättre än detta är möjligt, litteraturen/musiken/filmen har med detta verk nått sin absoluta topp och bara degeneration återstår – tusen upphöjda verk man trodde var bra faller handlöst ned i ett mediokert brus.

Det här hände när jag upptäckte Aphex Twin på 90-talet och när jag av en slump ramlade över den amerikanska excentrikern och musikern Daniel Johnston. I min ungdom råkade jag ut för det i samband med upptäckten av Ernst-Hugo Järegårds demoniska inläsning av Skräckens labyrinter. Det hände när jag för några år sedan såg den japanska barnfilmen Min granne Totoro och när jag läste Hundra år av ensamhet av Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Och så hände det i vintras/våras när jag började läsa Novatrilogin som stått i bokhyllan ett bra tag.

Men det går över. Efter ett tag blir man alltid upphunnen av apatin, cynismen och tvivlet. Det låter lite sorgligt, nästan tragiskt, men jag ser det som en av livets barmhärtiga sidor.

Once you go beyond the human aspects of my life, the people I love beyond measure, etc., you then come to my love of coffee.  No other substance has such a pull on my heart and psyche as coffee.  True connoisseurs of coffee would probably look down their noses at me, for not being a purist, when it comes to my coffee consumption.

One of my favorite comments of all time came from my son-in-law, upon hearing that I did not drink my coffee black.  His response, “You are disrespecting the bean!”  I laugh each time I think of it.  Maybe he is right, maybe it’s not a true love affair if  I dilute the miracle of coffee with cream and sweetener.  Still, I have to believe that my affection and devotion is genuine and I am completely devoted, for life.

I have my Mother to blame or thank, as the case may be.  I grew up in Louisiana, where Summers were hot and humid.  My mother drank coffee 20/7 and no that is not a typo.  I don’t think she ever slept more than 4 hours a night, therefore she could only drink coffee 20/7 and she did just that.  She could be in the garden in August, dripping sweat and ask me to bring her a cup of hot, black coffee.  I would do so obligingly and with a stunned sense of shock each time I watched her poor the hot brown water, down her throat.  How could anyone find that thirst quenching, in 105 degree heat?  Forget that black coffee tastes horrifically bad and that at any time of the day or year it would be my last beverage of choice.

I spent part of my childhood washing and stacking the coffee maker but never once was I tempted to partake, with any of the mud that dripped down, into the pot.  I liked the smell but the taste was an abomination to me.  My Mother does not drink coffee to the degree she use to, she now drinks it for the enjoyment that it is meant to be.  During my years of childhood, it must have been her way of self-medication to stay awake and function, as a mother, wife and full time employee.

So how did I become a coffee drinker if I detested coffee so much?  I believe completely that it is a genetic mutation that was lying dormant for the first 30 years of my life.  Once awakened it would never be put to sleep again.  I was married for nearly 12 years before I became a coffee drinker.  Until that time I had a coffee maker, in my kitchen that I knew how to clean but did not know how to produce a pot of coffee from, for my husband.  He only drank it on the weekends anyway, so I just left him to do the task.

It was a two week visit, to my Mom’s house in Tennessee, in the Summer no less, that started my coffee addiction.  Up till that point in time, if I agreed to a cup of coffee it had to be laced with cinnamon, sugar and a pints worth of milk before I would set my lips to the cup.  Basically, I had to obliterate any chance that I would taste coffee.  Only a genetic mutation could be strong enough to change my taste buds into believing that the taste of coffee was one to seek out.

So how did it happen?  On that visit, I woke early each day to help my Mom pick the vegetables from her garden.  My Mom would have been very successful had she lived in a time where your garden was the only thing that kept you from starving through the long cold winters.  Hers was to supplement her store bought groceries and for her enjoyment but she has never treated it as such.  When you’re producing enough cucumbers for 50 people, you’ve over shot your wad.  I can also say that my Mom is overwhelming generous in all things with the exception of home grown produce.  She covets her vegetables like they’re gold nuggets and would rather can 78 jars of pickles than give them away.

Which brings me back to my point, being in the garden with her very early in the morning.  Two 5 gallon buckets full of cucumbers or various other veggies freshly picked and awaiting the next process.  This is when I heard myself say, “Yes, I think a cup of coffee sounds good.”  Yeah,  I know, that’s totally weird, right?  It got even stranger because later in the day we’d start preparing the evening meal and as my Mom and I would cook, she would have a cup of coffee, but never me.  Again I heard myself say, “Hmmmm, a cup of coffee sounds really good right now.”  Such an innocent occurrence and one that continued for two full weeks, much to my surprise.

I know you’re thinking, “Well duh, you became addicted to the caffeine!”  Nope, not even close.  I drank coke or even better,  I would down a cold Mountain Dew, first thing each morning.  During the day I would drink my Mom’s nuclear tea.  It’s the term my husband has given to my Mom’s sweet tea.  Be prepared, if you drink her tea, you will think you’ve shoved a million ants in your bladder and I defy you to sleep a wink.

So it wasn’t the caffeine, it was DNA at it’s finest.  I am a coffee drinker.  Thank you, Mom!

Chicken Encliladas with Tomatillo Salsa

I woke Saturday with a serious urge to cook.  I love cooking but admit I can go months without feeling the need to cook anything special.  Trying to eat healthy has a lot to do with that.  Healthy cooking is a challenge and not one I’m really interested in mastering.  Yes I feel better when I eat healthy. Yes I know it’ll keep my weight down, add years to my life and so on but it’s just not fun.  Butter is better.  Fat is instrumental in making things taste so freaking good you crave them, dream about them and in the end, succumb to them.  If I get hit by a bus tomorrow I sure as hell hope I ate the creme brulee, the night before.  Cliche or not, life is too short.

So it’s with that feeling that I decided to make a nice Mexican meal.  We love Mexican food but get tired of eating a plate of cheese with merely a Mexican feel to it.  I had found this recipe a while back and immediately printed and filed it, for future reference.  This a problem for me because I am constantly searching, printing, collecting and ripping out recipes from everywhere.  I even made a recipe catalog, with a bazillion recipes for all the various dishes I plan to make, before I die.  This dish was headed the way of so many, into recipe catalog oblivion.  My craving for Mexican food and tomatillo salsa saved it.

This was a delish dish.  I bought tomatillos for the first time and roasted them to perfection.  In all, it was a great Saturday, in my kitchen, cooking and enjoying myself immensely.  Mom came down, Rock came in from outside chores and we enjoyed a frozen margarita and a great dinner together.  I’m now wondering why I bothered to go to Mexico.  Oh yeah, we needed to pick up a case of e.coli.

Fuji's Disco Roll

Friday Night…nothing but the weekend ahead of us.  I spent the day taking care of life’s chores and awaiting my new Sedu flat iron.  More on that later.

After talking to both my lovely ladies on the phone I decided it was time to take care of the before and after, of me.  The before was me looking like a train wreck.  The after was me spit shined and smelling sassy.  Ready for my weekend to begin.

I came down the stairs, approximately an hour after having declared I was in the “before” stages and would return, ready for my “after” shot.  I did and I was.

Batting my lashes provocatively at my guy, which always works because it makes him laugh and because it never fails to send him directly into the “What do you want Sugar,” mode.  It did and I did, want something that is.  Being the smart man that he is, he began guessing and without the first hint from me.  “You want to go out… dinner… ah I bet you want sushi?”  He’s a gorgeous man but I keep him around for his brilliance too.

Off we went to eat sushi.  I only became a fan of sushi a couple of years ago.  Rock had been tolerating it for years with bosses and co-workers.  I guess I figured I’d either love it or hate it.  If I loved it, I’d be an addict like everyone else and I would start dragging my guy, to sushi bars forever more.  If I hated it, no worries.  I didn’t hate it so the dragging began and as with anything I like, I became a bit obsessed.  For a while I had to have it once a week.  Honestly I would have eaten it daily but I could only realistically get Rock to go once a week.  Every Friday, for several months.

The wedding party among other things broke our ritual and somewhere in all that, I started controlling my sushi hunger.  It wasn’t easy, I even tried to make it for myself, which was a total failure.  I haven’t recovered yet.

Friday night was perfection.  The first pinch of wasabi, swirling into the soy sauce.  The lobster roll between my chopsticks and headed straight to my mouth and then that “ah” moment.  I also had my favorite disco roll which was also perfection.  The last time the disco sauce was so spicy that it left a hole in my stomach not that that had any kind of deterrent, I finished the whole roll.

Our favorite sushi place had also updated and added another room, which meant extra seating.  It was packed as it always is.  Never let anyone tell you disco is dead.