The Year Without a Christmas Tree

This is the Christmas without a Christmas tree--but it's a good, good thing.

For several years I haven't wanted a big ol' honking Christmas tree in our very small living-room. All year long, it is all I can do to fit our necessary furniture into this space. About six times a year I try shifting everything around in hopes of a more functional, attractive look, and nothing ever helps.  Each piece of furniture seems too big for the room, because each piece IS.

The room is well-loved and well-used, but is the most challenging for workability. It's an old farmhouse, but a modest one, built by humble immigrants long ago who needed to throw together a dwelling before the snow flew.

To throw a big ol' honking Christmas tree in there each December has always driven me crazy-nuts. Despite my admiration for beautifully decorated houses at the holidays, for our own home I have been Scrooge-like in the embellishment department.

It is only for my grown daughter that I have even messed with this "problem." If not for her it would long ago have been a sweet little tabletop tree--and an artificial one at that. It would have been some greenery and some pine cones, and red cardinal birds, of the resin sort and just a few.

This modest extent of decorating I could embrace with the utmost cheer and enthusiasm, but instead each year I wrestle with a "big one." I dress it up and there it towers the room further and blatantly into impossibly small.

My daughter has persistently asked this of me, and why don't I just say NO?

How could I? If my living-room has seemed impossibly small, hers trumps mine for that. Hers is half the size of mine, but this didn't matter when it was just she and her little girl. The two found their little two-bedroom bungalow cozy and delightful and perfectly sensible in size for an up-to-the-ceiling Christmas tree plus all the trimmings.

For some years they trudged through the woods of a "cut-your-own" farm and dressed their living-room to the nines in holiday paraphernalia.

Then one year my daughter "found someone"  and got married. Soon, a recliner for the masculine persuasion was plopped right smack dab where the Christmas tree should go. When December arrived and there wasn't room for both the tree AND the man, she decided not to bump the man. Later, when babies (and baby paraphernalia) added to the congestion she sadly (but also happily) concluded her Christmas tree days were over in that house.

The thing to do then, for the children's sake (it's always for the children's sake) was to beg Mom to keep the tradition of a big Christmas in HER living-room--a place where the little ones spend a lot of time and even open (some of) their Christmas presents in on the big day.

Again--how could I say no?

I couldn't and I didn't, although each year I touched on it and each year she un-touched me on it.

It isn't that my daughter hasn't wanted or tried to get a bigger living-room. For over two years she and her spouse have done all they feel capable of to change things up for space in the house she bought several years ago as a single mom with one child. With a hubby and toddlers now (as well as our older granddaughter), and only two bedrooms to split between them all, well, you can imagine.

"Upside-down" in a mortgage often means "upside-down" in the home life, too. This new reality for lots of families presents lots of challenges much more serious than where to put a Christmas tree at Christmas time.

Where to put the babies might be one, or where to put grown kids who need to "come home" might be another.  Another one might be where to put Mom or Dad or both, when everyone is pooling together resources to manage expenses and keep a comfortable roof overhead.

A recent NBC news segment addressed the growing numbers of multi-generational families living under one roof, "much the way it used to be."

Not all good and not all bad--but the reasons for it seem to be usually from not-the-best circumstances. In general, choices are limited and everyone struggles to find the best answers within their means.

Some years ago my daughter's grandmother (my mother-in-law) lived in "not-the-best" circumstances. She had plenty by way of real estate house value (before the bubble burst) but not enough money to meet her daily needs. Nothing any of us said could make her sell while the selling was good and she was alive to enjoy it. When she passed, the money that could have bettered her life went instead to her children.

She meant for this to happen, and her "children" also meant her grandchildren, we are sure. She threw the ball into our court, and when that happens, you gotta play ball.

Also for sure "playing ball" wears down a safety net. But life is all about the kids and the grand-kids, so this year it looks like (God willing) the grand-kids are having their own "big ol' honking" Christmas tree in their own bigger living room. (And I am finally doing my tabletop tree!) There is a fireplace to hang their stockings from, and a mantle to display a lighted Christmas village across. The family is over-the-moon happy, and they're not counting their lucky stars.

They are counting their blessings.

The Cake Time Never Forgot

'Tis the season for gorging, and how hard are you trying not to?

Because I've set the bar low, I'm doing pretty well. The thing is, after my January blog of this year (when I boldly proclaimed the onset of my determination to lose weight) I thereafter gained three more pounds.

Shocked, I was. It was a total confirmation to me that menopause is a much more powerful foe than my mindset can conquer, at least for this stage in my life.

I could blame it on the grand-babies this time. (And I think I will.) Sure they require alot of chasing after, but their naps are really only of any length when they are in the arms, and this means Grandpa and I take a nap now, too. When we attempt to wriggle away, they waken too soon and are cranky at that.

So we snooze when we don't need to, and finish the snacks they abandon. Grandpa, however, shows no evidence of any of this, even though he eats more of the snacks than I do. Despite everything, I recently got BACK to my January weight and that weirdly felt like an achievement. And THAT gives you a picture of how low my bar is.

When I was a teenager and weighed (probably like you) 103 pounds, eating too much or too often held few consequences. But I did always pay attention to my mom and older aunts who warned me it wouldn't always be this way.

My first memorable battle with reining in portion-control saw me badly defeated; the remorse afterward was such that I've never since failed so completely again.

The smells in my kitchen today (Thanksgiving) have spurred me into into blogging the tale of that experience, but please don't think I'm a crazy person who can blog and cook a big Thanksgiving dinner all at once--I did much of the work yesterday.

This particular drives-you-crazy aroma is from a cake, and a nondescript-looking one even. Decades ago in the home I grew up in, my sister, Cris, brought this cake home from a holiday work party. It was nearly a whole cake, untried by many probably because of its basic and plain look, yellow and unfrosted. The only thing special about its appearance was its form (bundt-pan molded, still a novelty in the late 60's) and a generous dusting of confectioner's sugar.

So un-special did this cake seem, when the left-overs of that work party were divvied up, my sister accepted it with the attitude that "with so many people in our house, it will eventually get eaten."

Cris laid the cake on the counter with no expectations that anyone would gush over it. In fact no one did, but as I remember it, the house was pretty empty then. My dad was at work, and either my mom and the younger kids were out and about or in their rooms, with another older sister, Cindy, living away from home at the time.

Cris left the cake with a comment that it was excess from the party and that the family was welcome to it, and off she went for a nap. It seemed the kitchen was mine--and too the cake, at the worst possible time of day--me in the throes of my after-school appetite.

But I had just finished something to take the edge off things, and with the humble look of the thing, I regarded it as "filler." A just-as-humble slice would help me call snack-time good, so I thought.

Not to be. The innocent cake's not-so-innocent secret ingredient (sherry wine) injected WOW into my taste buds, and I immediately lopped off another slice. And another. It was crazy tender and flavorful and my control panel went berserk with malfunction. With no one around to raise their eyebrows at me I just kept going--kept going straight into eventual horror at myself and the drastically dwindling circle of bundt.

Too quickly it was over. I didn't eat the whole thing, but I may as well have, for all the good any explaining might have done. In a family of ten, (nine living at home) one didn't just eat almost a whole cake. (Or in ANY family, I am sure.)  I never did anything like that before, and I couldn't even begin to think of how I might regain my standing in our household.

With wheels spinning in my mind as to what I might say, I was unfathomably graced with non-discovery. Cris's nap was not a long one, and when she re-emerged into the kitchen for all she knew other family members had also enjoyed the cake. I didn't say otherwise, except that I did confess "I almost couldn't stop eating the thing, it was so good." She polished off the rest, and before the family starting filing back into the kitchen I discreetly shoved the disposable plate into the garbage. They never missed what they didn't know.

Whew. I was SO grateful not to be caught with my cake-pants down. The feeling of what might have come to pass (for embarrassment) has probably helped me rein in on portion control ever since--but it never stopped me from tracking down the recipe for that cake. I make it every year at the holidays, and I'm happy to say I can take one wedge and call it good for the day. (I'm also happy to be in a place in my life where I feel fine about telling the story!

Orange you glad? (You don't HAVE to eat an orange)

Since when did an orange become a delicacy?

Like you, I was brought up with fruit readily available, cheap enough it never seemed "forbidden." If anything, it quickly became boring and not properly appreciated. (Except for in-season and local--that never seems to get old.)

For many decades fruit has been commonly freighted or trucked across America. We are way past the times when an apple and an orange in a Christmas stocking elicited a thrill the way Laura Ingalls Wilder described for her pioneer Christmases.

I admire my friend Mary, who (in her seventies) still considers an apple or an orange a treat, and chooses either regularly for her evening snack. You should hear her go on about a "Clementine" orange--you would think she's enjoying a See's candy.

Sadly I admit I would any day of the week choose a See's dark chocolate and a cup of coffee over an orange for a treat. I just believe in quality per calorie and that's QUALITY in the eye of THIS beholder.

To this beholder, most transported veggies fare better than fruits. I would also rather have a nice green salad over fruit most any time and I do, even if quite honestly a lettuce leaf is more (for me) a vehicle with which to transport a creamy dressing than a tasty thing in itself.(My dad used to say that the truth hurts, and it does.)

If I don't properly appreciate fruits, I know that many people do. They don't just eat fruit for the health of it, they love it. Fruit is both a staple and a pleasure in their households, not something they can easily imagine life without.

When not on sale, our local Wisconsin markets have priced oranges lately at 1.79 a pound. (Are prices similar nationwide?). The "huge" chain (at time of this writing) doesn't even sell oranges individually, it's a bag of pre-picked or nothing.

Recently I wanted one sizable one for a cake, and at the dollar I paid for it I was happy the recipe called for the juice AND the rind, and I even threw in a little pulp to feel I was getting that whole dollar's worth. The cake would last for days and serve several times over, but what about when people just want to eat the orange? For people with modest incomes, a couple of pieces of fruit per day per family member starts to look like a real luxury. Especially when half the weight of the thing (rind, skin, pits, seeds) goes into the garbage.

Avocados lately here have also been approaching 2.00, and just for one, not one pound.  Once every few weeks a sale brings them down to .99 ea and that's when they sell. The rest of the time they sit and pucker, sit until they're worthless and have to be thrown out. Then a new batch changes them out, and the whole waste thing starts over again.

It seems crazy, and what is this about? No economist am I, but I have always heard that "prices will reflect what the market will bear." We're not talking organic food consumption here, which is so specialized and regulated at least there is some level of understanding about pricing. (But really? I don't know one family, outside of couples only, who can afford to eat largely organic---and there's something wrong with that picture, too.)

Another thing I've always heard is that pricing is of course related to supply and demand. Whatever a shortage is attributed to, if whatever's there is flying off the shelf at high pricing, that price is justified.

I definitely believe that supplies of produce are often affected by climate, but if people can't afford fruit in a good season, what happens then in a poor season?  More good fruit goes unsold, wasted.

I don't get this kind of marketing. One would think history makes a good teacher, but it rarely does. Human nature always seems willing to push the boundaries. Get the most one can while giving the least one can get away with. Risk the bottom falling out or the bubble bursting up top--and most of the while here call it the "American" way of enterprise.

I remember as a young child walking with my cousins alongside the orange groves that bordered my Grandma Rosa's property in Placentia, California. Distinct signs were plentiful in these orchards--warnings that anyone (aside from employees) caught picking an orange would be subject to prosecution with penalty of a $500.00 fine. We assumed this meant it didn't have to be off the tree, off the ground would apply too.

Even that scary penalty didn't make the fruit exciting and a challenge to partake of. That I know of, we cousins never risked those warnings. Why would we? Any one of us could go into our respective kitchens and always find good fruit. Some of us even had orange trees in our backyards.

In the marketplace, the penalty for the consumption of good fruit has evolved into a different kind of punishment. If you don't get much of anything out of something you've paid highly for, you feel taken.  The new "temptation" with this kind of "forbidden fruit" is a strange one. You WANT to resist it--pass it by,
don't pay the price. It isn't about the taste of it anymore, it's about making a statement. If bananas, grown out of this country and imported in, can be the generally most affordable fruit in the produce section, why can't other fruits grown here come close in everyday affordability? Is it really the cost of doing business "here" versus the cost of doing business "there"?

A conspiracy seems to be saying "Let them eat cake....." and maybe we should.

"The Tools of the Trade"

The tools of the trade are not what they used to be.

For better or worse, the beauty of this is in the eye of the beholder.

In my growing up years in Southern California, my mother, a renowned "good cook" of our Mexican-American culture, relied on the simple and classic to get her good meals on the table. Except for a cast-iron pan, most of these mainstays have gone by the wayside in favor of "new and improved" tools. Let's discourse a little about that.

Take the simple art of salsa making. For the indescribably best product, a whole lot of green chilies need to get roasted. A melange of personal favorites (experimentation decides this, one cook at a time) snug up in a skillet, but with less intimacy than one might think. You can't crowd them too tightly, and you can't rush the proper blistering of chilies with quick, relentless heat. Try this once and you'll suffer the loss of superb ingredients as well as  deflated anticipation. Skins that will not release take all the good flesh with them--straight into useless, straight into the garbage can.

No, you gotta baby things along. Fire up that seasoned (cast iron) skillet, nice and hot to start--but lower that burner to steady and almost slow, and nurse those blisters into billowy pockets heavy with "just right" blackening. Ideally, the skins (upon cooling) will pull away with most of the flesh intact while retaining just enough blackened peel to embolden your salsa with flecks of char.

Food art, but delicious, flavorful art. I can still see on my mother's counter her "molcajete," the tool of the trade for stripping down roasted chilies and blanched tomatoes. A molcajete (if you are unfamiliar) is a volcanic rock bowl with three tapered legs, the whole thing being one piece. The unit is accompanied by a tejolote, a smaller shaped rock meant to be manipulated as a hand grinder against the peppers and the walls of the molcajete.

Somehow salsa made that way seems "crafted" to me, but in a recent conversation with my mother, she confessed readily that she hasn't made it that way for many years. She even further blasphemed my memory by saying that not too long ago she made some for the family in a blender, the now-accepted (really?) way to do things. (Along with a food processor, I suppose.)

She softened the blow with the qualifier that the blender has to be pulsed "just so," in a "skilled" way so as not to mush the ingredients.

My stabbed heart sheepishly recuperates, because except for salsa that I chop from fresh uncooked ingredients, of course I make mine in a blender too........so much for THAT romancing of the volcanic stone bowl.

(After reminiscing about the beauty of a molcajete I started to browse online for one of my own, but soon decided against it. With my personality and ownership of such a cultural object, I would likely be pressed with the urge to turn my Wisconsin farmhouse into a hacienda, and just don't get me started.)

Another tool gone is the in-counter breadboard that was once included in even the humblest of kitchens, all across America. Young people now are kind of amazed by them; a sturdy, functional board that easily pulls out to provide extra work surface. These days if you want such a helper in your kitchen you have to ask for it and pay dearly for the luxury. (I recently saw a smallish, shabby, actually coming-apart cabinet with a breadboard on an online vintage-specialty site--priced at well over $2000.00, shipping not included.)

In our house my mother didn't make bread, she made tortillas. I can still hear the slap-thunk, slap-thunk of my mother's rolling pin on such a board. She worked up a big mound of dough, and from that tugged off smaller elastic balls. These she whomped and stretched into round discs, then (this time more slightly) charred and blistered them to perfection on her trusty cast iron surface.

The simple, old tools of the trade--they didn't require electricity and most of them were invaluable to most women, regardless of their cultures. No pioneer woman worth her salt tried to cross a prairie without her iron skillet, and I don't know that a pie crust in that age or now can make it across a pie pan without the help of a timeless rolling pin. Whipping cream didn't always result from a motor (see the "Beauty and Purpose" entry on this blog) and certainly not from an aerosol can.

Do I really think that old ways and tools of the trade make for the very best flavors? Do I really think food prepared now on my very modern stove is somehow lacking?

Not when I'm hungry I don't. Sure I love atmosphere and the appeal of timeless things and ways. It is true that old objects and the methods they provided somehow immerse my mind with appreciation for the skills and talents of the many predecessor cooks I never knew. But the food I put on the table now is prepared with enthusiasm (most of the time) and always with a sense of wanting to nurture my loved ones--so what could ever improve on THAT?

Revisiting my mother's own methods wasn't just a warm and fuzzy thing. My witnessing of her simple, priceless talents meant that I could do those things, too. Yes, store-bought tortillas are surely very handy, but the ones I'm planning for our supper tonight.......well, you can imagine.

My fourteen-year-old granddaughter has now witnessed my making of handmade tortillas countless times. Someday, in her own home, I can see her "rolling her own," and it'd better be tortillas!

"Aunt Bea"

I'm now well past the age my Aunt Bea was when I considered her "older."

It was the late sixties and I was fifteen. Aunt Bea was fifty-ish, but Mayberry was not her town. MY Aunt Bea was not pleasantly frumpy or plump. She was beautiful in her own way--attractive, energetic and even somewhat cool. She and I worked side-by-side in the family restaurant her sister and their husbands had established in Placentia, California.

From this setting my work ethic was born. A tad on the shy side, I learned that if you can't blow customers away with wit and charm, you CAN draw them like flames to a moth with good food and service.

The Beatles, Santana, and the Chicago Transit Authority were all musical players in this environment--a surprise to me and at the insistence of Aunt Bea.

"Music for people my age is too dull," she declared, as she prompted me to set the radio dial. "We need music with a beat for people to enjoy their food with and for us to move along to."

Aunt Bea especially like the rhythms of the first-time around Carlos Santana. His music is perfect, she said, for our Mexican restaurant. She considered his brand of Latino-influenced rock a much more natural fit than the Barbra Streisand or Liza Minnelli tunes she also enjoyed.

Observing Aunt Bea's energetic and fun persona fooled me into regarding her as more youthful than she was, though in this day and age each decade in general seems about "ten years younger" than it used to be. To my sixteen years, fifty-some seemed at the time grandma-ish, for sure.

Aunt Bea was my dad's older sister, and the years don't lie. Whenever she tugged at her elastic-waist slacks, she did herself in. To the untrained eye, she was slender and fashionable enough, but when she yanked on that elastic, her front was foiled.

The trouble with elastic-waist pants, she pointed out, is that they fool you into thinking you're not carrying an extra ten pounds of weight. With subterfuge like that, ten pounds can turn into fifteen, fifteen into twenty, and then smocks become the rule.

These days I know too well what Aunt Bea meant. For the longest time I refused to own anything elastic-waisted, and I still would rather wear gut-wrenching, tourniquet-duty waists than fall victim to the belief that I can afford to gain even one more pound. But sweats and p.j. bottoms are pretty darn comfortable around the house, and shamefaced, I concede they have pretty much become the rule for me at home.

But like Aunt Bea, I'm fighting the good fight. I live in Wisconsin now, and winters present a struggle for me that Aunt Bea didn't know. But she had other struggles in other ways the likes I know for myself I could never overcome. Struggles so hard a niece who loves her as I do will not speak of them widely, in a blog post that can't possibly pay proper tribute to her private travails.

Somehow, to look at Aunt Bea you would not know this. She recently told me how once, in the keeping of a routine doctor's appointment (at well into her nineties) she was in the room with a nurse who begged to be excused because, she said to my aunt, "I need a minute to round up your forms; these here have you mixed up with someone ninety-five years old! I'll be right back."

Aunt Bea stopped her with, "No, that's me. I'm that old."

The nurse did not bother to hide her disbelief or even play it up with falsity. She simply paused, and left the room anyway. When she returned, she had with her other professionals from the office, gawking at my aunt from the doorway. The nurse did not hesitate to say, "See?!! Does this woman look 95 years old TO YOU??!!"

And no, they didn't think so! To their inquiry about the secret of her youth, Aunt Bea only said that she had lived troubles beyond their imagination, but that faith and prayer, exercising, eating right, and that her own mother lived to be 100, seemed to be reasons why.

Aunt Bea loved telling that story, even if she tempered it with, "I never felt like such a FREAK in my life."

I've never so much as once ran a marathon, as Aunt Bea did, almost into her eighties. My kinship with her is about family history and about the music--love for the sort that seems "too young" for us, but in fact, keeps us feeling young.

As fate would have it I also had my own restaurant in my forties until my mid-fifties. Whenever I set the radio there, I thought of my Aunt Bea. I would surf the dial to find music that "popped" with liveliness, and sometimes (when I was alone, before turning the "open" sign around) I would even run over to it and PLAY IT LOUD.

When Carlos Santana was enjoying quite the comeback with the hit recording "Smooth," a collaboration with Rob Thomas, I wondered if Aunt Bea was aware of it, and if she ever recalled our days at the family restaurant. She would have been as tickled as I was to see him enjoy another vibrant round of success; a "using it" and not "losing it."

These days my cooking and serving skills are pretty much reserved for my family and a few friends--but I still love to do my work with the dial set to music that helps me "move along." Some of that music is so lively it defies you to not run over to the radio and "PLAY IT LOUD."

At my age, I'm embarrassed to admit I do that now and again--but then I tell myself, "Aunt Bea probably did. It probably is a reason she forgot to mention, that day in the doctor's office."

Aunt Bea is just this side of 100 years old now! Her younger sister, Nina, is devoted to her and committed to maintaining their lifelong closeness. Both have told me that an original copy of my tribute to "Aunt Bea" is something she hopes will be read at her memorial service, "when the time comes."

I am but a speck in the family sphere now, having lived afar from Aunt Bea for many decades, my story with her miniscule. But just knowing she said that once, is honor enough for me.

Update: Rest in peace, beloved Bea.

Note: 1st photo shows Bea on the right, Nina on the left. 2nd photo is Nina on the left, me center, Aunt Bea on the right.

"Randy"

During this (and his) birthday month I've been thinking of my brother Randy, and how next year he will (God willing) meet a milestone birthday--his fiftieth. This is something we once could hardly contemplate.......

Families were larger in the sixties, and ours fell in stride. In 1964 my parents had five daughters, with another baby on the way.

Part of it was a Catholic thing, but surely anyone could understand that a little boy's entry into our realm would "mix it up" a little, and be a very welcome newcomer to our very girly household.

I was eleven years old when my brother was born, and right off I knew how momentous his coming into our world was. He was given the majestic name of "Rudolph Anthony" (after our dad and grandfather) but "Randy" came to our lips more naturally and seemed a better fit.

I wondered about my dad's inner musings about my brother. As if to keep us all equal, Dad didn't overtly express his excitement about now having a son. He was not a man who shared feelings at all. We imagined, though, that Randy's future relationship with Dad would be exclusive. In our house, they were the lone members of their special society; by virtue of our gender we just could not take part.

I think we siblings were all fine with this. We were happy for Dad's sense of completion. Dad's Mexican heritage gifted him with the trait of machismo--some of which played out in in the natural drive to carry on the family's name, and simply for the meanwhile to enjoy the camaraderie of the father and son kinship.

Randy was an "easy " baby, quiet and not problematic. But almost before we could adjust to the idea that his presence would soon "change it all up" for us, he became seriously ill. Things worsened as a few days passed, and then panic set in. At four months of age he was transported by ambulance from our local facility
to the University of California at Los Angeles hospital. There each anxiety-ridden day surged heartbreakingly into the next.

We learned only then that aside from this sudden, blindsiding health emergency, our brother had been born with Down Syndrome. The term was new to us, but we gathered quickly that this was devastation. Randy would never be "normal," and at the time it was very often suggested to parents that institutionalization was  the best course of action. Suddenly we were not just fearing Randy's death, but if he lived, what decisions would we face about his care? Would he even be in our lives?

The day came when extended family members came to our home. They came to support us, because our parents had now been told to prepare for the worst--Randy was not expected to make it through the night.
Even my mother and father came home in the late afternoon; the emotional havoc had peaked to unbearable and they chose to take some time of respite with their girls.

With sustenance in mind, the women began the assemblage of a meal. Something was needed from the store and my mother sent me into her room for her purse.

Following her command, my parent's closed bedroom door did not register with me. Usually left open, its closure now just did not sink in, and I burst in to get the purse.

Jolted is the word I think of--the physical, mental sensation of being hit with a hard sight and a hard realization---when I recall the image of our dad, at his bedside, on his knees and in posture of prayer.
I had unwittingly crashed into this most private, solemn moment of appeal to his God, and nothing I could do would take back the moment.

As I was stunned, so was he. He vaulted to his feet, shaken by the invasion to his privacy, but not in the slightest angry. Even in solitude he wore dark sunglasses to hide the wear on him from the many days of angst, and from under their glare I saw that tears had worked their way down his face. His lips trembled, and he said simply, earnestly, "Pray for your brother, honey."

With his uttering of those few words, I knew that my dad wanted my brother to live. He hadn't been on his knees suggesting to God that he (my dad) could accept God's will, come what may. He wasn't leaning toward a "way out" of this. He wasn't secretly, ashamedly harboring thoughts that Randy's death would be "for the best," as some had insinuated might be the better answer.

No--he was praying for my brother to LIVE. Not to recover and then be turned over to an institution, but to recover and COME HOME. To get well, and be a part of this family, come what may.

Somehow I knew this. Even in the sixties, when children with Down Syndrome were still horrifically referred to by a term I can't to this day utter or write, and were most often shunted off to institutions, I knew this. My dad was a prideful man who would have loved nothing better than to mold a son in his own image--but that afternoon I knew he would take Randy as he was, come what may.

The knowledge of this about my dad was golden. Like all fathers, ours was not a perfect man. He had received little molding himself; his own dad had died when he was just five years old. No other man showed up to parent him; he was raised by his mother and sisters. We girls understood this was a big void for him, but it did not always help when we suffered his less than shining moments.

With Randy we saw our dad in a new light. I do not know what promises or conversations our parents made with God or with each other about Randy. I only know that when Randy came home, he was loved and nurtured and in turn was loving and nurturing to all of us. Never rambunctious, he was always gentle and kind, thoughtful and dear. He was funny too, his constancy in good cheer giving him his own style of charisma.

The changes Randy brought to our household were not the ones we expected. They were probably better. As the years went by my parents often heard from relatives and friends about the trials they were experiencing with their growing sons. Some of these trials had life-altering, tragic consequences--and so the strangely converse comfort of knowing Randy was home safe and sound was perhaps not so strange, after all.

There's much more to Randy's story and I hope to tell more on this blog, hopefully after his milestone birthday. And even though my dad has been gone now for many years, I know today as I knew "that day" that Randy's story is in great part a happy one, because of the molding my dad gave him, "come what may."

Grandma's Hoosier Cupboard

                                                                 

Mine, when in my shop

Looks just like mine but I don't have it anymore!

A showroom-new cupboard is flawless, but it could never make me swoon the way my Grandma's Hoosier did.

Now, lest your imagination fancies you with visions of golden-aged oak, roll-top breadbox and classic built-in flour sifter, I must enlighten you to the modesty of Grandma Rosa's Hoosier. Her cupboard, in her California home in the fifties, was made from humble pine, painted creamy white.  Its essential purpose in life was to store food and kitchen items, and this it did for many years, to my never-failing (?) enchanted memory.

It was the imprint of these recollections that induced me to eventually bring such a one home for myself, decades later to our Wisconsin farmhouse.

We came upon our find in a dank shed adjacent to a rural antique store several miles from home. The shed was used for overflow of bigger items the main building could not house, with "weathering" continually seeping in at all sides, underneath and from up above.

We didn't snatch it up right away. In fact, we passed on it several times. Despite its banishment to a near-dungeon, it was a slightly bigger-ticket item, and our pocketbook was more in line with the smaller dishware in the shop.

After about a year of frequenting this shop, we at last rescued the cupboard from icy winters and sweltering summers. A little worse the wear from the elements, we scrubbed up the warped wood and gave it a fresh coat of paint, then slid it into our farmhouse kitchen.

We backed up the Hoosier against a longish wall and set our aged oak table in front, and went industriously  to work stocking it, filling it generously with jars of flour, sugar, and other staples.

I used a fine, wide drawer for rolling pins and cookie cutters and all manner of old but perfectly useful kitchen utensils. The smaller drawers were prime for dishtowels and cloths, and a deep tin-lined bin was ideal for airy bags of potato chips. Behind its sizable bottom door my bigger stockpots and gangly bake-ware found perfect housing.

I loved the look of that Hoosier in my kitchen. It was homey and functional--and put me back in time to my grandma's kitchen.

My grandma's Hoosier was recessed under overhead built-in cupboards in her narrow but generous kitchen.

It too was painted white, with no fancy adornments. Early each morning Grandma would unwrap a fresh stick of butter from her refrigerator, and set it in a butter dish on the enamel work surface of the Hoosier. Whenever we grandchildren spent the night with her, we could count on sweet butter that cut and spread easily onto our toast, or sliced cleanly to sizzle in a frying pan for our breakfast eggs.

Grandma's cupboard too was full of purpose. It sheltered her everyday dishes up top and always had a loaf of fresh bread in its cubbyhole middle. The work surface was made for putting together sandwiches, or for slathering preserves onto warm tortillas. It was also a good place for holding dishes from the front eating room as they awaited their turn at the sink.

Whenever I used my Hoosier, it never failed to spur me into further musings tied to Grandma.

My own mother would tell you that Grandma was forever stern, fault-finding and hard to know. (Perhaps this was part and parcel of many a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship.) My own personal experience told me otherwise. At Grandma's house there was always a game of Chinese Checkers ready to go, and cousins to meander her small acreage with. For me, her steady presence was unobtrusive but yet warming all at once. 

It really was Grandma's kitchen and her humble Hoosier cupboard that bespoke best the connectedness she felt with you. Her little stocked pantry filled with nurturing foods told you this. Her invitation for you to generously help yourself made her welcoming to you ever so implicit.

In time Grandma would move into a newer house in a nearby town, replete with a good plenty of built-in cupboards. She didn't take the Hoosier with her, and not too long afterward I heard the old house was being razed, as they say, to put in a parking lot. I didn't nurture impractical thoughts of tracking down that cupboard; in fact I hardly remembered it at all then.

It was really only when I saw the neglected Hoosier in the dank shed in Wisconsin that Grandma's kitchen came so alive to me again. Seeing it stirred all the old images, such that I determined images like that should transpire in our farmhouse kitchen for our own children.

And so it did. For myself, I could never go near the thing without wanting to draw up a chair and pour out a cup of fresh coffee. Sometimes I would sit to heavily lace my cup with rich cream and sugar, and slurp just a little noisily, the way Grandmas always did. A new and perfect cupboard would never incite this urge in me!

One year, I decided to move my Hoosier to a soup and sandwich shop I had opened in the small town near our home. My "kids" then had flown the nest, and it was just the thing the place needed to beckon customers over to its side, where they naturally pulled up a chair to cozily sit for a light lunch.

Their explanation as to why this was the corner most often chosen always touched on the very simple and almost universal: it reminded them of their Grandma's kitchen.

After about thirteen years, I closed that shop and made the reluctant move to sell the Hoosier. My home kitchen had been changed up so much there didn't seem a place for it anymore.  I did not resign the piece to another stretch of loneliness, however. Another couple considered it a delightful nostalgic find and told me they would be enjoying it in a little private cabin they have created away from the main house on their rural property.  They go there for peace and seclusion they say, from all the commotion that occurs even in this "quieter" neck of the rush-rush world.

An object is just an object, but is it? If the use of it traverses the generations and its very presence is evocative of the most pleasant remembrances a person could ever hope to recreate, it IS something more, isn't it? 

"You Can't Give 'em Away"

I know very well the windfall plenty of an overflowing garden.

For a few fleet days or weeks, everything is crisp, sun-kissed and sumptuous, far surpassing any store-bought produce on the planet.

After awhile it's just THERE. Nagging you, prodding you, spurring you to your feet when all you really want to do is snooze in the hammock.

But no...........zucchini and cucumbers are greening by the minute, growing an impenetrable hide on the outside while turning mealy and seedy inside. It doesn't take long for vegetables to pass their prime, even when they've taken all summer to be ready.

The first blushing tomato is a thrill. The first few after are still wonderful, but too soon they seem to come as ill-considered brutes in their timing. Either you're dogging the vines hourly to pounce on the earliest crimson, or you're overwrought with blighting and blackening fruit teeming outward from all your kitchen surfaces onto your back porch.

Waste not, want not. It all boils down to work, work, WORK. And boiling your are, not just from the steaming kettles of preservation on near 100 degree days. You are also boiling mad at yourself for insisting upon planting a dozen plants of this and a dozen plants of that, when half a dozen of each was really more than you ever needed.

And so in due time you become the generous, thoughtful neighbor and friend. You pack bags and baskets of the surplus, and go rapping on doors here and there. There is a mix of dread and relief in doing this; you are joyous to unload the excess but equally fearful to hear, "Thanks, but I can't possibly take these--I have more of everything than I know what to do with myself!"

Thus, you never wait to be invited in for a cup of coffee. You rap and RUN, hopeful you can escape before the bounty is deemed yours again. When you get back home and discover even MORE veggies have ripened, you wearily pack them into bags and set out a "free produce" sign at the end of your driveway.

How conflicting is the feast and famine of growing things in their season. You toil and depend mightily on the good graces of the sky. You wait patiently for exceedingly long days for that first fabulous fruit. The anticipation is akin to that first phone call from the man of your dreams, long desired, tremulous with the thrill of the chase.

Once you've snared the man (or the tomato) you wish he (or it) would leave you alone for awhile. You'd rather have supper with a girlfriend or open an easy can of spaghetti sauce.

For the past few summers, I've concertedly bought a three-pack of tomato plants, set them in pots on the porch to be nurtured to their harvest. Doing it this way has usually been a bust. There's something about hoping for large returns on hardly any investment that rarely flies for me--it's simply not my lot in life.

These days I resort to more hardy gardeners than I. I look for their roadside stands, or I wait comfortably at home. It's my turn to hear that rap on the door, and be assured--I'll answer the door cheerfully, with a surprised but gracious appreciation.

I think I'll put the coffeepot on now.

"Let them eat cake"

I believe it was Marie Antoinette who said, "Let them eat cake."

I say let them BAKE cake. And roast meats, throw together sumptuous salads, pasta entrees, and create all manner of awesome food. Let THEM be trendy with classic dishes and be daringly inventive with that which is already unfamiliar.

Who is "them"? Anyone but me.

I've been there and done that. I like to think I gave as good as I got in the arena of chic little eateries, and as with any worthwhile venture its peaks and valleys ran their course. For me, there is no turning back.

But looking back is another matter, because the way all people sustain themselves intrigues me. It's not my business (literally, anymore) but it still intrigues.

Flavor, beauty, and wholesomeness should all be part and parcel of the eating experience. I understand there are people out there who eat for nourishment only, and any hoopla in partaking of anything is a mystery to them. Eating is out of necessity only for these sorts, and THAT viewpoint is mystifying to me.

Enjoyment of eating isn't the only pleasure in life, and it certainly isn't the most important "thing,"  as is love of family, general health and welfare, justice and equity for all. 


But nature runs its course when these all-important things cannot be fully enjoyed without the certainty of physical nourishment. All are intertwined; a great lack or abuse in any one of these areas compromises life and diminishes quality within, for sure.


We know that "the body is the temple" and "we are are what we eat." Food does matter, it is crucial to our overall well-being, so why wouldn't a modicum of hoopla about it be just fine?


What I love lately about good food is not wasting it. As a matter of routine in my cafe, I nurtured quality ingredients into creative fare, always in sufficient amounts to serve the number of guests I hoped to have.


This guesstimation always proved to be a crap-shoot. Some days our customers were lucky to be offered the one chicken salad "fold-over" we had left; other days we could not scare up a single taker for food I was fit to burst with pride over. (Maybe that was the problem--PRIDE.)


It may be in the cost of doing business that some product has to be thrown out, but it's a hard thing to do. You consider the beauty of it, the cost and all the other expenses you've incurred to put food out there that isn't same-old, same-old, and in the end you kind of suspect same-old is really what people want, despite choruses to the otherwise.


I always found good homes for good leftovers, and that took some of the sting out of things. It's more than fine to share surplus, but most business advisers do tell us we need to sell at least a little more than we give away.


I love that at home this angst is gone. I don't know that it was so much a "wide audience" I needed about my cooking (so much as a way to earn while enjoying a loved pastime), but I do puzzle at the lengths I went to over food.


Maybe (as a new line of groceries is named) it is because "food should taste good."  I wanted to share that belief, one I mightily hold. But the business of food opened my eyes to many struggles regarding sustenance in the world, and I come away enlightened.


Far and away from those trying to sustain themselves with the business of selling food, there are many others more concerned with simply and essentially just having enough food in the cupboards at home. Their mindset hardly dwells on costly meals out.


I have a new understanding and admiration for the timeless piece of art ("Grace" by Enstrom, I believe) where an old man prays intently over his bowl of soup and loaf of humble bread. It is evident that the fellow sincerely appreciates his daily bread, but more than that I can picture that image going into motion with relish and gusto after his prayer is done. I can see the man dipping that hearty bread into his broth to sop up every bit of flavor, until it is "all gone." I can't speak for that man and don't know if he ever yearned or enjoyed much more, but I am convinced there are many people even now very happy, fully contented with simple food.  


Can a person trying to sell food (especially away from hugely populated metropolises) really get frustrated with that? And what about people who can eat out with no big hardship but choose not to, at least very often?


That's me for some time now: meals out are too often a disappointment at any price, and no place is as comfortable (or comforting) as home. I have found that after years of trying to keep up with food inventiveness, I truly exalt in a less (choices in food) being plenty for me thinking. Diversity in food is all well and good, but I am blessed with a cultural foods background that in its own vein is extremely rich and almost completely enough for me. Add in an occasional cheeseburger or a wonderful salad, I'm good.


It's a luxury not to be excessive with food, because more, as we know, does not mean better. In a conversation recently with my 86-year-old mother, I was held a willing captive to her discussion of  chile verde, something she has prepared spectacularly for our family for many decades. Really good chile verde doesn't require very many different ingredients, but it is exciting and delicious every time you taste it.


One always makes a generous amount of it, because the base goodness of it stretches into many meals, none of which are same-old, same-old. A first night of chile verde is usually the stewed meat with traditional beans, rice and tortillas. Nights after can emerge with tostadas, tacos, burritos, tacquitos, posole, quesadillas and the list goes on. Each does not feel like a variation on the same theme because accompaniments and garnishes do a good job of changing things up.


"Use it up" is easier and much more delightful at home. In the business of food-service, I was a hostage to the pressure of performance, which always involved excess and thereby waste. From the beginning of time excess and waste have come hand-in-hand, so I don't know why it took a smart person (me?!?) so long to figure this out.


Or to realize how much it would bother me, as well it should. I see the light now: luxury is in the eye of the beholder, and where food is concerned "less is plenty" will serve as a beacon for me. 

"Like What You Like"

In relation to food, if you like what you like, what's wrong with that?

Outside of foods and practices that harm you or your family, why can't we like what we like?

If "food snobbery" has its way with all of us, we will all be consuming only that which others say is really good, or good for us, or even socially acceptable.

Were you raised with any food "oddities," foods that elicit the most winsome of memories for you, but others visibly cringe at? Often dishes like this are related to our ethnicity; they are connective to our cultures and families--they represent the best of what we knew as children.

In the midst of trying to relate the beauty of a revered food tradition, little is more dismaying than having it trounced upon and denigrated by someone who just doesn't "get it." Ten to one, this person has a precious food tradition, too. What makes his or her recipe fabulous, and yours just plain weird?

Much has to do with what we were raised with, and much has to do with how open we are to trying other people's ideas of what good eating is.

I'm willing as a baby is to taste new offerings. A bit hesitant, but mostly game to begin with. Unlike a baby, too much information might influence my taste buds. If I know that certain body parts (sometimes referred to as offal) account for a certain flavor in a meat dish, I'm affected. Why a chunk of beef roast has more "social acceptability" to me than a pile of beef brains or a pig snout seems obvious to me. But really? After all, that beef roast very well came from the cow's behind, so how classy is that?

I'd like all people to understand the appeal of "menudo," and not insult me with derision of it. In a Mexican household, this main-dish soup is practically sacred. "Menudo por los crudos" essentially translates  to "Menudo for the hungover" but you don't have to be a drinker to love it. "Crudos" is pronounced, with a rolled r,"crew-dose," not crud-os which is ironically probably more accurate; it helps rid the body of that cruddy hangover feeling.

People make big pots of menudo on Saturday evening, and dive into it after mass on Sunday morning. One (who has indulged) drags one's self out of bed to attend church for the cleansing effect of religion, then to home for the cleansing effect of this cultural mainstay. Good menudo is bold and bolstering, spicy and richly flecked with fresh garnishes like chopped crunchy onion, cilantro leaves, and a dried herb blend of oregano and crushed red pepper. It is always laced heavily with squeezed lemon for tang, and all of this put together gets the pores flowing. All is right with a bowl of menudo when it makes you sweat--and sweat as we know, does detoxify.

Menudo may be touted as a toxin releaser and a good cure for a hangover, but most everyone who enjoys it enjoys it for the flavor.

What makes for the flavor? Admittedly, it's offal--kind of awful offal: tripe, if you must know. The same word used synonymously with garbage, trash, refuse.  To thicken the plot further (oh, I mean the soup) a soup "bone" is added.

This doesn't sound as bad as a pig snout, does it? Alas, the truth is it's a pig's hoof, or foot, and that sadly DOES sound as bad.

But a pig's foot it must be. Not too long ago I trekked to an authentic Mexican market for menudo fixings, something I hadn't made in many years. In Wisconsin, I have become far removed from the idea of pig's feet in my soup, so I asked the friendly butcher if good old beef soup bones wouldn't do as well.

You'd have thought I asked him if I could made a burrito out of Wonder bread. No, Lady, he smiled. It's always been a pig's foot and always will be a pig's foot, if you want true menudo.

So menudo as I've always known it is comfortable for me, but I sense your skepticism. I get it. I decline many "foreign" dishes myself, especially when too much information is given. But I like what I like, and you should with ease like what YOU like.

"Foraged foods" are not foreign to any of us because they are a part of our collective ancestry. It's how the earliest life cycles were sustained and it's a history that belongs to all of us. Time and the ages have removed us from the constancy of need to forage, but many people are doing it now more from enjoyment than real need.

Foraging doesn't honestly appeal to me, but those who love it should love it openly. A friend of mine so successfully owns the tradition that he's become an expert at it. He has been sought out by a publishing house and of late has been making the rounds to lend publicity to his wonderful book, "Trout Caviar." He is innovative with his ways of preparing wild foods, and fearless even about his "accidents." Some of his finest moments come from things he didn't intend.

I once enjoyed a foraging jaunt with a friend who has always used the wild to complement her cooking. She explained that a creek-bank near her home harbored fresh watercress, and we were going to have a salad from that. I remember my mother adding watercress to our salads, and&n;the thought of experiencing that picquant freshness again just had me excited no end.

She plucked a bunch of the found greens, and we went home to assemble the meal. As we talked and worked, she mentioned her process of ridding the greens of "critters." The plates we were eventually presented with were beautiful, and her grilled salmon divine. Still,  with every approach of my fork to the salad, I was pretty sure what should have been cracked peppercorns was not--too much squirming going on there.

I suspect "critters" are part and parcel of foraging. Anyone who practices it  might only suffer amusement at those who would be bothered by these little natural "details."

"Live and let Live," should be practiced when we think about the foods we enjoy the most. I have a feeling my friend, Brett Laidlaw (who wrote "Trout Caviar") would not condemn my menudo, would even relish it, but the both of us (I am sure?) frown upon macaroni and cheese that requires orange powder for its finished state.

But isn't orange-powdered mac 'n cheese considered an American mainstay in many homes? Is my food snobbery about this as wrong as someone's else's ripping on my menudo or his foraged delicacies?

Live and let live....and if we want to LIVE well, enjoy it all in moderation.

Final comment on this: Just saw a Food Network episode where Guy Fieri was tasting someone's enchiladas topped with barbeque sauce. Some things are just WRONG and this would be one.

Pictured: Classic red sauce enchiladas....haven't made menudo lately.

"Haven"

A walk in the woods

Sometimes country living just means taking a walk or enjoying a little green space.

Leaving one's inside quarters to experience blue skies, fresh air and the growing things that are determined to thrive anywhere can be plenty, depending upon how one looks at it.

I feel I live in a haven (rural Wisconsin), but it's easy to see that everyone everywhere experiences haven.

I think of  my mother-in-law in her neighborhood in Santa Ana, California. Santa Ana is like any American town--divvied up into sections, some more "desirable" than others, depending on who is doing the considering. It has a richness in cultural diversity and particularly so in the Hispanic population.

One might observe that my mother-in-law's neighborhood never held a gated community status, but she was up every morning with the birds, tending her shrubs and flowers so artfully established by my father-in-law in the early years of their marriage.

How fresh and inviting her haven always felt. With benches and chairs amidst the multi-layering of vivid colors in plant life, her yard was so inviting I remember that friends often drifted in to while away a few moments of their day. Her sense of belonging to a neighborhood that thrummed with vibrancy in sight and sound held great appeal; although that district definitely had issues, I never heard her note any of it with adjectives like "noisy," "congested," or "dangerous."

For the most part, people who live in an urban environment do so by choice, and wouldn't have it any other way. For the flavor of nature, a walk to a local part or a back-yard oasis makes it all good.

For ourselves, we went the extra mile (actually two thousand miles) to create our backyard oasis. Our neighbors, most of whom were born and raised here, are of true rural stock. They raise chickens, milk cows, go hunting and fishing, and grow gardens and hundreds of acres of crops. We take walks, ride bike (my husband), go antiquing (me), watch old (and new) movies, tend the grandbabies, and sit on the porch with lemonade and magazines.

Hmmm....come to think of it, we live like more like city people than rural folk. But as any person envisions their idyllic surroundings, we dreamed this and count our blessings that it's come to pass.

It's not that we haven't tried to extract more from the land. We have lived "country" for most of our married years, here and in Colorado. We have raised chickens for eggs, tapped trees and made maple syrup, picked our wild fruits to make delicious jams, gathered morel mushrooms to enjoy with our steaks (homegrown by friends who raised the cattle) and grew gardens to can extensively.

It was all rewarding, and it was all work. Now don't get me wrong--we're not afraid of hard work. We don't lead sedentary lives and it's hard for either one of us to sit unproductively for long, at least during the daylight hours. It's not usually until night falls that watching a movie even feels right, although the hour approaching dusk often finds us with the magazines on the porch.  And well that should be.

We have learned as many do, that when enthusiasm for any project runs its course, DO THE MATH. Most self-accomplished endeavors pay both monetarily and spiritually. When they cease to do both, it's time to pick another venture.

How then DO we extract from the land that feeling that we are living a country life?

As anyone does. We look at what we have as precious, and we nurture and tend it.  In Garden Grove (also in California) my mother grew a spectacular bougainvillaea shrub along one side of her house. Out back, my dad grew tomatoes, chilies, lemons and nopales (cactus paddles).

From his own imagination, he dismantled an old wood cookstove and built a stone framework to reposition its various sections into a beautiful outdoor barbeque unit. One side boasted an uprising, stone-encased grilling rack complete with chimney stack, and the rest of it was stove--four burners with a utility/spice shelf above and a warming oven below. In readiness for this unit, Dad poured a concrete floor, set down a long picnic table and a permanent canopy overhead. He added a refrigerator nearby, stocked it well, and waited for the family gatherings.

With a garden-like backyard and all of that going on, I like to think this haven in the late 60's and early 70's was an early outdoor kitchen and that my dad was a man ahead of his time.

My grandma Rosa (Dad's mother) also created her piece of paradise in Placentia, once more in California. Her small acreage harbored many kinds of fruits and florals, but it is the likes of her geraniums that I have yet to see again in my lifetime. Grandma trained and nurtured her red geraniums so that they flourished skyward on both sides of the fence.

Both sides of the fence belonged to Grandma, because her little namesake restaurant was next-door. The eatery bragged an outdoor patio with a stone floor, my dad's work again. The fabulous geraniums and other flora lushed the setting into a tropic-kissed haven for diners. Such a haven it was that although small, I couldn't think of a prettier place to hold our wedding reception in 1973.

Grandma too was ahead of her time. She created an appealing outdoor eatery with European-like flavor (which was in actuality reflective of her own Mexican heritage) in the 1960's, and I think now that no bistro I've ever seen has held a candle to it. It was a haven for many people, including herself.

I have to say that our haven in Wisconsin bespeaks almost purely of God's handiwork. Yes, we "tweak" it all the time. This involves alot of detail and many hours of tweaking at that.

But it was presented to us as a generous piece of natural land, and as you know, nothing is prettier than what God creates as nature. Keeping with its flow can't be a bad thing. If we don't use the land by planting it, raising animals on it and so on, we can still feel we are living a country life in the simplicity of just ENJOYING IT.

With this thinking we (my husband) scoped the place to expand on its natural flow in trails. For country-living pleasure we (this means we) take walks, many of them. We breathe fresh air and see wildflowers and wildlife, we get exercise and always come away with never-failing gratitude, even awe.

Less in land would be plenty I'm sure, but more is what came with when we found this place. About this we've always felt that the place more likely found us, and maybe it is because it knew (God knew) that from it we would create HAVEN. Here on earth, that's pretty close to HEAVEN.

Lemonade!!!

"Marty"

Everybody loves a winner--but do we really?

Seems like alot of times we just want to tear a winner down. Sure, we wish our friends and families well enough to support their dreams and ventures, and help them approach the entry halls of success. Especially with our children, we hope mightily to see them ensconced in their dreams, no holds barred.

But when we see someone peak at success, making for a sphere of happiness that eludes our own selves, are we as generous-minded as we know we should be?

Most of us can acknowledge a modest level of envy toward others who seem to "have it all."
After all, we're only human and our own lives may feel plenty full of stress instead of a richness in attained goals. So this envy is purely natural. We can be reasonably happy for others and still lament for ourselves; this we know is the way of the world.

None of us wants to admit (even to ourselves) when envy has turned a corner and the realm of bitter jealousy has been entered. When we not only can't be happy for someone but are secretly peering for signs of a downfall, this is a shame on us and not a status we want to own.

Selfishness is an interesting thing. We pounce upon the trait in others and disown any fragment of the quality for ourselves. God forbid we be accused of selfishness; it is a crime worse than almost any other. Thinking of all the judgmental possibities that could arise from such a subject, I nearly halted blogging about it. Selfishness is not a topic warm and fuzzy, and any one of us can potentially find it another of us. (While not seeing it in ourselves.)

Thus, on the day I scratched the surface of the subject, I also scratched it off my list of possible blog entries. It was a cool and blustery Sunday afternoon, and I decided to watch an old movie instead.

The movie playing on the old movie channel was "Marty," a fifties-era classic wherein the title character (an Italian-American male in his thirties) so moves his audience with his life of loneliness that the actor (Ernest Borgnine) won the Academy Award that year, 1955. This was no small feat against contenders like James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy and James Cagney. It is said that Borgnine's audition for the part put all present to tears, and cinched the role.

If ever there was a movie that impresses upon us the tragedy of selfishness, it is this one. And so the subject again became mine--meant to be.

Have you ever seen "Marty?"

Marty and his widowed mother live together in an urban house, where Mom's life centers on church and Marty. Their home is a nest she has feathered like a pillow, something also known to smother.

Marty is a humble meat cutter who works hard and spends his leisure time dutifully enjoying Ma's homemade meals and then regularly walking downtown to meet up with his equally single, Italian-American buddies. Marty's crowd looks to be a tad on the "loser" side, nice enough boys who stay out of trouble-- but each lacks the charisma to ever come close to the persona of a "chick magnet." Women are not an easy part of their scene, and when they are, that scene is often fraught with rejection.

One evening on the dance floor, Marty musters his wherewithal to ask a girl to dance and suffers acutely the rejection he fears. In a scene away from his scene, a young woman suffers a competing blow of rebuff when the man she has been "set up with" decides he wants to ditch her. This fellow seeks out Marty and offers him five dollars to take responsibility for his unwanted date and somehow get her back to her home.


Despite inferences from his pals  that the girl is not attractive, and quite to his surprise, Marty and the girl, Clara, (played by Betsy Blair) "click." They enjoy long, heartfelt conversation and learn of their differences but also experience undeniable camaraderie.

Clara is a teacher to Marty's butcher, but this is just a momentary deterrent to Marty's psyche. The evening ends brimming with promise and in no time at all we witness Clara's introduction to Marty's mother, and we marvel at his plans to ensure a better future by opening his own meat market.

Alas, this is where envy, jealousy and selfishness rear their ugly heads. The people in Marty's life cannot wish him well. They all point to Clara's homeliness; the fellows straight out call her "a dog." Clara is not a dog. She is average looking, just right for the average Joe, or average Marty. She is a dear girl, smitten already with Marty, able to see their differences as contrasts rather than reasons for discord.

Marty's mother, who has lamented that her son has yet to marry the perfect Italian girl to provide her with grandchildren, cannot abide Clara. She points out that Clara is not good-looking, is not Italian, and what was she doing anyway in a dance hall--one step from the streets? I don't like her, she pronounces, and suggests forcefully that Marty not bring her home again.

Marty's friends find themselves roiling in agitation that their co-hort is on the brink of a new life--one that will end their lonely boys society and one that guarantees Marty a happiness they fear they will never have themselves. In their covetousness they can do nothing but try to coax Marty away from all his promising possibilities. This they do by endlessly ripping on Clara. Poor sweet Clara is called "a dog" so often that sadly, heartbreakingly, we are horrified to hear Marty cave into the pressure of his peers and refer to her as "a dog" as well.

And thus we see both Marty and Clara lonely again. Their respective scenarios are pathetic; those of us watching want to shake some sense into Marty, for while Clara longs for the phone call he also longs to make, he instead reverts to a pointless session of "hanging out" with the guys again.

The selfish entreaties from those who most care for him convince Marty that going for happiness is not for him. Pulling their pal back into their familiar void puts them back onto equal ground, and all (except Marty) feel better this way.

Do we all feel better to keep those in our circle on equal ground, more for the worse than the better? Does
misery really love company? Can we really only be happy for others as long as their happiness and success don't exceed ours?

And what about jealousy and resentment over physical traits (beauty), personality and charisma?

On a recent "Dancing with the Stars" segment it was revealing to hear one of the male judges effusively flatter a male (heartthrob type) dancer, then declare his hatred toward him--said in friendly humor, of course. How many times have you heard (or taken part) in admiration of someone's physical persona only to realize if that person were just a little less gorgeous, you'd feel better?

Happens all the time, with most of us, I venture to say. Like the inherent good in people, we are also given tendencies toward failings, too. Our struggles with generosity of spirit are perhaps tougher than the ones we have about money. If good will doesn't usually cost a dime, why is it sometimes so hard to give?

I don't know the whys and wherefores of this, but I'm pretty sure the sentiments are universal if not shared by all. Is there a sense that there can't possibly be enough good to go around in this life?

For a great ending to a somewhat tortuous (but engrossing) story, Marty (back to Marty) gathers his wits and declares emancipation from his loneliness. He boldly stands up to his friends and literally bolts from their presence to race to a phone booth to call Clara.

We are left to consider their lives will be lived happily ever after.

I can't imagine anyone seeing this movie not feeling blissful for Marty and Clara at this conclusion. And here lies the question--if we can be happy for strangers, and fabricated strangers at that, can't we do the same for all in our own real lives?

Home Again

Recipes that demand many steps are not for me, but what's not to try? Improvising and adjusting simplifies things, and the results are pretty simple, too. You either put to ruin good ingredients, or discover foods that you want to make again and again. I do both all the time.

Sifting flour sounds archaic and isn't a step I've taken since I was a teenager. My maturity in the ensuing years has never deemed the task sensible; it's delaying, messy, and requires the act of measuring--something I'm averse to.  I won't have any of it, and while I know alot of women who measure, I don't know of any who sift. Do they even make sifters anymore?!

It's curious to me then, (but completely predictable) that I recently became caught up in a search for vintage flour sifters. Like the antique rolling pins, cream whippers, wire whisks and nut choppers I already don't use, I feel that flour sifters (and other kitchen collectibles) will further put me in the mood for cooking and thus make my time spent in the kitchen a total joy. There you have it. There it is--my explanation why I mightily indulge in vintage kitchenware.

The craziest thing about this (yes, there's a crazier part) is that everytime I find something new (that's old) I want to make it a focal point of the room. Making it a focal point of the room means something has to make way for the new (old) thing, and then where do I put THAT (old) old thing? A couple of months ago I loved THAT thing so much it had to be the focal point, so now what?

Thus, the room gets turned upside down, every time. So does my porch pantry, which is the entry to our old farmhouse, a place I consider an extension of the kitchen.

Some would say I have too much time on my hands, but this is what I do. This is who I am. I have plenty to do in my days, but if I don't nurture the homefront then I don't nurture myself.

Speaking of nurturing the homefront, in the midst of all the disarray, aromas from the oven and stovetop blindsided me toward a hankering for homemade tortillas. Drifts of bubbling beans and garlicky, chili-crusted pork roast insistently reminded me that I was working up an appetite, and wouldn't from-scratch tortillas and a pan of traditional rice make the whole meal a feast?

Blame it on visions of flour sifters dancing in my head. Must have been the correlation between flour and tortillas, but I just added another glitch into getting my kitchen back in order.

Oh well. Some people thrive on the pressure of the corporate boardroom. The kitchen IS my boardroom. It's where I rule, at least in my own home. So on this day I was making a mess, and I was making tortillas.

By suppertime the room was pulled together save for the finishing touch--the actual flour sifter. Actually flour sifterS--I purchased two after a weekend shopping online from the comfort of my home. It's the start of a modest collection inspired by a woman whose shop I once visited in a small town near my home.

A quiet, unassuming sort, she nonetheless was prideful and possessive of her collection of old flour sifters. The stunning gems sat up high on a built-just-for-them shelf, and spilled into a locked glass cabinet underneath--appropriate for the jewels they were. Try as I might, she would not sell one.

I also by suppertime had fresh tortillas snuggled into a warmer, and a full meal inspired by another unassuming woman--my mother. She always made food like this. In her later years she, as many Californians do, came to rely on the good tortillerias that are prevalent everywhere. I watched her make tortillas often enough that I was able to imitate her when I came to live in places where only "lesser" tortillas were available. (In the world of tortillas less quality is never plenty good.)

It seems the passions we have can most usually be attributed to impressions once made, invited unknowingly to deeply sink in. We have little awareness of what is occurring and little say. It just happens. We might know we should strive to cure cancer, but we can only hope that someone else will. Not everyone wins a "doing what I love" career, but in our private lives it should be a given that we pursue in good measure that which (in positive fashion) moves us. And with no apologies to those who differ.

We respond to the inspirational models in our lives. Conversely and not-so-strangely, we at times extract the most inspiration from negative impressions made. We see the intolerable and determine: "That will not be a part of my life."

Sometimes our most affecting impressions result from long-term witnessing in our sustained relationships. Others result from momentary, fleeting exchanges. The woman whose flour sifters I coveted did not appear to be "wealthy," but she owned a wealth of resistance to caving in over a few dollars some might have said she appeared to need. It turned out that this building was also her home; one with inadequate private quarters and so while her shop was open to the public, not everything in it was for sale. Her treasures were her treasures, come what may.

I know the lesson well that an inanimate object (like a flour sifter) is never precious like a family member is.
But enlightenment did occur to me when I faced the reality that I had previously owned and (and then let go of) one of the flour sifters I recently purchased. Years prior, when opening my own little shop, I tentatively put this object out on the floor. I priced it high, hoping no one would buy it. I wrestled with wanting to keep it and wanting good stuff in my store. Darned if someone didn't quickly think it looked good enough to buy at my asking price, and away it went. For a few extra dollars than what I paid for it, I parted with it.

In paying a few dollars more than THAT now to replace it, it's hard to admit I've paid the price of ridiculous again. But could I really see the point of this new lesson any other way? Collectible THINGS will never be the treasures that people are, but a page from my flour sifter mentor's book should definitely be taken.

Lesson learned. And I can hear my husband swallowing THAT.

In My Own Backyard

It's starting to feel alot like spring here in Wisconsin.

The apple blossoms are struggling to fight off some lolly-gagging morning frosts, but the days are emerging radiantly warm and sunny.

This time of year exemplifies that "hope springs eternal." Despite its troubles, life never seems to give up on trying to renew itself. Appropriately, all the new growth of the season marks the time as a harbinger of the many good things to come.

Like babies of every species, and trees, fruits, flowers, plants and grasses. No withering now; everything is smoothly-skinned and pliable, because life is just beginning and it's all good.

The inhabitants of a country property should know enough about the plant-life on their place, but twenty-some years into here we are still pretty clueless. We know enough to avoid poison ivy and stinging nettle on the skin, and we've successfully tapped maples for syrup and transformed wild plums, apples and berries into yummy preserves. We recognize a great many birds and critters, and some of their calls and sounds. Mostly, we enjoy what we see and hear and use what we're certain of to modest degrees. After all, wild creatures need to eat too.

One berry bush that we failed to identify is the source of a funnily ironic story. Until recently I was the proprietor of a shop and cafe, "Corner Cupboard," where we worked hard to establish a small but strong following for handmade, from-scratch pies. One customer, Tom, often drove in from his outlying town to have a light lunch with us and a full wedge of pie. We always loved to see Tom--such a dapper guy, friendly and conversational always in a most appealing way.

A great promoter of my place, Tom poked his head into the kitchen one day to tell me that he would soon be treating a special friend to lunch at Corner Cupboard. This friend had a quirky inclination to always ask the server at any restaurant for one particular pie--gooseberry.

He had yet to receive a "Yes, we have gooseberry pie," answer, but this never deterred him from trying wherever he went. Tom's request to me was that whatever it took, he was willing to pay any price for a gooseberry pie on board when that lunch took place.

None of us had ever made a gooseberry pie, or even tasted one. I'd never noticed the fruit in a store and of course when I looked, it wasn't there--not in the frozen or canned aisle, and not in the fresh produce section either. 

That next Sunday my husband drove me to an eastern "burb" of the Twin Cities. After a few stabs in a melange of stores, I did find gooseberries in a high-end gourmet grocer's market. I was worn out from the trek through various unfamiliar stores, so the fact that they were only available in cans did not stop me from grabbing the only two that were on the shelf. I realized beggars can't be choosers, but I certainly didn't pay a beggar's price for them.

When the big day arrived, my pie-maker turned out a beautiful speciman, even if we were all put off by the filling that had gone into it. Do you know what gooseberries look like? They are round and green and look like slimy globules in questionable goop (in a pie)--not an appetizing sight whatsoever to any of our eyes.

But we figured Tom's friend knew his gooseberry stuff. He would happily expect them to look this way, and not be able to contain his gushing over the thrill of it all. The three of my whole staff were so excited we all managed to place ourselves in the vicinity for his, "Do you have gooseberry pie?" inquiry.

The question happened as predicted, but his response couldn't have been more different than we had imagined. No light sparked in his delighted eyes, no beaming smile of disbelief crossed his lips. Instead came a flat and to-the-point "Okay, I'll have a piece," statement, one void of all the enthusiasm we had so braced ourselves for.

The crescendo of our anticipation descended its incline so abruptly we could almost hear the "whoosh" of deflation. The fellow quietly enjoyed his pie, and asked for another piece to take home. Tom purchased the remainder, and our adventure was over.

We weren't so big about it that we didn't mutter a few expressions of disappointment over our anti-climatic experience, but we agreed that it probably paled compared to Tom's. We were sorry to see that his gleeful plans and benevolent plotting went unrewarded.

A few weeks later, my granddaughter was trail-hiking our place with the neighbor boy, a knowledgeable little guy when it comes to identifying creatures and plants of the natural world.

They stopped to pick small berries I'd never noticed before--or if I had, had probably avoided in a "better safe than sorry" mode.

But on this day my granddaughter was encouraged to try these "perfectly safe" GOOSEBERRIES--a tried and true fruit the boy knew well.

Gooseberries

To think: we'd traveled a distance we didn't commonly go, and paid a price we found ridiculously high--all for something that grew right in our own back yard. Now THAT'S ridiculous.

There's alot to learn on a country place, and it really pays to learn it. I like to think that the waste and cost of that experience was still an experience, and one that taught me a lesson: Know what you have, or pay the price of ridiculous.