Summer Platters and all That Matters

In the peak of summer my mother set the stage for my lifetime response of "I will follow you." 

She did this unwittingly, just trying to get through hot stretches of preparing meals for ten, seven days a week. Her tried-and-true favorites were as simple as the apple pie she never made, although she did excel at lemon meringue. Except for one, summer meals were downright ordinary--common foods all. But it was her trademark "platter" effect that took each thing up to a definite next level.

Whatever Mom made, she assembled things onto platters with colorful, artistic flair. If it was burgers, a big plate was assembled to flatter common grilled patties into something remarkable. Fresh lettuce leaves (no wimps allowed), thick and crunchy red onion rings, wavy dill pickle rounds, cheese slices and the most vibrant of California tomatoes, thick sliced.

The routine was to mosey our way food-line fashion to build our own burgers and dress the buns with mayo, mustard and ketchup. I remember the fresh garnishes as snappy-crisp with so little "give" all of our sandwiches were a mile high and completely problematic to eating gracefully.

Mom had a curious tradition when it came to corn on the cob in season. It's one that I never dared try with my own family, but it sailed true for my mom, and if I could get away with it in these times I would surely want to!

From a field farmstand nearby, this involved a simple plunging of just-picked ears, about two dozen in a huge stockpot. A deep immersion and quick boil, then a lifting of the cobs onto a platter for a generous buttering and salting. A dinner plate next-to offered chunky sticks of longhorn cheddar, as many as we could manage between our gobbling attacks at the corn. That was it--supper. Maybe a glass of milk. We ate our fill and enjoyed every bite.

Another silk purse Mom could make out of a sow's ear was in her easy-way-out meal of a "cold-cut" platter, and yes, you would be right if you guessed this to be a glorified lunch meat supper. But Mom cut and arranged meats we liked, sometimes adding smoked fish my dad often picked up, oceanside. She dotted the artwork with other things we loved, like sour pickles and olives and cheeses and vegetable sticks and salty seasoned crackers. With a tall glass of icy lemonade or iced tea, we never minded this meal.

 

I think that meal today, on a slab of wood, fits today's description of "charcuterie," no?  Mom knew charcuterie, before charcuterie was this cool!!

When Mom made cold sandwiches like tuna, chicken or egg salad she cut soft bread diagonally and arranged the halves into a pyramid of loveliness on--you guessed it again--a big platter. Her seasonings and added crunch were never sweet, her dressing creamy and decidedly flavorsome. Her recipes for her cold sandwiches were so simple but so good I ran a lunchroom café for nearly fourteen years on almost their appeal alone.

A more adventurous favorite of Mom's was not even a variation of a mainstream recipe, especially for her time. Acting on her creative side, she conjured up a wonderful summer salad that fast became her signature dish. I still marvel at her imagination in mixing up spicy pickled vegetables, lettuces and sea-salty abalone chunks. When most salads of the day involved iceberg lettuce and tomato, or maybe Jello and marshmallows, Mom's salad ingenuity seems amazing. I'd LOVE to make that salad today, but where in Wisconsin could I ever find abalone chunks?

Probably my mom's greatest cooking achievements did not center on the overly simple of the warm-weather meals mindset. She was a renowned good cook of her Mexican heritage; she excelled at many dishes of a more complicated nature. She enjoyed cooking and like a lot of mothers it was at times her best way to express her nurturing side.

I remember watching Gordon Ramsay once doing his "insult" routine to a bevy of aspiring chefs; in the episode the ONE person he was favorably impressed by (and complimentary toward) could have been my mom. She was self-taught, an older Mexican woman who knew her stuff and who Ramsay himself couldn't have imitated if he tried. 

In Mom's later years it wasn't at all easy to get her animated or enthusiastic about anything. I discovered my best shot at getting Mom to talk was to extract from her the talent she still owned about nurturing through food. I asked her questions, I nourished her with thankfulness and by expressing I had been trying to match her skill, and just couldn't.

I told her:

I remember all the good food you made, Mom. I know what went into all those good meals because I do the same now, and it's about so much more than the food. It's about love. It's about joy, even when the dishes have to be washed. And strangely enough, most of what I still prepare is all the good dishes you didn't even try to teach me.

You didn't have to. You were the example, I watched. You answered the questions, and you encouraged. Lessons were more imparted, hardly spoken.

And to more than one child, therefore more than one family. Waves of lessons, waves of carrying on,

(With a little Door Dash or pick-up thrown in!)

Immeasurable. Thank you.

Grandma Ramona

Grandma Ramona was never a squeaky wheel in the world of attention-getting grandmas.

She was pretty near to perfect, and maybe because she never riled anyone up, she rarely got the more positive fuss she deserved.

Grandma Ramona didn't have "vast" acreage and multiple havens like our other Grandma (Rosa) did. She didn't drive a car and couldn't take you anywhere you might want to go, and she didn't even have the nature to easily let a grandchild out of her sight for more than a few unaccountable minutes.

Grandma was one to thoughtfully measure her words, and always say them kindly. I don't know that she ever uttered a mean-spirited statement, or that any of us ever heard her raise her voice--I know I didn't.

When you were with Grandma, you were WITH Grandma. A widow for all the years I remember, she hosted the occasional grandchild with a nurturing focus, but not obtrusively. She enjoyed your company and you knew it, but she also carried on with her usual routines so that the natural thing to do was tag along and help her if you could.

When Grandma tended her flowers, you learned a little something about how to get the "rosiest" rosebushes and what bugs should not see the light of the next day. When she cooked, you learned to brown your rice in a little oil before adding liquid, and that you can boost flavors by not having that liquid just be water.

Grandma was one little bundle of ethnic diversity. A curious blood-mix coursed through her veins; she remained true to many customs of her native Mexico but gravitated toward achieving American "milestones" in her very simple life. She learned to speak English as well as almost any "American", and although she most often prepared the essential meals of a traditional Mexican household, she owned and often referred to her copy of "The American Woman's Cookbook."

Meals from that book must have been for her pure adventurism, not traitorous and maybe even a little patriotic toward her new homeland. She tried many of the book's recipes and some became customary. From this I know at least one of her daughters (my mother) could prepare as good a meat loaf as she could a pan of enchiladas. And her (my mother's) daughters after that!

When that cookbook made its way into my own mother's possession, I was a budding cook myself. I remember using the book often and being amused at Grandma's markings on a few of the pages--especially that she highlighted a recipe for "croquettes." Although the dish made use of leftovers, it was putzy and a little ambitious, with a French connotation at that. I've often wondered: did she really try to make croquettes? I like to think of myself as a (somewhat) venturesome cook, but I've never tried making a croquette.

Grandma tended a small courtyard of roses and geraniums outside the front door of her bungalow. I can still conjure up the sensation of the freshness there--the morning mist (or Grandma's watering) buzzing the foliage and urging away bursts of fragrance that filled the morning air. Her watering ritual always ended with a far-reaching and final tug on the hose to more flowers at a backyard arbor, a trellis-y adornment that separated her yard from one belonging to my aunt and uncle and cousins.

The cousins didn't wander over to Grandma's much during my sleepovers, but I'm sure they were often good company to her. I remember that she mentioned them often and that I always peered through the arbor wondering if they were home.

All my cousins, siblings and myself were "represented" in Grandma's little cottage in a sweet and unique way. Near a corner of her sofa an end table with a top shelf held a collection of small porcelain angels--each cherub in its own pose bearing near or its bottom the name of one of her grandchildren. Every time I visited her I would look for the angel with my name on it, as I suspect each grandchild often did. When I recall that dear collection of hers I marvel at such a precious idea and tradition. Few grandchildren that I have, it inspires me to go out and find three porcelain cherubs today! And I wonder why I haven't done it sooner. (Update: I have, since writing this!!)

According to many a modern woman's view, our Grandma Ramona lived a very "small" life. If she didn't drive she couldn't get out much, but somewhere along the line she walked into a popular, higher-end department store (the Broadway) and got herself hired as a gift wrapper. When you think of my other Grandma (Rosa) who stubbornly never learned to speak English but somehow stubbornly learned to drive and then own a car, you have to give Grandma Ramona her due credit for landing herself an English-speaking job and getting herself to it (bus, walking?) on a routine basis. 

A time I know for sure Grandma got herself to a bus was when she rode with my two younger siblings, Judy and Nancy, all the way to Colorado. Ramon and I had moved there adventurously, almost within the first year of our marriage. Grandma wanted to travel, and we were as good a "destination" as anywhere. 

Grandmas are not meant for comparing, and I remember both mine for different traits and talents. My Grandma Ramona spent her later years creating beautiful handmade gifts for all the people she loved, and Grandma Rosa's legacy is probably best thought to be (with her other family members) the establishment of a successful, family-operated Mexican restaurant. My two grandmothers couldn't have been more different from each other, but both made lasting impressions that I treasure and remember again and again.

My Grandma Rosa's "vast" acreage (and her willingness to let us roam) may have furnished a little more on the side of adventure, and her own "nature", shall we say, drew more attention. But neither Grandma ever strived to do anything but live their American lives as happily and best they could. Both lived true immigrant experiences that dramatically helped to smooth the path for their very appreciative descendants.

Thank you, Grandma Rosa and Grandma Ramona!

                                              Grandma Ramona's dress for my daughter                

The Sunday Drive

It might have been any day of the week, but I remember it as a Sunday--the kind that spurs you to just get into a car and start driving.

Or riding. My Grandma Rosa was doing the driving, and my cousin Ralph and I were her passengers. Just a while earlier we had hopped into her 1950's gray-blue sedan, following her mysterious "Get in the car, we're going for a ride" order.

Ralph lived with Grandma, and at about ten years old he understood her better than anyone--both in the Spanish-only language she spoke and in the somewhat "trying" personality she was known for.

Depending on the source, Grandma could be cold and insensitive, unreasonable and unyielding, even insulting and mean. Somehow "warm and fuzzy" adjectives never quite made it as words of description for Grandma, but about this I have to say I sometimes puzzled.

Each time I stayed a night with Grandma, I was ready to soon stay another. I can't say she elicited every opposite of the adjectives she was always accused of, but the vibes between us were pretty darn good. She watched out for me, made sure I knew where the extra blankets were and always welcomed me warmly to the food in her cupboards.

She sometimes even ran a bubble bath for me in her big old-fashioned bathtub, and a really special image between just the two of us is of the time she parked in front of an ice cream parlor and coaxed me across its threshold.

You wouldn't think I would need to be lured into the place, but if I spoke all-English and Grandma spoke all-Spanish--and she didn't usually indulge in Americana like this--I guess I needed a little convincing that Grandma knew what she was doing.

Her smile told me she knew exactly what she was doing. We settled at a table and were presented with a menu, and Grandma motioned to me that I should order for the both of us.  I was about seven years old at the time, and I gotta say the word "parfait" was new to me, too. But the menu photos gave me the gist of things and so I shyly ordered one for each of us.

It literally couldn't have gone sweeter, or better. Grandma was like the proverbial child in a candy (or ice cream) shoppe over that parfait. We savored every creamy layer of our treat and saved the cherry for last, and even in my little girl-ness it wasn't at all hard to imagine the little girl my grandma used to be.

My grandma had her pensive moments, and on the day of our Sunday drive I caught that vibe also. I didn't suspect we were driving to an ice cream parlor at all, and soon enough saw this was a much more serious mission. Peering out the back seat window of the cavernous sedan, I saw that we were threading our way through a hilly neighborhood of newer homes, but that Grandma wasn't intrigued with the houses at all. Instead she pulled over at the rise of an as-yet open field, not filled with housing but taken up in use as a cemetery, one overgrown and neglected.

Stopping the car, Grandma said a few words to Ralph. The two exited and I followed, no questions asked. The three of us walked up the hill, with my grandma beginning an evident search through high weeds and straw-like grass, and dozens of grave-sites abandoned and weathering. Ralph stayed close to her, and I in my puzzlement looked about and wandered nearby, wondering what the search was about.

After a few moments Ralph approached me and said quietly, "She said she had another boy and that he died when he was a baby. He was buried here." (My dad was her only son, as far as we had known) "She thinks they're going to use this spot for more houses, and she wants to see his grave again."

With a little understanding now, I searched also, but even Grandma wasn't sure what to look for. She had become a widow when my dad was just five years old, and this child had evidently had a pauper's burial. There were few stones in this cemetery, and all the wooden crosses and markings had deteriorated beyond  recognition.

I don't know what my grandmother hoped for from that visit, but I remember the excursion almost as if it were yesterday. Did she think she could do anything to preserve the memory and the remains of this lost child? It seems bizarre to me now that she did not, as she seemed willing to do for other matters, seek the help of her grown daughters and son.

So there we were, this odd trio, and when we wrapped up the search Grandma hadn't found anything she was certain of. What did seem certain was that she had completed her mission and that whatever happened now was best left alone. I imagine her thoughts might have been along the lines of other pioneers who went to foreign lands and felt they had to leave some things up to the graces of God.

These remembrances were brought to mind recently when, for a sister's birthday, I posted a favorite story from our childhood on social media. Most of our siblings were not a direct part of my particular story, but they loved it because it gave new history and insight to our family dynamics. Their reactions to that and others family stories in this blog made me realize: we all have stories that were unique to our own experience. My cousin Ralph is gone now, but I feel certain he would remember our visit to the graveyard, and would even have more to say....how many more true stories and perspectives are there out there, untold and destined to a graveyard of their own? Stories untold are like stories unlived--if you have them, tell them!! With discretion, of course!

Note: I've told several stories about my dad's mother and his side of the family in this blog, and I realize also there are untold stories about my Grandma Ramona. Grandma ROSA was for some reason the "squeaky wheel that always got the grease" but Grandma RAMONA was amazing too, in her own way and for reasons related to her own unique life experience. She deserves a turn, next!

"Enough is Enough"

Even the natives are restless in Wisconsin. Sure, the home folks know a thing or two about an old-fashioned  winter, but the last few have been teasingly mild. We are having the longest, drawn-out winter since the 1950's, statistics say. Except for the die-hard ice fisher-people and the snow-mobilers, I don't think it's a stretch to say the rest of us are aching for spring.

In fact, the calendar SAYS it's spring. Last year this time, the calendar held up its end of the bargain and gave us plentiful days in the seventies and even eighties. Budding and blossoming occurred early and bumper crops of everything seemed likely.

Oh, what a feeling to rise and shine on mornings like those.....every bird delirious with song, every hour filled with the promise of something to do, something to see, a mountain to climb, a day to seize.

THIS March I am looking out my front room window to a trio of yard-long icicles, and not even dripping ones at that. They are frigid and non-yielding, jagged and brutal looking, having long lost their early season charm.

You can only amuse the grandchildren a few times per season with an icicle. Your own fascination at the daggers faded with your own childhood, along with sledding, igloo and snow family building. Winter is a fact of life here; partake of whatever outdoor activities you still enjoy in the cold, but face the fact that much of what you can REALLY enjoy is going to flat-out have to take place inside.

Flat-out being inside doesn't bother me the way it bothers a lot of people, but it's a tough sell to sound convincing about this. When most of your Facebook family resides in California and their posts include repeated images of living life to the fullest at beaches, desert resorts (like Palm Springs) and all manner of sidewalk cafe, it's kind of hard to make repeated images of a cozy night by the fireside seem preferable.

There's a sled buried in here

This life is just another kind of planet life, and they're just not going to buy it.

The California lifestyle is in my rear-view mirror, and I gotta admit a year-round warmer climate would be nice about this st(age)of life. But there's a thing or two this Wisconsin kind of climate has over a West Coast kind of climate: you can't possibly appreciate the change of seasons until you experience the extremes, and these extremes really do bring the seasons in four clear distinctions. There's no blurring (well, maybe this year there is, in a not-good way) between the seasons. When you're in summer you know it and when you're in winter you know it, no doubts and no wardrobe-waffling. Each season is fleeting, and you gotta live in the moment. If you feel like doing something that depends on the weather you don't just hope the weather will hold--it won't for long and you better just get a move on it.

I'll have my opportunity to post enviable outdoor activity pictures soon, scenes that don't just revolve around a wood-fired stove. It'll be awhile, especially around our house, where the woods and a valley fight the sun all day. But when spring finally hits her stride, the colors, sounds and smells will seem more vivid and vibrant than they ever have, all because we know: we gotta appreciate each season fully in its turn. And you can bet that proverbial bottom dollar we do.

So take your turn, Spring! Just a couple of weeks ago I made my best effort to stack up against the likes of gorgeous sunsets over the ocean and tropical happy-hours on sandy beaches. For weeks I'd been thinking that where awesome images were concerned, "I got nuthin'. "  I'd just entered the realm of Facebook after my family and friends have been on it for years, and I had NOTHING. Lamely I offered shots of pretty snow showers, home decorating ideas, the beautiful grandchildren (not so lame) and the new elliptical machine I had to buy after too many lazy days by the cozy fireside.

Not walking in these woods anytime soon!

Then one morning I was presented with a gift. A truly amazing gift--right outside my computer window. Through the glass and across our rural field, a picturesque collection of deer were waking from their sleep in a snow-covered hill-swell of our woods. They had settled in the night there, because after all, what can any natural creature do but curl up and try to be toasty in this too-long lingering snow and cold?

They're staying with us, waiting it out...

The picture speaks for itself, and it brings us all another day closer to spring. So will a hot mocha and an hour at a fireside cafe with my good pal in town...so will holding cooking classes for the locals at (my) little neighborhood shop, so will crafting stitcheries for my Etsy store.........all this kind of stuff will get ME there, I hope, just as anyone's hopeful ventures will get THEM out of these snowy woods and full-tilt into SPRING.

Mmmm--Can't you just about smell the apple blossoms?

Last year this time, nearly

Note: After a break, I'm now building on my Etsy store, "Sterbuck Farm." Check it out!

Life, Simply

Is it cynical to be a fatalist?

I hear a lot of  "if it's meant to be, it will be." Or, "It didn't go as I hoped; it wasn't meant to be."  There isn't usually negativity in these statements. Resignation yes, but not resignation tantamount to defeat so much as healthy acceptance--a rolling with the punches kind of acceptance.

Many times and by many sources we are told to get up and try again, to not be bitter or hold resentment, to try a new approach or even turn towards a new direction. Adversity is known not just to be a good teacher; the handling of it will always bring a lasting result, for good or for bad.

I've always admired people of humble expectations--people who truly find that less (than what some others have) is plenty; they don't just "settle" but relish what they have with gusto.  Are you familiar with the portrait "Grace" by Eric Enstrom? The old gentleman in this image is in a pose of thankfulness over a simple bowl of soup and a loaf of bread, and one gets the feeling that a five course meal would just be too much for this guy. He would be appalled by the excess, he'd turn it down flat and consider the bearer of the offer just plain greedy.

Bread and Soup--it's plenty in the eye of the beholder

                                                           
I love the earnestness of this kind of contentment. I think that it's real, and that despite our material world there are still many on this planet who live happily with modest expectations that are yet very fulfilling.

Think about it. In many a remote island or other corner of this earth, people still call a hut home. They don't worry about a mortgage or a fire policy because if anything happens to the hut it's cheaper to throw another one together than it is to pay an insurance policy on it until kingdom comes. They forage and fish and barter, and their appreciation for simple native foods means that gourmand hankerings are few if any. Fashion in home decor and clothing is minimalist, and translates to more equality in the neighborhood.

Things that we in the more material world can't imagine life without cannot in their world be imagined WITH.
And although it is probably too simplistic to say that what one doesn't know one can't miss, it does seem a curious twist of fate that we who live in developed countries at times suffer real angst because of things we know we NEED but cannot afford to have.

A hut dweller, I'm pretty sure, doesn't worry about the high cost of healthcare. I'm sure hut dwellers have anxiety about health issues (as do all people) but their options on how much they can do about it are few. OUR options appear to be many, but really?? Of every person that I know, "losing everything" over a health crisis is a big concern in day-to-day stresses.

A strange thing happened as I began writing this entry, all the way to the end of the previous sentence. I wrote from my own musings, honestly, and then a sister's recent comment on Facebook about a Sidney Poitier film festival reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading his memoir some years ago. I pulled it off my bookshelf and started rereading it, and as often happens, knew immediately why I loved it so much but was equally impressed by how many of the details I had forgotten.

My musings mirrored Poitier's own take on the benefits of a (primitive) island life, and in actuality occurred years prior to my reading his memoir, in a column for a regional newspaper. The truth stands though, that if you want to hear from a source who knows firsthand, you must read "The Measure of a Man." Poitier lived as a child on a tiny, remote island of the Bahamas,"Cat" island, and his first chapter so fondly recalls life there he named the whole entry, "The Idyll."

Poitier describes his growing-up years as void of worldly (modern) conveniences, even for that time. No one on Cat Island had electricity or inside plumbing, owned a television or a car, and it was really only family, community members and the natural world that provided influences for growing children.

Nurturing occurred without distraction from outside forces, and all the small diversions Poitier enjoyed added up to some pretty joyful memories, because, as he observed in his writings, poverty on this island was not all-depressing or soul-destroying as it can be under other conditions.

The man (as a boy) truly lived in a thatch-roofed dwelling, a hut, if you will. It wasn't until years later when Poitier hit the streets of New York City that he saw firsthand the "other" conditions that "other" people lived in. He experienced the rudest of awakenings about race, but forged ahead to make a grand name for himself in the higher echelons of the acting community.

And what a name it is. The amazing thing (to me) about the iconic, vastly successful life of Sidney Poitier is that he didn't ask or pray for it. From his own words, it seems true that he had limitless expectations, but although he discourses beautifully from his spiritual side, it is clear he does not credit his introspective insights to a leaning on any traditional religion or belief system.

In other words, he didn't (apparently) appeal as many of us do to the distinct God so many of us believe in. He did seem to feel a destiny, and told a story of how this destiny was predicted through the visions of an island woman at the very questionable start (premature birth) of his life. Reading about his fulfilled destiny brought forth another conundrum for me: does God answer prayers that are not consciously asked for, by persons who are not seeking favor from Him?

Fate, according to the dictionary, refers to events prescribed by an ultimate power--and depending on  the believer in fate, the description of that ultimate power can vary. I know what it means for ME, you know what it means for YOU. Is it cynical or is it spiritually uplifting to believe that a prescribed fate we would rather not experience is still in need of acceptance?

And this brings us (or maybe just me) to the final conundrum of this entry: if I believe in one God, the Almighty Father, Creator of heaven and earth, do I believe His decisions are all-wise, all-planned, and all destined to be carried out according to His will--the seemingly good and the seemingly bad alike? Or do I believe that prayer and attitude can change everything?

According to Pastor Joel Osteen, we need to think bigger in order to "get" bigger (returns) in life. Osteen recently told a story I loved, of his teenage son, whenever in a steakhouse with his dad, confidently and happily ordering the bigger steak on the menu. The son doesn't ask permission from his dad; he just knows who is father is and that his father wants him to enjoy the bigger steak.

Osteen likens this to our Father the Creator, who wants to bestow upon His children bigger and better. Osteen is big on encouraging us to have expectations that bigger and better is around the corner, just waiting for our faith to kick things in gear.

At times I hang onto every word of Osteen's encouragements, most often in the throes of his very vital sermons, if you will. At other times I believe in "Thy will be done." That whatever our wishes, it is HIS will that takes precedence.Can these two seemingly contrasting thought trains about our fate be one and the same?

Easily I could end this the way I began and still voice wonder whether it is cynical to be a fatalist. I suspect though, that the real wonder of it all is that in the end, all of God's will WILL feel like the prayers we SHOULD have prayed all along were the ones He ultimately answered.

"Waste not, Want not"

On a recent Facebook posting a cousin shared a photo she liked--the nostalgic image of a console T.V. unit, boxy and big and not at all programmable.

The question was asked: "Do you remember having a television like this growing up?" I nearly posted, "I still do," but that snippet of a comment sounded too "poor me" to leave at that.

Besides, our television set isn't really THAT old. But we bought it in the nineties, so its rear end pokes back about 12 inches into a corner and has to sit on something huge to hold it properly. There's no high definition anything to it, and it shouts "outdated" from the get-go.

The thing is, the television WORKS, and I just don't do do-overs the way I used to. I don't get excited over newer and improved versions of everything because newer and improved happens all the time, and trying to keep up with it all is self-defeating in more ways than one.

I also have a dinosaur for a computer, and a white refrigerator that doesn't match my stainless steel stove, but both perform their tasks and both are tucked off in corners, so who cares?

Waiting things out till they're actually not useful anymore reeks of that old saying "waste not, want not," but in a world laden with trash piles and junkyards, it's not a bad saying to renew a mindset with.

Every spot of trashed earth is a blight on God's creation. I've often wondered how disappointed God must be every time He sees a pristine piece of land used as a "holding tank" or dumping ground. Using things up and wearing them out at least lessens the blight and makes a household's money go further, too.

I figure my stainless steel stove will have its match when the white fridge dies, but by then I will probably once again long for a retro stove of white enamel. I am not a perfect person for never having erred on buying "stuff" without a maximum of consideration (See the "Beauty and Purpose" entry of this blog.)

In the years since the microwave oven became indispensable in the kitchen, I've owned a few. One at a time, each has developed an issue whereby it was cheaper to buy another than to fix one. About this we certainly came to feel that many things nowadays are built as "throw-aways," but each unit either involved a fee to be disposed of or meant another useless item to store in space we couldn't spare.

The upshot here was that we began to give more thought to new purchases. We found that it isn't the end of the world to live with things longer, it may even help the WORLD last longer not to junk it up in God's eye--again in more ways than one.

A funny thing happened on the way to this thoughtful forum about using things up. Through the years we have also purchased and thrown away a number of radio-CD players. Of course we had to have these in order to
hear the music we love in the "new-fashioned" way. With long-playing records, 8-tracks and smaller cassettes becoming obsolete, like many people we eventually replaced many of our LP albums with their modern counterpart.

I remember wondering, "What's so great about the compact disc?" "Well," I was told, "It's COMPACT. It doesn't take up much space, it 'plays better' and it doesn't scratch easily. It's just a whole lot better."

Come to find out, compact discs DO scratch and skip, and it's the system that makes a CD better--the only thing I'll grant is that discs do take up less room.

But neatly stacked, albums were not atrocious for storing, and we never could bear to part with ours. We kept them for over two decades in one sturdy box in the garage, even after we tossed the faulty record player we used to play them on.

Just recently, in the garage of a house our daughter moved into, we found a turntable of this sort--evidently something someone else couldn't bear to throw away either. We were encouraged to bring it home, where we dusted it off and pulled out the old albums and voila! We were in stereo heaven again.

In all our years of riffling through CDs here, there and everywhere, we had forgotten totally some of this music. Just hearing the songs made us feel like 17 again, and any "scratching" in-between only added to the charm. We think we'll keep the thing!

Maybe my favorite story about rescuing something from the trash (or long-term storage) took place in a setting literally meant for "trash."

It was in the days prior to recycling bins, when landfills were predominantly one-pile-catches-all. When the pile got big enough it was bull-dozed into the farther-reaches of the landscape, if you can call such a sight a landscape after all.

My trash had just joined one such pile when another pick-up sidled up near mine. A woman exited the cab, lowered her rear gate and hopped up to the bed, then proceeded to heave her contributions toward everyone else's garbage. I quickly noted, as I rarely had cause to do, that this lady's trash was my treasure.

What was she throwing? In earnest she was shoving off dozens of aqua-blue glass canning jars, complete with their classic zinc lids and in varying sizes, in some cases with their preserved foods still in them. She was tossing away her grandma's (or mama's) hard work. In ridding herself of something she really didn't want, she was adding to a landfill something that would be welcome to someone else in their home--if only they knew about it.

I didn't know the woman, but I was pretty sure if she knew of someone who would take those jars off her hands, she would gladly have handed them over. And so I spoke up. I always kind of liked those jars, I said, and as long as she was throwing them away, would she mind if I took a few?

With a generous wave of her hand, she stepped aside and let me have my pick. I took those jars home and washed them to a shining. They wore their years beautifully, retained their soft tint as well as the day they were born, and even boasted here and there a teensy bubble--a signature of their time in manufacturing history.

Topped with their flawless lids, these jars have always held a prominent place in my kitchen. I keep them in the open, where they can be easily seen and accessed and where they make a most natural fit for my farmhouse kitchen. To realize I rescued them from crushed and broken to purposeful and beautiful is a satisfying, happy feeling.

This, I think, is the gift of not wasting. Certainly we all find ourselves at times dismayed over purchases we shouldn't have made or that didn't work out. But we can work harder to find better homes for our unwanted things......and we can look harder for things that are still very good but not necessarily new. I can tell you for sure that you can find new glass canning jars in almost any store, but you will not find any more beautiful or useful than these old ones I just told you about.

There are people who truly walk the walk in a "green" minded world. Like you, I know many and I know OF many more. I used to think their monumental in-house efforts were like swatting one mosquito after the mosquito had time and opportunity to lay a gazillion eggs. But now I think that BECAUSE of this uphill battle, these efforts should be admired all the more.

I have much to improve upon in leaving less "footprint." My last blog about not wanting to waste a whole building--the pondering over it--inspired me to try operating "Corner Cupboard" as a specialty resale store.  I've seen many a Main Street building left empty and unused, and one would think it might be the easier thing to do.  For me it's not, and I hope my story about the beautiful blue jars gives you an idea why.

For "inside" pictures and details, check out Corner Cupboard-Darlene Ramos on Facebook.

"Corner Cupboard"

If you had a pile of lemons, you would make the proverbial lemonade, or a lemon meringue pie, or anything else lemon-y, right? If you didn't have time or energy, I'm guessing you'd find a good home for the fruit. The thing is, you wouldn't let a good thing go to waste.

For some time I've had a good building, funny enough a building wherein I sold many a lemon meringue pie. It was our specialty, but "Corner Cupboard" was not a lemon. At times it was a challenge, yes, but it had very good moments and overall was a great place from where to serve the frothy, tartly sweet slices.

I still don't know whether Corner Cupboard was gaining or slowing when I decided to stop serving food. People were losing jobs and homes left and right of us in 2011, but even as we noticed some customers weren't coming in as they used to, new traffic was flowing too.

What I do know for certain was that my expenses were always rising, especially so at a time I knew for certain I could not raise prices. In my location especially that would be pushing the boundaries. As well, in my personal life, I was anticipating entering a new territory that had nothing to do with selling food for money.

Grand-babies were coming, and I was ready to help. The best excuse had arrived to stop serving food, because if most of why I did the Corner Cupboard was really "for the love," I now had something I would love even more.

It IS so easy to love the babies, even if they are a new piece of very hard work. As you know, babies change everything. For awhile they take all precedence and you wonder if you'll ever have a moment to do anything for yourself again. When grandparents volunteer to help, it sometimes feels like parenting all over again.

But they do go home in the evenings, and you get weekends off and sometimes you even get bonus days--days to ponder and not squander.

Lately I have been pondering a lot about not squandering the historic building that housed Corner Cupboard. It's a great place with loads of potential, but the fearless entrepreneur has yet to come along to take it on. This will take time, and better times, I think, but it occurs to me that I can re-invent Corner Cupboard to suit my life TODAY if I just use my imagination.

I can have this good building NOT go to waste. Who's to say I can't break all the rules of what has been traditionally expected of small businesses for decades on end? An era is an era, and eventually they do come to an end.

Merchant or consumer, we are being advised at every turn to cut back, stop wasting, trim costs. It's the mantra of the new day, even as it remains ingrained within us that "it takes money to make money" and that to boost the economy people have to spend more.

A conundrum of the times, with a predictable conclusion: We all gotta do what we all gotta do. Being both a merchant AND a consumer, I really get this as well one end as the other. It is the platform from which I will "change up" Corner Cupboard. It'll be a shop for the people, formulated by me, so that it works for me and it works for the people. Like any business, it will have its range of appeal. It will make some people really happy and for others, not so much.

It will have its limitations, but within its limitations it's going to be as good as my enthusiasm urges me. I am thankful for the enthusiasm God gives me and my prayer is: "Keep it coming, keep it coming." I know enough to know if you get things right, the people then will also keep coming.

At this time and place in my life it feels better than ever when I don't waste a good thing. Re-homing, re-purposing and donating things to worthy causes are all great ways to not waste and not add more footprint. But who of us doesn't often self-chastise with thoughts like "I should have never bought this," or "If I could have even half the money back I spent on all this 'stuff" I don't want, I would start all over and be so much smarter." And who of us wouldn't rather see our sons and daughters learn from our mistakes than from commission of their own?

I don't know why I ever had to have this historic building that isn't easy to find a new taker for, but I have it now. I have it still. If I don't myself care for the impersonal way of selling online, it remains a wonderful tool for lots of people, a great way to recoup or profit. But most people don't have a historic building that SHOULD be playing a part in a well-meaning venture to recoup, re-purpose, regain some assurance that not all has been wasted.

This is a new day!

A favorite story of mine about something good not going to waste is in "Home to Where We've Never Been Before," a little compilation I once did mostly for family history. It seems to me now to be the perfect anecdotal true tale for my next entry..........in the meantime please look Corner Cupboard Darlene Ramos up on Facebook for details about the place NOW. Be sure to enter Corner Cupboard before my name and to scroll until you find the Corner Cupboard site (there are tons of them) that is related to me, is most current and shows new photos and info.

                                               Displays like this abound at Corner Cupboard