PMS + Shopping at Whole Foods = One Bad Idea

Every time I buy groceries at Whole Foods, it becomes quite clear as to why it has been at least three months since my last trip – it takes approximately that length of time for the horror of shopping there to fade from my mind. Today was not any better.

As if wandering about the produce area for fifteen minutes looking for the inorganic zucchini was not irksome enough, once I escaped that level of hell, I was trailed by a guy who might possibly be the most tedious man on the face of the earth (or, at least, the Commonwealth of Virginia).

On and on he went in a very loud, whiny voice pontificating that “it is not what in particular one eats, but the important thing is to eat a varied and balanced diet.” I have no issues with his premise, in fact, it is a theory to which I subscribe. However, to hear that blowhard lecturing his mother (mother-in-law? nanny?) for three isles of grocery shopping in his oh-so-condescending manner nearly made me start beating him about the head with my $7.99 per pound pork loin roast (and why, pray tell, do I have to pay three times the amount for a pork loin without additives? ).

The mother (mother-in-law? nanny?) appeared to have fallen into some sort of daze that was only broken when the guy would ask her some inane question in support of his sermon (“What about eating such and such? Would that be good or bad for you?”) or when she would hit me with her grocery cart. Yes, three times she drove her cart directly into me. Not a word of apology or even a blink of acknowledgement. Perhaps she was hoping I would get so angry that I’d put her out of her misery with a large lined-so-there-is-no-dangerous-metal-seepage can of organically grown, fire-roasted (for her pleasure) tomatoes.

I finally got through the last of the dried food isles and saw my escape to the refrigerator case on the far side of the cheese display. Never have I been so happy for the opportunity to buy crème fraiche. Unfortunately, I did not escape without hearing his conclusion that “It is all so obvious to me, I don’t know why more people don’t see it.” Aaack. Whole Fools it is.

The First Pitch

[For those who asked… ]

Every family has their Thanksgiving traditions. Our more pedestrian ones call for the dressing to be made from sourdough bread, my father’s favorite creamed pearl onions to be on the table even though he is the only one who eats them, and any and all carrots present must be maple/mustard glazed. But a few years back, at a Thanksgiving dinner at my oldest sister’s home, a new tradition was started.

First, a little background on my oldest sister, JAC, and her husband, SJC. JAC is employed as a cheesemonger at an upscale grocery store and is the family’s resident “gourmet”. She is also, for lack of a more complimentary term, a grazer. She nibbles all day long. She’ll even pick at the food on anyone’s plate that is within somewhat reasonable reach, but for her to share the food off her own plate… nope. And she never serves anyone enough food at one sitting to really satisfy the appetite. There are definite food control issues at play (I won’t even go into “The Cereal Incident” and its aftershocks that can still be felt to this day).

My brother-in-law has also battled with control issues most of his life, but his are mainly anger-related. I am quite proud at the progress he has made over the years (such as he no longer rams other cars with his car), but my sister can try the patience of a saint. So back to Thanksgiving…

JAC had gone to great lengths to procure some special pâté to serve as an appetizer before the big dinner. When she brought it home from the store earlier in the week, she had pointed it out to SJC and specifically told him the reason it was in the house.

So Thanksgiving afternoon rolled around, appetizers were removed from the refrigerator and JAC noticed that something was amiss with the prized pâté. Not only had it been opened, but “someone” had removed a huge chunk from the middle. My sister went ballistic.

In front of everyone, she started in on SJC with how she had explicitly told him why she had bought the pâté (to which he replied that she never told him he could not eat any beforehand). Then she moved on to why he could not have just take some off one end instead of digging it out of the middle (to which he replied that it was just food).

My sister opened her mouth to start in on the third installment of her tirade when SJC picked up the offending pâté, carried it out to the back deck and chucked it about twenty feet into the woods. The problem was solved, JAC closed her mouth and a family tradition was born.

The following Thanksgiving, my other brother-in-law provided a set of custom made wings to help that year's pâté to be more aerodynamic.

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

After fifteen-plus years of marriage, I am pretty much accustomed to RWT’s spontaneous and rather arcane pursuits…

RWT: “I think I’ll build a sailboat”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “Will please record the weights of all the veggies you pick from the garden so I can run a cost analysis?”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “I’m going to make hammocks to give to our relatives for Christmas.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “After I retire, I plan on auditioning for Cirque de Soleil.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “We need to collect all of these acorns and have an acorn side dish this year at Thanksgiving.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

As with most of his ideas, I have not a clue as to the origin. I’m not sure if the latest is merely a side-effect of his not getting any REM sleep because acorns have been raining down on the roof of our house for the last three days. Or perhaps it is some sort of karmic payback for the tree dropping a limb on our car. But, whatever the cause, I see acorn processing in my immediate future. I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

The Devil Packs Samsonite

Back in the olden days, when I had a real job and traveled nearly 50% of the time for work, I found myself urgently needing a new suitcase – the day before I was scheduled to leave on a 2-week trip to Japan, the zipper ripped out of my trusty old soft-sided suitcase. So, in a fit of desperation, I headed to the local mall.

In one of the big department stores, I saw it. The perfect suitcase. Large. Hard-sided. A nice understated black. Samsonite. On sale (!!!). Two side latches and a main latch with a combination lock. Yes! Just what I wanted. I pulled it down off the shelf, undid the side latches (which have a nice little slide lock that keeps them coming open accidentally), flipped the main lock… nothing. Locked. Locked?!? I made sure the combo was set to “0-0-0”, tried it again… nothing. Locked. Crap.

Okay, they must have another one. I looked around. Errr. None were in sight. I finally flagged down a saleslady. Nope, no more in the back either. I asked her if she knew the combination. Ha! That is why it was on sale.

But I wanted this suitcase. I needed this suitcase. So I started to think to myself “what would someone who would do something so juvenile as resetting the combo lock on a suitcase that was not their own set it to?” A-ha! I entered three numbers, flicked the latch and, ta-dum!, it opened. What where those numbers? 6-6-6.

I took the suitcase over to the saleslady, who told me again it was locked. I told her I wanted to buy it anyway. Got it home, reset the combination (I’m not terribly superstitious, but really wouldn’t you?), packed the suitcase full of clothes and shoes, and went off on my trip.

It has been nearly 10 years since I bought that suitcase and it is still going strong. RWT just took it on a trip around the world. It followed him home by a week, but I knew in my heart that it would eventually find its way back to me. My devil suitcase.

Salt or No Salt?

The other night I mentioned to my dining companion how I nearly always have a pitcher of margaritas in my freezer. And, for some reason, he found that fact highly amusing. I’m not sure what was so funny – that anyone would keep a pitcher of margaritas ready and waiting, or that I would.

Of course, I am not talking about margaritas from a mix or those that come in a "Just Add Tequila" tub. Blech-blech-blech. I use freshly-squeezed lime juice, Triple Sec (for some reason I prefer it to Grand Marnier in this application) and decent tequila (but not fine tequila because it would be a waste to use it in a mixed drink). Whir it all together with ice and some sugar (amount needed is very dependent on the limes and requires lots of taste-testing) in the trusty blender and pop it in the freezer.

When the mood strikes for margaritas, I pull the pitcher from the freezer, let it sit ~30 minutes (if I can wait that long, I have been known to nuke it and/or hack away at it with a large metal spoon) and then have at it with the how-did-I-live-without-it-for-so-long stick blender to break up any large ice crystals that may have formed.

I was running low on tequila and the freezer is currently devoid of any and all pitchers, so I stopped by the package store today while on my way to commissary. (Note to non-military folks – although the name suggests otherwise, the package store is not where you go to mail the very, very late birthday present to your sister, but where you buy cheap, tax-free liquor.) I was standing at the checkout counter paying for my large (1.75L) bottle of tequila when the two young solders behind me decided to comment...

BabyArmyGuy1 (with a good ‘ol boy accent): Boy! That is a big bottle of tequila.
Me: Yup. I need to make some margaritas.
(I decided not to tell them how it is my freezer that needs them.)
BabyArmyGuy1: When I drink get tequila, I get mean.
Me: Hmmm.
BabyArmyGuy1: The first time I drank tequila, I left the club and ended up punching a Colonel.
Me: Really?!?
BabyArmyGuy2 (who is much cuter than BabyArmyGuy1 and is obviously feeling left out): I'm a sweet drunk…
Me: That's good.
BabyArmyGuy1: When it happened, I had no idea she was a Colonel.
Me: (Laughing)
BabyArmyGuy2: (Cannot think of a thing to top his buddy's comment and looking quite chagrined)

At that point, the two soldiers started discussing the how much that particular female Colonel can bench-press and I exited the package store still laughing. It is nice to see that, in addition to learning how to kill in all sorts of sundry ways, some young soldiers are apparently also working on excellent comic timing.

Now off to make those margaritas...

Snail and E

I was looking for an old photo to show a friend of mine and I thought it was in my cedar chest in a box with a bunch of college memorabilia. Well, I could not find that particular photograph, but I did find all sorts of old letters.

Most was correspondence from guys who, even after reading their letters, I cannot recall. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The letters were silly, dopey, funny and a more than a few totally stupid, but nearly all long forgotten.

One guy I do faintly remember (the picture I found of him helped) was a summer “romance” (I was all of 13 or 14, so, other than a few chaste kisses behind the church, nothing much that could be considered in the least bit romantic actually happened between us). There are at least a half-dozen letters from him, but I have no recollection of writing from my side. I wonder if he wrote me for weeks after he went home without my reciprocating or if I just wrote him unmemorable (to me, at least) drivel. I suspect the former.

I’ve never been much of a letter writer. While I can type nearly as fast as I can compose the words in my head, my actual handwriting at that speed is completely illegible. I tended to woefully neglect my written correspondence before email came along. But, as much of a godsend email has been, it suddenly hit me today how fleeting it is. I am not an electronic pack-rat and twenty years from now I highly doubt I’ll be able to read my current letters to and from friends. Heck, I can’t even reread those from just last week.

Then I start thinking about going through that box this morning. I read the first four or five letters, had some laughs, but quickly tired of reading twenty-year-old words that no longer had any emotional resonance. If they had not been there physically in front of me, I never would have given them another thought again in my life. I can’t miss what I can’t remember.

And the truly memorable letters, such as my ex-fiance’s heart-torn missive (written on Garfield notepaper, no less) that accompanied the engagement ring he gave back to me after I returned it to him when I broke-off our engagement, I can recall every word without even having to look at it.

So I hope it is that way with the email -- the important letters will be etched in my mind forever and the others are not really worth remembering.

Pet Names

My family has a tradition of giving our pets rather sensible names…

Morgan (an alligator lizard who ate mealy worms – what a nightmare)
Myrtle (one of numerous Myrtles – all were turtles)
Corkey (also one of many – all parakeets)
Cindy (short for Cinderella – my sister’s guinea pig that I dropped and I will never, ever be forgiven for doing so)
Butterscotch (my hamster – that I did not drop)
Lewis & Clark (experimental goldfish – Lewis was kept in constant light and Clark in the dark)

The cats –
Kiki (yes, I now know what that is slang for in more than one language)
Bobbie (who had seven toes on each foot)

And, in order of age, the dogs –
Jeremiah
Beau (actually Beauregard Zachariah)
Tasha (named after my mother's favorite childhood toy – a rather large, felt-stuffed, chartreuse dog name Natasha who currently resides in my cedar chest)
Sammie
Jessie
Scooter (he was constantly underfoot as a puppy – "Scoot!")
Anna (registered name “Diamond Anna”)

Most of the names of the early pets stuck. But, once my sisters and I were older, did we call our pets by their names? Of course not. My beloved calico, Kiki, more commonly went by Keeker-Weeker-Eeker-Squeeker. Or Eeker. Or Squeeker. Bobbie was Tube-Cat (she was very long and lean) or Bobbie-Wobbie-Obbie-Squobbie. Are you seeing the pattern yet?

And it was worse with the dogs (after all, how often do you really bother calling a cat’s name?). Tasha was Tasha-Squasha. Then Squash for short. Then Squash-a-lump for long.

Jessie is also known by Jesse-a-lump, while Sammie’s queenly nature is reflected by Sammirella (Sammie belongs to the same sister as the long-departed guinea pig that I dropped, and, for the record, I have never, ever picked up Sammie, let alone, dropped her).

Scooter (my father’s dog) is Scooter-Wooter-Ooter (that variation is somehow always tied to the pet residing in our parent’s house) or, my favorite, Ooter-Brauten.

However, the one who gets it the worst is my current dog, Anna. The fact that her name just begs for it does not help the situation. The most obvious: Anna-Banana. That quickly morphed into Banana-Boat then Banana-Nut then Peanut then Sweet Pea. But there is another branch originating from Banana-Nut… Banana-Nut Muffin then shortened to Muffin (which, coincidentally, was the given name of the cat that Kiki was named after – a very long story). And now Anna is currently going by Muffin-Head.

Odd? Yes. But it could be worse. RWT grew up with a half-sister named Emily and a pet Doberman named Emily. His parents both loved the name and, after they divorced, they each utilized it during their second marriages. Perhaps nonsensical pet names are a good idea after all.

Cookie Collection Recipe 9

This recipe for Greek Toast is an old family recipe of my grandmother's. I've never seen anything like it in any Greek cookbook, but have seen similar recipes in Italian cookbooks. Perhaps it is the addition anise seeds that make it "Greek". It is an easy method of making biscotti because it is a batter that is poured into a loaf pan for the first baking rather than being shaped into a free-form loaf.

My grandfather always dipped these cookies in his coffee before eating them, but since I don’t drink coffee, I like them plain.

This recipe is easily doubled or tripled or quadrupled and the cookies can be stored for a very long time before there is any loss of quality.

Greek Toast
16 biscotti-like cookies

2 large eggs
⅔ cup sugar

1 teaspoon anise seed
1 cup bleached, all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease and flour a 4½”x8½” loaf pan.

In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the eggs and sugar and beat well until thick and pale in color. Mix in the anise seeds and gradually add in the flour. Mix the batter until well combined and pour into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake 20-30 minutes until the top is lightly browned and springs back when lightly touched. Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a rack for 10 minutes.

Cut the loaf into 16 slices and place the slices on a half-sheet pan and bake 5 to 7 minutes until toasted, turn the slices over and bake an additional 4 to 5 minutes or until desired crispness. (Keep in mind that they will become more crisp as they cool.)

Allow the toasts to cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Cookie Collection Recipe 8

“Butches” is a RWT-ism for Snickerdoodles. They are one of his favorite cookies, but he absolutely refuses to say such a silly word as “Snickerdoodles”. Hence, the term “Butches” was born. My niece immediately questioned her uncle’s authority to unilaterally change the name of a cookie, but she could not sway him in his conviction. So call them whatever you’d like, but this is the best recipe for this type of cookie that I’ve found.

Butches

Makes ~2½ dozen cookies

3 cups bleached, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1⅓ cups sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs

¼ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cream of tartar and nutmeg. Set aside. In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, the 1⅓ cups sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, Scrape down the bowl and add the flour mixture. Mix on low speed until thoroughly mixed.

Mix the ¼ cup sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl. Form tablespoon-sized pieces of the dough into balls and roll them in the cinnamon-sugar to coat. Place each ball 2” apart on a lightly-oiled or parchment-lined half-sheet pan. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until the cookies are very lightly browned and firm. Remove the cookies from the pan, cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Shiny Happy People

I was recently discussing with a single friend what qualities she looks for in a man and her response was: “an old soul”. I know what she means…

In college, I dated a guy who’d led a very sheltered life. He was born very premature and his family never got out of the habit of protecting him from even the smallest of hardships. He was sweet, he was thoughtful, he was sensitive (it was the only relationship I’ve ever been in where the guy cried more than I did), he was romantic, he was devoted, he was every girl's dream guy. And I found him mind-numbingly dull.

It was not the poor guy’s fault, but we looked at the world from totally different perspectives. He only saw the good and pleasant things, while I could not overlook the negatives and dangers. It was like the thestrals of the Harry Potter books – how only those who have seen death can see them and, to everyone else, they are invisible.

Over the years, I’ve found that the people I am closest to are those who have also gone through some misfortune and heartache in life. They understand how surviving the rough times forces you to use a different scale in defining when things are good (and bad). There is certainly nothing wrong with people who've lived charmed lives, but I simply do not relate well to them.

And what ever happened to that nice guy I dated in college? I dumped him and then dated his roommate. I guess he did finally experience a little bit of tribulation after all.

More Guilt

Okay, this blog has become a total source of guilt for me. I feel bad when I don’t find the time to post things here, but I also feel bad spending all sorts of time writing things to post here.

Bad, bad, bad. But not bad enough to change anything.

It brings to mind my favorite passage from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”:

Mr. Bennet: Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.

Elizabeth: You must not be too severe on yourself.

Mr. Bennet: You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.

For those who have not already heard my tale of woe, the owners of the house we are renting are returning to the area in August, so we will have to move to a new house. We found a place only about eight blocks away and will take possession on the 29th of June. So for the immediate future, I will probably be too busy moving to even think about my blog and too tired to feel any guilt over it.

Ouch

The Definition of Disheartening: When your writing is apparently so formulaic and unimaginative that your blog host’s automatic spam-detector decides your blog is merely computer-generated spam and makes you enter a garbled word every time you publish something as proof that it has actually been written by a human.

Postscript -- From the Blogger.com management on 5/12:

"Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team"

Inconvenience?!? What about the damage to my frail ego?

Bitch

I have a friend who says that it has not been a good week for him until at least one person has called him a “cocksucker”. Well, I don’t think I can go out for a good evening of dancing without having at least one guy think of me as a bitch.

For some reason, ballroom dancing places (“place” is not the best word, but “club” is far too hip to apply, “dancehall” is just too country and “venue” sounds like we are going to Disneyland) have their own strange set of social norms. The biggest one is that it is rude to turn down a dance when asked. I guess this little piece of etiquette is a holdover from the era of Jane Austen, although RWT wonders if it is really a modern “rule” made up by desperate, nerdy, ballroom-dancing guys.

Whatever the origin, if anyone asks you to dance and you are not already on your way to dance with someone else, you are supposed to accept (hmm, a fresh compound fracture or death may also be acceptable reasons to decline a dance, but only in some situations). Well, not me.

I took up ballroom dancing at RWT’s urging as something for us to do together while living around here (good hiking/rock scrambling is just to far away and limited by weather in this area and dancing is slightly safer). In my mind, the main purpose of ballroom dancing is to spend time with my husband. Not dancing with random guys that I don’t know -- I had enough of that to last me a lifetime way back when I was in college. So when we go out dancing, I dance with my husband and no one else.

Most of you know how I hate confrontation, but being bugged for dances by strange men who will not take "no" for an answer instantly throws me into some sort of time warp back to the 80’s when I spent far too much of my free time in meat-market clubs. My polite, appropriate, good-little-military-wife behavior is suddenly replaced by that cold, hard bitch of yesteryear (but without the desire to wear lace anklets with my high heels).

For example, an exchange that happened last Saturday while out dancing:

Guy (who I think is one of the dance instructors at the dance place and appeared to be a very nice man): “Would you like to dance?”

Me (smiling nicely): “No thank you”

Guy: “Ah, come on. You can merengue, it is easy.”

Me (still smiling, but said in tone with more icicles dangling from it than were probably necessary): “I do know how to merengue, but no thank you”.

Guy (thinking to himself as he walks away): Bitch.

Oh well, it was a nice night of dancing with my husband.

Cookie Collection Recipe 7

Okay, I won't lie to you, these cookies are really a bit pissy to make. Are they worth the effort? Yes -- especially if you are feeding them to those who like the flavor combination of chocolate and nuts. These cookies are also deceptively impressive. At first glance, they appear to be a plain chocolate sugar cookie, but break one in half and there is a layer of smooth, nutty filling inside. If you decide to take on this challenge, be sure to allow yourself plenty of time for forming the cookies since working with the dough and filling is definitely a fussy endeavor.

I've only found the patience to make these cookies once and that was for our last holiday cookie-fest. I used macadamia butter in the cookie dough and cashew butter in the filling (hmm, or was it the other way around?). The two things I would do differently the next time I make these cookies would be to make smaller cookies (halving the size of both the balls of dough and filling) and to chill the dough and filling before forming the cookies.

This recipe is based on one from "King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion" -- a very well-written book that is a fantastic resource for American cookies.

Surprise Cookies
Makes twenty-six 3"-wide cookies

Dough:

1½ cups (6¼ ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (1½ ounces) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (3½ ounces) granulated sugar (and extra for dipping)
½ cup (4 ounces) brown sugar
½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
¼ cup (2 and 3/8 ounces) smooth nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

Filling:

¾ cup (7 and 1/8 ounces) smooth nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
¾ cup (3 ounces) confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line with parchment paper or lightly grease two half sheet pans or cookie sheets.

For the dough: Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a bowl. With a mixer, beat together the sugars, butter and the nut butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the egg, beating to combine, then stir in the dry ingredients, blending well.

For the filling: Stir together the nut butter and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. With floured hands, roll the filling into 26 one-inch balls.

To shape the cookies: Break off a ~1 tablespoon portion of the dough, make an indentation in the center with your finger, and press one of the balls of filling into the indentation. Bring the dough up and over the filling, pressing it closed; roll the cookie in the palms of your hand to smooth it out. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Dip the top of each cookie in granulated sugar and place on the prepared sheet pans ~two inches apart. Grease the bottom of a drinking glass and use it to flatten each cookie to ~½-inch thick. Bake the cookies for 7 to 9 minutes, until they are set. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on a rack.

Cookie Collection Recipe 6

When we lived in Twentynine Palms, we had a next-door neighbor who loved the cream cheese brownies his mother would make. His wife asked her mother-in-law for the recipe many times, but, somehow the mother-in-law would always forget to get it in the mail to her, or it got lost in the mail, or she was sure she'd sent it... Then, the wife tasted the cream cheese brownies made from this recipe at one of our biennial holiday cookie parties and realized that they we a dead-ringer for those elusive brownies of her husband's childhood.

I gladly gave her the recipe and she immediately made up a batch, wrapped them up and shipped them to her husband (who was on deployment at the time). He was thrilled, she was thrilled, but I suspect the mother-in-law was not very thrilled. So here they are... cream cheese brownies, just like mom makes...

Cream Cheese Brownies
Makes sixteen 2”-square browniesŽŽŽ

⅔ cup bleached, all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 large eggs

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease an 8”-square baking pan and fit an ~8”x16" sheet of aluminum foil in bottom of pan so the foil overhangs both sides of the pan to use as handles to remove the brownies from pan after they are baked (it is really worth the trouble to do this). Spray with non-stick spray or lightly grease the foil.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside. Melt the chocolate and butter over very low heat on the stovetop, in a double-boiler or in the microwave and stir until smooth. Remove the melted chocolate mixture from the heat, whisk in the 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla, then whisk in the 3 eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg in thoroughly before adding the next and mix until completely smooth. Add the reserved flour mixture and whisk just until incorporated.

In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese with the ¼ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla, and the egg yolk until mixed well. Pour half the brownie batter into the prepared pan and drop spoonfuls of half of the cream cheese mixture over the batter. Repeat the layering with the remaining brownie batter and cream cheese filling, then use the blade of a table knife or a spoon handle to gently swirl the batter and cream cheese filling together, creating a marbled effect.

Bake the brownies until the edges have puffed slightly, the center feels not quite firm when touched lightly, and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into center comes out with several moist, fudgy crumbs adhering to it, 50 to 60 minutes. Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then, using the foil, lift the brownies from pan. Place the brownies on a rack and allow them to cool to room temperature. If you can stand the wait, refrigerate the brownies until chilled, at least 3 hours, cut into squares and serve.

Cookie Collection Recipe 5

Here is another flourless-cookie recipe for you all...

Meringues are a favorite of my niece and all of the friends she made while visiting us one summer when I hosted a little ladies tea party for her (picture five 7-year-olds, one 4-year-old, tiaras and feather boas with their accompanying cloud of pink feathers). Adding one drop of red food coloring per ½ cup of egg whites makes meringues with a very nice, young girl-pleasing, light pink color.

("Meringue" also happens to be the same way I always misspell a certain Latin dance with that has a fast one-two, one-two beat... the Merengue.)

Meringues
Makes ~48 cookies

½ cup of egg whites
pinch cream of tartar
1 cup sugar

1 drop food coloring (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and line a couple of half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

In a very clean bowl, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar and whip to stiff peaks. If using food coloring, add it and mix at low speed until incorporated. Pipe (or drop by the spoonful) the meringues onto prepared pans and bake at 200 degrees for 1 to 2 hours or until completely dry. Do not let the meringues brown.

Helpful Hints:

Any oil in your bowl, on the beaters or bits of egg yolk can prevent the whites from being beaten to their full air-holding capacity. Make sure everything is very clean.

If you have a problem with meringues slumping and losing their shape in the oven, try beating the egg whites longer or increasing your oven temperature a smidgen. I usually cook mine at ~200 degrees.

Or, if the issue is that they hold their shape but are just not dried, you may need to bake them longer. I bake mine for around 1½ hours, then turn off the oven, leave the oven light on and let the meringues sit in the oven overnight. If you are living someplace humid, you will definitely need to bake them longer and might have to leave them in an oven set on "warm" for several hours or overnight (that is the only way I can get them to dry while in the D.C. area during the summer). Basically, as long as the oven is low enough not to brown the meringues, they can stay in there as long as is needed to fully dry them.

Meringues can be formed in pretty much any shape or size (within reason). The only thing to watch for with the bigger shapes is that they will take considerably longer to completely dry out.

Cookie Collection Recipe 4

Last night at dinner, a friend inquired when I was going to post more cookie recipes here and it was just the kick I needed to quit being so negligent in this endeavor. I’ll try to make up for the missed weeks ASAP. In the meantime, here are a couple of Passover-friendly macaroon recipes.

Macaroons really do need to be baked on parchment paper or a silpat because they’ll stick like glue to an ungreased pan and spread too much on a greased one. Luckily rolls of parchment can now be found at nearly all supermarkets. But, if you frequently bake cookies, you may want to buy parchment paper in larger amounts. King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalog carries pre-cut sheets of parchment that fit a standard half-sheet pan ($17.95 for 100 sheets, item #5854, here).

And, although I prefer not to recommend recipes that require specialty equipment (and pricey equipment, at that), these macaroons are easiest to make with a food processor. If you don’t have one, you may be able to grind the almonds/coconut in a blender in smaller batches and then mix in the eggs by hand. However, one of the best material items that RWT brought to our marriage (and one of the few we still own) was his father’s old DLC-7 Cuisinart, so I have no experience using anything else for these cookies.

Almond Macaroons
Makes about two dozen 2-inch cookies

3 cups (12 ounces) blanched, slivered almonds
1½ cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 large) egg whites
1 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line two half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

Put the almonds into a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade and process for 1 minute, add the sugar and process for 15 seconds longer. Add the eggs whites and almond extract and process until the dough wads around the blade. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and process about 5 seconds longer until the dough forms a stiff, but cohesive, malleable paste (similar in consistency to marzipan), about 5 seconds longer. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn the machine back on and add water by drops through the feed tube until you get the right consistency.

Scoop balls of the dough, 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized (you can also make them smaller, just be sure to adjust the baking time), onto the parchment-lined pans, spacing them ~1½ inches apart. For a more finished look, you can roll the dough into smooth balls with slightly-dampened hands. You can also make fancier macaroons by piping out the dough into mounds using a large pastry bag fitted with a ¾-inch open star tip, but if you do go this route, add a bit of water to the dough to make it slightly softer and be prepared to use considerable hand strength. Usually, I just use a small (1½ tablespoon-sized) scoop (like a mini-ice cream scoop) and then use dampened fingertips to smooth the tops of the dough.

Bake the macaroons, switching the positions of the pans midway through baking, until the cookies are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, the macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored (but we still always manage to choke them down… somehow…). After the macaroons have completely cooled on the parchment paper, peel them off and store in an airtight container.

Coconut Macaroons
Makes about two dozen 2-inch cookies

14 ounces sweetened flaked coconut
1½ cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 large) egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line two half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

Put the coconut into a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade and process for 1 minute, add the sugar and process for 15 seconds longer. Add the eggs whites and vanilla extract and process for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and process about 5 seconds longer until the dough forms a paste that resembles slushy snow. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn the machine back on and add water by drops through the feed tube until you get the right consistency.

Scoop balls of the dough, 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized (you can also make them smaller, just be sure to adjust the baking time), onto the parchment-lined pans, spacing them ~1½ inches apart. For a more finished look, you can roll the dough into smooth balls with slightly-dampened hands. You can also make fancier macaroons by piping out the dough into mounds using a large pastry bag fitted with a ¾-inch open star tip, but if you do go this route, add a bit of water to the dough to make it slightly softer and be prepared to use considerable hand strength. Usually, I just use a small (1½ tablespoon-sized) scoop (like a mini-ice cream scoop) and then use dampened fingertips to smooth the tops of the dough.

Bake the macaroons, switching the positions of the pans midway through baking, until the cookies are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, the macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored (I’ve found the coconut macs tend to dry out less quickly than the almond macs, but they also burn more easily, so you’ll still need to watch them pretty closely near the end of the baking time). After the macaroons have completely cooled on the parchment paper, peel them off and store in an airtight container.

Convergent Phobias

Yesterday evening RWT & I went out to dinner with some friends to Firefly. Since they do not have valet service during mid-week and we did not want to deal with the hassle of parking the car, we opted to take the metro. Simple? No. For me, metro is never a decision to be taken lightly.

While not exactly claustrophobic, I get extremely uncomfortable in places with limited egress. It does not matter how big or small they are. You can squeeze me into a large cardboard box and it is no big deal (unless it is made of particularly strong cardboard and you tape it shut!). In fact, for nearly my whole 3rd grade year, the favorite pastime of my friend and I was to spend hours sitting in a large cardboard box, playing Crazy Eights and eating pretzels with mustard. So it is not really a size-thing.

But you won’t be able to get me into anything but the shallowest of cave – no matter how roomy on the inside (I certainly won’t be listening to the Stalacpipe Organ at Luray Caverns anytime soon). I don’t like underground parking garages. Or going too deep underwater (no scuba diving for me). I’ve even been known to get short of breath when in the middle of a large, crowded room (I much prefer a table near the door, please).

The worst was when I worked as a corrosion control/paint expert and I had to inspect underground storage tanks. It would take all of my willpower to climb down the ladder into the tank. All of the tanks I inspected were huge, but every moment I spent inside, 98% of my attention was focused on fact that the exit was an itty-bitty circle high up at the top of a ladder. Ten minutes was about my limit, then I’d start to hyperventilate and flee the scene.

So taking the metro… ugh. Underground. No quick way out. And, to only make matters worse… in the D.C. area, the access to nearly all the metro stations is by escalator. Aaaack. Another phobia. Perhaps, when I was a child, my mother was just too diligent in her warnings to be careful not to get shoes/clothing/body parts stuck in the mashing escalator teeth. But to this day, navigating on and off an escalator is a feat that requires great concentration and bravery. Of course, there are elevators at the metro stations (if they are working), but, really, you’ve got to be kidding me.

The first five years we lived in this area, I never took the metro. However, about a year ago, after much encouragement and mental preparation, I finally took the plunge. RWT is wonderful and works diligently to keep me distracted from thinking about how I am deep within the bowels of the earth trapped in a very long, dark tunnel (even when the twenty-somethings sitting behind us start talking about what it would be like to be riding the metro and be claustrophobic and how one would want to pound on the doors screaming to be let out if the train suddenly stopped between stations). So now I am proud to say that I’ve ridden the metro. Four trips at that! I even have my own metro farecard.

Luckily, metro-riding does not also involve large areas of grating that I have to walk across, see-through stairs, crickets or needles (well, there probably are a few needle users on some of the trains, but as long as no one is poking me with any, I’m fine). Those would completely send me over the edge… or in search of parking.

Cookie Collection Recipe 3

In the words of Annie Lennox...

I don't need a heartbreaker
Fifty-faced trouble maker
Two timing time taker
Dirty little money maker
Muscle bound cheap skate
Low down woman hater
Triple crossing double dater
Yella bellied alligator...

Forget about all the hassle of finding the perfect guy... just bake your own.

GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Makes ~twenty 5” gingerbread men or thirty 3” cookies

This recipe is for thick and chewy gingerbread cookies. This is not the type of gingerbread to build houses with, since it is too soft.

3 cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and slightly softened
¾ cup unsulphured molasses
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease, or line with parchment paper, two half-sheet pans.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda. Add the butter and mix until the mixture is sandy and resembles very fine meal. With the mixer running, gradually add the molasses and milk and mix until the dough is evenly moistened and forms a soft mass.

Scrape the dough onto a work surface and divide it in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll the dough to a ¼” thick between two large sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Leave the dough sandwiched between parchment/plastic layers and stack on a half-sheet pan and freeze the dough until firm, 15 to 20 minutes (or refrigerate the dough 2 hours or overnight).

Remove one dough sheet from the freezer and place it on the work surface. Peel off the top parchment sheet and gently lay it back in place, flip the dough over, peel off and discard the second parchment layer. Cut the dough into desired shapes (set aside the scraps) and transfer the cut cookies to the prepared pans with a wide spatula, spacing the cookies ¾” apart.

Repeat with remaining dough until the pans are full and then bake the cookies until set in the centers and the cookies barely retains imprint when touched very gently with fingertip, 8 to 11 minutes, rotating the pans front to back and switching positions top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Do not over-bake or the finished cookies will be dry. Cool the cookies on the pans for 2 minutes, then finish cooling them on a rack.

Gather together the scraps and repeat the rolling, cutting, and baking with the remaining dough until all the dough is used. Decorate the cooled cookies with icing if desired and store the cookies between sheets of wax paper in an airtight container.

Ah-ha!?!

On my favorite food forum they’ve been discussing “Ah-ha!” moments when it comes to drinking wine. As the one forum member put it so well: “that moment where someone tastes a new type of wine, or takes a chance on a wine that they've never heard of before and has that little vinous epiphany where a door that they never knew existed opens for them, and a gorgeous ray of enlightened understanding comes through and they say to themselves, "Damn, this is really great stuff!" (or words to that effect).“ (If you’d like to see the whole post look here.)

So I read through the first few posts on the thread and decided that I have never had a wine Ah-ha moment, or at least nothing compared to what these people seem to have experienced. Then I started to think that it was all just another circumstance of the world of wine making me feel rather inadequate. But… upon perusal of later postings, I think there might be hope for me yet…

It appears that most people started out drinking, for lack of a better term, low-end wines. Gallo Hearty Burgundy gets mentioned quite often. Then sometime in their adult (or near-adult) lives they got a taste of a quality wine and… ta-dum! Or, more appropriately… ah-ha! Their eyes were opened to the joys of wine and everything was good in the world (well, that may be overstating it, but it gets the point across).

However, being a native-Californian with wine-loving parents, I never drank bad wine as a child. And yes, I did drink wine when I was far younger than the legal drinking age. My parents did not drink much, but anything resembling a special occasion always warranted a bottle of wine and everyone got a glass. My folks believed that allowing my sisters and me to have wine at home made it (and all liquor) not such a big mystery and, therefore, less enticing as an illicit pleasure. Well, that approach worked with me (and one of my sisters – two out of three is not bad) and I was never one to go out drinking just to get drunk.

But back to drinking good wine… not only did my father insist on fine wine at the dinner table, but also in church. Every time he was assigned to a new parish, the first thing he would do was to get rid of the crappy, frequently corked (why is that?), communion wine (often labeled “Communion Wine”) and replace it with something drinkable. Oh, the little old Episcopalian altar guild ladies would about keel over at such a radical change, but my dad would just buy the wine himself and pour the old stuff out if they tried to thwart him. And once the wine was blessed, there was nothing they could do since one simply cannot pour consecrated wine down the drain.

So my thinking is that between the good wine in church and the good wine at home, I did have an Ah-ha wine moment, but it was so long ago and I was too young to realize it at the time. For me, there was no time when I started drinking good wines – I’ve always been privileged to do so. I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with having an Ah-ha moment about my wine Ah-ha moment.

Cookie Collection Recipe 2

Okay, as promised last week, here is the recipe for bar cookies that are reminiscent of Girl Scout Samoas (also called Caramel de-Lites in some parts of the country).

COCONUT-CHOCOLATE-CARAMEL BARS
Makes ~24 bars

The original recipe (found in "The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion") calls for all sweetened coconut, but I found that made the bars too sweet. However, feel free to change the proportion of sweetened to unsweetened coconut to suit your sweet-tooth.

1½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut

½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1½ cups packed (12 ounces) brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 large egg

1¼ cups (5¼ ounces) unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (4 to 5 ounces) firm caramel or caramel candies,
cut into ¼-inch pieces or heated slightly until softened

¾ cup (4½ ounces) chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate,
or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13-inch pan with a piece of parchment paper so it overhangs on two sides (if the other two sides are not lined with parchment, that is okay -- the main purpose of the overhanging parchment is so it can be used to help remove the baked cookies for cutting.)

Mix the two types of coconut together, spread on a half-sheet pan and toast in the oven, stirring frequently, until light brown. Cool and reserve ½ cup of the toasted coconut mixture in a separate bowl for topping the baked crust.

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and egg in a large bowl, then mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and 2½ cups of the toasted coconut.

Spread the mixture in the prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then distribute the caramel over the crust and return the pan to the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until the crust is medium-brown and the caramel is melted and bubbling.

Remove the crust from the oven, and sprinkle with the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to soften for about 5 minutes and then spread it evenly over the surface of the caramel-topped crust. Sprinkle the reserved ½ cup toasted coconut over the top of the chocolate and press it gently into the chocolate with a spatula. Set the pan aside to cool completely.

Loosen the edges of the crust with a knife, lift out using the overhanging parchment, and then cut it into bars for serving.

Boyfriends

Yesterday, after a long period of silence, I heard from my old friend ADD. I worked with ADD many years ago at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and I would have gone crazy there if not for his friendship. Some upheavals in his personal life have kept ADD out of touch lately, but I don’t care how long it has been, he will always be one of my most cherished friends.

Coincidentally, the quote with the “A Word A Day” yesterday was:

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. “ – Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Now I think Mr. Wilde was a very talented man, but, in my opinion, he totally missed the boat on this one. Some of my best friends are men and that is nothing new.

Growing up, we always lived in neighborhoods that were oddly deficient in girls my age. Girl playmates had to be imported by car which required parental assistance and planning (which I found quite the dreadful concept when young), so my playmates were mostly boys. My best friend in kindergarten was a boy and I was the only girl at his 5th birthday party, where I won all the games – not only was I taller than all the boys, I was much more coordinated (the way girls tend to be at that age).

Another factor in my relationships with the male of the species was that my father had totally abandoned the idea of having any sons by the time I came along and decided to do all the “father/son” things with me. I had a great collection of Tonka trucks for my sandbox (including a fire truck that hooked up to a garden hose so it could shoot real water), train sets, electric car sets (slotless so you could change lanes) and so on. And these material possessions made me very popular with the neighborhood boys. Time spent with my father tended to consist of woodworking, hiking and going to construction sites to crawl around the inside of half-completed houses to check out the designs (this was when we lived at Sea Ranch, a community filled with architectural wonders).

And it didn’t stop there. As an adult, I like cars, construction (still), sports, electronics and computers… in other words traditional “guy things”. Then I started working in an industry that was 90% men. In my building at the last place I worked there were three other women: our division secretary (who was a good friend and I was matron-of-honor at her wedding); a laboratory technician (an odd little woman who owned, I’m not exaggerating, over a dozen cats and would occasionally bring one or two into work with her); and a near-silent, painfully shy, chemist (try as I might, I could never strike up any conversation with her that was not work-related). Unfortunately, I could not waste time during the day with my friend the secretary since her desk was right outside the boss’s door. That left me to find friends among my fellow chemists and engineers who were nearly all men.

I’m not saying that male/female relationships are not possible with all people. And I find it interesting that most of my male friends have been, for lack of a better word, geeks. Scientists, computer guys, engineers and the like. Why? My guy-friend MDT think it's because those careers draw people with the type of personality who have things in common with me and want me for a friend. In other words, geeks stick together. RWT feels that nerdy guys get so much of the “let’s just be friends” line from girls in high school and college (RWT has an impressive amount of experience with this phenomenon) that they are actually forced into learning to become friends with women and keep that ability throughout their lives. I sometimes wonder if it is just a percentages thing… only a certain percentage of people have friendship potential and when you mainly hang around geeky men, you’ll end up with more geeky male friends.

However, I do not claim for a moment that male/female friendships are just like same-sex friendships. There are things I tell my girlfriends that I would never admit to my guy-friends. And there are topics I talk about with my male friends about that most of my girlfriends really have no interest whatsoever in discussing.

From my side of it, I've never had to battle much against romantic feelings surfacing during my friendships with men. But I do see how it could occur in some cases, especially if no effort was made to avoid it. My father is fond of saying, “we are not animals and have control over our actions and feelings”. Not very romantic, but I find it to be apt. I go into male/female friendships knowing there will not be anything else other than friendship. The reasons why can run from not being attracted to the person in a romantic sense, other relationship commitments (such as marriage), that the friendship is in a professional situation where anything more would be inappropriate, and so on. But the biggest factor for me is that I value these friendships so much that I would hate to do anything to mess that up.

Cookie Collection Recipe 1

Yes, it's that time of year... cute little imps are running around knocking on doors and selling cookies. If you can't wait for your six boxes of Thin Mints to be delivered, you can satisfy your craving by making these cookies.

CHOCOLATE MINT COOKIES
Makes ~3½ dozen cookies

These cookies taste quite a bit like Girl Scout Thin Mints. The dough can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen until ready to be sliced and cooked. I like to drizzle these cookies with some lightly green-tinted white chocolate instead of the bittersweet chocolate.

1½ cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ teaspoon peppermint extract
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 large egg

6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate or confectionary coating, chopped


Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together in medium bowl to blend and set aside.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Mix in the peppermint extract and vanilla, then mix in the sugar in 3 additions. Add the egg and mix until blended, then add the reserved flour mixture and mix just until blended (the dough will be sticky).

Divide the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and, using the plastic wrap as an aid, form each piece of the dough into a 2”-diameter log. Wrap with the plastic and refrigerate the dough until well chilled, at least two hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease or line with parchment paper two half-sheet pans.

Unwrap the dough logs and roll them briefly on the work surface to form smooth round logs. Cut the logs crosswise into ¼“ thick rounds and place the rounds on the prepared pans, spacing the cookies 1“ apart. Bake the cookies until the tops and edges are dry to touch, ~15 minutes. Then cool them completely on the pans.

Stir the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water until the chocolate is melted and smooth, or melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe container at 50% power in a microwave. Let the melted chocolate cool until slightly thickened but still pourable, ~10 minutes. Dip a fork into the melted chocolate, then wave the fork back and forth over the cookies, drizzling the melted chocolate thickly over the cookies in a zigzag pattern.

Refrigerate the cookies until the chocolate is set, ~10 minutes (if using confectionary coating or if you tempered the chocolate, you can skip the refrigeration).

[Next Week: Samoas/Caramel de-Lites Knock-Offs]

I’m not Kelly McGillis…

… and you’re definitely not Tom Cruise.

When I worked for the Navy as a paints & coatings expert, I regularly taught a class on lead-based paint management. Occasionally, it would be a free-standing course, but most of the time, I was a guest speaker as part of a larger course on paints & coatings or environmental topics.

Teaching the painters and maintenance workers was never an issue. Even though most did not have anything higher than a high school education (if that) and were not the most sophisticated of people, they always listened attentively to what I had to say and were there to learn. But teaching the military officers was a whole other matter and the first time I taught the lead-paint class to a group of officers, I was totally caught off guard.

One of the possible effects of lead-poisoning is impotence. Now, I didn’t go into it in detail in my presentation, buy merely included it in a long inventory of potential health risks. And when I rattled off my list (which also included numerous neurological problems, such as brain damage) and got to “impotence”, two Lieutenant Commanders in the back row of the classroom started giggling. Then commenting to those sitting around them. Then laughing. These were not two young officers just out of school – they both had been in the Navy for at least ten years or so.

And I was totally unprepared for their response (the most noticeable reaction when I mentioned “impotence” to the blue collar workers was that they would suddenly get very interested in their course outline), so I ignored Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #1 and Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #2 figuring they’d stop momentarily. Well, they didn’t. I was already on to sources of lead exposure and they were still being disruptive.

At that point, a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel stood up, spun around and told them to shut up, he was there to learn and they were wasting his time. While the unexpected assistance was certainly appreciated, I was determined that I would take care of it on my own if it ever happened again. So I went back to my office that afternoon determined to think up an appropriate plan of action and the next time I taught the course to a room full of military officers, I was ready.

What I had hoped most of all was that the first incident had been a fluke and it would not occur again. But no. Same course, same classroom, a different collection of Navy officers… I said the word “impotence” and a guy in the front row started snickering and poking his buddy. Sheesh.

So I put on my most pitying facial expression and, in a concerned tone, asked him if he was experiencing impotence problems and suggested that perhaps he should have his blood lead levels tested.

That was all I had to say. The class erupted into laughter, Lieutenant Smart-Ass turned bright red and no one gave me any lip for the rest of my lecture. Order was restored.

Segways & Segues

There has been a big brouhaha regarding Segways discussed on, of all places, my food forum. Last week, someone rode a Segway into a restaurant and asked for his table while still mounted up on it. The hostess who was confronted with this patron towering above her wrote about the incident on my favorite food forum (here). Then, the Washington Post picked up the story (here) and it has only escalated from there.

What most people do not (or in the case many of the forum members, did not) realize is that Segways have become popular with people with mobility impairments. And those folks have come onto the food forum to point that out. Some of these Segway visitors are very nice and polite while others are angry. The angry ones make me think of my mother.

The last five years of her life, my mother had multiple serious medical problems and was in a wheelchair (she used a cane for the ten or so years prior). Additionally, she suffered from fibromyalgia which caused her to have constant pain in her back, across her shoulders and into her neck. To help deal with the pain, she attended a chronic pain support group and some of the new folks visiting the food forum remind of the people from that group.

I find myself wondering if my mom went to that group not for support but to keep her perspective. So many of the group were very, very angry. Angry that they were in constant pain. Angry that the doctors could do little or nothing to alleviate their pain. Angry that other people were not in pain. And I certainly understand why they would feel that way. But my mother (the only person in a wheelchair in the group) did an incredible job of not being angry. Sure, she had her bad days, but I think that witnessing the futility of the anger of the other people in her support group kept her from falling into that way of thinking.

Unfortunately, I never really had the chance to talk to my mother about this specifically. She was raised to “not to be a bother” and even discussing "bad" emotions such as anger was a definite no-no. My mother did an admirable job of not inflicting the way she was raised upon me – I have no trouble expressing my displeasure or being a bother (just ask RWT). However, my mother and I were still very much alike. Outwardly, our reactions to things were quite different, but on the inside, we usually saw things the exact same way.

About six months before she died, I took care of my mother for two weeks while my father took a much needed respite from being her primary care giver and went to visit his sister. The first night at my parent’s house, I spent most of the night worrying about how I would get my mother out of the second story bedroom of their house if there was a fire. She had an electric lift to get up and down the stairs, but I felt that it could not be counted on in an emergency. After much tossing and turning, the best I could come up with was lowering her out of a window using a bedsheet, but my mother outweighed me by more than twice as much, so barring adrenalin-induced feats of super-strength, my plan pretty much sucked.

The next morning, my mom took one look at the dark circles under my eyes and wanted to know what I had stayed awake worrying about all night. Well, it turns out she had already considered all the possible contingencies in case of a fire (including my half-assed sheet plan) and had determined her best course of action was to scoot down the stairs on her rear pulling herself along the track of her lift with her arms (my mom was always very strong and after she had one leg amputated, she had more upper body strength than ten grinches plus two). Not only did we think alike, we worried, obsessed and planned alike too.

Our similar way of seeing things enabled me to be a great caregiver for her. I always knew when to joke her into doing something and when to be the meanie. That time alone with her, caring for her, turned out to be a very special couple of weeks that I will cherish forever. It was the last chunk of time I spent with her outside of a hospital. After nearly six years of battling illness, she died on Valentine’s Day.

Yes, her dying on Valentine’s Day totally sucks. At first, when someone would come up to me in all the hype leading up to Valentine’s day, smile and ask what special thing I would be doing to celebrate that year, it would feel like they were laughing and joking at my pain. It made me angry, just like some of those mobility-impaired Segway users and like the people in my mother’s chronic pain support group. It took a lot of effort not to bluntly inform my good natured, but ignorant, friends and acquaintances that my mom had died on Valentine’s Day – just to wipe the grin off their faces.

Although my mother always wanted me to express what I was feeling, I am glad I witnessed her example that getting angry is not always the best course of action. Anger might be the only means of coping at times or a way to feel better for that moment. But for me, it is just ends up being a bunch of negative energy that does little to help an already difficult situation. Luckily, most of my anger over her death has dissipated over the last ten years and I can now sincerely smile and tell people that we’re not doing anything special for Valentine’s Day.

So on Valentine’s Day you won’t find me going to a romantic restaurant or riding on a Segway or being angry. We’ll probably just stay in again and have a quiet night. And I’ll be thinking of my mom.

I'm back...

Hello.

I’m back.

Yes, it has been a while.

I’m doing well, how about you?

Actually, I am doing well now... November was a busy month with getting ready for our biennial Holiday Open House cookie-fest on the 11th of December. For some crazy reason, I decided to make a gingerbread replica of our house to use as a centerpiece for the party. Wait, go back, initially, for a brief moment of total insanity, I considered doing National Cathedral in gingerbread. Yikes! Just doing our square-box of a colonial (without the additions) was just about the death of me. I ended up spending hours and hours on it and that was only about half the amount of time I would have liked to have spent. But it came out pretty well. Here it is:


The week I baked the walls and roof was unseasonably humid and I did not take as much care as I should have in keep the pieces flat, so when it came time for assembly, there were some gaps. Also, I decided to pipe the dividers in the windows after I had made the molten sugar “glass” to pour over them. Let’s just say that piping straight lines under a time constraint is not one of my strengths. However, I was thrilled with how the tree came out – it was a lot of tedious work that I was afraid would be for naught.

If you noticed all the cookies surrounding the gingerbread house, those were for our Holiday Open House. Every other year (RWT refuses to allow me to do it every year, what a party-pooper), we invite all of our friends, neighbors and work colleagues over to stuff themselves silly with cookies. I still have to tally up the final count, but this year I made around thirty different kinds of cookies. [I am planning on posting one of cookie recipes here every week for your baking and eating pleasure, so stayed tuned.]

Unfortunately, in the midst of my baking frenzy, I really neglected my diet (yes, I had cookies for breakfast and sometimes lunch for nearly two weeks) and my food allergies got really out of hand. In fact, I spent one whole week thinking there was a distinct chance of my keeling over dead at any moment. But a consult to a specialist showed that simply was not true and I am no longer going to the military clinic doctor who put that idea into my head in the first place.

So with a renewed perspective on life (pondering imminent death for week will do that) and a better diet, I am writing here again. And it's good to be back.