All posts by reneeinnd

2021, animals, History, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Easter Baskets

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I received a text from Daughter last week enquiring if she would get an Easter basket this year. I replied that of course  she would. She reminded me of her favorites (anything milk chocolate, Butterfinger eggs, anything sour) and I assured her they  would arrive in good time. I asked Son and Dil what Grandson should get in his basket, and they sent their suggestions (Cadbury mini  eggs, freeze dried mangos and raspberries, raisins, and pretzel chips).  Now I am sorting through our spare boxes to get everything sent.

I remember the activities of Easter more than the treats. It was a time I got a fancy new church dress and hat. I don’t remember dying eggs.  The Easter Bunny left white  tracks all over our house, deposited on the charcoal colored carpets by my mother,  who dipped oval shaped shoe polish applicators in flour and left bunny tracks through the house that led to the candy.

We plan to tell the children next door on Easter Sunday that we have rabbit problems in our yard, and would they please come over to get the chocolate eggs those darn rabbits have left all over the place. That will be fun.

What are your Easter memories? What do you want in your Easter Basket this year?

Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Culinary Rescue

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Last weekend’s discussion about the contents of our freezers prompted me to make  spinach quiche on  Saturday. I had pie dough in the freezer along with the correct amount of frozen spinach from the garden. What could go wrong?

Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it,  and I certainly repeated it with the quiche.  I like to use Julia Child’s quiche recipe from Mastering The Art of French Cooking.  It calls for an 8 inch pan with a removable bottom, or else a flan ring.  A flan ring is an 8 inch in diameter by 1 inch high metal ring with no bottom. You use a cookie sheet as the bottom.  You just line the flan ring/cookie sheet combo with the crust. I don’t have a pan with a removable bottom,  but I have a flan ring and I have used it for years. I almost always have trouble with it, though, but I never replaced it despite all the trouble it caused.  It works beautifully if you have just the right pie dough for your quiche, one with a higher proportion of butter to lard or shortening.  It makes for a sturdier crust.

My current favorite pie dough recipe has equal amounts of butter and lard. It is really flaky. I rolled it  out, lined the flan ring, made a lovely fluted rim,  and set to partially baking it preparatory to pouring in the filling.  A few minutes after I put the crust in the oven, the entire flaky and tender fluted rim fell off onto the cookie sheet. My pastry was too delicate.  That left me with a partially baked crust about three quarters of an inch high and no rim to keep the filling from overflowing.  Not to be daunted, I rolled some leftover dough scraps and remade a serviceable rim that I attached to the partially baked crust after it cooled.  I  filled the quiche shell with the delectable filling, and put it in the oven.

I neglected to consider that if my fluted rim was too delicate, so was the bottom edge of the crust. As usually happens when I don’t use the  sturdier crust recipe, the filling started to leak out of the bottom of the crust and onto the cookie sheet.  I felt like the little Dutch boy plugging the dike as I plastered dough scraps at the junction of the cookie sheet and the flan ring where the leaks seemed to be the biggest.  After a bit the eggs and cream started to thicken with the heat, and I suppose only half a cup or so leaked out. The finished quiche was delicious,  but the drama that went into making it! (There was even more drama during all of this  because before I baked the quiche, husband  finished an 11 lb pork shoulder in the oven after he smoked it, and I didn’t realize that it had leaked fat all over the bottom of the oven,  and billows of smoke poured out of the oven every time I had to open it to attend to the crust. We had to open all the windows to let the smoke out. The pork was delicious, too, but what a mess!)

I threw the flan ring in the garbage and ordered an 8 inch quiche pan with a removable bottom. Then we cleaned the oven.

What are some of your memorable disasters? 

2021, books, History, home, Media, News, Stories, Uncategorized, work

Hometown Fame

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I was never so proud to be from Luverne, MN when it was chosen to be featured in The War documentary.  Luverne wasn’t famous for much of anything before that, except for being where Fred Manfred lived, and for its marching band festival.  It really boosted the town and seemed to make the residents more cohesive somehow

Recently,  two North Dakota towns have been highlighted in the media-Minot in a Feb. 15-22 New Yorker article by Atul Gawande , and Williston in the book The Good Hand (2021) by Michael Patrick F. Smith. Gawande is a surgeon and public health researcher who was part of  the Biden Transition Advisory Board for COVID 19.  He wrote about the struggle in Minot city council over a mask mandate, and all the the antimask rhetoric and hysteria that swept through the community, a community that was severely impacted by the virus.

Smith’s book highlights what it was like to work in Williston during the oil boom, and what he writes about is pretty awful.  He is a a folksinger, actor, and playwright who left Brooklyn  to experience life on the rigs. Much of the book is about his own self discovery, but I don’t think many people would want to move to Williston after reading the book. I wonder what folks in Williston and Minot are thinking about all the publicity.

What is your hometown famous for? What would you write about in a book or article about your hometown or places you have called home?

Gatherings, Media, Music, Poems, Uncategorized

Poetry and Music

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This has been a week of loss for us, with the deaths of Peter Ostroushko and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  A musician and a poet gone.

I think this is a good weekend to think about and celebrate our favorite folk musicians and poets.  I had never in my life experienced folk music until 1981 when I first attended the Winnipeg Folk Festival. It was an absolutely magical experience,  and I was immediate  hooked. I attended every Winnipeg festival  every year I lived there, and many  after we left. When we moved back to the States in 1986, I finally had radio access to PHC, and not long after that I found the Morning Show. The rest is history.

Poetry appreciation has always been a stretch for me, but I have come to understand and love it with the gentle assistance of the Baboons. Thank you, all.

What are your favorite poems? What are your favorite folk groups,  festivals, and songs? What do you think is important for us to hear and read right now?

 

 

Family, History, Uncategorized

Dickies And Other Oddities

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My mother-in-law sent a sweater to me for my birthday.  It is a cheerful red color, with a faux white collar and band at the bottom to make it look like I am wearing a white shirt under it,  with the shirt sticking out at the bottom.  The collar is a real shirt collar that actually buttons and has a placket that has to be tucked inside the sweater.  My first  thought when I saw the sweater was “What a great red color!”  My next thought was “Good grief! That is a dickie!”

I haven’t seen a dickie in  years. They were always worn by boys mostly, it seemed.  I thought they  would be kind of annoying.  Husband says he liked turtleneck dickies because they kept the wind out but weren’t too warm. He thought they were the height of preppiness.  He abandoned them for chambray work shirts  because he wanted an earthier look.

I like my new sweater, and the dickie collar isn’t too weird or annoying.  I saw in the Walmart women’s clothing section full length  bib overalls the other day.  Now that is a fashion item I wouldn’t mind returning.  I can be earthy too, you know.

Did you ever have, or do you have now, a dickie?  What clothing trends would you like to see return or never again see the light of day?

Family, Fantasy, History, home, Technology, Uncategorized

Eavesdropping

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The other day I went into the kitchen when Husband was there cooking something,  and I opened a drawer to get out a spoon to eat some yogurt.  I had my phone in my sweater pocket.  I exclaimed upon grabbing the spoon “The silverware drawer is disgusting”!  It had lots of crumbs and crud in it, as happens with such drawers.  I made a mental note to clean it later.

I sat down and pulled out my phone.  There in the Google search bar were the words “The silverware drawer is disgusting” and below were many references to cleaning tips and strategies.  I was both shocked and amused. I never use the Google  function on my phone in which I could ask the phone to look things up for me or search for something. I must have tapped the button unbeknownst when I put it in my pocket.  It really felt as though the phone was eavesdropping on me. I plan to be far more careful in the future to make sure I haven’t engaged that function .

Where and when would you have wanted to be a fly on the wall?  

Art, education, Family, History, Technology, Uncategorized

Baboon Ink

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Saturday is Husband’s birthday, and last week his younger brother sent a wonderful but puzzling gift. Husband has always liked fountain pens.  Enclosed in the package was a narrow box which contained some writing apparatuses that had belonged to their paternal grandfather.  In the box from a Wheeling, West Virginia jewelry store were a dip pen and a bone pencil and their accoutrements.

We have determined that there is no ink reservoir on the pen. It was manufactured by the Edward Todd company,  and has the number 11 on the nib. The pen is probably gold, either 14 or 18 carat. There is a weird black plunger that appears to serve to hold what we think are steel calligraphy nibs in place. There is also an odd little gold topper that doesn’t fit into anywhere on the pen.

 

The pencil came with tiny round metal canisters containing really thick leads that seem to fit into the larger end of the pencil.

We have done some online research regarding these writing instruments,  but without much luck. Do Baboons have any ideas?  We don’t know if Husband is going to actually  use the pen, but it is a nice piece of family history to have. I have no idea if you can you still purchase bottles of ink.

What are your favorite writing instruments?  What were your experiences learning to write? What is your handwriting like now?

 

Art, Food, Gatherings, Media, Music, News, Uncategorized

Intangible Treasures

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I read with interest this weekend that French bakers want the baguette declared an intangible treasure by UNESCO. It seems the small bakeries in France are being driven out of business by large, commercial bakeries that mass produce a product the traditional bakers  dismissively call “bread sticks”.  They hope the designation will help protect the baguette and the art that goes into making them,  and draw attention to what is truly a national treasure.  They are in competition  with a wine festival and the zinc roofs of Paris. The French Minister of Culture will decide which she will recommend to UNESCO this year.

Intangible treasures are oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, traditional craft methods, and rituals.  https://ich.unesco.org/en/lists has a list of them.  They are absolutely fascinating.  I didn’t see a list from the US. I suppose many of our traditions and cultural practices were brought here by immigrants and aren’t exclusive to our country. I would have thought Jazz music would be on the list, but perhaps it isn’t considered fragile or endangered.

Check out the intangible treasures on the UNESCO list. What ones catch your eye?  What would you nominate for the US list?  How is your baguette technique?

 

Family, History, Media, Music, Songs

The Soundtrack of our Lives

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Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms.

I’m passionate about music and life, so it is not surprising that the two often meld for me. Certain moments become inextricably associated with the music I was listening to at that time. The most familiar example of this is how couples can have a song or performance that becomes “our” song. But that sort of things happens over and over for people like me. We end up associating music with certain times places we have known. I keep hearing the phrase: “the soundtrack for my life.” And that, for many people, colors how they think of moments from their past.

The worst place I ever lived was a shabby little house on the West Bank near Seven Corners, but that place is also associated with the moment I discovered the music of Leo Kottke at the nearby Scholar Coffeehouse. As awful as that house was, Leo’s music was one of the happiest discoveries of my life. Some of the associations we make are complicated.

Sometimes the soundtrack we can’t help associating with something is wildly inappropriate to anyone else. I discovered the Lord of the Rings trilogy early in grad school. At the same time, I was listening to a lot of Ravi Shankar sitar music. Clearly, the epic trilogy is as thoroughly European and Nordic as Shankar’s music is Indian, but when I read Tolkien I keep hearing sitar music. It is, after all, exotic, and I found the novels exotic.

I think of these matters a lot now because I keep encountering two types of music that are linked in my mind to the pandemic. I discovered the music of the traditional jazz band Tuba Skinny just as the virus reached the US and changed our lives. When I listen to YouTube videos of the band, as I do for maybe an hour each day, I keep reading comments from others who say they could not bear the pandemic without the uplift of Tuba Skinny music.

Similarly, early in the virus shutdown period, Mary Chapin Carpenter began recording Songs from Home. She films herself with her animals (White Kitty and Angus, the golden retriever) at her farm home in Virginia. She delivers her performances (filmed on her phone, I think) with a breathy intimacy that is incredibly calming. Unless you somehow hate her music, I urge you to sample some Songs From Home to read the comments of all the people who say their sole salvation in this difficult time is the music she makes for them.

What about you? What music do you associate with particular moments from your past? Do you have “our song” with anyone?

2021, Family, Kids, Nature, News, Uncategorized, Weather

Good Gifts

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Our daughter’s best friend since childhood currently lives in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area where she  attends  North Texas State University for graduate study in vocal performance.  She has a beautiful soprano voice and we are very proud of her.  She is like a second daughter to us. She has sent frequent updates on the storm.  As a North Dakota native, she is probably better accustomed to managing the cold and the bad roads than most folks in Texas right now.  She lost electricity/heat  off and on the past several days, and Wednesday night her apartment complex lost all water due to a busted water main. She got to the grocery store for provisions yesterday.

I was gratified to learn that she kept warm when the heat was off  by wrapping up in a down comforter we gave her for a high school graduation present nine years ago. It was a real good one with a high fill power. I was happy to know she still had it and that it came in handy. How clever of her to take it with her to a place where you never imagine needing that kind of warmth. I hope all the things I give as gifts are so useful.

What have been some of the most useful gifts you have given or received? Any advice for Texans right now?