Category Archives: Family

Family, Food, gardening

Popcorn Memories

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

I was thinking about popcorn tonight. Actually I wanted popcorn tonight… but I didn’t want to go to the trouble of making it; I wanted a bag of cold popcorn out of the freezer. But that meant making some and freezing it and that seemed like a long wait and a lot of trouble.

And that’s how come I’m thinking about popcorn.

I first learned to make popcorn in a large metal pot on the stovetop. Add some oil, throw in a few kernels, wait until they pop, then add more, add the lid and shake it across the stove. I can hear that sound of the heavy metal pot scrapping across the electric stove elements.

I don’t remember what we served it in.

My grandfather grew popcorn one year. He was quite the gardener. I remember it had to dry and we had to husk it. No idea how it tasted…

I think at some point we had one of those concave, yellow plastic cover poppers; I think you were supposed to serve it in the lid when it was done. And you added butter to the top – it was supposed to drip on to the popcorn before you flipped it over, right? I don’t remember mom ever doing that.

And then there was the black pan w/ the handle on the top in order to stir the popcorn. That one didn’t last long; it probably didn’t work that well.

Then we got air poppers… they worked and were fun. But mom still wouldn’t let me put butter in the little dish on the top. And the popcorn had a tendency to fly out all over…

I remember going to a cabin with my sister and her in-laws when I was about 10. They had ‘Jiffy Pop’ and I’d never seen Jiffy pop before and I was kinda fascinated with the foil bag getting bigger and bigger. I remember her in-laws making sexual references about that. (I don’t remember anything specific, but I knew what they were joking about… and then ‘Grandpa’ grabbed ‘Grandma’ by one finger and kinda tugged on it and kept saying they had to go. People laughed. I was uncomfortable.)

And this one looks familiar. We may have had one of these.

Fourth of July tradition after I met Kelly: Her aunt would pop (in oil on the stove!) a brown paper bag full of popcorn and we’d park on the side of the street right down by Silver Lake to watch the fireworks. Soon as they were over we throw everything in the van because we had to beat the traffic out of downtown.

And then day old popcorn, out of the grease stained bag was THE BEST!

(Several years later… Kelly and I and the kids are trying to get that spot on the street again. Parking rules have changed and parking isn’t allowed. So you have to time it just right that magically ALL the cars will park at once just before the fireworks start and then the cops won’t chase you all away. I, however, have parked in the entrance to the local power plant. The cop asks us to move. I said I thought since it was closed it would be OK. He says there might be an emergency. I said I’d move if there was…..? He smiled. I moved.)

And then came microwave popcorn. How many fire alarms have been set off at work or school from the burned popcorn??

But still, the best is movie theater popcorn. With enough butter to choke a horse.

Sometimes I go to the movies just to buy popcorn. And if you buy a large, you can get a free refill on popcorn. And I got to thinking tonight (remember I was thinking about popcorn) it it’s free refills… do they care if I go to a movie? Is there a specific amount of time that has to pass between buying the popcorn and getting the refill??

You see where I’m going with this; what if I buy a large bag, dump it into some zip lock bags, and ask for a refill? That’s not wrong is it?

Do I have to buy a bag, go into the ‘megaplex’ area to a lounge, fill my bags and find a different clerk to refill? But again, why the bother? I buy a large, dump in a Target bag, and ask for a refill. Am I right??

And now the places that make the cheddar popcorn! Oh My… I could eat a gallon of that without even trying. That is good stuff. I have to forcibly limit myself around cheddar popcorn. Especially from ‘Carrols Corn’ here in Rochester. (http://www.carrollscorn.com/)

Back to popcorn in the freezer. When I was a kid and I was in the hospital, mom would bring me popcorn for a snack. She’d freeze it and bring it to me in Wonder Bread bags. (we were so poor we had to reuse the Wonder Bread Bags).

And now when I bring home extra popcorn, I put it in quart ziplock bags and put it in the freezer. It stays fresh, it doesn’t get soggy, and it’s a nice, quick, easy, cool snack.

GOT A STORY ABOUT POPCORN?

 

 

Family, Food

The Dining Room

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We just got back home after a quick trip to Brookings, SD, to visit son and Daughter in Law, and to watch son perform in community theatre production of The Dining Room by A. R. Gurney.   The production was performed at SDSU as a benefit for Habitat for Humanity.  Son was one of 6 actors performing 57 parts in total. It tells the stories associated with a dining room across decades and diners.

Son wrote in his autobiographical blurb his keen memories of our dining room, and the  myriad of dishes that were consumed and the homework that was done there. He also mentioned that one of his most vivid memories of the dining room was a battle of wills he had with me, one that lasted, it seemed for hours, over his refusal to eat a bowl of my famous, homemade, minestrone soup.  After the play I told him that his children are going to LOVE that soup when I make it for them, and he is just being silly about not  liking cabbage in his minestrone.

What are your dining room stories, past, present, or future?

Family, Media, Songs

The Voices In Our Heads

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One of my tasks as a therapist is to help clients identify and manage the unhelpful, irrational, automatic thoughts that can lead to anxiety and depression. Some of these thoughts are easy to identify. Others play in our heads without our being really aware they are there. Even so, those thoughts are powerful and can lead to a lot of misery.

I am often beset with such thoughts myself, and they cause me lots of anxiety. I know exactly where they come from, too. My mother.  I picked up from her what I call “We are all going to die in the ditch” thoughts that nag at me with the worry that bad things are just around the corner, and you can never relax or trust that things won’t get worse.

My mom was justified in developing this mentality. Her life was a series of hopes that turned into disasters–she meets the young man will marry, and then the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and he goes away and she doesn’t see him again until 1945. Once he is back and they finally get on their feet financially, their apartment is destroyed by a fire.  They start a family, and her appendix ruptures at seven months gestation and she loses the child and is in the hospital for months. She gets healthy again and develops MS.  After that, things went quite well for her and there were no more disasters, but the salience of those disasters stayed with her and left her assuming the worst and waiting for the next disaster to happen.  Her thoughts just oozed into my brain and it is quite a trick to combat them

I listen to the Broadway station on our car radio, and I heard two songs recently that made me realize that there are sources all around us for unhealthy and self-defeating  thoughts. I am using YouTube clips so as to avoid any rannygazoo with copyrights.  Listen to the lyrics and ponder the unhealthy messages.

Whose voices are in your head?  Whose voice would be more helpful?  

Family, History, Uncategorized

Throw It on Dayton’s Wall and See If It Sticks

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Today’s post comes from Northshorer.

The last time Sandy was in Dayton’s downtown, when it was still a Dayton’s, she looked up at a large photo mural on an upper floor and spotted herself in the photo. We were going to try to get there with our daughter and family to see it, but health issues prevented us before it closed. But a friend of hers took a photo of it and sent it to us.

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Sandy is walking beside her friend Maggie. I will leave it to you to find them, which is rather easy to do. The photo was taken in about 1953 when they were in junior high. It was a big adventure for them to ride the bus downtown from the Camden Park neighborhood where they lived. Would parents allow that today? Sandy can tell stories about having to deal with sexual predators of various degrees, so perhaps the age was no more innocent than today.

There was something about the downtown, whether in a major city or a small town.

What exactly was it about downtowns that is absent from our culture today?

Family, History, Nature, Stories, Travel

A Little Explore

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For our anniversary a couple of weeks ago, Husband and I took the day off and went out exploring. It is particularly beautiful right now out in the hills surrounding Winona, and we headed south and west, and ended up in a little town of 657 souls called Rollingstone. Had lunch at Bonnie Ray’s Café – cute place, with photos of the locals papering the walls, pretty decent food. We got to meet Bonnie herself – she was wearing a t-shirt that said something like “Rollingstone – Before the Song, Before the Band”. Then we walked around town and played cribbage on a picnic table in the city park, from which we had this view.

We drove on back roads toward Lewiston, and knew our way to Farmers Park, a gorgeous county park situated in a flat spot among the hills. It’s a peaceful place with multiple picnic spots, and an old fashioned playground with not only teeter totters, but also a real merry-go-round.

When we left, I suggested we follow the road you see in the top photo, up a rutted, winding path that brought us to a cornfield on the ridge. We made our way along one gravel road after another, trying to guess which direction at each juncture, and finally came to a county highway. By now we were so turned around we had no idea what would get us back to our Hwy 14. (And we have no smart phone.) Eureka! – I remembered a map I had picked up just that week, which showed a good bit of area around Winona; we turned left onto County Hwy. 23, made our way home.

Before (or lacking) smart phones, how did you manage to find your way when lost?

Family, gardening, Stories

Gardening Traditions

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Today’s post comes to us from Jacque.

Last weekend, the weekend of Mother’s Day, I gardened under blue skies and warm sunshine. I planted most of the flowers in the front garden—snapdragons, petunias, vinca, marigolds, and indigo salvia.   Last year I did the same thing.  Then the local rabbits then feasted on the tender seedlings.  Fat and happy, the entire Cottontail family flaunted their white tails at me and my dogs.  HMPH. And my front garden was much too bare when those flowers should have bloomed.

My mother and grandmother taught me to garden. They both fashioned cloches from milk cartons which dotted their gardens.  Neither one of them would have ever considered spending hard-earned money on a real cloche!

The first cloche I saw was Grandma’s made out of a milk carton. At that time milk cartons were made of card stock covered in wax.  Grandma cut off the top and the bottom, then used the middle to protect her plants.  Mom did the same thing.  When plastic milk jugs hit the grocery store, those were even better.  They cut off the bottom.  Those were ideal—just the right size and with a pre-existing vent in the top.

So guess who follows this tradition?   Each year I hoard my plastic jugs, cut off the bottoms, and protect my plants under the milk jug cloches.  In the past I have only used this for vegetables.  But I am weary of losing my flowers to these rabbits.  So this year my front garden is sprouting milk jug cloches.

Our neighbors stop by and ask us, “What’s with the milk jugs? Why do you do that?”  Then I explain the concept of a cloche and not spending the money on the real thing and thinking about Grandma when I garden.  And I feel connected to all those gardeners from generations past.

In a few weeks I will string all those milk jugs together, store them under the deck, and re-use them in the next season. I will enjoy spoiling those rabbits’ snacks.  Then when the flowers bloom, I will think about Grandma again, and how we used to tease her about saving money with the milk carton cloches. I also teased her about being a living yard butt. She used to  position herself bottom-side up in her flower garden, pulling weeds, loosening soil, and babying her flowers.  I smile as I think of that scene.  Then I bend over and pull a weed, my rear end high in the air, carrying on another great family gardening tradition.

What do you re-use around the house?

Family, Stories

Moving the Bed

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Today’s post comes to us from Barbara in Rivertown.

We just got back from visiting my mom. Her room in the nursing home is pretty long and narrow, and her bed was in the farthest corner from both the entrance and the bathroom. She’s been after me for weeks – not every visit because she doesn’t always remember, but often enough – to rearrange so that the bed goes crosswise and is closer to both of the doors. I had gotten the OK from the appropriate staff, and Husband was with me Sunday, and so we moved the bed, a shelf, and a little table into new positions.

I can’t remember when she has been so animated, and pleased. She was thrilled that the arrangement makes the room feel cozier, and although the bed is really only a few steps closer to the above mentioned places, it FEELS closer to her, and that’s what counts. What I suspect feels the best is that she still has some say over one aspect of her life.

Is there any part of your life you feel in control of?

Family, Food

Begging for S’More

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I started becoming a vegetarian when I was four. My Aunt Effie served lamb for Easter and when I discovered what was on the plate I promptly threw up.  At the age of five I had to be taken out of a seafood restaurant when I realized the lobsters in the tank at the entrance were becoming the meals at the tables around us.  When I was six I found out that venison was Bambi.  And so it continued.

I gave up the very last bit of meat left in my diet (ground beef) when I was 16. Even after all these years there still a few things I miss.  Tuna salad on a tomato on a hot summer day, sizzling bacon on a cold winter morning.

And marshmallows. No yams with marshmallows at Thanksgiving.  No Rocky Road ice cream.  No s’mores. That’s the one that really hurts. In the past few years there have been a couple of companies that have tried vegetarian marshmallows but they weren’t very good to start with and not good at all for s’mores: too small, too sticky, too melty. Over the years I’ve even tried s’mores with marshmallow cream.  If you think regular s’mores are messy, marshmallow cream is messier.

So when I saw the Trader Joe’s has come out with vegetarian marshmallows I was skeptical. But I figured if they were terrible it was only a couple of bucks. Over the weekend, Young Adult and I made a little fire in our pit and gave them a try.  Imagine my surprise when they turned out to be great.  Not quite as soft as your basic Stay Puff, but great for s’mores.  They stayed on the skewer until they were done and tasted just fine.  They did go pretty fast from light brown to bubbly but that might have had something to do with the impatience of the s’more makers.  Guess I’ll have to try marshmallows on yams next!

What have you given up that you miss?

Family, Stories

If the Walls Could Talk

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Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.

My youngest child, Steve, is a 45 year- old single father now. Two years ago, his then wife broke his heart by divorcing him.  They’d just finished building their “forever home” which he’d been designing for years. My thoughts about why this 13-year relationship deteriorated to the point of no return are that he put in 80-hour weeks working, partly on his four businesses and partly on building this masterpiece of a home. He’d come home and just collapse in exhaustion night after night.  It may also have been compromised because of her career as one of Minnesota’s finest actresses in small theater and the Guthrie. Acting was always her greatest passion in life. She wasn’t even sure that she’d want to add motherhood to this lifestyle. At 41, she agreed to have a baby, and another one at 44.

The thing about relationships is that they, too, need to be tended to and worked on. He more or less, in his zeal to create the perfect home for his family, put too much energy and time into it and too little into their relationship. Any relationship can slowly die through neglect, and by the time she finally admitted her unhappiness, it turned out to be too late.

The first year without her was devastating for Steve. At the time, they had a brand new baby girl and a 3-year old son.  He’d yearned to be a daddy for years, and finally was.  The custody arrangement is 50/50, every other week end and 2-3 nights a week.  He loves Charlie and Leo so much that to this day, he weeps at night when they’re not with him.  I personally have never seen a more loving, involved, and devoted father in my life.

He designed this home around making it an adventure for his kids. Wall panels, when pushed, open up to tunnels and secret spaces behind the walls.  Under both staircases, there are hideaways, some with little ladders going up to the second floor with more hidden spaces.  A large book shelf is a hidden door to a kid-sized space, too.

In the second-floor master bedroom, he had a door installed just for a rope swing bridge out to an elaborate tree house. In the backyard, he installed a 100-foot zip line.  His large sun porch has a high brick fireplace.  On the second floor, behind the back side of the fireplace, he built four small bunk beds for sleepovers.  These, too, can only be accessed through hidden doors.

The most special project of all, however, is a 25-foot long spiral slide which goes from the first level down to the lower level. He even put LED lights in it so that the darkness wouldn’t scare the kids.  They come shooting out the bottom of it at fairly high speed.  Many an adult has accepted a dare to try this slide, but usually after having a few drinks first!  It really is scary.

Steve, having only been in this home for a few weeks before he and his wife began living apart, wanted badly to sell it. There were no positive family memories in the new walls and it was far too large for just one guy.  For months, just being in it alone created heartbreak.  He even spent a few months mostly living in a close friend’s cramped apartment to avoid the painful feelings of being in the family dream home he’d built.  None of us wanted him to sell.

Over time, friends and family began to fill the walls with posit

ive, joyful energy. He’s hosted every family gathering in almost two years, and we’ve established a tradition of everyone being involved in making meals together. The kitchen’s so large that a dozen of us can have plenty of room to prepare our own part of the meal.  Even the little kids contribute by mixing things or cutting up veggies. Last fall, after being asked by a neighbor if he’d have the annual neighborhood party, the home was filled with 70 people and had room to spare.  Inch by inch, month by month, this is truly becoming Steve’s home.  When asked if he still plans to sell it, he always says,” I don’t know – we’ll see”.  My hopes that he’ll stay increase with every new project he does for his little ones.  He just got a black lab p

uppy, so that’s also encouraging.  No one more deserves to occupy this grand home than the man who built it.

Note: The Strib was doing a feature about homes which included fun spaces for kids and asked if they could take some photos and do an interview for their Home section. We were all kind of surprised that his creations took up the entire front and back pages. His now 6-year old Leo is standing in the slide’s opening and Steve’s the one at the bottom of it. Another photo captures the clan in the potluck line after preparing our meal together.

How have the walls of your home helped you through life?

Family, Food, Uncategorized

Flour Power

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Husband and I were delighted to find a bag of Swany White flour recently in a natural food store in Fargo. The store owner told us that Nicole, of Nicole’s Fine Pastry in downtown Fargo, won’t use anything but Swany White. Nicole makes great pastries. He also said that Nicole and the mill owner were cousins.  (I love the small town angle in these conversations.) I hadn’t seen any Swany White since the Freeport, MN mill burned down a few years ago.  We had heard rumors that the mill was operating again. We snapped up a 25 lb bag, and hauled it home. I baked French bread with it this past weekend. I used a combination of Swany, Artisan flour, and Bread flour.  We froze all the loaves as we had too much bread already to start another loaf, so I can’t say if the flour quality is the same. It doesn’t have the same bran flecks the original flour had. It is just as finely ground though, like silk.

I think we have more kinds of flour than most people. In addition to the Swany White, we have King Arthur all-purpose white flour and King Arthur bread flour. We have King Arthur artisan flour, French flour, whole wheat flour, and white whole wheat flour.  We also have a bag of White Lily flour for Southern-style biscuits and white wheat berries for a rustic Italian bread we like to make.

Husband is a real fan of baking rye bread, so he has white rye, pumpernickel, medium rye, rye flour blend, rye chops (coursely ground rye berries), rye bread improver, deli rye sour, First Clear flour (it increases the gluten content in rye breads), and frozen rye sourdough starter. He tries to replicate the wonderful rye breads we found in Winnipeg.

On Sunday, Husband bought Rose Beranbaum’s The Baking Bible for me as a Mother’s Day present. I think he had ulterior motives for me to bake pastries for him. Rose is an absolute fanatic about flour, and compares the protein content of various flours and likes to balance the proteins in her breads using bleached and unbleached flours for just the right results. I think she goes too far, but who am I to judge. She really likes Gold Medal bleached flour as a basic baking flour.

Husband’s brother-in-law has tried for years to replicate the hard rolls baked in their home town of Sheboygan WI that are used for bratwurst. They are wonderful rolls that I have not encountered anywhere but in Sheboygan.  Batch after batch has been baked and deemed lacking. I convinced him that the problem is in his home oven, and so he is thinking about a wood fired clay oven in the back yard.  He is also thinking about apprenticing himself to a Sheyboygan bakery to finally solve the problem. If you knew Husband’s  brother-in-law, you would agree that keeping him busy with this is best for all concerned.

We read at Easter about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness when he says to Lucifer that man doesn’t live by bread alone. I think the Devil has a point, though. Bread is wonderful. I don’t see our going overboard over bread or flour as sinful at all. There are worse things we could be doing.

What makes you go overboard?