I wrote this post with the help of Husband, who is devoted volunteer at our local food pantry. He works mainly on Thursday afternoons selecting meat for various sizes of families. He tries to “mix it up” so people get a nice variety of the frozen ground and whole pieces of meat. He also goes once a month to help unload the big truck with the large quantities of food that comes from a regional food distribution site in Fargo.
He mentioned the other day that they received a large shipment of of smoked turkey necks. He also stated they currently have vast quantities of smoked Chinese oysters, various dried beans, frozen pork knuckles, hocks, and necks, overgrown winter squashes, Mac and Cheese, eggs (including blue eggs), hot Jimmie Dean sausage, frozen haddock and pollock, Chinese noodles, canned tomato sauce, canned vegetables, soup, canned fruit, half and half, cereals, snacks, dried lentils and garbanzos, Lil’ Smokies, pancakes mix, Mexican and Chinese condiments, surplus diet soda, etc.
The volunteers load up the carts. Patrons can’t order what they want. This made me wonder what a person who has very few resources would do with a can of Chinese oysters , frozen pork necks, and a pound of dried garbanzo beans. Husband got the go ahead from the Pantry Board to talk to our local County Extension Home Economist about nutrition information for patrons. I also asked him if the needy folks even know how to cook dried beans or even have the right cookware to prepare a meal from scratch. He and another volunteer are going to come up with tasty recipes using the Food Pantry provisions to help make this food go farther and be palatable.
What would you do with smoked turkey necks and canned Chinese oysters ? What are the essential cooking pots that are necessary for basic cooking? What are the basic recipes that people should know to prepare?
Well not exactly day one. But the first day in the field doing spring work so it’s day one from that point of view.
Spent the morning doing my usual stuff on the computer: emails, newspaper, moms banking, our banking. A few phone calls, etc. before I’m finally out the door mid-morning.
I needed to take a couple of tires to get fixed and the one on the grain drill I already had loose. Also had a tire on the four wheeler with a slow leak and that’s easy to put a floor jack under the back end and use the impact wrench and four nuts and that comes right off.
Got both tires in the back of the truck, loaded up all three dogs, and headed for Millville Minnesota. We’ve been taking tires to Appel service in Millville for as long as I can remember. It’s about half an hour away and you won’t find a nicer, family owned business, anywhere. Millville is a town of about 180 people and so far down in the valley you can’t get any cell phone reception. There are a couple of bars, couple of restaurants, one Church, a cemetery where I have several relatives, a gun shop, and in a better year I would’ve dropped off the tires and then gone to get lunch at the Lucky Seven Café.
When I got to Appels, most of the crew was at lunch so I said I’d come back. They are really good at fixing your tires while you wait but I may as well keep moving. Back up the road a few miles to pick up my Oat seed. It was such a nice day, pretty amazing weather for this time of the year, and we worry that it’s so dry; all the farmers are going hard. mostly applying anhydrous ammonia- Those white tanks you see in the fields. I probably saw a dozen farmers doing that. There was a couple guys ahead of me at Meyer’s Seeds and we stood outside and talked while Meyer’s rounded up seed and bring it out on the forklift. I petted some cats (The camera snap on the phone scared them away) and I got a nice metal ‘stick’ used for checking seed depth. Always wanted one of those.
After I got my 54 bags of oats, I strapped that down in the truck, and then back to Millville. As I pulled up, they were just taking the four-wheeler tire in and the drill tire was done. There’s something pretty interesting about watching a guy change tires. The machinery involved and just the whole process is really pretty fascinating. The guy ahead of me was watching his tires get fixed, I watched them fix my tire, while at the same time trying not to get in the way or look TOO interested. (It’s kinda loud and hard to talk or ask questions).
Just a tube needed in the four-wheeler tire. The grain drill tire is kind of special. It’s about 3 feet tall, and completely smooth except it has two heavy ridges on each edge. That way, going through the field, it makes a real clear mark that’s easy to follow on the next round of the field. I had ordered two tires: they had one in stock, the second hasn’t shown up yet. And that’s OK, this one was worse than the other. $262 for the tire. $13 labor to mount both. The only thing missing was the bottle of grape pop from the café.
The dogs love riding in the truck. And they don’t miss a chance if they can help it. Although Humphrey lays in the back and looks completely uninterested but he does spend a little time looking out the windows. Bailey bounces back-and-forth between the front seat and the backseat and she spends half the trip with her nose in my face. Allie, the queen of them all will eventually setting in some place where the others don’t walk all over her at least for the moment.
Once we are back on our driveway, I let them all out to run home. About halfway down the driveway there was a squirrel about 75 yards away from the trees and making a beeline back to the trees. The dogs were a good 200 yards away. Missed it by “that“ much.
Our 5 year old gardening buddy has a birthday next week, and asked his parents for a Gunsmoke themed party. He likes dressing up like a cowboy, and I assume his parents let him watch Gunsmoke reruns. His parents agreed, and his dad found a bunch of wooden pallets he is transforming into a boardwalk. There is a large sign the says Long Branch Saloon. I can hardly wait to see if anyone dresses up like Miss Kitty.
Our daughter also has a birthday in a couple of weeks. She always has anxiety over birthdays, I think stemming from anticipation over childhood parties. We never went so far as to recreate a film set, but she had some nice parties. She stated she has a number of birthday events scheduled by friends in the next two weeks. She is celebrating personally by having a different kind of hot dog a day for her birthday week. We never knew she even liked hot dogs.
My childhood parties were pretty tame, but I will never forget my heartbreak on my 8th birthday when my parents told me that we were moving to a new house in a different part of town, meaning I wouldn’t be next door to my best friend anymore.
What are some of your more memorable birthday parties? What events or celebrations do you dread? What would you wear to a Gunsmoke themed party? Plan your next birthday bash.
I have been frustrated the past several months over the unavailability of Italian Parmesan cheese in our town. Wisconsin Parmesan is readily available, but the authentic stuff from Italy is nowhere to be found. (Isn’t that the most pathetic and self-absorbed sentence you have read lately?) I confess a sort of snobbery about cheese, but I blame it on living with someone from Wisconsin. Even he admits true Italian Parmesan is the best.
I got sort of impulsive a week ago and found this fancy-shmancy source for real Parmesan, and I ordered a 10 lb. slab. It arrived last week. I was surprised at just how much cheese this was. I warned our children and our daughter’s best friend that they would be receiving large chunks of Parmesan. It is truly wonderful, and nothing like the stuff from Wisconsin. I cut the slab into wedges, sealed them in our food sealer, and figured out the most expedient way to ship it. I have freezer packs and insulated wrappers for it, and will send it off on Friday.
I am an only child, and I always resented it when people said I must be spoiled. Well, I suppose that getting this cheese is pretty self-indulgent, but at least I am sharing it.
When have you been spoiled? How do you spoil yourself? Who do you like to spoil? What is your favorite cheese?
I had a four day weekend over Easter, and I spent it cooking and reading, both real treats for me. The gift of goat meat sent us on a Mediterranean cooking binge, and made me get out a cookbook I had neglected for some time, A Mediterranean Feast, by Clifford Wright. It is 815 pages of the history of Mediterranean food from Spain to Turkey, and all the countries in between. There are hundreds of recipes as well as references. He writes extremely detailed information about each of the recipes and the history of this food and the people who ate it from the Middle Ages to the present. His main emphasis is that the Mediterranean food that we know today is very strongly influenced by the Arabs, and that many food writers of the past have ignored that fact.
One of my favorite comments is in the section devoted to the history Greek and Turkish food, and the stubbornness of Greek food writers and historians to acknowledge the influence of the Ottomans on Greek cuisine, “Unfortunately, there are no comparative historical studies of Greek and Turkish food by disinterested third-party scholars. In any case, all claims regarding the heritage of Greek food must by taken with a grain of salt….” (p. 219). Wouldn’t it by fun to be such a disinterested third-party scholar?
It is hard to decide if this book is more of a cook book or a history book. I think it succeeds at both. I would love to write such a book, although I am not sure what I would write about. I suppose a history of children’s play would be fun, as I am a play therapist.
What kind of history book would you like to write? What Mediterranean countries have you visited?
I read an interesting review the other day a of new Classical CD, “Music in Proust’s Salons”, in which Steven Isserlis, the cellist, recorded pieces written by contemporaries of Marcel Proust. Proust loved organizing small concerts following fancy meals at elegant Paris restaurants. Pieces by Faure, Franck, Hahn, and Chabrier figure prominently in Proust’s selections for his guests. I thought what fun that must have been for all concerned, and I began imagining what sort of salon I would organize. We have many musical friends, so I would invite them to perform. Some are more classically trained, some are Native friends who play a variety of instruments. The guests would be a hodge-podge of coworkers, church friends, and professional friends. We could have dessert and coffee, finger foods, and snacks. Our living room is pretty small, so we would have to find a community room somewhere so we could have enough space as well as a kitchen. I think it would be lovely.
If money wasn’t a problem, who would you invite to play at a salon you organized? What would you want them to play? what food would you serve? Have you read much by Proust?
Husband really likes vegetables. He also really likes olives and preserved /pickled peppers and tomatoes. For some reason last weekend, he decided he was going to make an olive salad, and proceeded to buy six kinds of olives. He ran short of the olives with smoked paprika, which is why I was running around in the big wind on Monday to score a jar for him while he was at his private practice. The header photo is the olive mélange he concocted.
I like vegetables well enough, and probably eat more because I have been married to Husband all these years. I don’t crave vegetables. He really does, and says he feels ill when he doesn’t eat enough of them. I would probably feel the same way if I couldn’t have cheese and dairy products. I could live the rest of my life and never eat another pickle or olive.
Husband considers olives a free food for him as a diabetic. He also loves green salads, which I could take or leave. I just hope he can eat that huge container of olives. They are taking up a lot of room in the fridge and not leaving much room for my skyr!
What is your favorite kind of salad or vegetable? What do you tend to buy too much of when you go grocery shopping?
Last Monday was a wild weather day here, with sustained West winds all day of up to 47 mph, and prolonged gusts of up to 67 mph. There were periods of whiteout from snow squalls intermingled with sunny periods and dust. There were some things we needed at the store, so I hazarded a trip to Walmart at about 5:00, just when the wind was at its peak. I saw traffic lights that had come loose from their supports, dangling over intersections. I waited at a red light on the interstate bridge and the van took the full broadside brunt of the wind. I felt the van rock, and I was worried I might get tipped over.
The wind was cold and horrible, full of dust as I ran into the store. Of course, I left the grocery list in the van. I wasn’t about to run back out to the van to get it, so I tried as best I could to remember what Husband had written . I forgot only one thing, a jar of olives seasoned with smoked paprika. I had to stop at another grocery store anyway, so I thought I could probably get the olives there. Well, there were no such olives there, so I journeyed back to Walmart and struggled yet again in the wind, and I found the olives. Husband was really hoping I could get these olives (more on the olives in another post). He was grateful, and I was really glad to be home.
There is dirt from our front yard vegetable garden blown all over our front stoep and front door. I have lived on the Great Plains most of my life and I don’t think I have been in wind like we had on Monday. There is a lovely children’s book If You’re Not From the Prairie, written by a Saskatchewan author, David Bouchard. (What we call the Plains Canadians call the Prairie.) Here he is reading it. It really captures life out here.
What are your memories of wild weather? Know any good poems, songs, or stories about the wind or weather?
After a request for photos yesterday, I thought I’d expand a bit on the wild dog story.
My first trip to South Africa was with a client who wasn’t crazy about working with my company. Her previous company had just gone through a merger and she inherited the job of overseeing the travel programs. We were already contracted for two programs when she came onboard so even though she had contacts in another incentive house, she couldn’t change suppliers at that point. She was professional about this but she never seemed happy or excited. Now it’s completely plausible that she just wasn’t a person who like to emote but we’ll never know.
We had a large group, bigger than any one safari camp could hold, so we needed to check out three different camps and decide which winners would go in each. That meant that we had to stay in each of the three camps, one camp each night. Boo hoo. These were luxury camps with incredibly nice rooms (all three camps had gorgeous indoor bathrooms and great outdoor showers), amazing food and, of course, the safari runs. You got up very early for the first safari run of the day (think 4 a.m. early) – heavy “snacks” before you left then a massive breakfast when you got back 3 hours later. Then a late afternoon safari, getting back in the dark for a huge “boma” dinner. And you’re in Africa all this time. Amazing.
It was all I could do to contain myself during the trip. (Actually I can hardly contain myself on any of my trips. I can’t think of a single time I’ve gone on a site inspection that hasn’t been wonderful.) My client was the opposite; she was doing her job by being there but she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm. It wasn’t surprising when she bailed on the last safari run of the trip. When the driver and guide came to pick up the Account Exec and me, they told us that they’d heard from other guides on the radio that there might be wild dogs up near “the cut line” (this is the edge of each camp’s territory. Guides are not allowed to take their charges into another camp’s territory). They said if we wanted to try to find the wild dogs, it would take a bit and we’d have to head straight there. The Account Exec and I immediately agreed. As we were driving up, we both acknowledged that if the client had been with us, she would not have wanted to do this.
Well thank goodness she didn’t come. The wild dog pack was indeed on our side of the cut line and it was amazing. They weren’t too worried about us so we were able to observe them for almost 2 hours. There were a lot of puppies and they were very cute. It was a defining moment during the trip, a trip with many unbelievable moments. The photo above is not mine (long story about where those photos are currently stored) but it is very similar to some of the photos I took that day, especially when the dogs and pups came a little closer to the jeep. The puppies are much cuter than you would think, with huge ears and puppy faces.
Even now, after almost 20 years, I feel sorry for that client. I hope she enjoyed South Africa, even if she didn’t show it.
What makes it hard for you to contain YOUR enthusiasm?
NO I DIDN’T HAVE A PARTY WITHOUT YOU GUYS!! PHOTO IS FROM TWO YEARS AGO – SENT TO ME BY A FRIEND.
One year ago on the day before Pi Day, I read an online column in which I saw the “flatten the curve” phrase for the first time. Even though only one person had told me that they were going to skip the Pi Day party due to covid-19. But after reading that column, I realized that I needed to get onboard immediately and I started calling and texting people, letting them know I was cancelling.
Like everyone else, I was thinking that we’d have a couple of bad months and then get back on track, so I kept all my Pi Day organizational materials: the list of ingredients that I had bought (and hopefully wlll need to buy again), my timing spreadsheet with what time various pies have to go in the oven and what temperature they need (sorted by temperature, of course) and the little placecards with all the pie names. All these items are in the drawer in the living room and I see them occasionally and sigh. And now it’s been a second Pi Day with no festivities in the house.
Not entertaining has been a huge hit for me during pandemic. I entertain a lot and I miss it a lot. You all know that I try to keep my expectations low, so I’m hoping that I’ll eventually be able to have Pi Day fun at my place, but I’m not making plans. And that’s made me think about other changes that I’ve made that may or may not be permanent.
I am spending WAY more time texting and emailing than I used to. I’m spending way too much time farting around on my phone. I’m doing my Italian lesson (also on my phone) every day – I’m on a 310 day streak and I doubled my lesson time about 4 months back. For the first time in decades I am hitting the gym more than 12 times a month (masked, sanitized and socially distant). Pre-pandemic I used to follow several blogs, a couple of chefs, several science sites, husky dogs; I’ve quit following all of them and only occasionally check them out – usually if they pop up in my feed. Last summer I sent thank you cards to people with great gardens that I encountered while walking the dog. I’ve started sending birthday cards to people on a Facebook group of stampers – complete strangers and I increased the cards that I made for charity. Way more gardening and more jigsaw puzzles.
I don’t which of these habits will continue if and when we get past pandemic. I hope to keep all the good changes (reaching out) and jettison the bad ones (phone games) and I hope like heck that I eventually get to celebrate Pi Day with my friends and loved ones. Maybe Pi and a Half Day?
How has pandemic changed you? Do you think some of your changes will continue?
Trail Baboon 