Category Archives: The Baboon Congress

Food, The Baboon Congress

Scandinavian Treasure

83 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.

When we moved my mom from one assisted living place to her current one exactly two years ago this week, Husband and I were the sorters, packers, and movers. I remember putting three special items from her kitchen in a small box and labeling it because this was important stuff: her recipe box and dad’s, and the Bergen Lutheran Church Cookbook. Somehow in the shuffle of the next few weeks, the box got lost. I’ve been pining for, particularly, the Cookbook ever since.

But today I FOUND THE BOX. It was tucked in a corner of the laundry area. Happily, everything is there intact – the Lefse recipe, my dad’s Kumla and other Norwegian recipes, the Peanut Brittle he would make at Christmas… Mom’s Perfection Salad and Chicken Fricassee. The cream sauce for the Fish Balls. And most important, the Bergan Church Cookbook, from 1963. Here’s a sample:

Cookies

I see from the index there are 32 pages of Cookies; 28 pages of Cakes and Icings; 30 of Desserts, Pastry and Pies; 10 of Meat Dishes; 2 of vegetables, 18 of Breads, and 14 of “Salads”, exemplified here:

Salads, so to speak

They just don’t make cookbooks like this anymore. Where else can you find a recipe for Zweiback Pudding?

Sometimes there isn’t even a recipe, just the list of ingredients. See “Fruit Salad” on page 44:

1 no. 2 can chunk pineapple

1 c. white grapes (cut in two and remove seeds)

1 bag marshmallows

But it contains my grandma’s (Mrs. Arthur Britson’s) recipe for Sour Cream Cookies, and Aunt Clara’s (Mrs. J.E. Britson’s) Delicious Dessert. It’s full of names like Mrs. Ed Sandvold, Mrs. Nels Torgeson, lots of Anderson and Arneson, Knudtson, Larsen. All of these women are gone by now, but this book is one way their names will be remembered.

So, just in time for the Holidays, I have all my resources at my fingertips.

What’s your most cherished cookbook or recipe?

Food, The Baboon Congress

Pumpkin Wasteland

87 Comments

Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee.

I’m not crazy about pumpkin.

My earliest career was in the bakery industry. I took several classes and then got my first job as a cake decorated at Shorewood Village Bakery in Milwaukee. It was a large bakery, as bakeries go, but there were times when I had to pitch in and help with other jobs in addition to making icing roses and piping out “Happy Anniversary Gramma and Gramps”.

One of those jobs was pumpkin pies. Beginning about a week before Thanksgiving and going until the New Year, we cranked out hundreds of pumpkin pies each week. In order to save time, the pies were filled while they were IN the oven, a big reel oven with rotating shelves. Each shelf held 24 pie crusts, par-baked for about 15 minutes.PumpkinPie1 Then one by one, we would stop the shelves and pour the pumpkin mixture into each shell. This took about 15 minutes per shelf. The fun part is that if you keep your arms in a very hot oven for 15 minutes times 5 shelves, you burn your arms off. So when it was your turn, you had to wrap bakery towels around your arms, secure them with bakery twine and then another employee would pour cold water over the towels. After you were about half way done with a full rotation, you’d get another douse of cold water. We took turns, so you usually only had to do this once a day, but it was every day from mid-November to January, including Sundays. Actually on Sundays the only baking that happened was pies, so you sometimes had to pour twice.

I’m sure it doesn’t surprise anybody that I don’t eat pumpkin pie. In fact, because the smell catapults me right back to those bakery days, I don’t really like anything with pumpkin in it. (I do make an exception for Breadsmith’s Pumpkin Muffins w/ Walnuts, but that’s about it.)

So this time of year is particularly hard for me. Everything has pumpkin in it. EVERYTHING. I follow several food blogs and nobody has made a thing for a few weeks now that doesn’t feature pumpkin. My coffee place has pumpkin lattes and pumpkin scones. My bagel place has pumpkin bagels. I’m sure if I could remember my dreams, they would be pumpkin dreams. I figure I have a good four weeks before we’re safely out of pumpkin season until next year. I can’t wait.

Mind you, I don’t have a problem with the other members of the squash family – just pumpkin.

What food has been spoiled for you?

The Baboon Congress

Singin’ at the Guthrie

52 Comments

Today’s post comes from three members of the Baboon Congress, Barbara, Lisa and Sherrilee.

The Set-up (by Barbara in Robbinsdale)

My little Showtime Chorus is one of the many Twin Cities choruses that have been participating in the Guthrie’s production of The Events,   a rather heavy duty one-act play that follows the journey of a choir, and especially its leader Claire, as they seek understanding in the aftermath of a mass shooting in their own community.

According to the Guthrie, the play was written as “… a response to the 2011 Norway attacks in which the lives of 77 people were…[lost]… at a summer camp, this internationally acclaimed production delves into faith, politics and reason.”

A presentation of the Actors Touring Company of the UK, the troupe shares the stage with a different local choir each night.  In our “land of 10,000 choirs” I counted 22 different choirs on the Guthrie’s website, including not just my choir but also the First Universalist Church Choir that Lisa and Verily Sherrilee sing in.

Think of the logistics of getting all those people in the right place on the right day, knowing what they need to know! After rehearsing on our own, we attended a 3-hour music rehearsal at the Guthrie with other choirs who would be on deck that week. On the day of our performance, we attended a 2-hour rehearsal with “blocking” instructions – where to be when, who to watch for cues.

The Show (by Lisa)

We were well taken care of by Guthrie and ATC staff and the script, which outlined the scenes and cues (though without details so we could still be surprised as the tale unfolded). The intro to each song made our starting notes very clear (no having to pull them out of the air).

We were more involved than we might have first imagined. Two people were volunteered for somewhat lengthy speaking parts (but they could read them without shame – no memorization needed). A number of people were given lines of a few words.

Our only improvisation came when the character Claire decided to lead us in a Shamanic ritual to try to restore her lost soul. She instructed us to move off the risers and come to the front of the stage, and then to melt. I was near the front of the stage so I am not sure what other people did, but I did my best candle and ended up almost flat on the floor. We were then instructed to touch at least one other person and finally to vocalize and jump up as if struck by lightning, shouting, “Charge!!”

We have a blind choir member with a lovely yellow lab guide dog. I heard later that when J was on the floor, D thought it would be helpful to lick J’s face as it was at a convenient height. The improvising actress asked him, “How do you say “melt” in Dog?” The audience thought it all pretty hysterical.

It was good to have some lighter moments as the whole play was dealing with an extremely disturbing subject without any easy answers. The positive message, though, was that community (such as found in community choirs) is our greatest hope for responding to these tragedies.

The Songs (by Verily Sherrilee)

There were six songs assigned for The Event plus each choir started out their show with a prepared song of their choosing.

We started with the Norwegian Coffee Song as a warm up, each time through a little faster than the time before.  Hopefully there weren’t too many Norwegians in the audience to hear how bad the pronunciation gets when you sing that fast.  Soul was a very short piece that we did during the main actor’s monologue about losing her soul.  Ohm.  Soul.  Ohm.  That was all but it was amazing the amount of work put into hitting those four notes and growing the sound.

The third piece was Bonkers by Dizzee Rascal.  This was a big hit in the U.K. a few years ago although our version was slower and “more epic” according to the musical director.  The lyrics pointed to a life in chaos and depression but had a beautiful resolution at the end.  Then there was How Great Thou Art.  As part of the play, Claire was having trouble with the song, since she was struggling with her faith.  So she stopped us midstream, asked us to hum, asked just the altos/sopranos to hum and eventually let everybody sing but quite softly.

If there was a production hit, it was Gavrilo Principe, a high energy song about making your mark on the world.  We were encouraged to rock our air guitars, throw in a lot of movement and clap.  The final song was We’re All Here with a repeating chorus that the audience was encouraged to sing along. After 90 minutes of a tough subject, it was soothing and hopeful.

The songs were all really different and without the play to anchor them, they initially seemed a little bizarre.  But with the dialogue and movements of the actors, they made more sense and contributed to a powerful presentation.

Tell us about YOUR 15 minutes of fame?

The Baboon Congress

George and Babs Send Their Regrets

48 Comments

Header image: Joey Gannon from Pittsburgh, PA (Candles) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms.

We are approaching the date of my erstwife’s birthday. That triggers a rush of memories, some sweet and some harrowing. (Apologies to Baboons who might remember this story from an earlier post.)

Early in any couple’s married life the newlyweds might need to blend two different family celebration styles. This became a challenge for me. My family went nuts at Christmas but hardly acknowledged other special days. We did little for Thanksgiving, less for Halloween and absolutely nothing for Easter. My new wife’s family celebrated as often and as gaily as possible. Life in that family was a succession of hearty parties.

The sharpest clash of styles related to birthdays. My in-laws exploded with joy at birthdays. They put on celebratory dinners, baked fancy cakes, presented cards and exchanged cool gifts. In my family the birthday star chose his or her favorite cake. And that was pretty much it. No cards. No candles or candy letters on the cake. The gifts were modest, too. When I turned ten, for example, my mom gave me two dollars to spend at our local dime store.

You see the potential here for hurt feelings. Early in my married life I had to acquire the habit of celebrating special days. And in fact, I enjoyed that. I never forgot our wedding anniversary. The big day that tested my memory was November 7, my bride’s birthday. That one refused to stick in my memory. Who knows why? But, with the help of a watch I programmed to remind me of the date, I was always ready with gifts.

In October of 1989 I traveled to South Dakota to hunt sharp–tailed grouse with a guy I barely knew. To save money, we camped out, sleeping on the prairie without even a tent for shelter. That should have been fun, but we experienced a freak shot of winter weather. It got so cold I couldn’t sleep until I invited Spook, my English setter, to spend the night tucked in with me in my sleeping bag.

I was so distracted by the preparations for the trip that I totally forgot my wife’s upcoming birthday. By then the magic watch was broken, so it didn’t warn me. I didn’t even remember later, while we hunted the frozen prairie. If the error had been scored in the Olympics of Marital Screwups, I would have earned a perfect ten.

When I got home again I walked into a home so frosty I could have cut the air with a knife. I slept in the basement. Things were so chilly I was tempted to invite Spook to share my sleeping bag again. In desperation I gave my wife a novel that I had bought earlier, intending to give it to a friend. This novel had earned a rave review from Alan Chuse on NPR. But my wife knew I had bought it for our friend. It wasn’t wrapped. And when she read the first few pages, she hated the book.

That horrible birthday became a “teachable moment,” which is a nice way of saying the memory of that birthday fiasco was forever burned in my memory. In 1990 I began planning for her next birthday several months before the date. I bought several sensitively chosen gifts. I had them gift-wrapped. I got a nice card. I planned a special meal with plenty of wine . . . good wine, not the plonk we usually drank. I invited several close friends to the birthday party.

I covertly borrowed my wife’s address book to copy contact information for every friend she had in the world. That was many people. Of course, her close friends already knew her birthday, but I contacted all those second-tier friends scattered over the world, people who liked her but might not know her birth date. I urged each one of them to give her a call on November 7. And they did. Her phone rang over and over all day long. That was the best gift of all.

My finishing touch was to invite the President and First Lady to her party. In 1990, Potus was George H. W. Bush and Flotus was the Silver Fox, Barbara. They weren’t our favorite politicians, to tell the truth, but I was going to make every effort to make this party memorable.

Toward the end of October I took an interesting phone call from Cynthia Hemphill, head of the White House Protocol Office. Speaking in the cultivated tones of a Seven Sisters college grad, Ms. Hemphill said she wasn’t sure how to respond to my invitation. She didn’t recognize my name, which led me to assume she didn’t read many Midwestern hunting and fishing magazines. Without lying, I allowed her to conclude I might be a fat cat Republican supporter.

I told Ms. Hemphill that I knew the Bushes were busy folks. George was saving the Free World, a big job, and Barbara had just co-authored a book with Millie, the Bush’s springer spaniel. I described how miserably I screwed up the last birthday celebration, adding that I hoped it would be a nice touch to invite some special guests this year. I hinted to Ms. Hemphill that a note of regret from the Bushes would be welcome.

In addition to the gifts at the birthday party, my wife got to open a note from George and Barbara Bush. They wouldn’t be partying with us that year, but they wished her well.

How do you celebrate special days?

The Baboon Congress

The Egg Table

50 Comments

Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

Most everyone I know understands what it means when I say “the egg table is up”.

I do Ukrainian eggs (no I’m not Ukrainian); I make ornaments for Solstice every year – it is my main gift. This year there were 36 to make – all the same design.  In addition, the last few years I have been replacing all my baby sister’s eggs that were destroyed 3 years by a nasty mouse invasion at her house; this year I’m doing the last six.  I also usually make 4-5 extra eggs as cushion, since making ornaments out of eggs can be a little dicey. This year’s design was a bit intricate so each egg averaged about an hour to do.  Since this is so much time and I do need access to the kitchen fairly frequently, I do this downstairs in the living room.  At the egg table.

The egg table is just the card table from the front porch, but it has to be set up just the way I like it: plastic tablecloth, desk lamp, electric kiskas plugged in my left hand side, candle, wax and non-electric kiskas in front of me, jars of dye in a semi-circle behind them, eggs to my right. Assorted paper towels, pencils, kraft knives, plastic spoons and other accouterments behind the dyes.

Once the table is set up the way I like, I can’t wait to take it down again – my main goal is to get done and get it all put away until next year. This means that I’m fairly fanatical about my time at the table; all spare minutes are at the table. I usually have the tv on or a book on cd and I tend to eat at the table as well. On most of the days the table is up, I drag into work because I haven’t gone to bed on time and my fingers are stained with dye because I don’t want to spend too much time scrubbing when they’ll just get stained again the next day. Once all the eggs are finished with their layers of wax and dye, I melt the dye off, varnish them, blow out the innards and then affix the ornament holder to the top. Since melting the wax off is actually the most dangerous (to the eggs, not to me) part of the process, I leave the table up until that step is done.  I’ve had it happen more than once that I’ve broken enough during the de-waxing that I’ve had to make a couple more!

This year the table was up a few more days than usual – lots of things going on (hosta digging, choir rehearsals I couldn’t miss, kitty sitting for a friend). But even though I can’t wait to be done and pack up all my supplies, I also miss it a little when I’m finished. I enjoy the relaxation that comes from sitting with a craft and not really focusing on anything else for a while, as well as having a beautiful gift to give for the holidays.  I have already started thinking about next year’s design!

The Baboon Congress

How Do I Hate Squirrels? Let Me Count the Ways.

68 Comments

Today’s post comes from Edith.

Jim’s comment “The squirrels around here seem to be unusually pesky” got me thinking about how much I hate squirrels. South Minneapolis squirrels seem to be especially hateable. People who say squirrels are “cute” either are crazy or they haven’t seen the squirrels in my neighborhood.

When I grew vegetables in my yard, it was an endless source of frustration to see tomatoes get almost to the point of perfect ripeness and then find it lying on the driveway with a squirrel bite taken out of it. The thought of eating a tomato that had been handled by one of those rodents deterred me from ever cutting off the bitten part; my compost pile was the only thing that benefitted from the squirrel leavings (and, actually, the compost pile didn’t benefit, either – see below).

I now only grow herbs and fruits and flowers in my yard. Squirrels like to dig in the planter boxes on the front porch or any freshly turned dirt and also do things like eat tulips off stems before they open their blooms. But at least they aren’t eating my food.

One time a squirrel got into my house. I’m not sure how…but you haven’t seen pure craziness until you’ve seen a squirrel dashing around your house at full speed.

We’ve all heard about how squirrels rob bird feeders of the bird food. If you have an open compost pile, to which you add food scraps, in your yard in south Mpls, you are basically operating a free restaurant for squirrels.

151028_001

But the real reason I hate squirrels? They hate me. Here’s proof. Those of you who also live in the city of Mpls know that the big gray garbage bins the city provides us for our trash are pretty tough. But they’re not tough enough for south Mpls squirrels. Our diabolical neighborhood squirrels chewed a squirrel-sized hole in the lid of my trash bin. They would then go inside the bin and enjoy snacks 151028_002(this was before I composted most of my food scraps). Then, I out I came, blissfully unaware of any danger, with a bag of trash to put in the bin. I threw open the lid – and SHAZZZAAAMMM out flew anywhere from one to three squirrels in my face. They ran away, laughing hysterically at my scream, and plotting when they can do that again.

I learned to kick the trash bin several times and then stand back before I lifted the lid. After the squirrels escaped, I gave it another kick, then waited to make sure they were all gone before I carefully lifted the lid and tossed in the bag. But sometimes in my usual spacey way, I would forget to kick – and once again the squirrels would enjoy their dominance over me.

What “cute” object or animal drives you crazy?

 

The Baboon Congress

Cattle Drive

44 Comments

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

Husband and I travelled to Newell, SD a couple of weeks ago to pick up some lambs we ordered from the Tri-county Meat Locker. It was a beautiful day for a drive, through some pretty isolated and rugged terrain, past the Slim Buttes, Custer National Forest, and Castle Rock, past Hoover, ( a former stage-coach stop that now is a ranch with a convenience store), with Bear Butte (sacred to the Lakota people) in the far distance near Sturgis.

We were about 20 miles into SD near a very small “town” named Reva, when we had to stop for about 15 minutes to allow the last of  about 200 head of Angus cattle cross the road to their winter pasture closer to their rancher’s home place. They appeared to be cows with almost full-grown calves. We arrived at the very end of the parade, and we could see the cattle that had already crossed the road winding their way far ahead.

20151009_130102

The cattle were pretty placid and calm, mooing quietly, trudging resolutely, herded by two teenage girls and a much younger girl about eight years old, all on horseback. The little girl didn’t look too happy about it. There was a mom-type with two preschool-age girls bringing up the rear on an ATV.

As we continued on our way we noticed fresh cowpies on the highway for about 10 miles, and we could trace where the cattle had started out in a pasture just below the Slim Buttes. Husband and I were so happy we got to see this, which we found out was pretty common this time of year. It is a lot less expensive to drive them to winter pasture than to truck them. I thought about the teens and younger children involved in the drive and I hoped they understood just how fortunate they are to experience this.

The cattle were not visible from the road on our return trip later that afternoon. I like to think they were munching away on  good grass on the other side of the hills. I suppose they will travel back to their summer pasture in  the spring, this time accompanied by new calves.

It was a really good day.

What unexpected sight stopped your road trip?

 

The Baboon Congress

Summer 2015 in Brackets

63 Comments

Williams 14

 

This spring, just as the trees were budding, later than normal, Sandy and I walked the Williams Nature Trail near Minneopa State Park. It has a paved path that allows her to use her walker.

In the middle of the summer we hit the MinnesotaLandscape 2015-06-01 22.21.03Arboretum at the peak of color.

Now, in this quick autumn season, out the window above my computer I  see the last bright colors hanging on.SEat

My grandson, Mr. Tuxedo was here Saturday and wished he had brought a book to read sitting out in the ravine beyond that tree.

WindowThen we went out to buy him and his sister their pumpkins to carve this week. Halloween, it seems to me, is the exclamation point to summer.

Are you a pumpkin carver?

The Baboon Congress, Travel

Climbing the Family Tree in Philadelphia

33 Comments

Header image by Dave Z (Flickr: CITY HALL PHILADELPHIA) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Jacque.

In early October Lou and I travelled to Philadelphia for a long weekend in the City of Brotherly Love to see the sights and climb some ancient branches of the family tree.   We made our plans with my sister and her husband, who wanted the climb the family tree with us.

We were scheduled to leave on Wednesday. Tuesday, my sister and her husband were packed and ready to head North from Iowa. She picked up a knife to scrape a label off a can. The knife slipped. A perfectly positioned ½ inch cut at the base of her thumb severed the tendon. She called from the Dr.s’ office to report that instead of going to Philly, she was going to surgery. The surgery appears successful, but her hand and arm are swathed in an enormous splint because it is of great importance not to move the thumb while the tendon heals. Not only did she miss the trip to Philly, she can’t even drive in Iowa. She called SW airlines, cancelled her plane tickets and put them on hold for another trip.

We left for the airport early, early Wednesday morning; 530 am early, to arrive in time for a very delayed flight—plane repairs. The layover in Chicago was even more delayed—more plane repairs. That plane they finally just replaced after 2 hours of waiting. HMMM. In what condition does Southwest Airlines keep their planes? So our ETA of 12:55pm stretched to an actual arrival time of 5pm. Argh.

We arrived famished and tired. However, we were delighted that the train into Philadelphia was simple to locate and right on time, zipping us right into the Center City area. Yippee. We were on our way. We walked to our B and B through the beautiful neighborhoods surrounding Rittenhouse Square, noticing an array of restaurants with really great looking menus. Philadelphia is a fabulous city in which to be hungry. It has great restaurants, one of my favorite parts of travel. My first meal of crabcakes was delicious.

Highlights of the sightseeing and family tree climbing are as follows:

  • A tour of Independence Hall which revealed that the Founding Fathers rented the space to meet from the Colony of Pennsylvania. The USA owns it now, but we did not own it then!
  • The National Jewish Museum which provided me with a list of Jewish Geneology sites and which confirmed the presence of many Jewish soldiers from the Philadelphia area in the American Revolution. Maybe my 7th great grandfather, Michael Klein/Kline/Cline will reveal himself there.
  • I was blessed by a cardboard Pope Francis in City Hall.
  • Reading Market—a fabulous Inner city market with more great food (see sandwich picture).
  • Rittenhouse Square—a lovely park that hosted a wonderful art/craft show over the weekend—is filled with jugglers, mimes, families with children, dogs and musicians.
  • The Betsy Ross House where I learned a lot more about the Free Quakers from whom I am descended. And there I learned that my cousin, Timothy Matlack, was the scrivener of the Declaration of Independence. His grandfather, Mark Stratton is also my 7th great grandfather whose grave I located at the Medford Friends Meeting Cemetery, 20 miles from Center City Philadelphia in New Jersey.  And I had not heard of this man before.
  • LaReserve B and B. We had a comfy stay there with excellent breakfasts.
  • And did I mention the food? The Osteria on S. Broad was the highlight.
Sandwich from Reading Market
What is left of the red sandstone Gravestone of Mark Stratton B. 1692 D. 1759
Blessed by the Cardboard Pope
Pine Street in Philly

What a great city to tour! I would do it again; however, I will not fly Southwest again. We arrived back at the airport early Sunday morning to fly home, where we found the Southwest computers all down and the agents printing and collecting tickets.

So we arrived home late. The flights were delayed due to computer failure. Of course they were. Sigh.

The Baboon Congress, Weather

Fog

62 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale
(Written 9/28/15, in the hills of Berkeley, CA)

When I first looked out here, I could see only the house across the street. Now I can see some rooftops, but beyond that is Fog, just a blur as the houses across the street seem to drop away down the hill.  I am house-sitting in the Berkeley hills for a friend of my sister while I visit Sue in the East Bay near San Francisco. It’s a chilly morning so I’m seated with a cup of tea, inside the sliding glass door. I hear crows and traffic, so I know there is life beyond what I can see. I hope I can find my camera.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Ah, now I can make out several large pine trees farther down the hill. I know that behind them are more houses and more trees, then smaller and smaller houses as the hills level off to the “Berkeley flats”, the franchise strips like San Pablo Ave, the freeways, and finally the Berkeley Marina and San Francisco Bay. Last night it seemed that millions of lights dotted this view – this morning, Fog.

I try and remember the Carl Sandburg poem we memorized in 8th grade:

“The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”

My memory takes me back to another time: In the early 1970s I spent two years living in El Granada, a tiny coastal community 45 minutes south of San Francisco on Highway 1. I’d already spent two years in S.F., so I knew a bit about Fog. When I (and my dad) bought my VW, I made sure it was the new bright yellow that would show up in the Fog. Living on that coast, I would wake up many mornings to the foghorn – that low, haunting vibration that makes you want to burrow back under the covers. But the Fog would usually “burn off” by noon, often revealing a crisp sunny day.

When I moved back to the Midwest, I seldom encountered Fog. When I did it was usually an anxious time, me creeping along in the car because I couldn’t see what was ahead of me. I realized I missed the kind of Fog that comes in morning, then bows out and lets the sun through – missed the foghorn.

I suppose we could move to Duluth.

When have you had an encounter with Fog?