Brave

Granddaughter Kate and I went to see the new movie, Brave, today. It was from Pixar, and the only criticisms I had heard was that it was too heavy handed in lessons taught, and not as good as Toy Story.Well, for starters, nothing is as good as Toy Story. Toy Story had it all, courage (bravery),heart (compassion), and smarts (intelligence). That’s the lesson I learned from The Wizard of Oz. This what is required to let you figure out that home is where your heart is.

Same thing in Brave: our rebellious Irish youth, Merida, wants her mother to change. Unfortunately, she gets her wish. She is thrown head first into adventure in the wild, wild, woods, into danger but never bloodshed. Actually, she got a scratch near the end, but we didn’t see the blood. She ends up saving the Kingdom, saving her mother, and ultimately, herself.

The complaint about heavy-handedness doesn’t hold water because the story is set in the time of Celts, Vikings, Blue Picts, and for all I know, Gauls. Twas nothing subtle about those people and the usual over-the-top fighting among themselves seems right at home.

The touch of Magic played well, too. Will ‘o the Wisps are real, we know now, just marsh gas, but for the sake of the movie script, they led to the witch’s lair. She was the one who produced the Magic Cupcake (I kid you not) that caused all the trouble. Merida held fast to her faith and to her mother, and it all came out all right in the end.

This is what’s left of my pie…

The previous chess pie, recipe from an online user who swore byit, was too sweet, grainy and soft, but that didn’t keep them from eating it all up. But I wanted to do better. I took some of the sugar out, added some cornmeal for texture, and what have you. Jerry said not to lose the recipe, so I had better write it down before I forget it.

CHARLOTTE’S CHESS PIE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, prebake a frozen deep dish 9″ pie shell for 5 minutes while you are mixing, with an electric beater, the following:

3/4 stick butter  and 1 1/2 cup sugar

Add: 2 Tablespoons cornmeal

Mix in 4 eggs, one at a time

And lastly, add 1 small (5 oz) can Evaporated Milk and 1 tsp. Vanilla

Pour into pre-baked shell and put on cookie sheet in center of oven for 45 minutes.  Cool and enjoy. Cut into 8ths, as this is rich.

My husband is on a high-fat, high-energy diet had whipped cream on top of his slice!

 

In Praise of Breakfast Casserole

Our son is coming in tonight for the weekend. He says he will put a phone jack beside my bed, and maybe one in the dining room for my work station. I want to move my computer station closer to the dining room table that I use for a desk.

Now it follows that I must feed him in return for these services. Trouble is, I don’t know when he’s getting here. Will he want supper? Breakfast casserole warmed up with melted cheese works. Will he be late and want breakfast in the morning. Voila’!

I found a crowd-sized recipe that I can halve. That ought to do for the three of us. It called for sausage. Our other son, the hunter, has left his excess ground and sausage venison in our freezer downstairs. I have hash-browns in the fridge freezer, eggs, cheese, baking mix, milk, everything it calls for. I also have some sliced mushrooms that are about to expire and an excess of scallions: His Majesty went out for some. I neglected to say, “Only one, only one”, and he came home with four. His rule of thumb is “If a little bit is good, a lot is better.” Just so you know.

Blog Update

This blog has mostly to do with family and activities with our grandchildren. Then a few articles about cooking emerged from my fingertips. Maybe I should start a separate blog for those, hmm? No matter, I will try to catch up on family activity, with the help of a notated calendar and much help from Gwen.

My last post about family was at the end of January, with pictures of all the tornado damage in our grandchildren’s neighborhood.  February is always a grim month for me… maybe it’s Seasonal Affective Disorder, my daughter offered.  There’s a name for everything these days!  Anyway, February was 29 days long this year which was adding insult to injury.  I dragged myself through February and when March arrived, wasn’t feeling any better, in spite of the bright light that I shone in my face two hours every morning.  I had promised to take Gwen to see “Wicked”… promised without knowing what it was.  Turned out to be the Broadway production at the BJCC Concert Hall downtown.  Felt weak as a kitten, but still, had to do it.  Our children were keeping a close eye on us then, as their father recovered from pneumonia in December, so I asked our youngest if he would put off his return trip home and ferry Gwen and me to and from the BJCC.

I had gone downtown a few days before to refresh my memory on drop-off points, and route through the BJCC to the Concert Hall, and that’s when I   noticed they had installed a ramp from the upper to the lower level in compliance with the ADA.  We arrived just in time, not too early.  Gwen had a great time.  We had seats in the Grand Tier (Thanks, Julie) right in the middle.  There are no bad seats in the Concert Hall.  Gwen loved seeing a full-fledged Broadway Musical.  She takes Musical Theater in Dance, and has been in a school production of Music Man, but this was the Real Thing. The stage setting included a dragon’s head clock, with wings and sometime-glowing eyes, above the stage  She loved that there was an orchestra in the pit; being in the Grand Tier we could see the musicians.  She loved the story and the characters as portrayed, even the always-scary flying monkeys. Yikes! Gwen tutted in disapproval that her grandma was not familiar with the books set in the universe of “The Wizard of Oz”.  No matter. I napped through the first act, but enjoyed the second.

January Storm Aftermath and Comfort Food

Nope, can't go that way.

January, Monday the 23rd, the Birmingham area had been hit with ten early morning tornadoes. Once I woke up enough to find out a tornado had been through our son’s area, I contacted him to see what I could do. Come get the frozen food, he said, if we could get through. We looked at the damage in his area on TV and drove over, making a couple of detours. I took pictures. He decided to send frozen food, and Kate to help with it. Gwen and Catherine could stay and help drag branches to the street. I gave Gwen my blue suede gloves, which she said made the job easier. They had no power, so later that evening, Justin dropped off Catherine and Gwen. I cooked a HH Italian Cheese Noodle, ground beef and onion and canned tomato dish that everyone loved. (I love one-dish meals.)

Lines down, power out, people working in their yard.

Gwen slept in the blue room… she also helped me unfold the cot that Kate was going to sleep on. Catherine had the guest bedroom and Kate bunked in with her.

Tuesday:  Kate’s school had no electricity, so she stayed home. We took Gwen to school, using the Interstate to the Deerfoot Parkway Exit. Deerfoot Parkway had been opened, downed trees sawed through, but traffic was often delayed by heavy equipment and clean up crews. We could see the terrible destruction. The school was not marking anyone Tardy.

Can you see the crunched white car?

We dropped Gwen off at 7:58; then we went grocery shopping (mostly for soft drinks and Little Debbie snacks), rested for a while, me with my laptop and Catherine with her embroidery. Catherine had picked out kitty cat transfers from my stash, and a pillowcase, and I had ironed them on. She now has a project to work on whenever she visits my house!

Trees down parallel to the house.

Realizing how early I was going to have to leave to pick up Gwen for her dermatologist appointment and how long appointments can last, I started supper at 1 PM.

Crazy Weekend

It was a four day weekend, and there was a lot on the agenda.  I had a To Do list a mile long, and was so glad Gwen would be here to help

Gwen's long hair, braided.

.We had errands and shopping, picking up Rx, putting away Xmas decor, and taking donations to the Salvation Army.  Gwen brought her Kindle and we downloaded a couple of books that were waiting delivery.  She also brought her computer and I ran Spybot through it and cleaned out a dozen or two pieces of adware and malware.

But things don’t always go according to plan.  First off, Gwen woke up feeling poorly on Friday.  She had not slept well, and her mother insisted she stay home from school that day. This meant that I picked her up about noon with the intention of doing a few chores and maybe errands.  We cooked our favorite meal: chicken thighs (browned), covered with mozzarella and red sauce, baked an hour and served over big pasta.  We got the laundry under control–it was mostly folding and putting away by the point.  But the Xmas decor was a deal-breaker.  She brought all the boxes into the living room, and put away the candles, but that was about as far as she could go.  She needed some pain meds and a good long sleep. That suited me fine.  A job like that needed to be approached when one is fresh.

Saturday we actually got the Xmas decor sorted into Keep and Give Away, with an empty box to break down and throw away.  A sealed box labeled “Big Twinkle Snowflakes” didn’t get a second glance; it went straight into the Give Away pile. Plans were made for next years “Choir of Angels” display.  Gwen took a bulky comforter into the attic, vacuumed the bathroom closet floor, and we put the Keep decor neatly away until next year.  The Give Away was put in the car trunk and away we went to the Salvation Army drop off station.  We pretty much emptied the trunk, but they were out of receipts.  Gwen made a list anyway.   We went looking for someplace to eat and settled on Logans Roadhouse.  My food was great: I had appetizers and dips.  Gwen had fried cheese sticks and then her entree came: fried fish.  She began with great enthusiasm, then slowed down to little lady-like bites. “What’s the matter?” I asked.  She didn’t like to say, but finally I understood that she didn’t feel well… felt ‘queasy’, in fact, so we packed up and left.  I was afraid of food poisoning, or a stomach virus or something like that.  “Please tell me if you’re going to throw up,” I begged, “so I can pull over and you can open the door!”  But it never came to that.  I took her home to go to bed; I still had errands to do.  While trying to explain how to be ready for sudden sickness, she said, “I know what to do.”  Good.  I did errands, and just couldn’t help myself: I got her some sweaters for school.

Sunday we went to church; Rebecca invited us to go to lunch with her and Laura but I declined with regrets, after our abortive attempt at lunch the day before.  We all went to our cars, but I couldn’t GET INTO mine!  Where were the keys? I emptied my purse twice; Gwen checked under the car, in the church at the coffee/tea table; at the pew where we sat, but no keys. Gwen finally spied them on the floor of the front seat.

After turning down her lunch invitation, I had to ask Rebecca for a ride home for the spare keys.  Not really: Rebecca and Laura kindly offered to take me home and bring me back.  (Couldn’t call Jerry for them, as he is not driving yet.) We had a pleasant visit on our forty mile round trip.  Gwen ran in the house for the spare keys, she knows where they live!

Monday was reserved for the beautician. Gwen had mentioned that if we had time, she would like to have her hair trimmed and thinned.  It’s super thick and curly, and tangles easily.  My eye just happened to fall on the thank you card from Locks of Love, a donation of her long hair from several years ago.  “Would you like to do Locks of Love again?”  Her eyes lit up and she broke out into a big grin, “Yes!” she said.  So that’s what we did.  The beautician shaped it well and it is short and curly all over, and as cute as can be.

We came home, made pizza, and then it was time to go visit with Laura and Rebecca on the way to take Gwen home.  Rebecca gave me a reviving glass of red wine, some cheese and crackers and apple slices which set me up for the last lap.  Gwen had collapsed on the sofa.  Is she sick?  She admitted to be queasy again on the to her home.  I do hope she’s all right.  It’s been one Crazy Weekend.

Food for the soul, food for the tummy…

I found a recipe the other day for soup that included not only kale, which is in season, but also white beans–Jerry likes Great Northern beans.  There was chicken broth and onions, soup pasta etc., same as any soup starter, and it turned out really well.  This is a picture of it after we had eaten of it twice.  It made enough to feed Coxey’s army. We’ve used that expression all our lives, I heard it at my grandmother’s knee, so I decided to look it up.  Here is what Wikipedia had to say about it::

Coxey’s Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by the populist Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. Officially named the Army of the Commonweal in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington and the expression “Enough food to feed Coxey’s Army” originates from this march.

Whatever the source of the expression, this recipe used my largest soup pot–well, you rather have to, to melt the kale into it.  Jerry at of it once to be polite, but I’ve been married to him long enough to know that if it didn’t have meat (meat=beef) in it, it didn’t count as a meal.In fact, I caught him, not an hour later, eating a little frozen meal of noodles and meatballs, just for the “meat”!

When my friend Rebecca took me to lunch the other day, on the way home we stopped at Publix so I could get, among other things, some ‘meat’.  I was planning pizza so I got an all purpose fully cooked Polish Sausage.  This is what the left-overs looked like with meat in it: not very appetizing looking, but full of nutrients and very tasty:

While in Publix, I also found they sold ready-made pizza dough in a plastic bag, by the pound!  I was thrilled.  I knew I could slice real thin some of the sausage and Jerry would think it was Pepperoni.  I bought shredded mozzarella and Parmesan, tomatoes, red onion, mushrooms, red bell pepper, etc. for a pizza recipe complete with picture that I had ripped out of a magazine at the doctor’s office.

By the time we had fiished half the soup (where is Coxey’s army when you need it?) I had the pizza dough warming up on the stovetop….stoves are so well insulated these days, they don’t get too hot. This is what the pizza is supposed to look like when I get through with it:

 It appealed to me because I didn’t have to make it Round; it could be any old shape it happened to take after you had pounded on it to your heart’s content.  Mine assumed more or less the shape you see above, but it was Very Elastic and just would not get any bigger.  Maybe I should have let it rise some more, but it’s too late now.  I slid it into a hot oven, bottom shelf for 10 minutes to start the process.

Now here is where I went wrong:  I had chopped, drained, mixed, diced, uncovered and otherwise prepared all the toppings.  With the hot, half-cooked pizza crust at my right hand, I spread the tomato stuff first and then arranged the toppings, being careful to put the “Meat” on one half for Jerry, and the rest of the veggies all over it, followed by two kinds of cheese.  That’s a bigga pizza, I’m telling you.  It went into the oven for another 10 or 12 minutes.  I pulled it out and this is what it looked like:

Why, I wondered, did the picture in the torn out magazine page look more red than mine?  My pizza had all this gooey, yellow cheese on top (which I thought it was supposed to). As a last resort, I read the instructions. Boy, was I surprised. The instructions said to put half the mozzarella on First, under the tomato sauce!  I had never heard of such a thing, but I will certainly do it next time.  I went ahead and cut the thing: the great thing about an odd sized pizza is that you can cut odd-sized slices. It was good. Yum.

Eventful December

January 1, 2012. We had no sooner gotten Thanksgiving behind us than December popped up.

December was jam-packed full of activities, both exciting and scary–some at the same time.

Kate’s weekend

Our weekend with Kate got off to a rousing start when car trouble necessitated my picking her up at school Friday afternoon. I got there early and parked. The three o’clock exodus took place with buses exiting their route and the line of cars picking up children along another lane. The clump of kids waited patiently for their mom to get to the head of the line.
This is old news to most of you reading this, I know, but I’ve never done it before. We lived close enough that our children walked to elementary, middle and high schools. I had been told to go inside to get Kate as she has been suffering from anxiety lately, poor kid. But the door looked kind of far away, and uphill,so I just got out of the car and leaned on the back fender, waiting patiently. But to my surprise a young woman (I suppose she was a teacher… everyone looks so young to me now) broke away from the pick-up line and called to me, asking who I was waiting for. I told her, and the request was repeated all the way to the school office.
And here Kate came, just fussing and saying I should have come inside to get her. I told her she could walk better than I, it was too far for me.

Girls’ Day Out

We were up fairly early for a Saturday morning, but the Review Section of the Wall Street Journal languished on the floor as duty called. Gwen had an appointment to get her high school graduation picture taken at 1:30. This lit a fire under me and I said, “We’ve got plenty of time.. let’s go to the zoo!”
Gwen liked the idea. It had been a long, hot, dry summer, followed by torrential rains, and today was a pretty, cool, overcast fall day: a welcome change. Before we could change our minds, we jumped into the car and headed off. The zoo signs welcomed us and invited us to view the “Royal Family”. This turned out to be the lion, lioness and their five cubs! Gwen had her picture made with the proud father.
Of course, you can’t go to the the zoo and not take even more picture of animals.