Who??? Me???

I am flabbergasted! The wonderful CatLady Larue has nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger Award. Not only am I flabbergasted but I am nonplussed.

I know from reading her blog that there is a whole plethora of things I have to do in order to successfully accept this honor....the only one I am fairly sure I know how to do is to thank CatLady from the bottom of my heart. As for linking......If I type "consider yourself linked" will that perform the link step?? I can see I need lots of guidance about this.....among many other things.

For instance, I have been trying to copy the pic of the award and plunk it down here for all to see but after a hundred or so failed attempts I think I will just give up for the moment and go put cold cloths on my forehead.

Sometimes I think I am getting the knack of using this here computer thingy and other times I can see I have been deluding myself. However, I am still basking in the glow of being chosen for an award, even if, a lot of the time, I really don't know what the hell I am doing.

Huzzah, CatLady, you are a darling!

more kitchen faux pas

When I finished up my elegy on chicken soup the other day I realized that I had several other choice bits of nonsense dealing with food and cooking that I could have included had my brain been working properly.  (recent attacks of Bloggers' Brain, Pollyannaism  and Depression had rendered  my instrument feeble and impaired, don't forget).

Before I go rambling onward I guess I should confess that I consider Food to be a sacred Gift of the Gods ......in fact it is eligible to be worshiped all on its own as far as I am concerned.   My earliest memory deals with the incredible power of food and the impact that it has had on my life.  I remember reclining in a toddler size canvas chair in the kitchen back in West Philadelphia riddled with anxiety about life and what my crazy father would do next and what might be expected of me as a result of same.  I must have been somewhere around 2 (and yes, I thought those kinds of thoughts at that age) and I was waiting for my afternoon bottle.  When my Mother handed it to me and I applied it to my mouth my entire being was suffused with a warm glow, every muscle relaxed and for a few wonderful moments I was floating on a cloud in an azure sky and the world was a beautiful, safe place.  (Many years later I discovered that booze had the same magical properties as milk, not counting the hangover, but that is again another story). 

From that day forward food remained , shall we say......important.  I can remember nearly every memorable meal I have had in my life. especially my very first restaurant meal at about age 6 or 7 at Hackney's in Atlantic City.  Now, you must understand that in those days children did NOT get taken to restaurants except on very rare occasions.  Adults went out to dinner and the kids stayed home with Grandma or Baby Sitter and had meatloaf or mac and cheese and that's just how it was (and, frankly, how I think it should be, but that may be another blog).  However, once we went to the Shore for the weekend there was no one to leave me with so I had to be schlepped along,  hence my ecstatic outing at Hackney's.  And what a virgin experience it was......I had Lobster drowned in butter !  Oy, words fail me.  But I also remember that my father had Lobster Thermidor and my mother opted for Crab Maryland, both of which I was allowed to taste.  My next exalted restaurant meal did not happen for another 5 or 6 years and it was a Chinese Restaurant that my parents frequented, but that will be another blog too.  The simple fact remains that I find food to be true ambrosia, a mood altering, mind boggling, heart soothing and tummy satisfying blessing.  (naturally, I mean when it is decently prepared and particularly when it is exquisitely prepared, though sometimes, just straight out of the box, depending on the urgency of the need for solace.)

Well, all that being said, whatever follows is bound to be anti-climactic, but I wanted to get it established for future reference where food sits in my hierarchy of important things.  Now, back to my reminiscences.  And, since I have blathered on so lavishly I think I will just offer you one tidbit and save the others for a later blog.....don't worry, I promise I will tell all in due time.

When I was in my early teens I began helping Mamma with the cooking.  Mostly I just measured, chopped and stirred but, for some reason I can't recall I was, at some point, assigned the task of making biscuits from scratch all by myself.  And many a batch I made, tender, flaky and crying out for the butter, marmalade or gravy.  It got to the point where I felt I could have made biscuits in my sleep and so, one day when Mamma decided at the last minute that we needed biscuits, I dove into the process on "cruise".......didn't even bother to take out the recipe.  Now, I haven't made biscuits in a gazillion years but I remember that the recipe called for both baking powder and baking soda.  Tearing through my task I assembled all the ingredients, threw them into the bowl, potched the dough and rolled it and cut biscuits like an automaton.  They baked up looking a bit strange but everything appeared hunky-dory until we took the first bite.  I will NOT tell you what my father said.  My Mother just looked at me with a pained, puzzled  expression while I took one taste, gasped, "faugh", and indelicately spat the half masticated morsel onto my plate.  I can't adequately describe the taste, but suffice it to say that it was mostly hugely bitter and to a monstrous degree salty.  As for the other characteristics, I really don't remember.   Badly shaken I went back into the kitchen and pulled out the recipe and examined it and suddenly it dawned on me what I had done.  As I recall, the recipe called for something like 6 teaspoons of baking powder and maybe 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda....now as everyone knows, baking soda is Bicarbonate of Soda which is a great cure for indigestion...........I had simply reversed the dosages and provided a built in cure for indigestion in case my bicuits afflicted anyone  with same......  6 teaspoons of Bicarb should certainly cure even the worst case, dontcha think?   That is, if anyone could possibly eat the damned things.  Sigh.

favorite quotes

In perusing other blogs I notice that many of my co-bloggers sprinkle impressive quotes liberally all over their pages to jazz things up a bit.  I must admit I am duly impressed and occasionally a bit intimidated.

I don't know how I could have gotten so far along this blogging trail without mentioning several of my very favorite quotes. 

One of them will probably inspire a whole blog of its own, but I find it one of the most succinct and sad but true expressions of the human condition ever uttered.  The worst part is I haven't a clue who first uttered it and I would so love to be able to give credit.  If anyone knows the author please tell me  However, without further ado, here it is:

MAN IS BORN PROTESTING, LIVES COMPLAINING AND DIES DISAPPOINTED.

The next one was one of many brilliant utterances on a Murphys Law Calendar I once had and what quote number 1 doesn't cover this one does.

NOTHING MATTERS VERY MUCH AND HARDLY ANYTHING MATTERS AT ALL.

Did I hear you call me a misanthrope?

chicken soup and other kitchen faux pas

Before I even begin to blog I must make a few things perfectly clear.  When it comes to chicken soup there are probably as many recipes as there are practitioners, but the basics remain the same......you puts your chicken in a pot along with celery, onion, carrots and water, toss in some salt and pepper and a sprig of parsley and simmer the hell out of it.........result, ambrosia, Jewish Penicillin, comfort food supreme.  If you needed just chicken broth you would strain the veggies out at the end, but otherwise after an hour or two of simmering you had a gorgeous pot of the real stuff. It should be easy, right?  So how come so many things can go wrong?

For instance, when I was a very little girl I always had my eye out for some goodie I could sneak from the magic spells my Mamma and Grandma were performing around the kitchen.  Often I would find a spoon, carelessly left unmonitored, which had just finished stirring a cake batter or bowl of frosting.  Oh, the delicious joy of it, moreso I think because it was a stolen pleasure.  However, once in a while my gluttony would outpace my caution or critical judgment.......like the time I came upon the monster Stirring Spoon sitting on the drainboard with what appeared to be some unidentified but frothy looking stuff that I took to be a kind of whipped cocoa icing.  It was not till I had devoured most of it that I realized I had made a huge mistake.  "Ugh", I said with trepidation gripping my heart,  "what was this stuff in the spoon?"  My Mother sighed the sigh of all mothers approaching the end of their tether.  "I've told you to ask first, haven't I?", she responded........."your Grandma just finished skimming the fat and scum from the chicken soup and it serves you right."  Not a drop of sympathy there......Well.....it didn't kill me but it taught me that chicken soup was not such totally wondrous stuff through its entire process.........in its early stages it was a thing to be avoided like the plague.

Tha reminds me of another time my haste caused me to escape death from poisoning by the skin of my teeth.  It doesn't deal with chicken soup but I'll tell it anyway.   You may not believe this, but there was a time on this earth that water was something that came  out of faucets and hoses but never appeared in a bottle that one carried around..  Consequently, I would often come home from school totally parched and rush to the kitchen sink for a drink, sure that I would die of dehydration before I could guzzle down enough water to slake my thirst.  One day my condition was the worst it had ever been and as I staggered with swollen tongue to the sink I noted that the water glass that always sat there was already about a quarter full.   To save time I grabbed it, added a bit more water from the faucet, slogged down the contents and once more was seized with the wave of trepidation that follows one's ingesting of a substance that was not actually what one was expecting.  My mother and I both started talked at the same moment.  "Mamma, what was in this glass on the sink?", I gasped. "Lois, be careful not to use that glass on the sink.....I was saving some Clorox to bleach the drainboard tiles.", my mother warned.  Omigod,omigod....I drank the Clorox.....will I die??? Omigod.  After both of us ran around the kitchen for a while like the proverbial chickens with their heads cut off my Mother had a brilliant idea.  We would call Mr. Simkins. my best friend's father who happened to be a pharmacist, to find out if there was an antidote to ward off certain death.  I described the situation to him as best I could, considering I had only a few more minutes to live and he took in every word, interjected a few grunts and paused before answering.  (In fact, afterward I was convinced that the strange choking noises I heard over the line was not phone interference but actually Mr. Simkins trying not to laugh uproariously.)  "Do you have any pain or burning sensation in your mouth, throat or stomach?, he inquired.  When I told him that I did not he sighed and said, "Well, Lois, I guess if you could drink it you can probably digest it."  And so I did, but I burped Clorox for about 6 hours afterward and I can tell you I never want to drink Clorox again.  But, I digress.......back to chicken soup........

When I was young I vividly remember my cousin, Ruth, sitting in our kitchen wringing her hands over a recent culinary disaster.  Now at this moment in time she was no longer a young woman and probably had made at least a half a gazillion pots of chicken soup for her family so it wasn't that she didn't know how.  Apparently she simply lost focus for a few moments, daydreaming about running away to Paris with Clark Gable  or Rudolph Valentino as women were known to fantasy in those days.  With tears in her eyes she told us, "I made a double batch because I wanted a lot of chicken broth for a recipe I wanted to try.  I carried the pot over to the sink and got out my big strainer, poured the whole potful in and then realized I had forgotten to put a container under the strainer.  I didn't know what I had done till I saw the last drop disappearing down the drain.  Omigod, omigod,  do you think I am going crazy??"  It took a good part of the day to convince her that she wasn't going crazy, but it is possible that Alzheimers was beginning to set in (though we had never heard of Alzheimers in those days......the men in the white coats with the strait jackets was what everyone feared.)

Anyway, the other day I went through all the steps to create a huge caldron of chicken soup and when it was simmering properly I came into my study to check my email and perhaps browse through some blogs.......I even brought my cooking timer with me because I have been known to forget pots simmering on the stove till the contents were unrecognizable and certainly inedible. It's a good thing I did because I got lost in cyberspace but when the bell went off I rushed in and checked out the soup......perfect, so I turned it off and scampered back to my browsing. 

Some time later I was overcome with the scent of chicken soup gone wrong and I rushed into the kitchen to see what could possibly be happening.........lifting the lid I peered into a pot that contained not a trace of chicken soup, just an unidentifiable sludge, not quite burned, but certainly reduced to hell and gone.....It seems that what I actually did was turn the burner up to Hi rather than to Off.....sob.  I pray the possums may not notice the slight tinge of scorch.......they are SO forgiving.

Another Flaw Exposed- Oh The Shame Of It

After I finished my most recent blog I realized that, in making light of the attack of Bloggers' Brain from which I was suffering, .....(actually the truth is that I had fallen into a very deep spell of depression from which I am just now emerging)  I had once again relapsed into the dreaded Pollyanna Mode. For those  of you who haven't a clue as to what that is I can only shake my head sadly in recognition of your pitiful  deprivation and do my best to enlighten you.

Pollyana was a poor l'il ol' orphan girl in a novel from the 20's or, perhaps the 30's.  She had the odd habit of never accepting disaster for what it really was and always making it into something for which she could be disgustingly grateful.   i.e.  the most glaring example I recall was early on in her life as she was looking forward to receiving some wonderful Christmas gift from the Church Gift Barrel and when her turn came all that was left was a pair of crutches.  Instead of tearing her hair, rending her flesh and screaming, "Not fair....why me?" and a few choice epithets, she drew the ragged tatters of herself together and bravely opined that she could be Glad, Glad , Glad that she had received the crutches because the wonderful thing was that she didn't NEED them.  She became known as the Glad Girl and was, of course, outwardly admired and probably secretly detested because, how the hell much of that saccharine crap can a small town take without having to find some spacious place for everyone to frow up.  As I remember, I guess that town could actually take a lot of that crap because I think there were a number of sequels and 3quells after the original book.  However, I cannot tell you why or how it happened, but apparently the Glad, Glad, Glad message must have wormed its way into my psyche at a very tender age because I have found myself, at many wretched moments in my life, falling back on a somwhat similar philosophy. 

Often I am not even aware of what I am doing, but when I catch myself at it it always shocks the hell out of me to find myself bravely making brownies out of what is obviously nothing but a pile of bull pucky.   I have always felt that I have been so damned lucky in so many ways that it is shameful of me to protest, rant, rave and wail when things happen to come out not so hunky-dory now and then.  It seems so mean spirited and immature to complain so I find myself resorting to what I call the Pollyanna mode and finding some rather far out reasons to be Glad rather than to let fly with what I consider the perfect response to any disaster.....something I learned from my dear friend Dorothy which has served me well for ever so many years.....an utterance perfect for the complex occasion such as when accidentally applying hammer to thumb instead of nail or the simple case of stepping into doggie poo........the exquisitely crafted and  so satisfying phrase, "Oh, Shit, Piss, Fuck !!." 

If Pollyanna had ever known Dorothy, I have a hunch she might never have become known as the Glad Girl, and consequently, neither would I.  So, for the record, even though I may have made light of my plunge into the dark pit of Poor-me-ness what I really meant to say was....Oh, Shit, Piss Fuck !.

The Unpublicized Dangers of Blogging

As my loyal followers know, I have been afflicted with a strange blogging paralysis recently which has seriously impeded my ability to blog. Being a neophyte to the Sport I have had no tools to cope with this malady and no understanding of what might be causing my condition.  Today while browsing among other high class blogs trying to get either inspired or enlightened I found a number of fellow souls who have been afflicted with a thing they are all calling Bloggers Brain.  The description of the symptoms are rather ambiguous, but they sound a lot like mine so I unearthed my flogging device from under the couch, where the cats seem to have dragged it, and have been applying it to my plump backside forcing myself to research this situation in order to find a way out.   Hmmmm, flogging for blogging....that was purely accidental...I wish I could say that it was intentional...it might indicate that the pitiful thinking organ might be reviving a bit.  No such luck, I fear.  Sob.

As far as I can determine, Bloggers' Brain seems to be a dumbing down or damming up or general deconstruction of the mind and, more important, the funny-bone which can leap upon unwary Bloggers at any moment and render them helpless , hapless and blogless.  Well, it is SOME comfort to know that I am not alone in this abominable state, but I am devastated to note that I found lots of company but no solutions.

Damn and phooey is all I can say.  The pursuit of happiness is a breeze compared to the pursuit of funniness...talk about elusive, it does not bear even thinking about because, like Lot's wife, the mere act of casting your gaze back onto the will-o-the-wisp of humor can end up turning you into a pile (yes I know, it was a pillar, wasn't it?) of salt  or, more likely in my case  s..t.

So here I sit, a person who normally can find something to giggle about in the most mundane or unfunny situations,  going through my emails, many of which are prefaced with "LOL's", "this made me laugh",  "really funny" and so forth and finding not one reason to show my dimples......all entries destined for the Delete key immediately, because there is not much worse than finding yourself totally unamused by stuff that is causing everyone else is to wet their bloomers.  (Being an ancient person that particular subject is a bit delicate and will possibly be dealt with in a later blog when my sense of the ridiculous has returned.)  Anyway, I do see a glimmer of some hope in the simple fact that when the word "funny" no longer has any meaning, the words Gripe, Complain, Rant, Rave, Whine, Groan and Growl are still viable options in the blogging world.  So brace yourselves, dear ones,  for what you may have to put up with until humor is revived in this sadly afflicted mind.  You can denounce me, vilify me or even stone me for depriving you of your fun.......just don't abandon me, please.........this sudden stupidity is not really my fault...... blame it on an attack of Bloggers' Brain.

My Worst Fears Realized

Ever since I had the flu I have been strangely lacking in the urge to blog.  Each day I think about blogging and decide I am still too weak and frail.  A few times I gingerly pushed the blogging button and not only did nothing emerge, but the damned machine did not even make any protesting noises...nothing but eerie silence.
I have been coddling myself and telling myself that the need and desire (and the ability) will surely return, perhaps by tomorrow, but I fear that the antibiotics may have cured me of more than my fever and congestion........horrors..........could this be how it ends?  Not even with a whimper, but with a cough and a sniffle?  What a bummer.