Life During Wartime: Beans Edition

We just got word that we are to work from home indefinitely because of the corona virus pandemic.   I have been looking forward to this announcement because I love working from home.   I can get so much more done when I work at home, and I can start my work right when I get up if I want, which is usually around 4:30 am.    I am a morning person, I do my best work before noon.     Hope the internet holds up!

I'm humored by all the people buying toilet paper and bottled water, but what really surprises me is people buying beans and rice.    Normally people just don't buy dried beans, even though Michigan is second in the nation IN TOTAL DRY BEAN PRODUCTION with 22% of the total; North Dakota is first.    There are eight different varieties of beans grown within Michigan that are sold throughout the United States and abroad:
Cranberry beans
Dark red kidney beans
Black beans
Adzuki beans
Pinto beans
Navy beans
Light red kidney beans
Small red kidney beans

I am a big fan of Michigan beans, and I hope that this corona virus scare inspires more cooks to try cooking beans.     I took a stroll through my blog to find some of my favorite bean recipes:


Busy Woman's Red Beans and Rice    I wrote this post when both of my kids were teenagers and too young to drive.   They were super active and we had to get them to places 7 days a week.    This recipe was one of my favorites.     I still love Lucinda Scala Quinn....any of her cookbooks are outstanding!

Baked Beans There's nothing better than baked beans made from scratch.    I enjoyed finding this vintage bean cookbook featuring bean recipes from politicians.    Also the Senate Bean Soup, which the Romney's claimed as their own.

Pasta e Fagioli Soup  I don't eat at Olive Garden very often, but when I do, it's this soup I like.    It's fun to make at home with Michigan beans.

Minted Bean Salad  Hopefully, this pandemic will be over by the time the fresh mint comes in.   But if not.....remember this recipe.    Or maybe you will still have those beans left over from your stockpile. 

Speaking of summer, remember this White Bean and Tomato Soup for when you have way too many tomatoes and the basil is about to bolt.  It is so good!

I love Bob Talbert's White Chicken Chili recipe so much that I printed it on cards that I ship with every sale of my soup  bowl cozies.     I can make you some soup bowl cozies in any college fabric you desire.   I could make a set to match your personality!  Let me know if you are interested.

If you can't lay your hands on that great UP treat, cudighi, you could substitute your favorite hot Italian sausage in this wonderful recipe for Cudighi and Kale Soup 

This recipe for Red Lentil Soup won my $50 from my rural electric co-op.    They even made a video about how to make it!


While I am looking forward to working from home, I sure hope that this pandemic doesn't impact too many of us.    I heard a podcast from Michigan famous guy Michael Moore, and he proposed we Michigan folks won't be affected too much because Michigan is a state of peninsulas.  Nobody drives through Michigan to get somewhere else.   It protects us!  I guess I never thought of it that way.   Be well, my friends!

Blog analytics and another popular recipe

So, it used to be how I got blog traffic was primarily through referrals.   If I wanted to get people to look at my blog, the best way I could do it would be to share links to it via email groups like Yahoo Groups, or I would ask other bloggers to list me on their "Blogs I Like" list.   Or, one of the best ways was to comment on someone else's blog post about whatever I was writing about, and link to my blog entry.

For example, let's talk pickled eggs.  Before the internet, my pickled egg recipe was written down on a piece of sorority stationery with my name on top of it.   People made copies of it and handed it around.   I met people that said "I have your pickled egg recipe" when they heard my name.   Then, when my blog started, I commented on this blogger's post about her pickled egg recipe that has pepperoncini in it (yuck).   I got a lot of referrals that way.   But now, most of my referrals are from social media....specifically fb and pinterest.  I don't really monetize my blog so I don't pay for search engine optimization, but that blogger shown above does...her blog is now a cheap looking advertising server and she fraternizes with the Pioneer Woman.   But yet, if you google "yooper pickled eggs" my recipe shows up second after hers in a post from the Milwaukee Journal.   Then, there is another lame recipe that includes dry spices (gross) then my recipe again on the MTU.edu alumni page.  Finally, there is mine. 

I'm not too sure many people read food blogs regularly anymore, but I still have lots of followers which is nice.  People don't comment as much as they used to on the blog, but I have started a facebook group that is fun.    So, what is my second most popular recipe on the blog? It's this one....for Olga's Kitchen Bread

Olga herself, making Olga Bread courtesy of the Olga's Kitchen website

Fun facts about my blog and pickled eggs

My blog's peak monthly readership was around 7,200 

One of the fun things about blog keeping is analytics.  My engineer brain loves to look at the data, and Google makes a great tool (Google Analytics) to do it.    Just looking at this chart makes me wonder what was going on in August, 2012 to make my blog peak in readership.  I think it is most likely that corresponds with some kind of national trend in food blogging.   I don't spend a lot of time or any money on trying to boost my reach,  like maximizing SEO (search engine optimization) or paid ads, etc.  It's just a hobby to me, but this hobby has taught me a lot about how it all works.   I'm just happy to have people read it. 

My most popular post, if you define "popular" as the page people most often land on that isn't my front door (i.e. my latest post) is this recipe for pickled eggs.   Why is this one the most popular, with over 22,000 sessions?   I'm not exactly sure.    I will have to study that one in depth later.    But do check out that recipe; it is definitely a keeper. 

Even more food memoirs

Are We Having Any Fun Yet?: The Cooking & Partying Handbook by Sammy Hagar.   I'm not a huge Sammy Hagar fan, but this book is a fun read.  Great recipes, too.  It explains his rock career from Montrose to Van Halen to Cabo Wabo, which I didn't really know but found it a great read.  The man loves food much more than he loves Eddie Van Halen.

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton.  given my aversion to the idea of ever going back to NYC, I will probably never visit her restaurant, but I loved her coming of age through food story.  Speaking of New York, there also is....

Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin by Kenny Shopshin and Carolynn Carreno   Described as "most profound and profane cookbook you’ll ever read" and that is true.  I loved everything about this book and would be afraid to go to his place, but he died last fall, so maybe  he wouldn't yell at me. So maybe I could go to NYC again.

After all that big city life.....how about.....

The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook by Christopher Kimball.  This book is not anything like Cooks Illustrated or Milk Street, but reads like his old prose he used to write in his letters from Vermont.   

Food Memoirs, Part 2

Here are more food memoirs I have read and loved:

Toast : The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater.   He is not a celebrity chef, but has written a food column for over 25 years in the Guardian's Observer.  His memoir describes daily life in 1960s suburban England of his youth. 

Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover's Courtship, with Recipes by Amanda Hesser.   Longtime food writer for NYT, founder of Food52, I have always appreciated her writing style.


Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Eddie Huang.   A food memoir so good it was made into a TV show.  (which I have never watched, I don't watch much TV) which he wasn't thrilled about.  Excellent edgy writing about immigrants assimulating into American life.

Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good: A Memoir with Recipes from an American Family by Kathleen Flinn.   I enjoyed this memoir of her quirky family’s culinary adventures in the Midwest was named a 2015 Notable Book by the Library of Michigan. 

There are many more!  Just writing this down makes me find more of them that I want to read.   What are your favorites?

Food Memoirs

I love reading food memoirs as much as I love reading cookbooks.   Here are some that I have loved:

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell. It's about a young woman who spends a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". It is the book version of a blog she kept of the experience. Very funny!  But sray away from her second book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, which was just awful.  


Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. Laurie Colwin wrote in a way that makes you want to cook something. She was a columnist for Gourmet, and she died young at 48.  I've read pretty much everything she ever wrote in her short life.  

Speaking of Gourmet, I loved everything nonfictionRuth Reichl has written, especially
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table . It describes her coming of age with food and love and motherhood.   Also good is Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table. 

Pot on the Fire: Further Confessions of a Renegade Cook by John Thorne and Matt Lewis Thorne. They can really write beautifully about simple foods.

Everyone that has ever fantasized about working in a restaurant should ready  Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain. 

Some more to come! 

Michigan Tech Wives Cookbook

Being a fan of old cookbooks, I am always on the hunt to find new items to add to my collection.   One day I was googling around and found this recipe for Michigan Tech Wives Brownies which intrigued me because it mentioned a cookbook.   Down the rabbit hole I went.....and sure enough, I found that there was an organization called the Michigan Tech Wives Club that became popular after the war and the influx of GI Bill students. As an MTU student,  I had heard stories of young families living in quonset huts on the east end of campus.   Evidently the MTU Wives Club were very active and organized the first nursery school on campus, called the Michigan Tech Cooperative Nursery.  It was located in the barracks behind the Institute of Mineral Research.  I'm in Houghton this week, so I went to the MTU Archives to see what I could find out about the group, but they didn't have much.    I kept looking on line for the cookbook to buy somewhere, and I couldn't find it for sale, I was lucky enough to find that someone had scanned it in.  So here it is, for your reference Happiness Is....A Tech Wives Cookbook.   Ironically, the Michigan Tech Wives Brownies recipe wasn't in there.    I suspected it wouldn't be.....the last reference of the MTU Wives Club that I could see anywhere was in the late 1960s MTU Winter Carnival Pictorials (the wives liked to enter into the skits competition) and the recipe calls for mini chocolate chips, which I am pretty sure are a relatively new invention.  This book was published in December 1967.   I don't even remember mini chocolate chips being around in Houghton when I went to MTU myself in the 1980s.   In fact, it was hard to get peanut butter chips up here back then for my favorite chocolate cookie recipe.   Whenever I could find them at Jim's Food Mart, the only grocery store in town back then, I'd buy as many as I could, or I would bring them up from downstate.    There are others in the book that look tasty I'd like to try, although there wasn't any local recipes like pasties or chow chow in it.  

The inscription in the front cover is really touching...

Even though MTU is much different now and the MTU husbands are just as likely to be cooking as the MTU wives, I love the fact that these ladies got together and made this book.   I'd love to see another MTU cookbook.....maybe this will be my next venture.  I couldn't find a picture of the MTU Wives Club, but this photo of MTU's Winter Carnival Queen Candidates evokes the same vibe for me

MTU Winter Carnival Queen Candidates 1965

Cookbooks!

I am trying to organize my cookbooks...not sure if I have a system nailed down or not.  I've got:

36 canning/food preservation books
35 celebrity chef cookbooks, NYT Cookbooks
4 Christmas baking
11 books on pressure cooking or crock pot cooking
18 books on camp cookery or cooking wild or foraged foods
61 cookbooks that I consider "the standards" - i.e. Joy of Cooking, Farm Journal, Cooks Illustrated, BH&G
15 vegetarian
11 various and sundry cookbooks like candy making, soups, Jello etc
6 books on BBQ and meat smoking
5 cooking reference books - i.e. McGee, etc
13 ethnic food cookbooks - many of them Polish food
37 Michigan cookbooks
20 American region cookbooks, most of them Southern or Amish
67 vintage cookbooks that don't fit into the above categories
at least 5 (but there are more, I just haven't gone through all my books to find them and reshelve, about cooking i.e. Laurie Colwin, Ruth Reichl, etc

That's 344 and counting!  I don't have very many of them cataloged yet in Eat Your Books, but I hope to get it done some day. It's a great tool to keep track of all your recipes in all your cookbooks.

Thanksgiving Plans

We used to spend every Thanksgiving proper at my in laws.   I loved to see my in laws, and we used to pile into the car on Thanksgiving and drive 4 hours round trip to visit them and eat my mother in law's "green slime" -  it was a lime jello salad with cool whip and celery in it.  We'd also have my brother in law Dan's cranberry relish - it was fresh, not cooked.  I'd bring a dish to pass; once I made an oyster dressing no one would eat.   Another time I made a pumpkin swirl cheesecake and broke a glass in the kitchen when I was making it.  My brother in law cut his tongue on a stray shard and suggested that I was "trying to kill him".  I was so embarrassed!  We'd all play Trivial Pursuit (Boys vs. Girls) and then get back in the car to do it all over again at Christmas.   Now, Thanksgiving has gone to the wayside; my sister in law Kathy, the family matriarch, doesn't cook much and is a nurse that usually works Thanksgiving.

We get together with my family on another day during the long weekend; this year, it is Friday.  My Aunt Lauretta just passed away and her funeral will be on Saturday, so we pushed back our meal until 4 pm so we could hit the funeral home first.   I can't believe Aunt Lauretta outlived them all, but she did!  Her husband, then my mom, then my dad.  She always went to the funerals and told stories of the old days.   She was a spunky gal and we always believed she was a gypsy.  She had dark hair and looked exotic.  She was full of superstitions - if you dream about a baby, it meant someone was going to die.  I didn't dream about a baby this time, so I was caught off guard.   Another thing is that she could predict a newborn baby's birth date and time with eerie accuracy just by asking a few simple questions like when your birthday was, how old you were when you got your first period and the date of your wedding.   It was some kind of gypsy mathematical formula.  She guessed my daughter's birth date and time and only missed it by 18 minutes....considering she was due on Dec. 8 and she was born on Dec. 22, that kind of accuracy still gives me pause.    I can remember celebrating Thanksgiving at her house when I was a kid .  She made the best gravy with lots of mushrooms in it and her own jello salad - it was made with black cherry jello.  My mother had decreed long ago that my sister would host Thanksgiving and my brother Christmas because she didn't want to risk the drive from Warren to Ann Arbor because there could be "black ice" on M-14   She was a very fearful driver.   Even though she died in 2010, we still hold her schedule.   I get Easter at my house so that the risk of  "black ice" will be mitigated.    Christmas will be at my brothers....

Since my mother in law died back in 2008, we have celebrated Thanksgiving on the actual holiday with just our family, which is very relaxing.  I get a small bird and roast it.  I usually start the day by cleaning out the fridge or the pantry, whichever needs it more.  This year, it's the pantry.  Then, I listen to Lynn Rosetto Kasper's Turkey Confidential while making sides and dessert.   I'm not sure what I am going to make this year, outside of the classic Campbells Soup green bean casserole....it might be:

Ann's Mom's Layered Cranberry Salad - a challenge to make, but very, very good.   Lime sherbet is difficult to locate, but if you can get it, make this salad.

Cranberry Apple Crisp -  can also be made with pear.  Very easy and very good

And for the day after Turkey Soup with Lemon and Barley.  So good that I wonder why I don't make it more often.  I should! It would work equally well with a roast chicken carcass, too.

What are your plans for Thanksgiving?  Do tell!

Where I've been....

I know that some people keep track of all the states that they've visited, and will proudly tell you that they have visited every state in the Union.  Until now, I never took stock of all the states I've been to - and  I was shocked when I discovered I am pretty darn close to visiting all of them:


Better start planning that long awaited trip to New Orleans!

Mile End: Smoking is good for you....

For this month's Cook the Books Challenge, I made many things out of this month's selection....The Mile End Cookbook: Redefining Jewish Comfort Food from Hash to Hamantaschen.   I loved this cookbook so much that I bought it. I even made the Montreal smoked meat, which takes 2 weeks to make.  When I have more time to write, I will post details!

The May Storm

Every Friday night, my sister and I work on getting our parents house ready to sell.  My mom died on May 25 and  my dad didn't make it much longer and he died on November 10th last year.   I just read that June Carter Cash died in May and Johnny died the following September, too.   The elder law attorney warned me this would likely happen.  Once one goes, the other goes soon after.  My parents were married for 48 years, and I don't think they ever got rid of anything in their time together; they both were hoarders.   So on Fridays, I leave my office and head back to Warren to meet up with my sister to sift through almost 50 years of their stuff.  We'd hoped to get the house on the market by June but that's clearly not going to happen as we have just gotten through the upstairs of their 900 sq. ft. house and are now commencing on the basement, which can't be walked through, it's got so much stuff.

It's only fitting that we'd have a huge storm on the 1st anniversary of my mom's death.  My parents house, which was built in a subdivision that sprang up like many did when GM opened the Tech Center in 1956.   I learned as a kid that our subdivision was once part of the Rinke Farm, and our elementary school was named Rinke Elementary.   My mom was a wonderful gardener and the soil was great, however we lived at the end of a gradual decline so when it rained, the water always ran down to our yard and basement.  We spent many hours bailing water out of our basement whenever there was a big rain.   We expected the basement to flood and then that would simplify our housecleaning process - we could just throw everything out.  Oddly, the basement stayed dry.   My sister (who lives a few blocks north in a house on another part of Farmer Rinke's land) had a half foot of water in her basement.  Driving down any Warren street sees a van from flood remediation companies in most everyone's driveway.   But not my parents house - dry as a bone.  Weird.

View from the dam at the lower lake

Here in Ann Arbor, we had the worst flooding I've seen in the almost 20 years I have lived in this house.   Water filled our heat ducts in the basement and almost got to the carpet.  We live on high ground - almost the highest point in our area, so we never flood.  Most of the rest of the subdivision had sump pumps working over time.

Workers trying to divert rain water from the pool at the country club

We drove around and took pictures of it all so we could remember.   Bridgeway was completely washed out as Boyden Creek attempted to become a creek again.

Bridgeway as viewed from Crestline 

The base of Cardiac Hill (famous sledding in winter!)

Our two lakes - Greenook and Bridgeway, were formed in the 20s when a real estate developer dammed Boyden Creek.   There are two spillways in each lake, and they were both almost at the top.  Usually, there's about a 3 ft gap to the water.  

 Boyden Creek had almost reached the top of the Huron River Bridge.  I've never seen it this high.

Boyden Creek runoff 

Here's the view from the path near a place we call "Lane 10".   I think it was supposed to be a road someday, but now it gets storm runoff.

Eagle Bridge

It was the kind of storm my mom would have called to warn me about.  My parents, who watched the news 24/7 like most old people do, were always the first to call about a tornado watch or flood warning.   The weather has been really disappointing this spring...most of moms flowers are not yet in bloom.  I remember last May 25, I picked her a bouquet of rhododendron, roses and flowers from the snowball bush that was at her bedside when it was her time to go.  None of those flowers are in bloom at the old house yet.  There were still blooms on dad's lilac bush, which is really late for lilac.    I've been taking some of her plants home each Friday.   I've got her purple clematis on my mailbox - last year, it was in bloom and so striking that the hospice nurse had to ask me what it was.  This year, there's buds but no flowers yet.   It's been a cold, wet May this year.   Here's to a better June!

An ode to my chosen profession

Just yesterday, a beautiful grandmotherly type of woman asked my friend and me, "Are you gals engineers?" as we were entering Greenfield Village to enjoy a lunch at the historic Eagle Tavern.  We replied that we were and she said "I think it is so wonderful what a woman can do these days!"  And I had to agree with her, It was 32 years ago this fall that I started in this profession, and when people talk of life changing decisions, this is mine.   I am so glad I did it, and I am sad that the numbers of women choosing engineering has been declining in recent times.  Back in 1982, I chose it because I was good at math and science.   I can't say that I enjoyed high school math and science, but I was good at them.   I didn't come to enjoy those subjects until I was studying engineering, and I learned how to use them as tools to solve problems.  I also like being a woman in a man's field.   Just yesterday, I looked around the room and realized that once again, I was the only woman in there in a room of 20 men.  I forget this most times, because the guys I work with are just other thinkers to me instead of men.   But it still is remarkable to be the only woman in the room...

Engineering is a profession, like medicine or the law.  It's more a life journey, not a job folks pass through on the way to something else.  Generally people stay doing it for their whole lives - I think it is because the education is so difficult, and it is a mostly stable, well paying profession.   And it's because you think a certain way.  It's a great field for a woman, but because it is largely a male profession, it's not the kind of career where a woman can take 5 years off to have kids and come back to it.   Most women engineers that are mothers are working mothers.  Not all women are cut out to do both at the same time - it takes a certain kind of energy and ability to multitask and have your head and your heart in two places at once.   It's hard to know that ahead of time.   Many women engineers I know end up quitting after they have kids.  They are unable to handle both at the same time.  The lure of being a problem solver for someone with a scientific bent is hard to give up.    The problem solving spills over into everything we do...my mother used to hate selling houses to engineers because they'd get a ruler out and a level to hang a picture on the wall.   Everything always can be fixed to be better.   Sometimes I have to remind myself that lots of things are just fine the way they are, even if they aren't perfect. 

Gordon Brown, who was the Dean of Engineering at MIT in the 60s, describes what we do as "Engineers operate at the interface between science and society" and I think that's a good way to put it.  Only 2 U.S. Presidents were engineers, and they were generally thought to be failures as presidents - Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.    I think this isn't surprising - if you were going to pick the opposite of "engineer" when it comes to profession, it would have to be "politician".  Engineers use facts to solve problems, politicians use their powers of persuasion and personal charisma to do what they need to do.  However, Hoover described engineering in this way..... "Engineering is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realisation in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings homes to men or women. Then it elevates the standard of living and adds to the comforts of life. This is the engineer's high privilege." And a high privilege it is indeed!  I am blessed to be a part of this wonderful profession.

No factory farmed eggs = no worries

Don't you just love this poster?  I found it online at a collection called "Beans and Bullets/Of Course I Can: A Collection of War Era Food Posters" from the National Agricultural Library. A few years ago, I decided to buy only locally produced eggs.   They really do taste better.  I'm really glad right now that I know my farmer  given the recent outbreak of salmonella at factory farms.   My only gripe is that fresh eggs are really hard to peel.   I found this technique online to make peeling easier:

• Make a pinhole in the large end of the egg, place the eggs in a single layer in a saucepan, and cover with cold water to an inch above the layer of eggs.
• Place a lid on the pan and bring eggs to a boil.
• Remove the pan of eggs from the burner, leaving the cover in place, and allow to sit for 15-18 minutes, adjusting time up or down 3 minutes for larger or smaller eggs.
• Immediately remove eggs from the pan of hot water with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice water for one minute.
• In the meantime, bring hot water to simmering. After one minute in ice water remove eggs back to the simmering water for ten seconds. The ten second interval is important because this allows the shell to expand without expanding the rest of the egg.
• Peel immediately by cracking the shells of the egg all over. Roll each egg gently between hands to loosen the shell. Peel, starting at the large end of the egg.
• The peeling may take place under cold running water to help wash the shell off the egg and to minimize the shell breaking into the white.

Hope this helps you to enjoy eggs straight from the farm more often! What to do with all those hard boiled eggs?  How about spicy pickled eggs, which are an Upper Peninsula bar snack, or deviled eggs, a surefire potluck pleaser?  I just whipped up some deviled eggs for a happy hour get together tomorrow night.  Everyone loves them!

Wartime food posters....

Photographing Food

I admit it, I hate taking pictures of food for this blog, so I avoid it at all cost.   All I have is 2 point and shoot 35 mm digital cameras, and I noticed that I hate the way they take pics of what I make.   My food looks lots better than my pictures.   I used to joke with a friend about a local guy's food blog - his pictures look like the kind of food you might make for a Halloween party, and put it in a medicine jar labeled "Brains" or "Guts".  The fact is - mine doesn't look much better.   I once knew a food blogger thant spent more time and used more equipment staging her food photos than I spent on my wedding photos!   I'd really rather spend my time cooking, thanks!  But great pictures would certainly enhance my blog.
However, recently I found these tips on NYT that I think might help me.   For one thing, natural light is alwasy better....another issue is that shots with a point and shoot camera in limited light often come out blurry.  I found both of these things out by trial and errror.   Looks like I need to move my food picture taking outside all the time.   I can't wait to try some of these ideas out.

Orangette

One of the first food blogs I ever read was Orangette, and I think Molly Wizenberg's blog is an inspiration for many food bloggers, myself included - she's been at it since 2004.   In fact, I think "Orangette" could actually be termed a phase of food blogging - the Orangette phase is when a person first becomes aware of food blogging.  Then, a would-be food blogger thinks they can do it themselves and starts writing one - many food blogs die on the vine right here.  I can't tell you how many folks tell me they have started a food blog and I dutifully add it to my reader list to watch a few posts happen and then....nothing.   I am not sure why so many bloggers don't make it past the beginning.  Sometimes, I think it might be too narrow of a focus...it is difficult to fashion an entire food blog around a short lived Weston A. Price devotion brought to a tragic end by a Twinkie binge, or a raw food diet a menopausal writer has suddenly adopted because it's a legitimate, healthy sounding way to return to the eating disorder she had when she was a teen to lose weight.  So, my advice to any fledgling food blog writer is to keep your focus broadly on food.    Because it might be entertaining to read about the Twinkie binge in a blog post.  And that's the next phase of blogging...building a readership.  Getting folks to read your blog is another phase of food blogging - I recommend telling your friends about your blog, commenting on other blogs and linking to your blog, joining blogging networks like the Michigan Lady Food Bloggers or  Tigress Can Jam or Daring Bakers/Cooks. 

Eventually, I moved on from Orangette's blog...I can't really remember why I got tired of it, but I did.  Another blog I used to read all the time was Smitten Kitchen.  However, the other day I picked up Molly Wizenberg's book about her blog called A Homemade Life, and I think I might have a clue why I stopped. The book starts out wonderfully, and I love what she writes about growing up and learning about food from her father.   However, the second half of the book is all about her new husband and how wonderful he is, and the climax of the book is her wedding day!   This is the same mistake a young Martha Stewart made in her early cooking books, too.  She always wrote these gushing things about her wonderful husband Andy, and "Mr. Wonderful" ended up leaving her for her young assistant in midlife.   So no matter how charmed a life you live, writing like that day after day ends up sounding like a braggy year round Christmas letter.   Same thing with Smitten Kitchen - I quit reading that one when all she would write about is the fabulous free vacation she received in Club Med for writing a food blog.   The recipes in the beginning of the book, before she met Brandon, are better sounding to me than the ones in the end of the book.   Despite what she considers his amazing palate, I think the recipes once he shows up on the scene aren't thing's I want to make.  Perhaps it's because he is a vegetarian, or is really particular about vinegars.   I am not sure.   However, Molly's book reminded me of the great recipes on Orangette.   I understand that together, Brandon and Molly have opened up a pizza restaurant in Seattle called Delancey and perhaps the real life experience of owning a business together will tone down the posts about how terrific Brandon is.  It's a different life once you have to work for a living, and running a restaurant is a totally different experience than cooking at home.   I am going to have to start reading it again...Molly is a wonderful food writer.

There are lots of wonderful sounding recipes in this book, but I am not sure I want to own it.  Luckily, most of the the recipes I want to try are all on the Orangette blog:

Blueberry-Raspberry Pound Cake - a great idea for this summer, when I can't figure out what to do with them all
Banana Bread with chocolate and Crystallized Ginger - love chocolate and banana together
Chocolate Cupcakes with Bittersweet Glaze - it's this recipe, but she subs yogurt in for the buttermilk and glazes them with 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted.  I think that sounds like an excellent way to top a cupcake.
Stewed Prunes - and here I thought I was the only person in the world that loved prunes!
Buckwheat Pancakes - not found on the blog, but I found it on Culinate.
Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake with Glazed Oranges - not the exact same recipe is on her blog, but close
Coconut Macaroons with Chocolate Ganache
Bouchons Au Thon - made from canned tuna - perfect for a day when there's nothing to eat around.
French Style Yogurt Cake with Lemon - the recipe that enticed her future husband
Roasted Eggplant Ratatouille - I can't find this recipe out there anywhere, but the trick is to roast the eggplant sliced for 30 minutes on 400 F, flipping halfway through.  It would be good to make when I'm up to my ass in tomatoes come summer
Ed Fretwell Soup - made when her dad was sick, sounds like a great winter recipe
Doron's Meatballs with Pine Nuts, Cilantro and Golden Rasins - I am always looking for more recipes that use ground meat.
Scottish Scones with Lemon and Ginger - the not too sweet kind of scone, just the kind I like!
Slow Roasted Tomatoes with Coriander - see above item reference about up to my ass in tomatoes...what to do with...etc.
Pickled Grapes - couldn't find it on Oragnette, but I found it here. If I like them, I'll figure out how to can them safely
Winning Hearts and Minds Cake - in the book she uses only regular butter, and suggests that the cake improves with freezing.

Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday, and the weather is raining and gray.   I was shocked to find that there were no parking spaces left at church when I got there - I think there is something about Holy Week that makes even the non believer think about God.   At our church, the Passion is recreated by the youth of the parish a la Godspell, complete with the clown makeup.  Even though the more famous Jesus Christ Superstar is based on the Gospel of John is all around a better musical (it made Andrew Lloyd Webber a star, long before Phantom of the Opera) there's something a little more earthy about Godspell, which was some guy's master's thesis project based on the Gospel of Matthew.  It came out a year after JCS on Broadway.  I have always loved the song "By My Side" from the original show, after Stephen Schwartz was called in to fix the score of the original - it was the the one piece of music he kept.    Smart man!  Ah, the 1970s....the only time when there could be a couple rock operas about Jesus on Broadway.

So tonight, I'll do the DVR search and try to find Jesus Christ Superstar and record it for future watching before Easter.  I can never find Godspell - no one watches that one anymore, but JCS is always on during Holy Week, complete with Ted Neeley, the actor forever typecast as Jesus after that movie.   I think I'd rather be Ted Neeley than Henry Winkler, forever typecast as Fonzie.  There is something about Ted Neeley that makes Jesus seem like a rock star.  Evidently even a young John Travolta auditioned for Jesus, but he is now typecast forever as Vinny Barbarino instead.   Even Mickey Dolenz and David Cassidy were considered, and I am glad they weren't picked, because that would have caused me all sorts of Oedipal confusion.  At the time, I was in love with David Cassidy - but Jesus is God, and God is the Father!  How could I have a poster of David Cassidy on my door if he was Jesus?   But I did have a sticker that looked like the Coca Cola logo that said "Jesus Christ - He's the Real Thing", so maybe it would be okay.  Hard to say....

I did loveYvonne Elliman playing Mary Magdalene, and she's she is so much better singing that song, rather than Helen Reddy singing it.  Give them both a listen and you'll see what I mean.   Even though Helen Reddy's version is more popular, I think she should stick to singing "I Am Woman" complete with the macrame halter top. I love Yvonne Elliman singing this song in a scene from JCS which looks like she and Jesus might be on a camping trip somewhere.   When I was in musical theatre, I always sang that song as my audition song.  And the location is beautful, filmed in Israel.    The movie would be totally perfect if they didn't get so anti Vietnam that they had to have the tanks come over the crest searching for Judas  My husband isn't an avid church goer, and we were watching JCS one Easter and I can still remember him saying, "You mean Jesus got screwed over by the government? Why didn't I know that?"  And when you are a kid sitting through church, it's hard to catch on to that notion, when you are bored and braiding your palms and waiting for the Gospel to finish while you got to say the congregations part, which is always "Cruicify Him!" .  I can remember being bummed out that we had to be the bad guys.   The people got too worried that Jesus was getting too popular.   It's a common theme in our lives even today - any time a politician or a movie star or anyone gets too popular, we have a way of bringing them down.    Why is that?

So, this Holy Week I'll DVR a little JCS, and I'll be thinking ahead to my Easter menu.   For sure there will the kapusta - the traditional Polish Easter dish.   We'll make some dyed Easter eggs, and if we have too many we'll recycle them into pickled eggs.  I love ham on Easter, so I ordered a half ham from our Boy Scout Troop's Dearborn Ham sale.    I haven't figured out what to make for dessert - I have some stewed rhubarb I canned that I would like to make into a pie, and maybe something chocolate and coconutty.   The wather is supposed to be springlike - hitting the 70s by the end of the week.  I've had some snowdrops bloom in the front garder, and I am hoping for some hyacinths and daffodils later in April.   Happy Easter!

Another one of those memes

Some things about me....

Do you get regular massages?
I don't have that kind of time.

Do you have an answering machine?
No, I have voice mail.  Who has a machine anymore?

What cuss word do you use the most?
I don't swear. HA!  That was a lie!  Probably $hit
Are you underweight or overweight?
I'm normal

Can you see your veins?
Yes

Favorite…
Soap?
I don't have one

Fruit?
mango
Kind of red meat?
beef, well done

Fish?
halibut
Candy bar?
Almond Joy
Have You Ever…

Eaten a whole bag of potato chips?
No, but I'd love to do it someday

Eaten lobster?
Yes, many, many times.  I love it!

Climbed a mountain?
Define mountain. 

Been skydiving?
No thanks!

Been water skiing?
Yes, but I suck at it

Do You…

Wish you could change something about your life?
I wish I was independently wealthy

Like your nose?
Yes, but I broke it twice and had to return it to it's original beauty via plastic surgery.
Like salt and vinegar chips?
Yes

Eat salsa?
The hotter, the better
Own a boat?
No, but would love to do so

What Is…

A small thing that people let slide but that actually has dire consequences?
Taking care of the poor

Your most macho trait?
I work in a male dominated field (engineering) so I act like a man in meetings. 
The longest relationship you’ve ever had?
My sweetie and I have been together for almost 20 years
Your most embarrassing thoughts?
I am embarassed that I don't have embarassing thoughts.

Your most shameful moment?
Playing at a piano recital.  Not sure why I felt shamed, but I do when I play piano.   Calling Dr. Freud!
This/That…

Bath/Shower?
Bath

Markers/Crayons?
Markers

Pens/Pencils?
Pencil with a .9mm lead

Jelly/Cream Cheese?
Cream cheese

Bagel/Toast?
Bagel, but they are so fattening that I usually opt for toast

Finish…
My greatest weakness is…
I am a compulsive advice giver

I wish I was…
More athletic

Three things I wouldn’t do for a million dollars are…
Give up my kids, give up my husband, be 13 again

The oddest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth is…
?

Firsts…

Credit card you had?
Visa

Loan you got was for?
Student loan

Paycheck was for how much?
I don't remember, but I made minimum wage, and it was $3.15 at the time

Time you had stitches?
First ankle surgery, 1979

Time you went to the hospital for something?
I had pinkeye and my mom took me to the ER for it
Lasts…

List everything you ate in the last 24 hours.
Wine, Greek salad, potatoes and cailflower with cheese, eggs and bacon, coffee
Last thing you used a credit card for?
I rented a TV and  phone for my dad at the hospital

What was your job previous to the one you have now?
Graduate Teaching Assistant

Last thing you celebrated?
New Year's

Last time you were at a sports bar?
Does the Inverness Inn count as a sports bar?  Saturday night

The New Year Meme

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?


I started going to Friday morning @ SELMA, which is one of those guerilla restaurant things....highlight of my week!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't know what New Year's resolutions I made last year, but I make some every year.  This year will be no different.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No - I am at the age where the birthing is done, but the grand babies aren't here yet.  Birthing seems so far away from me now.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not this year, thankfully.  But I expect 2010 to be different.   Many good people sick right now.

5. What countries did you visit?

I don't even think I went to Canada this year.   USA only!  Maybe next year I will travel more.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

World peace.  Yes, I know I am asking a lot.
7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The month of January - many good colleagues I worked with are no longer. 

July 22 - my best friend's divorce date.   A good 5 years too late, but she gave it her all!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I still have a job, while many don't!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Still want to learn how to play musical instruments better.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I try not to focus on my illnesses or injuries. 

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Many glasses of wine with good friends.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Anyone that made it through the tough times this year without whining. 
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

People that live their lives for their own self gratification first, other people's feeling come second. 

14. Where did most of your money go?

I try not to spend money on one thing - I am thrifty!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Music

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

Not many good songs in 2009, so that's hard to come by!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?

happier, same and richer emotionally!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Made more music

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Not putting exercise higher on my list of things to do

20. How will you be spending New Year?

Best way ever - with family at home.  New Years Eve is for chumps!

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I am continually falling in love with my man at the strangest times....wonder how I got so lucky!  Good pickin', I guess!
22. How many one-night stands?

I am still on the same one night stand from many years ago.  Neither one of us left in the morning.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

I don't watch TV

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate's a strong word, but I've come to be irritated by some new folks!

25. What was the best book you read?

In 2009?  I really liked many.  Hard to say...

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

It's a rediscovery - I think Cake rules!

27. What did you want and get?

To keep my job.

28. What did you want and not get?

I never give up, so I am not saying I didn't get anything I wanted yet!

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

No Country for Old Men

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I don't remember, but I turned 45. 
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

More music making!

32. What political issue stirred you the most?

Feeding the hungry

33. Who did you miss?

I miss seeing Ann every day, although we still talk on the phone most every day,

34. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"God Only Knows"

35. I wish you all a happy satisfying healthy loving 2010. Have a good celebration and a fun start of the new year. All best wishes to you all!!!!!