Kids will be kids

During a recent visit to New Hampshirewe were enjoying breakfast at one of our favorite eateries in North Conway. Peaches is asmall restaurant with limited seating, so if people are there with a largeparty it’s very likely they will be split up into separate tables.  

Such was the case during this visit  . . . seated nearby was a family with sixpeople at one table and three children at another.  The children . . . two little girls and a boy. . . were seated right next to our table. The adults at the other table were eating their meals and involved intheir conversation and not overly paying attention to the kids.  The kids were generally behaving themselvesbut were goofing around alittle.  The girls had each taken a packetof sugar substitute and poured it into a pile next to their plates, where thegrown ups wouldn’t see.  They weredipping their fingers in the sugar substitute and licking it off . . . why theyweren’t snarfng real sugar, I have no idea. They kept doing this . . . giggling quietly . . . pulling one over onthe 
old folks.  It was kind of cute.

It was especially amusing to me because I remember doing thesame thing when I was young and us kids were sequestered at a separate tablewhile the grown up sat off on their own drinking their coffee and conversingabout grown up things . . . except it wasn’t sugar packets and it wasn’t quiteas innocuous. 

We used to practice our spoon bending prowess.  If we happened to break a spoon we’d have todispose of the evidence . . . often by slipping the stem of the spoon into theketchup bottle and the bowl end in the napkin dispenser.  Yeah were wire minor . . . very minor . . . magicians.  Troublesome punks is what we really were.

Sometimes we'd get to wait in the car.  We’d hang out goofing off,gossip and huff matchsticks.  That’s right . . . I said it . . . we inhaledwhite phosphorous from the igniting match. Dude!  It was cool!  When the white phosphorus reaches your lungsit absorbs the moisture there and converts it into what looks like smoke whenit is exhaled.  
Not exactly healthy forus . . . but totally awesome.  What can Isay . . . it doesn’t take much to impress a bunch of 14 year olds.   


The funny thing is,  I don’t ever remember my mom commenting on thesmell of burnt matches in the car . . . what’s up with that?

The moral . . . adults are clueless.    Oh wait!  I am one.  :P

44-Clove Garlic Soup With Parmesan Cheese

Sweet mother of the garlic gods this soup is fantasmically delicious!

26 Garlic Cloves (Unpeeled)

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons (1/4 Stick) Butter

2 1/4 Cups Sliced Onions

1 1/2 Teaspoons Chopped Fresh Thyme

18 Garlic Cloves, Peeled

3 1/2 Cups Chicken Stock Or Canned Low-Salt Chicken Broth

1/2 Cup Whipping Cream

1 Cup Finely Grated Parmesan Cheese (About 4 Ounces)

4 Lemon Wedges

Roast the garlic.  Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 26 garlic cloves in small glassbaking dish. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper;toss to coat. Cover baking dish tightly with foil and bake until garlic isgolden brown and tender, about 45 minutes. Or use this method for the crockpot.  


Cool. Squeeze garlic betweenfingertips to release cloves. Transfer cloves to small bowl.

Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat.Add onions and thyme and cook until onions are translucent, about 6 minutes.Add roasted garlic and 18 raw garlic cloves and cook 3 minutes. Add chickenstock; cover and simmer until garlic is very tender, about 20 minutes. 

Let soup cool.  Workingin batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Return soup to saucepan; addcream and bring to simmer. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide grated cheese among 4 bowls and ladle soup over.Squeeze juice of 1 lemon wedge into each bowl and serve.

Note: Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.Rewarm over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

We'll leave the light on for you . . . or not

When I was kid we didn't travel much.  Our vacations were either camping trips or staying with family members.


So, when the rare occasion arose where we would be staying at a motel/hotel it was a really REALLY big deal . . . an adventure, a luxury.

Mind you, we didn't stay a 4 or 5 star hotels.  Holiday Inn was as top of the line as we went and Comfort Inn was the norm.  It didn't matter . . . Cable television! Game room!  Swimming Pool! HOT TUB!  It doesn't sound like it should be that exciting, I know.  But trust me it was.  


Come to think of it, coming across the scrambled adult television channel may  have been my first experience with pornography . . . oh joy.

Anyhoo . . . as fun and wonderful as it all was it didn't make us (the kids) angelic guests.  For the most part we behaved ourselves but all that excitement seemed to have brought some prankishness to the surface.

Besides the typical swiping of the towels, soaps and whatnot . . . we dare not touch the minibar or Mom would open a can of whoop-ass on us . . . we had fun roaming the hallways and making a general nuisance of ourselves.  

Of course, there was the ever popular knock-and-run game.  But, that wears a little thin after a while . . . especially, as we got older.  One thing that never seemed to grow old no matter how often we did it was when we found the mini-moos and condiment packets left outside of random doors for room service to retrieve.  


What's so fun about that?  Well, what we did was stomp on them.  The contents . . . whether it was milk, ketchup, mustard or mayo . . . would squirt all over the walls and carpeting.  

;;

The bigger the spatter, the higher splat the more points.  We didn't have and actually scoring structure established and we didn't keep tally . . . it was more on a case by case basis . . . or smoosh but smoosh, as it were.


Yeah . . . we were hicks, we were lame but we had fun.

Ukrainian Red Borscht Soup

1 (16 Ounce) Package Pork Sausage

3 Medium Beets, Peeled And Shredded

3 Carrots, Peeled And Shredded

3 Medium Baking Potatoes, Peeled And Cubed

1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil

1 Medium Onion, Chopped

1 (6 Ounce) Can Tomato Paste

3/4 Cup Water

1/2 Medium Head Cabbage, Cored And Shredded

1 (8 Ounce) Can Diced Tomatoes, Drained

3 Cloves Garlic, Minced

Salt And Pepper To Taste

1 Teaspoon White Sugar, Or To Taste

1/2 Cup Sour Cream, For Topping

Crumble the sausage into a skillet over medium-high heat.Cook and stir until no longer pink. Remove from the heat and put in large souppot.

Fill the pot halfway with water (about 2 quarts), and bringto a boil.

Add the beets, carrots and potatoes, and cook until tender,about 15 minutes. Add the cabbage, and the can of diced tomatoes.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion,and cook until tender. Stir in the tomato paste and water until well blended.Transfer to the pot.

Add the raw garlic to the soup, cover and turn off the heat.Let stand for 5 minutes. Taste, and season with salt, pepper and sugar.

Ladle into serving bowls, and garnish with sour cream andfresh parsley.

Continuous effort is the key to unlocking our potential

“The term “latchkey kid” refers to unsupervised youngsters who care for themselves before or after school, on weekends, and during holidays while their parents work. They commonly carry house keys to let themselves in and out of their homes.”

I was a latchkey kid.   I had a single working mother who didn’t get home for hours after I got home from school; leaving me to fend for myself much of the time.  I learned at a relatively young age to take care of myself.  Being forced, as a young kid, to have responsibilities and be responsible for myself wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I did my own laundry, made most of my own meals and did chores around the house . . . all unsupervised.  I may have been bored at times but I don’t ever remember being lonely.  I could very well amuse myself . . . and this was well before computers and video games, too.  Amazing, huh?

One thing I did more often than I care to admit was to forget or misplace my house key.  Keep in mind that I lived in a very rural part of Pennsylvania, which means that going to a friend’s house until my mom got home wasn’t a viable alternative.  This was also before cell phones.  So that meant that I had to find a way into the house or be stuck outside for hours.  I was a little kid not a mailman, so I didn’t do the rain or snow or dark of night thing. 

You’d think I would have thought to hide the key somewhere on the property . . . that would have been the smart thing to do.  We lived on over an acre of land on the top of a mountain . . . there was no shortage of places to stash a key.  

Too often, I’d get off the school bus and realize that I didn’t have my key.  If I was lucky someone would have forgotten to lock a door or a window and I would be able to get inside . . . no fuss, no muss.  I was unlucky more often than not.  Somehow I figured out that if I jiggled one of the basement windows the latch on the lock would eventually disengage and I’d be able to open the window and slide in.  That’s how I usually got in.  There was one time that the lock wouldn’t budge . . . no matter how hard I tried.  I remember it was cold and raining that day so staying outside wasn’t an option.  I had to get inside.  I started to panic and began to push on the window with my feet . . . it didn’t occur to me that I’d probably break the glass . . . which, of course, is exactly what happened.  

I unlocked the window from the outside and slid inside onto the glass strewn workbench that was under the window.    I didn't know what to do, but one thing I wasn't about to do was tell my mom.  I would have been punished for forgetting my key . . . again . . . and I probably would have gotten a spanking for breaking the window.  So, with a great sense of self preservation, I didn't tell.  It was easily several months later . . . well into the summer . . . before she noticed.  She never suspected me and I’m pretty sure this is the first I've ever spoken of it.  Thankfully, she doesn't read my blog . . . I think she still might give me a spanking if she found out.

~~~

Beef Pot Pie







I use this soup recipe as a base for my stew. After I package and freeze most of the soup, I add a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and peas.

To thicken the broth: make a slurry of cold water and flour – 1 cup water to 2 tbsp four. Stir in the slurry and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer until thickened.


Prepare your pie crust using the recipe below.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Line a 9 inch pie plate with one of the pie crusts. 

Place the beef mixture into the pie crust and then cover with the other pie crust. 

Bake in a preheated oven until the crust is golden brown; about 45 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.












Perfect Pie Crust


2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1 cup unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
6 to 8 Tbsp ice water


Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl; stir to mix. Add butter and mix until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea size pieces of butter. Add ice water 1 Tbsp at a time, mixing until mixture just begins to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready. If the dough doesn't hold together, add a little more water and mix again.


Remove dough from the bowl and place in a mound on a clean surface. Gently shape into 2 discs. Knead the dough just enough to form the discs, do not over-knead. You should be able to see little bits of butter in the dough. These small chunks of butter are what will allow the resulting crust to be flaky. Sprinkle a little flour around the discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days.


Remove one crust disk from the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes in order to soften just enough to make rolling out a bit easier. Roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle; about 1/8 of an inch thick. As you roll out the dough, check if the dough is sticking to the surface below. If necessary, add a few sprinkles of flour under the dough to keep the dough from sticking. Carefully place onto a 9-inch pie plate. Gently press the pie dough down so that it lines the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to trim the dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge of the pie dish.

I can sympathize with everything, except suffering

I was an unsympathetic child.  If a playmate skinned a knee, I would giggle.  If a friend bumped their head, I would chuckle.  If they fell off a swing, I would snicker.  The worse the pain the harder I would laugh.  I couldn’t help it.  I don’t know why but I thought it was funny when other people got hurt.   Pretty f^cked up, huh?

Yeah, it was. 

Then one day I fell down and landed on a rock.  Bone was busting through my skin and blood was spurting everywhere.  No, not really but that’s what it felt like.  I was crying and hollering out my pain.   And standing over me was my bestest friend in the whole wide world . . . and she was laughing . . . laughing and pointing . . . laughing and pointing at ME!!  I cried harder and she laughed harder.  Then I just got mad . . . it was a long time ago but I remember exactly how I felt.  I yelled at her . . . why was she laughing when I was hurt?  That was just mean.   She looked at me and said, “well, now you know what it feels like.”

Lesson learned.  

Compassion understood.  

Sympathy acquired.

The Flies and the Honey-Pot 

A number of Flies were attracted to a jar of honey which had been overturned in a housekeeper's room, and placing their feet in it, ate greedily. Their feet, however, became so smeared with the honey that they could not use their wings, nor release themselves, and were suffocated. Just as they were expiring, they exclaimed, "O foolish creatures that we are, for the sake of a little pleasure we have destroyed ourselves." 

Pleasure bought with pains, hurts. 






Pasta E Fagioli with Italian Sausage  (A Crockpot Recipe)

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 Onions, Chopped

2 Cloves Garlic, Finely Chopped

1 Carrots, Peeled & Chopped

1 Stalk Celery, Chopped

1 Lb Hot or Sweet Bulk Italian Sausage

2 Teaspoons Dry Oregano

1 Tablespoon Dry Basil

1 -2 Teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes, To Taste

1 1/2 Cups Canned Chopped Tomatoes With Juice

3 -4 Cups Chicken Stock

2 Can Cannellini Beans With Juice

1 Lb Cup Ditalini, cooked according to package directions

Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium high heat.  Cook onion in oil 2 minutes. Stir in garlic, celery and carrots and cook for 3 minutes. 

Add and brown crumbled sausage.

Add mixture to crock pot and stir in basil, oregano, red pepper and tomatoes.

Stir in beans and stock.

Cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 4 hours.

Serve over pasta. Top with grated parmesan cheese.

Note:  I undercook the pasta then add it and add the soup to containers and freeze for lunches.  That way the pasta is not overcooked.

Once you go gnome you never go home --or-- Fornit sum Fornus

Did you ever put something down then go back to get it and it’s not there.   You know where you put it and it’s just not there.   Then only to eventually find it exactly where you left in the spot where you know you’ve looked before . . . like, ten times before?  Yeah, it happens to me all the time.  At first I chocked it up to forgetfulness or absentmindedness.  And, then I thought someone in the house was trying to be funny or trying to make me think I’m crazy.  But it happens all the time in my home and not just to me . . . but everyone in the family.  If I’m patient and if I give it time the thing will just turn up exactly where it should be . . . just where I left it. It kind of freaks me out. 

I know exactly what you're thinking.  You’re thinking that among the millions of parallel universes that often the object doesn’t exist in all of them.  So as the twin worlds converge the object may be cancelled out in an instant only to be brought back into existence at another moment in time.  Nice try.  That’s the simple answer and you don’t get off the hook that easy.

The true answer to the perplexing mystery is far more complex and inexplicable -

Gnomes . . . or house gnomes to be more precise.

There are many types of gnomes; but the house gnome is the creature of which I speak. Gnomes are small, stocky humanoids that usually stand between 1' 7" and 2' 2" weighting between 20 and 30 lb.    They speak Gnomic, Sylvan and Dwarven . . . although house gnomes speak English quite well.   

Gnomes are playful, endlessly curious and incessant jokesters.   Their inquisitive nature may compel them to want to explore and wreak minor havoc  . . . like computer glitches and ‘misplaced’ items.  Their love of practical jokes is another reason for things disappearing only to reappear at a later time. 

Only the cat can see

the house gnomes

when they are hiding

important papers and objects

from me.

Generally speaking, gnomes are shy.  They are nocturnal and, because they are suspicious of the taller races, rarely come into contact with humans.   They are, however, the protectors of all animals, both wild and domesticated, except for cats.    I believe this is due to the fact that female gnomes dress is drab, earthy tones . . . as opposed to the colorful garb that the males wear . . . and are often mistaken for mice.

House gnomes tend to make their homes in small, unoccupied spaces in human habitats.  They will help themselves to small bits of food and beverage of their host family but will do small chores and repairs in restitution.  If you suspect you have house gnomes, leave a small gift of milk and cake.  They will show their appreciation by playing fewer pranks and being more helpful.

__________________________________

True or not . . . I dunno, but still funny . . . in a disturbing kind of way:

Two friends smoked some pot and got the munchies.  So they went out for a drive to McDonald’s to grab some food.  Along the way they saw a lawn gnome playing in a sandbox.  They grabbed it, put it in the backseat, and went to McDonald’s.  When they were at the McDonald’s drive-thru the gnome started crying.  They bought it a happy meal, which appeased the gnome,  and it started eating it.  

They took it home and eventually fell asleep. When they woke up the gnome was no where to be found.  Eventually, they found it in a closet.  Except when they opened the closet they found out that the gnome was actually a 4 year old boy.  They were subsequently arrested and prosecuted for kidnapping.

Moral . . . don't do drugs.

__________________________________

The GGLF or Garden Gnome Liberation Front is at the forefront of freeing captive gnomes.  The GGLF believes that gnomes deserve the same rights and liberty afforded to humans.    In 1997, over 150 gnomes were removed from private properties and emancipated.   

In 1998, spurred on by previous successful venutes but sadden by the continuing enslavement of their bretheren there was a ‘mass suicide’ in a small city in France.  A note found nearby read, “When you read these few words we will no longer be part of your selfish world, where we serve merely as pretty decorations."  The liberation front quietly went about it business for then next couple of years . . . freeing indivifual gnomes on a smaller scale.  And then, in 2000, at a garden show 2,000 confined gnomes were defiantly displayed.  In a nighttime raid, 20 of the gnomes were led to freedom.  The GGLF claimed responsibility, demanding that the Garden Gnomes be released into their natural habitat and not be ridiculed as cheap garden decorations.

If you would like to help the gnomes  . . . the Garden Gnome Liberation encourages people to report neighborhood tyranny, organize a picket demonstration, write to Congress, and free a gnome.

__________________________________

Prime Rib Soup

4 Or 5 Bones From A Roasted Beef Rib Roast, With Some Meat Attached
3 Quarts Water
1 Medium Onion, Diced
1 Stalk Celery, Diced
1 Carrot, Diced
1 Of 14 Oz. Can Diced Tomatoes
Kosher Salt
Black Pepper
1 Tbsp Dried Parsley
1/2 Cup Pearled Barley
2 Medium Potatoes, Diced
1 Can Corn

Put all ingredients, through parsley, in a large pot.

Cook over medium heat for 1/2 hour.

Add barley and cook for another 1/2 hour.

Remove bones from pot & cool. Remove meat from bones & cut into pieces.

Return meat to pot and then add potato and corn. Cook 1/2 hour or until potatoes are cooked.

Serve with fresh, crusty bread. This soup also freezes well.