Category Archives: food

01.06.22
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Love found in the recipe box

Searching for a recipe, I realized that today was as good as any to make a stab at organization. I have a tendency to pull out a recipe, make the dish and stuff the recipe back in the box in the front or back ignoring the TABS WITH THE CATEGORY written on them. It is apparently a difficult concept for my embarrassingly lack of detail for the small things in my life!

Today I have committed to transferring recipes in that pile in the top left onto recipe cards.

While I started out dreading this process, pretty soon I was reading recipes to him and telling him from memory where I got it or the first time I made it. Like a dessert with chocolate I made the first time I cooked for him in 1978 before I knew he didn’t like chocolate (I married him anyway). But todays blessing for me was remembering the givers of the recipes…family and friends…many not with me anymore….but the memory of the breakfast casserole from Mary or Aunt Frances’ radish dip, my mom’s scalloped oysters and Jane’s grape salad brought them so close I could hear and feel them.

Someday I anticipate my daughters going through my recipe box saying OH GOD REMEMBER WHEN MOM MADE THIS or more gently with a tear, oh god, remember when mom made this. Our memories come back to us in many ways…I cherish the ones that I remember as a tear slides down my cheek!

namaste

04.25.21
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So the thing about lists

I wasn’t quite sure how to start this one out…perhaps something like this: During an afternoon Zoom chat group, the topic of lists came up and I said quite innocently that I don’t make lists. The group got very quiet…one person shyly spoke up and said, “you are truly living life on the edge!”

That’s not how it played out but my blog, my story!

The thing about lists. Pretty much every person I know has a system of lists. The lists left on the counter and checked off with the task completed. The list that is made and never looked at again. The grocery list. The getting ready for a trip list. My question to you list makers is….what happens when you depend solely on the list. A list takes fear away about forgetting something…something you need, something you have to do. Check…its on the list.

So what happens when you depend on that list and no longer use just your memory….what happens if you don’t write undergarments on the list before a big trip. You mark everything off the list and must vacation commando? What happens if you don’t write toilet paper on the list and end up not thinking about the need for toilet paper while at the store because it wasn’t on the list?

I look at those list makers in my inner circle and I just shake my head at the risks they are taking.

I, obviously, am quite confident and secure with the fact that there is no evidence left to betray my memory.

Until next time….

04.24.21
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So many thoughts 9 more hours

There is absolutely nothing going on today. It’s breezy, barely over 60 so I decided to use this day as a ?mental?health day which turned into I really need to find something constructive to do….I’m bored!

My last thought as I was cleaning up lunch dishes and putting silverware in the dish washer was a silly comment made yesterday by my 7 (going on 8) year old grandson. Phil and I adopted several sets of silverware when our relatives passed on from old age. This is in addition to the silverware that we had used daily and another set I kept in the drawer for when we had people over and I wanted to have a set that completely matched. Yesterday “J” noticed he and his brother were eating with different patterned forks. “J” got up, opened the silverware drawer and said…. “just like snowflakes, not a fork in the drawer is the same”.

Where does a 7 year old learn these turn of phrases? And more to the point… I only notice different silverware in my drawer because I hate eating with the lightweight, narrower silverware from HIS family and much prefer the heavier, bulkier from MY family.

Not that long ago, I was actually using silverware I bought at a thrift store. Heavy because the untined (not a real word BTW) end of the fork was covered with plastic. They lasted a long time but too many washes in the dishwasher finally weakened the glue that held the plastic on. I was very protective of this silverware…and decided once it was gone, I would just stop eating.

Ya. Didn’t happen. I assume you don’t want a story about the other thoughts that have shot through my mind this morning. I took a picture of a pound of butter for later.

Extensive discussion about our silverware is also available at the following link:

https://ninasusan.com/2018/05/23/the-silverware-of-our-lives/

Until next time….

02.05.21
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The epic fail … It seemed like a good idea

So my girlfriend, in what I’m going to assume was pandemic boredom on WHEATIES, started posting pictures of food made with her air fryer on Facebook…..and then as we often do with things that catch our attention….I noticed lots and lots of people starting sharing their air fryers with the world. It took me awhile but I soon succumbed and bought the airfryer lid that fits on top of my instant pot…double duty…the instant pot rests for days on end in the cupboard because I only use it once a month and that’s being generous.

So the first night with the airfryer lid, we did French fries…yum. I have to say they were tasty and 1/3 less calories than deep fat fried.

I had been reading on various web pages how exquisite ribeye steak was in the airfryer….you know…I’ll never eat it another way again propaganda…..and He might try a ribeye air fried some time…but holy expletive…do not put a large sirloin with bone and expect the same outcome as a ribeye. His cooked 3 times longer than expected was rubbery and medium rare. I couldn’t imagine how MOO it would have been for the time recommended. But I found out. Mine a bit smaller with bone, I added 5 minutes longer than recommended….the words came out of my mouth…I’m so hungry I’m going to eat it whenever the timer goes off…a, ya, that did not work out. But it swore me off steak for a very long time…possible for as long as I’m here on earth!

Raw before frying

Salmon patties. This was actually a recipe..not just salmon, egg and cracker crumb fried in oil and topped with ranch dressing. These were actual pretty good…but didn’t taste like salmon patties. To my family and friends who I’ve retained as Facebook friends even though they are salmon haters, you might like THESE salmon patties. I won’t say trust me!

My last half patty disappeared After leaving my plate on the counter while tending to the next batch….irritation…GET DOWN……but don’t take Truman’s word for anything…he can smell an open can of salmon miles away.

Until next time…

04.12.20
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Fill in the blank and cottage cheese

It hasn’t been that long ago…although definitely pre pandemic time….HE was telling a story about a dinner staple when he was growing up…his mother putting a canned peach slice on a plate topped with cottage cheese. I made the well known gesture of pointing to my throat meaning “gag me” because I was reliving the same memory. My mother often dressed the pineapple or pear slice up with a slice of banana along side the masterpiece with a maraschino cherry on top.

Many decades later, during this pandemic, I found a can of sliced pears in the pantry and just happened to have some AE brand cottage cheese in the fridge. I did it. What I tasted was my past….the comfort of my past…when I took my first spoonful I realized that if my past had a taste…this was it. I have never liked maraschino cherries…in fact, I have never understood why Restaurants find it necessary to top your huge ice cream delight with a little bitty cherry on top WITH A STEM attached.

Just one of those things I was thinking about while eating my bowl of pineapple chunks and cottage cheese on this rainy day…and because we are all sheltering in place and many of us alone today, this would be a good time to comment with what your past would taste like!

Namaste