Personal food heritage?

 Because I needed something mindless to watch, a few episodes of Top Chef found their way to my TV. There's something soothing about watching strangers prepare odd food, sometimes succeeding and often failing miserably.  Truly mindless.

In one episode the bossy hosts demanded that the contestants cook something from their "personal food heritage." This might be easy if you were raised in a house that had a heritage, like Italian or Southern or African or Russian. Even if you barely had such a heritage, one could probably come up with a reasonable facsimile, like a modern-day borscht or some fancy and weird take on Mississippi fried chicken. 

But this assignment made me wonder what I would cook if I had to come up with something from my "heritage."  There wasn't any heritage when I was a kid. There was barely anything resembling any sort of cuisine, let alone something that spoke of my parents' roots. Tuna-noodle casserole or hot-dog-canned-bean casserole don't really call to mind  recipes handed down generation to generation. Gray ground beef fried up and thickened with flour and water served over boiled russet potatoes isn't in any version of "Joy of Cooking."  So what would I prepare in this situation?

Honestly, I couldn't think of anything. My Mom was a pretty bad cook, but she did make good fried chicken, but it wasn't part of our heritage, it was just something she made that tasted good. She made good pies, but again, that's not a "family recipe" sort of thing. No one waxed poetic while eating a slice of apple pie.  We just ate it and were happy to have pie for dessert. My Dad grew up on a farm, a real honest-to-dirt farm, so his cooking skills stopped at eggs fried in bacon grease. 

This made me wonder what my kids would pick as a "family heritage recipe."  They had an Italian grandmother, so that would help guide the needle to an ethnic food choice. My cooking was good but it wasn't ethnic at all.  There are a few things I made when they were growing up that they actually liked, but to riff on flambeed chicken with almonds seems sad and definitely not Top Chef fare. 

In the end, the contestants all made something that had meaning to them, like deconstructed spaghetti and meatballs or a hearty soup with cabbage and cod. My dish would have to be a remake of a Swanson's frozen pot pie, one of the only things I remember getting excited about as a kid. We only got to have them a couple of times a year, when our parents went out to dinner by themselves and left us home alone. They were terrible, of course, but the idea of frozen food was so luxurious that we were all overjoyed at the prospect of eating what everyone else in America was eating on a Saturday night.  Swanson's pot pies and Swanson's TV dinners, with the four little compartments of food: main course, veggie, mashed potatoes and a teeny nub of dessert: now that was incredibly fine dining!  

Reading a great book.....

 ... and I know it's been a while but since only three people read this, just accept my absence as part of real life.

"Fire Weather" by John Vaillant. I cannot impart how amazing and suspenseful and frightening this book is.  (Bad grammar there.) All of us who live in California, especially NorCal, know the terror of fire season.  Almost everyone I know as a friend has had to evacuate more than once in the past seven years and some of us have seen the fires from a block away from where we live.  I personally know five people who lost their homes in the Tubbs fire of 2017 and I am acquainted with many more who lost homes in the fires of 2018 - 2020.  Just go to the Cal Fire website and look at "incidents" for those years and the statistics are staggering.

The book "Fire Weather" is a comprehensive look at the fire in Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada in 2016, before our onslaught of local fires began in 2017.  The first 50 pages or so document the creation of Fort McMurray as a mining town and the chemicals and products mined there. But once the author begins to document the fire there in May 2016, the book takes off like a blast furnace. 

I sometimes get bored with non-fiction because of the incredible amount of details that don't resonate with me. But not here. Reading this had my heart pounding because it's an hour by hour look at this fire that began small (as most fires do) and within a couple of hours turned historically extraordinary. The descriptions of the fire's ferociousness and the immediacy of its horrible path of destruction are written so clearly that you feel like you are there. This is the best documentation of fire that I have read.

You know a book is getting to you when you take to your computer to find out more and get led down a rabbit hole about the subject you are chasing. Today was a stormy day, no need to go outside, so finding those videos about fires in the last seven or eight years, reading the transcripts of firefighters who experienced fire storms so bizarre and unprecedented, seeing footage from people trying to escape with fire all around them, listening to the trauma, five years later, of families who were convinced they would die in their cars as they tried to flee......it was all incredibly intense and frightening.

There is no way I could read this book if it wasn't a stormy, rainy day. In fire season this book would be the monster under the bed, coming out to burn everything to the ground. Vaillant's vivid written pictures of neighborhoods being consumed by fire, houses gone in less than 3 minutes from roof to basement, the often heroic but useless actions of firemen trying to save their own homes, their own neighborhoods, their own city, all of it is gripping, terrifying and profoundly tearful and moving.

Put this on your library list, or buy it if you are lucky to be a book buyer. Read it, pass it on, think about it. It is powerfully written and it is important in the study of climate change and our increasingly heated planet.  It should make you think about the precariousness of life, about personal safety and the power of weather and what we are doing about the new century of fire.

Three Months Later, Back to the Dogs

 It's about time!  Pain or no pain, I needed to get back to my early Wednesday morning dog walking job at the local humane society because I miss the dogs! Up at 6:00 am, quick shower and off to the kennels! Of course, most of the dogs I knew in September are gone now, having found forever-homes, for which we volunteers are very grateful.  

There were a few dogs I recognized, most of them were dogs I wouldn't walk because of their jumpiness and bad manners.  One lovely little pitbull, Shamira (aka Marley) was still there, however, and I got to reintroduce myself to her and take her out for a stroll. She is a reddish color, not huge but quite strong and very alert to her surroundings. She just wants to be petted and has a ton of love to give. Sadly, she hates men and so her adoptability is limited because of that. I am sure that she could be persuaded to cut men some slack if someone was willing to put in the time and training with her. Samira is too young and lively for me, sadly, but she has been at the humane society for almost a year, way too long.

Two other lovely dogs were Muffin, a low-to-the-ground 5 year old pit bull, a scruffy girl but very low key and great on the leash. And then there was Felt, a young tripod (three legs) that is full of energy, very alert and rambunctious. He needs a young kid to play with and I hope he finds a good home.

Yes, I am still on the lookout for a dog for myself. It's time.  But there's no rush, at some point the dog will find me as I find the dog. That's how it works, you cannot force these things. Until then I will be content with helping out when I can by walking these love-bugs.

This is Samira, the beautiful red-head.

The Holly Days

 Maybe it should be Holly Daze. The holidays are always a dazzling time, aren't they?  All those sparkling lights everywhere, the glittery wrapping paper, bubbles in glass after glass of champagne, everyone smiling with white, shiny teeth. Makes one walk around in a daze with all that dazzle. 

I don't mean to sound like a cynic. The holidays aren't bad, with the exception of spending too much money, eating too much fattening food, overloading on sugar (cookies!  chocolate!  eggnog and pie!) and being very slothful (i.e. no exercise, blame it on the rainy weather.)  Who doesn't like this time of year, when fake trees abound and fake happiness takes its toll?  All that smiling.  At least those bubbles in that champagne glass serve a purpose: dulling the ennui.

But wait, seriously now. Some holiday things are actually enjoyable.  There is something nice about buying a gift or two and getting to watch the recipient open them, seeing a happy face. Baking cookies and cinnamon bread, filling the house up with great smells. Turning on Christmas tree lights every night, even on a fake tree. Gathering with my kids for a Christmas Eve dinner and laughing at the dogs with their clear disdain for the holiday, especially when made to wear reindeer ears.

In these troubled times throughout the world it is good to have a couple of days to welcome joy into our lives.  With wishes of kindness and peace for the new year, let's all raise a glass of anything to the hope of a bright future.  Or at least a less tarnished one.

Travel on my mind

 Having knee surgery does not lend itself to travel.  Hell, it's sometimes too painful to walk out the front door and get a whiff of fresh air, let alone hobble down corridors in an airport. But even without the ways and means, the desire is always there. 

Sometimes I stop myself from looking at hotel websites when I get the "too-long-in-the-house-jitters" but usually I succumb and indulge in the pleasure of vicarious living. Mind you, I don't usually look at hotels I can actually afford (where's the fun in that?) so it is all fantasy and I can live with that.  What's the harm in checking for availability at the Hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris or the St. Regis in Rome?  Seeing the Christmas trees in the lobbies, the fine dining options, the $2500 per night suites with outstanding views, it all makes me happy and not too envious of those who can afford it. But I do wonder: if you can afford that price, what do you look at and drool over? 

The answer is this: you google "worlds most expensive hotel rooms" and you get a look at suites around the world that cost upwards of $30,000 a night, all the way to $150,000 for an underwater hotel in the Maldives.  But seriously, looking at photos of those incredibly pricey places, they all look like hotel lobbies, not rooms. They are huge, yes, and have great views and wonderful amenities (private butlers, private chefs, free massages, free booze) but they don't look as inviting as the $3,000 per night room at the Four Seasons in New York.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?  And a girl can scale back that dream to a $200 a night room in a cozy hotel in Oregon or Chicago or along the Mendocino coast.  As the knee heals, so my travel world will turn.

The Mess We're In

Not only are we experiencing wars, terrorist attacks and devastating natural disasters, we now have an evangelical christian as House speaker.  And this means an evangelical christian is second in line to the presidency.  If Biden and Harris are assassinated or somehow vanish from the planet, Mike Johnson will be president of the United States.  Think on that for a minute.  A man who supported overturning the 2020 election, a man who is a Trump toady, a man who opposes abortion and any discussion of gay rights, a man who will vote against any aid to Ukraine: this is the man that could be president. Not that a situation like that is likely, but the thought that our country has devolved this far is frightening and disgusting. How did we get to this point?

The better question is: how do we get out of this? 

More to follow.

Finally! Back in print!

 For the past several weeks I have had no internet connection on my laptop.  No access to anything.  My phone connected 85% of the time, my TV the same for streaming stuff. Quite frustrating, but here we are, back again!

Three weeks ago I had knee replacement surgery, which enforced upon me a great deal of free time.  A lot of boring free time. For the first two weeks, one's life revolves around icing the knee many times during the day, reading, doing exercises for the knee (painful!) and staring at the TV or out the window or into one's soul. (Short-lived.) Very boring. Even having unlimited time to read was tiresome and it's amazing how much junk there is on television, junk that I either had already seen or had no desire to ever watch. 

After two weeks, the highlight of my day was hobbling down the path and walking around the pool several times, just to get outside. (It's 60 steps around the pool, in case you were wondering.)

This past Monday I had reached the limit of my incarceration and decided to get in the car and drive to the post office.  HA!  What a joke that was because the car wouldn't start! Another enforced confinement. Once it a new battery was installed (after 3 calls in two days to AAA) driving became much more enjoyable.  I now can hobble into the post office, into a grocery store, into the library, using my trusty cane that I bought for $6 at the thrift store.

Knee replacements are quite common, especially in my Baby Boom generation, but that doesn't make them easy or convenient or desired. No one ever thought "perhaps it would be nice to have my leg sliced open, battered around a bit, bones sawed off, fake bones screwed on, then stapled back together." Because it isn't nice. Necessary, maybe, but nice? No. It hurts. Having parts of the body sliced open and poked about with sharp instruments is always going to result in pain.

Three weeks after the surgery I am still icing the knee and leg several times a day (with an amazing ice machine provided by Kaiser) and doing exercises to increase mobility and prevent scar tissue.  But I am still hobbling around with the cane, not striding purposefully down the path. The hobbling will get better, of course, and at some point the pain will back off. 

At least that's the plan.