In Memory of BFF Sheila Rice

I met Sheila at the library. She always told me - where all good people are. Somehow she ended up in my car one day. And my life has been forever changed and fulfilled. There are so many instances and days and memories that keep flooding back to me – so I have a few I would like to share, some of my favorites.
Sheila was a storyteller and mostly she talked about her sons and their wives and their children and their children all the time. As you know, she loved all of you. And her stories made us know you too. She knew how to have a whole life – friends, family, interests. And mostly she told stories of Larry and because of that, we all love him so. Sheila loved being a deacon at Brighton Presbyterian. She liked visiting and talking to people. They just need a story and to laugh she would tell me. And she loved the children and the babies. Always the babies.
It was not long after we met that Sheila and I discovered that we both like to read and write and drink lots of coffee. I had never met anyone so well read in my life. We would talk about books and pass them back and forth. When I talked about starting a writers group, she told me she was the 1st on board. And she definitely was. She added the sparkle, the focus and the needed distractions. We decided on venues for everything by where the coffee was best. If there was not any coffee, she threatened to leave. Someone always seemed to find a cup after that.
She loved this city and everything that was happening. She always encouraged others to come to the library and hang out and to go to the events. We went to many together. We watched movies, learned things and laughed always laughed.
One day Sheila heard of an injustice on the women's side of the county jail. She asked me to take her there. We had barely walked in and people already knew her and came up to talk. One officer came up. She shmoozed him. Sheila asked him about, his wife, his kids, laughed, told a funny story from the past and then he asked what brought her there. Sheila mentioned the problem. When she got done the officer started to explain, and said, - You don't understand..and Sheila answered with, - no I don't and either will the people that read the newspaper article. The problem was solved by that evening.
Then there was the declining bus schedule. That was not the “type” the city was trying to draw, she was told. The Type, answered Sheila, and she explained how her life and the life of her children were enriched by being able to use the bus system. The gentleman listened and answered with – I am ashamed, Mrs. Rice. She quickly retorted with – I do not want you to be ashamed, I want you to fix the bus schedule. That's how Sheila was – to the point, but making you smile. The bus schedule never properly got changed and I was blessed with becoming a regular driver for Sheila.
Some days when Sheila and I were together everything we said and heard were song cues. We sang often and loud. We became like a well rehearsed Vaudeville act. We sang and told jokes at Tai Chi and in restaurants and in the car and at the library. She knew how to make a celebration out of anything. If the day was boring, she told the waitress it was her birthday and we got desert and sang. It was forever before I figured out when her birthday really was.
I have a big hole in my heart – but it is so filled with memories. And I am more of a person because Sheila loved me and I love her. Not often do you find someone who will sing with you in a restaurant well after the waitress has kind of asked you not to. But I was blessed enough to be a part of her life to the end. A gift beyond measure. So if you see me singing loudly in a restaurant, as I am drinking coffee – please join in the chorus with Sheila and me.

June 27, 1936 - October 5, 2010

Summer Cooking

The mighty bean has saved me one more time. Actually over and over again, since this summer I seemed to revel in cold bean salads. Other than cooking out, I am totally at a loss as what to fix in the summer for supper. Fall and Winter cooking is more to my liking. If you follow my blog at all you know that I enjoy making breads and soups and the like. This does not fit the incredible hot summer we experienced.

It started with my DH mentioning that we needed something cool for supper and mentioned he liked what we had eaten previously at an Indian Restaurant. "I can make that.", I responded and made a cold lentil salad the next night. After supper DH complimented me on the Indian lentil meal and then it dawned on me. I bet he doesn't want this every evening this summer. I have to find more recipes.

So the next day I put in my Google search engine - Summer Cold Bean Salads. So if you know how to search you can find a lot of bean salad recipes. But, I never follow a recipe. And I seldom can make the exact same dish twice. But they give me lots of ideas.

First of all I keep my ingredients to a minimum. Each week at the grocery store I usually buy the same vegetables: about 12 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 1 green pepper, 2 shallots, 1 avocado. Then I work at dividing these up into 2 - 3 bean salads a week. I did add fruit: in black bean salad I added mango and in various others I added some crasinets. I also keep almonds, peanuts and walnuts on hand, to add that little extra.

Then I got into pasta salads. I use the "practically no carbs" pasta and used the same above vegetables. What varies then in the meals? Why don't they all taste alike? The herbs and spices I use. That is what changes the dishes, with the same ingredients with each meal.

I did make Gazpacho this summer also. But, of course, with a twist. I left all the vegetables just diced. The first time I made it with V8 juice, but it was a little too much for DH's tummy. The other times, I used regular tomato juice.

Cooking out is by far my favorite summer meals. Often this summer DH lit the coals and we enjoyed many a meal from it. This is a very simple meal for us. With DH eating meat and me being a veggie, all the meals I make are generally vegetarian with meat on the side for him, which he usually cooks on the George Foreman grill himself, since I overcook meat to death. When we cook out, meat is king, and I need to figure out what to have. Often I have a potato and onion put straight on the coals. Then I went through a phase of having processed veggie burgers on hand, followed by "trying" to make my own. Then through my Depression Cook Book I read of using eggplant for "meat". This is the absolute best "veggie burger" I have ever had at home!(The eating out version being the black bean and brown rice version at Ruby Tuesdays.) I brush the eggplant with olive oil and grill. Then I add just what you would for a regular burger. Or I switch off and just add parmesian cheese, salt and pepper.

What is great is that if I buy an eggplant, slice it and parboil, then I can freeze the egglant "burgers" and have them always ready to grill. You really need to cut them 2 - 3 inches though or they are hard to physically maintain on the grill. I also can have them all winter on the George Forman, when DH decides he wants a burger and chips.

So, from the house, where the wife woke up freaked about supper each day, supper is getting easier, even in the summer. Now that Autumn is upon us, look forward to new installations of what's cooking here!

What I've Done On My Vacation - Summer Turns to Fall

So that is how it feels as I write the first blog in so long. What happens when we write so regular and then stop? Well, that probably should be the topic of another post. But... I digress by the second line.

I went through quite a spell telling you about what I cooked and how to do it yourself. I hope to continue to do this, soon. But, what I think I have been doing most is just that - cooking. Each week I cook dog food and yogurt about twice a week. Cat food is done about once a week to 10 days. Kefir cannot really be done in the summer, it spoils in the extreme heat, but we are back to making it once a week for breakfast and that needed snack before supper. Greek yogurt we still did in the heat and added cereal to it for a cool breakfast. But now, we will concentrate on Kefir and oatmeal for our breakfasts. I haven't done cheese or bread during the heat, these are acts resumed in the fall also. My goal is to added bagels and english muffins to my adventures.

The front garden of wildflowers this summer just flourished and some are stil blooming. But, alas, the vegetables were a complete flop. The only ones I will be harvesting are root vegetables. I still believe I must be a root farmer. So this winter I hope to read up much more on vegetable gardening and get it right. I am looking at going back to the Victory Garden garden of WW2, which allows for draught and over rain conditions.

As many of you know, we don't do mainstream television. We get tv in the way of movies from the library and Netflix. This summer we have genuinely enjoyed and obcessed on Foyle's War, a BBC Series. It is wonderful! The back drop is WW2 and they are mysteries with the head of the police department being Christopher Foyle played by Michael Kitchen. We have watched all 6 seasons, and at the end of the war, we wondered what we would do now. Many weeks we watched almost every night, or sometimes two a night, which is unheard of in this house! Do yourself a favor and look it up. We are following it up with World at War, about WW2 also. When we were dating we watched and learned of the Civil War, and now at our 2nd year of marriage, we are learning of WW2.

For several weeks many of our thoughts and energy have been devoted to our friend, Sheila and her health. Her struggle is hard and long and we have been organizing taking meals to her and her brother Larry and anything else we can.

The last 2 months we have been redoing the furniture in the Living Room. For Christmas we had a new table and benches. We added an amour for my musical instruments first and added a bookcase for current reads, library books and DVDs. Today my DH assembled a Ventless Gas Fireplace, readying for the plumber to install and two futons to replace our sofa and love seat. I have figured it out, my DH collects furniture. ;) And as our former cleaning lady stated, he obviously has better taste than I.

I took a Botanical Illustration course this summer, which was a dream fulfilled. It was very frustrating at first since I have not drawn much since my hand surgeries. But I stuck to it, and I do believe I can approve much. In the class we focused on pencil and ink drawings. The ink were done with a fountain pen. I was not sure about this, but ended up enjoying it a lot. I started with black ink, but ended up with sepia. I will be doing more of this.

I am teaching about 8 women to tat this month. It has been nice to have a taste of teaching again. Tatting can we so frustrating in the beginning, but these ladies and hanging in there and I think they will be fine. Many are finding needle tatting easier, which is fine. I also added Mary's Lace (Mediterranean Lace) to the class and it is nice to see others using these ancient laces.

I also added a Tai Chi Class at the County home in addition to the one on the Alzheimer unit. I have taken my 1st quilt to my Thursday Lutheran quilters and they helped me finish it and all signed it for me. And I helped cook at church for the Octoberfest. It was wonderful cooking with the women, as always and I am looking forward to baking Springerless with them in October.

So, I have not been lax this summer, I do not believe. But it is time to do and blog. I am back - what have you all been up to?

Cheese Makers Liberate and Unite

Does any one else have really fond memories of the 80's like I do? I hope so. The 80's were great for me. I had a life changing experience in '82 and everything was new and wonderful and the world was changing fast, it looked like for the good.

One thing I did in the 80's was work with agencies where we gave lessons to young mother. Usually young single mothers. They were like: cleaning with materials you can buy with food stamps, scratch cooking, using cloth diapers, gardens on your front porch when you don't have a yard. And you know what? Since they weren't required to come, and we usually had coffee and cookies - they showed up.

So I have this fascination or obcession, depending on which side you are on, that when I hear of making something I have to take it to it's barest parts. So those of us the most without can do it also.

When my friend Meghan's blog had how to do Mozzarella Cheese on it I had to make it! And it turned out great matching all of her pics! Then I started thinking. I know about the Homemade Cheese Book, I even own it. And at one time I even bought the supplies. But.... someone had to be able to do this on a farm, how did they do it? How can I figure out how everyone can do it?

So, first I will tell you have my mozzarella cheese adventure and then we will talk about cultures.

So with Meghan's pics and instructions I started to mess with the recipe about a month ago. This is what I came up with. When it says Citric acid use Lemon Juice. When it says Rennet use Apple Cidar Vinegar. When it says Lipase, ignore it for now.

Now, let me halt for a minute. I believe these recipes can only work for real milk from a mammal - so goats, etc are ok. But rice, soy, I can't see it working. I would refer you instead to The Farm, they probably can help. Also the more "whole" the milk is, the more cheese you end up with. So it is ok to use any % of milk, but do not worry if you do not get the same yield.

So I let my gallon of 2% milk get to 55 deg. And added my Citric Acid or Lemon juice. I would say 1/4 of a cup. I kept stirring and did see the small grains of curd, like Meghan's pics. Then at 90% I added the Rennet or Apple Cidar Vinegar. Now I use this liberally, just pour and watch the curd and whey divide. Now, because I am not using concentrated tools here, I let it go to 120 deg, kept stirring and man, oh man, was it working. Then I turned it off and added more Apple Cidar Vinegar, till I had a yellow liquid and white curds.

From there I just kept following Meghan's post and we had it tonite on Spaghetti and it was good.

This week I talked to a woman who has dairy cows and we discussed how we have to give up our pre-conceived ideas on what food is supposed to do and look like. This cheese does not melt. Neither does any cheese I make. But then I asked myself: Does it have to? Or is getting hot enough? Getting hot is enough for me.

Now if you really get into cheese making there are also starters that are called for in the recipe. There is Thermophillic Starter:

2 C very fresh milk

Heat to 185 deg.

Cool to 125 deg.

Add 1 heaping Tablespoon of fresh Yogurt (you made it right?)

Mix

Keep mixture at 110 deg for 8 - 10 hrs.

Pour culture in clean ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, remove cubes and put in labeled freezer bags. Resulting cubes = 1 oz of starter. The frozen cubes last one month.

For more starter thaw 1 cube and use instead of fresh yogurt in the above steps.

Then there is Mesophilic Starter:

2 C fresh Cultured Buttermilk

Let reach room temp of 70 deg

Allow to ripen for 6-8 hours, should have consistancy of thick yogurt

Freeze in ice cube trays, again equivalent to 1 oz and can store also for 1 month.

To make more starter thaw 1 cube and add 2 C fresh milk. Mix and let stand at 70 deg for 16 - 24 hours.

We can do this! We can make cheese! Now on this blog we have made 3 cheeses, yogurt, sourdough bread and the starters. We can take care of ourselves and enjoy it for ourselves. Now let's find a way to share it, one kitchen to one kitchen, to other women. Especially sharing with those of generations younger than us.

Ming Fou's 2nd Birthday Party

Our Sweet Princess Mingy! is 2 years old today!

Thank you Dee for our sweetest girl! we love her so!

Here are pics of her party!

P.S. Her Indian name is "She Who Has All the Bones!"

Happy Birthday from Daddy, Mommy, Loki, Halley Girl, Your Mommy Patches, Sonny, Tansey Elizabeth, Tuxe Marie, Mama Torti, Aura and 57! The fish send kisses!

NEW KITTY PICS

Dog and Cat Food

To change up a little from Human Food, I thought, since there was a request, I would speak some on the making of dog and cat food we do at our house. There are many books and articles and web pages out there on the making of dog and cat food and I encourage you to look and see what is good for you and your Furry Baby. What I am showing you is that, yes it can be done on a continuing basis and what we do.

We first started making the dog food when we got our St. Bernard, Loki Strong Heart. When he was a puppy he started immediately having some tummy issues which we proceded to make rice and ground beef for on bad days. Loki's tummy issues did not change for the better and eventually we were told he had food allergies and went on the hunt of what we could feed him that did not make him sick. Nothing seemed to help for long, almost everything did for a little while. To make a long story short we found the allergy to be to fleas and flea medicine and his problem to be more like IBS. This has been mostly fixed by adding 3 Tablespoons of homemade yogurt to each meal, which brought immediate and miraculous results.

Big dogs can easily have a problem with bloat. So it is important to feed them good food and food that is not dry. Hence, we still make dog food.

I have 2 very large crockpots, 7 qts each. In them I add 1/2 gal. of water and dashes of ground parsley, rosemary and cinnamon. Just dashes, very little. Do not add garlic. It has been found that in many dogs this can lead to a problem similar to lukemia.Then I add the chicken. We get boneless skinless thighs. This seems to be the best for your buck. Many people have told me to buy a whole chicken, but by the time you take out the bone, it is not cost effective per pound. We get 3lb frozen bags and I use approx. 1 1/2 bags for the 2 crockpots. I figure it 8 pieces of chicken in each crockpot, which, of course, is 16 meals. This lasts about 3 days, give or take. We are storing them in 31/2 cup containers, we have a big pup! But if you have a smaller dog you can cut the pieces in 1/2 or 1/4th and package accordingly. We also feed 4 times a day, so if you don't, yours will last longer.

I digress. Now add 1/2 of a 42oz container of oatmeal in each crockpot. Then add one can of green beans and one of peas to each crockpot also. Then fill each crockpot to the brim with water. I put my crocks on low and cook for 4 hours. Then as said, I put one piece of chicken in each 3 1/2 cup container and fill the rest of it with the soup part. We also feed our chow, Ming Fou with this same food. She is 70 pds and gets 1 1/2 cups each meal. Loki recieves 1 1/2 containers each meal.

Many people ask about other veggies and suppliments. Loki can't take hard veggies like carrots, some can. Go by one your pup can handle. Also I only supplement with a vitamin for each pup, each day and a Glocosamine pill for the St. Also because of dental issues we feed one of the 4 meals each day with a good hard dog food. We added this slowly, as we were not sure Loki could tolerate it with his stomach issues. But in time, he could, and we add yogurt to each of their dry dog meals, just as with the stew.

It took me quite awhile to find a homemade cat food that I was happy with. We have 8 inside cats and this really needed to be cost effective. I take the same crockpot filled 1/2 way with whey left over from the yogurt or water, and add one 1lb container of chicken livers. Cats need a lot more protein then pups and they need organ food, so regular chicken will not meat their needs. Then I add 1/4 of a container of 42 oz oatmeal and it cooks within about 2 hours on low. I give each cat a healthy tablespoon of the food each morning and follow up with dry food at nite for dental reasons also. I am closing in on making a hard cat food and and will let you know when I find a recipe I am happy with. I sometimes add the same spices for the cat food, but they do not seem to care. What they care more about is that the food is very "soupy". So just before I package it, I add more water, enough to make it very runny and then package.

Both of these foods freeze very nicely and will last about 1 week in the fridge. Also as a treat, we give the kitties homemade yogurt also. Never milk. But we have found that daily doses of yogurt for kitties, makes very round kitties. LOL!

Let me know how it goes and Bon Appetit to your Furry Babies!