Author: momsequitur

Sammiches and Salad

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If someone came up and tried to sell me the moon, I’d laugh in their face.

If they slapped a “Going out of business” sign on it, I’d ask him if he took American Express.

For somebody who’s normally pretty level-headed and even suspicious with their money, I just can not say no to a going out of business sale.  When my neighborhood Rite-Aid had their closing sale, I spent the GDP of Liechtenstein there. 

Why I bought an America Greatest Hits CD, I’ll never know.  And I’ll have enough sunscreen to last until the actual sun flickers out.

You may have heard that the gourmet/organic grocery store, Earth Fare will be closing at the end of the month.  And because I raised my child right, the other night, The Kid and I made a visit to the location near our house.

The grocery items, the stuff with a long shelf life, was only 10% off so far.  But the perishable meat, produce and dairy was 30%.

They had these adorable little sweet Italian sausage patties.  I bought six of them, and decided we’d have sliders.  Over in the bakery department, I found six slider-sized pretzel buns.

Then I had to decide how to dress them.  Because they’re made with pork that looks pretty fatty, I didn’t want to add to the richness with cheese or mayo. 

The Kid and I discussed it and came up with a plan.

This is my chow chow of choice. I picked up the last jar from Big Lots.

We’d toast the pretzel buns, then give them a light schmear of roasted garlic mustard.  Then, on top a small dollop of chow chow.  Chow chow is a sweet/sour relish with cabbage, green tomatoes, vinegar, and sugar.  It’s the perfect foil to the rich, fatty sausage, and robust enough to stand up to the mustard.

For a side, we decided on my mom’s pasta salad.  It’s made with old-fashioned ranch dressing and brightly colored broccoli and immensely delicious Cherub baby tomatoes (honest, really try to use these, Harris Teeter, Food Lion, and BJ’s all carry them).

The grocery item prices at Earth Fare will be descending.  And, I’ll go back.  I’ve got my eye on about six different jellies, and thirty-five candy bars…

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at dm@bullcity.mom.

Roasted Garlic Mustard

1 cup spicy brown mustard

1 head roasted garlic (recipe below)

1 teaspoon molasses

1 teaspoon malt vinegar

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Prepare garlic-Preheat oven to 350°.

Cut a head of garlic in half horizontally.  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a pinch of dry thyme.

Wrap very well with foil and bake for 1 hour.  Remove from oven and let cool completely.  Scrape or squeeze meat from the peel.

Place into a small bowl and mash into a paste.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir until completely mixed through.  Cover and refrigerate for up to seven days.

Gramma’s Broccoli Pasta Salad

1 packet Original Hidden Valley Ranch (the buttermilk recipe) Dressing Mix

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup fat-free buttermilk

1 pound rotelle pasta, cooked according to directions, drained and cooled

1 head broccoli, steamed until tender-crisp and cooled

2 cups Cherub baby tomatoes, sliced in half length-wise

½ cup thinly sliced green onions or Chinese chives

Salt & pepper

Directions:

Make dressing 2-3 hours in advance and refrigerate to let flavors develop.

To prepare: put all the ingredients except dressing into large bowl and season.

Stir in dressing a little at a time until everything’s fully coated and just a little moister than you’d like the finished product (the pasta will absorb dressing, and the tomatoes will release some of their liquid).

Let sit at room temp for about 30 minutes before service.

Serves 6-8.

A Modest Proposal

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As I write these words, Superbowl LIV is starting.  Would you care to guess the cost to travel to Miami, stay in a mid-level hotel, feed yourself, and watch the game in a decent (where you can see without binoculars) seat?

$70,000—to watch a game.

Honestly, that fact knocked the wind out of me.  The median household income in the US was $63,179 in 2018. 

Gentle Reader, I try not to get stridently political in this space.  And I’m still not the girl to tell you who to vote for. 

But this week, I’m asking you to consider my words when you are deciding who gets your vote.  There’s something that’s been on my mind lately and I’ve done some research.

Tragically, more and more Americans are living in financial servitude that starts early and lasts forever.

Colleges and universities have raised tuition and costs at more than 400% the rate of general inflation; 8% vs 1.9%.  This means that the cost of higher education doubles every nine years.  A child born today will see college costs quadruple before they even graduate from high school.

The government and financial sector’s answer to this has not been to address the inflation, but to make it easier and easier to borrow more and more money.

The result is that 70% of graduates enter “the real world” with an average of $30,000 in student loans.  That’s just undergrads.  Add to that the $70,000 for a post-graduate education, and our kids are saddled with something equal to the mortgage of a tiny home or a large car.  And legislation has been written so that even in bankruptcy those loans are not forgiven and must be paid.

Education should not be the privilege of the wealthy and a lifetime of debt for everyone else.

Petey and I pay more than $700 a month for health insurance.  This is through a stable, generous employer, and is actually a pretty good bargain for what is covered.  But after a catastrophic illness seven years ago, we were still thousands of dollars in debt that has had damaging long-term consequences for our financial situation.

Without health insurance, we would most likely be living in our car.  Medical expenses are still the number one factor in bankruptcy and resulting homelessness in this country.  And the National Institutes of Health tells us that at least 26,000 people a year die because they have no health insurance.

Entertainers and wealthy reality stars document their lives, possessions and acquisitions on multiple social media platforms daily.  These lives have become familiar and aspirational in a way they never have before.  The easy availability of credit makes a knock off version of those lives doable.

But children are still not taught basic finance and budgeting in public schools.

America is the land of opportunity.  If one is able to navigate or innovate past the financial reefs that are thick and dangerous, there is a chance to get ahead.  But that chance is slim and decreasing. 

Far more likely the opportunity is becoming buried in mountains of debt which make one’s life a small, fear-filled thing where joy and peace of mind are daydreams and bedtime stories told to children.   

Money means options.  It means the time to consider your choices and make the correct decisions for you and your family.  It means sleeping at night and not laying in the dark worrying that somebody will get sick, or something will break, or hours will be cut.

Next week, Gentle Reader, I will do my best to make you smile.  This week, I’m imploring you to think.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

Pizza La La

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Remember when you were in school and the best two words that could be spoken or heard were, “pizza party”?

Yeah, it didn’t move me. The trouble is that red sauce. 

I was raised on it.  My mom was famous for her all-day, slow-cooked spaghettie sauce.  When my friends ate dinner with us and spaghetti was on the menu, they were lost.  They spent the rest of their lives chasing that red, garlic-scented dragon. 

For me though, after seventeen or eighteen gallons of it, the bloom was definitely off the pasta rose.  I’m just not a fan.

But, as you may know, Gentle Reader, I am first in line for bread.  And made well, pizza crust is a glorious celebration of yeast and gluten.  I make foccacia with my sourdough starter and use it as pizza crust.  My toppings of choice are marsalla onion jam, shatteringly crispy shards of bacon, and fresh mozzerella or goat cheese—no red sauce.

Nope.

Turns out my pizza dressing is a very close cousin to the French pissaladière, except I use bacon instead of anchovies (Bacon rather than little smelly fish? Duh.).

This focaccia is a yeast, rather than sourdough version that The Kid makes all the time.  It’s an adaptaion from a recipe that comes from the website, Serious Eats.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at dm@bullcity.mom.

Cast Iron Pissaladière-ish

Ingredients

3 & ¼ cups all-purpose or bread flour

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 ½ cups minus 1 tablespoon water

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided

5 slices bacon, cooked crisp and broken into large shards

¼ cup deeply caramelized onions

1/3 cup crumbled goat cheese

Coarse sea salt freshly cracked pepper

Combine flour, salt, sugar, yeast, and water in large bowl. Mix with hands or wooden spoon until no dry flour remains. The bowl should be 4 to 6 times the volume of dough for rising.

Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap, making sure edges are well-sealed, then let rest on countertop for 8-24 hours. Dough should rise dramatically and fill bowl.

Sprinkle top of dough lightly with flour, then transfer to lightly-floured work surface. Form into ball by holding it with well-floured hands and tucking dough underneath itself, rotating until it forms tight ball.

Pour half of oil in bottom of large cast iron skillet. Transfer dough to pan, turn to coat in oil, and position seam-side-down. Using flat palm, press dough around skillet, flattening it slightly and spreading oil around entire bottom and edges of pan. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let dough stand at room temperature 2 hours. After first hour, preheat oven to 550°F.

After 2 hours, dough should mostly fill skillet up to edge. Use fingertips to press it around until it fills every corner, popping any large bubbles that appear. Lift up one edge of the dough to let air bubbles underneath escape and repeat, moving around the dough until there are no air bubbles left underneath and it’s evenly spread around skillet. Spread onions and bacon over surface of dough, dot with cheese, and press down with fingertips to embed slightly. Drizzle with remaining olive oil. Sprinkle with coarse salt.

Transfer skillet to oven and bake until top’s golden brown and bubbly and bottom’s golden brown and crisp when you lift with spatula, 16-24 minutes. Using a thin spatula, loosen focaccia and peek underneath. If bottom is not as crisp as desired, place pan on burner and cook over medium heat, moving pan around to cook evenly until crisp, 1 to 3 minutes. Transfer to cutting board, allow to cool slightly, slice, and serve. Leftovers can be reheated on rack at 300°.

Really, Really Dumb Stuff

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“Some people are like slinkies.  They’re not really good for anything.  But they make you smile when you push them down the stairs.”—Jack Handey (*Disclaimer-I in no way, advocate pushing anyone, at any time, down any stairs.)

Years ago, Saturday Night Live used to have a segment called, “Deep Thoughts”.  They were quotes written and then read by comedian Jack Handey.  They were deep, in that you were usually still thinking about them the next day and nursing a slight headache.

I leave those deep, painful thoughts to Mr. Handey.

Today I am addressing the most shallow of thoughts.  Or, in other words, really, really dumb stuff.  Thoughts, statements, decisions, and headlines.  Misbegotten notions which make you grateful that as a child you didn’t repeatedly have escapades which resulted in head injuries, like someone we may know who writes the weekly column you’re currently reading.

So here, in no particular order, are some exceedingly shallow thoughts.

From a commercial for what we used to call books on tape, a young woman says they’re, “Like night school for adults”. 

Okay, I’m not a morning person.  Never have been, probably never will be.  Getting up bright and early to get The Kid fed, organized, and off to school hurt.  Every single day.  I used to joke that I wished they held elementary and middle school at night. 

But.They.Don’t.

So, night school for adults is just night school. I’m afraid it will take more than listening to Bette Midler reading ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ for that woman to be smart enough to come in out of the rain.

The other day I was in my local Food Lion at about 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon.  They were slammed with people coming from church and picking up Sunday dinner, people who were buying their groceries for the week, and mental midgets like me, who forgot about the crush at supermarkets on Sunday afternoon.

I had like three items, so with hope in my heart, I got into the express lane.  I was about sixth in line.

But, hey, ‘express’, am I right?  I’d be out in five minutes.

The couple that were at the head of the line seemed to be there for a bit. 

Then another bit.

Then a further bit.  I glared at the slowpokes, figuring they were paying with pennies, or maybe had gone way over the 15 or less rule.

But then I realized what the hold up actually was.  The checker.  He is a very, very sweet man, but about 138 years old, and slow-moving.  He is so slow, he would make a sloth say, “Just let me do it!”.  Each customer encounter took almost ten minutes.  I thought I was going to need a haircut before I got to the head of the line.

I’m no grocery store expert, but doesn’t ‘express’ imply some level of, if not speed at least efficiency?  It had stopped being the ‘express’ and become the ‘ironic’ register.

From Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle and medical quackery website: “GP (that would be founder Gwyneth) was really craving some clean dim sum, so she thought of using cabbage leaves as wrappers instead of wheat- or grain-based dough. Now we’re obsessed with this clean dumpling hack.”

You go, Gwyneth.

Once you remove the pasta wrapper and substitute cabbage leaves, it stops being a dumpling and becomes stuffed cabbage.

Just saying.    

From an email link to an online article: “Does Your Zodiac Sign Affect How Much Sleep You Need? This Expert Says Yes”.

You know what, Gentle Reader?  I got nothing.  I can’t think of anything to say to make that ridiculous twaddle funnier or any more preposterous.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

On The Side

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Today, Gentle Reader, I have for you three recipes for easy delicious vegetable dishes.

Another trio you may have heard of: the Matthews Family Band.

Two of them are from my mother.  And, the other one would horrify her.  I think we should start with that one.

It’s roasted broccoli.  The reason why it would send chills down her spine is because you want this broccoli to get very crispy and take on some serious color.  I’m talking burnt sienna from the Crayola box.

This was the big box when I was a kid. Apparently there is a box with 120 crayolas now.

The browning of food occurs because of the Maillard reaction, and it’s a good, tasty, desirable thing.  But to my mom, anything darker than light tan is dreadfully, irretrievably, burned.  You have no idea how many innocent, yet mid-brown Parker House rolls I have seen discarded, never having lived out their delicious, yeasty, destiny.

To my mom, these are burned beyond redemption.

You can do a version of this in the skillet, but it can go from brown and crispy to inedibly scorched in a blink.  Oven roasting goes a little slower, which almost eliminates the charcoal result  (although if you fail to set a timer and forget about it, that is totally on you, Gentle Reader).

The second dish is slow-cooked string beans with salt pork.  The trick here is to make like Mom.  You start with fresh beans, cook them low and slow (but not too slow), and take them off heat when there is still a little bit of structural integrity left.  I cannot state strongly enough how much you do not want mush.  Think al dente.

Try and get a little more color on it than this. Brown means flavor and sweetness.

And finally, fried squash.  Here the big secret is to, Leave.It.Alone.  When the liquid has cooked out it becomes fragile.  And you not only want m to minimize breakage, you want everything to pick up a little color (just light caramel, Mom, I promise).  That’s also why my fat of choice is butter, unlike my mother’s vegetable oil.

Louis-Camille Maillard.

If you’re Maillard averse Gentle Reader, I feel your pain, but urge you in the strongest possible fashion, to cook past your comfort zone, at least once.  If you hate it, you never have to do it again.

But, you might just love it…

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

Roasted Broccoli

2 heads broccoli, cut into large florets

¼ cup vegetable oil

Kosher salt

Freshly cracked pepper

Place a large, rimmed baking sheet inside oven and set to 450°.  Let oven heat for 20 minutes to get pan really hot.

Place broccoli into large bowl, drizzle oil over and add large pinches of salt and pepper.  Toss to coat.

Spread broccoli out onto pan in single layer.  Bake for 20 minutes, flip florets and bake 10-15 more or until there is lots of browning and crisping, and stems are tender-crisp.  Serves 4-6.

Mom’s String Beans

2 pounds string beans, cleaned but left whole

5 slices of salt pork

Big pinch of Salt & pepper to taste

Put everything in large pot with a tight lid.  Add enough water to cover.  Cook on very low (2-3) for 2 ½ hours, stirring occasionally and adding water to keep veg covered.

Check for seasoning and  serve.  8-10 servings.

Fried Squash

3 pounds yellow squash, cut into ¼ inch rounds

1 large yellow onion, cut into half-moons

¼ cup butter

1 teaspoon sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon pepper

Place everything into large skillet.  Cover and cook 8 minutes on medium-low.  Remove lid and give a gentle stir.  Turn up to medium and cook until the liquid has totally cooked out.

Cook until veg starts to lightly caramelize, turn over with spatula and cook until there’s color on the bottom side.  Do this once more or until there’s plenty of light browning throughout dish.

Check for seasoning and serve.  Serves 4-6.

I Was A Teenaged Phlebotomist

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From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Phlebotomy (/fləˈbädəmē/), noun-the surgical opening or puncture of a vein in order to withdraw blood or introduce a fluid, or (historically) as part of the procedure of letting blood.

In junior year of high school, I got a part-time job at the local hospital as a lab secretary.  To pick up extra shifts, I learned how to draw blood.

One day about five or six of us lab folk were working to draw the blood of a rambunctious and terrified little boy.  My job was to hold his arm still.

The phlebotomist who had the needle finally got it in the vein, and the blood started to flow and fill the test tube.  The kid took one look and yanked his arm back.  The needle slipped out, the blood shot out like a super-soaker filled with strawberry Koolade. 

Right into my eye.

Another day I had to draw blood for a gentleman for a test for a social disease.  At the time I was, shall we say, “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed”.  I chuckled to myself thinking it would be a real bummer to accidentally stick myself with his used needle and contract an STD before I’d ever actually had the “S” part of the acronym.

And then I stuck myself.  With the patient’s used needle.

Luckily for both of us, his result came up negative.

Once I got pretty good at the job, a few of the techs thought I should go into the medical profession. 

But, I couldn’t.

Because I’m constitutionally unable to leave the work at work. 

There was this little old lady named Mildred.  She was a pistol, a hoot, and a barrel of laughs.  There first day I met her she told a nurse to purchase a new undergarment, because the body part that should have been restrained, was absolutely not.

But of course, her phrasing was much more colorful and hilarious.

She became my role model for being old.  When I speak my mind and make you laugh, a lot of that is Mildred.  She didn’t have family and almost never had visitors, so I hung out with her during breaks and after work.

But she wasn’t in the hospital for a manicure.  Of course, she wasn’t.

And so, one day, when I went up to her room, it was empty.  A veteran nurse explained to me that you can’t get too close to the patients and continue to work in healthcare—it’ll break your heart.

So, the first chance I got, I got out of healthcare.

But not before I met the Balthus brothers.  Between the two of them they were 847 years old.  And, they were the crankiest, meanest old cusses in Eastern NC.  They were so inseparable they were even hospital patients at the same time.

The lab techs were all tittering and giving each other significant looks the first time I went up to draw their blood.

In their room, I introduced myself, and the abuse began.  As you can imagine, nobody likes to have their blood drawn, so nobody was ever happy to see me.  This antipathy was turned up to 11 with the brothers.

Both men began a string of verbal abuse that continued until I left.  Brother One warned me to get my GD hands off Brother B.  As the needle was about to enter B’s left arm, his perfect right hook got me in my left eye.

I was much more shocked than I was hurt, so I said the first thing that entered my mind.

“Fine!  Then I’m not going to draw your blood!”

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

Little Pot of Porky Joy

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North Carolina is a piggy state.  Our pork processing industry is the nation’s third-largest, generating almost a billion and a half dollars a year.

But where Tar Heels really shine, is in the preparation and consumption of it.  I can explain in four little words.

Eastern NC Barbecue.

Short of Puerto Rico, nobody even comes close to the wondrous things we can do with a pig.  It’s a mystical art that reaches back through the centuries.  The Taíno people, an indigenous population who lived, among other places, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico invented barbacoa, the slow cooking of wild boar upon wooden frames. 

There are stories that pirates in the Caribbean took up this cooking method.  Because of the state’s unique position jutting far out into the Atlantic and the cause of many a ship’s doom, there was quite a population of those same pirates that eventually, whether by choice or by shipwreck, came to call NC home.

Did they bring along the idea of barbacoa with them, which then was passed along to the rural population who had access to whole, freshly slaughtered hogs?

With this heritage, residents of the Old North State have eaten pork in many delicious forms.  Barbecue, sausages of all types, and has anyone ever been to a Southern funeral where there were no ham biscuits?

I think there’s a state law mandating piles of them must be at the get-together after any good North Carolinian is laid to rest.

Pigs were domesticated first in Europe and Asia.  In France, they invented a rich unctuous dish that’s naturally preserved.  It’s a dish that is unfamiliar to many people in this state but has a lot in common with our own porky sensibilities.

It’s slowly cooked, using pork shoulder, a cut that needs time to coax out its flavor and texture.  It’s rich, using the fat as well as the meat.  The fat also preserves it by getting poured into a layer on top and hardening, which serves as a barrier to sick-making microbes.

It’s called pork rillettes (re-yets).  And it’s the easiest fancy French food you’ll ever be lucky enough to put into your own pork hole.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

Pork Rillettes

2 pounds pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 pound pork belly, skin removed, cut into 1-inch pieces

½ cup brandy

1 ½ cups chicken stock

12-15 gratings of fresh nutmeg

10 peppercorns, cracked

10 juniper berries, crushed

4-5 sprigs fresh thyme

5 bay leaves

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Salt to taste

Heat oven to 250°.

Place everything except salt and vinegar into large heavy pot with a lid.  Cover, and place inside oven.

Cook 2 ½ hours, then have a peek.  You’re looking for the stock and brandy to be cooked out, and the meat to be completely soft and falling apart.  If the stock hasn’t cooked out, uncover and cook for thirty more minutes.

When pork is sitting in fat only, remove from oven.  Discard bay leaves and thyme twigs.

Pour into colander or sieve, catching and keeping the fat.  Place pork and solids into stand mixer fitted with paddle and mix on low until meat is almost a paste.  Add ¼ cup of the reserved fat and mix on low until fully combined.

Divide into 8 small jars or ramekins.  Gently press smooth to remove any air pockets.  Top each with a spoonful of reserved fat.  Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks if fat cap is undisturbed.  Once the cap’s been broken, you have five days.

Spread on toasts or crackers, or place a dollop on chicken breasts, steak, fish, or roasted veg.  

Trippin’ With The Murphys’

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The crazy thing is, of all the Murphy kids, younger son Chrissie was the one sibling I really disliked.  I thought he was mean, hateful, and angry at the whole world all the time. 

I recently asked Chrissie, who’s now closer than a lot of my family, what he thought of me all those years ago.

To him, I was an annoying friend of his little sister.  An interchangeable mosquito.

My feelings were very different toward oldest son, Mike.  I had a huge crush on the boy who was always sweet to me.

The patriarch of the family was Bear.  He was commander of the base in Puerto Rico where we all lived.  He was a no-nonsense military man. 

He was strict with all the kids.  But with his sons, he was tough and cut no slack.  He had very high standards and accepted no excuses.  None of the kids would ever dream of back-talking or sassing that man.

Bear’s attitude manifested in anger with Chrissie.  His defenses were always up.  Most emotion was hidden behind a mask of aggressive apathy.

Kitty was the same age as me and my best friend.  She was smart, funny, proud, and had a very full inner life that was never shared.  Her defense against the world was a comic flakiness.  Teachers and parents, and even friends had a hard time holding her accountable when it was clear that she had full knowledge of her shortcomings and they made her far more disappointed in herself than anyone else ever could be.

Min was all of these, and more.

Minnie was the oldest daughter.  I’d never before or since met anyone like her.  She was a comedian/tomboy/secret agent/big sister to the sister-less/rebel/Dr. Dolittle/business genius/magical wood sprite.  Almost fifty years later I still think about conversations and adventures we shared.

The family matriarch’s smart and sophisticated is Mama Cat.  She showers her children and their friends with warmth, affection, and humor.

Lighthouse Beach, where we often went.

 Often, Bear and Mama Cat would take us all to nearby beaches.  Michael, Minnie, Kitty, and I would bodysurf and Chrissie surfed.

Many of the older kids surfed.  Lawns were mowed, children were babysat, dogs were walked, all in the pursuit of the cash to purchase their own boards. 

One afternoon we were on our way home from the beach.  Chrissie’s surfboard was partially in the car, with about a quarter of it out the window, like an exuberant dog on a ride.

The garage was a two-car with no doors, but with a four-foot-wide supporting pillar that divided it.  Bear pulled into the driveway.

The house on the right is the Murphy’s actual home in Puerto Rico.

I saw it coming, but didn’t have time to say a word before it happened.

As Bear pulled into the garage, Chrissie’s hard-fought surfboard was still sticking out the back window.  Never noticing, never slowing, the inevitable happened.

The board hit the pillar and a huge gash was neatly excised from the board, instantly and forever rendering it useless.  Except as modern art.

Actual Modern Art.

The care went completely silent.  I was watching Chrissie.  His face was red and his jaw was clenched.  If anyone else had destroyed his board they would already be begging for the sweet release of death.

Bear, sat as a stone—immobile and unreadable.

Actually Grandfather Mountain; it’s a metaphor.

Something was coming.

We just sat there—nobody opened a door.  We were waiting for an explosion, but couldn’t tell which Murphy man would be the catalyst—Chrissie to scream at his dad, or Bear to blame and berate.

Actually part of a movie.

Finally, after what seemed like eons, there was a slight clearing of throats.  One of them would speak!

Bear, with an unfamiliar sheepish look on his face, said five words I’ll never forget.

“I’ll buy the new one.”

An actual highly embarrassed bear–not the patriarch of the Murphys’.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

A Letter From Grandma Karen

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Something happens when you walk your dog every day on the same streets.

You make friends.

Two of those friends; Stacy and his wife Melody, gave me a bag of some of the cookies that Mel had brought home from her family cookie swap.  Each and every one was delicious.

So, of course, I asked for recipes.    

Yesterday, Mel gave me a turquoise blue envelope.  Inside was six pages of paper from her Grandma Karen, including the recipes for three cookies. 

 Gentle Reader, this week’s essay are excerpts of the letter she wrote, her peanut butter cookie recipe and her snickerdoodle recipe (possibly the best snickerdoodle I’ve ever eaten).

What follows is in her own words and her own recipes.

“I have made cookies, breads, cakes, candy, etc for friends and neighbors, the sick, and to welcome a new neighbor to the neighborhood for most of my life, and I wanted to share this with my children and grandchildren.

I tried to think of something we could all do and have some quality time together.  We all like to cook and bake.  I decided it might be fun to get together at Christmas time and make cookies.  I called my daughter and granddaughters, and they agreed.

This will be our 5th year.  I hosted the first one.  I bought each one a Santa hat and a Christmas wine glass.  Bought non-alcoholic sparkling juice cocktail, red and white.  Other small gifts were Christmas aprons, reindeer headdresses, etc. 

We take turns hosting.

Here’s how it works: Each of us has to make at least a dozen cookies of each recipe we make so each person goes home with the same amount of the assortment of cookies.

PS-I dress up like Mrs. Santa Claus to deliver my goodies.”

*debbie here again: Coming from decades of my mom’s Christmas cookie frosting parties, I have a few thoughts about Grandma Karen’s much younger tradition. 

It doesn’t sound like there’s an annual dance and arm wrestling over how many cookies we’re allowed to leave with.  I like that.

And although we eat Mexican food at Mom’s party, I gotta say, I feel strongly that we should definitely up the swag quotient at our own festivities.

The Matthews Family Band at the 2019 cookie frosting party.

And finally, I know this is mid-January, and Christmas is over with a capital “O”, but the reason you’re reading it this week is that I think a cookie swap is a terrific idea for a party any day of the year.

In 2020, let’s make a cookie swap the new book club.  Keep reading, but book clubs are tired.  Use Karen’s parties as a template, just swap out her sparkling juice for the real thing.

Then go home in an Uber.

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcity.mom.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup shortening (Crisco)

2 eggs

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ½ cups flour

Preheat oven to 350°.  Cream sugars and shortening.  Add eggs, peanut butter, vanilla, flour, and baking soda.

Roll into balls, press with a fork.  Bake on parchment-covered cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes.

Snickerdoodles

½ cup shortening (Crisco)

½ cup butter

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

2 ¾ cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

Cinnamon-sugar for rolling

2 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400°.

Mix shortening, butter, and eggs, thoroughly.  Blend flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt.  Mix with shortening/butter/sugar/eggs mixture.

Shape into 1-inch balls.  Roll into cinnamon/sugar.  Place 2-inches apart on parchment-covered baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes.  Makes about 6 dozen.

*While baking, these cookies will puff up, then flatten out.

Follow The Purple Primate

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Within these columns, Gentle Reader, I must admit I’m guilty of my own presumption of sagacity far too often.

It’s all Petey’s fault…well, mostly his.  There is though, woven within my very blood cells, the understanding of how everyone everywhere should behave, and the need to share that knowledge.  I am, like Lisa Simpson, a know-it-all with a big mouth.

But back to Petey.

Not long after we got our first computer, when The Kid was a toddler, my ever-loving spouse asked me to help him send an email to a high school friend of his whom I had never met.

I happen to glance at the note, and spotted my name, “…and I married a wise woman, named debbie.”  Not only had he never said this to me, no one that’s ever known me said that about me.  So, you’ll understand why my reaction may have been slightly abrupt. 

“Whadaya mean by that?”

Then Petey earned himself a batch of cookies when he said, “Well, you are.”

And really, doesn’t wise woman sound so very much nicer than busybody?

On a related vein, I’d like to tell you a parable from my life. 

The Kid and I had gone to Wake Forest and were on our way home.

We were on Highway 98 when we started seeing these signs.  You know how sometimes your memory of something can have a weird discrepancy with the IRL events?

Well for some reason, I remember a purple monkey at this point.  But The Kid assures me with a slightly worried frown, that there was in fact, no monkey.  But, as the wise man said, “Monkeys make everything funnier.”

Anyway.

The sign consisted of two words and one exclamation mark: Go Ape!

Now, I don’t know anything about your life, Gentle Reader, but in the lives of The Kid and me, it’s been a minute since we were invited to “Go Ape!”.  So it kinda got us talking.  For probably 15-20 miles, we discussed, half-jokingly, about whether we should “Go Ape!”.

But it was a very academic question because in a happy coincidence, the path to going ape just happened to lie on our path toward home (it really wouldn’t have surprised if the signs heralded our house, in the way that in the 1930s one might find a sign proclaiming the existence of an eight-foot chicken playing the violin).  

But then.

Our primate provocation, “Go Ape!” gave us a heads up that soon our paths would diverge, we had a decision to make—if we wanted.

It’s nuts, right?  Two grown people, actually, seriously considering going ape.  Whatever that meant.

And then it was there, the divergence.  And we…

we…

we went team simian.

And, began driving further, and further, and further out of our way.  But we had thrown in our hand, and wherever this road led, The Kid and I, carried aloft by Agent Colson (The Kid’s wheels), were in it.

The road eventually led to the location of “Go Ape!”, a high ropes course of climbing, zip-lining, you get the picture.

And this time a possible dilemma had no horns; “Go Ape!” was closed.

We turned around in the parking lot and headed home, a little disappointed by the rather mundane nature of our destination.

But the charge we got from just going for it, just saying to the world, “Yeah, we’re following two-word road signs armed with equal parts abandon and ignorance, so what?”

So, every once in awhile, when you’re out with your kid, or squeeze, or squad, or alone; please, Gentle Reader, I implore you,

“Go Ape!”

Thanks for your time.

Contact debbie at d@bullcitymom.