CURSIN’

I had a friend who put a curse on me. When we were moving from Ohio my friend gave me a gift. It was something to hang on a hook in my kitchen window which she had gotten at an art fair and was really lovely. I was very pleased and expressed my thanks. She said I really shouldn’t thank her because every time I saw it in my new home I was cursed to think of her. It no longer hangs in my window, but when I do run across it in a drawer, I still think of her.

Now I always put a curse on small gifts to friends.

MY OBSESSION WITH TELEVISION COOKING SHOWS

Fact #1 -----I’m obsessed with watching television chefs doing gourmet cooking

Fact #2 -----I’m not interested in doing gourmet cooking

Fact #3 -----I don’t think I’d enjoy eating most of what those gourmet chefs cook

My passion for television cooking shows began when I was a young stay at home mom. Every weekday on a Pittsburgh television station, I watched the first cooking show I can ever remember, “Kay’s Kitchen”.  Kay was an overweight young woman in her 30’s who taught viewers how to cook rather basic things. I had learned to cook watching my grandmother and mother but she broadened my horizons by showing how to prepare food in a more modern way. Her show was only 15 minutes long, but was filled with much information because there weren’t many commercials. Eventually she married and moved to Hawaii, but before she left she had taught me many things.

In the mid 1950’s television was in its infancy and striving to teach us housewives how to benefit from using new products. So they replaced my cooking lessons with a woman demonstrating how to use a mangle to iron sheets and pillow cases, with the added bonus of using the same machine to iron my husband’s shirts.

She also praised the benefits of using a portable oven which could hold up to a 30 pound turkey.

Following Kay’s departure, I was left with no cooking mentor for many years. Of course Julia Child came on the scene, but French cooking was not something I was interested in. My idea of gourmet food was dining  in a restaurant which served steak cooked rare, a baked potato with sour cream and a tossed salad with bleu cheese dressing. I no longer enjoy a rare steak.

Through the following years, with five growing children I learned to do many things with pantry staples and was quite content with my cooking until one Saturday morning I called for my husband to see this woman on television who making decadent desserts for her new audience using enourmous amounts of butter along with other fattening items. After they was baked, topped with whipping cream and beautifully displayed for the camera, she actually took a huge bite out of each one, sighing and rolling her eyes over each delectable piece and I had found a new friend.

That day was more than 25 years ago and now, besides Paula, I’ve become fascinated with many more television cooking shows.  I especially enjoy Ina who is always cheerfully using new ideas to make comfort food. Jeffrey, her husband seems to be gone most of the week, but when he comes home on Friday, Ina shows us the wonderful meal she is preparing for his return. He has such a sweet nature and appreciates everything she does for him. My husband gets upset when I say how much I like Jeffrey.

However, my favorite cooking shows are “Top Chef” and “Chopped”. I'm always fascinated by chefs preparing artistic platefuls of foods sometimes with ingredients I've never heard of and using cooking terms I don’t understand. Once in the newspaper, I saw an explanation of “duck confit”. Thank god I finally found out what that meant. Speaking of duck, how can anyone eat barely cooked duck breast and call it tasty?

I will admit I sometimes cry when someone I admire wins the final show, however I really don't like it when the same chefs are covered with tattoos and strange hairdos which seem to be the norm nowadays for both the men and women.

Although I clip many, many recipes from newspapers and magazines, I still rely on cooking the things we like best. I more or less stay in my own comfort zone.  On holidays we have the traditional meals that most people serve with very few variations.  On Christmas Eve our children and grandchildren have always come to our home for our usual Christmas dinner and gift-giving party. There are about nineteen members of the family attending and I usually prepare most of the food.

I decided last Christmas to change the menu and do boneless pork on the grill to be served with several sauces. Unfortunately boneless pork chops were going to cost about $4.00 a pound that week and frozen
turkey breasts at Target were only $.99 a pound, so I switched to the traditional turkey for about 20 people and instead of sweet potatoes with marshmallows, I cubed and oven fried them. I added a new vegetable casserole along with our usual vegetables. Then it became necessary to have cranberry sauce along with my planned Caesar salad and then add in mashed potatoes and gravy as well. So our meal became traditional with a few enjoyable twists. It was a wonderful dinner, but for next year we discussed just ordering pizza.

Oh, one other thing. My new menu also featured a sauce that I had planned to use on the pork, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a recipe using the same ingredients suggesting that it could be paired with roast turkey.  Still, I very joyfully announced to one and all that I was serving a sauce of cherry preserves infused with a balsamic vinegar reduction.

LOST AND FOUND

Yesterday when playing bridge my partner noticed I was wearing only one earring. Before leaving we searched the building’s carpeted floor and lobby but couldn’t find the missing one. I was very distressed because although it cost me only a few dollars, it went so beautifully with a necklace given to me by my eldest daughter. My friends all started talking about having a box at home containing only single earrings. I have one too.

I started to remember another gift I had received from the same daughter when she was in college. In the 1970’s, she spent the winter quarter of her junior year abroad studying art in Bordeaux, France.  After finishing her studies, she met with a group of her fellow students to tour Europe, and while in Italy she bought for me a pair of beautiful elephant skin gloves. They were so precious to me that on a winter day in downtown Pittsburgh when I lost one, I was absolutely heartbroken. I went up and down the street in the slush trying to find it but never did. I still have the mate in a drawer and when I see it I still remember that day which was very sad for me.

(I did find the lost earring at home where I had removed it to answer the phone earlier)

SINGIN’

One song I’ve always loved singin’ was “Let There Be Peace on Earth”.  It was the last song our caroler group sang after every performance and it was sung as a recessional in our church. I no longer enjoy singing it at Mass.

Let me explain. When George Bush started the Iraq War with his cronies using false premises, I heard nothing in any Catholic Church that denounced this war except for one time when a retired visiting priest spoke out against it and one parishioner and his wife yelled at him from the congregation. That couple got up and left which caused the entire congregation to applaud the priest’s stand.

In other words, many people were against the war, yet hardly anyone expressed an opinion from the pulpit. You couldn’t be a patriot if you were against this travesty and the passed basket on Saturday and Sunday would probably suffer if any Pastor spoke out, and yet the song/hymn “Let There Be Peace on Earth” would be sung lustfully after Mass.

I still stand there in silence and want to weep for the loss of innocent lives and the enormous debt that resulted.

HEAVY SILVER

Heavy silver means really big money. There’s ordinary sterling silverware which is more or less normal and used for dinner parties or small ornamental pieces which are displayed on end tables.

However, heavy silver is very weighty, some pieces are so big it requires two people to carry it and can only be affordable to the extremely wealthy. This kind of silver is usually found in stately English manor homes or drafty old castles, as well as in the homes of very rich commoners. Or in the home of someone who lives in Ohio.

In our small town in Ohio, it was said there were more millionaires per capita then in any other community of its size. We knew several residents suspected of being in that elite group but had never seen their bank statements.

One couple we knew really did fit in that category. We had been to their Victorian home several times and it’s the only house I’ve ever seen that was complete with a real library. As you entered the foyer, to the left was something that is usually seen in old movies. A paneled room with floor to ceiling book shelves, leaded glass windows and furnished with a massive desk and leather chairs.

The living room (another movie set) contained a grand piano because our hostess had studied to be a concert pianist but she refused to play for us because she felt she wasn’t good enough. The piano was draped with fringed scarf on top of which was an enormous floral bouquet. The house had a huge kitchen which is where we all gathered during a party. Just like the regular folks do.

I was also invited, along with four other women, to a luncheon where we ate in their beautiful dining room. We were served from ornate silver serving pieces by their old and beloved family retainer. (really) There were two built-in corner cabinets flanking the room’s French doors which contained an unbelievable display of heavy, heavy silver. Our hostess explained that all their silver came from England when her husband’s family immigrated to the United States. Her husband’s grandfather had been a favored playmate of Queen Victoria’s children. That’s heavy silver!

(Sometime in the future I’ll tell you about the very accomplished husband)