Quote of the Day

Plants cry their gratitude for the sun in green joy.

~Astrid Alauda

a-ha = AWESOME! Part 1

I'm still basking and processing the experience from last week. But for now .... here are a few pictures, strangely, in reverse and random order. My poor little Nikon was having a very hard time zooming in the dark, not being stablized, and not using the flash. Here are some of the better in-focus shots.




I was SO focused on getting to the concert, that I totally paid no attention to the flirty Dublin boys behind us, the lost tourists (no, this isn't the line for Lion King), the tourists taking photos of the mounted police officers and street vendors, WHY they were taking photos, or the fact that had we had tickets to the concert a weekend earlier we would have been evacuated because of annoying insurrectionists -- as we could have been standing inches away from bad parkers and incendiary devices!

That's life in NYC in this day and age, and you can't let it keep you from going about your business and fulfulling your dreams.

Coming soon: More pictures, more adventures (The Shushing Librarian came with us, need I say more?!), and even better yet, VIDEO!

Recipes from Grandmary -- Pecan Pie Muffins

I'm posting this one in honor of Mother's Day. Happy Happy Mother's Day -- you wacky Mom, you!

Grandmary (aka my mother) managed to wrestle this “secret recipe” out of a North Carolina baker due to her extensive family connections. She had the treats while visiting a cousin, and somehow, through hook and crook, the cousin managed to pry it away from the original baker. Apparently that baker usually never gave out the recipe, as she was known far and wide across NC for the treats. After devouring these, you’ll know why it’s renowned.

Grandmary usually uses the stash of the family farmed pecans, but since those are like gold these days, I used pecans I bought at the Union Square Market. My first patch of tarts wouldn’t come out of the tins intact (I ate the messups, calling them "baker’s tax"), so I had to call home for tips. Apparently, the cooling step is very important, so I added it in to this version of the recipe.

Pecan Pie Muffins (really, they’re tiny tarts)

Combine:
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans, obviously!)
½ cup plain flour (all-purpose is fine)

Add:
2/3 cup butter (regular, salted)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Spray little muffin pan liberally.
Do not overfill tins. Batter will run over the side. Place a pan on a rack underneath your baking tin to prevent having to clean up bottom of oven. Scrubbing your oven the next day is no fun at all.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
Let cool for about 10-15 minutes. Important to let them cool down and set so you can get them out of the muffin tin. You may have to coax them out with a knife.

If you are reusing the same pan for rest of batter, clean out tins with paper towel and respray liberally.

Depending on the size of your little muffin pan, you can get 24-48.

Like little tiny decadent bite-sized pecan pies. Good warm!

I forgot to take photos. I'll have to retro-post them the next time I make this recipe. Because, I WILL be making this recipe again and again.

Letter from Ollie J - May 7, 1982

A word about "temple missions" for our few non-Mormon readers:

Grandma Ollie was on a Temple Mission, where she served as an ordinance worker.

According to this: "Elderly LDS single women who are able, both physically and financially, are encouraged to go on full-time missions. Senior missionaries, also called Elders and Sisters like their younger counterparts, pay their own expenses, though they may receive assistance from family. They have more choice in the location and type of their mission, particularly if they have unique skills such as medical expertise or knowledge of foreign languages. Many serve humanitarian missions in which they are sent to specific regions and help with agriculture, food procurement, medical missions, or clean water initiatives. Senior missionaries represent a small percentage of the total full-time missionary force of the Mormon Church."

If you want more information about those Wacky Mormons, there are plenty of sites on-line, or you request more information here. You can have even have a pair of visitors come to your house and give you more information.



7 May 1982

[Temple Mission
Kensington, MD]

Dear [Granddaughter],

Your letter was so sweet and appreciated so much.

You are welcome for the Easter presants[sic]. I had a nice Easter Day. Went to Washington, D.C. to see the Cherry blossoms. Cold had hurt them so they weren’t as pretty as Could have been.

The flowers over at the temple are so pretty now.

It is warm here now too even hot in the sun.

I love my work at the temple.

Oh those flowers you all sent were delivered here yesterday and are so pretty on the table.

Thanks lots. All are so kind and Generous.

Take care of yourself and be a good girl and help the boys too. Sure you help mama and Daddy too.

The Lord loves helpers.

Lots of Love to you one and all.

Grandma

Washington, D.C. Temple

© Doug Havens and found here

My Inner Child is a 14-year-old Fan Girl!

If the blog has been relatively quiet in recent days it's due to a few factors.

1. Nothing new or pertinent to say.
2. Work deadlines. It's getting to be the busiest times of the year at the Big J, plus I'm trying to work ahead so I can go on many road/river trips this summer. I've counted up the weeks I'll be on the road, and it's almost half the summer!
and
3. I've been trying to stay off the internets so I don't watch count-down clocks!

Remember how I've blogged about one of my favorite bands, a-ha ... and how they are breaking up? What I may not have made clear is that I.Have.Never.Seen.Them.Live.OR.In.Concert.

My relationship with a-ha has been a virtual, long-distance, pre-recorded love affair ... one that started as a crush when I was a teenager. Their first tour of the U.S. (in the early 1980s) did manage to come to a major city near me, but in a fit of youthful hubris (or delusion), my friend Jenn and I didn't get tickets. Silly, silly children we were.

I have learned from that mistake.

Let me advise you.

~Get tickets -- any tickets you can -- when the group or artist you like appears at a venue close to you (or not close to you if you can afford it). Darn the cost. You only live once (according to my religious philosophy!)
~Don't be overly fussy if your seats aren't on the level you want.
~Get a seat in the hall. ANY seat. Darn the distortion. SERIOUSLY.
~You cannot count on the artist continuing to be popular enough to tour the USA/near you/in an affordable venue/or AT ALL!

I learned these lessons the hard way. While internationally popular, a-ha didn't tour the States for many, many years. Their last show was in NYC in 2005 and was sold-out too fast for me. So, that's over 20+ yearsof unrequited love ...

That is

UNTIL TONIGHT!

Tonight, my lovely nieces and nephews, your Auntie Nettie and her adventure buddy Christine are letting their inner 14-year-old fan girls out to play. We will be on the floor of a NYC concert theater, indulging in displays of shrieking and giggling that are almost too painfully embarrassing to contemplate. We will be restrained enough, however, NOT to wear bedazzled "I Heart a-ha" or "Morton, will you marry me?" t-shirts, or to throw our underwear or ourselves at the band ... but I can't vouch for much else.

We've waited too long for this concert. TOOOOOOOOOO LONG.

That's the dreamy Morten of my teenaged years, courtesy of their web-site. See the biceps, the cheekbones, the hair ... (sigh and swoon!) As a bonus, the guy can really sing. And his fellow bandmates, Mags and Paul aren't lightweights musically either!

Reports from the show, though, will have to wait until next week. Grown-up life, with scarey doctors visits, will intrude tomorrow morning, plus I'll need a few days to digest the experience. Hopefully I'll get to take pictures to share with you later.

Is it time to go yet?
How ever will I get any work done today?

Christine, what can I say? I have no words for what this belated birthday present really means to me! Really. You are AWESOME!

Letters from Ollie J - May 4, 1997

To set the scene for this letter, please note that the fall of 1996 was a particularly active hurricane season.

I was on the Cape with Mom, J, and Jenn when Hurricane Edourad hit. Rather than getting stuck in the evacuation traffic, we stuck it out on-Cape. We hunkered down at the restaurant/hotel where J was employed for the summer. Jenn stayed in a hotel room and monitored the weather, while the rest of us worked at the restaurant. With limited power and supplies, we still did a whole breakfast shift: J as short-order line cook, Mom as hostess and busboy, and me as dishwasher (thanks years of McyDee's training!).

Once we got off Cape and began to settle back into life in CT, and as I prepared to head back to NY, another hurricane roared up the Coast, this time hitting North Carolina. A quick dinner table consensus was reached. Mom and J had other work responsibilities, so I extended my vacation and headed with Dad down to see how things stood at the Farm. Reports weren't promising. Power, phones, and trees were down, and we had no idea how bad things really were. Phone reports from the cousins also weren't too reassuring, and they had their own properties to manage.

The actual devastation is hard to describe. Huge swatches of forest were destroyed, as if micro-bursts or mini-tornadoes had swept across the area around the farm. The oak my brothers and I had romped around as kids lost a huge branch that almost took out the carport. Another huge tree was completed uprooted and fell over, knocking the packhouse off its foundation supports.

There were many marvels that we attribute to Grandpa Jack (d. 197?), Uncle Hyrum (d. 1993), and the angels. Had Grandma been in the back rooms, and had the branch gone down just inches to the south, the roof could have gone in. More importantly, had the tree gone down in the direction of ALL THE OTHER TREES IN A 3 MILE AREA, the house would have been destroyed and we would have lost Grandma in 1996. We polled the family and neighbors, and that seems to be the ONLY tree in the area that fell in a perfectly 180 degree OPPOSITE direction of the micro-burst destruction. A whole HOST of Somebodies were protecting Grandma that day.

The initial hurricane clean-up crew consisted of three generations of Grandma Ollie's extended family, with about 20 people showing up at times ... and she outworked us all! It's amazing that the only injuries were blisters, bruises, aches and pains, and exhaustion. We were not in condition to keep up with a seasoned farm wife, to be out in the humidity, or to be scaling trees and trucks to use hand saws to clear up the yard. It was back-breaking work, but a great bonding time on the farm.

As you can read below, work on cleaning up the yard took months, with my 80-something grandmother still hacking away at the stumps, mowing the lawn, and bossing people around!

4 May 1997

[The Farm
Pikeville, NC]

Dear Granddaughter,

Do like to think of week you were here with your dad. Nice to have helping hands with the work. Made the place look good. Have almost dug up apple tree stump.

When your dad and Mom were here got most of Big Stump Burned. ‘Twas a suprise[sic] how well it Burned.

Back yard looks Better all the time. Big Blocks of wood to lay and rot. Can’t move them. Your dad did get them more out of the field.

Carl [one of Mom's 36 first cousins] and Family are packing things into Moving van to[sic] soon or early leaving tomarrow[sic], I feal[sic] like I’d be in way so am not going down to say by[sic]. They were not at Church today either.

Oh we had a big blowing rain yesterday. Things looked wet for a while. Sun out today and so things look better by this evening.

I have mowed yard three or four times already. How clover weeds and grass grows. Riding mower makes work easer[sic].

Supose[sic] your Mom showed you the quilt we Tied when she was here. Baby quilt. Prety[sic].

I feal[sic] better. But is hard to get rid of snifles[sic]. Changeable weather. Do feal[sic] good most of time.

Hope you are well and Happy. What Classes are you taking now? [Was I taking classes in 1997? I can't remember -- unless it was the film class I was auditing at the alma mater.]

Thanks again for all you did while here.

Take Care

Love

GrandMa

Recipes from Ollie J -- Pickled Beets

Here's another recipe that involves growing the vegetables and then canning them oneself. Good for the family recipe archives, not so good for Auntie Nettie to attempt.

For the longest time, the only pickled beets I would eat were my mother's or grandmother's. Maybe it was a foreshadowing of the whole eat locally, eat organic movement that is becoming more prominent, but there was something about being sent down to the cellar, to where our food storage was located, to select one of the ruby-hued glass jars of beets. I got to look at the contents, review the date and years that were written on the top of the seal, and carefully bring them upstairs for lunch or dinner. They were a blast of color on our plates, and slid down the throat with such sweet delight.

Pickled Beets

Select small, young betters.
Wash.
Do not cut the stems off too short.
Cook until tender or until the skin will slip off.
Dip in cold water.
Peel or slip off the skins.

Syrup
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 cups strong vinegar
1 tspn cloves
1 tspn allspice OR pickling spice

Tie the spices in a cloth.
Pour over beets and simmer until beets are tender.
Pack into jars and cold water pack until sealed.

The pickled beets that I now find in the deli salad bars, or canned in little metal jars are just not the same. I'll eat them, but they just don't taste or look as good. Yes, it is easier to pick them up at the store than to plant, pick, can, or store my own, but ...