Monday, April 27, 2020

Nostalgic food from childhood by Kaye Spencer #nostalgicfood #homemadepizza #firestarpress



     
 
Anyone else remember having Appian Way Pizza when they were a kid? Appian Way was my first exposure to pizza. This would have been in the mid-1960s. 

My mom made it on Friday nights or special occasions, such as for Halloween supper. When I was old enough to not make a total mess in the kitchen, I enjoyed spreading out the dough. It was such a treat.

The grocery store in my little town doesn't carry Appian Way Pizza, so I bought a two-pack on Amazon for a ludicrous price, but what can I say? I can't put a price on childhood memories. 'wink'

It rolled out just as I remembered - the oil on the pizza pan made the dough slippery and resistant to smooshing-out, but it was every bit as fun to do now as it was all those years ago. It certainly wasn't as tasty as my taster-memory recalled, but it wasn't a complete culinary disappointment, either.
 



When you've revisited foods from your childhood, has your taster-memory been disappointed or was the food as good as you remember?


Until next time,
Kaye Spencer



Stay in contact with Kaye—

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Wednesday, April 22, 2020

TJ and the Tomatoes by Jodi Lea Stewart


Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes
It's Spring! Time to think about  . . . Tomatoes! How we love them. How we need them.

Need them?
Sure. I’ll prove it.
Forget all the antioxidant lycopene, the vitamins C and K, the potassium and folate packed inside these little guys . . . 

and just try to imagine a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, or Aunt Bella's best lasagna, without a delicious, red sauce *gravy, as many Italians call it*. 


Envision simply ordering pizza with a white Alfredo sauce or a cheese sauce forever.

Scary, isn't it?

Red sauce = tomatoes.
Salsa = tomatoes.
Ketchup = tomatoes.

Must I go on?

Yes, I must go on, because . . . think of it . . . nothing but tomatoes can make our green salads both juicy AND beautiful.

Since we admit we need them, what about the asphalt-tasting tomatoes we buy at the store?

First of all, don’t blame the tomatoes. They’re innocent. Tomatoes grown for commercial purposes can’t luxuriate at the Riviera in the sunshine until they are red and ready. They are harvested from the vine while still green, gassed with ethylene – which turns them pukey-pink inside – and shipped off to stores to wind up in your sauces, soups, and salads. 

They look sick and have no taste because they ARE sick.

Did Thomas Jefferson (TJ) have to tolerate crappy tasteless tomatoes?
Thomas Jefferson was indisputably the most enthusiastic gardener-president we’ve ever had in the White House. He kept a garden calendar from 1767 to 1824, and he never failed to plant his delicious tomatoes. They appeared often in the Jefferson family recipes, even though tomatoes were not widely popular at the time.


Jefferson loved tomatoes.  And he should have.

They were delicious, different “creatures” in those days.

Even most home-garden grown tomatoes and organic crops aren’t as good as the ones Thomas Jefferson produced. Why? Because TJ grew them before genetic modification. Genetic modification makes generic seeds and grocery-store vegetables:

1)      more resistant to pesticides and weed killers,
2)      easier to ship,
3)      slower to rot,
4)      tasteless . . . and of dubious nutritional value.

Fortunately, we aren't stuck with these cardboard versions of formerly delicious vegetables.

What are Heirloom Vegetables?
I found out about heirloom gardening from my mother, who found out about heirloom seeds from her sister. They had a farmer dad, you know, and it’s in their blood to know about things growing out of dirt.

Heirloom seeds are carefully harvested from strains going back thousands of years. Some descend from seeds sewn into clothes by immigrants coming to America, or from Thomas Jefferson's own garden. 

According to Jack Penman in Getting Back to America’s Roots, since these seeds evolved before the age of industrial agriculture, they often grow better under eco-friendly practices. Did you get that? They’re naturally hardy and disease resistant without chemicals.

Lucky Tiger Heirloom Tomatoes
Jere Gettle, owner of Baker Creed Heirloom Seeds, sends out two million heirloom seed packets a year and says that number is rising at about thirty percent annually. 

Who knew?

Added bonus: You can buy enough seeds to grow a crop for three years for less than ten dollars. Plus, you won’t have to reorder if you save your seeds. 

So, choosing pasty, yucky tomatoes or full-bodied delicious ones related to the ones from Thomas Jefferson's own garden is now a matter of choice.


Heirloom Vegetables in Public Display Gardens
Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott, Arizona

There are several places to see public gardens growing heirloom vegetables and flowers. Places like Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona; Bernhard Museum Complex in Auburn, California; and Garfield Farm and Inn Museum in LaFox, Illinois, to name a few. 

Check them out! See some. Grow some! 

*****

What about you?  

Do you ever worry about the gases they use to "ripen" our fruits and vegetables? What about hybrids and genetic modification . . . scary or not scary? I'll say this, I've learned that none of us is getting out of this world alive. Therefore, our quality of life while we're here should be pretty important. Upping the quality of the food we eat may be part of seeking that higher ground.

I always love to hear from you!

*****




Jodi Lea Stewart was born in Texas to an "Okie" mom and a Texan dad. Her younger years were spent in Texas and Oklahoma; hence, she knows all about biscuits and gravy, blackberry picking, chiggers, and snipe hunting. At the age of eight, she moved to a vast cattle ranch in the White Mountains of Arizona. As a teen, she left her studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson to move to San Francisco, where she learned about peace, love, and exactly what she DIDN'T want to do with her life. Since then, Jodi graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Management, raised three children, worked as an electro-mechanical drafter, penned humor columns for a college periodical, wrote regional western articles, and served as managing editor of a Fortune 500 corporate newsletter. 

She is the author of a contemporary trilogy set in the Navajo Nation featuring a Navajo protagonist, as well as two historical novels. Her most recent novels are Blackberry Road and The Accidental Road. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband, her delightful 90+-year-old mother, a crazy Standard poodle named Jazz, two rescue cats, and numerous gigantic, bossy houseplants.


1956 . . .

– Historical Fiction
It’s 1956, and teenager Kat and her mother escape an abusive situation only to stumble into the epicenter of crime peddlers invading Arizona and Nevada in the 1950s. Kat is a serious girl who buries herself in novels and movies and tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. Fading into the background is impossible, however, with a beautiful social butterfly of a mother who just happens to resemble Marilyn Monroe. It’s embarrassing, and the unwanted attention her mother garners could be the downfall of their plan to take Route 66 to the freedom of a new life.

Print and eBook available on Amazon.

1934 . . . 

– Historical Fiction
Trouble sneaks in one Oklahoma afternoon in 1934 like an oily twister. A beloved neighbor is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest a black man that a sharecropper’s daughter knows is innocent. Hauntingly terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries and despair and finally into the shocking truths of that fateful summer.

Audible, Print, and eBook available on Amazon, etc.











Sunday, April 19, 2020

DISTANCING, by Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer


Today, sitting in my car outside the vet’s office waiting for my cat, I watch the cherry petals skim the street, the warm wind of April. Daffodils in the gardens, tulips in planter boxes outside the restaurants and cafés. But the cafés have big, hand-lettered signs on their doors, instructions how to order by phone, how receive your fare curbside. Much the same as I’m doing with my cat. 

Doctor calls me on the phone, interrupts my train of thought. I want to hear the news. She goes through her findings, her recommendations. I say yes to one and that I’ll get back to her about another, an ultrasound. Can I afford it now? 

The vet assistant returns to the car with the cat and a hand-held card machine. I put on my face covering and stick in my card—she never touches it. We chat for a minute: Are you doing okay? Are you staying safe? I thank her for being there in such a difficult time and am on my way. I pull out from my parking place effortlessly. There is barely any traffic. 

My cat seems better when I get home. I wash my hands and take off my shoes while he eats his medicine and goes for a nap. I sit down at the computer to write, but all I can do is think. 

For me, little has changed with the onset of the pandemic. I work at home, self-isolate by choice. In some ways, this suits me, since now I no longer must go outside... ever! (Except to take kitty to the vet) But though my life goes on much as normal, a multi-layered gloom hangs above me, squelching all joy that could be had. Uncertainty, fear, anger, change. I can only imagine how things will end.



And imagine I can because I am a fiction writer. I can envision both dystopia and paradise. The pandemic and all its many-tentacled effects causing the downfall of civilization. The pandemic, kick-starting a new age where people finally pull together. It’s already happening. Where some are looting and plundering, others are banding together in ways I never thought I’d see. I try not to let the dark side take me, try to stay firmly in sight of the light. 

I have been writing during this time. I even started a new book-to-be-a-series, something I haven’t done for a decade or more.

·       And I’m putting my Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries out in large print and fully revising the first three.

·       And I’m working on a forgotten manuscript from the late nineties, updating the writing and content.

·       And Cat Conundrum, the next in the CCL series is with the beta reader.

·       And Cat Winter, the next in the Cat Seasons Tetralogy, is with my editor.

·       And Adventure Cat first draft (CCL#8) is about half way to finished.

When I look at this list, I see there is a madness to it. Maybe I’m afraid if civilization crumbles, no one will read books anymore. Maybe I want to get it all done before I die. Maybe I just want to hide myself in fantasy.



I’ve noticed something funny as I write, an awareness of the current social distancing practices and stay home decrees. I was working on a party scene when I found myself glowering at all those folks hanging so close together. Didn’t they know they should be at least six feet apart? And in street scene, I wondered, Why they aren’t wearing their face protectors? All those naked faces, all those possibilities of contagion and death. But my stories aren’t set in the Covid-19 universe, I remind myself. Those things don’t apply. Still, it’s greatly on my mind. 

I have no intention whatsoever of writing about a pandemic. I’ll leave the Zombie Apocalypse to writers better suited to tell that tale. I’m sticking to my cozy mysteries and an occasional fantasy where cats save the world (and not from plague). But even as I sit at my computer, cat on lap (helping), I am battered by what’s going on outside.



I am praying a lot. Praying for those who are sick and for their loved ones. For those working in dangerous situations. For those whose money is running out, whose job is lost, whose only hope is help from the government that is too little too late. I pray for those with anxiety, depression, and PTSD who now are left alone in their darkness. For the elderly who depend on others for their wellbeing.  

I also have a special prayer for those who think Covid is a hoax or a game or just don’t care if they spread death, because someday they may realize their mistake and be haunted by it. For those who see this crisis as a commercial opportunity, whether thief or businessman. (I pray they get what they deserve, and I’m not talking about money.)  

Most of all, I pray something good will come of this. 

Stay safe. Do good. See beauty. Feel joy.




One last note: I just added Covid to my Spell-check dictionary. Times alight with change.

About Mollie Hunt: Native Oregonian Mollie Hunt has always had an affinity for cats, so it was a short step for her to become a cat writer. Mollie Hunt writes the Crazy Cat Lady cozy mystery series featuring Lynley Cannon, a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip, and the Cat Seasons sci-fantasy tetralogy where cats save the world. She also pens a bit of cat poetry.

Mollie is a member of the Oregon Writers’ Colony, Sisters in Crime, the Cat Writers’ Association, and NIWA. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like Lynley, she is a grateful shelter volunteer.

You can find Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer on her blogsite: www.lecatts.wordpress.com
@MollieHuntCats
Sign up for Mollie’s Extremely Informal Newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/c0fOTn


Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The Book Tour Episode Fifteen: Along the Road




“You see all these cars and trucks?” says the bus driver. “Every single view is a book you have to read. Pass a vehicle, it’s like turning a page.”
There are also yellow signs showing running figures in black. “That’s because all the illegals come through here. The Mexican border’s not far, but it’s hard going — terrible heat, no water. They put water out for them, but the cops are already there, waiting. It’s like those lakes where hunters wait for deer to come drink. I met one man, he crossed over with a bicycle, three days pushing that thing over rocks and through sand, but at least he could lug cans of water and a sack of food with him, so he survived. But you know what? Some people over in L.A. are complaining because they say those signs with black silhouettes aren’t politically correct.” He shakes his head. “Some folks got nothing better to do in life.
He’s the one who recommends I leave the bus at Dateland. “Pretty original place. You’ll enjoy yourself. Just take the dirt road north.”
Caught by his enthusiasm, I don’t ask normal questions such as, “is there anywhere to stay in the area?” or “when does the next bus come through?” I simply disembark.



As far as the eye can see there’s nothing but one small restaurant and a gas station-cum-travel center.
I enter the latter — a place filled with souvenir schnick-schnack, but no informative literature, and no literature of any kind. The woman working there is surprised to see someone minus car, but who isn’t an illegal.
“The bus driver told me this was an interesting place.”
“Oh.” She looks confused.
“What is there to see?”
“I dunno. Guess you can walk around, take a look at the date palms behind the station.”
“How about a motel where I can stay?”
“Nothing like that around here.”
“No boarding house, no hostel, nothing?”
       “Nothing.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I have a sleeping bag.”
“No tent?”
“No tent.”
“Get’s really cold out here at night. And, you better make sure you can be seen in the dark by people arriving in trailers.”
No way. The last thing I want, aside from being squashed in my sleep, is to be found out here alone in the middle of no place.
“Do you live in the area?”
“Sure do. Twenty miles away.” She stops for a minute before adding, “I always keep coming back.”
Which sounds as though she’s tried, possibly with desperation, to get away.
“The desert is beautiful,” I say. But, I’ve only confused her again.

I cross over a patch of dust to the restaurant because I haven’t eaten since early this morning.
“Kitchen’s closed,” says the waitress when I enter. “We closed at 2:45. It’s now 5:30.”
“Don’t tell me that.”
“Well, I just did.” She smirks with sadistic satisfaction.
“Okay, then. Where can I get something to eat?”
“There’s a dairy around eighteen miles down the road and a diner twenty miles in the other direction.”
“Nothing else?”
“Microwave food in the gas station.”
Sounds too grim for me. “The bus driver mentioned a whole community not far away. Somewhere to the north.”
She harrumphed. “It’s a pretty big walk.”
“How big?”
“Hours.”
“What’s out there?”
“Dunno really. Maybe a sort of tavern.”
“A town?”
“Never been out there.”
“Ah.” I chew over the information for a few minutes, then optimism — and curiosity — both desert me. Outside, the sun is disappearing with the speed of lead in a lake. “When does the next bus come through?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Four-thirty in the afternoon.”



Outside, I wander around, then find a little hollow under the palms. I curl into it, pull all my clothes out of my knapsack, and cover myself with them. They’ll serve as a blanket. Then I lie there, think of hungry cougars, wolves, giant killer ants, and zombies, all waiting for a victim; of armed, two-legged cranks who roam through the night, teeth grinding, saliva dripping. I hear strange noises, see shadows move. How can I possibly sleep?

When I next open my eyes, it’s early morning. Amazing! Evil has passed me by. I head north, taking the dirt road over the perfectly empty desert landscape … a very lonely dirt road. Still, I keep walking: whatever’s going to get me, will get me coming, or going in a place like this. Where could I hide? Still, bleak as it is, there are wildflowers everywhere, and they are utterly beautiful.

The community that does, finally, hove into view is one of far-flung shacks, and shabby trailers. But the tavern is open. It’s a huge place with mismatched tables and chairs, a low ceiling, and a long bar that winds its way around the room, curving, straightening, indenting, curving again. Photos of laughing people cover every inch of wall not taken up by bar signs: “Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you’re an asshole”; “If assholes could fly, this place would be an airport”; “I may be a cruel and heartless bitch, but I’m good at it.”


 Behind the bar are two ageless wild women, who can cuss better than any male I’ve ever heard, and there is even the expected Old Timer with long white beard and drooping white mustache seated at the counter.
“Make yourself at home,” says he. “Everyone’s welcome. We were all from someplace else in the beginning.”
“Back at the gas station, no one mentioned there was a place like this out here.”
“Tourist traps, those places. We don’t have nothing to do with them.”
“They don’t know nothing about us,” adds a man in a straw hat. “But this is one great community, and this tavern is the center of everything. Me? I’m from Oregon. Was in heavy construction up there. One day my car broke down on the main road. I ended up here, took a look around, and liked what I saw. Got a job in a hardware store, and stayed. No red lights, no traffic signs, no traffic, no noise. Not even Oregon is as empty as this.”
“City folks always in a hurry,” says Old Timer. “Here, no one’s like that. See that bookshelf over there? We all do a lot of reading. Just take a book, bring another one back. That’s how things work.”
“That list with dates and names up there on the post?” adds another man who has come over to examine me. “Those are the birthdays of everyone who lives here. We celebrate every single one of them with a barbecue. We sure get up to some wild things.”
“Everyone talks to everyone,” says Old Timer. “There’s a lot of solidarity.”
“Especially when the monsoon comes in August — that’s what we call it here. Winds go up to a hundred miles an hour, and rains flood everything out. Suddenly it’s 120 degrees with no electricity, so no air conditioning, and no water pump. What do we do? We take our sleeping bags to the school where there’s a generator, and we sleep there, every single one of us. The Red Cross brings in water and ice.”
“When it’s 120 degrees, the ground gets up to 200. If you don’t find a bush to lie under, you get cooked alive. Found seventeen dead illegals out there, not long ago. Most of them just kids of around fourteen. They’re told to head for the cell phone antennas — one’s 35 miles away from the border, the other, 80 — but if you head for the wrong one, you die.”
“Just imagine,” says straw hat. “People are out there right now, trying to get here. Coyotes tell them to wait in one spot, they’ll bring water. But since they’ve already been paid, they just leave them to die.”
 “Plenty of farms in this area — grape farms, date farms — and all the workers are illegals. They work seven days a week, twelve to fifteen hours a day for low wages. That’s half what Americans get, so no one hires us anymore, and sometimes the foremen take a cut from their wages, too. They’re just exploited.
“Hell, no,” booms one man in the far corner. “You can’t call it exploitation ‘cause they’re illegal and don’t have no rights.”
Everyone ignores him.
“Do any ever come in here?”
“A few, but they have their own bar down the road.”
“Who cares if they do? They’re people, too.”
“Now, if they was Ay-rabs coming in here, that’d be different.”
“When I see them arriving, I give them food and water. Put them on a bus to Phoenix. I got connections there,” says a younger woman who has been quiet up until now. She looks me over. “You thinking of staying? This is a great place. I was a single mother living back east, but I came out here, met my future husband. Not too many married people out here, far more men than women, but there’s no harassment. Here in the bar, I’m just treated like one of the boys.”
“How do you make a living?”
“I gather seeds.”
“Seeds?”
“For replanted burnt-out areas where weeds have taken over, killed all the natural vegetation. Or areas destroyed by real estate brokers who think they’ll subdivide, then belly flop. Why do they burn and destroy everything first? Who knows?”
“Some people come out, think they’ll grow grass, plant apple, and pear trees. Everything dies, of course. There are wells, but the water’s either too salty, or poisonous. Used to be a river, too, but it was dammed up for golf courses in Phoenix — they created seventeen new ones in ten years. A complete disaster. These days, if you want to fish, you have to go as far as the Colorado River. Sure, there are some canals around, but who wants to sit on a cement canal?”

Suddenly, a band strikes up the national anthem on the overhead television. Almost all rise to their feet, stand to attention. A few salute.
“Had a brother in a POW camp in Europe back in WWII,” says Old Timer. “He survived. Tell me, has the place changed a lot since then?”


Okay, the mentality might drive me crazy after a while, and the heat is certainly obnoxious. Aside from those blooming wildflowers — and they’re only temporary — it doesn’t look like much out here. I’ve lived in more pleasing climates and in far lovelier settings, but this is the place I’ve been looking for, the one I want to live in.
“Is there anything to rent out this way?”
“No problem,” says one of the women behind the bar. “Don’t worry about rent. Plenty of empty places. You can take your pick.”
“You coming back, then?”
“For sure. Next year.”
“We’ll be waiting for you.”
“And, you send us a postcard when you get home.”
“I promise.”

I set out, taking the dirt road back toward the highway and arrive just in time to catch the bus heading east.
I haven’t made it back. Not yet.


More about my books and passionate life can be found at http://www.j-arleneculiner.com
and on my story podcast at https://soundcloud.com/j-arlene-culiner