In our family, St. Patirck's Day begins on February 15th and ends on March 31, or Easter, whichever comes first. We play all all the Irish music CD's we have, over and over and over, until everyone but me goes mad and pulls out their hair. And we eat this recipe for Soda Bread frequently:
Bob McGuire's Soda Bread
1.75 C. buttermilk
1 beaten egg
.25 C. melted, cooled butter
Mix the above. Set aside.
4 scant C. unbleached (King Arthur) flour or 3 C. unbleached, 1 C. fresh whole wheat
1/2 C. white sugar
1 T. caraway seeds
2 C. golden raisins
1 t. baking powder
MIx in large bowl. Add the liquid ingredients, stir carefully but thoroughly. Then stir in, quickly,
1 t. baking SODA.
The dough should be rather soft, like a tender biscuit dough, not too stiff. That is why I said scant cups of flour, but it should not be actually wet. If it is, carefully and quickly add a tad more flour.
Pat into a 10" circle, slash a cross about 1/4 inch deep across the top, and bake at 325 for about an hour. I use a baking stone, but have used a cookie sheet successfully in the past - be sure to grease it if you do.
Test by thumping it , if it sounds hollow, it is done. Put it on a rack, and cover it with an irish linen tea towel, and cool it to room temperature. Cut and serve with strawberry jam and strong tea. It should have a crunchy crust and a tender crumb.
For non-feast days, my Grandmother Annie made this without the fruit, and called it "Milk Bread", a staple in her house. She actually would rather have eaten cream puffs and napoleans, but such is life...
Friday, March 18, 2005
Monday, January 24, 2005
Inauguration Day, Military Retiree Style
Well, Mr. Retired Army Officer scheduled his asshole scope for this Very Day! It was to be a real colonoscopy with knock-out juice, color photos to take home, things cut out for Lab Rats to cut up and look at, everything! And - he scheduled it for - 6 ayem. So he gets up at 4;30, wakes me up at 5:00, fully dressed, the paperwork in his hand. While I take a shower, he is sitting there, paper in hand. Nervous. Very nervous.I notice at the guarded gate to the Army post that a number of vehicles are being very thoroughly searched, but I have no worries, I have Military I.D.! And so, predictably, we arrive at Military Hospital # 3 at 5:45. The regular doors aren't even open, so he goes in the ER, waving me off irritably.I drive back home, wake up the 16 year old who was supposed to have set his alarm, gotten up, run, showered, and been ready to eat the Krispy Kremes I so thoughtfully bought on the way home for him. The way I wake teenagers up is way worse than any alarm clock. I begin by pounding loudly on the door, opening it screaming, throwing water on the sleeper and sending the dog onto the recumbant figure to lick his face. I was pissed, and I guess he figured that out, because he got up right away, ran to the shower, took a record short stay in the spray, and left with his girlfriend who is called Shawnee Woman in our house.After about another hour, I get a call from the nurse on the Asshole Wing telling me the Gas-Passer and the Ass-Master have released Mr. Retired Army Officer, so I head over there. By now, there is so much color commentary on the Inauguration Festivities, that I realize Inauguration Day is the reason for the "enhanced security" at the gate to Military Hospital #3. So I pull up to rescue My Man from the Ass- Master; and, yes, sure as shit, wouldn't you know MY CAR is "selected" for a "random check". I sigh, pull over, get out my ID card for which I had previously attested in writing that I understood by entering a US military installation I was giving up my rights to not be searched and seized. I am instructed to turn off my vehicle, get out, and surrender my cell phone and anything else with a battery in it. Because this is a loaner car, while mine is in the car hospital, I feel quite smug, for there is virtually nothing of mine in the car except my wallet, my garage door opener, and my cell phone. "This will be a piece of cake. That's why they picked me", I say to myself with an easy-going tiny smug smile. Well, they take said ID card off to a little hut, hustle me out, instruct me open every car door, which I do quite calmly, then proceed to take apart my garage door opener and my cell phone, punching buttons on each. I'm thinking, "Dumb Ass, that's a great way to blow yourself up if there are explosives in this vehicle", just as the bomb dog comes out of the little hut and "alerts", by standing at the rear of the rental van that doesn't even have a gum wrapper in it. So there is a bit more urgency to the voices now, and more guys come over with more mirrors and a walkie-talkie - not the cool Secret Service type that discretely come out of the left cuff, but the big, clunky, old, scratched ones they give the soldiers - you know, the ones that are sorta like the old, ragged, non-kevlar, woodlands patterned vests they give the soldiers in the deserts of Iraq? - and I begin to lose my little smile. A guard asks me in a very urgent voice, "Ma'am, Ma'am what do these keys open?"; and I look and see two strange, squat keys in his hands, which he is trying in the ignition, in the glove box, anything with a keyhole. I told him I had never seen them before, and he said he found them in the compartment under the front passenger seat. Then began a sort of flurry of walkie-talkie-ing, mirror looking, and whispered conversation. They took out the rear seat, pulled up the carpet, and looked for a lock box welded into the car body, ideal for hiding drugs or plastic explosives. Now, remember, there is a nurse waiting with Mr. Retired Officer for me, I can't call the clinic because they have my phone, and I am beginning to be rather urgently questioned about why I have a rental car, my purpose for entering the installation ("Because my husband just had a colonoscopy and excision of multiple polyps by your boy Ass-Master who looks younger than my 16 year old who doesn't get out of bed in the mornings, Moron."), and I am being approached by two MP's who are getting out of a black SUV, who are handed my ID card - remember my ID card? - the one that was to get me out of this Inaugural Security Circle Jerk? Well, it was EXPIRED. And I was the Major Excitement for the day. "Ma'am", I am told, "we need to see another form of identification. Your ID card is expired, and we have confiscated it. You will be issued a receipt for it, and you will be escorted to the clinic to pick up your husband. If you do not have a valid driver's license, your car will be impounded." "Fair enough," think I. And after my valid driver's license is validated, I am accompanied by an MP SUV to the hospital door, told to leave my car unlocked, the hazard lights on, and to get Mr. Retired Officer. As I am going in the door, some very old, very shriveled, very disabled old bat with more wrinkles than a 5-year-old dollar bill harrumphs, and says to nobody in particular, "How does SHE rate parking right up front?
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Little Tucker C.
I am getting a big kick out of all the schadenfreude about poor little Tucker Carlson getting riffed from Crossfire, and Crossfire maybe even getting the ax. I think it is CNN with it's (middle) finger to the wind, betting that the tipping point is near.
What really interests me is, will PBS dump him after so hurriedly hiring him to add diversity to it's shows, including News Hour? When he started showing up on PBS, I turned it off, and gave up. What the hell were they thinking hiring Baby Rush in a bow tie? Did the bow tie somehow convince the powers that be at PBS that he is an intellectual? Or is PBS trying to quietly keep the wolves (remember the wolves?) from the gate of the quaint PBS Village?
So maybe my read on CNN's bet is just wishful thinking. I am still wearing black.
Tonight I am catering a salad supper for 45 teachers, even though it is 36 degrees here in South Texas. They are getting spinach salad with white balsamic dressing, and finger Caesar salads stuffed with long garlic crouton and julienned parmesan. As a side they are getting mini empanadas.
What really interests me is, will PBS dump him after so hurriedly hiring him to add diversity to it's shows, including News Hour? When he started showing up on PBS, I turned it off, and gave up. What the hell were they thinking hiring Baby Rush in a bow tie? Did the bow tie somehow convince the powers that be at PBS that he is an intellectual? Or is PBS trying to quietly keep the wolves (remember the wolves?) from the gate of the quaint PBS Village?
So maybe my read on CNN's bet is just wishful thinking. I am still wearing black.
Tonight I am catering a salad supper for 45 teachers, even though it is 36 degrees here in South Texas. They are getting spinach salad with white balsamic dressing, and finger Caesar salads stuffed with long garlic crouton and julienned parmesan. As a side they are getting mini empanadas.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Chaos on I-10, heading this way!
What that means is, my grandkids are coming...
Sam, a randomly OCD 4 year old, whose saving grace is that he panics if he doesn't have a book or two at hand, and some chocolate tucked away somewhere handy, is coming with his sister, Molly, the absolutely sweetest ADHD kiddo in the whole world (and that includes her Uncle Bubby, who is my LAST baby, and still living at home), his Mom, Gillie Bear, and her husband, Ned. Ned is the Sackett our daughter married. His family lives in Cut And Shoot, Texas, no shit.
This family holiday will closely resemble Robert Earl Keen's. I plan to keep Ned sedated with heavily spiked egg nog and heavily spiked fruitcake. That is an important part of a Sackett celebration. Molly wants shrimp and pigs in a blanket. Sam is getting a chocolate cake, which has been an excellent management tool for the last week. His mom has been threatening him with not going to Noni's house for chocolate cake if he doesn't leave her alone while she is on the computer.
This chocolate cake is, embarrassingly, made from a HEB brand mix, with coffee instead of water, and an additional 3 tablespoons of Valhrona cocoa. To Sam it will be a slice of heaven, to everybody else, acceptable. It proudly stands on my mother's footed cake plate (she used it 4 times in my memory).
Larry, otherwise known as Butch, my spouse the clergyman, will be worried about ice. Will there be enough? So every few hours he will go to the store for another few 10lb bags that I have no room for in the freezer. The bags will sit in the sink, melting, so I can't wash dishes. So he will see it melting and go out for more, while the perfectly good icemaker in the Costco fridge will be tsk-tsking, wishing Butch would let her do her job.
Molly will not fall asleep until we threaten her with extreme bodily harm or a midnight trip back east along I-10. She will then cry herself to sleep. In my bed. My kingsized bed, with the dog. There will be room enough only for Butch and the cat. Butch will not move Molly to the floor, so guess who will sleep on the floor? Certainly not the dog. She had heartworns when we rescued her, and had heartworm chemotherapy two years ago, so God forbid she should sleep on the (carpeted) floor. Even though the floor is so nicely covered with her beautiful golden hair.
Butch will sleep on the floor, as a good Christian husband should do. Then he will wake up before everybody else, potty the dog, make coffee, go get Krispy Kremes and a paper. The reason he has to go out to buy a paper is because I got so pissed off that our local paper endorsed Bush, that I cancelled the subscription. Butch can't do without a paper, so he buys one from the guys that sell them at the freeway "get ons". Each day has it's own vendor. He gives them a dollar for a 50 cent paper, so it ends up costing us not only gas, but more actual money for me to protest our paper's misguided stupidity. Or plain cynical malevolence, whichever. He will come home from Krispy Kreme and Ned will be drinking coffee, Sam will be eating cake and reading a book, Molly will have cartoons on VERY LOUD, and I will be in desperate for doughnuts or drugs.
Happy New Year.
Sam, a randomly OCD 4 year old, whose saving grace is that he panics if he doesn't have a book or two at hand, and some chocolate tucked away somewhere handy, is coming with his sister, Molly, the absolutely sweetest ADHD kiddo in the whole world (and that includes her Uncle Bubby, who is my LAST baby, and still living at home), his Mom, Gillie Bear, and her husband, Ned. Ned is the Sackett our daughter married. His family lives in Cut And Shoot, Texas, no shit.
This family holiday will closely resemble Robert Earl Keen's. I plan to keep Ned sedated with heavily spiked egg nog and heavily spiked fruitcake. That is an important part of a Sackett celebration. Molly wants shrimp and pigs in a blanket. Sam is getting a chocolate cake, which has been an excellent management tool for the last week. His mom has been threatening him with not going to Noni's house for chocolate cake if he doesn't leave her alone while she is on the computer.
This chocolate cake is, embarrassingly, made from a HEB brand mix, with coffee instead of water, and an additional 3 tablespoons of Valhrona cocoa. To Sam it will be a slice of heaven, to everybody else, acceptable. It proudly stands on my mother's footed cake plate (she used it 4 times in my memory).
Larry, otherwise known as Butch, my spouse the clergyman, will be worried about ice. Will there be enough? So every few hours he will go to the store for another few 10lb bags that I have no room for in the freezer. The bags will sit in the sink, melting, so I can't wash dishes. So he will see it melting and go out for more, while the perfectly good icemaker in the Costco fridge will be tsk-tsking, wishing Butch would let her do her job.
Molly will not fall asleep until we threaten her with extreme bodily harm or a midnight trip back east along I-10. She will then cry herself to sleep. In my bed. My kingsized bed, with the dog. There will be room enough only for Butch and the cat. Butch will not move Molly to the floor, so guess who will sleep on the floor? Certainly not the dog. She had heartworns when we rescued her, and had heartworm chemotherapy two years ago, so God forbid she should sleep on the (carpeted) floor. Even though the floor is so nicely covered with her beautiful golden hair.
Butch will sleep on the floor, as a good Christian husband should do. Then he will wake up before everybody else, potty the dog, make coffee, go get Krispy Kremes and a paper. The reason he has to go out to buy a paper is because I got so pissed off that our local paper endorsed Bush, that I cancelled the subscription. Butch can't do without a paper, so he buys one from the guys that sell them at the freeway "get ons". Each day has it's own vendor. He gives them a dollar for a 50 cent paper, so it ends up costing us not only gas, but more actual money for me to protest our paper's misguided stupidity. Or plain cynical malevolence, whichever. He will come home from Krispy Kreme and Ned will be drinking coffee, Sam will be eating cake and reading a book, Molly will have cartoons on VERY LOUD, and I will be in desperate for doughnuts or drugs.
Happy New Year.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Cheap Democratic Soup
Some bacon, diced (as much as you can afford)
1 small onion, cut up
half a bell pepper, cut up
2 cans (about 16 oz each) navy beans, white beans, anything but expensive Italian Cannelinis
a bit of butter (again, if you can afford it)
a bit of leftover rice is nice
water
Frizzle the bacon in a large skillet. Add the onion and bell pepper, saute until limp. Add butter, if used. Pour into the pan the 2 cans of beans, liquid included. Add enough water to completely cover by 1 inch, and cook about 45 minutes on low, or until water is reduced by half. Add the cooked rice, if used, mash the stuff until about half the beans are mush, and serve. A little fresh thyme would be nice as an understated, small garnish. Serves 4 for supper, with bread and/or salad.
1 small onion, cut up
half a bell pepper, cut up
2 cans (about 16 oz each) navy beans, white beans, anything but expensive Italian Cannelinis
a bit of butter (again, if you can afford it)
a bit of leftover rice is nice
water
Frizzle the bacon in a large skillet. Add the onion and bell pepper, saute until limp. Add butter, if used. Pour into the pan the 2 cans of beans, liquid included. Add enough water to completely cover by 1 inch, and cook about 45 minutes on low, or until water is reduced by half. Add the cooked rice, if used, mash the stuff until about half the beans are mush, and serve. A little fresh thyme would be nice as an understated, small garnish. Serves 4 for supper, with bread and/or salad.
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