It’s Feasting Time again, and don’t we all love pie! Now this lazy cook/baker won’t be telling you anything new about pecan pie and pumpkin pie, only this: You can whip them out in no time from the package recipe and bake them in tandem.
Here you go, two-at-a-time Pecan Pie and Pumpkin Pie: Have your ingredients handy! Your 9-inch deep pie shells are in the freezer already. Preheat your oven at 400 F.
Step 1: Put the pecan halves in one of you your pie shells; mix up the liquid ingredients in a bowl with a hand mixer, and pour that batter over the pecans. Rinse the bowl.
Step 2: For the pumpkin pie, cream the eggs in your mixing bowl and add all the other ingredients. Whip that up. Pour the batter into the other frozen pie shell.
Step 3: Put the pies on a baking sheet and bake them at 400 F for 15 minutes. Then lower the heat and bake the pies for another 45-60 minutes.
I like to “overbake” the pies because the pecans turn out so much crunchier, caramelized like cinnamon roasted nuts at the fair. I like my pecan pie to have a “praline” flavor, but not darkened too much.
The pumpkin pie, at this baking style, will also get a crunchy crust and turn a more solid, custardy texture. This is for people like me who don’t like their pies “mushy.” Now crown your delectable efforts with a puff of whipped cream. That’s a holiday!
Here is another one from my “Don’t Sweat the Cooking” series. Let’s call this chicken-rice skillet my “small paella.” Far from cooking up mollusks, snails and rabbit thighs in clam juice with expensive saffron, I found my own home-cooked recipe. It is made with ingredients that I mostly keep in the freezer or pantry. My mini-paella is quick to prepare and tastes great. Try it out sometime. Cooking time: ca. 45 minutes.
Main Ingredients:
4–6 chicken thighs (legs), skin on
1 Tbs olive oil
1 cup rice
2 cups water
Spices for rub: as you like it.
Use salt, pepper, oregano, garlic, basil, rosemary for a Mediterranean flavor.
OR: chile, a dash of coriander, with garlic, salt and pepper, and cilantro.
OR: barbecue or other spice mix of your choice
Other Ingredients:
1 medium sized onion
(1 jalapeño, finely diced)
1 cup small frozen vegetables
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1/2 cup cashews or almonds (optional)
For oriental flavor:
1 inch ginger, finely cut 1 clove of garlic
1 Tbs sesame oil
3 Tbs soy sauce
8 stalks cilantro
PROCEDURE:
Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet/pan on low-medium heat. Rub the chicken pieces with your favorite spices. Brown the chicken on both sides (ca. 5-7 minutes each side) to a nice color.
In the meantime, dice the onion (jalapeño, bell pepper) into small cubes.
Remove the chicken from the pan and set it aside on a plate.
Add the onions and peppers to the pan and cook until glazed, ca. 5 minutes. (Add the nuts at this stage. OR add the diced ginger for the Oriental twist)
(Deglaze the onion/peppers with a shot of tequila, brandy, or wine, if you like.)
Add the washed rice to the pan; roast and stir for 5 minutes.
Add 2 cups of water, frozen vegetables, (raisins/craisins, cilantro) and let this “soup” come to a boil.
Put the chicken pieces back into the pan, cover the pan with a lid, and let this simmer on low heat for 20 minutes.
DONE!
Serve the chicken-rice skillet with a nice side salad and garlic toast. Bon apetit!
I didn’t fall to pieces, but I fell in love with this girl. Lillie Mae Rische drew me in at first sight and sound. She is a folk/country singer with attractive looks and great personality. Not only can she sing like Nancy Griffifth (with a touch of Taylor Swift and a pinch of Joan Baez), a little moody and smokey at times, she also plays the fiddle amazingly well. At LeMars she carried ahead of her a whiff of world travels and bigger things to come.
Lillie Mae has a CD out called “Rain on the Piano”. She wrote several songs on it herself. I liked each one of her poetic tunes. Her work has a consistency about it, showing that she knows what style she is driving. “No surprise that Lillie Mae Rische is a complete bad-ass and an all-round powerhouse of melody,” her ThirdMan Store record distributor writes. No wonder, she is a Nashville girl.
And then there was this dude by the name of Frank, maybe Carter or maybe Rische. Methinks he is related to Lillie Mae. He played guitar so handsomely. Here he is with “Gentle on My Mind.”
Fred Techau and his wife Dorothy presenting the Overture to Wilhelm Tell.
One fine morning as I was strolling the LeMars fairgrounds, I stumbled upon a dulcimer workshop at the Village Square. Dorothy and her sister Marilyn were initiating another player into a whole other way of tuning. There was one extra dulcimer. So what should they do? They placed that instrument on my knees and handed me and extra sheet of notes. Play. OK. The dulcimer has four strings on its keyboard (left had) to make chords with. The right hand plucks the rhythm with a plectrum. After you know three chords, you can play to accompaniment to most country songs. Playing the lead is a different story.
The mountain dulcimer is a soft-spoken instrument. It harmonizes well with many acoustic sets and is an important sound element in traditional country music and the Appalachian folk life. The frets are arranged in the diatonic scale. It can be tuned in the Mixolydian or Ionian mode. Now, Dorothy didn’t let me worry about that too much, but instructed me to move my set of fingers in tandem three notches up the board. There! Anyone can learn this in ten minutes. I spent the most relaxing half hour that morning tuning into the dulcimers. How nice it is to play music!
Harry Rusk was introduced into the Country Music Hall of Fame by Bob Everhart at LeMars in 2015.
Harry Rusk is a widely known country music artist and Nashville performer from Alberta, Canada. He is a Native American from the Slavey tribe, born at Fort Nelson, British Columbia. In his autobiography “Beyond the Bend of the River,” Harry wrote down his painfully honest and sometimes heartbreaking life story of discrimination and survival. He is one of the very few people remaining who grew up in the traditional trapping lifestyle of the Pacific Northwest.
In his youth Harry suffered from tuberculosis and was hospitalized at total bedrest for four years. Both his parents and brother perished from TB. Through all the early tribulations, the country singer who got inspired by old-time star Hank Snow, cherished any small kindness given to him as a great treasure. He was not fond of the heartless Catholic missionaries, who almost refused to give his mother a Christian burial. Then, in 1975, Harry found Jesus. Since then he uses his musical talent for his ministry. But I haven’t gotten that far in his book yet. I have enjoyed one page after another of insights into a much varied life of self-determination.
Meet an authentic singing farmer: Ervin Pickhinke from Sioux City, Iowa. I stumbled upon one of his performances at Bob Everhart’s festival, but, too slow, buffalo, I had missed my shot. That’s why Ervin repeated his John Deere ‘wheelings’ especially for me, because by then he had also run out of CDs. This song was truly funny, it had taken me by surprise. I was delighted.
Ervin Pickhinke and his daughter Sara Sennert have country music in the blood. “Living Country” is the title of their heart-warming joint album. Ervin retired from farming after working his property for 41 years. His young neighbor bought the farm and proudly continues the tradition. Ervin’s business card says, “A Farmer’s Trade Is One of Worth.” Ervin is of German roots, and there are still Pickhinkes living in Germany, as Sara found out. Apparently, Ervin’s grandfather set sail for America and didn’t tell his parents, where he was going. They later found out the truth from a cousin.
Below you can see a John Deere at work, plus a classic Hanomag.
Meet Maria Petersen, from Omaha, Nebraska. She was raised in the same Bavarian village as I and got me into country music. Here Maria is performing Amazing Grace with friend Jeff Osthus minding the saw. The zither has a keyboard of strings for melody and accompanying chords. Maria has performed often at the German American Club in Omaha, for many social groups, and at Bob Everhart’s annual country music festival. She plays Bavarian folk songs, country music, classical pieces and children’s songs. Maria founded a zither society and arranged a national convention of zither players in Omaha in 1999. She has released four CDs with her own recordings.
“My father was a carpenter, wheelwright, and passionate musician. So he decided to have a little house music with us children, my brother and I. Anderl, would soon give up on the zither. So father taught him the guitar. The zither also cut hard into my small fingers. But I practiced for hours at a time, because I wanted play it like my dad did. Well, my mother was very happy with me practicing too. She let me get off the chores when I was making music. She praised me consistently, even though all that practice might not have sounded so good. Here I am, still playing after all these years.” Amazing Grace on the zither!
Will the circle be unbroken? Yeah, I don’t think it ever was broken. Rather I came all the way around at Bob Everhart’s 40th country music festival. I went to LeMars. Where, Mars? No, Le Mars! That is a small town in Iowa. After a long time I went Country again (once a cowgirl, always a cowgirl), listening to famous tunes four days straight.
Bob calls his brand of event a “mouthful.” To be precise, we are talking about the “National Old Time, Country, Bluegrass, and Folk Music Festival and Pioneer Exposition of Arts, Crafts, Flea Market, And Agricultural Lifestyle & Rural Living Convention.” I am calling it Bob and Sheila’s (his wife) country music festival.
Now I don’t know if time was standing still, I skipped a few decades, or I was fast-forwarding to the Plymouth County Fairgrounds from my yesteryear Texas college days—I still recognized some faces of the old-time music hardliners. I’ll be darn, the music festival, as I had known it from Avoca (Iowa), although smaller, was still going strong.
Granted, a number of musicians had passed on. Yet, just like I vividly remembered, there was this array of RV campers and a village of show barns filled with musical entertainment. For seven days during Labor Day week, on ten stages, all day long, traditional country music would play itself out. You could get an endless earful of acoustic folk music, “exotic” instruments such as dulcimer, autoharp, or singing saw included. Some performers came from as far as New Zealand. READ ON BELOW JACOB AUSTIN BAND VIDEO
Bob Everhart, the organizer of this medley, is a great performer, recording artist, promoter, and encyclopedia of country music. He and his wife Sheila have earned a spot at the Smithsonian’s Traveling Museum. Bob chose his country music mission early on in life. He didn’t try too hard to become a star. Why? He put a value instead of a price tag on his favorite music. Bob didn’t sell out to the music industry, because those traditional tunes feel best when everyone sings and plays them together. So the Great Plains troubadour started many a friendly competition. Bob has always kept good-natured about the (tough) music business. His favorite key is “h” for humor. He likes to joke when things go wrong. And the show always goes on somehow.
Not only has Bob put on his festival (and many other gigs) for 40 years, he also founded the National Traditional Country Music Association and established a prairie “roots music” Pioneer Music Museum in Anita, Iowa, with America’s Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame and many music memorabilia in it. Call it “Planet Country Music.” Sheila plays music (bass) with Bob and helps him with the organizing and hosting the awards at the big, annual NTCMA festival. For the rest of the year, all three (add daughter Bobbie Leah to the mix) have planned a number of events at their Oak Tree Opry in their hometown Anita, Iowa.
How do I know Bob Everhart? Let’s go back to prehistoric 1979. My friend Leni (alias Maria Petersen) from Omaha took me along to his country music festival. She and I come from the same small village in Germany (Ascholding). Now as then, Leni was scheduled for a number of appearances with her zither (so far the one and only at this festival over the last 30 years). This time, I followed her around, taking pictures for her portfolio.
Oh, what a memory lane I got on! I had organized, as a teenager, some country music appearances for Bob and his travel companions around my German hometown. That was such a thrill and highly unusual at the time. Here’s another thing: On stage I had to translate the introductions of songs for Bob. He kept telling the listeners about the famous Carter family in country music. You know what I thought? Jimmy Carter, President. I was confused. Now, how did the presidents suddenly get into country music? So many Carters out there?
Finally, where is today’s “Home on the range?” At Bob Everhart’s country music festival, I’d say, “where never is heard a discouraging word.” People, this was a lot of fun for me. Be sure to tune in for more country music soon at this station. I’ll play you some.
First, in preschool or kindergarten (oh, so late!), you open an aggressive 529 college savings account. Then you go to school for 12 to 14 more years. In your junior year you start looking for a college by hearsay and websites. Or the colleges will send you heavyweight, ultra-glossy, four-color brochures (see right). So many schools are courting your attention and your parents’ money. It’s sweet to feel so popular!
That’s how you get to college
Next you start attending college presentations every week at school or in town. In your senior summer you go on college tours, like a Department of Education inspector, to compare services and curricula. Do they have Nobel laureates? Do they offer scholarships for out-of-state students? How’s the campus lifestyle? How does this college rank in engineering? By August you have memorized the stats from the online US News and World Report. That’s how you get to college
Then you retake SATs, ACTs, and special tests until your points are maxed. In between you practice essay writing and take SAT-Math coaching. Eventually, you get on College Board or other academic launch pads to view your future. One thing is for sure, each application costs about $100. (Colleges charge before you get one class.) That is how you get to college
By September you whip a spreadsheet together to control the mind-boggling deadlines and requirements for 15 open applications nationwide. Did we include the SATs, ACTs, ECCs, APs, Parchment transcripts, high school rank, essays, portfolios, recommendations, FAFSA, IDOC, resume, service hours, and certifications? Bummer, they wanted the math scores by February 1. Forget about it now. You work each deadline until midnight—the midnight in your state. Applying to the East Coast gives you a few more hours when you live in Arizona. That’s how you get to college
Then you don’t just sit around and wait for March 1. You pick up more service hours, push a charity project to fruition, study for AP classes, and cruise the social circuit. You want to make the most of your time with your old friends before you make the new. It will be a while (uncertain) until you see them again. That’s how you get to college
Now the results are in. You made it into two-thirds of schools on your list. The ball is in your court again. Perhaps you revisit one or two of your favorites. Too expensive. Too far away. Program not exactly as desired. Ah, but there is a reasonable scholarship and the curriculum looks good too. Daddy, pay the deposit now. Pay two or three, if I can’t decide by May 1st. That’s how you get to college
Your life has changed. Fine-tune your grades, send in your final transcripts and AP results, go to graduation, have a huge party with aunties from afar. If possible, do a trip around the world as well and have a delightful piano recital to top off your accomplishments. Delve into excitement, suspense, and nervous giggles. Many last time rituals to follow. And then start shopping for your dorm. Target, if you will, is mother’s best guess. That’s how you get to college
Then drive like a (sun) devil through the uncertain night into desolate towns and find comfort in El Fidel Fettucine Alfredo that you didn’t expect in such a hitching post that time of night. The antique hotel has Hippie pictures on the wall. Who would have guessed. A nice surprise. Then keep on driving for another long stretch along sunflower-fenced territorial highways to your mountain college. Keep a steady speed to make the move-in date on time, because next day will all be purple and orange, and they kept blue just for you. They shut down the town for buffalo stampedes. Take a police escort to your room, if you will. That’s how you get to college
Well, you forgot a bunch of things at home, and some necessities come as a surprise. Chit chat, your dorm neighbors fill you in quickly, and off we go to Target again. In the meantime engineering orientation starts, the convocation gathers up its freshmen, and the welcome wagon throws out chicken wings and concerts to the newbies. Wait a minute, what about the bursar, the class schedule, and some two dozen passwords for online services and practice units? You come away from the bookstore with another hole in your pocket.
That’s how you get to college. And then you study and repeat the last couple of sentences three more times until you’re done with it and move on to the next level. What can I say, this is only the beginning. Go get them Buffs!
So there is no global warming? Huh? Phoenix broke its all time record high this August. The airport thermometer registered 117 F (47 C). Even our conservative, local TV station believes it now. Global warming is here to stay.
But who is to blame? I have heard good people talk a lot of nonsense, such as, “global warming is an invention of the liberals,” or “yeah, the weather is usually getting warmer between two ice ages,” or “aren’t you always looking for a problem?” Meanwhile the permafrost is melting to release its mammoth ivory. We all (and our cars and consumption) are to blame.
Don’t look into the distance. Just cross your doorstep. We in Arizona are 43 Celsius hot on average in August. The poor gnome (above) from the Snow Bowl on Mt. Humphreys worries about the safety of his home. Something is burning in California all the time. Sunset Point on highway 17 closed its restrooms for the lack of water. Darn it!
Global warming is also staring me in the face in Germany. It’s heavy too. When I helped stack the yard-long logs at my old home, nobody denied it: tornadoes are not normal for Germany. They should stay with the Wicked Witch in Kansas or Oklahoma. No, I don’t wish a tornado on anyone. But twisters in Germany are hopefully not the new normal. The result of Bavarian tornadoes: Wood here, wood there, wood everywhere. My brother’s farm has become a fortress of wooden castle walls. He and his village neighbors don’t know what to do with that much fuel. It will last them perhaps ten years.
Those desperate showers of wood are the consequence of a spring 2015 tornado. It wasn’t convenient that the storm happened right before the hay harvest. It was rather tragic too. Several people, including a young mother of two, died in the tornado. One tree trapped her way, the next one fell on top of her car. That woman was innocent.
But, then, all of us is are innocent. Or are we? We drive cars too often. We use too much energy. Which Newton law is it?
Newton’s Law of the conservation of energy states that “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it simply changes from one form to another”
Energy is contained in fossil fuels, but once you release the heat (and exhaust) from the gasoline, it stays around. Energy can’t go away or escape into deep space. It just shifts into different forms. Some of these forms are noxious to life on the planet. The face of the earth has been changed through our exploitations and material consumption. Ditto, the exhaust and motion energy from a machine (car) are here to stay forever. As well as the coolness of the refrigerator, if you keep the door open too long. However it would be a paradoxical exercise to keep all the refrigerator doors open to cool off the global warming. We’d have to worry a few notches higher about the excess of freon eating up the ozone layer. Right, take your pick.
I felt the trees’ blood seep through the layers of my working gloves.
I picked up another stately piece of beech. It would have almost pulled me down. These one-yard split logs were heavy with their sap. They were as heavy as a “wet corpse,” the locals might have said. Too bad, these trees should have had much more time to grow. The tornado mowed them down.
This St. George is depicted in a very, very old house at the living history museum Glentleitn near Kochel am See.
I never knew that my friend Schorschi (Georg) Unterholzner was so much into saints. He usually writes Bavarian murder mysteries. In his latest publication, a pretty coffee table book “Faszinierendes Tölzer Land”, he came up with a story about a local St. George in the Bad Tölz Region. It may be a wayward myth that St. George was made into a dragon slayer, he argued. Because the name itself comes from the Greek organon, which means worker of the land. However, even land workers have turned their plough shares into swords. I believe that St. George became a warrior, because he had to defend his values. So let me have the joy to introduce to you St. George the Dragon Slayer. This fearless down-to-earth man is a saint for everyone, from Ireland to Asia Minor. Much more accessible than lofty St. Mike and hardly as nationalistic as Siegfried. Here is what I could gather about this soldierly landman and the dragons he might soon fight. Last time I checked on the dragons (above a London creature) they were still alive and well. When you travel England or Bavaria, you may spot some dragon tails. I have grown up with a dragon under one roof in my childhood home in Bavaria. It stuck its fierce head out from under the gables. This early image inspired me to write my adventure novel “Der Keltenschimmel” (The Celtic Stallion). I learned that the dragonhead was a charm against a fire catastrophe. A fire-spitter as protector. Makes all the sense in the world? Anyhow, dragons, St. George, and Celtic myths inspired my young protagonist, the hot-headed apprentice writer Katrina.
In Bavaria, dragons are lurking around every corner. The soldier’s memorial in my village is protected by St. George the Dragon Slayer and Patron of Soldiers. St. George is also the celebrity of the little village chapel (Schimmelkapelle), which is said to be built on a Celtic sacrificial site. Of course that chapel inspired all the imagination for my Keltenschimmel. It used to contain many dozens of pious votive paintings for a cure from illness or safe return from war. St. George (altar) is riding a white horse (Schimmel). Aside from the holy tangents, a ghost horse has been seen cantering around the little church and a witch livesnearby. DRAGON SLIDE SHOW
Let’s go to Munich’s Marienplatz with its neo-gothic city hall and Glockenspiel. St. Mary rules the heart of town there from her mighty column. Four little angel mercenaries at her feet fight off fierce mythological creatures. But one nifty reptile escaped the heavenly authorities. This sinister reptile is now crawling up the west corner of the Rathaus. It has always fascinated me.
Dragons rule London too! It seemed that St. George forgot to kill a few. In front of Westminster Cathedral, St. George dominates the scene, as he is also a part of the royal coat of arms at nearby Buckingham palace. But in other places dragons proudly fly about town. A dragon aggressively standing on its hind legs guards the bridge to the free City of London. Another flying reptile roams the air space around St. Paul’s.
The similarities between the British and Bavarian gothic do not end here. At the Liberty, I saw a Glockenspiel with St. George chasing after the dragon. No dragon at the Rathaus Glockenspiel in Munich, but a medieval court scene and joust. The dance of the coopers’ guild symbolizes the perseverance during times of the plague.
I have grown up with dragons nearby, such as the one under the roof of our 200-year-old Bavarian farmhouse. I was surprised that dragons were this popular in England too. The Queen’s Knights of the Garter and the Bavarian Knights of St. George share an important saint. And their dragons too.
Westminster Cathedral and St. George Column in memory of fallen soldiers
This is the last of my “one picture a day” series. I caught a fleeting image on the run. How telling it is: “Next is now. Choose happiness.”
When visiting New York, London, or Munich, you will take the tube at some point. This transportation mode is usually fast, frequent, and “facile”—unless you have a physical mobility impairment. Interchanges may require quite a bit of walking. Now, here is the scoop: in New York you swipe the metro card, in London you touch in and out with the “oyster”, and in Munich you fold and stamp a “Streifenkarte”. My opinion after the trip? The London Underground is the best. In Harry Potter-like manner you float upwards on endless escalators next to animated picture frames advertising the newest perfumes or plays. Although much crowded at times, especially at the three-level Waterloo station, the London Underground magically works. Friendly or not, there is always staff nearby who you can ask. In Munich you will be all on your own with mystifying U-Bahn zones and ticket deals. Not a conductor in sight, unless he wants to catch you with a mistake.
Day Eight: City of Dragons
London is the city of lions, dragons, and unicorns. At White Hall I saw a pair of chimeric creatures with a unicorn front half and a dragon’s tail guarding the gate. You can spot the dragon slayer, St. George, throughout the city in conspicuous locations: atop an impressive column in front of Westminster Abbey, embedded in the Royal coat of arms at Buckingham Palace, and in a “Glockenspiel” at the Liberty Inn near Carnaby Street. “Puff” Invictus, however, sans St. George, guards the ancient City of London atop London Bridge that hasn’t fallen down (so far).
When you go to London next time, watch out for fairy tale creatures. Gremlins, gargoyles, and phantoms are lurking behind every corner.
Day Seven: More Royal Sights
NOTE: On left, near muzzle, the pigeon fleeing the cannon (Tower of London).
The “Amazing Race” used to be my favorite reality show. Remember the “make it or break it” travel destination competitions? Visiting London in the summer feels just like it: hustle and bustle like you wouldn’t believe. Three last words about the 1-day London Pass: do your research and practice your fast-track itinerary beforehand; take the underground, not the sight-seeing buses to and fro; and compare the “family packages” (47 pounds at Windsor for a family of 5) against the London Pass. Anyhow, we performed quite well as tourists. We visited Windsor Castle, the Tower and Crown Jewels, Churchill’s War Room, the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and Westminster Abbey. We walked the Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Leicester Square, and Piccadilly Circus. Next Time? Definitely Stonehenge. There seem to be enough convenient day trips from central London.
Day Six: The Scoop about the 1-Day London Pass
The London Pass (ca. 50 Brit. pounds, all major attractions) is a good deal when you are smart about it. Do your map research and select costly, central-London highlights. By all means do the Tower of London, Churchill’s War Room, one of the Royal Palaces etc. Did you know that you can see Westminster Abbey for free at 5 p.m. Evening Song? DON’T try to cover Windsor Castle with the 1-day pass. You might run out of time while puttering along with the slow commuter train. Otherwise, the London Underground is clean and excellent. The London tube seems quieter than a church, whereas the New York subway might spring on you a preacher from hell. London is a great place to explore. I have been looking for dragons in every corner. Unexpectedly, we spotted some Royalty on Waterloo Day (June 18) in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
QUIZ ABOUT THE PICTURE: Both paintings are by El Greco from the National Gallery. During his time (1541-1614), he had truly “personal” style. There is a 20-year age difference between the paintings. Which is the older one?
Day Five: Not in Manhattan any more
One Picture a day continues in London: Flying was easy, arrival swell. Our Indian-descent taxi driver to Wimbledon showed us the lush commons with impressive oak trees and frolicking, tough-bred brewery horses. Cottages, taverns, quaint medieval churches—we had landed in a storybook scenery. And you know what? No problem with figuring out the Underground at all. The railway official behind the counter gave us a whole run-down of options and a fist-full of brochures. And the conductor demonstrated how to swipe the magic cards. The Underground was clean and swift and orderly.
We almost didn’t make it to JFK. Whatever pick up time your taxi company gives you, add at least 2 hours to be safe. Getting out of Manhattan can seem hopeless, when you are caught in a jam. No wonder that New Yorkers walk with so much determination. We were lucky not to know any of these constrictions as we were still strolling on Fifth Avenue. We took a ride up the Empire State Building and had the observation deck almost to ourselves because it was raining. The ushers and security staff seemed like the same ones I had seen decades ago on my first trip. The Empire State is a very traditional site and a masterpiece of human construction. Yet times were simpler then. The bid for construction cost fit simply on one page. My picture today is called SMILOPHILE. I don’t know what the rest of it says, since the skyscrapers were jumbled together so densely. Never mind, this image helped me see the light as I was fretting about catching an international flight. We are in London now.
Day Three
Now let’s back up a bit from what I said yesterday about the New Yorkers. I had given up asking them direction. But, voilá, as confused as we looked over the subway map (going in the wrong direction again?), some locals took pity on us and volunteered strategic information. Another thing I learned: New Yorkers walk with steadfast destiny through the daily masses. You can’t just flag them down. You need to catch someone’s eye. Try looking. Pin a glance on someone and then smile. Finally, we even engaged in playful banter with a hot dog vendor. We had a great time: Liberty Statue, Museum of Natural History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Top of the Rock, Intrepid Naval Air & Space Museum, Greenwich Village, MoMa, 911 Memorial, the Subway, Time Square, neighborhood delis, French bakeries, and many other places.
Day Two
You must be Intrepid when asking New Yorkers the way. Some will blankly stare through you as if they hadn’t noticed you are talking to them. Some will determinedly rush by you with a stone face, never mind you’re waving at them. Others will detour in a wide bow around you with fear you might want to hit them up for money. Some may pretend not to speak English or Spanish or German or Hindi. The nicest ones will say, “I don’t know,” shrug their shoulders or shake their head and scurry on. We asked, “Is this sub going uptown?” Yes, yes! That man sent us in the wrong direction altogether. One friendly New Yorker, however, saved our day. He walked us through the maze of Central Park to come out on Fifth Avenue next to his favorite knish place.
Day 1
This picture captured the world’s attention
Pictures, pictures everywhere. We take so many to never see them again. Having a selfie-stick helps to get more. You don’t need to ask a stranger to help you with the group pictures. Not us, we like hitting on fellow travelers.
I will give you one picture a day of our whereabouts. Unfortunately, none of our gazillion digital pictures are bound to be famous. Here is one image by Alfred Stieglitz that became a legend, “The Steerage,” from 1907. Compare that with the Liberty Island tourists above, voyagers have it quite a bit better today. Happy trails to all of you and them.
The same bald spot from last year came back to haunt my yard
Grass (no double meaning) does not come easy in the Southwest. It is hard to grow grass in Arizona. I don’t know how the golf courses do it. They are grooming the most perfect carpet grass. Only during a short fall intermission, they raze the green splendor to spread mulch for winter seeding.
Here I am with yet another bald spot in my greens. Water, fertilize, aerate, pray–it never seems to convince all the areas. Even Bermuda avoids some locations. I have never been able to figure it out.
I also have a “wild” grass, kinda rough, pokey slowly spreading in my small meadow. I wished it would take over the naked turf. But it’s not happening, or only very slowly.
In the meantime, I am sowing Bermuda in the spring and Bluegrass in the fall. That is what my fall mission looked like:
No, this is not a pet graveyard. It is actually an overseeding area.
I better had the area covered because pigeons and other birds like to stir up any morsels. Ooh, I staked the net precisely to the ground. Only that there was one little crack open. An intelligent pigeon found exactly that spot. Never mind perfection. I chased the pigeon out and fixed the last little hole.
So far so good. The bluegrass actually filled in quite nice, but it never makes it through the summer. And the Bermuda does not want go there either.
Perhaps the shadow patterns have something to do with it. Where there is no shadow, the Arizona sun burns holes into such outlandish vegetation as grass.
Things can change, right? After about ten years of trying all the wrong things, I might have won a decisive battle against Bermuda grass. This is what my backyard corner looks like now:
Finally, this desperate corner has been freed of the Bermuda curse
DO YOU SEE THE GRASS IN THE WOOD CHIPS? NO? GOOD! It’s gone for now. I asked my exterminator guy. He had the answer: Glyphosate. It worked.
THIS IS WHAT BERMUDA GRASS CAN DO:
Three years ago, I started removing the very original Bermuda jungle
IN AN EARLIER BLOG, I WROTE: This is my story of a vengeance against grass. No, I don’t mean “weed”. I am talking about the very original Bermuda grass.
That’s what left of the Bermuda in the last corner
When we bought our house ten years ago in northeast Mesa, the whole terrain was overgrown with Bermuda, including the 50 rose bushes. We had no irrigation then, because our predecessor watered the lawn by hand. Needless to say, we had better things to do than standing around in the sun all day.
Bucket full of roots
In Arizona it is not cool to have grass, at least not a lot of it, because it uses up too much water. Arizonans have Xeriscape, desert plants, rock gardens, and at most a little drip irrigation. The city even pays homeowners to abolish grass.
Anyhow, having been raised on a farm, I wanted to keep a little green. So we had irrigation put in, but I also decided to convert half of our yard into rock-scape. That’s how my nine-year nemesis with Bermuda grass began. It takes an old-fashioned Catholic to deal with Bermuda grass from hell. The battle is not over yet.
How had Bermuda come by its name? Its roots reach as deep as the Bermuda triangle, at least that was my theory. Bermuda hairline roots are about 12 inches long. The mean thing are its fat tubers that go haywire in the dirt. It also sprouts long offshoots on the surface that intermittently take root again.
Fat runaway Bermuda roots
All these bad attitudes make for a hellish combat. OK, so I took to the spade, shaking the good dirt from a bad ball of Bermuda. This labor was much easier after the ground had softened from the rain. Where the Bermuda was ingrown with tree roots, the fight became especially tedious. While irrigating the volatile spot, I stirred, grabbed, pulled, twisted, whisked, probed, felt the devious grass roots. Sometimes I had unearthed half of the tree’s rootball before giving up.
I bent shovels and broke forks. And, darn it, after an area was dug up, the remaining Bermuda roots thrived even better. It took several tilling repeats for an area to be cleared well enough so that it could be finished with gravel.
Herbizides did nothing to Bermuda. Although the grass visibly turned brown, the roots happily continued to thrive. For a while I used a Bermuda root killer, but it soon was removed from the market by environmental control. By then, fortunately, I had converted the whole south side into landscaping rock, used some three tons to cover it.
I kept digging and developed myself a Bermuda hunting sense. I can distinguish its roots and feel the best way in the dirt to completely extract it. Bermuda gets bunched up at landscaping borders. So I dig especially deep there. I make absolutely sure that the borders of our lawn are trimmed down to the dirt so that no shoot crosses the line.
Regardless, some of the Bermuda always gets away. Twice a year I have to dig up certain spots in the rose beds. That’s OK.
More roots
There is one corner in our yard, however, that I haven’t been able to tame in nine years. We had a Chinese elm tree there, which went rampant too. Although we removed that tree long ago, we are still fighting its roots. Now imagine crazy tree roots mixing with the Bermuda—an unconquerable situation.
I have dug up the last Bermuda triangle perhaps three times this year. Left it alone too long over the summer, it all went haywire. Even my yard helpers toiled to no avail. At the moment this corner looks like clean dirt. Woe to the Bermuda if it sticks its ugly head out again!
A Most Wonderful and Healthy “Orange” Celebration!
Orange is a really good color. At first I didn’t like it because it seemed too shiny and “unreal,” almost artificial. Of course, then the Longhorns’ burnt orange of my UT Austin, Texas, Alma mater made me biased. Recently, I have come to see the influence of orange on many TV ads as well as in print. Orange is a strong color, it stands out. By now you can tell that I also like oranges (our little clementines just ready for harvest), pumpkins, carrots, butternut squash, mangoes etc. Orange is healthy.
OK, you hear, do the squash and pumpkins for Thanksgiving! When else would you cook them? Take your time. Do the work. Wait until it is baked. Set the table nice. Enjoy!
Thanksgiving is not a “fast food” feast. I like Thanksgiving because it is an intercultural celebration, not a political holiday, you don’t have to go to church, and its all about the food. Who does not love to eat! Thanksgiving is perhaps the only day in the year when all of America truly cooks. If you went shopping today, you saw the crazy carnival at the grocery store. As if the world ended tomorrow!
We complain about the labors of cooking the meal, but we should cook like this more often. Why? America does not appreciate food enough. That’s why a large segment of the population suffers from obesity. Am I making sense? We often stuff our mouths without gratitude or MINDFULNESS (I don’t want to go into the psychology). Thanksgiving makes all of us more “down-to-earth” about nutrition and family collaborations. If you have tried to process butternut squash, you know what I mean. Or have you made Chinese dumplings or ravioli together? We should cook like the Amish more often. It seems they do have Thanksgiving every day.
OK, maybe it will be enough if we reduce our fast food impulses.
I cracked the butternut! As I have told you earlier, I am a slow learner. But hope is not totally lost, it seems. Remember, when I complained over the preparation of the tough-to-peel butternut squash? I thought it would be easiest to buy those cubes at the grocery store before ending up in the hospital for cutting off a finger.
Bing! A bulb recently went off at the kitchen tools section. I found the most wonderful, handy tool for the job. Butternut, no problem!
The Best Turkey Left-Over Recipe
This spicy and savory recipe is perhaps the only one that I could remember from a television show. I would call it “Mexican Turkey Shuffle”
You will need:
turkey leftovers, cut into small strips
1 Tbs. olive oil
1-2 jalapeños, diced
1 onion, diced
1-2 shots tequila
1 cup of heavy sweet cream
10 sprigs cilantro, diced
salt & pepper to taste
optional: cranberries, mushrooms, peas & corn
Heat the olive oil in a large pan, sizzle onions and jalapeños for about 5 minutes, then add the turkey pieces. Keep stirring until turkey gets a little crusty and onions light brown. Glaze that off with the tequila and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the sweet cream, cilantro, salt & pepper, and heat all the way through. Serve this stir fry over basmati rice. Bon appetite!
German romanticist writers had grand words when describing the multitude of colors and sentiments during autumn season. They might have gone for a leisure stroll in the forested hills behind their house and discovered “Cathedrals of Light” up in the autumn leaves. Indeed, when you look up from way below, as small as you are, into the multi-colored canopy above, you might think you are glancing into a kaleidoscope of stained glass bits.
Bunt sind schon die Wälder, gelb die Stoppelfelder und der Herbst beginnt. Rote Blätter fallen, graue Nebel wallen, kühler weht der Wind.
Colored are the forests, yellow are the stubble fields, and the fall begins. Red leaves are falling, gray fogs are wafting, cooler blows the wind.
Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis
I picked the right time to experience the painted forest this year. October in Germany was one of the mildest and prettiest ever recorded. Indian summer is called “old wife’s summer” in Germany, and it really stretched far into what could be the muddy-moody that I am so familiar with. The muddy-moody can be alleviated with reading, sipping herb tea and eating the famous Lebkuchen.
Luckily, I had no muddy-moody experience. To the contrary, the skies were brilliant most of the days. I sat in a café in the remote Jachenau mountain village, drinking excellent coffee and enjoying homemade rhubarb cake with streusel. People—quite a few bikers—were basking in the sun around the Walchensee. The warming rays of the sun felt curative.
No matter where I walked, up the back slope of the Blomberg from the Waldherrn Alm, around the rural neighborhood around the Loisach or a brisk round trip through the hills, meadows, and forests of my home village, I saw decorative foliage everywhere. Many times the “Föhn” cleared the air in front of the impressive formation of the Alps so that the Zugspitze seemed to have moved closer to my village. Idyllic. The cows were still out this late in the year, and the grass was greener than ever. The regular clanking from the bells on the grazing animals lent this picture an almost Buddhist serenity. Would I soon encounter prayer flags in the trees at the top?
Of course not. Yet this part of Bavaria is full of roadside shrines or crosses for the victims of the road. Somehow many paths led me to interesting cemeteries. All gravesites were beautifully decorated, like little flower gardens. And some of the resting places had fabulous views of the mountain ranges in the distance. The vistas were nature’s creation for the relatives to enjoy in front of the departed. A comforting concept.
The splendor of colors was remarkable. I had not experienced the fall season in Germany for a long time. Many years of absence had made the leaves appear more colorful, the air more clear and the harvest moon more intense. One night I saw the blood moon, quite orange, dominating the evening sky, reminding me of the painter Caspar David Friedrich. Another night, the Milky Way sparkled as crisp as a polished Mercedes star down on me. What a “Herbst-Traum” this Germany can be.
“Kirta-Rutsche” in Hofberger’s carpentry workshop
A favorite tradition in Bavaria is the “Kirta-Rutsche.” This traditional swing, a suspended heavy board in the barn, is a hoot with the youngsters. For the Kirchweih (Patron’s Day), a special type of fry noodles are baked. During this harvest celebration, the mood is very happy.
On a whole different note, I was surprisingly “arrested” by TV actor policemen from a popular Krimi series, Hubert (Christian Tramitz) und Staller (Helmfried Von Lüttichau). Quite a unique experience.
I am a really slow learner at times. It’s like, “yeah, the ketchup is standing on its head. Why didn’t they think of this sooner?” Now here comes another great revelation: I am making my own salad box. Duh! Stores had figured this out much sooner. But do you know what’s in store? No. When you make your own salad box, you are living much safer.
One salad a day keeps the doctor away. And if you want to lose a little weight, take my advice: Substitute water for all drinks, eat one batch of salad a day—and keep your other meals reasonable. You will see. The weight will drop, not fast but permanently.
There is only one salad on my mind, the original one. “Thou shalt not have other salads besides me.” I am talking about the green stuff, not the chicken salad, not the tuna salad, not even the potato salad. My salad spells green, such as in “L E T T U C E all have salad.” Like I said, have one every day. The green stuff is so easy and tasty. Make it an essential part of your dinner. Or the main course?
Salad, It’s all About What’s In It
Salad, why bother? Not a salad fan? Too messy to mess with? I thought so, too, for a long time in my adult life. Then I developed a taste for the green crunch, and now I don’t want to miss it any more. My salad never gets left over at dinner or at a party. My kids will sometimes fight about it. And salads are so easy. Especially when you have your box ready.
Prep your lettuce and other ingredients right after shopping and store them in a tightly closing plastic treasure box in the fridge. I found that, with a tight-fitting lid, the moisture will keep my greens fresh and crunchy for about a week. So I am always prepared. I just grab a few leaves, tear them up bite size, and put the dressing on. Salad must be torn, not cut, because cuts cause brown edges. Now it is just as easy to have a colorful burger or sandwich. Youu know what, my salad box has become such a strong habit, I don’t even need to think about it any more.
The Main Ingredients: Greens
There are so many kinds of greens. With plain green leaf lettuce I get the most for my money and taste. Red leaf lettuce, Boston lettuce, romaine, homegrown greens, take your pick. Iceberg is the crunchiest and lasts the longest time, but it has the least taste. You find it a lot in salad bars. Spinach (with nuts, almonds, goat cheese) is very tasty in a salad. Bok choy and Belgian endive deliver a crunchy, cabbagy note. Some greens come in other colors, such as the radicchio in red. Radicchio has a slightly bitter taste, which can be an enchanting tributary to the main flow of flavors. It seems to harmonize very well with mandarin oranges and walnuts. And then there are greens that have a highly decorative value, but which I don’t favor in my fine salad, such as kale perhaps.
Your Handy-Dandy Salad Box
A rectangular plastic container with a tight-fitting lid has become a permanent installation in my refrigerator. Pick a size that fits the layout of your fridge and keep it in a handy location. When you wash the greens in your sink—I like to wash them under running water over a colander in two go-rounds—tear off the wilted or damaged leaves and sections. Remove, twist off, the core of the lettuce head. This way the leaves come apart. Place the washed leaves in a semi-orderly fashion in the box so that you have room for a few other ingredients.
I love little red radishes. They provide a tasty crunch and seem to help digestion quite well. Tear off the radish greens and wash radishes well under running water. If you still have room in the box, wash a couple of tomatoes, a cucumber, and a bundle of green onions. Do not peel the cucumber yet and do not cut the tomato. Add a bunch of cilantro (if you like).
So when it’s dinner time, cut and tear a few things from the salad box, spruce it up with crunchies, and add the dressing.
NOTE: Vinegar and oil can make or break your salad experience. Use a good, cold-pressed olive oil and, by all means, balsamic vinegar.
The Basic Salad (4 persons)
1 head/bowl of lettuce, torn
4-6 radishes, sliced
1-2 tomatoes, diced
1/2 cucumber, peeled and chopped
3-4 green onions, chopped
5 stalks of cilantro
1 tsp. salt (or less)
3(4) tablespoons of olive oil
3(4) tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (Ortalli)
nuts (pecan, walnut, almond)
craisins
a half apple cut in thin slices
Wash and cut ingredients, put them all in a bowl, and toss them lightly with your dressing. Ready to eat!
Jazz up your salad. Here is my favorite combo:
1 ripe avocado
1 small can of mandarin oranges
1 handful craisins
1 handful pecans
1 can of artichoke hearts
small green Spanish olives
There are so many other salad boosters. The main idea about the salad experience is the exploration. It is amazing what surprising taste experiences you will have. So good that your kids will beg for more.
Here is your homework: Write an essay about “What All Can You Put in a Salad?”
ANSWER: Pretty much everything. So what’s in your salad?
Lately I have been fascinated with sharks. Who wouldn’t be? I remember recently playing “shark” with a four-year-old boy, clapping my hands flat together as if jaws were gaping widely open to take a huge bite out of each other. I wasn’t very good at the shark game. So Samuel won every time, ate me alive. He had shark books, shark movies, and shark pajamas. How about shark bait and cage? Those were on his list too.
Sharks make our imagination go wild. We attribute them with a devilish insidious intention to shred every catch to pieces. Aren’t sharks bloodthirsty and intriguing, as depicted in the Spielberg movie Jaws? Aren’t they killing machines? How else can it be, since their razor sharp rows of teeth can regrow within 24 hours. Anyhow, that’s what I read. According to a pioneering Austrian ocean explorer, Hans Hass, whose books I devoured in my teenage years, sharks like to follow their acute sense of taste for blood in water and the sonic wrestling of a fish in distress. Often sharks like to hang out around fishing boats, similar to seagulls, in hopes to catch a bite. Or sometimes they may just be curious about what’s floating in their territory.
I read in a book titled In unberührte Tiefen that the diver (Hans Hass) was able to shoo away sharks by screaming under water or gesticulating wildly. However, that trick did not work any more where sharks had become “hard of hearing” because of dynamite fishing practices. Nowadays, shark tourism may be almost as common as swimming with the dolphins. Yeah, better go down in an iron cage, because fifty years later these sharks must be really deaf—and careless of (or annoyed with) gawking tourists.
For movies, sharks are always good. They are strong characters, and we think we have figured them out. Moby Dick wasn’t a shark but at least as sinister and cunning. But I keep thinking, wasn’t it Captain Ahab’s obsession that killed him rather than the whale? Of course Disney’s Nemo also featured sharks, by the names of Bruce, Anchor, and Chum. Now, the interesting part was that these sharks were trying to be good by becoming vegetarians. Yet they still could not resist the flavor of blood. Move on to Dreamwork’s Shark Tale. A little fish is mistakenly celebrated as a shark killer and draws the head honcho shark’s revenge on him. Yet in the course of events, a few sharks get reformed. One wayward shark did not like meat anyway. So, the truth remains, only a dead shark is a good shark?
Sharks were the topic in a recent PBS documentary. More and more sharks show up on the Australian coast and put swimmers at jeopardy. Why? Maybe this shark behavior is due to climate change, maybe the sharks were looking for new hunting grounds because they had run out of food (overfishing) in the deep ocean. The conclusion of the documentary was, sharks may be an endangered species. Those ferocious rulers of the ocean have to fear us humans more than we should fear them.
Why do we fear sharks? It’s basic instinct. Sharks can eat us. So before that happens, we try to eat all of them, just in case, if only for shark fin soup. I don’t know what this soup tastes like, but it seems like such a waste to just use only the fins (and why?), and not put the rest of shark protein at least into dog food or fertilizer. Sharks, the buffaloes of the ocean? The sad truth is: In a year sharks eat about ten humans, BUT we humans destroy some 70 millions (maybe 100 million) of these scavengers of the sea in just 365 days. 10 (ten) versus 70 million. What kind of uneven combat is that?
Still, I don’t want any human to fall prey to a hungry shark. When it comes to being eaten, I would rather choose being gulped up by a tiger, not a muscular projectile from the deep with triple rows of meat grinder teeth. What do you think? Because tigers are more like us. These furry mammals breathe the same air as we do. And aren’t kittens cute? Not so little sharks. Tiger or shark, I don’t want to be eaten by either one. Luckily, my chances for such an encounter are slim, unless I fall into a tiger cage or a really big aquarium. But I don’t go to the zoo so often any more. People who have been injured and mutilated by sharks carry that trauma as nightmares forward for the rest of their lives. Close your eyes, imagine you are swimming in the ocean, a torpedo takes aim at your silhouette from the depths below towards the middle of your gut. Keep on paddling. Easy catch.
Sharks have almost surround vision, a real wide-angle horizon view, especially towards what floats above them. Duh, they are really good swimmers too. Now imagine you are professional surfer Bethany Hamilton. She survived such a shark attack in Hawaii. The shark devoured her arm and half of her surfboard. Miraculously she survived the life-threatening injury and took up surf-boarding again. She wrote a book called Soul Surfer about her experience. Later, a movie was made. I heard it is quite heart and gut wrenching. Good for the girl, she got on the surfboard again. Would she want to see 10 million sharks dead in exchange for her gruesome experience? The “real criminal” man-eater shark that attacked her apparently was caught the next day.
Now back to beginning. Why Sharks Attack was the title of a NOVA PBS documentary I watched in May. Naturally, the NOVA programs are always well done and informative. However, I had two especially defining moments. One was the fact that Peter Benchley’s (the author of Jaws) widow had become a driving activist for shark preservation. She seemed to resent and atone for the vilification of the ocean “tigers” in her husband’s famous thriller. Sharks are important for the natural balance in the oceans. The other moment was the shock of numbers. Somewhere between 70 million and 100 million sharks are killed every year. I can’t even imagine that this many sharks are out there. Despite a lot of shark tourism lately, I heard somewhere that sharks don’t make such good pets. So I would say, we leave most of them where they are and don’t swim too close to them. Or do we want to accomplish another extinction along such greats as the buffalo? Hasta la vista, Baby!
Pasta rule the world. As the story goes, Marco Polo “discovered” the frilly, shapely, or stringy noodles in China and brought them to Europe in the 15th century. This is still a good story, yet the idea of making dough-to-boil from durum semolina seemed to have existed in Italy since the 13th century. Regardless, Chinese or Italian, pasta rule my cooking world too.
Fettucine by Edda
Everybody cooks pasta once in a while. But very few people make their own. Count me into that group. I just don’t have the time to hang fettucine up to dry like my friend Edda (picture on right). A store-bought packet of Barilla (insert your favorite brand here) would do it for me. Good for you, if you grow your own tomatoes to cook a fresh sauce. I don’t have the luxury to be so purist yummy. But if you, like me, get real happy with quick-and-easy recipes, here are three of my main staples from the pasta season.
Pasta Bolognese (1 lb meat, 1 lb pasta) for 6 Persons
Fry in a saucepot on medium heat in 2 Tbs. olive oil:
½ large (or 1 medium) onion, diced, for 7 minutes to glaze; then add
1 jalapeño pepper, diced, cook together a bit more; add and brown
1 pound of lean chuck (turkey, chicken, pork, beef, or 2 cans of tuna), while stirring regularly; add
Bolognese
2 cloves of minced garlic
2 tsp. salt (or to liking)
½ tsp. oregano (go easy, rather less)
1 tsp. basil
After meat-spice mix is browned (ca. 15 min) add
1 jar of marinara pasta sauce (24 oz./680 g)
1 can tomato sauce (15 oz./426 g)
cup of frozen veggies (optional)
and let this slowly bubble for 15 min, stir frequently. In the meantime set a large pot of water to boil for the pasta. Follow package directions for cooking pasta.
Finishing up the sauce in 5 minutes:
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. fresh grated pepper
2 Tbs. capers (or chopped olives)
1 swig of fresh sweet cream (optional)
½ cup of red wine (optional)
Here come the flavor makers:
Chop up EITHER fresh parsley OR cilantro OR rosemary to add to your sauce and simmer for 5 minutes. Parsley will give you a rather northern European flavor, cilantro a Mexican/Oriental reminiscence, and rosemary the totally Italian/Mediterranean experience.
Serve the steaming sauce over the hot pasta (spaghetti, fettucine, fusilli, penne etc.) and sprinkle Romano or Parmesan cheese on it. Bon appetite!
WAIT: We are not done. You made enough sauce for 2 meals. Fill half of the sauce into an airtight plastic container and freeze that portion for later use. Because next week we will be making . . .
Hit-the-Spot Lasagna for a Party of Eight
Lasagna must not be complicated at all. The great advantage: it is baking independently while you are free to entertain your guests with appetizers and stories. I adapted a recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook for non-boil pasta. At first I had trouble with the pasta getting cooked all the way through. But I have learned a little trick. Preparation time 20 min; baking time 1 hour.
Here is what you do:
Grease a 9 x 12 inch glass/ceramic casserole with olive oil; pour ½ of a 15 oz. can tomato sauce in the form and distribute evenly across the bottom. Heat up the oven to 350F.
Ingredients:
1 pound of your homemade Bolognese sauce
1 can of tomato sauce (15 oz.)
1 packet of no-boil pasta for lasagna
1 container ricotta cheese (15 oz./425 g) mixed with
1 egg (& chopped fresh parsley or cilantro, optional)
3 cups of shredded cheese (mozzarella, Colby, cheddar etc.)
LAYERING: Put a layer of non-boil pasta over the tomato sauce at the bottom of casserole. Spread a layer of the ricotta/egg mixture (ca. half of amount) over the pasta. Then cover the ricotta with half of the Bolognese sauce, top it off with a layer of cheese.
REPEAT: lasagna sheets, ricotta mix, Bolognese sauce, shredded cheese
TOP OFF: Finish with a layer of pasta sheets, “paint” that with the remaining ½ can of tomato sauce, sprinkle cheese over it. Finally, carefully pour a cup of water around the edges of casserole to raise liquid to about half height. Casserole should be evenly filled close to the brim.
BAKING: Bake the lasagna covered with aluminum foil for 30 min, remove foil and bake for another 30 min. Take it out and let it rest for 15 min. Serve with a fresh mixed salad.
Bon appetite!
Carbonara Noodles for Any Day
Spaghetti Carbonara, a toss up of pasta with egg/cream mixture, apparently happens when you mix scalding hot pasta with the raw egg, which in itself “cooks” the eggs done. But I have never been so fancy. I will start with any kind of boiled noodles and roast them straight out in a skillet. (I have pasta left over from the Bolognese 2 days ago.)
What you need:
¼ stick of butter
½ onion, finely chopped
cooked pasta noodles, enough for a large skillet (ca. 4-5 cups)
2–3 eggs, whisked with
½ cup of sweet cream
1 cup of frozen veggie mix (optional)
1 cup of shredded cheese
2 stalks green onions, chopped
5 sprigs cilantro (optional)
salt & pepper to liking
Sautee the chopped onion in a large skillet until glazed, add the pasta and (optional) frozen vegetables to be heated through, pour the egg mix on, continue to shuffle, add herbs, cheese, salt & pepper, keep shuffling until egg is set. Serve immediately with a nice mixed salad.
It’s Feasting Time again, and don’t we all love pie! Now this lazy cook/baker won’t be telling you anything new about pecan pie and pumpkin pie, only this: You can whip them out in no time from the package recipe and bake them in tandem.
Step 3: Put the pies on a baking sheet and bake them at 400 F for 15 minutes. Then lower the heat and bake the pies for another 45-60 minutes.
