Autumn, Harvest Time & Comfort Food

by Donna Jean

Maureen's Blog on Saturday got me to thinking of all the wonderful recipes that I know each and every one of us have hidden either in the back of our minds, or in our recipe books, binders, small 5X8 plastic recipe card holders, or stuffed like mine are, cut out from newspapers, magazines etc, into zip lock bags!

I think that it would be fun for each of us to contribute a favorite Fall/Winter recipe. It could be one of our own very "secret" recipes, or maybe Mother's, Grandmother's, Aunt's/ Uncle's ( trying to be politically correct) or even one that we found in Family Circle or Good Housekeeping!

I love to cook. During Summer I don't have the time, or I am too tired, hot, or just don't feel like cooking, but Fall and Winter is different. My kitchen is in constant use, from soups and stews simmering on the stove, to casseroles and roasts in the oven.

So, I will share one of my favorite Fall/Winter Recipes, and hope you all will try it and enjoy, and will share your favorite for all of us Owls to try!

This recipe is for my very favortite GingerSnap Cookies. Actually my daughters renamed them as "GingerBends", because we like them chewy instead of crunchy!

GINGER BEND COOKIES

3/4 cup shortening*
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 large egg
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon**
1/2 tsp ground cloves**
1/2 tsp ground ginger**
1/2 cup sugar for dusting

1. In medium bowl, mix together melted shortening, 1 cup sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in molasses. Set aside. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Blend into the molasses mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour (overnight works too)

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough into walnut size balls, and then roll them in remaining sugar. (I shake them carefully in a clean brown lunch bag) Place them on ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. ( I also like to use parchment paper on the cookie sheets, easy cleanup and they slide right off)

3. Bake for 8-10 minutes until tops are cracked. Cool on wire racks. Make sure you don't over-bake or they become too crunchy.
ENJOY WITH ICE COLD MILK!!!!!!!

* I use the Crisco that comes in pre-measured cubes. Much easier for measuring.
* * I always adjust the spices. I like lots more cinnamon and ginger. Just see what you prefer!


OK, I started with Dessert, but like the saying goes " Life is short, eat Dessert first"!

I am anxious to see and try all the different and delicious recipes and concoctions that I know you are all secretly cooking and not revealing to us!

As one of my favorite Cooks (Julia Child) always said, "Add more butter", and her most famous, " Bon App'etite"

*********************************
This is Donna Jean's first blog
and she did a terrific job
Congrats Donna Jean
and enjoy your blog day!

What’s That Smell???

by Scirish

I have always had an overdeveloped sense of smell. Sometimes that can be a good thing, other times, not so much. It is amazing how certain smells can trigger a memory. For instance, the smell of hot tar reminds me of riding my bike in the summer as a child. The smell of burning leaves triggers memories of Halloween.

Some interesting facts courtesy of “The Smell Report” (seriously, that’s what it was called): “Our smelling function is carried out by two small odor-detecting patches – made up of about five or six million yellowish cells – high up in the nasal passages.

For comparison, a rabbit has 100 million of these olfactory receptors, and a dog 220 million. Humans are nonetheless capable of detecting certain substances in dilutions of less than one part in several billion parts of air. We may not be able to match the olfactory feats of bloodhounds, but we can, for example, ‘track’ a trail of invisible human footprints across clean blotting paper.

The human nose is in fact the main organ of taste as well as smell. The so-called taste-buds on our tongues can only distinguish four qualities – sweet, sour, bitter and salt -all other ‘tastes’ are detected by the olfactory receptors high up in our nasal passages.”

I had heard before that smell was a big part of taste, so I conducted a not so scientific experiment. I put on a pair of those flesh colored nose pincher plugs that one of the kids had used for the pool (did I mention that they pinch?) and cooked dinner. I made one of my favorites: Pot Roast. Usually, when I cook Pot Roast, I am absolutely starved by the time it is done. I have been anticipating all day. Well, I kept the nose plugs on throughout the cooking and also when I ate, the Pot Roast still melted in my mouth, but I couldn’t TASTE it! I took them off and voila, yummy! I think that I shall use the pinchers as a diet aid!

I think that for my next trick, I will try tracking human footprints. If you see “Woman poses as a Bloodhound” in the headlines, that will be me.

So, Owls, how is your sense of smell? Do you have any fond “smell” memories? What about smells that you strongly dislike? (Hate is such a bad word, but Liver would be an example for me.) Feel free to talk amongst yourselves; I have some tracking to do.

How I Got Young Again

by Bon'O

Many of us know Mitch Albom as the best-selling author of Tuesdays With Morrie and For One More Day.
This is an article from last Sunday's PARADE MAGAZINE and the video link showing how he fulfilled his 50th birthday dream of recreating just one day with old childhood chums. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And, I ask YOU...if you could recreate just that ONE DAY where would it happen and what would you do?

How I Got Young Again
By Mitch Albom
Published: September 14, 2008 See the Lucky Tiger Grease Stick Band in action. Watch the video!



We were never very good, and it never really mattered. Eight high school guys in a band. Guitar, piano, sax, bass, and drums. Three of us didn't even play an instrument, just stood around singing, "Shoo-bop, shoo-bop." We went by nicknames--"Rico," "Greaso," "Ace"--and we played dances, sock hops, even a local TV show once, singing songs older than we were, wearing hairstyles that were before our time. We practiced in my parents' �basement, and we named ourselves after the stuff kids rolled into their 1950s crew cuts.

The Lucky Tiger Grease Stick Band.

Some say adolescence is a time for angst, but eight buddies in a band will help you fight that. My teenage years were spent greasing up, tuning up, and cracking up. All I really remember from high school is laughter.

Maybe that's why, decades later, when I was approaching my 50th birthday and my wife insisted that I do "something special," I felt a rush of ennui. I've always been a reluctant grown-up. I have no interest in suit-and-tie affairs, a few raised wine glasses, everyone so...mature.

"Well, what do you want?" she said.

The truth? I wanted my old basement back.

And so began the best birthday I ever had. It started with seven phone calls and seven anxious responses. "You're kidding?" "Heck, yes." "Count me in." It continued with a visit to my old neighborhood in South Jersey and a request to the McCutcheon family, who now live in my old house.

"Would you mind," our drummer Marc "Rosey" Rosenthal asked, "if we borrowed your basement for a day? Oh...and could we clear out your furniture?"

Incredibly, they said, "OK."

Old song lists were dug out. Instruments were brought in. And finally, on a beautiful Saturday in May, one car after another pulled up to a familiar house. Out stepped Howard, Victor, David, Marc, Sandy, Mark, Perry, and me.

For the first time in 34 years, we were all together.

"Look at you!" "Ayyy!" "Man, you got old!" Although some of us were now physicians or businessmen, we were back to teenaged insults the moment we laid eyes on each other. We rumbled down the steps to the low-ceilinged basement of my youth. We ran the familiar grease through our hair, donned sunglasses, rolled up our sleeves. We plugged in and tuned up.

We were never very good, and we weren't good now. We had less hair. Wider stomachs. Occasionally, we had to pull out glasses to read the lyrics. And it was pretty obvious that "Action Jackson," our guitar player, was not going to do the flying full-leg split he used to do on "Splish Splash." He's a doctor now. He knows better.

But if you love music--and we loved that music--it is always inside you. So, when my piano started plinking and Rosey's drums began banging and Sandy "The Kid" began plucking his bass, I can't explain it, it all came back. At our ages, we can't remember where we left our car keys, but we can still remember who sang what on "Silhouettes." We played only for ourselves and a few family members. A private basement concert. And we laughed until our ribs threatened to snap.

Now, our band's best memories were never of excellence (we didn't have much) but rather of screw-ups and shenanigans. Like the day we played on a beach and got attacked by bumblebees. Or the night when we pulled off a highway ramp and ran across the top of Big D's car. Or the gig where we sang "Sixteen Candles" and, when we got to the part about "Blow out the candles," one of us hit a light switch to darken the room--and all the power went out.

At best, such stories are cute to others. But they are priceless to us. So we told them again, for the thousandth time. And we cracked ourselves up. We sang "Teenager in Love," "Jailhouse Rock," "Great Balls of Fire." We did nearly 30 songs, many from memory. And when we finished, we didn't wash the grease from our hair. Instead, looking like Sha Na Na's retirement party, we piled into our cars and drove to the local diner where we used to stuff into booths late at night and punch songs on the jukebox. We ordered cheese�steaks and fries (the salmon and grilled veggies of adult life were put on hold), and the laughs went on for hours.

Stephen King once wrote, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12." That pretty much sums up my Lucky Tiger Grease Stick pals. It was nearly midnight before anyone heaved a sigh or looked at his watch.

It was the best birthday of my life. And the kicker is, the whole thing made me feel younger, not older. After all, every good memory is a notch on your life belt, and every happy song you sang is still somewhere inside you, if only in the "twiddle-lee-dee" backups on "Rockin' Robin."

I love my band mates. I missed them all those years. And I came to realize something as we hugged goodbye in the parking lot and promised another reunion.

We were never very good, but we were always good for each other.

And we always will be.

Autumn

by Maureen

Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the crisp air, the low humidity, curling up in my blankies and the paint palette of colors. I know it leads to winter, but I still just love autumn.

I remember hayrides and apple picking. And playing in the leaves. And getting excited to pick my Halloween costume. And sitting around a fire pit...making s’mores and sipping hot apple cider. And clam bakes. And driving around looking at the beautiful colors god paints the leaves. And sweaters. And corduroy pants. Leotards under my skirts. Falling back. School football games and drinking hot chocolate in the stands. Capped off by Thanksgiving...pigging out with tons of family around. I am excited for the fall...are you?

What is your favorite part of autumn? Please share your memories or how you will spend this autumn.

Today....

It has been hard for me to write blogs lately, the words are so damn stuck, and I can't get them to flow. I know it has to do with American's crippled economy, Tinka's Mom, the Presidential Election etc. So whatever I write just does not seem fitting. If I want to post a humorous blog, or a funny video I feel I am being disrespectful to those who's lives have been turned upside down. My mood has been deary of sorts as well, my business has been slow, phones are not ringing, people are just not thinking of vacations, and rightfully so. I know I am in for a struggle these next couple of months.

I have gotten a couple of e-mails from bloggers, telling me of their turmoil and why they have not been on the blog, as how can one be lifted up, when such unrest is all around us. As much as a blogger wants to send me a blog, the words are just not there, the bitterness is, which will turn into hateful words, so a blog for them cannot be.

We are also very divided on our presidential choices, and I think some refrain from posting comments about their thoughts on each candidate, not to upset the apple cart of sorts. If you are very vocal, as I am, its very hard not to write what you feel in a comment, so instead, some choose not to comment. It is understood, I get it.

I guess we just have to be there for each other, we have to wait and see what happens daily, take it one day at a time. I think that is the best we can do for now.

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Six Degrees of Separation

by Just_Lin

Today I did what I do on many days; I had lunch at Kerri's Coffee Shop. I'm considered to be a regular there, as are many other people. I was sitting in a booth, as I usually do, and was reading my book and eating my meal when I happened to look up just in time to see Dante enter the restaurant. Dante Santora is as cute as a button and is in his early 90s. He greeted me in his usual cheerful, outgoing manner and, after a few pleasantries, he took a seat at the counter next to another "regular", Bill.

Instead of returning to my book, my thoughts wandered to Dante. It always lifts my spirits to see Dante. There's always a big smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. He's always neatly dressed in a plaid cotton sport shirt and pullover v-neck sweater and, of course, the requisite baseball cap. If it's really cool, he'll be wearing his San Francisco Giants jacket.

Dante seems to have an endless number of entertaining tales to tell about the early days of baseball in San Francisco. See, Dante grew up in the Italian neighborhood of the City known as North Beach. He spent many boyhood hours playing ball in the streets and in local parks with the DiMaggio brothers, Joe and Dom, as well as many other old-time ballplayers, most of which are now long gone.

Before there ever was a team called the San Francisco Giants, there was the San Francisco Seals. Joe DiMaggio started his professional career playing ball with the Seals and Dante was a scout for the club. Oh, the stories that Dante tells of the old days. Back then, they played for the love of the game. There were no big salaries. Players had to hold regular jobs in the off season in order to make a living.

I think all of us know that Joe DiMaggio was married to Norma Jean Baker (Marilyn Monroe) for a short time. Dante once showed me a photo copy he has of Norma Jean DiMaggio's U.S. Army Commissary I.D. card. That's what I was thinking about today as I sat in Kerri's Coffee Shop. That, and the fact that Marilyn Monroe later had relationships with Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy.

That's when it dawned on me! There are only three degrees of separation between me and Bobby and John Kennedy!

What about you? Is there a connection between you and someone famous in six degrees or less?

Just Life

i need some sunshine, as hard as i try at times i
can't seem to find it, we can look in all our usual
places, thinking it will be there, but to no avail, it
just does not seem to appear

as life goes on, more issues arise and each day
brings a new hurdle, as much as i think something
is behind me, it either resurfaces, or i am hit with
something new

what is happening of course, is just life, as we all
go thru it, the ups and downs, the sadness and the
happiness, all mixed into to one

i guess it is just up to me to keep on going, to fight
the good fight, to never give up, i just think at times
it is so much easier said then done, i just wish there
was a rule book, you know one of those notebooks
we brought for school, with the black and white spotted
cover, it already had the lines in it so our penmanship
was straight, how great would it be to open that book
and all the instructions on life were in it

then again that might be to easy, and we would not
be who we are if we did not work for it

i think i see the sunshine, yes perhaps i do, as
words always help me, you know its just life~