Friday, December 4, 2009

Aliens Return Husband


“Yep. That’s him,” says wife. “Whatever!”
I knew it was too good to be true. The aliens returned my lovable slob and took away Mr. Clean. But then who can blame him. Housekeeping just loses it glamour very quickly. I’m OK with that. It was really pretty spooky, and I was starting to have hallucinations from all the Fabrez. Welcome home honey, and get your dang Crocks out of the middle of the dang floor!

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times - Chapter 20

#20 - “Sauces are just to disguise poor cuts of meat.”
Of course the irony here is that my generation of cooking is all about sauces, which begs the question. Were sauces invented to, as mom said, disguise poor cuts of meat, or to, as we are taught today, compliment cuts of meat, and is there a difference?

I Googled “The History of Sauces” (as I do everything), and sure enough, at What’s Cooking America.com, http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SauceHistory.htm
I found an entire page dedicated to what one would expect to be a rather obscure topic. First sentence, “The word "sauce" is a French word that means a relish to make our food more appetizing.” They go on to say, “Sauces are liquid or semi-liquid foods devised to make other foods look, smell, and taste better, and hence be more easily digested and more beneficial. Because of the lack of refrigeration in the early days of cooking, meat, poultry, fish, and seafood didn't last long. Sauces and gravies were used to mask the flavor of tainted foods.” Yikes! Click on Read More Below...

Thursday, December 3, 2009

GALS GRAZE

Yesterday I had lunch at the Blue Dahlia with three Very Smart Gals, (left to right), Aralyn Hughes, Debra Winegarten, and Mari King, and I'm still buzzing.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times - Chapter 19

#19 - "Always eat when you drink."
I really never drank until I turned 30 and moved to Austin. Yes, there were those couple of trips to Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, a sleepy little border town relatively close to my hometown, where age wasn’t an issue in a bar. I remember Mary Wright and I drinking an aptly named Zombie at Ma Crosby’s Restaurant (or was it at the inaptly named Shangri-La Bar), going into the bathroom, taking off our bras, and waving them out the door at our amused, and no doubt hopeful boyfriends, and jaded wait staff. I guess we thought that was sexy – and was certainly the most “scandalous” thing my sexually immature mind could even conjure. But for the most part, I was a late blooming drinker, and although I’ve foolishly wished I could “drink the night away,” I’m a cheap drunk. Three glasses of wine or three beers and I am down for the count - literally. Click on Read More Below...

Lit by Mary Karr



If I could write like Mary Karr I’d be thin and rich, my husband would like to travel, my kids would lead charmed lives, my friends would be legion, and the world would be at peace.  I grew up poor-ish in Texas like Mary. My mom read a lot and was into intellectualism like Mary’s. So why don’t life-altering phrases swirl out of my head like exotic, scarfed dancers?

I guess I just didn’t lead a tortured enough life. My mom wasn’t an alcoholic, semi-psycho who wielded guns and knives, and quoted Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. I wasn’t hospitalized for depression and substance abuse, nor did I find God through AA. OK, maybe I’ll just have to settle for pudgy and getting by, a husband that I wouldn’t trade for, an amazing bunch of kids and grandkids, the best friends in the world and a chaotic world that’s really better than it sometimes seems.