daily exhale

Savannah, will you bring me some raisins, please?

Our son understands about fiber and how things you eat affect the "end of the story."  He doesn't quite have the concept of time down.

I would always come home for a Bob Salad

My dad was 50 when I was born.  I am the youngest of six children.  The next in line is 7 years older than I.  After graduating high school and turning down several scholarships because I got homesick just thinking about being that far away from my family, I moved out to busy myself with a lot of "activities."  From my studio apartment in Costa Mesa, I would get a call from my dad a couple of times a month.  Usually mom called.  It was just the two of them at home for the first time since they met up until the time my eldest brother was born.  They were different now that it was just the two of them.

Dad would call just to chat and make me laugh.  But when he would call early enough and say, "Honey, I'm making a salad.  How does that sound?"  I knew he meant his "Bob Salad."  My dad, the feisty heart patient, never really ate very healthy.  But as he started to venture into vegetables, he discovered he had a knack for creating amazing salads of chopped vegetables from Plow Boys.  I would say, "Can you wait about a 1/2 hour? I'm on my way."  The answer was always, "Of course, see you in a bit, baby."

Other than coffee through high school, it was the one time we spent together - just the two of us eating these salads.  My mom was usually out or had eaten and he waited for me. I smile every time I eat a red onion to this day.  He introduced me to red onions, green peppers. Up until Bob Salads I was convinced most vegetables were brown and mushy.  Salads were Iceberg lettuce and tomato only.

Here's the recipe:

Iceberg lettuce, of course
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 tomato cut into chunks
1/4 cup bean sprouts - these were new to him outside of Chinese take-out
Bacon bits
Some kind of shredded cheese - I don't remember, but I usually use cheddar to go with the bacon
Italian dressing on the side - I like Newman's Light Italian with Lemon.

It's not fancy or terribly unique, but he made it for me a couple of times a month.  He died in 1989, about 2 1/2 years after I moved out.  I had a couple of dozen salads with him and a few breakfasts at the Jolly Roger in Seal Beach with both of them.  These were our times with just us. We had plenty of times together with the whole family or sections of it, based on schedules. I'm forever grateful I decided to stay "home" after graduation.  I miss my parents and thrive on the memories and stories we all recall at different times. 

In the Mood for Goat Cheese

Everyone keeps their own specialties handy for quick snacks. For us, that includes goat cheese and sundried tomatoes.

This is a great, easy snack.  We used some stupid organic pizza crust from whole wheat.  It tasted like a salt-lick.  It had no flavor, so they added salt.

Celebrate Spring - Roast a Peep!

I'm not sure where the animosity toward the yellow Peeps came from. I think it was the years the Easter Bunny brought stale Peeps in my baskets.  Whatever it is I loathe the yellow Peeps.  Since I was a child, the Peep people have become smarter and expanded to blue bunnies, referred to as "hops" in our family, as well as an entire line of Peep inspired toys and accessories.  This does not change my feeling towards the original yellow chickies.

Bloody Pancakes for breakfast

We had a sleepover recently and pancakes were requested. I complied and tried to trick them out for February with red sprinkles.  Instead of an "awww, those are sweet!" I was met with, "EWWWW - they look like bloody pancakes!"  This led to fits of giggles and squealing.

I decided to keep it going. I dropped a part of an eggshell into the batter and one child had a crunch. I apologized for not picking out the bones from the aardvark I used.  At this point they were totally out of control.

Our son decided he wanted to learn how to write the words "Bloody Pancakes" on the white board.

He's 4. Not bad.

Bad Waitress Syndrome

I'm guessing some of you can relate to this. If so, please tell me your "bad waitress" stories.  I've been at both ends. I've been the bad waitress without a prayer to save a table that just went bad and I've experienced the bad waitress.  My mother gave it a whole new spin.

Close call - nearly followed in my mother's footsteps

I'm not being cruel with this headline, it really was a close call.  I made those ginger cookies last night, tucked them away and had drifted off to sleep.  Toward the end of that sleep I had a dream...

There was a crowd of about 1,000 on a flat field at night.  The front row had some familiar faces from high school, young childhood and relatives - although they were foggy and dark. They were all tossing around the beach ball, as crowds do when they are happy or bored.  They were cheering me on to "toss the lantern."  The lantern being a large version of the last of the Christmas decorations to be put away.  They just don't fit in the box.  Any way, I was cheered and cheered to toss out a large, red, paper lantern with snowmen on it and a wire structure inside.  I collapsed it to give it the most distance and flung it out.  It landed on some poor bicyclist, the sister of my senior prom date, in the back of the neck and knocked her out.  The entire field gasped in unison and I shot up straight in bed.

I suddenly remembered that those cookies were not made with the fund raiser dough from our son's preschool.  The fund raiser dough has no dairy, is kosher, etc.  No, this dough was made from scratch with fresh eggs -- at least they were fresh during the baking frenzy over two weeks ago.  I recalled the stiffness and sheen to the dough as I tore it apart to plop it onto the cookie sheet.  My husband thought I was nuts as I alighted for the kitchen without a word.  He's ready, at this point, to take away my glue guns and Sharpies.  The fumes have settled in.

I found my cookie stash and immediately tossed them into the trash and went back to bed with the satisfaction that I had saved my family from doom.

You may wonder the tie-in to this revelation and my mother's footsteps.

My mother was a lot of fun and many other positive things, but a culinary goddess was not one of them.  She bordered on the edge of scary with some of the things she would serve us.  We spent many day-after-Thanksgivings in bed with "stomach flu" when indeed it was food poisoning.  She had a habit of putting mayo in the cabinet, rather than the fridge and wouldn't tell anyone.  This was close. I'm grateful for the lantern dream.

Ginger turds - it's just what I feel like making

With snow outside and the very real possibility of ANOTHER school snow day I wanted to drown my boo-boos in the only thing left over from the holidays - recycled ginger bread dough.

Coconut Flambe

What started out as a Betty Crocker day of making fudge, turned into Martha Stewart as I expanded my horizons and added new combinations of flavors to my usual Fantasy Fudge.  From Martha, I'm afraid to say, we ventured into Lucy.  We hit on a winning combination of toasted almonds, toasted, unsweetened shredded coconut to create our Almond Joy fudge.

Ikea and Children - remind me to stay home next time.

After my recent trip to San Francisco, the children have been asking to go to Ikea.  I know, tie the two thoughts together for you.  On the way to PDX (Portland International Airport) is a HUGE IKEA.  It's right there - HUGE blue logo on the freeway as we exit.