Posted on February 9, 2006
I had been out of town and returned to find an email from a faithful reader of my blog. “Did you get food poisoning from your recipe article or are you just getting lazy?” it read. It addressed a dilemma I have regularly.
I try to write every day, but frequent travels require that I a) write ahead; b) simply disappear for those days that I’m out of town; c) announce that I’m going so that readers will know what to expect; or d) bring my laptop along and write wherever I am. Each of these solutions has benefits and disadvantages; and, in different instances, I’ve tried them all.
I imagine other writers with a reading public have the same problem. If they are like me, they want to maintain contact with their readership; as having someone outside your immediate circle of family and friends wait with interest to read the words you’ve toiled over is very gratifying. Not that family and friends’ opinions don’t count, but anonymous admirers count for more. Their interest in a particular writer is part of the reason to continue writing. Their interest offers hope that a person sitting somewhere alone with whatever means he or she uses to preserve thoughts on paper, even virtual Internet paper, will someday be well-known.
So while I try to write this column every day — and this is my 495th one — I’m prone to skipping every now and then. It’s not food poisoning or laziness or lack of inspiration. It’s lack of time, quiet time in which to think. All I can say to that reader who inquired is that I will always return to the written word like a duck returns to water. I couldn’t just stop writing, even if I wanted to.
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Posted on February 6, 2006
I have issues. Issues with recipes, especially recipes that are printed in a local newspaper or circulated on the Internet. More often than not, they are incorrect, which means the cook must be part sleuth as well as part gourmand. I’m not sure I want to be either.
Case in point: I took an appetizer to last night’s Super Bowl party, one that Earl had found on the Internet. It was billed as a Walking Taco and had the usual ingredients found in various seven-layer taco dips. It wasn’t particularly difficult to make, which gives it points in my book.
At the same time, the list of ingredients was puzzling. Everything was spelled out in terms of size of cans and ounces, with the exception of the refried beans. Now I know refried beans come in at least three different sizes; and I would imagine that this would make a difference in the recipe, which called for two cans of the beans. But there was no mention of what size cans.
I have found this time and again in recipes from the local paper or the Internet I might want to try. The list of ingredients doesn’t mention the cheese, but the instructions for blending or folding or whipping do. I can blend or fold or whip, but I do need to know how much of the ingredient I’m dealing with.
I guess that’s why I like cookbooks. They seem stable, experienced, trustworthy. When it’s a taco dip, there’s room for error; but if I were entertaining heads of state I’d want a more reliable menu.
See more 10 Minutes in category Annoyances, Dining/Food
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Posted on February 5, 2006
The 2006 Super Bowl is history. And, no, XL doesn’t stand for extra large, although some may think the television coverage was over the top these past couple weeks. XL stands for forty, which stands for the number of Super Bowls that have gone down in history to date.
For the record, and for those of you out there who quite possibly live on a desert island and haven’t learned the outcome, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21 to 10. I’m not a sports aficionado, so I can’t say if it was a good game or not; but I can say the commercials were pretty good.
I was disappointed in last night’s review of previous Super Bowl commercials, but I wasn’t disappointed in the creativity of tonight’s fare. In fact, I thought the commercials divided into two categories: really creative and blah. And there was more creative than blah.
What was really creative? The beer commercials, except I can’t remember what brand of beer they were promoting. (Red alert here, if you are a beer commercial) Also the cola commercials featuring P. Diddy (or is he now known by some other name?), although I can’t remember if they featured Pepsi® or Coke®.
Which makes me wonder if a really entertaining, memorable commercial that doesn’t make you remember the product in question is doing its job? I guess we’ll have to wait until next year’s review of commercials to find out.
Posted on February 4, 2006
I’d seen it advertised earlier in the week and it seemed like a win-win situation. I would get to see the best commercials of the past forty Super Bowls without having to watch a single minute of playing time. What could be better?
The advance publicity heralded the one hour program as presenting the most memorable commercials in descending order, and I realized the top one would not be shown until the end of the hour. No matter. I held no grudges on that account.
Right on time, Earl and I settled in front of our big TV and tuned in, ready to devote full attention to enjoying commercials when we usually mute the TV and head for the bathroom while they play.
But instead of watching the commercials what we saw was a hodge-podge of moderator commentary, snippets of the promised commercials, and exhortations for the audience to go to the Internet and help pick the most popular one. It wasn’t about the commercials themselves at all. In fact, I’m not sure what it was about.
I dislike television shows that promise more than they deliver . . . and, from my perspective, this happens a lot. I don’t want to listen to commentators interrupting the action — even if the action is a commercial — with opinions and statistics. I don’t want to see the action spliced so that the viewer doesn’t get the full effect. And I especially don’t want to be told to go to my Internet and vote. I thought that was all taken care of before the program aired.
In the end, the commercial that was ranked No. 1 wasn’t even shown in its entirety; and, if someone didn’t see it the first time around, that person would have no clue to its emotional catch. This wasn’t a mystery show, so I’ll reveal what commercial garnered the first spot. It was the one involving Mean Joe Green and the little boy with the Coke®.
However, as I said, you couldn’t really have discerned that from the program I wish I hadn’t wasted my time watching.
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Posted on February 3, 2006
I learned recently that a house about three-quarters of a mile up the road from mine was subject to a break-in about a week ago. From my perspective, that’s really close to home. And it’s made me rethink my security measures.
The thing is, since we moved from Chicago, St. Joseph seems safe, placid, law-abiding. But to learn that a neighbor of mine entered her home while burglars were there has made me cautious. They heard her opening the door while they were inside and fled through another exit. She saw them running away toward a car.
While it was determined that nothing was taken, that doesn’t negate the sense of violation that one has when one’s domain is entered by unknowns. I know, since this happened to me about thirty years ago and I can still recall the sense of being helpless, just as surely as if I had been raped.
So I plan to take my neighbor’s experience to heart. Our house is fully equipped with an alarm system that includes a loud siren, sensors across the living room and kitchen floors, additional sensors on the sliding doors, and a hotwire to the local fire department. I’ve never implemented most of these features, but I think I will in the future.
Even if, when the alarm sounds, the loudness of it annoys neighbors and makes cats and dogs howl. I think I’d rather be safe.
Posted on February 2, 2006
There are a myriad of literary contests out there, trying to lure applicants with modest submission fees and boastful promises of publication. I’ve succumbed to more than one, usually to be disappointed.
But today an offer crossed my desk I don’t think I can refuse. Airleaf, a publisher of books whose authors have been rejected by more traditional houses, is seeking holiday stories of 20,000 words or less under the rationale that holiday stories have been big business these past few seasons. And Airleaf wants to cash in with a blockbuster.
The premise is this: If you have written a holiday story (which means a story about any holiday that occurs in December — Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) and think it is publishable, send it to Airleaf with no strings attached. There is no fee for entering the contest, there is no fee to publish your book if you win, and — in addition, the lucky author retains all rights to his or her story, as well as a percentage of the sales if your book catches on. If you’re a writer, what could be better?
I couldn’t think of anything either.
So I’ve dusted off a story I wrote years ago; in fact, it’s so old it isn’t even in my computer archives. I wrote it on a typewriter, punching the keys with passion at the time. Then I filed it away in a cabinet downstairs marked “Anne’s Writing.” Today, I went downstairs and resurrected the only hard copy in existence. I plan to read it tonight, then keyboard it into my computer, before taking the editorial red pencil to it.
The deadline for the holiday story is the end of March, so I think I can do it. If you think you can too, let me know via email to anne@annebrandt.com and I’ll provide the details to get in touch with Airleaf.
The holidays are closer than you think.
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Posted on February 1, 2006
Both Earl and my spellchecker shake their respective heads when I purchase broccoflower at the supermarket. Earl winces because he can’t imagine a vegetable that combines the tastes of broccoli and cauliflower when he abhors both. The spellchecker is simply confused.
But I love broccoflower, and it is hard to come by. So whenever I see it in the produce department, I snatch it up, take it home, and smell up the house with its cooking odor. If we owned one, Earl would wear a clothespin to the dinner table.
Which leads me to wonder what other combo-veggies might be on the horizon.
What about asparasprouts? They would be the green of their two parents, asparagus and Brussels sprouts, and have the strong taste of both. I see them served cold with a mild vinaigrette dressing and sesame seed. Or rutamatoes, a derivative of rutabaga and tomatoes. It would be pale pink, have no seeds, and be easy to peel. You would mash it, as you do potatoes, and then serve it as an accompaniment for pork.
Or maybe eggini, an offspring of eggplant and zucchini. Served a la parmesan, it would be delicious. . . and healthy. And what about parsnipoli? You guessed it; parsnips and broccoli. Or lima corn as a replacement for succotash?
The ideas are endless and don’t even have to stop with pairing two vegetables. We could combine a vegetable that doesn’t have broad appeal with a cookie recipe that does. Or a vegetable with a pie or a cake. So in the future, I look forward to tasting broccoleach pie or avocado chip cookies.
Posted on January 31, 2006
You can tell a lot about the inhabitants by studying the offices they dwell in. Are they organized? High class? Casual in approach? I was reminded of this when some friends came for cocktails last weekend; and, since this was their first visit, we gave them a tour of our home.
Originally billed as a four-bedroom home, we have reduced the number of bedrooms to two to accommodate individual offices for both Earl and me. That’s because we have tried sharing an office, and IT DOESN’T WORK.
Earl works with white noise; that is, the TV and the radio going at the same time. I work best in silence. Earl has papers everywhere, except when we have company, while I have neatly organized stacks which enable me to navigate the floor space.
But that’s not the end of it. Earl’s office is decked out with mahogany furniture, extremely sturdy stuff that needs two muscle men to move. Mine is decked with Winnie the Pooh, that beloved stuffed animal who defies time. While this might not seem mind-shattering, consider the fact that we’ve moved several times in the past ten years, and you’ll have an idea of what moving companies value and what independent movers value. The first likes bulk, the second likes convenience. And, depending on your point of view, Earl and I fit into one of those categories, although not the same one
In the end, however, office dйcor is a personal issue that should not be swayed by weight or stuffed animals or other personal considerations.
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Posted on January 30, 2006
Yesterday I received a call from Gertrude McDonald, who is my first cousin once removed on my mother’s side. It had probably been three or four years since we’d talked; but, as with most of the McDonalds, you can pick it up where you laid it down. Time is not a thief of affection.
We chatted close to an hour, recalling family members who have gone to the great reunion in the sky, laughing at their former idiosyncrasies, and catching each other up on family members who are still Earth-bound.
It will likely be months and maybe years before we talk again. But that doesn’t matter. There is an invisible bond between us, created over almost twenty years when my own mother made an annual trek– no, pilgrimage — from Arkansas to upstate New York to spend time with family members, like my cousin Gertrude, who never ventured further than Lewis County, NY, where our forbearers settled over one hundred fifty years ago.
Before my mother started visiting each year, my grandmother did the same after she was widowed. Every summer, she drove east from Colorado, where she eventually settled for her later years, to spend the long June and July days with her sisters and sisters-in law and other various relatives with whom she had grown up, become an adult, and married my grandfather, also a local boy of Lewis County.
Now Lowville, NY, in the heart of Lewis County, is where my grandmother and my mother and their respective spouses rest in peace. It is where my roots began, even though I never lived there. But the McDonalds were a prolific clan, so even today with many of my direct descendants sleeping on what we call Tug Hill, there are equally as many cousins to carry the legacy. When I talk with one of them, like Gertrude, even if years pass in between those conversations, I feel as if I’m home.
See more 10 Minutes in category Me/Family, Nostalgia, Things to Ponder
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Posted on January 29, 2006
Before there was digital photography, there were paper photographs, the kind you brought to a drug store for one hour processing. And before there was one hour processing, you waited in anticipation for a few days to see how your pictures turned out.
I liked those days, when there was a certain uncertainty that you’d recorded the family reunion in all its glory or your latest vacation in far-off Manitoba or some intimate event, like a christening or birthday. I liked that some time passed between the taking of the photos and reviewing them; there were a few days to forget the event before the photos showed up and reminded me of what a great time was had. Even if the photos themselves weren’t all that great.
Wasn’t it comic curmudgeon George Carlin who pondered the value of one hour photos in the first place, since the photographer had just been with the subject of his or her shots? I think he must have felt as I do.
I can see the value of digital photography with its ability to winnow out unflattering or blurry pictures, with its emphasis on real time and the power to go back and redo a shot in Manitoba because you’re never going there again and you want it right. I can see the savings in processing and also the savings in storage.
I personally must have at least a thousand unlabeled photos that span one hundred years of my family history and my own world. They sit silently but admonishingly in boxes in the guest closet waiting to be sorted and then arranged into some meaningful sequence.
Without looking, I recall the photo of my grandmother taken when she was about four or five years old. She stands next to her sister dressed in what would today be deemed oppressive garb for a youngster. She is serious, as is her older sister. I also recall photos of my own youth, which my mother had taken at the same studio for several years in a row. And photos of my own children.
Not all of them are perfect; and I suspect several of them would be lost in today’s digital, delete world. But I love them even more because they are not perfect. They are a case in point for the world the way it really is.
