Everybody loves my scrambled eggs. Yes, that is egotistic and narcissistic and just plain bragging, but whenever I make scrambled eggs for someone, they always indicate how tremendous they think my scrambled eggs are by smacking their lips, or by moaning softly while looking heavenward, or by making mmm and yum sounds, or by actually saying something like, “Wow, these are great scrambled eggs.”
I mentioned in a recent post that scrambled eggs was the first thing I ever asked my mother how to make. I can still hear her saying, “For each egg, add this much milk – blurp – blurp,” demonstrating a couple quick pours from the milk jug.
That was somewhere around 55 years ago, and people have been praising my scrambled eggs ever since, even though I've changed my method over the years.
I used to beat the eggs and milk with a fork and fry them in bacon grease (newly rendered or from the jar on the counter) in an iron skillet, turning them with a metal spatula.
Nowadays I use no milk, only a little water, beat the eggs with a whisk and fry them in whatever I happen to have (butter, bacon fat, sausage grease, Pam) in a non-stick pan, turning them with a rubber scraper.
And somehow they are still very good. Even without the blurp.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Friday, June 24, 2016
Could have been my last supper
The other day I thought I should try this carb-free cloud bread about
which there is a lot of talk. I will not be doing it again.
It’s basically whipped egg whites folded into a mixture of egg yolks and
cream cheese. The batter resembles snot. Round discs of it are spread on cookie
sheets and baked. Once cooled, it actually tastes sort of like bread, but the
texture is nothing like. The way it dissolved on my tongue reminded me of communion
wafers.
And that reminded me of the time I choked on the communion
wine – well, it was grape juice. The Methodists would never serve an intoxicant.
I was in high school at the time.
Eating the bread in remembrance
of Him went smoothly, but then came the tiny little glass cup of juice. I tossed it back, and it went down the wrong pipe. My body wanted me to
cough, but I was not about to let the entire congregation know that I had just choked on the blood of Christ.
Unable to breathe, I nevertheless got up off my knees and walked nonchalantly back to my pew,
probably growing alarmingly red in the face. Once seated, I let loose, hacking strenuously until my airway was cleared. I was sure, however, that nobody realized that the faux vino was to blame, thus saving myself from humiliation, mortification, and general teenaged angst.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Room and Board
My mother was nothing if not frugal. She was in charge of the family finances, which she handled with great care and economy. Sometimes this was a good thing, and sometimes it was just annoying.
We were a typical lower-middle-class, blue-collar family. My father, a machinist, didn’t make a ton of money, but he was perfectly able to provide for his family so that we lived, as Cornelia Otis Skinner once said, “if not in the lap of luxury, at least on the knees of comfort.”
When I was growing up, there was always something I wanted to have or wanted to do, and when she said no and I asked why, my mother would always say, “We can’t afford it.” She meant the money could be put to better use, but I heard that statement so often that it seemed to me we couldn’t afford much of anything. For a time, I actually thought we were nearly destitute.
One of the things I would like to have done was go to college, but that was something we really could not afford. To make matters worse, during my senior year of high school, my father took sick and was unable to work for several months. My mother’s thriftiness pulled us through that time.
Upon graduating from high school, therefore, I got a job as a stenographer for an insurance company in downtown Chicago. My salary was $265 a month. (This was in 1964; adjusted for inflation, that’s a dollar or two over minimum wage now). My mother suggested that since I was now working, I ought to contribute something toward the household expenses. She thought $40 a month would be about right. My father had recovered and gone back to work by then, but I knew she was still juggling the books paying off bills and that she could use some extra money. So, twice a month when I cashed my paycheck, I gave her $20 for what she called my “room and board.”
The glamour and excitement of being a working girl in Chicago’s Loop took very little time to wear off, and I decided I did not want to type for an insurance company for the rest of my life. It was clear that if I was to improve myself, higher education was a must.
I began looking into it and, despite not having the best grades in school, I found a couple colleges that were willing to take me. I decided on Wisconsin State University in Stevens Point. All I had to do was figure out how to pay for it.
I saved my money diligently, but by the next spring I was still a few hundred dollars short of what I needed for a full year. Then one evening at supper, my mother said she’d been going over the budget and thought they would be able to help me. “If you can cover your tuition and fees and books,” she said, “we will pay for your housing.” I was ecstatic. It looked like I was going to college after all.
My wardrobe at the time consisted mostly of business attire, and the week before I was to leave for school, my mother recommended that I buy some more campus-appropriate clothes, like jeans and sweatshirts. I demurred because, although I had more than I needed for my school costs, I wanted to keep the surplus for the incidental expenses I was sure to incur.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” she said, taking an envelope out of her apron pocket. “You take this and go shopping, and you can have what's left for your ‘incidental expenses.’”
The envelope was full of twenty-dollar bills, every one that I had given her during the preceding year for my room and board.
We were a typical lower-middle-class, blue-collar family. My father, a machinist, didn’t make a ton of money, but he was perfectly able to provide for his family so that we lived, as Cornelia Otis Skinner once said, “if not in the lap of luxury, at least on the knees of comfort.”
When I was growing up, there was always something I wanted to have or wanted to do, and when she said no and I asked why, my mother would always say, “We can’t afford it.” She meant the money could be put to better use, but I heard that statement so often that it seemed to me we couldn’t afford much of anything. For a time, I actually thought we were nearly destitute.
One of the things I would like to have done was go to college, but that was something we really could not afford. To make matters worse, during my senior year of high school, my father took sick and was unable to work for several months. My mother’s thriftiness pulled us through that time.
Upon graduating from high school, therefore, I got a job as a stenographer for an insurance company in downtown Chicago. My salary was $265 a month. (This was in 1964; adjusted for inflation, that’s a dollar or two over minimum wage now). My mother suggested that since I was now working, I ought to contribute something toward the household expenses. She thought $40 a month would be about right. My father had recovered and gone back to work by then, but I knew she was still juggling the books paying off bills and that she could use some extra money. So, twice a month when I cashed my paycheck, I gave her $20 for what she called my “room and board.”
The glamour and excitement of being a working girl in Chicago’s Loop took very little time to wear off, and I decided I did not want to type for an insurance company for the rest of my life. It was clear that if I was to improve myself, higher education was a must.
I began looking into it and, despite not having the best grades in school, I found a couple colleges that were willing to take me. I decided on Wisconsin State University in Stevens Point. All I had to do was figure out how to pay for it.
I saved my money diligently, but by the next spring I was still a few hundred dollars short of what I needed for a full year. Then one evening at supper, my mother said she’d been going over the budget and thought they would be able to help me. “If you can cover your tuition and fees and books,” she said, “we will pay for your housing.” I was ecstatic. It looked like I was going to college after all.
My wardrobe at the time consisted mostly of business attire, and the week before I was to leave for school, my mother recommended that I buy some more campus-appropriate clothes, like jeans and sweatshirts. I demurred because, although I had more than I needed for my school costs, I wanted to keep the surplus for the incidental expenses I was sure to incur.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” she said, taking an envelope out of her apron pocket. “You take this and go shopping, and you can have what's left for your ‘incidental expenses.’”
The envelope was full of twenty-dollar bills, every one that I had given her during the preceding year for my room and board.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Béchamel
My mother used to say that if you can make a good white sauce, you can cook anything.
Now, she was a good cook (and an even better baker), but she struggled with sauces. I don't know why; she made excellent gravy. I think she simply lacked confidence.
I did not learn to cook from my mother. She would have been thrilled if I had shown an interest, but I never did, beyond asking her to show me how to make scrambled eggs when I was about 11 years old. I think I already knew how to boil hot dogs by then.
When I started preparing meals, they came mostly from boxes and cans and envelopes, but then I found that carefully following a (good) recipe will produce first-rate fare. It also provides experience that helps to develop culinary skills.
I've heard that all cooks, even professional chefs, have one thing that is the bane of their existence, one ingredient that confounds them or one technique that they just can't master. Mine is phyllo dough. I cannot make it work, and I've given up trying.
But I make a terrific white sauce.
Now, she was a good cook (and an even better baker), but she struggled with sauces. I don't know why; she made excellent gravy. I think she simply lacked confidence.
I did not learn to cook from my mother. She would have been thrilled if I had shown an interest, but I never did, beyond asking her to show me how to make scrambled eggs when I was about 11 years old. I think I already knew how to boil hot dogs by then.
When I started preparing meals, they came mostly from boxes and cans and envelopes, but then I found that carefully following a (good) recipe will produce first-rate fare. It also provides experience that helps to develop culinary skills.
I've heard that all cooks, even professional chefs, have one thing that is the bane of their existence, one ingredient that confounds them or one technique that they just can't master. Mine is phyllo dough. I cannot make it work, and I've given up trying.
But I make a terrific white sauce.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Healthy Canadians
I am grateful that the handicap license plate on our car allows us to park in those reserved spots that are usually (although not always) closer to the door.
The number of such parking spaces is directly proportional to the size of the establishment -- a small restaurant might have two, whereas a large discount department store might have ten times that many. At peak times of the day, we often cannot find an unoccupied handicap spot, something that is especially true at grocery stores on weekends and at restaurants around lunch or supper time any day of the week.
Our recent trip to New England took us through Ontario and Quebec to Maine. Wherever we went in Canada, we found the usual number of handicap parking places when we wanted to stop, but not once did we find all of them occupied. Often, in fact, there were no cars at all parked in those reserved spaces.
I doubt there are, per capita, fewer disabled Canadians than Americans, so only two possible explanations for this phenomenon come to mind: either handicapped Canadians don't go out much, or it is harder to get a handicap parking permit in Canada than it is here.
Although, they are a hardy lot, those Canucks.
The number of such parking spaces is directly proportional to the size of the establishment -- a small restaurant might have two, whereas a large discount department store might have ten times that many. At peak times of the day, we often cannot find an unoccupied handicap spot, something that is especially true at grocery stores on weekends and at restaurants around lunch or supper time any day of the week.
Our recent trip to New England took us through Ontario and Quebec to Maine. Wherever we went in Canada, we found the usual number of handicap parking places when we wanted to stop, but not once did we find all of them occupied. Often, in fact, there were no cars at all parked in those reserved spaces.
I doubt there are, per capita, fewer disabled Canadians than Americans, so only two possible explanations for this phenomenon come to mind: either handicapped Canadians don't go out much, or it is harder to get a handicap parking permit in Canada than it is here.
Although, they are a hardy lot, those Canucks.
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