Category: food

Peanut Butter cookies

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My adult son used to work in an office of about 6-7 other people.  They worked in one room, closely together and it was a casual atmosphere because it was stressful work. 

One way for me to see my son more often was to visit him at the office.  I could walk in and be greeted with smiles by everyone.

I don’t like peanut butter, except in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I made peanut butter cookies one time and (for some unknown reason) I took a bite to taste them.  Yuck!

I took them into their office.  I got my hugs, gave them the cookies, said, “They are awful” and headed out the door so they could get back to work. 

Later that day, my son called to tell me that they weren’t awful, that they loved the cookies.  I reminded him that they I didn’t like peanut butter cookies. 

… not a funny little story but one that warms my heart to think about. 
I wish you many thoughts that warms your heart.  

When I’m smelly

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I’ve mentioned this before, years ago I rescued 3 feral cats. One of them got diabetes and passed at 9 years old. She was queen bee of these cats. (The other two lived to be 15 and 16 yrs old.)

She had so much personality. She played fetch and I was shocked how quickly she learned it. As sweet and playful as she was, she was equally as disgusted by the other cats and myself at times. After all, she was a cat. 

When I would get gassy, she would look at me with such disgust. I could imagine what she was thinking by the tone of her look:

  • You disgusting human
  • Go in the other room, you smell;
  • What do you eat?
  • Did your mother not teach you anything?
  • If you know that makes you smell, don’t eat it;
  • I love you but geez;
  • I tried to escape but I could smell you in the other room too;
  • OMG, it’s in my nose so it’s with me no matter where I go;

You get what I’m saying. This sweet little cat would just continue to look at me with disgust until the air was clear. Ha ha ha

Vague memories with warm fuzzies

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When I was in kindergarten so very many years ago, I would leave morning kindergarten and be walked across a street to a house where I would eat lunch.  I say where I would eat lunch because that is the only thing I remember doing there.  I do not remember the babysitter, just her hands.

I can remember sitting for lunch.  The babysitter would hand me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  When I was done she would mix a little milk with some Nestle’ Quik and it would make a creamy, chocolate frosting.  She would slather it on a graham cracker and hand that to me.

Every time I see a movie, show or commercial with a graham cracker and /or cookie with a creamy chocolate frosting I get warm fuzzies and think of this babysitter but not really her, just her hands.

I love how the simplest thing can bring back warm memories.

Hosting my First Thanksgiving and then some …

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This morning I was thinking about Thanksgivings of my past. Thank goodness our challenges are funnier in hind-sight.

The first couple of years that my husband and I were married, we had Thanksgiving with either my parents or his. Then I wanted to host Thanksgiving at our house. Our first born was a little guy so this was a very long time ago. I was excited and had my butterball turkey ready to go. These bigger turkeys cook for hours anyway but as the day progressed into evening and the turkey still wasn’t done, we began to believe that the oven was broken.

At closer look, I had cleaned the knobs on the stove and replaced them upside down. The turkey had been in a 250 degree oven for almost 10 hours. Ugh my first Thanksgiving feast felt like a disaster. Many years later. My eldest son and his fiancé were hosting their first Thanksgiving dinner. She was a bit defensive, emotional and … competitive.

She asked me to make the stuffing because by this time I had perfected stuffing and my boys loved my stuffing enough to brag about it. Over at their home, I was given a double box of stuffing and was asked to make one. Stuffing is stuffing right? It’s kind of hard to destroy boxed stuffing.

… or so I thought. My stuffing came out just as presumed that it would. My son’s fiancé made the second box of the double box of stuffing. She looked at mine and looked at hers and had a melt down. Hers looked like … baby poo.

I tried to reassure her that everyone’s first time hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, something doesn’t turn out right. And of course, these are the times that we reminisce and laugh a about for the rest of our lives. I am so grateful that we have these memories and can laught about them.

How much is left in that bottle?

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It wasn’t about being thrifty or frugal, although I attempt to be. This was just what my mom did and well, I guess it was ingrained in me.

Here’s a true recount as an example …

My boys, their dad and I were at the dinner table. Someone other than me pointed out that the bottle of ketchup or salad dressing or … was empty. I bounce into action! Super Thrift Mom grabs the bottle. Just as I am approaching the sink they all call out, “NO, don’t add water”.

Yup, that’s what I did, I added a bit of water, shook up the bottle and presto … the bottle isn’t empty anymore.

Anchovies … what a palet …

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I may have mentioned it before, however since I’m on the topic of food, I’ll bring it up again.
I love food and don’t have a great palet but the benefits to this is that I like most any food.

Many years ago … My husband used a lot of salt. I was concerned about his health so I decided to replace have of the salt in the table salt shaker to a salt substitute. I was shocked when he noticed that the salt tasted different and because I had asked him many times to cut back on his salt, he knew exactly what I had done. Do I need to mention that he wasn’t happy about it?

I don’t remember why but during that same time, we were talking about foods we don’t like. He said he couldn’t stand anchovies. A sneaky light bulb when off in my head. I was sure that I could hide a bit of anchovies in some meal and he’d never know.

Ok, so my kids and I were practical jokers. We didn’t do anything harmful just annoying at times.

Months went by and I decided that it was time to test my husband’s palet once again. I made spaghetti and bought anchovies. I chopped one, little tiny bit as fine as can be. I thought there is no way anyone could tell there were anchovies in there because it was a huge slow-cooker of sauce with 1/2 teaspoon of anchovies.

One bite and he knew. 😮 Shocking! I have always been amazed at his palete.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

For the sake of those questioning the spelling of the word ‘palet’ as I did …

Palet: Touch your tongue to the top of your mouth. What you’re touching is your palate. Palate is often used when discussing taste in a broader sense, as in: chocolate cake is pleasing to the palate.

Palette: A palette is a range of colors. It is also the board that artists use to hold and mix paint. Picture Picasso in his blue period: He is holding a palette on which you see a limited palette of blue tones.

Pallet: Pallet is a busy noun, but it’s mainly a slab or framework of wood used for carrying things. The most common type of pallet is the kind used to move cargo.

When I was young … vitamin C

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When I was young my mom made us eat oatmeal or cream-of-wheat in the winter time. I still don’t like the smell of either. My mom also made us take vitamin C every day. I had a tough time as a kid swallowing pill and well, actually I did until I was an adult.

For anyone who hasn’t swallowed a vitamin C tablet quickly, knows that bitter taste as they begin to dissolve in your mouth. For me, it was a common occurrence.

To flavor my hot cereal my mom would add brown sugar. As many people know, once the brown sugar starts getting hard, you have to scrape it or dig it out with a spoon. Often times, where you’ve scraped or dug in with the spoon, it turns white.

I can remember one time my mom put a big spoon of brown sugar in my hot cereal. I saw that white scraping in the brown sugar and began to sob. I was convinced that she crushed up a vitamin C tablet and tried to sneak it into my cereal.

In hind-sight, it would have been easier for me to take however I didn’t like the hot cereal anyway so it was like adding salt to my wounds.

Hummus, hummus everywhere

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I was getting ready to sit and watch a movie. I made a nice batch of hummus and chopped up some veggies because, well movies and snacking go hand-in-hand.

Have I mentioned before that I’m a bit clutsy? I know I’ve mentioned that I tend to laugh vs get upset over spilt … whatever.

Well, last night I was walking from the kitchen to the TV room, minding my own business when out of the blue some cosmic force allowed the bowl of hummus to slip out of my hand and directly onto the floor. I must’ve had too much moisture in my hummus because it splattered everywhere. The more I looked, the more I saw.

I hope you’re able to watch this video as, this post needs a visual.

https://videopress.com/v/nhojnw5H?controls=false&preloadContent=metadata

Not the first time I sipped tea

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There are some things that most of us take for granted. With our eyes closed, we can point to our nose, ears, mouth, etc. The same goes for eating and drinking. When we’re eating, most of us don’t have to think about where our mouth is.

I have a small (keyboard width) desktop in front of my keyboard with the monitor behind that. Thank goodness because when and (well IF doesn’t seem to be an appropriate word in my case because I’m pretty clutsy) if I spill something, which most likely I will (and do) from time to time, my computer and keyboard won’t be in the line of fire (or liquid most likely).

I was standing at my computer. I had my tea-mug in my hand and was looking at something on the computer. I’ve done this hundreds of times over the years however there must have been some mis-fire in my brain. I tipped the mug to take a sip and the tea when down the front of me. OMG! I know the edge of the mug was touching my bottom lip, or was it? I could not figure how I didn’t have my mouth in sync with my pour.

Sweet-tooth snacking surprise

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Many (many) years ago and this was so many years ago that one of my food staples was sweets. I still have quite the sweet tooth but avoid foods with sugar nowadays. My then husband liked sweet-snacking but not to the extreme that I did. For the sake of this story I will toss in the fact that I don’t like to waste food.

My husband had mentioned one time that he much preferred the Oreo cookie to the Oreo creme center. One day I had a sweet tooth and thought of those Oreo centers. I didn’t and still don’t like the Oreo cookie itself.

In my sweet-tooth, raging thought process I believed the non-wasteful, considerate thing to do was leave the Oreo cookies for my husband to eat and I’d just eat the centers. I was in the bedroom one night and heard my name called. Well, not called but yelled! Gulp! I knew he just found the creme center-less Oreos. I can’t remember if I got a lecture or just a look. I promised never to do it again.

I like what you like

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I like food and I like to eat. I’ve been blessed with a high metabolism throughout my life so that I can eat and not have every calorie add a few pounds to my weight. I haven’t been as fortunate the last have of my 50’s but it hasn’t been too bad and I eat what many people refer to as rabbit food (plant-based) so there’s that.

When my chosen daughter was about 12 years old she liked to eat whatever I liked to eat. I would go to the fridge and what I wanted was gone. I don’t mind sharing my food (mostly) but I like to know certain things are there when I want them.

It got to the point that I’d start experimenting. I’d get odd foods and flavors hoping that she wouldn’t like them and therefore, it would just be mine. I could rarely find something she didn’t like (she’d eat most anything, just like me). I can remember how thrilled I was when I got blue cheese dressing one time and she didn’t like it. Woo-Hoo! It was like finding the holy grail. The only problem was that I really didn’t like it either. I did however get used to it.

Yonder Firpiece?

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I grew up in Colorado and then moved to Idaho. My folks were born and raised in New York City and New York is where most of my relatives lived for much of my life. Other than occasionally on TV, New York accents were about the only accents I was really accustomed to hearing.

In the mid-90’s I was part of a team who was working on a project that primarily took place in Nashville. There were eight of us on this team, all from different offices within the Company. I was the only one who did not live in the South, two of them were from the Nashville area. I had been to that office a couple of times and over the years had been on the phone with some of my Nashville co-workers.

Our first day in Nashville to begin work on this project, we took a lunch break and it was decided that I would drive to where we were going to eat. I don’t know why I was the one driving since clearly I was not a local. This lunch outing would truly be my first introduction to the southern language. Most of these gals had as much fun with sarcasm as I have so … you can imagine the fun we had understanding each other. There were 5 of us who went to lunch that day.

I was guided to turn onto a road and then told to go ‘yonder firpiece’. For the first time in my interactions with my Nashville co-workers, I really felt like they were speaking a different language. I first asked how far ‘yonder is’. I would think that at least one of them would know how far ‘yonder’ is but I could not get a clear answer. I could let that go because from time to time we all say something like, go that way for a bit, a ways, etc but … what is a firpiece? When I questioned the definition of a firpiece’, we all laughed so hard I thought I’d have to pull over.

I can tell you that the only answer I got was that ‘firpiece’ is actually, ‘for a piece’. When we got to the restaurant it was a BBQ diner. I’m not a big BBQ fan but hey, when in Rome. I looked at the menu and had a tough time figuring out what to order. I wanted some basics since I was unfamiliar with most of the items listed. (I never imagined how different our foods were.) I ordered pork, corn bread, beans and hominy. When my plate was ready there was shredded meat, a pancake, bbq beans and the hominy. I went back to the ordering counter and told the gal that I got a pancake (I’m not fond of pancakes) instead of corn bread. … you guessed it, that was my corn bread.

One time in a restaurant the waitress asked me if I wanted a ‘coke’. I asked if that was the only ‘pop’ they had. She looked as stumped as I had felt on the drive to the BBQ diner. She said we have coke or water or sweet tea. I thought it was odd that they only carried coke. When the laughter at the table subsided I learned that ‘coke’ was the term for any soft drink just like the word ‘pop’ is to me.

I loved these gals and we worked together on this project for about a year and a half. I can’t tell you the numbers of times we teased and laughed about the differences in our food and language.