Living and Cooking Solo

           Warning: this blog contains a graphic recreation that may shock, revolt, repulse or even nauseate the weak of stomach.  Proceed with caution and keep in mind that I do not make this stuff up.  I write about real life experiences. Each spring, summer and fall throughout my years as the wife of a die-hard-boat-driving fishing, hunting and camping fanatic, I spent a lot of time cooking on camp stoves, charcoal grills and other instruments meant to give food caveman appeal while driving women nuts. Our camping generally started around Easter, giving our kids the thrill of adorning long-underwear and earmuffs to hunt Easter eggs in the snow.  The camping season ended near Halloween most years, but I do recall at least one Thanksgiving turkey sizzling away in our Weber Smoker as we sat around a campfire holding cups of coffee more to capture the hand-warming heat from the hot cup than for the caffeine. In the early years of ...

            Thoughts to eat healthier enter my head these days, whether that is because age gives one pause to consider the tenuous aspects of life or I have smartened up from knowing more.  Perhaps a bit of both play into it.             For instance, I now think more in terms of how little time I have left to accomplish all of those things that my youth self thought she had plenty of time to complete.  More important, however, I think about staying fit for my remaining years.  That means paying attention to what science tells us about the food we put inside the body that must last us for the duration.             While I am not ready to give up meat, including red meat, I find no problem cutting back portion size and servings per week.  I still love a good steak and think there is something healthy about finding joy in eating as lo...

Growing up in the farmlands of Kansas, I thought local farmers held the patent on growing wheat.  With miles of green fields in spring, turning to golden waving heads of grain just before the summer harvest, we heard the motto, “Kansas the Wheat State,” often. My maternal grandfather and uncles Frank and Jesse were typical Kansas wheat farmers, constantly worrying about the weather, wheat aphids and the markets, early risers who worked well into the night when farming needed done.  I recall my grandfather standing at the door watching clouds drift in, concerned about whether a summer rain might arrive before he completed harvest or hopeful for winter snow when the tiny wheat seeds needed nurturing moisture.  Weather rules farm life. Uncle Jesse farmed well into his 70s, using an old combine, air conditioned by a faint breeze, equipped with an umbrella to ward off the afternoon sun, constantly broken down and needing parts, which my Aunt Polly “headed to Sal...

             I listened as my friend Ada swept and gathered Acorns off her driveway.   She heatedly complained about the worthlessness of the nuts that fell from the Oak tree that grew nearby.             “Don’t the squirrels eat them?”   I asked, thinking of my backyard walnut tree and developing a new respect for the squirrels that pick it clean each fall.               “We don’t have any squirrels,” she responded with venomous emphasis as she continued to sweep.             “I wonder if Acorns are edible.”   I said, trying to be helpful.             Later that evening the subject of the Acorns came up again and we decided to find out if there could be a purpose beyond the irritation of crunching groun...

Years ago, my mother-in-law, Bonnie, now deceased, gave me an 8-inch caste-iron skillet.  It now hangs along side other 8-inch skillets purchased after I started cooking for one.  The skillet retains it quality just as my mind holds on to my memories of the woman who gave it to me. Bonnie was a wonderful woman and a saint of a mother-in-law.  My mother lived twelve hundred miles a way in California, so Bonnie became my advisor, confidant and friend.  So much so that when my new husband and I encountered the rough patches found in many new marriages, I would pack up the car, including my then two-year-old step-daughter, and head out to visit Bonnie who lived 25 miles away in the small town of Culver, Kansas. Bonnie never asked why the visit although she sensed my troubled emotions.  She just welcomed me, soothing my hurt feelings and making me feel every thing would turn out fine.  She never took sides and I never asked her too.  She simply...

A select group of family members began spending Thanksgiving at the farm of my Aunt Roberta and Uncle Bob sometime in the early 1980s.   In the beginning, the number of attendees filled the chairs around a large oak dinning room table.   The group included my aunt and uncle and their three sons, my mother, my brother Steve and wife Sandy plus children and grandchildren, and me. The table’s top featured numerous crocheted doilies covered by a piece of clear plastic.   Roberta spent much of her time cooking, crocheting, quilting and doing farm chores.   These doilies represented some of her finest work.   A quilting frame, holding Roberta’s latest quilt, sat nearby showing minute, precise hand stitching. Roberta’s legend as seamstress dissipated when compared to her fame as a cook.   My mother, whose cooking depended on her mood, loved to “drop in” at her sister’s farm around dinnertime.   Roberta, unfazed by the increased number of people aro...

Cretia and I grew up in neighboring states, she in Nebraska, me in Kansas.  We met in Wyoming where we both made stops on our way to where life took us, Cretia to California, me to Colorado.  We now sat in a patio café eating lunch while watching ice skaters glide over a man made rink a few yards away. The patio café is part of the Hotel del Coronado located on a peninsula just off San Diego Harbor in California in the beach community of Coronado.  Cretia worked at the Hotel for eight years giving her an insight into the history of the place, which she shared with me on a tour after lunch.  According to Building The Dream , Elisha Babcock, Jr. and Hampton Story created the Coronado Beach Company in April 1886 and followed with the establishment of a number of other enterprises, including the Hotel del Coronado, built in 1888.  The hotel’s architecture offers a castle-like appearance in the Victorian era Queen Anne style with a roofline outlined in tu...