Day 2 Day radishes

May 31/food candy and apricots

I made a recipe that called for apricot jam and miso mixed with a little bit of sake.  This I slathered on halibut steakbefore I baked it. Long ago I learned to substitute baby food apricots for a lot of ingredients that called for apricots.  First, the jar is cheap, and second, loved to eat them straight out of the jar.  I could eat many jars.  A jar for me, a jar for the girls.  Today I went to the grocery store to buy baby food apricots and I looked up and down the shelves.   There was mango.  There was papaya. And there was tropical fruit.  And last, and possibly least, the ubiquitous apple sauce. 

So what happened to baby jarred apricots?  Like plums, apricots have gone the way of the cowboys.  From the thirties to the sixties apricots were grown around Los Altos, California.  Then the orchards were replaced by high class housing.  Apricots must be grown where the blossom time is not coinciding with cold or stormy weather as they can not pollinate.  And apricots do not travel well.  They must be tree ripened to be any good.  The fruit must be warm from the sun, and when you pull the halves apart, you look at the little texture where the pit was, and you put it in your mouth and maybe it drools down your chin.  You will probably not have a really good apricot this summer, but if you do, remember you may be one of the last to taste apricots. 

May 30/Memorial Day

Today is the real Memorial Day. . . the day that we celebrate the war dead.  The other day  a woman  said to me that she taught her boys that soldiers were murders.  I was so  stunned that I could not pull myself together to answer her. I have to process ideas for a long time.  But really, what is there to say except. "Get off the planet." 

Last night I listened to a program on the History Channel about George Washington.  This particular show should be mandatory viewing for people under the age of 40 because history was not taught in their schools.  I was struck by how many Ph.D.'s and authors had only positive things to say about him.  The program discussed his early years  of fighting, briefly touched on his marriage to Martha and the sorrow that he felt when Martha's daughter died.  George gained a  lot of organizational skills when he was the CEO, so to speak, of Mt. Vernon.  These skills translated well into the management of an army.

But perhaps, if I had to choose, I came away from the program knowing how beloved he was by his troops. George's philosophy in the direst of times was not so much to win the war, but not to lose it. And through the toughest of winters at Valley Forge and the following two years, his whole philosophy was to keep his troops alive, not starving, not freezing.  He never left his troops for a break, as did the other officers.  He was with them. Once he led a charge in which he was in the middle of the two sides, and he did not take one bullet.

While George did not die until after his Presidency, he does not qualify technically for Memorial Day honors. But he was around the dying and he cared for the dying.  Let us not think of George as a murderer.

May 29 Birthdays & Memorial Observed

Today is Duncan's and Margaret's  birthday.  It was celebrated on Saturday night.  The menu was steak with blue cheese and caramelized onions, buttermilk potato casserole, roasted cherry tomatoes, and green salad.  The culmination of the great Cupcake Marathon was well attended.  Everyone with Calligan blood, or married to a Calligan, within a 500 mile radius was here.  That made nine of us. 

I made what I thought were killer chocolate cupcakes.  Not killer ones, but excellent ones with some chance of being reconstructed with consistency. But alas two unnamed persons said they were a bit dry.  I used the recipe from the restaurant that created this craze, the Magnolia Cafe in NYC.  Vanilla cupcakes were the preference.  Meredith and I had a hilarious  time decorating and we are anxious to do it again with steadier hands, more flourishes and more colors. 

Meredith has suggested to me that I take my time taking each photo.  That way the camera can actually focus on the subject.  It is hard being Hemingway and Ansel Adams at the same time.  And when you add computer skills, it is nearly impossible. 

This is not Memorial Day, only Memorial Day Observed.  Take time to give thanks to those who died for us in war. 

May 27/ born to brothels

Last night Michael and I watched the DVD, BORN TO BROTHELS,  a documentary about the children of prostitutes in Calcutta. An American woman photographer gives the kids cameras, and then teaches them the art of photography. This film has won many awards including the Academy Awards best documentary. Michael insisted he would not watch it, but after watching it, he said,"Wow". As you might imagine, the film is beautifully photographed.

May 26 Chinese adoption

Book club was good. Although I was in charge of the discussion I felt myself a little unable to direct the group.  We reviewed  A Thread of Grace.   Everyone liked it, and I very much recommend it.   For July we chose the Three Cups of Tea, which came recommended.  The story takes place in Pakistan and is the account of a male nurse who failed to climb K2, and then coming down got lost and wandered into a local village.  Ellen felt that every American should read it. 

But perhaps the most interesting topic was one member's family's planned return trip to China this summer to let their ten year old adopted Chinese daughter see China and visit her orphanage.  When the woman and her husband adopted the girl they went with eleven families, and within the first hour of arriving the baby girls were in their arms.  The baby was five months with dysentary, some other problem, and scabs all over her head.  The Chinese would not let the adoptive parents take their daughter out of the country without receiving antibiotics.  So her new parents took the baby to the dirt floored hospital. The dirt floors were covered with bandages and other unsanitary items.  They took the same needle from one person and used it on the next.  The aprons were filthy with bodily fluids of one kind or another.  Our friend said, "No thanks" for her daughter. But they would not let the family leave without the baby having a shot.  Eventually a nurse in a clean white uniform appeared with a clean needle. 

The eleven families who went to China to adopt the girls, and who live all over the United States, have a reunion every summer. This year six of the families are going to China.  It is recommended that adopted children visit China for the first time no later than 10 years old.  At first the children were not excited because they thought they were being returned to the orphanage.  Now they are excited.  The families plan to visit the Great Wall, and other China tourist biggies before going to the orphanage to see where they came from.  Can you imagine how much fun these ten year old girls have when they get together?

May 24/Commencement

   

UCLA did expose me to a broad sectrum of Liberal Arts.  A few classes in Political Science, especially one, gave me insight to power and politics.  I can say that I felt privileged to be attending UCLA.  Most of the students truly thought of our University as devoted to higher learning.  Very few skipped the graduation ceremony.  To this day when I see professors with their robes, mortar boards and hoods, I can get teary eyed.  I do not know who spoke at my graduation, but I can say it was not Elizabeth Taylor or June Allyson.

Jodie Foster was the commencement speaker this Monday at Penn.  She graduated from Yale in 1985 and has since received an honorary doctorate of arts degree. According to CBS she took pictures of the 8,000 graduates from the podium, and ended her address with rapping from Eminem. She criticized the United States Government  for "squandering" the goodwill of other nations after the Sept. 11 attacks, and she was critical of how the government handled  the Katrina aftermath.   She got a standing ovation.   

Gregory Peck would have suggested solutions to our massive current problems.   

May 23/comments

This is to remind you that as of this current time, this blog is not published. I encourage you to tell other people about it, but it is not "published".  What that means to you is that your comments will not show up on the Web someplace.  For example: I reviewed a book on Amazon and my review, out there forever,  appears under my name on the Web. 

May 23/Cupcakes

While Meredith was here, we got into a cupcake marathon.   Our goal was/is to have a cupcake recipe that we can whip out with little effort and be sure that the cupcake was of a certain high standard.  Ideally we want a children's simple cupcake and we want a stylish grownup cupcake.  We want each one to be consistent. 

-CUPCAKES GALORE  is the cupbook that I bought.  Here are our results:

Blueberry tart cupcakes: We ate them all, but not a dessert you would request. 

Zucchini, pine nut: Excellent though small ( I guess that is what a cupcake is) Great picinc food. 

Strawberry Birthday cupcake: Very good, but we were too tired to frost them even though we can had canned frosting.  I think this is the day we took George to the urgent care.   

Fourth of July Red Velvet: These red cupcakes baked into each other so it ended up looking like a cake. We chose to eat the left over zucchini cupcakes.  However the goop that I dug out of the pan is isaved in my freezer because I have been wanting to make a triffle, and I never have left over cake laying around.  I don't even eat cake. 

You might wonder why I am baking?  Sometimes I cook just because I want to know how the recipe puzzle ends.  Like reading a novel.   With my new whacko diet of olive oil, I am assured that my appetite will diminish. Should I lose the 50 pounds I need to, I want to have my stash ready to go.

Here is the new baby.  Pretty sweet.

May 21

Having been a little hard on teenagers  on the 20th.  I must tell you that we took the car through the car wash Sunday.  Two teenaged girls were working the duty, and they did as good a job, and as fast a job as any of the young men who have been there.  Their energy did not waver, and I was there to see them wash about six cars.   

May 20 /immigrants and food

I was struck the other day when I heard someone say that without the Mexican immigrants the food industry would shut down, fast food establishments would close.   I said to my self, what is wrong with this picture? Do you think we could eat at home? Do you think we could avoid some calories here? How about a brown bag?

Starting at about 13, Michael rode the bus from Los Angeles to pick strawberries and beans in the fields of Bellingham.  These were good summers for him.  Pickers  got up early, quit early, had food fights in the fields and then went swimming.  This might seem idolized, but it is true.   When I was around fourteen I started "cutting cots" during apricot season.  We did not especially like the work,  but we were with our friends, and we had a sense that we did real "work".  We were not begged to do this, we felt we were lucky  to be making money. Admittedly, I did move on to retail at first opportunity. 

Likewise two of my daughters worked in fields digging daffodil bulbs.  They whined and moaned, but they got up and went. They were with their friends, they had spending money, and they were brown as berries at the end of the summer.  The third daughter did not work in the fields, but she can hang sheet rock with her husband. 

I say round up these low pants, hats backwards, pink haired, tattooed, lip pierced, whining, freeloading, hot roding teenagers and send them out to the fields.  And be sure they have their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Oreo cookies in their bag.  I guess we could allow IPODs.