Day 2 Day radishes

July 28/ How life plays out

When my great nephew and several grandsons were here this summer, there was a lot of discussion about food. Mostly in the negative. Having the long view was most interesting. My niece declared herself a vegetarian early on. But if we had roast beef for Christmas dinner, she ate the beef. As a mother, she was very much into nutrition and whole grains, vegetables. Finances contributed to this approach, I am sure. But we lived in a hippy dippy part of the world, if not the most hippy-dippy part of the world. Granola was the way to go.

My girls and their families are meat eaters. The mothers have a liberal approach to snacks for children. One mother considers lettuce salad the vegetable. I know that my girls understand the food groups, but maybe not as it applies to them. For some fish is out. The other daughter likes fish, but her husband is allergic. No fish at that house.

While the last paragraph is said in jest, the point I am trying to make is, there was contrast between my nieces house and my daughter’s house.

The talk among the boys at our dinner table was pizza, pizza, pizza. The boys were united. Pizza topped even peanut butter and jelly.

One night we had filet mignon. What possessed me, I do not know, I served it to the boys. One likes beef, one does not eat beef, and the other had had only had beef steak once in his life and it was awful, but he would give this steak a try. The consensus was that it was terrific. Possibly the best ever.

If this steak had cost $5.99 a pound, would they still have liked it?

July 26/ Pickles and Jam

In my childhood during the great war were Victory Gardens. Now growing your own food, or buying locally is a called locavor. Locavors are so attached to everything green, that it makes more sense to grow it yourself, or as the New York Times reported, contract someone to come in, plan, plant, maintain, and harvest your garden for you. This all amuses me no end. I am growing a vegetable garden because I have finally found out an easier way to do it: raised gardens or in my case containers. I do not even do organic. Well I do, if my worm bin is active. My life is living through chemistry already, and at my time of life what is a little miracle grow? I love the variations that you can grow. And I love the vegetables while they are still firm. I am even going to plant a plum tree in a pot. Currently I am making some pickles. Also I made strawberry freezer jam. It has a ton of sugar, but the way I am looking at it is, a cup of strawberry jam has 119 % of your daily requirements for Vitamin C.

July 25, on the ferry

Yesterday Mr. Radish went to have his eyes checked at his optometrist who is three hours, including a ferry ride, away. One might think there was an optometrist closer to home, and one might be right. But we took this as a holiday, and the weather was perfect. I love a ferry ride especially now that we ride them so seldom, and the weather is so very good. Coming back on the ferry I chose to stay on the car deck. We had been very lucky and we were the last car on the boat until the next ferry, which would be an hour away. Our car was positioned in a perfect place for deck standing.

On the car deck there were a couple of lovers smooching with their dog who looked on. And later a Hispanic man came up with his disposable camera. I asked him if he would like me to take his picture. Yes. We started talking, and he had one of the big semis on the boat. His English was difficult, and he understood much more than he spoke. I, disgustingly, started sign language and baby talk. I started asking about gasoline, how much he used, how much it cost. Two weeks ago he went round trip from San Diego to New York, and the gasoline bill was $8,600.00. On the west coast he gets 1,200 miles for $1,000.00. Of course in the cost of transportation of goods, that does not include the price of the truck or the wages, or fees.

I know that drilling will not cut the price of oil now, but it would be nice to not have our current problem in ten years.

July 23, Crying over water

In the State of Washington the water that falls in the form of rain upon your property belongs to the State.  So if you have a rain barrel you can use the water, but if you have five rain barrels, you might have to give water to the guy up the street.  Or maybe they can ship it to Southern California. 

July 22/garden

July 22/ One thing leads to another

I was looking over a few old gardening posts. I see that when I had a broken ankle, I potted some tarragon twigs, and got my walking boot filthy. I planted those twigs after having given up gardening forever. My back yard is steep and difficult for me, and what had been my wee vegetable garden never produced much, although the zucchini kept me in the game. I was pleased that I would have tarragon, and putting it in a pot was easy.

Then I thought, well perhaps a tomato plant, and there is no sense having only one as I get so few tomatoes. I had some pots and then I filled those up because I could. I have a large metal anniversary pot where I put zucchini. Then I went down to my garden library and drug up every conceivable book from my past gardening phases. I have always wanted a French kitchen garden. Then I went to a bookstore and there was a book that I previously owned, and essentially threw away, on container vegetable gardening. By golly you can also do lettuce, and why not chard. There was the parsley to be replaced. Then I found a hidden book among my cookbooks that was called the French Potager. I wrote to a woman in France of kitchen gardening fame. She blew me off. Meanwhile I am buying dirt, bags and bags. Pots are very expensive if you buy good ones, and even if you buy trashy ones. I got heavy cardboard boxes from the produce department at the grocery. Many kitchen gardens have flowers, and already there were potted roses by the front of the house. I am praying my zinnias grow. One thing just leads to another.

How is this garden doing? Mixed. We have had a cool summer. My two person crops are just now beginning to be harvested. I doubt if my tomatoes will every form and ripen. But there is a thrill of picking something you have grown. And what is good, is very, very good. My chard picked small, rocks. I would never buy those huge wilted leaves in the grocery store. Lettuce is delicious. It has flavor. My success is enough to start my fall winter garden. Discovering, containers, fertilizer, and faithful watering has helped. There is little to no weeding.

Little did I know that I had stumbled onto something hot. I was told recently that people are gardening in horse troughs. This keeps the elderly from having to crawl on the ground and wondering if they can get up.

July 19/ Eat it and you vill like it.

How to make sandwiches for a crowd of adults and kids?  I have studied this.  The fastest and easiest way may not be what you think: telling them to make their own.  No, the easiest way is to send a kid out with a pad and pencil and have them take orders. Mayo, mustard, mayo/mustard, turkey, salami, peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly, white cheese, orange cheese. The up side of this is that people generally get what they want, and if you know what consumers  want, one or two cooks can whip them out in no time at all, and all the waffling decisions are made away from the kitchen. This also takes away the Mommy factor of saying no to what Mommy suggests.   At our house most kids want a riff on peanut butter. After some experimentation, I decided on a whole sandwich regardless of what they said they wanted.  This is better than having kids say they are hungry right after the food is put away.  Regardless of your age, size or shape,   you get a whole sandwich. 

Speaking of peanut butter.  When the children were here last week, I tried to make some sort of decent meals, remembering my mother , green vegetables, and protein etc. Also I liked having a good meal.  Next summer, for kids,  I am  thinking of a menu of peanut butter and jelly, three times a day until further notice with the exception of a quesadilla as the only viable diversity, with fruit optional, especially plums. My mother made me carrot sticks every day of my life when I was a kid.   Carrot sticks are out for today’s kids. 

It did occur to me late in the week, that orphanages probably did not put out well rounded meals.  It was gruel, gruel, gruel. 

July 18/Bathroom justice

There is someone I know who has stayed at my house who has trouble flushing toilets. One day this summer it was reported by my sister-in-law Radish that there was a filled toilet in the downstairs bathroom. Pumping up my blood pressure a few octaves, I went and found who I knew to be the culprit. Further, I was hoping for this practice to end permanently. Privately, I explained the reasons for flushing, and this person said he was trying. I went ballistic over that comment and said I was trying to like poop in the toilet, but I couldn’t.

What would be a punishment that he would remember?” I don know”, he said. I thought and thought but was falling short of what I thought would be memorable, and I then changed my tact. I asked myself, what would be useful to me, for him to do. Finally, I said that he would take care of his young cousin for an hour. I had found his nerve. “I can’t”, he cried, “I just can’t. They need me in the game.” (Dungeons and Dragons.) Tears spurt straight out from his eyes. Truly they went two inches. “I can’t”, he cried back,” and I screamed back, “ I can not have poop in my toilets.” He did take care of the two year old for an hour.

The next day, my sister-in-law reported that there was feces on the bathroom wall. My heart fell. I knew that I was going to be the one to deal with this. Mr. Radish said that he would verify the situation. Yes, he confirmed that it was poop on the wall. He said that it could have been an accident if a person were in a real hurry to hit the toilet. In addition, he knew who it was as there was a pair of underwear sitting at the foot of the toilet. The attending Mother was asked to deal with whom we perceived to be the culprit. When she arrived back to our waiting, and downhearted adult group, and she showed no signs of combat. The “culprit” said, “Oh that is my brother’s plum and he missed the waste basket”, and he threw the stuck plum in the waste basket. The attending Mother affirmed that it included the pit.

So what do we have here? My husband is going to deal with his cataracts. There are reasons that the innocent are still innocent until proven guilty. And three, there are happy endings.

July 17/ Skin

Perhaps you have seen my images of the 4^th of July several posts ago. You will see my young friend Rob who was the photographer of the party, the real photographer. Between jobs Rob has taken up photography with real energy. It shows. His skills are improving at great speed. Unlike me, Rob tries to take real images that the photographed will like, and he will be proud of. He crops, retouches, whatever. He is a Photoshop master.

Several days after the party, he had his photos up on the web, and our July Fourth party was on the site. My daughter called to say that they were ready and uploaded. She called again to see if I had seen the pictures. I had not. She said that Rob wanted to know if I really liked my skin. Frankly, I thought that was a silly question, plus a little invasive. No, I really don’t like my skin, but my skin is better than most my age, and it is also what I have. But as things go, it is a better part of my body. “Mom, really look at the pictures”, Margaret repeated

Two days later I looked at the pictures. There I am. A close-up. And I have perfect skin. My skin is even, unwrinkled, with no large pores and the color is uniform. I regret that I did not put on makeup. But I love my skin.

July 15/ elderly

This week has been Camp Radish. Mr. Radish and I, and the sister of Mr. Radish have been the caretakers of three grandsons for a week. Late in the week two more grandsons showed up with a couple of mothers. At the end of the week , the senior Radish’s toured to a destination town for lunch at a restaurant our parents and their parents would have liked, quiet., sedate, old, semi French. And we did not exceed the speed limit to get there. The restaurant did have good food, and it was on the water but there were not enough umbrellas, so it was a inside, window table for us. My sister in law had on her summer pants outfit which is at least ten years old, and I had worn a dotted swiss blouse with ruffles for sleeves over my very large arms. If that was not enough, on the way, my husband’s Chinese shirt ripped about eight inches and his furry flesh was hanging out. I have nearly always noticed older couples touring. I thought I hoped it never happens to me or at least I would do it more attractively. But as I left that restaurant I said, “It has come to this.”

Later in the evening when the kitchen was cleaned up, we sat on the deck our chairs lined up as the elderly on a steamer down the Nile finishing off our wine. We agreed, this was the life.