Living and Cooking Solo

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...

“What do you think of skating bears?”   That question, from a dear friend, began a column I wrote in 1991 following a weekend gathering with “girlfriends” in Colorado’s high country.  Betty died a couple of years ago from a brain aneurism, quickly and much too young.  Her younger sister, Faye, also a life-long friend, brought a copy of the column when she visited me recently.  We spent the weekend as usual, talking, remembering and laughing.  I waited until she left to read the column, knowing I would cry, which I did. My response to Betty’s question was: “I think those animal activists get a little too radical,” which leads me to believe that animal activists of the day may have been protesting skating bears.  This is only a guess, but my next comment put Betty smack in the thick of things: “Betty threw her hands on her hips and stared me down with a grin I’ve known since the big issues were heart throbs, tight blue jeans and customized Fords and Chevrol...

Recently I came across a chicken recipe that called for raspberry vinaigrette.  Since I rarely purchase ready-made vinaigrette of any type or flavor, I bulked at the idea of buying a bottle just to make this dish. A number of reasons not to purchase vinaigrette, beyond having another bottle of something strange floating around your refrigerator door and that it is so easy to make, come to mind.  If you read labels, which I do, you find water listed as the first ingredient in most processed vinaigrettes.  Next comes various types oil and, in the case of raspberry vinaigrette, the list includes such things as corn syrup and sugar.  Somewhere down the list of ingredients, you find raspberry juice concentrate and/or other artificial flavors.  The lengthy list goes on with some items just as hard to pronounce as they are to invision, which makes one wonder why something that sounds so simple should be so complicated.  I concluded that it should not and, since ...

Each spring my mother and her sister Roberta ordered baby chicks from the local farmer’s cooperative.  My four brothers, three cousins and I watched these cute, furry yellow creatures grow into sturdy chickens running about our respective farmyards.  Then, each fall, my brothers, cousins and I gathered the first day at one farm and the next at the other farm to watch our mothers chop off chicken heads.  Then the fun began. The processing began early in the morning when instead of being turned out to roam the yard, the chickens remained locked in the pen.  They clucked away wondering why this day should be any different from any other as one by one each woman bought out a bird, held its wings and feet together, laid its head on a tree stump and chopped it off with an ax.  She would then toss the headless chicken onto the grass where it ran around and flopped about for what seemed a considerable time.  Thus, I suppose, came the saying, “running around like ...

The greatest fruits of summer come from the tomato vines growing in my garden.  The greatest fruits of winter come from the tomato vines that grew in my garden the previous summer.  This I remind myself as a sea of red begins to cover the top of the counter in my washroom.  I have been eating my fill everyday: sliced tomatoes drizzled with pesto; salad greens spotted with tomato chucks; grilled tomato slices; tomato and mayo sandwiches; tomato, bacon and basil sandwiches; tomato and cucumber salad with vinaigrette.  You name a tomato dish and I’ve eaten it with the exception of the “Tomato Tart” recipe that my friend Rose sent me, which I plan to try very soon.  Still the pile grows, but that’s okay because the fruits covering that counter soon fill jars in the cupboard and small containers in the freezer; storage for the coming winter months. Why both?  I prefer canned tomatoes for most recipes, but there comes a time when I just grow tired of canning, n...

On preparing to fix breakfast earlier this week, I encountered the realization that it was time for a shopping day.  One of the things I’ve learned over years of cooking for one is restraint when it comes to purchasing perishable foods, which often means running out of or low on some items before its time to shop again. This seems especially true in the summer when garden supplies fill my refrigerator and I’m even less inclined to stock up on things like lettuce.  Still, one cannot live on zucchini alone, especially when the tomatoes begin to ripen at an exaggerated pace.  The good thing is tomatoes can be  easily and safely canned (if you take the appropriate precautions), but not before I eat my fill. This particular morning I found myself without milk for cereal, no yogurt to eat with my fruit, and not one egg to be found in my refrigerator.  What I did have were a few slices of bread, a couple of slices bacon, lots of tomatoes and an abundance of Basil. ...

The harvesting of my garden’s first eggplant this season coincided with a visit from my best friend Rose.  The two seemed to fit together like sunshine and rainbows.  Each vivifying the world around me: Rose with her uplifting, intelligent personality, the eggplant with its vivid purple color and strikingly subtle taste, the latter quality shared by both. I met Rose in 1987 when she served as librarian in a neighboring community.  Ever the feisty optimist, Rose attempted to bring culture to a populist grown artistically anemic.  On this occasion, she organized a book signing by local author Kent Haruf following the publication of his first novel, The Tie That Binds .  Haruf later garnered national recognition when Hallmark® created a made-for-television movie based on his third novel, Plainsong . Rose and I clicked immediately.  I wanted to know more about her and in the asking discovered that she published a newsletter (For you youngsters out there, th...

A friend told me recently that he planted a dozen zucchini plants.  I tried not to gasp but failed.  I plant one each summer and grow enough zucchini to feed a small community even picking them when they reach six to eight inches in length.  A dozen plants, I assume, would feed the entire planet.  Zucchini is the only photosynthetic, eukaryotic, multicellular organism that I know of that procreates better than a weed.  This means, even with my one and only lonely plant, a steady summer diet of this somewhat bland veggie. It does help that there are numerous ways to fix a zucchini and its nutritional value is exceptional.  At just 18-20 calories per raw cup, zucchini contains zero fat, minimal sodium and carbohydrates and it is chucked full of vitamin C.  Of course, like any good-for-us food, we can defeat all of that in the preparing. The other thing about summer and food is that mostly I try to stay clear of the kitchen.  When I do cook, it i...

It appears, if one reads history, that home gardening gains popularity during war and/or economic hard times.  Think “Victory Gardens” during both World Wars and the self-sufficiency movement during the Vietnam conflict. Consider President Gerald Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now (WIN) campaign of the late 1970s and the current push to grow food during our current recession.  Granted, today’s enticement for home gardening involves more than saving money.  There is rampant obesity from eating high-fat, high-calorie fast foods, the controversial “greenhouse” effect from over production and materialism and, for some, a longing for a calmer existence; all of the which makes those of us residing in rural areas, where gardening is simply a fact of life, appreciate our traditions. In my small Colorado town, gardening is common in many yards each summer despite our short growing season, which runs from near the end of May until late October.  Moving to the High Plains with its ...

Visits from family tend to invoke memories.  A recent visit to this blog by my niece Joanna triggered many such memories, not the least of which involved a pea. First a bit about Joanna with hopes that she forgives my dredging up her past.  Joanna came into this world kicking.  She never learned to walk, preferring instead to run as fast as she could on legs that measured, at least in my memory, approximately four inches floor to seat.  She broke from her run only long enough to open each and every cupboard door she encountered.  Then she would proceed to empty each cabinet of all contents making sure she missed nothing.  I soon learned to store only plastic and metal objects in those cupboards within her reach. Joanna and her sister, Julie, three years older, spent a good amount of time at our house so my husband Lawrence and I grew to love them dearly and know them well.  Julie played quietly with her plastic horses, never raising a ruckus and ra...

Beyond its reputation for Mardi Gras, slavery, Civil War history, voodoo and music, New Orleans abounds with foods, especially seafood and southern fare.  The dinning guide supplied in my hotel room during a recent visit entitled “ New Orleans Where ” listed 78 eating establishments in the French Quarter alone not to mention those listed in the Central Business/Warehouse District, 36; the Garden District/Lower Garden District, 13; Mirigny/Bywater, 9; Mataire/Kenner, 3; Mid-City, 10; and Uptown, 29. It seems one could spend weeks, even months eating around New Orleans, but my stay called for a meager eight meals, which included three breakfasts.  After spending considerable time reading about the various offerings, I decided the best plan was to play things by hunger and take my chances.  I was also seeking my grandmother’s gumbo. That first morning I stopped at the front desk to inquire about the closest breakfast place.  The desk clerk directed me to an IHOP a b...

Americans beware.  A previously unknown threat, which the Transportation Security Administration is determined to stop, now invades the skies of this great country.  The danger involves the common, everyday blender found in many kitchens across the nation.  Well, not the entire blender, just the threatening terrorist blade found inside the blender. This blender-blade crisis surfaced when my granddaughter Shannon boarded an airline flight in Dallas, Texas, headed for Denver, Colorado where I retrieved her from Denver International Airport a week before Christmas. Shannon arrived with a perturbed look on her lovely face.  “I have a funny story to tell you, Grandma,” she said, as we proceeded to the baggage department. It seems Shannon purchased a blender for her younger sister as a Christmas gift and opted to carry it on the plane rather than add to the weight of her already heavy, large suitcase, which the airline charged her $20 to cart. At the time she check...

My Aunt Roberta never met a bird she did not like.  She filled bird feeders outside her kitchen window and watched as Sparrows, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Doves and Finches flew in to eat.  She also kept birds in the house.  She once set up two love birds in a small home and watch hopefully for them to engage in what their name implies, allowing their tiny eggs to lay in the nest waiting for them to hatch.  Unfortunately no little ones emerged since neither bird seemed inclined to sit on the eggs in the nest. When my mother passed away, I took her orphaned Parakeet Peter to live with Roberta and he/she (one never knows with a bird) chirped happily in front of a large picture window until Roberta joined my mother in the hear-after and Peter went to live with my daughter, Teresa.  We won’t mention the cat that ultimately sent Peter’s little bird spirit to join mom and Roberta. While Roberta’s inside birds bring smiles, my most cherished memories surround the fowl t...

So many ways to cook salmon; so little time.  Not really.  Salmon is a quick fix for busy schedules.  Depending on how you favor your salmon.  Some prefer rare.  Others, like myself, want it flakey and moist but done (I leave eating raw or rare fish to my California sushi-loving relatives.).  Cooking time for a 4- to 6-ounce salmon filet is 10 minutes for rare, 15 minutes for medium and 20-25 minutes for well done, which is my preference. In addition to quick and easy, salmon also responds well to today’s push for healthy eating.  Attempting to respond to the advice to add more fish to my diet, salmon has become one of my favorite health-conscience alternatives to meat.  Not, however, the dry salmon patties my mother used to mix from canned salmon.  There are many tantalizing ways to prepare fresh salmon, which is readily found, single-wrapped for the single cook, in your grocer’s freezer. You can also purchase unfrozen fresh salmon from ...

Life must include occasional desserts.  Otherwise, eating lacks joy.  I’m not talking the fake sugar or fat-free kind of dessert.  I’m talking dessert that slides smoothly over the tongue and sends joy to one’s taste buds. Thinking to ward off the food police, I’m not suggesting that every meal end with a sugar treat or that you eat cake and/or pie every day.  I am suggesting that once in a while a small decadent treat lengthens rather than shortening one’s life.  In fact, it is my opinion that not allowing an occasional dessert could cause one to die of food boredom. At the same time, we singles dare not bake an entire cake or pie and leave it around to temp over indulgence.  That, to me, defeats the purpose.  Dessert should be anticipated and cherished on rare occasions.  Moderation, in my opinion, is the key to everything good in life. Here is a dessert that I make a couple of times a year when I feel like treating myself.  Each bite...