Day of Thankfulness

It’s Thanksgiving morning. I'm on my bed with my laptop, supposed to be studying and listening to "Music Since 1945: Eight Representative Pieces" but ew. 

We had all of the kids and the people they created and the people they belong with over last night. We had the First Annual Pizzagiving, a tradition I hope continues for all of perpetuity. The only things I put in my dishwasher last night after everyone left were three coffee cups. We used some Thanksgiving paper plates I bought last year on clearance and styrofoam cups. (Sure, we harmed the environment, but it was just for one night.) I ordered the pizza last Sunday morning from the Pizza Hut and Domino’s apps, paid for it all with my debit card, and Kady’s boyfriend picked it up when he left work yesterday. Yesterday I cleaned house and made some pies and cookies and a sheet cake for Sammy’s birthday since we weren’t all able to be together on the actual day. (He's 21. My baby boy is TWENTY ONE YEARS OLD.) 

I sat down to do some quick homework about an hour before everyone arrived. I was irked at having two discussion boards due on Pizzagiving (do these instructors not know how historically important Pizzagiving is??) but I also didn’t want to take the hit of a late grade, so I worked on the World Religions post first, posted, then moved on to Music Appreciation. I hadn’t read the chapter, so it was all literally me bullshitting about musicals and Louis Armstrong. I hit post on that awful discussion board with a three-year-old grandgirl on my lap with her Trolls blanket in my face, yelling “Bushel and a peck, Kiki! Bushel and a peck!” At that point singing Bushel and a Peck to her was way more important than music of the stage and screen. And music of the stage and screen is kind of my love language. It’s all about priorities. My classmates will probably read that post and wonder if I had smoked a little before I hit that submit button. I don’t even care.

And now it’s actual Thanksgiving day. Abby and Dakota and the girls will be heading to his family’s gathering. Kady has already made her mac and cheese and is getting around to go be with Zach’s family for the day. Sam and his girlfriend Maegan are here since she’s just in town for a couple days. They’ll have lunch with Paul and me. She’s in college in Arkansas and we don’t get to see her much now that basketball season is in full swing. 

And since it’s a few hours until I have to start fixing lunch, I figured I’d make use of the time to knock out some homework. I’m honestly so tired of homework. Sam paid for a year’s worth of Disney+ for the family and I have watched seven whole minutes of Disney+ programming. I watched the short, “Float” (a must-watch if you love someone with any kind of neurodiversity - seriously, go watch it right now, I’ll wait.) while I was looking for “Frozen” for Petal. Once finals are out of the way I intend to watch every Disney and Pixar movie ever made and also reacquaint myself with Netflix and watch episode after episode of “Victorious” for days on end. I will wear pants only the bare (heh) minimum of time required over the break. I will cook for my husband who has fended for himself quite a lot this semester. I will do very little thinking. I will love on my family and laugh a lot. 

So Happy Day of Thankfulness, Constant Reader. I hope your turkey is whatever you need it to be - smoked, moist, brined, deep-fried or however you prefer. I hope your ham is deliciously hammy. I hope your mashed potatoes are as good as my momma’s. I hope your pumpkin pie is that perfect shade of orange and your pecan pie isn’t runny in the center like mine was yesterday. I hope you see some of your favorite people today or in the days to come. I hope if you have homework to do, it comes to you easily and you don’t have to stress over it. I hope you get a nap. I hope you don’t have to wear pants all that often. 

I hope you are thankful. I am. 

It's Not Always Easy

Originally published in the Miami News-Record on May 8, 2016. 

My firstborn gagged to the point of tears and would throw up any green baby food that was put into her face. She loved squash and sweet potatoes, all of the fruits were fine, but peas and green beans? Barf City. I was an avid reader of any and all parenting books (this was before we had the internet at our fingertips 24/7) and the firm belief was that after ten exposures to a food the child would magically love it and develop a lifetime of healthy eating habits. I mean, it was in the THE BOOKS so of course, it was true, right? Drs. T. Berry Brazelton and Penelope Leach all heartily agreed that picky eaters were a thing of the past because TEN TIMES OF EATING A FOOD WILL CURE PICKINESS. And I believed it.

I believed it so much that when on the 11^th time I coaxed her cherubic little mouth into accepting a little plastic spoon full of green beans and she promptly spewed forth something completely Exorcist-worthy, I busted into tears. Why did she throw up?? Why did she not do the cute little smacking thing she does with applesauce and squash? IS SHE BROKEN?

So then I did what seemed like the next logical thing to do: I called my mother. I got her machine. She was out gallivanting about town while I was having a pureed vegetable crisis involving her first grandchild. The nerve! So the next logical thing was to call the Gerber hotline. Yes, I was that parent. The sweet woman who took my call was probably a grandmother – or a seasoned momma at the least – and listened while I hysterically explained that the green beans were not being accepted by my infant daughter and the doctors on TV assured me this was a foolproof method to ensure a healthy, well-rounded child who would be open to trying such foods as hummus and calamari. She listened. Then when I was done she calmly and sweetly said, “Sweetie? Have you ever thought that maybe she just doesn’t like green beans?” *blink blink* Well, no I had not actually thought of that. I thanked her for her advice and hung up. On a whim stuck my tongue to the spoon full of green goop and gagged. I didn’t make her try them a 12^th time.

I took an infant Sam to the pediatrician once. When poor unsuspecting Dr. Ross walked in the room I held him out at arm’s length and said, “Fix him. He. Is. Broken.” She listened to my tearful description of his incessant screaming, his constant squealing, his perpetual noise-making while she played with him and looked him over from head to toe. I suggested he was hearing impaired – why else would he scream all the time? It wasn’t crying. Just screaming. So much screaming. She  finished her exam, patted a jabbering toddler-faced Abby on the head, then handed Sam back to me. 

“He’s perfectly fine, Momma. He just likes to hear his voice. Apparently a lot. But he’s normal. And you? You need a nap. Let your husband or mother take the kids for a few hours. And don’t be so hard on yourself. Because I know you are.” It was like she knew me! Then I remembered she had gone on maternity leave the week after Sam was born. So she was there in the trenches with me. And maybe her little boy was noisy, too.

So to all my fellow mommas out there: You are not alone. You have a very important job and it’s an exhausting one. And you are most of the time your own worst critic. Chill, my dear. Enjoy the smudges, toys, sticky-on-everything part of their toddler years, the eye-rolling, smelly parts of their teenage years, and the worry-filled and joyous parts of their adulthood. Relax. Enjoy your day. Enjoy Motherhood. And have a happy Mother’s Day! Seriously. I mean it. I SAID enjoy yourself. Stop touching your brother! And don’t pick your nose!

Oops, sorry. Occupational hazard. 

Hot Flash

Published in the Miami News-Record on January 31, 2016 

I have a lot of confidence in my cooking and baking abilities and know my way around a kitchen quite well, thank you very much. But last week, I was a hot mess in the kitchen. Kind of literally.

I had decided to boil a chicken for a few meals over the next few days. I wanted a lot of broth so I used my big pot and filled it kind of full. Once the hen got to boiling in her hot tub full of onions and celery, the broth would occasionally splash out a little. I tried to keep things cleaned up on the stove as she boiled, but apparently, I missed some. Okay, like, a whole lot of it.

Since Paul works evening shift now, we eat our biggest meal of the day at noon when the four of us are home together. It has taken some adjusting to and even still I find myself busy with laundry or school or housework, will look up and realize it’s nearly time for Sam to be home from vo-tech and I haven’t started a thing. I guess I’m a slow learner.

And that was the case last week when I looked up from taking down that last Christmas tree. Oh, who am I kidding. That tree’s still up. Anyway, when I looked up from my crossword puzzle, I realized it was way past when I needed to start the chicken pot pie for lunch. I peeled my potatoes and put them on to give boil a little to soften them up before putting them in the pie. I was rolling out my pie crust, my back to the stove, when I heard this “WHOOSH!” sound – you know, that unmistakable sound of something catching fire. Apparently, while I did a great job cleaning the stovetop the night before, I kind of forgot about checking the drip pan underneath the burner and chicken broth has just enough fat in it to be dramatically combustible.

I turned to see my lovely red Guy Fieri saucepan engulfed in flames. You know when you see something you can’t believe you’re seeing and you just stand there in a state of stupefaction and incomprehension as chaos just kind of happens? Yeah. I did that. And suddenly I was transported back to the Home Ec kitchen at Wyandotte High, standing there in my tight-rolled, acid-washed jeans, my bangs reaching to the heavens, while the stove flamed right before my eyes. And in that memory I saw Mrs. Johnson calmly reach for the baking soda and smother the flames like it happened every day of her life. (Truth be told, it probably did. She was a Home Ec teacher, after all.)

My brain kind of did a mental face-slap and I came back from 1988. As I bolted to the cabinet with the baking soda I hollered, “Pauly? Uhm….fire. My stove is on fire. Fire! FIRE! PAUL. MY. STOVE. IS. ON. FIRE.” I don’t think that man ever came up out of a recliner so fast in his life. And as he hit the kitchen he, too, did the whole deer-in-the-headlights freeze. I brushed past him, tossed baking soda at the flames, and we both just stood there staring at the powdery disaster that was now my stove.

 Once the mess was cleaned up I went ahead and continued on with the pot-pie-making. And it would’ve been Paula Deen perfect had I not opened the scoop-y part instead of the shake-y part of the paprika.

At lunch, while poking at it with his fork, Paul asked, “Why is the pot pie goop pink instead of the usual kind of…. yellow-ish color?”

It’s funny how one raised eyebrow can say so much and a query about pink pot pie goop suddenly becomes a non-issue.  It was a very quiet and peaceful lunch that day. 

Mystery Meat

Originally published in the Miami News-Record, October 5, 2014

We are a one income family and have been for most of our married life. Please don’t misunderstand – we aren’t living on one income because that’s all we need to live on; no, we live on one income because it’s our choice. We do without a lot of things in order to make it work. It’s not for everyone. Living frugally to the extreme isn’t easy and it’s not for everyone. Sometimes you just have to get creative and do the best you can. Sales are my best friend come menu-planning day and I take my shopping very seriously.

A few weeks ago the little grocery store near where we live had a great sale on fryer leg quarters. It was limit two and I wanted to get as many as I could before they went off sale. (Please don’t judge – it didn’t say “Limit two per household forever” or anything.) I picked up two and sent money with my oldest daughter to pick up two more when she got off work that night. I never thought that she didn’t know what a fryer leg quarter looked like, but later realized that at nearly 18 I guarantee you I didn’t know what they looked like either. I told her the price per pound and that they were in 10-pound bags, so they should be $6.80 a bag. She wrote all of that down along with “fryer leg quarters – CHICKEN” on a scrap of paper, tucked it into her purse with my $20 and headed to work.

That night around 9:30, she walked in the door with a rather large plastic bag of flat, frozen hunks of meat and a very upset look on her face. She held it out at arm’s length and asked, “Is this what you wanted?” I squinted at the contents and shook my head. Her shoulders slumped as she said, “I didn’t think so. But oh, let me tell you the story.” I gingerly took the bag of frozen meat pucks and inspected it, trying to not bust out in hysterical laughter only because I knew she was upset at not fulfilling her duties that night. She then told me how the nose-picking, slack-jawed hillbilly kid at the register stared at her blankly and said, “Uhm….yeah…..uh….I got no idear what y’all are talkin’ ‘bout. I don’t know ‘bout no fr’ar leg quotters,” to which my outspoken daughter then said, “Well then, I think maybe you should find me somebody who does.” The kid was still knuckle-deep in a nostril as he called for “someone from the back” who, coincidentally, had no idea what she was talking about either. He did, however, manage to dig up the bag of mystery meat and said, “I don’t know if this is what you want, but it’s only five dollars so….” and trailed off as if she should be pleased at the $1.80 price difference. She was not, but she was also tired and irritated.

One adventurous night a few weeks ago I decided to make the Mystery Meat for dinner. Abby took a picture of them and put it on Facebook. Several people commented, saying they wanted to throw up just looking at them. A few said we were crazy for eating them. A few tried to identify them. Turns out, they were backs. Chicken backs. *shudder* The family said they tasted good, but about an hour and a half after dinner we were all in the kitchen looking for a snack. Turns out, there just isn’t a whole lot of meat on a chicken’s back.

*Certain author liberties were taken with this story. There are no actual hillbillies working at the local grocery store. Nor were any noses picked during the incident in question. So says Abby. She might also be protecting her secret hillbilly boyfriend who bought up all my cheap fryer leg quarters. 

An Adventure in Monster Pie Cake

Just before Thanksgiving I heard about this thing called a "Cherpumple", otherwise known as a monster pie cake. Basically, it is a cherry pie baked into a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked into a spice cake and an apple pie baked into a yellow cake. Get it?

Because it isn't every day you make a cake of such epic proportions, I decided to photojournal the whole affair. Not to mention it took five hours from start to finish - that alone is worthy of documentation. Also, big thanks to Abby who took pictures every time I hollered. This meant tearing herself away from a Bop magazine, her iPod and the bazillions of text messages she sent her friends during the five hour ordeal.

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Here's the whole shebang; all the ingredients used to make the behemoth.

I am normally not a supporter of store-bought pies, but for this recipe you need to use them. Use the store-made ones from the grocery bakery because they are smaller. The frozen Mrs. Smith pies are as big or bigger than what you'd make yourself. They have to be small to fit inside the cake.

Okay, whoops - I left the butter and milk for the frosting out of the picture.

Oh well. Pretend they're there.

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Start with three greased and floured 9" cake pans.

The greasing of cake pans is why I had children. Sticking my hand in a vat of fat is enough to bring on the gags for me. Now I have children for this disgusting task and they think it is AMAZING.

I recommend having children for this purpose.

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First layer: Pumpkin and spice. Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box. Pour some batter in the pan, plop the pie on top and cover with more batter.

You'll have some batter left over, but it's okay - make cupcakes!

(I actually did not make cupcakes from this layer because spice cupcakes sound nasssssty.

Then again, I'm not a fan of the spice cake to begin with.)

This layer was doomed from the start. For one thing, I put the pie in right side up and it should have been upside down. Note that this quite possible was a fatal error for layer #1.

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Here is the completed spice cake layer.

If the batter runs over the edge of the pan - which it likely will - just trim the edges when it's cooled

.

For the sake of time, I cooled my layers in the freezer. I wholeheartedly recommend putting a layer of parchment or wax paper between the cake and plate when they cool.

Mine stuck to the naked plate.

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Here is layer number two: Cherry and white.

Note I put it in upside down this time. Also note it cracked when I did.

This may have been because I was all full of myself and tried to entertain and impress my teenager who was photographing for me. She was, however, unimpressed and I just ended up with a cracked pie.

Fortunately, when you're baking an pie into a cake, cracks matter not.

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To keep this photoblog from being 17 eons long (as opposed to the 14 it already is)

I didn't photograph the finished other two layers.

Just use your imagination.

The recipe I found online called for canned cream cheese frosting, but

I am a frosting purist and always make my own frosting.

When it comes to cream cheese frosting I especially don't like using canned.

It just seems ..... wrong.

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Here is where I unveil the disaster of the pumpkin spice layer.

Kind of gaggy, huh?

We have all theorized and here are our two possible conclusions:

1) Putting the pie in right side up make it too hard for the pie to bake around the cake.

2) Because pumpkin pie is a custard and therefore has to set up, by re-baking it inside the cake it liquified and basically turned into a pool of mushy goo.

I'm going with the second one.

It was no major disaster for me that it didn't end up in the cake.

To me it seems out of place to stick a spice cake and a custard pie in the midst of two fruit pies.

Next time I'm going with peach in a white cake instead of pumpkin.

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While it looks like I am praying over my monster pie cake, perhaps asking that the soul of the deceased spice cake layer be safe in Heaven, no, I am not praying over pastry.....

I was tweeting.

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Here is the finished product, a Cherple.

Kind of  like a two-layer train wreck of delightful baked confection.

It was also heavy as all get out. As in, heavy to carry.

I think I pulled a muscle between the van and Mom's house.

Oh, the taste?

One word:

Amazing.

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And apparently, besides tickling your taste buds, it also has powers we knew not of beforehand.

It has the ability to make grown men wear silly hats and hair accessories while they play Guitar Hero.

Hey, it's a rule that when you play Guitar Hero you must wear something on your head.

The men were not about to let the kids and teens beat them at video games, so

they donned fedoras, African animal ears and farm animal sock hats in order to participate.

I think it was all because of the Cherpumple.

Errr.....Cherple.

Ahhh......Thanksgiving.