Wedding

Last week I went to my nephew's wedding in Ely, Minnesota. Being a very small wedding I was the representative from the groom's mother's side of the family partly because I live the closest to Ely and partly because my daughter, Rachel was in the wedding party. She was a groom's man which tells you right away this was not a traditional wedding.



John and Lauryn exchanged vows and rings in the rain in a small clearing in the woods on the property of Lauryn's sister's house. The thirty guests stood in a semi-circle around the clearing. Lauryn's father performed the ceremony as well as catered the reception. The ceremony was beautiful, the light rain just adding to the magical atmosphere. The theme of the wedding was Alice in Wonderland complete with the white rabbit leading the way down the "aisle". The crochet match was rained out.

In thinking about weddings , I think about the importance of family. I feel sorry for those that don't have strong family bonds. Although I don't see my family (brothers and sisters, daughters) as often as I would like or even talk to them as often as I might, there is a bond so strong I can think of nothing that could break it.



I went to my writing group yesterday and we wrote about a sibling. I chose my oldest sister, Susan, to write about. In the fifteen minute timed writing I barely scratched the surface of our relationship. The thing I remember most about our childhood is the stories she would tell us at night, always leaving us with a cliff hanger. We would beg her to continue but she never would. Later I would find out that she needed the next day to work out the story for herself. A woman in my group said that while friends come and go family is always there. Susan seems to hang on to friends forever but I have not been so lucky, (though it probably has little to do with luck.) But I have my family.



Maintaining my new family seems to be a little harder. I find myself falling into the same pattern as with my brothers and sisters; not communicating with my kids as often as I would like. Kate is a little different because she lives close to me and we maintain a more frequent exchange of ideas. With Judy and Rachel it is hard not being in their everyday lives. I would love nothing more than if they would move to Chicago but alas, the winters (or maybe it's mom.) The key to raising happy children (and that is all we really want isn't it?) is to love them unconditionally (easier said than done) and remembering that they are not a reflection of ourselves. They are their own persons and what ever they decide to do (as long as it isn't becoming a serial killer) is O.K. As much as I complain about how critical my mother was, she never wrote us off when we took paths not to her liking.

Kefir

I was introduced to kefir by Karen of Holes in My Jeans, a great blog that I follow. I thought it would be fun to grow healthy stuff in my kitchen and drink it. You can check out Karen's blog on Kefir for the many health benefits.

Karen said that she had gotten a teaspoon of kefir grains for 15 dollars. I got two tablespoons for 20 (including shipping.) The woman I got the kefir from lives in Ohio and also raises goats. (Karen raises goats.) She is a little odd in that she only accepts cash (doesn't believe in banks) and sends the stuff before she receives payment. She says that people who want kefir are generally honest people.

Kefir is basically fermented milk similar to yogurt but with more probiotic bacteria. Per Wikipedia kefir "originated with shepherds of the Caucasus region, who discovered that fresh milk carried in leather pouches would occasionally ferment into an effervescent beverage. It is prepared by inoculating cow, goat, or sheep's milk with kefir grains. Traditional kefir was made in skin bags that were hung near a doorway; the bag would be knocked by anyone passing through the doorway to help keep the milk and kefir grains well mixed"

The kefir grains look a bit like cauliflower. As the milk ferments it feeds the grains and they multiply. You reuse the grains over and over and give the extra to friends. If you use the real grains and not the commercial starter kits you never have to buy them again. Ever.

My instructions sounded a little different from Karen's perhaps due to a smaller amount of grains that she had received. She had to wait a few days for her Kefir. I put all of my grains in a glass jar and added 2 cups of milk. I covered the jar with a paper towel and left it at room temperature. By the end of 24 hours I was drinking kefir. The instructions say you go by taste and not by consistency. I strained the kefir milk after 24 hours and then put my kefir grains and more milk to a clean jar and started again. The problem is that the kefir grains multiply and I have yet to find anyone who wants to share in my good health or they would rather just buy the flavored drinks at the health food stores. (Here in Chicago ethnic stores also carry Kefir.) My Kefir is getting thicker and thicker. When I asked my supplier how I make just enough for me and not keep multiplying she said to simply eat the extra grains. I haven't done that yet.

The taste of the Kefir is somewhere between buttermilk and unflavored yogurt. The amount of grains and how long the milk ferments will determine whether the drink is mild or strong in flavor. Since I am not crazy about the taste I put mine in a blender with frozen fruit. I was using maple syrup, honey, or agave to sweeten in but have recently found that by just adding additional fresh or dried fruits such as apples, grapes or figs the drink is really sweet enough. I am getting use to the taste and actually drank 1/2 glass plain today. Not bad.

I like to make the kefir and then put it in the refrigerator for a day. It becomes cold and a little thicker. Great for the smoothies. What have I noticed so far health wise? Maybe its all in my head but I think I'm sleeping better. Or maybe it's the fermentation. I seem to be craving less sweets. I'm hoping it helps me live to be 100. Karen wants 125 but I will settle for 100. Oh and below you can see my before and after pictures. This is after just one week of Kefir.

The one on the left is the before, the one on the right is after. Pretty amazing huh?

Back to Women of Great Taste Sort Of

On Wednesday Kate and Charlie came over for dinner and I made Enchiladas Con Pollo from Women of Great Taste. It is not a new recipe but one of our favorites. A very mild Mexican dish. In the past I remember it taking much longer to put it together. Perhaps because I had bought a rotisserie chicken and cut it up earlier in the day so all I had to do was chop green onions and grate cheese for the filling it didn't seem so labor intensive. The enchiladas are baked in a basic white sauce with canned green chili's added and more cheese on top. Delicious as usual and every one must have been hungry because there were very few leftovers.

A friend recently pointed out that I am obsessed with food. He didn't actually say that. He said that I have a relationship with food and that I always mention food or cooking in my emails. My daughter, Kate, said that my blogs while about cooking and food really are about my relationship with food. I guess it is true.

Sometimes I feel like a throw back to our very distant ancestors; the ones who spent their days foraging for food. Take the day I was cooking for Kate and Charlie for instance. First I had to go to my favorite rotisserie chicken place a little ways up the street. That was after I went to my favorite breakfast place for breakfast. Then I walked the other direction to gather the guacamole and salsa (best guacamole in Chicago) to serve with the enchiladas. I took those home, cut up the chicken and then after a short nap took the bus to the grocery store for the rest of the ingredients and rushed home to cook. A whole day centered around food. And when I am not gathering, cooking or eating it, I'm blogging or talking about it. Maybe I need to try refocusing. I did go to a hypnotist once. I asked him if he could give me the suggestion that I stop thinking about food all the time. He said the problem is that when you try not to think about something that is all you think about. So what's the answer? I have no idea.

There is a side benefit to gathering food, however. Besides the exercises, I get to enjoy the fruits of other people's labor. I think I have mentioned in the past how in Chicago spring seems to last much longer than it did in St. Louis. I was often depressed at how fleeting the beauty was in Missouri. This year though, Chicago has been a bit atypical. We had a very warm snap that caused acceleration in blooming and fading. The tulip trees lasted only about a week and a half. On my walk I found lilacs and even peonies already blooming. But the daffodils are still there and the tulips as well as other flowering trees. It is so nice of people to work hard (or pay others to work hard) for my enjoyment.

Ham and Bean Soup

I am not a big fan of ham. I like to eat it at Christmas and Easter but mostly even at the holidays I buy ham so that I can make bean soup. Sometimes I make bean soup with out getting a ham first, using ham hocks or just bacon, but I prefer to make it from a ham bone that has been enjoyed during the holidays.


I remember liking ham more as a child until Grandmother died when we were inundated with hams from thoughtful neighbors and friends. If my memory is correct none of us wanted ham for a very long time after that. I'm not sure if it was because it reminded us of Grandma's death or we were just sick of ham.


When I was living in St. Charles I started buying Honey Baked Hams from the Honey Baked Ham store. We had a store in St. Charles so it was close and convenient. Their claim to fame is their spiral cut and special honey glaze. I always thought they were better than the hams at the grocery store although certainly pricier. Not everyone agreed with me but the crowds at the store around the holidays did. Since living in Chicago it has been a little more difficult to obtain a honey baked ham. The closet store to me is in Morton Grove about 9 mines away and not easily gotten to by public transportation. So I borrowed Kate's car on the Saturday before Easter.

Kate was working on Easter so we planned the Easter meal for Saturday evening. The other great thing about the Honey Baked Ham store is that they have prepared sides that are very tasty. And I was being lazy. There was a line as usual when you wait until the last minute. I waited in line for about 30 minutes but the day was beautiful and the crowd was friendly. I got the ham and 3 sides. I did make deviled eggs and a birthday cake for Kim.


Finally about a week after Easter I made the bean soup. It was cold and dreary outside so it was a good day for it. I still remember the first time I had bean soup. I was probably a teenager though might have been younger. The family was invited to a house of one of Dad's colleagues. . I know I didn't want to go. I hated that kind of thing, expected to mingle and talk at least to the other kids. I remember telling Mom I didn't want to eat the bean soup (I had never even heard of it before.) Mother told me I would eat the bean soup and I did. It was delicious.


For some unknown reason I decided to not make my usual bean soup and looked for a recipe at AllRecipes.com. The first recipe that popped up when I put in ham and bean soup was titled The Best Bean and Ham Soup. Posted in 2008 it had 188 reviews and 41/2 stars out of 5. Most of the reviews I read hadn't changed anything except to add more beans or vegetables. They thought the soup was a little too bothy. So when I made the soup I resisted putting in a second bag of beans but did add more onion, carrot and celery.


The best part of cooking soup and especially bean soup is the aroma. I was in and out of the apartment doing laundry, running up to 7-11 and every time I came back the smell was intoxicating. This recipe said to cook the soup for 8 hours, remove the ham bone and simmer another 2 hours. I had mine on for about 7 hours total.

What I discovered in the end was that although the soup was hearty and delicious it wasn't the bean soup I wanted. I should have gotten a clue from the reviews as a lot of people said "I don't really like bean soup but I liked this". In reality it wasn't bean soup at all. I would consider it more of a vegetable soup (called for vegetable broth and V8 juice as well as chicken stock). The bean flavor was over shadowed by the broths and vegetables. The problem is I really like bean soup. So now I am going to have to find a ham bone and make some real bean soup. I found a recipe for navy bean soup. Water, ham bone, beans and onions. You can't get more basic than that.

Good Things Come in Threes

Today is Rachel's 24Th birthday. Happy birthday Rachel! She doesn't read my blogs but she is a good example that good things come in threes. She is the youngest of my three daughters. Other examples: breakfast, lunch and dinner; the mind, body and soul; morning, evening and night; primary colors; the three little pigs. You get the idea.

Psychologists tell us that we can only comprehend three things at a time. After that we get confused. That is why in desk top publishing a good practice is to use only three elements. On a business card for example, it is recommended that one group the information into three parts . A good business letter has only three paragraphs. English composition taught us introduction, body and conclusion. In writing it is good practice when listing things to list only three. 'The man, woman and dog raced up the hill' works well. 'The man, woman, child and dog raced up the hill' not so well. In photography we live and die by the rule of 3Rd's. (Not really but it is an important composition tool.)

And then there is cooking. Besides three meals a day and three course dinners many cuisines begin with three basic ingredients to flavor their dishes. Cajun chefs call it the holy trinity: Bell peppers, onions and celery. The French mirepiox on the other hand consists of onion, celery and carrots. According to Wikepedia here are some others:

Chinese: scallions, ginger and garlic.
Brazil: dente oil (palm oil), coconut milk and malaqueta pepper.
Cuban: garlic, bell peppers, and Spanish onion.
Filipino: garlic, onion and tomatoes.
Greek: lemon juice, olive oil and oregano.
Indian: garlic, ginger and onion.
Indonesia: fish, coconut and chili peppers.
Italian: tomato, garlic and basil.
Japanese: dashi, mirin, soy sauce.
Lebanese: garlic, lemon juice and olive oil.
Mexican: corn, beans and chillies
Native American: corn, beans and squash.
Spanish: garlic, onions and tomatoes.
Thai: galangal (related to ginger), kaffer lime and lemon grass.

Kind of interesting I think. What is specifically missing in this list is the German cuisine. I looked up German foods but did not find a triad of basic ingredients. I would contend, however that Mother was heavily influenced by the Germans as was I in my early cooking days. I used a lot of onions (still do), green peppers (still do) and tomatoes. What I didn't use was garlic. I'm sure Mom used garlic in her lasagna, but I don't think she used it in her every day cooking. Now I use garlic in almost every thing I cook. One thing my ex and I agreed on is that you can never have too much garlic.

So this is my blog for the week. The weather here in Chicago is beautiful today. Sixty-five degrees. I got canceled from work (a mixed blessing) and so Kate and I are going to get together later to celebrate Rachel's birthday even though Rachel is in New Orleans. I am in my fourth week of dieting which is significant because I usually quit after three weeks. (See how I brought this back around to the theme of three?) Maybe multiples of three will work. Six, 9, 12. I am trying to stick to breakfast lunch and dinner. That fourth element of snacking really messes things up.

My Life

I didn't want to tell you what this blog is about in my title because I was afraid you wouldn't read it. I have been teasing about blogging about my love for my iPhone and I decided it is time. I can hear the groans out there. I know you are saying "come on, get a life." In a way, my iPhone is my life. (did I really just say that). Let's just say it enhances my life every day.

First, what I don't use my iPhone for: talking. I have AT&T's cheapest package and have more roll over minutes than I will ever use. I wonder if I can donate them to someone in need. I guess with unlimited minutes these days people don't need mine.

So if I don't use my iPhone to talk except to occasionally hear the voice of my siblings and daughters what do I use it for? Well, there is texting. Charlotte and I text back and forth to figure out what we are going to do on our outings. Often times I find I get a quicker response from my kids when I text them than if I leave them a voice mail. It's nice to know I can (and I don't do it often enough) text Judy or Rachel or Kate to tell them I'm thinking about them and know they see it immediately.

In a previous blog I talked about the GPS on my phone. That comes in very handy when I'm downtown and can't figure out which way is east, or if I am trying to get some place new and I want to figure out the easiest way to do it. My phone tells me which train or bus to take. And speaking of the bus, the CTA has a program call the Bus Tracker (kind of catchy name don't you think) that I can plug into and it tells me how long before the next bus comes.

I can click on the weather app and find out what the temperature is in Chicago, or Bentonville, or Tulsa or New Orleans, or Springfield, or Lexington or Eugene or Harwich or Salt Lake City or Kansas City, just to see how everyone is doing weather wise.

I have a clock app that has the world clock on it so I can find out what time it is anywhere in the world. I don't use that so much. But it also has a timer which I use every Sunday night to time our writings in my writing group. It also has a stop watch so I can see how long it takes me to walk to one place or another. And an alarm that comes in handy too. There is a calendar that tells me what day it is and I can set reminders for appointments.

I use iTunes to down load pod casts on cooking and photography. Since I have given up my car I don't listen to NPR so much but now I have an app called NPR addict and I am back in the know. Bill turned me on to Pandora which I downloaded to my phone and if I want to listen to music I have lots to choose from. I sometimes use the Spa Radio for my relaxation classes at work. Right now I'm listing to Romantic Piano Solos.

I down loaded a free dictionary app that comes in really handy because I can't spell. Most of the time I rely on spell check but when I'm commenting on other people's blogs I have to occasionally look up a word. And I can look up meanings and it even comes with a thesaurus.

There is a calculator of coarse. There is a program I've been using for the past 2 week is called Lose It. It calculates calories plus fats and fiber and even exercise. I have never been able to get myself to write down what I eat but I watched Jane while we were on vacation and she inspired me. Two weeks of actually tracking calories is a first for me. Very interesting to see how much I actually eat in a days time. A real eye opener and I can compare one week to another.

I've down loaded Fandango so I can get movie times at a moment's notice. I can check my email. I can surf the web. I can read the blogs that I follow on the bus or train or if I'm sitting by myself enjoying a nice lunch somewhere.

And then today I went out with friends to a garden show. The weather had turned really awful (dropped 30 degrees yesterday and snowing this morning). I thought I was going to go shopping after our little outing and didn't want to take my camera. I was really disappointed that I didn't have it when I got there and then I remembered I had my iPhone. Not the same, but it works pretty well in a pinch. And I can take funny pictures of me, cute pictures of my cat and even spade hands ("what would you bid with this?").

Curry Chicken Puffs

Last week I worked all three shifts. It felt a little like the old days of nursing though really that was before my time. Even 32 years ago nursing had invented something called the shift differential to entice people to work the less desirable shifts of evenings and nights and rotating shifts were just hearsay and older nurse's war stories. At least everywhere I worked. But I like to be flexible and cover where I'm needed. It isn't like I have any kind of life and besides I have found if you are flexible, people and bosses tend to overlook some of your short comings.

But that is not what this blog is about. I say that a lot don't I? I only bring it up to explain the following. After working my second overnight in a row I was extremely tired. I went to bed and when I got up wanted to make something but nothing that would require too much thinking or a lot of work. I had some cooked chicken and thought a chicken salad would be nice. I had all the ingredients for mother's chicken salad except for the walnuts, but then remembered I was suppose to be cooking and blogging about recipes from Women of Great Taste. I also remembered that there were several chicken salad recipes in the book. How hard could they be.

I need to digress a little. As most of you know I live in the city of Chicago and do not own a car. My roommate has a car and does take me grocery shopping form time to time. However when left to my own devices I have a few options. I can take a bus to any grocery store in the city. I either have to drag my cart on the bus or remember not to buy more than I can carry. But remember I was tired and wanted to make things as easy as possible. So that left me with the stores with in walking distance. My main store I am embarrassed to say is the 7-11 on the corner a block away. They have all the staples even if you have to pay more for the convenience. They also take credit or debit cards for any amount and will give you up to 10 dollars back on debit.

A half a block further is a small Hispanic store. I always have to ask for what I want because I can never find anything. Is is also where the girl told me that corn meal was the same as corn starch although I knew better. The corn meal does make great corn bread though. They only take credit or debit over 10 dollars and the ATM doesn't always work. In my next life when I am through blogging about Women of Great Taste, I am going to start buying the little packages of things in this grocery store, figure out what they are, and cook something with them. They all look intriguing but I haven't got a clue. I'm sure I will have to have lots of dairy ready to tone down the fire.

A little further down the road in the other direction, I have a small convenience store called Julie's. The owner, Julie, is a delightful woman. They sell organics though not much produce as well lots of other items that I recognize. The problem's with Julie's is that I never walk out without dropping at least 50 dollars. It is kind of like going to Whole Foods. So I try to avoid Julie's. A half mile (Kate and I disagree on how to count blocks) away is a much larger Hispanic grocery store that has lots of produce at very reasonable prices though obviously not organic. And last, I have Walgreen's also a half mile away. At this point in my day a mile trip (to and from) seemed too much so I decided to make something with ingredients that I had on hand or could get from the two closest stores.

All of the chicken salad recipes in the book needed "difficult items" Oriental chicken salad: green onions-nope, ginger-nope, snow peas-nope, water chestnuts-nope. Maybe if I had an Asian market near by. The Fiesta chicken salad might have worked but I was nervous about husking tomatillos (no clue of what those are) and as I said, I didn't want to walk a mile to get fresh cilantro, basil and thyme. The chicken Cesar salad wanted you to marinate the chicken for several hours before cooking. You get the idea.

Another digression. Jane suggested that I add the quotes from the book to my blog and Karen suggests I take pictures of my food. I keep forgetting to do both. So here is the quote on one of the chicken salad pages. "Chicken salad has a certain glamor about it. Like the little black dress, it is chic and acceptable anywhere." Lauri Colwin. About the picture later.

Back to my problem. I decided to look up chicken in the index and came upon Curried Chicken Puffs. I thought I would just do the filling which sounded a lot like a chicken salad. I had everything on hand except for some cream cheese and sliced almonds. 7-11 let me down on the sliced almonds or almonds of any kind. My Hispanic convenient store had whole almonds so I went with those thinking I could just grind them up a little in the food processor.

My food processor, however, doesn't really do nuts very well. I was getting some find ground nuts and some still very large chunks. I did the best I could. Then I had to saute them in a little butter which made me nervous because the fine pieces were cooking pretty quickly and the larger pieces not at all. I didn't want burnt nuts. They were at least a little warm. I mixed the nuts, cream cheese, mayonnaise, cooked chicken, curry powder and the chutney together and put it in the refrigerator to chill. After reading about the puffs, they didn't sound so hard. Just water and butter to a boil. Add salt and flour, beat until it makes a ball and then beat in 2 eggs, one at a time.

The first clue that something wasn't right was that the recipe said I should have 32 puffs. I ended up cooking only 9 but would have been hard pressed to get 9 more. I dropped them by teaspoonful on to the greased cookie sheet. Baked at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. The puffs only got slightly bigger than the original ball of dough. I cut the tops off and they were definitely hollow inside. I stuffed a little chicken mixture inside and they were quite good. So Laura, if you are reading this or someone else has experience with making puffs, (Laura makes wonderful cream puffs at Christmas time when I ask her to--I missed them this year) please let me know what I did wrong. I left two empty puffs (I ate the rest with the chicken mixture) so that I could take pictures in the morning. Kim came home after I went to bed. She said they tasted great (with out the chicken) hence no picture. Sorry Karen. Not to worry Kim, I'll try again later.