Opium Chicken... I mean Poppy Seed Chicken.

This might be Grandma's secret. What is not a secret is how much butter, sour cream, and other dairy is in it. So step one.
Butter: Melt it.

Step two: find some good old fashioned Ritz Crackers and crumble them into that buttery deliciousness. Don't worry it's grandma's cooking, it's practically good for you. 

Surprise time. Step three is add some poppy seeds. They are practically flavorless, but an excellent work out for your tongue later as you try to de-wedge them from your teeth. They look festive? I suppose that's another bonus. 

Step four: add some lovingly tended cream of chicken soup a la Campbell's and some sour cream. Because this is what love is suppose to be like. Mostly goop and calories. 

Step five: Mix all of that goop together, and some chicken cubes you boiled (yes boiled were the directions) to the bottom of a pan. Now all you have to do is combine.

 Step six: Combine. Layer of chicken, later of goop, layer of crumble stuff. Do that about twice.

Step seven: Bake that.

Here's the kicker, this is supposed to be my grandmother's recipe, something fed to her children, at potlucks the whole works. At dinner I asked dad if he remembered it: 

"No."

Whelp. There you have it folks. So much for drudging up memories and hearing stories from the long past. A cold no, and that sums it up. 

Stay tuned for additional stories from the recipe box. 

Easy Turtles- a lesson from grandma

Last fall my family cleared out my grandmother's house. As she took up permanent residence in a nursing home, piles of things shifted from forgotten closets to neat boxes of mystery in spare bedrooms. One such box, or perhaps boxes, included cookbooks and old recipe cards.

This is what I bring to you now.

A stained and worn series of found cards and my experience cooking from them. Some are things that I don't dare to make at this moment or without a small army present, others will include different adventures. With any luck, I will attempt to weave in parts of stories that make these card make more sense than the mundane. Perhaps these recipes or my revisions will be useful to you in other ways. A gift from my family recipe box to yours.

Up first: Easy Turtles.

In short, my fathers (and my) favorite kind of candy: Anything caramel, nuts, and chocolate. This card is likely far older than either one of us and I'll be honest about my shopping list. Namely:
What is Parfin? Parafin?

Either way, I can't find it in my grocery store. This in itself is not that surprising, there are many things I struggle to find at my local grocery store.

I think it's like almond bark, but I didn't buy it and I didn't use it. Here's how it actually went.

28 caramels. That's most of a bag other than the few I snuck. Well, the recipe calls for 28 caramels, I used the whole bag. That's more than 28 caramels. You can do math. The math works like this: do you want more caramely goodness or less.

Double boiler that stuff and put some evaporated milk in there too. I once struggled to find that ingredient in the same grocery store. 

It should get goopy and delicious. Stir in 2 cups. Make that a cup and some of some kind of nut. Walnuts were cheaper, I picked those. Live your own dreams. The handy 1950s recipe card suggests to drop these on wax paper and "cool". This is messy and sticky, and not glamorous, but here it is. They look like little mangled blobs, but they have to be good right?

 

Cool. Sounds easy. I live in Satan's outcasted hell-scape. Cool is something that happens in uncontrollable air conditioning and only as a shock factor to the heat exhaustion from being outside. And because this is wax paper it should just peel up, no problem. 

Except that's not how the real world works. These things never work out just as planned. So this is a mess. Perhaps a stint in the fridge will make things better. 

That's also my approach to Arizona summer. A brief stint in the fridge. 

Well, that only left scraps of wax paper on the bottom. That means these treats have extra fiber. It's good for you. 

Ok into the freezer. 

In the mean time, here's some chocolate. Just a big bowl of it, without the para-whatever. Microwave that. Add some heavy whipping cream. That's probably like parasailstuff anyway. It should be a liquid. Do that. 

Good news, the freezer trick worked better. It'll be a nice surprise to find out which ones have grafts of wax paper tucked away inside. A quick dip into the bowl of melted chocolate and to the newly revised parchment paper rendition and we have this:

There's only one problem. What to do with the remaining half a bowl of delicious melted chocolate. To waste perfectly good chocolate is a cardinal sin, punishable by well, being in Arizona- Satan's playground. 

There's always hope. Because it's strawberry season. 

And once those are cold, I'm going to devour an inappropriate amount of sugar, and pass out on my living room floor.  

Just like grandma would have wanted. 

A conglomerate update from a trip to Venice

Sorry it's been ages, life is busy.
I just got back from a conference in Venice (yes, that Venice)! Here are several short little blurb descriptions and some pictures so you don't feel like you're missing out.

Day 1
In some ways it feels like home. Slowed down to a crawl, and without the comfort of constant interaction, I am forced to also slow down. Breathe the cigarette wafts of air and immerse myself in the buzz of languages bouncing around the piazza. It's a Friday night. The students are coraling in their frequent hang outs, laughing away the mess of a week. The couples' groups find their friends and recollect the busy tourist games of the day. The funny part is when I recognize the language. It sounds less musical. The twang of Midwestern resonance don't hold the same charm as they do over rolling hills. Here the music is in the pure vowels skipping over the canals. They run all of them together in a kind of jubilant out pouring. It contrasts the languid pace of the days end. A renewed energy bubbling up from the base of the piazza fountain. With the cacophony of bells, just 17 minutes after the hour, then lights turn on and the pocket of children chasing each other on scooters herds the universal parental call for home. The whine, "cincho minuti mama!" But that trick has worn thin. Home they trudge, wheels clacking over stone slabs.
Rick Steves' followers sit next to me. Recognizable from the pocket guide more to hand than a phone. "But not next to someone smoking," don't we all have dreams. They shuffle with their fleece catalogue jackets and intentionally broken-in tennis shoes. Ready for the walk. They have come from Indiana, or Ohio, or Michigan, looking for the empty nest filler. It is not here, but it could be. Only just around the corner. Maybe over there. Perhaps in a nice set of earrings or a real glass of wine.
People, couples mostly, stop by to look at the menu. Looking back to each other before deciding in mumbled tones the next move. Some families, with children exhausted from the day of walking pull at arms and beg to sleep. Not yet, the night begins late here. Much past your bedtime, enjoy the temporal leniency.
I too have walked. Over cobbled slabs, past wrong turns and over bridges older than my country. A woman alone squeaks by narrow paths and gets looks at the restaurants; "solo uno". A city of love for one porfavore. No worries, a waiter, courageous enough to try out his English gets my number without mocking my Italian. A drink? No, jet lagged is not a good scent. Tomorrow. Or at least maybe tomorrow. It is still a place I can find my way home from, that wins the bet.

Day 2
Now a reunion takes place in front of me. Squeals and hugs, a King Charles spaniel twirled around in the mix too. I care not for the reunited friends and more for the pawed companion who speaks an international language of ear scratches and belly rubs. The damp chill sneaks up on you at this hour. It begs for warm food and booze. Something warm.



Day 3 Murano
When I'm happily divorced and on a sabbatical, my goal is to convince the department I'm working for to pay for a writing vacation in Murano. Venice will do, but Murano is the goal. There in true mama Mia fashion I will have a lurid affair with some glass maker and it will become a best selling slush almost-fiction novel to sell to my other newly divorced friends. In the movie remake, Amy Adams will play me, naturally, and someone who has recently earned the silver fox title (maybe Ryan gosling) will play the sophisticated but goofy love interest. Remember that scene from Ghost with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze? That except glass instead of pottery. It will be a middling movie; but the rights alone will make more than my salary for several years.

Of course I will have become mostly fluent in Italian, using my inevitable mistakes as a charming interlude to making friends. Because who doesn't love someone who tries? At some point, I will begin to understand the catholic traditions, but mainly attend church for the social function and to look at the art. I will spend what little money I do have on sheek clothing and nice jackets. I'll do some research before hand and sign up to lead exclusively English tours where I will be tipped because of my terrible puns and fun jokes that made all the old people laugh. It will inevitably test my patience, so I'll only work part time. Tourists are terrible in large quantities.

Day 5
I am sitting across the aisle on the vaporetto (water bus) from two elderly women. They greet each other in a familiar way though they got on on different stops. As if they always find each other on this route at this time. Returning from some geriatric adventure. One styles nylons and the other patterned pants, but they find their commonality by pulling up pictures of grand children on their smart phones. Of my limited vocabulary, I hear "piccolo filio" or youngest boy, and "bello bello" in constant refrain. They coo over each image before standing and tapping another member of their club on the shoulder as they debark.

To replace them, a recently engaged couple on a trip stares at a map across from me. They have been affectionately staring at each other and tapping legs and hands. Now she is tired, resting her head on his shoulder as he continues to scan the tourist map, pen in hand ready for the next notation. She might fall asleep here, comfortable in the private nook of their public respite. It has been a long day.

My friend Isabel has left my side to look at the sights. We are both ready for dinner though I have selected the slowest possible route home- though I defend that position rather than standing in the cold. Instead, I people watch, and wait. She scrolls through maps and makes plans with the other Spanish speakers. I do not blame her, and I have stayed to my plan.

The couple has both closed their eyes. I am afraid to wake them as they look so peaceful here I. This crowded space. With the jingle of souvenir bells and the jostle of strangers that they find such peace is stunning. I surreptitiously take a picture. It does not do the intimacy justice, though I am grateful to have witnessed an instant of what must be a refreshingly new adventure to a familiar love story.

Delays

My phone has reminded me that it's been over 100 days since my last blog post. In those hundred days I completed my first year of PhD land- and didn't fail, I taught 9 kids in a summer course at the crack of dawn, I flew home, taught speech children, got a cat, and started year 2. Some of them may be milestones, in other ways it's more of the same. Teach class, take class, read, pet cat and try not to think about the other things on your to do list.
But let's focus (now 4 weeks into the new semester) on the fun things: new cat! Burke is his name and he is absurdly fluffy. He's two and was rescued by a woman who noticed he didn't have any front claws of the strays she was feeding. So home he came with my parents (who are suckers for pretty cats) and then he and I flew all the way to Phoenix. He's 15 pounds of furrball who enjoys chewing on bones, playing with anything that has feathers, and long cat naps on top of my dresser. It's been fun teaching him to do tricks. So far he knows how to sit, beg, turn around, and high five (my favorite). And with that update, I need to go clean my apartment to minimize the catastrophic amount of hair (see what I did there?).

Fin.

Thus ends my first year of PhD stuff. I'm pretry sure I blinked and it was all over. This morning I saw posts from friends at my masters program talking about the final they administered and I cannot believe that it was a year ago I did the same. It's been quite the ride.

If I were to extract one thing from this year it would be as follows: make time for the rest of you. Sure, in your studies, your professors care about what kinds of knowledge goes in and comes out of your brain, but there are other parts of you- not just a brain on a stick. And sometimes that brain needs other stuff to do instead of contemplate theory or wrestle with the big issues. Read some fiction. Read some poetry, watch a movie, dance. Do something that keeps the rest of your body up to speed and content.

For me that's reading non-academic work on my commute. In a semester I've read 10 books, and the people at the library have begun to recognize me.

Now I make my way to my summer class and begin my dawn treck every morning to campus. At least the desert doesn't feel like puddles of sweat this time of day.

Stories

This past week I called and talked to my grandmother for an hour. Now in her 90s and in an assisted living facility, she had words to burn, telling me stories about not being able to find wedding clothes after the war, or having her mother make a dress that smelled terrible when wet. While she forgets names here and there, I keep thinking these are not names from yesterday, these are names from 60 years ago. She can describe in detail a train ride to Memphis or a makeshift alter for the first church service she attended in town, or the pink buttons on that smelly dress. She called my dad a pain for crying all the time before he went to first grade, she described bundling my then 8month old aunt up to go out, and the ten sets of identicle bake ware she got for her wedding that was the only suitable wedding gift in town.

She sits every day in the same room, her cat curled up on top of the chair by her head, and it only took me an hour to call.

She might talk about yhat conversation for another 2 weeks- her granddaughter getting her PhD in Arizona called for a chat.

Kittens

Kitten: a baby cat.
Likely adorable and fluffy, draperate for attention.
See also: dagger claws.

I'm a cat person. I like dogs ans pretty much all mammal pets, but my favorites are cats. They're independent, don't care if you're desperate for their attention or not, and kind of like dealing with cuter adults. Some friends in the cohort rescued and bottle fed a kitten that was abandoned in a construction site. Yesterday, I went over to visit said kitten, and she's so big! Compared to when I saw her last, she's active and fluffy and chases anything. I bear the scars of hand chasing which she was enthused by for hours last night. She eventually made up for it by falling asleep on my stomach and purring. So we're even.

Tonight, I attempted yet again to make friends with the apartment calico. She's beautiful, but terribly cautious of me. I talk to her every time I go get my mail and she is ok with that until I get about 6 feet away. Then she runs. When I went to drop off some letters tonight, I tried again, but she bolted. As I walked away, a new stray, a little teenager who is black and white with a little black splotch on his nose, came up to me begging for pets. So I knelt down to oblige, and within minutes, the pretty calico came almost close enough for me to pet her. We didn't quite bridge that gap, but she seemed to think that if I was nice to that cat, I'd be her friend too. With any luck, that little kitten's blessing will make me more cat friends.