Canned food drive greatest hits

It's food drive time again at my place of employment, and probably yours, too. Again this year someone thought it would be fun to make the food drive a competition between departments. Again I am the volunteer team captain, which thankfully involves a spreadsheet, not pompons. We are collecting items for the South Dallas Community Food Center, part of the S.M. Wright Foundation.

Dropped my car for repairs on this beautiful afternoon and had time to ponder the food drive while walking home. Minnie's Food Pantry used to be housed across the parking lot from my mechanic's shop, spurring this reverie. The founder of Minnie's Food Pantry, Dr. Cheryl “Action” Jackson, is a rock star of food pantries. Oprah was the keynote speaker at the nonprofit's tenth annual gala.

So, my perambulating question is, "What do food pantries and those using their services really need?"  

• Food pantry clients include the elderly, persons with dietary restrictions, returning veterans, children, single parents, university students, families just "One Crisis Away."

• Clients need food they can use. They need food they can open! Consider donating food with pop-top lids for those who may have difficulty opening cans with a can opener.

• Many clients are children. Support their healthy food habits by donating food in kid-friendly sizes with easy-to-open packaging and no-cook food items. 

• Consider cash gifts. Food pantries may have bulk purchasing arrangements that stretch funds. Many employers have charitable giving matching programs. Monetary donations are used to purchase the foods that traditional canned food drives don’t bring in like fresh fruits, produce, meats, milk and eggs.

• Donate shelf-stable, nutrient-dense foods.

• Donate staples from other cuisines.

• Food pantries cannot use baby food, formula, alcohol, home-canned items, items in glass containers, items without ingredients listed in English.

This is not the time to pull all the fast food ketchup packets hoarded by your dad with dementia, and the three opened and expired jars of tartar sauce from his fridge. Don't even think  about those cans of beets and butter beans that have been in the pantry since the first Bush administration. The leftover Halloween candy is not appropriate. You think I'm kidding, but this is not my first term as food drive team captain! Don't waste food pantry volunteers' time and effort sorting out expired and inappropriate donations.  Now, GO TEAM GO!

Me & Paula Dean quiche

Me & Bobby McGee

Kris Kristofferson

Busted flat in Baton Rouge
Waitin' for the train
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Bobby thumbed a diesel down
Just before it rained
Rode us all the way to New Orleans
I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandanna
And was playing soft
While Bobby sang the blues
With them windshield wipers slappin' time
I was holdin' Bobby's hand in mine
We sang every song that driver knew
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free
Feelin' good was easy, Lord,
When he sang the blues
And feelin' good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and Bobby McGee
From Kentucky coal mines
To the California sun
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Through all kinds of weather, Lord
Through everything I done
Bobby baby…

Spinach and Bacon Quiche

Total Time:
1 hr
Prep:
15 min
Cook:
45 min
Yield:8 servings
Level:Easy
Ingredients
6 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Salt and pepper
2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach, packed
1 pound bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
1 (9-inch) refrigerated pie crust, fitted to a 9-inch glass pie plate
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper in a food processor or blender. Layer the spinach, bacon, and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, then pour the egg mixture on top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the egg mixture is set. Cut into 8 wedges.
Recipe courtesy of Paula Deen

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Scrambled goldfish

"Maybe if you bought a goldfish your life would be more perky,"said the sneering plastic figurine balanced on my shoulder as I stared at the cracked egg 's happy yellow yolk. The coffee had not kicked in, and the fiendish bobblehead accurately read my perkiness deficit.

It's not pretty after a late night trying to win the next level on Ancestry.com. Your attitude stinks. Ain't nobody gonna tossle your hair and take you fishing, Opie. You can't keep hiding from current events in the upper branches of your family tree.

But still, there are some great names for imaginary goldfish in the high branches. Just today I found Keziah  Cooley. Elizabeth Knott Strange would be perfect for a molly. Patsy, Polly, and Phoebe are guppies. Maybe I should buy some neon tetras, since I have good names for them:

• Bede is short for Obediance
• Mitty is a nickname for Submit
• Wealthy is short for paying the rent
• Nellie is short for Eleanor
• Bessie Veronica is just perfect for an early silent movie star
• Minnie is short for Hermione
• Hitty is short for Mehitabel

I

The coffee begins its magic. I could be Keziah Cooley, Private Detective.... 

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Brunch for six at noon

Wake up and smell the espresso. It's 11:11 a.m. EDT, for heaven sakes! The Mother's Day menu:

Cultural outing to follow:

The Phillips Collection

Man Ray - Human Equations: A Journey from Mathematics to Shakespeare

Hiroshi Sugimoto - Conceptual Forms and Mathematical Models

Delightful paintings by children including a portrait of a pig

Highlights from the Permanent Collection 

Seeing well-behaved families honoring their mothers with a trip to the art museum gave me great joy. I especially loved the young family all in their dress-up Sunday School clothes, the mom with a purple orchid corsage pushing the baby in a stroller, the dad corralling the other kids to make her day special.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Overnight Asparagus Strata

Breakfast served 24 hours

Lovely Friday evening putting together a cheese strata, and watching pinkish lightning to the west. Cheese strata is a sedimentary casserole. Are there igneous and metamorphic casseroles? It's been a long week, and I can't get my head around these possibilities.

"Can I borrow some rocks with sedimentary layers? The water educator from a nearby town needed loaner rocks from all the casserole categories. That's when the cheese strata took over all the layers in my brain.


Back in my hairnet hospital kitchen days we served up Mrs. Carey's cheese strata on patient trays along with red jello cubes and whipped cream, Sanka, canned pear halves, and broth.

As a newlywed beginner cook I had a recipe for Asparagus Cheese Casserole from the 7th Day Adventists at Lincoln's Union College. It was cut out of the newspaper and glued on a yellow lined index card. If I squint I can almost remember the amounts of eggs, frozen cut asparagus, cottage cheese, condensed milk, dry bread cubes, and grated cheddar. Those were the days before recipe googling!

Difficult to believe California vineyards used to snail mail slick newsletters with family recipes. I forgot Sebastiani Vineyards long ago, but still have Vicki Sebastiani's "Christmas Breakfast" strata recipe.  The combination of raisin bread, dry mustard, bacon, cheddar and eggnog is delicious.

Asparagus and April go together. The strata rested overnight and is in the 375 degrees oven, smelling fabulous.


© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Spinach-ham-mushroom quiche trivia

The downpour finally ends. Wade out in my gardening galoshes to the grocery store for essentials--carrots, hummus, paperclips, a padded mailing envelope, and olive oil.

One of the weirdiddlies of moving is sudden total recall loss of basic home office supplies. Somewhere over the rainbow in some totally unrelated box there's a pot of gold with post-it notes, pushpins, highlighters, and a small rubber goat. In my desk drawer I find three screwdrivers, one Phillips, two flatheads, but no pencils. Whoa! Distraction Will Robinson in the office/school supply aisle between seasonal/pet and Charmin/picnic paper goods by these spiral paper clips. I might have to pierce my nose just to wear one!

And then I spot the Trivial Pursuit neon triangle sticky notes:

 I  M U S T  H A V E  T H E M ! 

The art teacher possibilities are endless, as are the decompression stress relief options. Probably Obamacare should cover this mental health purchase.

The storm is over. The colors are fabulous and straight out of the camera with no fussing. Nice angles.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Opposed to arthritic thumbs

Do monkeys get joint pain? I'm going through a phase of symmetrical thumb pain and stiffness. That means the thumbs on both my hands have equal levels of discomfort, yet I am unfazed. True, I'm disappointed that I can't shoot my phaser. Opening Tupperware is surprisingly frustrating, too, and peeling foil lids off multiple single-serving applesauces and yogurts at lunchtime is a trial. Do not, DO NOT ask my opinion on string cheese. I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't open the cheese stick.

Somewhere in this world, there is a very happy Trekkie right now.

Thumb arthritis can cause severe hand pain, swelling, and decreased strength and range of motion, making it difficult to do simple household tasks, such as turning doorknobs and opening jars. ... The first and most common symptom of thumb arthritis is pain. Pain occurs at the base of your thumb when you grip, grasp or pinch an object between your thumb and forefinger or use your thumb to apply force — such as when turning a key, pulling a zipper or opening a jar. Eventually, you may even experience pain when not using your thumb.-- Mayo Clinic website which doesn't even mention popping CDs and DVDs out of their cases, opening Rx bottles early in the morning, cracking eggs, or locking the dead bolt at night.

 My wading stork student gets a soccer ball kicked in his face on the playground. He's a bit shaken up on the play. Or perhaps he's all shook up ala Elvis.

Which way to write up the incident report? "He seemed a bit shook up," or, ""He was shaken up on the play." It's Friday, so let's just say he was "a bit dazed."

Not "phased", but the little guy was either "fazed" or "dazed". Shake it off! Get back in the game of reading "or" words. We will discuss whether dead bolt is one word or two at another time.

1. cord  cork  stork  fork  horn chord
2. daze verb past tense: dazed; past participle: dazed Make (someone) unable to think or react properly; stupefy; bewilder. "she was dazed by his revelations"
3. faze verb American English variant of Kentish dialect feeze "to frighten, alarm, discomfit"... from Norwegian föysa 
4. phase noun A part or step in a process; a short period of time when a person behaves in a particular way or likes a particular thing... from stem of phainein "to show, to make appear" 
5. © 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Sea foam and fish cakes

Christmas in Oregon offers alternatives to the traditional snowy white version. My first experience of sea foam drifts offered loud, crashing ocean waves and spouting jets of sea water.

We were on the Captain Cook Trail at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area south of Newport, Oregon in the Siuslaw National Forest. The contrast between the white foam and the jagged black volcanic rock was stunning.

A Cape Perpetua visitor unaccompanied by a toddler could do some philosophic contemplation about permanence and transience, creation and destruction, our little moment of time in geologic history. With a toddler that person might just sing the Opposites Song--black/white, soft/hard, wet/dry, loud/quiet...

When my mom used to make sea foam punch for birthday parties, the recipe was lime sherbet, ginger ale, and pineapple juice. She would make the shaped fish cake from the Baker's Coconut cookbook. My brother got all those pirate and fish theme parties mateys. Aarrgghh.

The recipe for real sea foam is more complex. You needs waves and wind and water, of course, plus salts, proteins, fats, and decaying organic matter from algae die-off. This is not Johnson's baby bubble bath! For some people and animals it can cause respiratory problems.

We watched a sea lion surfing around these rocks, but I didn't get it in the zoom photo.

The Spouting Horn is pretty impressive, and more frequent than Old Faithful. Pooooooofffffff!

It was time for a sustaining lunch of crab burgers, steamed clams, and fish and chips at the South Beach Fish Market.

You can read about this character-loaded joint on Michael Stern's Roadfood. The crab burger did not knock my socks off, but the toddler gobbled the steamed clams and played open/shut with the shells.

Opposites. Om.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Wrapping on heaven's door

The yolk stares up at me like a Christo island wrapped in white. Not in the mood, I poke it with the corner of the spatula, then unplug the toaster oven. Every time I write a new to-do list I add "clean out the toaster oven so you don't burn down the condo".  Never crossed off, it hovers right next to the item about selling everything on Craigslist to become fabulously wealthy and retire to a small yellow cabin with a screened porch. Those are both preferable to having a baseline colonoscopy., and more likely than "catching up on ironing".

Peek-a-boo ICU. The pickles wink. The toast is ready with melted cheddar, mustard, and a couple hamburger dills. Add the egg, and bite into a substantial wake-up sandwich.

The sky is full of floating, gleaming spider silk. Baby spiderlings have cast their fates to the wind, ballooning off to new territories, or wrapping telephone wires. Sinking to earth, the silk drapes flower beds and fences. We have been t.p.ed by fairies and Jack Frost. We have been gossamered!

gos·sa·mer

ˈgäsəmər/

noun

noun: gossamer

1. 1.

   a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders, which is seen esp. in autumn.

   synonyms:

   cobwebs;  silk, gauze, chiffon "her dress swirled like gossamer"

   • used to refer to something very light, thin, and insubstantial or delicate.

     "in the light from the table lamp, his hair was blond gossamer"

     synonyms:

     gauzy, gossamery, fine, diaphanous, delicate, filmy, floaty, chiffony,cobwebby, wispy, thin, light, insubstantial, flimsy; More

Tonight I am wrapping, wrapping, masking the walls. Jeanne-Claude and Christo are too busy to help. I'm just surprised they are still alive. Tomorrow I'll use the cleaner/etcher on the prepped concrete floor.

May your valley of dreams be draped in pale orange silk.  Nighty night.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

A dozen words, a dozen photos

Mr. Short Stack loves the "Moby Dick" board book from My Cozy Classics. Melville's saga is distilled to twelve words illustrated with twelve detailed needle felt vignettes. Sailor, leg, whale... Really? Yes, he really loves it, and toddles around saying "whale" and "leg", and not just gnawing the book corners.

I've only seen the My Cozy Classics board book of "Pride and Prejudice".  It's adorable, but I thought it was geared to adult buyers, or maybe teens desperate to complete their assigned summer reading book! I am reminded of Dare Wright's Lonely Doll photo picture books from my childhood.

Cut up the living room carpet this afternoon.  Haven't hauled it all to the dumpster. Finding the tack strip removal vexing. I also chopped up some of the entry tiles. There's no going back!



My twelve photos illustrate my day, beginning with a black light night in shining armor. A nice walk at Oak Point fired me up for the carpet removal.



© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Yo ho ho me hearties!

Out-heartied by my sister.  She was three for three from the breakfast free throw lane:

• Day 1.  Popovers with hot maple syrup 
• Day 2.  Fried eggs and buttermilk drop biscuits
• Day 3.  Waffles with hot syrup or fresh strawberries and whipped cream

Years ago I ceded popover ground to her, and planted my flag instead on old-fashioned German egg pancakes. Her bacon is crisp, but she doesn't make coffee. Perhaps she was adopted! And all this time I thought biscuits came from a Pillsbury cardboard tube.

Sending a removing-old-caulk-and-grout shout-out to my thighs. I'm stiff and sore after a new assault on the usptairs bathtub. Caulking is not as fun as frosting Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, but dummies can do it.

This is not my sister's recipe, but it's close and it made me laugh. I was in charge of clumping the butter and milk.


© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Ask Dr. Chicken about your gizzard

Which came first? The egg? Or the media celebrity expert?

During contemplation of gizzards, a new celeb expert was hatched. Dr. Chicken will be my professorial silent sidekick for this Wednesday's traveling worm show. This poultry paper sack will be the Mr. Peabody to my Sherman.

Born in the era of Dr. Spock, I've survived many experts:

• Dr. Laura and Dr. Oz
• Dr. Phil and Dr. Ruth
• Dr. Frasier Crane and Dr. Henry Kissinger
• Zbigniew Brzezinski
• NPR's Click and Clack
• "The Doyenne of Dirt", Ketzel Levine* 

Now I need an inanimate expert on earthworms with personality plus that can be created from very simple materials in under two minutes while kids dance the Chicken Dance, and volunteers from the audience assist.

Crazy?

Yes, but still not ready for the Ed Sullivan Show.

 

Bwuck,  bwuck-bwuck, BWUCK!

*She has the best name ever!


© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder with all rights reserved.

OMG Vague Greek Omelet

From the exhibit brochure

Did I mention my odyssey to Fort Worth to see Romare Beardon's collage cycle, "A Black Odyssey" at the Amon Carter Museum?  Yup, I went over the wine dark sea and the George Bush Tollway (Bush #41). That was the beginning of my Greek summer.

A day spent reading in waiting rooms about the deciphering of Linear B script added more Homer, but a trip to Trader Joe's brought the feta. The kicker was Kathleen's comment about making a "vague omelet with pineapple".

 Hmmmm. I could make a vague omelet, couldn't I?

Marion Cunningham's, Breakfast Book, did not tell me how, but she gave permission with this opening sentence, "I make omelets in a rather casual way." "Casual" and "vague" seem close. A Google search can seemingly find a recipe for any combination of ingredients. Before long I'd scanned way too many. At least if it didn't turn out well, the omelet wouldn't hang around as long as my quiche attempts.

This online recipe for Greek feta and olive omelette was closest to my idea and available ingredients. I followed Kittencal's directions, but modified the ingredients. The result was extremely satisfying, and probably could feed two for supper with some fruit and a little vino.

Chopped and sauteed in vegetable oil

• 1/2 fresh tomato
• 3 mushrooms
• 1 clove garlic
• a bit of green bell pepper

Whisked together in bowl and let sit for a few minutes

• 3 large local farm fresh eggs
• 2 T milk
• 1/8 t baking powder
• 1/8 t dried oregano
• several good grinds of black pepper
• NO Salt

Slice 4-6 pitted black olives and a couple pieces of marinated artichoke.

Cook the omelet according to directions. My favorite part is lifting the edges so the uncooked part slides under. Fill half the omelet with sauteed veggies, 1/4 cup fat free feta crumbles, and the sliced olives and artichoke. Fold the other half over as far as it will go, as this is one big fat Greek omelet. Serve with a dollop of fat free plain Greek yogurt.

Warning--a nap may be required.

So, which is correct, omelet or omelette? My big red dictionary says either, and the word derives from French for thin plate. The Grammarist says Americans use omelet, and other English speakers use omelette. So, the answer is kind of vague and casual.

In other news on the breakfast front, McDonald's will be selling McMuffins after midnight. They won't be this delicious.



 © 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Wonders of the morning mind

Sure, a lot of my early morning is spent staring at the coffee steam or out my patio window for signs of life in that mini-habitat. Today I received the gift of a hummingbird at the first blooming canna by the fence.

One morning I ventured out in my nightie and garden clogs to clean the Weber grill and chop back the mint that was getting knee high. From this I learned that googling images of insect bites and rashes WILL NOT make the itch go away.

Looking like a hood ornament.

Going out will not scare away the squash vine borers fiendishly laying their eggs on the zucchini vines. It will scare the green anole in the lime tree. The little lizard was beginning the scratching of a molt, and rubbing against the tiny limes that have set on the branches. The anoles are so entertaining, and my hopes for a crop of key limes pretty dim, that I wish I hadn't chased him away with my camera.

Ready for the big leap*

A very obsessed squirrel is digging up old acorns and moldy chinaberries. Having made it through Fire, Water, and Air in Michael Pollan's Cooked, I am now in Earth. Fermentation is an amazing thing, and Pollan has reported that some folks believe squirrels bury acorns to let them ferment and become easier to eat. Don't know about that, but I've seen some pretty tipsy birds after berry sprees.

I have not become sufficiently convinced by Pollan to try fermenting my own sauerkraut, although I have plenty of crocks used for that purpose by my ancestors:

Also in the spirit of fermentation experimentation I have tried Dale's Pale Ale, Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, and Mike's Hard Lemonade recently.

Probably time to make some breakfast. Don't think I can beat yesterday's, so I'll repeat it when I get a round to it.  Grilled avocado, cheddar, fried egg, tomato, and pepper jelly sandwich.

As I was reading the fascinating Riddle of the Labyrinth, by Margalit Fox about the deciphers of Linear B script, I kept thinking about Round Tuits. I won't spoil the mystery by telling you what this symbol means, but it is not a Round Tuit.

But you can get a model railroad car like this:

Nate's Round Tuits boxcar, Greenville, Maine.

Then you might become curious about the Katahdin Valley Railroad and whether it was real. And now I have frittered away more time googling the "Bodfish Beer" referred to in the railroad history. So let's just call it time for brunch.

* Big leap with Butch and Sundance?

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

If at first you don't succeed

For the moment I am not revealing what's behind Door #3. Windows have been shuttered, so I wedged my foot in this door to keep creativity ajar. Or in a jar, like fireflies.

I worked all afternoon creating paper patterns from my papercuts and photographs

In this case, "vintage" fabric is just a vintage Barbie Doll undergarment, circa 1961.

My first effort showed technical aspects I need to perfect. Still it was a fun Sunday mental outing --- and I don't get out much!

• Some of the vintage fabric will not hold up to machine stitching. It disintegrated almost instantly.
• The fusible featherweight interfacing is too opaque for my needs.
• Is there a product that stabilizes, fuses, adheres, and disappears?
• I really need to practice my machine stitching!

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

The vintage moth is on the wing

Oh, the bag-o-shreds was calling out for transformation into a family of papier mache possums, with or without the O. But possums have little to recommend them in the cuteness, talent, or congeniality categories. By comparison, armadillos are Dos Equis spokesmammals. Very interesting!

Still, there's that bag-o bag-o calling me across recent butterfly symmetry art class projects and the nearing close-out of my duties as estate executor. It is a lightening experience to shred five years of Medicare EOBs*. It made me want to smash coffee cups, teacups, and Corningware on the patio and dance an ancient Greek circle dance with lots of hollering and a bit of vino.

I love that the shredder has forward and reverse switches for when I sort of overload it while pondering Greek omicron opossums----pi rho sigma tau upsilon.

Who thinks up clothes for little girls these days?  We've been through blinking shoes that cause epileptic seizures, and shirts that shed sequins. Now, we have girls in white scalloped lace skorts that looks like Grandmother Effa Dale's long-line girdle, but without the hearing aid tucked in her brassiere. This photo is pinched from an adult fashion site, and the style is creepier on a seven-year-old!

Still, I'm reminded that there are boxes and old luggage filled with vintage clothing and, gasp, undergarments in this condo... gathering dust. No preservationist has come forward to offer me a million bucks to not destroy these 1919 nighties.

If I can make papier mache possums, I bet I can think of something more marketable involving the vintage clothing, and my loosely defined passions of embroidery, collage, paper-cutting, found materials, textile art, under-appreciated insects, macro photography, and ephemera. That might be beneficial. It might transform me from a suspected depressed hoarder into a savvy collector and artiste!

*Explanations of Benefits



© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder