Spring!

The ham is finally all gone. I won't bore you with all the recipes. Because, IT'S SPRING!

I started a few posts, never finished them. I had a surgery to fix a perforated eardrum over the winter and was drugged up for awhile. New Year's Eve was a narcotic haze.  Ear surgery is particularly painful. And laziness is encouraged as part of the healing process. No heavy lifting. Sleeping upright. No straining. It's the third time in as many years and I think it's finally fixed. I'm looking forward to swimming this summer. And actually getting in the water at the beach.

Winter does not agree with me anyway, so being lazy was alright with me. I drink too much wine (when I wasn't taking narcotics) at night and watch stupid stuff like American Idol and Survivor and fall asleep at 8:00.  I eat too much junk and don't exercise enough because I can't stand the cold. I hate a beach that is windblown and sand gets in my eyes.  I also hate gyms, so that's not much of an option for me. I wear sweatpants and baggy, ratty t-shirts to exercise in and nobody at the gym wears those anymore. I can't buy the new gym wear pants because even the XXL's have a low ride waist. That is really stupid, you know? Why would someone wear low ride waist pants if they have to buy XXL? Do you know how that looks? Bad. Really bad. Even if you wear a big T-shirt over it so the muffin top doesn't show, as soon as you bend even a little, the waistband folds over and that baby belly is falling out. But that's all over now.

Because, IT'S SPRING!

I'm walking, yes indeed I'm walking....every morning. Every evening. This week jasmine is blooming. Everything is right with the world when you can smell jasmine. The gardenias are all just starting to open, so that's next week's gift. I love flowers, especially smelly ones. (Smelly good, not smelly bad). Plumeria will be popping in about a month. It's called Frangipani sometimes. Say that word out loud and don't tell me you didn't smile when you said it.  I have one yellow and one yellow/hotpink. They are beautiful and smell divine. Here is a picture from a couple of summers ago. Yes, my toenails match!

My tomatoe plants are bursting with green tomatoes right now. I've gotten a few ripe ones, but come a a week or so it's going to be BLT city. I also like a Mater and Mayo sandwich. Gotta have Sunbeam white bread lightly toasted. Later in the summer it will be Mater, Mayo and Vidalia Onion sandwich. And Vidalia is properly pronounced vEYEdaylia.

Have you ever had a wedge salad?  It was popular back in the 60's and 70's. When I was growing up, sometimes in the hot of the summer we would have a quarter of a head of lettuce right out of the icebox slathered with mayonnaise. That's it. No tomatoes, no nothing. Didn't even bother to make a dressing, just mayonnaise right out of the jar. Wasn't very filling or nutritious, but it was cold and crispy and wonderful. Iceberg lettuce nowadays has as much respect as frozen TV dinners in the foil trays and canned fruit cocktail. And you know what? I could give a hoot. I Love Iceberg Lettuce. When it's hot out, it just hits the spot. And down here in Florida, by August, it's pretty damn hot. A Wedge Salad usually has a iceberg lettuce topped with blue cheese dressing and crispy bacon bits. I've made it with the addition of a couple of tomato slices and avocado. 

I'm a foodie and follow lots of food blogs. I am so excited that I am not the only one that feels this way about iceberg and I really like this recipe for Wedge Salad at: http://www.sevenspoons.net/

I never had the hot sauce on the wedge salad, but I'm going to try it, because I really like Frank's Hot Sauce. We buy it by the gallon jug at our house and refill a retro ketchup squeeze bottle that I think is very cool. It's red and has a picture of an old timey looking waitress on it. I have the mustard one too. But we don't buy mustard by the gallon, so it just sits in a drawer. I don't think putting anything else in it will make it useful because, let's face it, mustard yellow is just not appealing. But I won't throw it out because it's part of a set.

So, here is my recipe for my basic buttermilk dressing. I never buy bottled dressing. If it can keep for months in your refrigerator, imagine what it can do to your insides. I use it for a base dressing and add to for ranch or blue cheese. It is a bit on the tart side, because I'm a bit of tart myself. If you think it's too tart, ease up on the lemon juice and red wine vinegar. It's great in a macaroni salad. Notice I said macaroni not pasta. Because Macaroni Salad is to Iceberg Lettuce is what Pasta Salad is to Baby Organic Arugula and Watercress La-De-Dah Lettuce.

Buttermilk Dressing

1 cup  mayonnaise (here in the south is Hellman's or Duke's, but so long as it's not low-fat)
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 teaspoon fine sea salt, or more to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For Blue Cheese Dressing add as much crumbled blue cheese as you like.
For Ranch Dressing add as much of the following dried herb mix as you like:

Dilly Dip Mix
I buy these herbs/spices in bulk, mix them up and keep them at the ready. I've made big batches and put them in pint sized mason jars with a home-printed label for the recipe and included them in Christmas gift baskets.

Equal parts: dried dill, dried parsley, dried onion, celery seed (I use half part celery seed, it's a little strong to me) You can also use celery salt, but I don't like a lot of salt in anything.

Mix into half sour cream and half mayonnaise for a simple dip or topping for baked potatoes.

Buttermilk leftover is a good thing. Make pancakes from scratch. You won't be disappointed. http://knol.google.com/k/buttermilk-pancakes I like his philosphy on pancakes and buttermilk. And this recipe doesn't make a huge batch so a small family can eat them all up of a Sunday morning. I add a scant 1/3 cup of buckwheat flour to his recipe as well as cinnamon and it works for me.

Now get outside and smell the flowers!

Thanksgiving Breakfast

In our little seaside town on Thanksgiving morning, it is customary to dress your pet up in some ridiculus outfit and promenade down to the downtown area and show off your pet and greeet friends, neighbors and family. Oh and drink Bloody Mary's and Mimosas as well. Actually, the drinking part has kind of gotten bigger the last few years. I'm not against that part of it, it just makes it a little more difficult to manuever my bike around everyone else.

I don't dress up my dog because I think it is just undignified for any dog over 35 or so pounds to have to get dressed up as  a sunflower or Elvis. Besides, the poor thing was a pound puppy rescue and came with the unfortunate name of Bingo, so I'm not going to make him suffer anymore than that.  I ususally shorten his name to Bing. He's so grateful to be here, he'd do it for me, but I wouldn't ask. Lap dogs, by all means, they are already yappy little dogs, so I don't care if you make them do something undignified, they already are in my book.

I also have learned from experience that taking a 15 pound turkey out of the oven after drinking ain't that easy, or pretty. I've never dropped a turkey, but I came close once, and that scared the bejeebers enough out of me to skip the drinks until later in the afternoon.

It has become our family tradition to make a small breakfast, get the turkey in the oven, and then ride our bikes down to the town center for about an hour and then head back to the house for the real work to begin. The following Smoked Salmon Tart is a perfect little start to the day, goes really well with a Bloody Mary or a Mimosa. Something different on the palate before all the coma inducing food.

I'm posting this now so you'll be ready for Thanksgiving morning, but I'll have to post pictures on Friday after I have some.

For people that like smoked salmon, you will get many oohs and aahs over this, and it doesn’t even take much effort. For those who don’t, you’ll get turned up noses. I’ve learned there is no converting someone that doesn’t like smoked salmon. It is elegant for parties or brunch or even tea, if anyone ever has a tea party.

Smoked Salmon Tart

Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry Two Pack. Unwrap one and thaw for about 30 minutes. Bake flat on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper. The parchment paper is really important. The puff pastry already has a lot of butter in it, so if you try to shortcut that and coat the baking sheet with more fat, it comes out terrible. The parchment paper allows you to slide it right off onto a cool counter top or directly onto the serving dish. Press on it to get some of the air out before it cools.  I know that defeats the Puff part, but it’s gotta be done. Let it cool about 30 minutes before topping.

Parchment paper is a wonderful invention. If you haven’t used it before, start. You will love it when baking anything, but especially cookies. You can slide the whole batch off in one swoop and they will be perfectly browned on the bottom. Those little wienies wrapped in crescent rolls? Slides right off onto the plate. Clean up is a snap too, just throw it away and your baking sheet is clean. It is also good for underlying aluminium foil used to cover something being baked. You may have noticed that the foil will disinegrate where it touches food. The parchment paper prevents that and sticking as well. Important when you want a niced browned turkey without the skin pulled off onto the foil covering it. Note: waxed paper will not substitute.

Meanwhile, bring an 8oz package of Boursin Garlic and Herb Goat Cheese to room temperature. I set it out the night before just before I hop into bed. Perfect in the morning.  When you unwrap the foil, there is going to be some liquid released, so don’t do it over the pastry base, do it over the sink. It needs to be really soft and spreadable, so remove it from the foil and hit in the microwave for 10 seconds or so if it isn’t because you forgot to take it out the night before.

You can use plain goat cheese or whipped cream cheese if you hate goat cheese. Why you wouldn’t like goat cheese, I don’t know, but some people don’t.

Spread the goat cheese over the cooled puff pastry base. Unfortunately, even using a light hand you will flatten that puff even more now. You will also get crumbs in the goat cheese. It’s going to be okay. Take the cheese all the way to the edges.

Next is a layer of smoked salmon. And TA DA, can’t even see the crumbs.  Try to get a really good product. There are plenty of inferior ones and I know they are less expensive, but you get what you pay for. Cover all the way to the edges. It’s okay to cut pieces to make them fit.

Top with a finely seeded and chopped tomato, finely chopped purple onion or shallot and a scattering of capers. If you have some fresh dill, a little bit of that is good too, but you have herbs in the goat cheese, so go easy. Unless of course, you had plain goat cheese, go right ahead with the dill, and some chives too if you have them. A few sprinkles of parsley if you don’t have chives won’t hurt either and give it some more color.

Cut into small squares to serve, diamonds if you want to be fancy. A pizza wheel works the best for this, a knife drags the toppings around. It is best served within about an hour. You can refrigerate it, but the longer it is in the fridge, the more the pastry suffers. Try to bring it to room temperature at least an hour before serving.

Butchering a hog

My father-in-law is a pain the ass.  He is in his 70's now and retired. And a major pain in the ass.  He's got the regular old man pain in the ass stuff going on. He's fat and diabetic. Seriously, he is fat. Stands 5' 5" tall by 5x5 wide.  Rides one of those skooters around, eats what ever the hell he pleases, says what he wants, unkind things.  My kids refuse to be around him except holiday dinners. But he takes it up a level because he has been an asshole all his life. So now he's an old asshole. I have to admit, I certainly didn't think he'd last this long. But of course because he's an asshole he has. My sweet mother in law passed away years ago. He left her for another woman when my husband was 9 years old. Scarred him for life and I'm the one that picked up all the pieces from THAT trauma. He was married and divorced several more times, to increasingly bizarre women that I had to put up with at family events and shield my children from. After the last divorce, to a 7x married born-again christian lady that said they were going to spend our inheritence,  I put my foot down and absolutely forbid him from marrying again. I told him just to get on his skooter and go screw around like he used too. I guess he's over that now. Thank goodness.

So he called me last week. First he called my cell phone, but I was on my work phone. So he called my work phone. I was still on the phone, an important call, so I didn't put the person on hold, I let it go to voice mail. In about 30 seconds someone from the front comes back and starts waving at me to get my attention. I put the person on hold, and they tell me "your father in law is on the phone, he says it's important." By the time I end my call and go to pick up his call, he's hung up.  When I dial him back, it's busy. The person from up front hustles into my office and says, "He's on 2 again." Deep breath, pick up the phone. "Thank you for calling, this is Sunny, can I help you?" Which pisses him off to no end. He tells me he's ordered a ham for Thanksgiving. Which is two weeks away. I promise I wasn't running out to do the holiday dinner shopping that very minute, so he had to blow up every phone to get to me before I did. I thank him and hang up.

As much as I'd like to be a bitch back to him, I seldom can. My southern manners and respect for family just runs too deep. My husband can't really be too hard him either, and he has way more reasons to than me. I always say that he is the good man he is because of his mother. She loved that man til the day she died, even though he broke her heart. Thank goodness for the anonymity of the internet, I can tell the world what an asshole he is.

On Sunday afternoon, my husband went over to visit with him and watch the first half of the local team's football game. On his way out, his dad tells him to take the ham in the fridge to me. So husband brings it home and hands it over to me.  I'm in charge of the ham now. It's huge. It's a WHOLE ham. I have never in my life bought a WHOLE ham. It must be 20 lbs. Because 7 people need an average of 3 lbs of meat apiece for Thanksgiving dinner.  It's in a plastic garbage bag that's leaking, so I take it out to get a good look at it. He's opened it. He ate some of it. It's a week and a half to Thanksgiving. Cured meat or no, it's not going to last until then. What the hell am I going to do with this thing? I don't even buy these kinds of hams, because of the nitrates. According to the label:

Ingredients:

Pork, water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, flavorings, monosodium glutamate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite and sodium citrate. Glazed with sugar and real honey.

Glad they used real honey. Our health is safe now.

So, I figure the only thing I can do is cut it all off the bone, bag it up and freeze it until Thanksgiving.
I sharpen up a good knife and start in on it. Get out a bigger cutting board. Some big bowls to put the sliced ham in. The cussing gets pretty loud because this is some major work here. About the time 18 year old son gets home, I'm hacking at the bone with a cleaver and am surrounded by mounds of ham, flecks of it are in my hair. He asks what I'm doing. I told him I was butchering a hog. He said he was cool with that. Five gallon size zip-loc bags of meat plus two of soup bones and I'm finally done. After cleaning everything up, I have to empty the freezer to re-arrange everything and finally get it all to fit.

I guess the rest of the life of this blog will be recipes for left over ham.

I'm making turkey for Thanksgiving.

Fall is here. Time for Soup

I love when the weather turns cooler and dryer and it is so lovely outside you don't want that time just before the sun sets all the way gone to end. I had a horrible summer plus I live in the deep south so cool non-humid weather is such a relief, I'm giddy. Suddenly, I want to walk, run, ride a bike, roll in the grass. My husband is eating again, so it's been a pleasure to cook again. He still doesn't have all his tastebuds back, so some things he always loved, just don't taste good. But thankfully, my favorite soup did taste good to him.  I made it last week and this week. I think I'll make it again next week when it's supposed to get actually a little cold and we can light a fire in the fireplace. We have some logs left from a cedar tree we had to cut down last year, so the house will smell wonderful.

After this weekend, which is a big football weekend and we always have a houseful with a big brunch (see Shrimp & Grits) the morning of the game, I have promised myself that I'm going to get the blog thing in order. Like add a profile and pictures and stuff. I started this thing to give me something to do, but got a little sidetracked with husband being sick.

Bean, Kale and Sausage Soup

Soup is something that gives you options.  But that's what makes it so good.  Clean out the larder and the fridge.

I like this soup best with white cannelli beans or lentils. I've also used navy beans, which are a smaller white bean. But I like the cannelli beans best. Use what you like.  I will use canned if I have to, but I prefer the dry beans. I don't presoak them. I haven't found soaking beans makes them cook faster or taste better, and my Mexican mom and grandmother never did, so I skip that step. The white beans will take about three hours total, the lentils only about an hour or so. Canned, about 30 minutes.

Options in the sausage department too. I've used italian, hot and mild, turkey italian sausage,  smoked summer sausage. Again, use what you like. I like italian hot with the cannelli beans and smoked sausage with the lentils. Anduille makes it pretty spicy.

Wash the beans and put them on to simmer using 1 quart of chicken or vegetable stock plus water to cover. Use a heavy bottom pot that will evenly disperse the heat. No seasonings yet. Add water as necessary. Cover with a lid and turn down to low.

Chop two carrots, two celery ribs, half an onion, a big leek or two small ones. Two tomatoes finely diced or a can of tomatoes.  Not too much tomatoes though, it's not a tomatoey soup. Mince a couple or a bunch of garlic.

Leeks are usually pretty dirty, especially the organic ones for some reason. Cut the tops off and rinse. Cut them in quarters lengthwise. Rinse and rinse the cutting board and knife too. Chop  the leek quarters and put them in a bowl of cold water and swish them around. Pour them out into a colander or sieve and give them a good shake.

Brown a pound of sausage in a skillet.  If it's italian, take out of the casings and break it up. If it's smoked, cut each length into quarters and roughly chop.  If necessary, add a little olive oil to the skillet and saute the vegetables, except for the tomatoe and garlic,  with the sausage. When the vegetables are wilted, carmelize them just a little, you don't want burnt onion pieces in the soup. Then add the tomatoes and garlic. Cook them for a couple of minuts and then add a dipperful of the bean stock and deglaze the pan.

Add it all to the bean pot when the beans are about half-way done. Simmer for a while and give it a taste. That sausage will have given up a lot of flavor by now, so Now you season.  Here is a guide: salt, pepper, coarsly chopped basil, a sprig of thyme and more granulated garlic if you like lot's of garlic, a pinch of sugar. For lentil I also add cumin.  We like things kind of hot, so I add a whole jalepeno with some slits in it and then fish it out before serving.

Keep simmering and adding water as necessary. This will take about three Heinekin Lights or two glasses of wine.

I've been able to get baby kale this year and let me tell you, it's a lot less scary looking than that curly stuff.  Which looks like it's going to get hung up somewhere inside of you.  You can add the baby kale right at the end and simmer till it's limp. The curly, more mature kale will need a little longer and need the ribs removed and chopped. See, find the baby kale. After you add the kale, add a couple of splashes of red wine vinegar.

I also got some  yellow squash at the farmers market last weekend. This week I made the soup with lentils, so I kept the small ends of the squash. Cut them into bite size pieces, rolled them in cornmeal and fried til crispy and brown and then topped the soup with them. For an appetizer, I tossed cauliflower florets in olive oil, sprinkled with cumin, salt and pepper and roasted them in the oven at 350 on a foil covered pan.  While they were in the oven I made a dressing of greek yougart, lime juice, more cumin and chopped cilantro. When they came out I tossed the florets in the dressing, but you can dip them in it instead if it's not a crowd favorite.

Light the fire, put out some bread and relax now.

Good bye summer

This has been the worst summer of my life and I'm glad it's over.

For 30+ years I have loved summer. Summer is beach, swimming, outside cooking. Salty hair. Living in shorts and a bathing suit top. Barbeques. Corn on the cob.

This summer was scary.

Cat scans, PET scans, blood tests, stress tests, exams. Results. Stunned disbelief. The surgeon schedules the surgery out a few weeks to give us time to "process" this information.

During the processing period we are mostly silent with each other. A few times we lie together, but it is too intense, too much emotion that can't be let loose or we might not be able to shut it back down again. A few times we sit holding hands and cry together.  The night before the surgery, we go out to eat and have a few drinks. I drink too much liquor instead of the usual wine, and end up drunk. We argue about that and it gets ugly. I walk the dog for an hour to sober up and so I don't have to come back to the house.

At 5:00 am we drive to the hospital and after he is admitted and taken away from me,  I go to the bathroom and bawl.  There is no other word for it. I bawl like a calf that has lost it's mother. My nose runs and my eyes swell shut and then I puke. And then I wait. None of this is happening like in the movies.  I look like shit and my head is pounding from the hangover. Bad coffee from the cafeteria makes me puke again.

Surgery takes most of the day. There are many people involved, there is a lot to remove.  When it's over, the surgeons tell me we think we got it all, your husband is a lucky man, we followed the nerve all the way back nearly to the brain stem, we saved his eye. The margins are clear. I go back to the bathroom and bawl again.

When I see him in his room I break down again, but I turn my back so he won't see me, but he can hear me.

We haven't told anyone. I am alone. Our college age sons are traveling out of state and one out of the country and we don't want them to worry and not have any fun. There isn't anything they could do to change it. We have a business to run and our customers can't be thinking we won't be around to to take care of their projects. The business pays for our health insurance that has allowed us to bring him to this place that is one of the best in the world. We tell everyone it's just sinus surgery.

He comes home two days later and recovers quickly. We are so relieved we often just look at each other and say, 'We're so lucky." He looks like he's had a stroke, one eye sags as does one side of his mouth. I don't care, I'm just glad he is alive.

I let him tell the boys when they return home, one by one. He downplays it to them and they come and ask me. Will he die? I tell them not yet. Maybe not for a long time, maybe not from this. His chances are 60/40.

Naive, we think it's over. Radiation hasn't started yet.

More tests, more scans, more too much.

A mold is made of his head and chest. It is used to strap him in and hold him still while the radiation shoots into his face. For 30 days, excluding weekends,  for 30 minute each day, he must be strapped in, mouthpiece inserted to protect his tongue and he must not move or swallow or twitch while it burns the inside of his face. He smells a smell like chlorine when it does. He has to take an anti-anxiety medication to get through it.

In a week the side effects start. The first sign is a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon tastes so horrible he has to spit out the first bite. His taste buds will be gone soon. Mouth sores appear. His nose swells to three times it's size. His eyes weep. His nose drips. Mustache falls out. Hair on the back of his head falls out. He gets an infection in his eye and we have to go to the ER on the weekend.  The mouth drys out, the saliva glands are gone. He starts losing weight. I'm told to keep the weight on him at all costs. I go the the grocery store every day and walk every aisle looking for bland, soft, tasteless food. We end up with Ensure Plus mostly and a few bites of something. I feel like I am failing to keep him fed. Like when your babies are small and helpless, feeding them feels like you are taking the best care you can of them. But I can't feed him.

One day, I stop at a green light and don't know where I am going. Cars are honking and I don't know what to do. I finally pull into a parking lot and I call my own doctor and beg for something to blank my mind. They give me the same anti-anxiety medication he takes for the radiation. I finally sleep and feel better. Able to cope again and go on. Because I have to go on. I have to take care of him. And even though we have finally told a few people because it's so obvious something is wrong, I am mostly alone with him.

But I don't want anyone else there with us. This is our journey. We won't make it if there is hovering and mincing and worrying. He won't have it. He continues to work as much as he can. A lesser man would not, he is not a lesser man.

When the radiation is finally over, he is spent. He finally takes a few full days off and sleeps fitfully, only a few hours at a time. He develops thrush. Its an infection in your mouth, babies sometimes get it. Liquid hydrocodone is the only thing that soothes him. But the radiation is over.

Day by day, he's getting better. And summer is over. A new season is here. Cooler weather, falling leaves. Something simmering on the stove all afternoon. Football.

Thanksgiving is coming.

Love Story

In 1978 I was 16 years old and a junior in high school I had long dark brown hair, I was only kind of pretty and I was a half-breed mexican navy brat in a navy town at a rough high school. (They didn't let the kids from navy housing go to the really cool kid high school). We had moved to this town in the summer of 8th grade and it was totally different than South Texas where I had come from. The girls didn't like me because of my Texas accent and yes'mam and no sirring. The boys liked the accent, but I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't fit in very well.  Not with the low-riding, gangsta mexicans, or the white surfers, or the asians after they found I wasn't asian even if I looked phillapina, from a distance.  I was fairly smart, smoked cigarettes, but I didn't like pot, didn't know how to smoke it, didn't know how to get it and usually when I drank alcohol, I threw up. So I didn't fit in with the smart kids, mostly asians anyway, the stoners, partiers or any other group. I was in gymnastics and as a result had a  nice figure and a small group of similarly hard to define friends, but I was lonely.

One day, I was with one of my few friends and we walked out to the parking lot to grab a smoke. I saw a girl we'll call Trixie kissing a boy with long, blonde hair. A surfer boy.  I couldn't see his face. I had gym with Trixie and we didn't care for each other. She didn't like me, so I didn't like her.  I thought she wasn't very attractive. Her eyes were set close together and she seemed unrefined somehow. She pointed out several times to several people that I rode the bus. She had a bad ass Ford Mustang.  I asked my friend if that was Trixie's boyfriend and she said  yea.  Just then, the kiss ended and he turned around and started to walk toward us back into school and I was able to see him. I'm not kidding when I say that I heard music or bells or something. Time stopped. It was time to go back to class but I was rooted to that spot, staring. My friend pulled me by the arm and said, c'mon let's go.  I literally shook my head a few times and blinked hard, but he was gone. My friend pulled me along, asked me what's wrong with you? I said THAT is Trixie's boyfriend? Yep. I said that I was going to have to save him.

I did. Save him from her.  I went out my way to be around him, never spoke to him, but was just in his vicinity. Once or twice I saw him glance my way. One day I wore a pair of yellow ditto jeans and a white peasant-type blouse and platform heels and a thin, pale yellow ribbon to pull back just a little bit of the top of my long hair into a braid.  That day he took a longer look that turned into a stare until Trixie grabbed him by the arm and said, c'mon let's go. Ditto jeans had the seam in a horseshoe shape in the back, up the legs and over the behind.  My gymnastic ass looked damn good in those jeans. I made sure he checked it out as I was walking away, with a toss of my braid for good measure.  After a few weeks, he wasn't around.  I didn't know what had happened to him. One day as I was rushing to class from my locker, I saw him. He was on crutches with a leg in a cast up to his thigh. He was struggling to carry his books.  I walked up to him and said, let me carry those for you. We walked to his classroom and I handed him his books. I said, I'll be here when you get out. I was.  We didn't talk much that time; thanks, what's your name, I've seen you around before.

Trixie must have found out about it because she was never far from him. We spoke briefly a time or two more, how's your leg, what happened, a skateboard accident. But the year was coming to a close and the last day of school I watched him ride out of the parking lot in her bad ass mustang.  Girls simply did not call boys then.  I was heartbroken and figured by the end of summer they would be engaged or something. I barely slept or ate for a week. One evening, my sister called me to the phone. When I picked it up, there was no one there. The next night I answered the phone when it rang. It was him. The only way to find someone back then was to look in the phone book.  My last name started with W and my father's name is William. It was a big city. It had taken a week for him to find me. He told me later he was so surprised when he heard my voice the first time on the phone he had hung up.

We talked on the phone a lot the next few days and then I threw convention to the wind and borrowed my sister's car and drove to his house. When he kissed me for the first time, he told me he loved me. I told him not to say that until he meant it. He told me he loved me everytime he kissed me, but I wouldn't say it back. For three months, I didn't say it. After three months, I said it everytime we kissed.

I've said it everytime since then. So has he.

A few months ago, after months of sinus infections that wouldn't clear up, he asked me to feel the knot over his cheek, I touched it and felt a jolt shoot through my fingertips, down my arm and straight into my heart.

He has cancer.

Semi-Famous

So my 21 year old son is semi-famous. I say semi because you probably have never heard of him. But in his world and in ours, he is. He competes professionally in a sport that is not one of the major ones, golf, tennis, football. But for those people that follow it, he’s getting to be a rock star. It is amusing to us, his family, because, come on? Really? The little shit never would clean his room up and we’ve always considered him high-strung and a little bit bitchy when he gets tired.

But his public persona is very humble and kind and well mannered.  Just like we taught him to be. He is also, humble, kind and well mannered at home, except when he’s tired and bitchy and he gets that way from traveling so much. He is also on the Dean's list at college, works part time as a waiter and occasionaly does manual labor for our construction business. Meaning, he's a good kid growing up to be a good man. Yes, I will take credit.  It allows me private haughtiness. In public I am humble, kind and well mannered.  I keep my bitchiness at home.

Most everyone in our town knows him or of him. People we meet in odd places have heard of him. It gets a little weird. I can be at the hair salon (beauty operator as my Grandma still calls it), or coffee shop and run into friends that introduce me to their acquaintances as “The Semi-Famous Son’s Mother.” Gushing and fawning ensue. My husband recently has some pretty major surgery requiring an overnight stay in the hospital. The nurses, mostly twenty-something’s, recognized our last name and asked if “Semi-Famous Son” was ours. Gushing and fawning ensued. Pain medication flowed freely, which it probably would have anyway, but with no eye rolling or waiting as can happen when nurses are busy and stressed.  The health system being what it is, I give them a free pass when they do. I called a travel agency out of state a couple of months to inquire about traveling to Spain. They recognized his name.

He was in Spain the last week competing in a contest that he took 2^nd place in. Second place out of the top 16 in the world at this sport.  Pretty amazing to us.  We would have gone to see him, but with Husband’s surgery, we couldn’t travel.  It was his first major international contest and I would have really liked to see it.  Instead, I made Paella. 

I know the following recipe is not totally authentic, but I’ve refined it so it works well for me and with ingredients I am able to find. A good Paella pan is essential.  I found a rather large one that has a lid and is non-stick, which is not authentic, but like I said, it works for me.  I used a pizza pan in place of a lid on my old one. You can combine whatever you want in Paella, chicken, seafood, sausage, in any combination, but you don't want to many ingriedients overwhelming the rice. In this version I've used all of these, but just remember to keep the quantity of ingredients in check.  If you have a smaller pan, reduce the amount of amounts accordingly .

Paella

12-24 each of clams and mussels, scrubbed and cleaned . If you don’t know that, maybe you should try something easier, like poptarts. What you may not know is that if you put them in a large bowl, cover with cold water and stir in about a half a cup of grits or cornmeal, they will spit out their grit making for a much more pleasant dining experience. Leave them sit about an hour and then rinse well. I steam the clams and mussels first and remove all but 6 of each from the shell.  They release liquid as they cook and after so many attempts at this with mushy rice, I finally gave up and measure rice and liquid.  Just before the Paella is done, I stick the remaining shells in and make it look like it’s supposed to.

18 medium size shrimp, shelled and cleaned, reserve the shells.

*Optional ½ lb Calamari, okay squid.  Cut into bite size pieces, and don’t be afraid of those tentacles.

1 lb of boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces. The real Paella from Spain sometime contains rabbit, but my local grocer doesn’t carry those, this is as close as I can get.

1 lb of Cured Chorizo sausage. Sometimes I can get the real stuff that looks like a pepperoni link; sometimes I can get it sliced like salami, sometimes I can’t get it. I’ve substituted pepperoni or linguica, but Chorizo is definitely better.  It is not the uncured, melty Mexican kind you fry with eggs to make breakfast tacos. Again, cut into bite size pieces.

You are also going to need ½ cup of chopped white onion, one red bell pepper 1/2 chopped, 1/2 cut into strips,  3-4 cloves of garlic pressed, a heaping teaspoon or so of sweet smoked paprika, ¾ cups of small frozen peas .   The peas are an American addition, so you can leave them out if you want, but it makes a nice one dish meal. Oh, and olive oil, a couple or three cups of chicken broth and one of those little teeny packages of saffron threads that are like $7. Two cups of Arborio rice. A short grain or sushi rice will substitute, but not long grain or Jasmine rice. Rice is not just rice as it turns out. If you are know what Bomba rice is and can get it, use your own Paella recipe and don't make fun of mine.

In a steam pot, throw the shrimp shells in along with about a glass of wine. Place the steam basket on top and steam the clams and mussels in small batches and remove them as quickly as they open. This is dangerous if you’ve already been into the wine, so use some l o n g tongs or you’ll burn yourself. You don’t want to overcook them because they have to go back in to re-heat later. As they cool, remove all but six of each from the shell and reserve.

Remove the steamer basket and strain the resulting broth into a smaller sauce pan. Add the chicken broth and simmer to reduce to about 3 cups of liquid. Add the saffron and simmer for just a minute or two more and keep it at the back of the stove until you are ready for it.

Okay, now it all comes together.

Heat the Paella pan to hot, but not so much the oil smokes when you drizzle in the olive oil. Coat the bottom of the pan with a very thin layer.  Season the chicken lightly with salt and pepper and brown on all sides in the paella pan. You don’t need to cook it all the way through, it’s got to go through some more cooking with everything else.  About the time you get the chicken done, add the chorizo sausage pieces and the onion, garlic, paprika and the chopped red bell pepper and brown until the onion and pepper is wilted. You want a good bit of carmelization on everything and on the bottom of the pan.  During this process push everything to the side for a few minutes and roast the strips of red pepper until just done and then remove.  You’ll need a few tablespoons of resulting oil in the pan, but not too much more than that.  Stir in the rice and get it coated all over with the oil.  Add a cup or so of the broth and scrape up all that good stuff on the bottom of the pan.  Let it simmer until that liquid is almost gone and then add two cups of the broth. Continue to simmer and have on hand an extra ¼ cup of broth, or water and test the rice once in a while to see if there is enough liquid, and add only about a tablespoon or so at a time if you need it. Don't cover just yet.

Add the shrimp and calamari, okay squid, if you are using them and just gently stir them in. Try not to stir up too much of the bottom of the pan now. Now you cover it. When the shrimp starts turning pink, add the peas on top.  Cover and steam for a few minutes. Arrange the red bell peppers, clams and mussels still in their shells on top and steam until they are heated through.  You don’t want the peas done done, just not frozen anymore and still bright green.

Socarrat. Funny thing about Paella, it’s a success if you get that crusty under the rice and that is what it is called, socarrat.  This is why I resorted to steaming the clams beforehand because too much liquid and not only will you not get the socarrat, you’ll have mushy rice. Too much stirring while the rice is cooking and you won’t get the socarrat either. At the very end, turn up the heat for a few moments and listen and smell carefully. You'll hear popping and crackling and smell something like popcorn. Don't go too long, you want crusty crispy not blackened.  It took me several tries to get this, so don’t feel bad if you don’t get it on the first try. As long as you don’t burn the rice, it still taste good!

Serve with lemon wedges, a simple green salad and lots of wine.  Gather round and serve it directly from the pan.