L---P----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----T----5----R----r----r----7--T-+--r E:\LETTERS\JulyB09.txt This file is posted at http://davebeeson.home.comcast.net/LETTERS/JulyB09.txt 5 July 2009 An excerpt from http://davebeeson.home.comcast.net/LETTERS/COOKBOOK.92 a plain-text file which includes some of the recipes I copied out of Mother's filebox: ------------------------------------- Oatmeal Crispies -- Mrs. Pritchard Thoroughly cream 1 cup butter 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup granulated sugar add 2 beaten eggs 1 tsp. vanilla beat well add 1 1/2 cups flour sifted with 1 tsp salt 1 tsp soda add 2 cups rolled oats mix well Form into long rolls. Chill thoroughly and slice 1/4" thick. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet in 350F oven for 10 minutes. Makes 15 doz. -------------------------------- Comments, some added when I typed the recipe in, some added today: I never bother to pre-beat the eggs. "Flouring" your hands with sesame seeds will keep the dough from sticking to them. Poppy seeds also work, but look dirty. I wrap the "long rolls" in waxed paper, and use waxed paper to catch the flour at the first sifting. Nowadays I use white-wheat bread flour everywhere I used to use all-purpose flour and it works beautifully -- even in white sauce. I no longer think it necessary to sift the powdered ingredients together. The dough "chills" best in the freezer -- Refrigerators aren't as cold as iceboxes were. It never freezes too hard to slice. Raisins get too hard when chilled, and shatter the slices when the knife fails to penetrate. Pecans are yummy, and don't need to be pre-chopped. If wrapped in aluminum foil, the dough will keep for weeks, and cookies can be sliced off as required. If made very small, the cookies can be carried in a sandwich bag in a bike-jersey pocket. (My jerseys have front pockets for this purpose. Usually contain starlight mints, since I don't ride as much as I used to.) 6 July 2009 We had a very good Fourth of July weekend, and I *liked* having our party and Joe and Lois's party on different days. I thought about moving the hooked rug into the living room for extra padding under the airbed, but didn't do it -- and the airbed developed a leak in the night. I wasn't worth much Sunday afternoon. Dave got some tilling done. I made just the right amount of devilled eggs -- I had the last one for breakfast this morning, together with potato salad and a slice of Ohio Swiss cheese. Before breakfast, I finally got around to sewing up the two inches of ripped dart in my oldest bra, so I could wash the one I wore yesterday. I need more underwear. I've gone so far as to look thoughtfully at the stacks of knits on the closet shelf, but not so far as to clear a path to the closet. I have a piece of lightweight linen for bras, but now that I have the pattern tweaked, I may buy a piece of fine linen from fabric-store.com. I'd get more ironing done if I *didn't* have room to leave my ironing board up. It's not only buried, half the stuff on it is jobs that need to be done. I solved the problem of remembering to bleach the pink-stained sheet -- I'm bleaching every sheet. Which creates another problem: One sheet and the pillowcases fill up the washer, and though I have a lot of dishtowels, they seldom add up to a load by themselves. That problem solved itself. I plan to wash one of the half-sheets together with tablecloths and dishtowels today, leaving the other three for later, and by the time I have all four half-sheets washed, all the king-sized sheets will have been bleached enough and I can go back to washing the pillowcases with the dish towels. You learn the strangest things on Usenet -- if you put a bar of Ivory soap in the microwave,it will puff up like a marshmallow, and then, according to the source, is easy to crumble up to use in a cleaning- powder recipe that calls for mixing grated real soap, washing soda, and borax. We recently discarded a worn-down bar, and it *does* puff up. I'm planning to put it into one of the hot-water loads I'm running today. Perhaps with a dash each of washing soda and borax. 8 July 2009 It does crumble easily, but I should have used a grater or put it through a coarse sieve. The larger pieces took a long time to dissolve. Dave left for Indianapolis today, intending to make a side trip to Metamora to take a rubbing of his ancestor's gravestone. I was thinking that I'd open the eating table into a cutting table and leave it that way the whole three days, but I didn't do anything today (except wash a sheet that I put in to soak yesterday), I'm planning to go to the fair tomorrow, and Dave is coming home the next day. I might, at least, take the white cotton jersey off my shelf and see whether I need to buy some. I polished off the potato salad for supper. Perhaps I'll make some pasta salad; I think there is half a package of rotini in the freezer. 9 July 2009 Now that was queer. I happened to look out the window just as a drake in the street tried to outrun a car. The driver managed to slow down to a fast waddle before impact, and the drake eventually got the idea of running sideways into our lawn. The street had been clear for some time before he crossed to re-join the ducks. No wings were flapped except for a slight flutter as he jumped the curb. Ducks cross the street to get the scatter from the Schmeltzers' bird feeder, but I never see anything picking up our mulberries. Two birds flew back toward the lake. Not in view long enough to distinguish ducks from drakes -- or two from three, for that matter. I rode my bike to the fair yesterday. I went in by the main gate and looked at the entrance. There was a bike rack next to the motorcycle-parking area, but it was the kind meant for children's disposable bicycles -- doesn't allow you to lock properly, and puts strain on the front wheel -- so I rode through the parking lot to the other gate and locked to a fence post. Some sort of gray dust had been used to fill holes in the dirt track; it forced me out into the grass more than once. Worse than dry sand to ride through. I walked up and down every aisle except for one of the midway aisles, deeming glimpses caught from the other midway aisle sufficient. Also looked into every building, tent, and barn. It seemed to be nap-time for the hogs. The hog barn was the only one with latched steel gates at every entrance; perhaps hogs are more likely to escape from their handlers than goats and sheep? Certainly more dangerous to have running around in a panic. As I was leaving the hog barn by one of a pair of gates at the main entrance, a tourist coming in banged the other one, which I thought inconsiderate: you could see from there that all the hogs were asleep except for one that was having a spirited discussion with its handler. I should have explored the other midway aisle and sat down for a good rest -- not necessarily in that order! -- because they were just setting up the Farmers' Market when I left. I toured Sherman & Lin's & the pawn shop, then crossed the railroad and rode back to Warsaw Health Food. Considered buying a snack, but I didn't want it save for the habit of leaving with something when I go there, and my frequent-shopper card was at home in my wallet. Since I didn't want to wear a jersey, I didn't have a way to carry my wallet without dragging a purse around, and I hadn't planned to go anywhere you can use a debit card, so I put the cash in my pockets and left the rest behind. Probably would have taken the plastic on principle if the passport pockets in my herringbones didn't leak, but I wouldn't have thought of the frequent-shopper card. I still got back to the market before the opening bell. Took two laps around, then bought a pound each of tiny turnips and sour cherries. While I was changing shoes after leaving the fairground, an Amish lady who had come to help with the Farmer's Market hitched her horse to another post in the fence. It was pulling a cart that was nothing but a bench and two wheels -- I hadn't seen such a minimalist buggy before, and thought it might be a descendant of the vehicle that inspired the racing sulky, so this morning I looked sulky up in Wikipedia to see whether it said what the ancestral cart was called. Turns out that "sulky" was what people called carts that could hold nobody but the driver, perhaps implying that someone who didn't want company must be in a bad mood. Since it would have been possible to put two people on the bench, I don't suppose that the vehicle I saw was a sulky. The pictures of road sulkies in Wikipedia seemed to show a sort of tractor seat -- i.e., I couldn't see the seat at all. The Wikipedia article said that there are sulkies for racing draft dogs, and that some new stainless steels have prodigious strength-to-weight ratios. Got an e-mail from Dave yesterday that said that his gravestone rubbing went well, considering that it is the first time he tried it. 12 July 2009 Grump. I'm tired of wearing slacks to church, but it's too cool to wear a shift, too warm to wear a dress, my black skirt is too spectacular to wear two Sundays in a row, and my red skirt needs to be mended and pressed. Yesterday I decided that it was time to finish a pair of briefs that have been cluttering the sewing room for weeks because I have to change the needle and thread in the Necchi before I hem them. Couldn't find them, of course, but I turned up my newest bra and put the elastic in it. Would be wearing it now, but I settled on a black scoop-neck blouse, and changed into the black bra. Hmm. I wonder why I didn't notice my white blouse of the same pattern when hunting for something to wear today? Perhaps because it doesn't go with my off-white slacks. There's nothing left of the party but a small container of Kathy's cabbage salad and a freezer full of chips. We've been eating chips rather more often than I ordinarily allow. But I've been dipping them in non- fat yogurt. (Dave dipped the "greek" (made from half- and-half) yogurt "because it's closer" no matter where I put it :-) Also had nonfat yogurt on my cereal this morning, because we're down to half a bottle of milk and I don't want to go shopping until tomorrow. Not bad at all. Especially after I added a drizzle of real maple syrup. And there's the bell: time to start walking to church. 20 July 2009 Busy week. Wednesday I finally got around to calling Snider's office about the Tricor I ran out of on Sunday, and was told that he'd had a cancellation, come in tomorrow at nine. I asked do I need blood drawn? Yes, come in at eight. I seldom get moving in the morning before ten. We set the alarm clock. I woke shortly before it was set to go off, and tried to turn it off without turning on a light, but pushed it from "wake to music" to "wake to alarm" instead. Luckily, I happened to be standing next to it when it went off. Despite waiting for two different appointments and also waiting to have a prescription filled, I killed only one of the Science News magazines I'd brought with me. Went to the emergency room to drop off magazines, stopped at the hospital's picnic table to eat my bread and chicken salad (and three of the five crackers that came with the chicken salad), then by way of the boardwalk (which I pretty much ignored, scenery-wise) to the library to drop off a book of short stories and pick up two beginner books about hand mending. I don't recall how I got back to Kroger to fill the prescription -- which was for three months, so I don't think he expects me to pass the blood test. Dr. Snider asked about my feet and I didn't mention the sore spot on the left one. I did tell him that my bad hip bothers me when I stand for a long time, but not at all when I'm walking -- whereupon it commenced to bother me a *lot* when I'm walking. Seems to be easing off now, though. Friday I went to Aldi's -- couldn't find more Kirkwood chicken salad; the boxes marked chicken/tuna salad had only the tuna salad kits, and there was a whole stack of boxes, too. I wonder what brought that on? Made potato salad in the evening. Forgot to put in the dill-pickle relish, so I guess I'll have to make some more. We still have most of the quart I kept. Saturday, a weenie roast at Alice's. Sunday, the usual. Monday was predicted to be fine, so Dave went golfing and I finally went to see the new Menard's. Not much of a ride; I knew very well that it was right across 30 from the hospital, but somehow kept thinking of it as out by Walmart. So I wore cleats, thinking that I'd come back the long way, went to the emergency room by way of Harrison, changed to walking shoes, dumped a few more magazines -- all of the story magazines were gone, but a few Guideposts were still there -- crossed 30 to Menard's. Walked all over; was slightly surprised not to find a suitable flower pot for my rosemary. Then I kept my walking shoes on and headed, I thought, straight home by way of Husky Trail. I really must get the map out and see where it was I really went. Found the intersection of 30 and Center eventually, so I went to Brower's Furniture for carpet samples; he said they were picked over, I picked them over some more and selected three strictly on color, not bothering to check fiber content. Handed over three dollar bills, then discovered that the samples were too big to put into a pannier. So I bungeed them over the top, which caused me some perplexity after I continued on to the Visitor's Bureau and picked up some maps of the Greenway and a brochure about the Round Barn Museum. I pulled the flat plastic bag I'd carried the magazines in out through the wires, bagged the papers, and slipped them under one of the bungee cords, where they rode nice and flat. The last time I rode a bike across 30 onto Center Street, I was surprised at how easy it was. This time I was surprised the other way. The pavement was horrible, particularly along the right edge, and blocking off the left-turn lane made the remaining lane so narrow that I had to pull off three times to let backed-up traffic go by. The last place I pulled back in was at the top of a slope: okay, now I can keep up with the traffic -- urk, more broken pavement GAAH A STEEL GRATE!!! Somehow survived all that, but I had to turn pedestrian to get across Center. No further adventures, save that I got so caught up in making hamburger-and-tomato sauce for the baked potato we had for supper that I forgot to bake the potato. Zapped it, then toasted it, and got supper on the table nearly on time. I swept Al's feeding place, and replaced his dirty tablecloth with one of the new carpet samples. I plan to pin the old one to the line just before our next heavy rain. Tomorrow be washday, and the water is cloudy. 21 July 2009 Two loads with bleach, one load without. Didn't notice the cloudy water -- did notice that my latest jug of bleach has a "childproof" cap that makes it awkward to open. "Awkward" and "corrosive liquid" are not words I like to use in the same sentence. I pulled some multipliers to have with our frozen meat pies for supper. I remembered multiplier scallions as being very easy to clean: just pull off the outermost leaf, and all the dirt and skin comes off with it. These were a royal pain, perhaps because they were planted so late, which makes them develop bulbs while still tiny. They may improve when I work my way down the row to the ones that were planted in lake muck. And while I was pulling them, I noticed that the deer have discovered my potatoes. They left enough greenery that we might still get a crop. I ignored the instructions on the meat pies and didn't cover the edges with aluminum foil or pre-heat the oven, and I think I liked the pies better. They browned on the bottom and didn't burn around the edges. Still stuck to the pan, though. 22 July 2009 8:49 -- woke up early, for some reason. We were supposed to get some rain today, but so far it doesn't look like it. 23 July 2009 I threw the renewal notice for Science News into the recycling yesterday. The format change removed everything I had subscribed for in the first place; I still read it, but I really have to push myself, and the issues are piling up -- enough to supply me with waiting-room reading for years to come, I suspect. 24 July 2009 When I've been hypertexting for a while, I flinch a bit at using the main-keyboard "enter" key to insert a hard return -- my hypertext documents contain a code that makes it insert two hard returns and a paragraph tag. But I don't flinch any before using it to end a line I've just punched in -- which sometimes gets me into trouble when I'm hypertexting. I made rotini salad today. I should have stuck by my first impulse to make it oil and vinegar instead of mayo. 25 July 2009 But it was good with the pork ribs Dave smoked for supper. We also had potato salad left. The potato I had Dave throw in with the ribs went begging. (I did cut a bite off one end before wrapping it up and putting it in the fridge.) 29 July 2009 We had the smoked potato for breakfast this morning, diced and fried with celery, onion, and cubes of canadian bacon. He bought some more ribs today, but it was too late to start the smoker when he got home, so I baked a couple of Aldi's chicken kievs in the toaster oven with Yukon Gold potatoes, two carrot sticks, and "roasted" frozen mixed vegetables. Good news for both of us: Dave put on his last dose of hamburger cream today, and at eleven I'll take my last antibiotic pill. I haven't been sick; when I got samples taken to renew my Tricor prescription, I flunked one of the tests, so I had a week of taking ciprofloxacin (spelling not guaranteed) and drinking lots of water. The thyroid test was borderline, so I have to go back again in October, but only to the lab -- I won't see Snider unless I flunk something. The Kerak (spelling *way* not guaranteed, since I've never seen the word) ended just in time -- Dave's arm is so sore that after supper, I had to wash blood out of his shorts where he had rested his arm in his lap. I rubbed the stain with pine tar soap and got it all. I had a dental appointment Monday (my teeth are perfect) so I washed underwear Sunday night and ran two loads of hot-with-bleach yesterday. Also cut out my new cycling knickers, and hand- sewed a patch to the wrong side of one of the pieces to reinforce the place where my old knickers are worn. All that accomplishment must have exhausted me, because I didn't get a thing done today. Didn't help that we slept until well after ten. We were both astonished; we weren't up particularly late, and slept well. I had a pleasant ride around the south end of the lake when I went to the dentist on Monday, and came back past Marsh to buy milk. Learn new things all the time: a few days ago, I was fooling around with WSFTP after backing up this file on the remote server, and discovered that I have a Drive F. Dave explained that my memory stick has two drives on it: one for me to use, and one for the stick's housekeeping files. And today I noticed for the first time that you can lock our patio doors open just a little -- now I can let Al sniff on cool days without worrying that he will pry the door open. 3 August 2009 Patched my old knickers and washed a load of underwear so I could go riding today -- it was, as predicted, a lovely day for a bike ride. I couldn't think of anywhere to go, so I rode around Pike Lake. Now I know where the Wong place is! Could have dropped in for lunch, but I'd had a heavy breakfast very late, and didn't even eat the crackers I'd bought at the Park Street store that used to be a bus station. I went first to the hospital to leave off a copy of Lakes Magazine -- duplicating one I saw on a table there -- then across the boardwalk to Park, Armstrong, Husky Trail, Patterson, Sprawlmart. Bought an umbrella at the nearer dollar store, toured Goodwill, picked up peppers, frozen blueberries, and a few other things at Aldi, which left the panniers so full I had to re- arrange extensively to get bread in after visiting Aunt Millie. There were "Monday Madness" signs over empty (save for the occasional squashed loaf) shelves, so I got one loaf of a kind of bread I don't like very much. But I also found mini-subs, hotdog buns, hamburger buns, and a cross between pita bread and hamburger buns called "slimwiches". Dave said they looked like flat bagels with no holes. And they'd been pricked like crackers. Eclectic bread. There was something involving orange cones going on on 250E. I was too busy dealing with it to figure out what. I didn't see a thing on Wooster, but by the time I got home the scanner had said that Wooster road was closed. And it was the maintenance crew at Grace that said it, not the police, so it can't have been a smashup. Perhaps the truck I passed on 250E followed me. Google Maps said I'd gone 9.5 miles, a program on Dave's GPS said 12.3, Streets and Trips said 11.8. Streets and Trips was the only one that allows one to put in an approximation of the way I actually went. I think I could have tricked Google into being a little more accurate if I'd known the name or address of the former bus station. So I put some frozen chicken thighs and hot gravy into the rice cooker on keep warm, and flopped into bed. Didn't sleep; my legs ached, and though I wasn't hungry, my bod knew that all I'd had for lunch was one of the apple-cinnamon cereal bars I'd bought at Aldi's, and thought it was time to get up and forage. Didn't detect either apple or cinnamon in the bar, but not bad. We slept late last Saturday, and I got the very last three red tomatoes out of four bushels, (there were also maybe half a dozen green ones). The tomatoes were teeny little things and the quality was no better than you'd expect. But there was plenty of corn and I got half a dozen ears. Much better than the previous half dozen, which had been picked a tad too soon. 4 August 2009 So now it's washday -- and also water-heater cleaning day. Luckily, I got the only hot-water load in before Dave took his shower, and cold water will do for the rest. Which may be only a sheet and pillowcases, since there aren't enough coloreds to make a load. Yesterday we trimmed Dave's gravestone rubbings with my rotary cutter. Just to square them up; he hasn't bought the frame yet.