I preferred Franny and Zooey

"J.D. Salinger, 91, the celebrated author and enigmatic recluse whose 1951 novel "The Catcher in the Rye" became an enduring anthem of adolescent angst and youthful rebellion and a classic of 20th-century American literature, died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H.

In 1953, Mr. Salinger settled in Cornish, where he lived in a hilltop cottage overlooking the Connecticut River. He attended no literary conferences, gave no lectures, and almost invariably spurned all human contact. If anyone approached him in a public street or building, he turned and fled. He was rarely photographed,  and he directed his publisher to remove his photograph from the dust jacket of "The Catcher in the Rye." His attorneys and agents were instructed not to answer questions about him.

 For nine months in 1972 and 1973, Mr. Salinger had an affair with Joyce Maynard, who dropped out of college during her freshman year at Yale to move in with him. Maynard had written an article for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, "An 18-Year-Old Looks Back on Life," that had caught Mr. Salinger's attention. He wrote to her, and for several weeks, they corresponded before she left Yale to live with him in New Hampshire."

 -Washington Post 

I once met Fredelle Maynard, celebrated in her own right as a child care expert and author, and the mother of Rona and Joyce Maynard. Rona Maynard once interviewed me for an article when I was doing my "Professional Mothers" thing (for stay-at-home moms, whom I believe are the real professional mothers, although everyone misunderstood the name of my group and magazine so I changed it to "Nurturing").

Fredelle was a lovely lady who told me many things about her daughters, including the fact that Joyce was living in New Hampshire with her babies and husband. This was several years after 1973, so she wasn't with Salinger at that time. I didn't know anything about the Salinger/Maynard connection until decades later, so was attracted to and enamoured of her life for its seeming purity, which Mrs. Maynard described as "back-to-the-land" rural living. I remember her telling me Joyce used only cloth diapers. To me back then, this was my idea of paradise. I gave her copies of my magazine "Nurturing" and we never spoke again, although we thought we would. I was sad to hear that she died of brain cancer in 1989.

Everyone speaks of "Catcher in the Rye", and, of course, I was required to read it in junior high. I don't remember one thing about it, not one thing. My favourite Salinger book was "Franny and Zooey", which our teacher, thankfully, had us read, too. Published 10 years later, it was more readable - what I hoped "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" would be but was not - and  revolved around two of the seven Glass children, the youngest daughter and older brother. My family did not resemble the Glass family in the least, so I had nothing to latch onto, and the interest that should have been there - glimpsing life in an eccentric Jewish family - was lacking, but I liked the book nonetheless and was glad to have read it.

What fascinates me now is Salinger's own subsequent life as a self-imposed recluse - which I can relate to in my senior citizenhood, more than somewhat. I am a fairly normal person who like to be alone and to be left alone unless I want to be among people, but for someone like Salinger, with brooding problems far deeper than anything I've experienced, the desire to be left alone seems only natural. After all, he had been through the war and seen things I've never seen and suffered wartime stress before it was recognized as collateral war damage. He was also briefly married to a Nazi named Sylvia to whom he later referred to as Saliva. He was an angry man who belittled members of his own family, according to his daughter Margaret's memoir, and who seemed to prefer his made-up characters to real people.

From Margaret Salinger's "Dream Catcher"

"He was unable or unwilling to sustain close personal relations with anyone, she said: "His search . . . led him increasingly to relations in two dimensions: with his fictional Glass family, or with living 'pen pals' he met in letters, which lasted until meeting in person when the three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood presence of them would, with the inevitability of watching a classic tragedy unfold, invariably sow the seeds of the relationship's undoing."

What a telling statement. It has its counterpart in today's great social network, Facebook, where many of our  "friends" are basically unknown to us befrienders, added only because we know who they are or have heard of them. Some we have never met, and I suspect, were we to have the chance to get together in person, we, like Salinger with his penpals, would have no interest in them at all.

Garbage Tags and Recycling Day

Living in Toronto the first 32 years of our marriage, garbage days were annoying because, well, you had to deal with garbage. However, you could put out bag upon bag and the garbage people would take it away. Nice.

The first day of living here in Trenton, two neighbours asked me if I knew about garbage tags. In fact, the lady across the street came right over to our door to welcome us (we have not spoken one word since that day) and to tell us we needed to buy garbage tags. I think she wanted a glimpse of the house - probably more like a tour - but we only spoke on the doorstep while she tried to see around me into the house.

Our lovely next door neighbour brought over a local bakery's butter tarts, her hubby helped us move in and they have been the best neighbours on earth ever since. She also told me about garbage tags.

This concept was totally new to me. You mean, we have to pay to have our garbage taken away? That's right. Two dollars a bag. (It has recently gone up to $2.50 bag!)

The amount one pays depends on where you live. In neighbouring Belleville, the cost was only a dollar a bag. The stick-on long strips, imprinted "Quinte West", can be purchased at the supermarket and convenience stores, although convenience stores charge extra, which means if you have to run to the corner in a hurry before the garbage truck gets to your house, you're paying $2.70 a tag.

When we moved here, they still had different tags for different parts of Trenton, or Quinte West, as it is now officially known. We had to get the proper tag for our part of Quinte West, so when the supermarket clerk asked me which ward I wanted tags for, I didn't know! Were we Sydney Ward? Trenton Ward? or something else? The neighbours didn't mention anything about wards! Help!

In Toronto there has been talk of initiating some sort of garbage fee, too; at the mere mention of it people get ugly. And no one is talking about as high a fee as we pay here in Trenton.

We (make that "I") have learned to make less garbage. Recycling is totally free, except for the cost of the bins, and I've been composting for decades. Because not everyone in our house (process of elimination brings us to the hubbub) can be bothered with opening the sliding door in the kitchen in order to deposit cardboard, plastic, aluminum cans, etc. in the recycling containers and banana peels in the compost bin (much less egg shells!), you can find me on any given day fishing these items out of the kitchen garbage can, washing them, compressing them, and depositing them in the proper receptacles.

It's a chore which garners me no accolades from within the house (hub is fed up with recycling - as if he did much of it!), but the recycling truck guys have praised me once or twice - to him! It seems that not everyone follows the recycling rules and that makes the job all the more harder for the collectors.

Only official bins must be used - some folks were putting their recyclables out in milk crates and old laundry baskets - because they're the only ones that hook onto the truck so the guys can sort your items for tossing into the allocated sections of the truck. I do the sort in my bins, as requested, but not everyone does, despite the annual recycling calendar and posters sent to us. I have my poster taped to the inside of my pantry door.

Cardboard goes into a different bin than aluminum, plastic and glass. Smaller boxes go into bigger boxes, all crushed, of course. Containers are washed out before depositing in the bin. Hubbub can't be bothered with that. He thinks they should bow down to him if he gives them anything at all. For the Hub, empty milk containers are tossed in the bin unwashed and uncrushed. Same with pop bottles. Little carboard boxes, like the ones sardine tins come in, go in the garbage pail under the kitchen sink. (I fish them out. Hehe...."fish" them out!)

Early on living here mistakes were made and the recycling guys refused our offerings, leaving a yellow card in the unemptied bin with the reason why indicated with a black check mark - yes, like a traffic ticket!. I learned fast and the following week looked out the window hoping my bin was acceptable to them - I tried so hard to please! But hub got even madder. What kind of police-state are we living in when even the recycling people have such authority over us?

It makes you wonder, actually.

I've been in their good books for years, though. An example to the rest of the neighbourhood, I am. I'm waiting for my invitation to give the keynote speech at their next annual meeting.

Canada Post: Rates up = Service down

Today my daughter received an important letter about her student loan (she uses our address for her mail). I thought she received two identical letters until I saw that the other was addressed to someone else - someone in Toronto, an hour and a half from here. The only similarities are in the name of our town and Toronto and that we both have K8 in our postal codes - in different spots.

Canada Post raised its postal rates 11 days ago. How oxymoronic that it has also farmed out delivery duties of some of its mail to the good citizens of Canada! I do mean good citizens, as I imagine most people will let the errantly delivered mail sit in their house for days, weeks, months, or forever. Some will toss it in the trash. Those who personify Toronto, the Good - comma mine - or in our case, Trenton, the Good - will get in their car, drive to the P.O., hand the misdelivered letter over and hope that the good employees at their Canada Post office will see that it gets to its rightful recipient.

In the case of today's letter, it looks like the content is identical, as the envelopes certainly are, save for the addressees. Our daughter's letter contained time-sensitive material of crucial importance to the student, so I know I must get the other letter to the person it is addressed to speedily. My problem is why is this now my problem?

Above (or under) it all (I can't figure out which) hovers (or lies) the question:

How much of my mail has been delivered to the hands of others?

Earrings

I make earrings. I decorate metal bookmarks. I make necklaces and bracelets. This is one pair. I have made hundreds of bookmarks, over a hundred pairs of earrings, and a few other pieces of beaded jewelry. To see a few visit me here: nurturing.etsy.com

Estonian soups = Estonian ambrosia!

Pea soup - hernesupp

Turkey-cabbage soup - kalkuni ja värske kapsasupp

Cabbage soup - värske kapsasupp

Dumpling soup - klimbisupp

Estonian comfort food - hakklihakaste

HAKKLIHAKASTE (Ground Beef Gravy)

Use a large skillet with deep sides. This is a one-pan recipe.

At med-high heat, brown a pound or more of ground meat (or less, depending on how many are eating and your need for leftovers), either a mixture of ground beef, pork, veal, etc. or any one of these alone.

Using a wooden spatula, or any kind of large utensil, break meat apart as it browns. I use an up-and-down motion over the meat, pounding it until the pieces are the size of peas. If you want to leave some larger chunks among the smaller ones, that's perfectly okay.

Add finely chopped onion (one onion, small, medium, or large -- whichever you want) to the browning meat and sauté together with the meat.

When meat is nicely browned and onions are translucent, mix in some finely chopped garlic, if you like it (I add a lot -- 4 cloves or so).

Turn heat down to halfway between high and low.

Sprinkle mixture with salt and pepper, to taste.

Now, pour on milk (2% is good if you want a lower-fat version) or half & half, or a combination of both, until the liquid rises almost to the top of the skillet (leave enough room for a few more ingredients and for mixing without sloshing).
An alternative is to use beef stock instead of milk for the liquid, with the addition of about a half-cup of heavy cream or half & half.

Add some instant flour -- a couple of tablespoons -- to the liquid and mix well.
This will thicken the gravy (in the States you can use "Wondra"; in Canada, Robin Hood's "Blending Flour").
If you only have all-purpose flour, that's fine, but, to avoid lumps, mix it well with some of the liquid from the skillet in a separate little dish outside of the skillet until it's a smooth paste, then add to contents of skillet.

This is enough to make a good, basic hakklihakaste.

However, I add a few more ingredients. Most cooks have their own variations, too. You'll discover yours as you get used to making the dish.

For more flavor, I add a few tablespoons of ketchup, several drops of Worcestershire sauce, maybe a little teriyaki sauce and/or Heinz 57 sauce.

Many cooks mix in about a half-cup of sour cream near the end of cooking. Sometimes I do, too.

I like to add chopped celery toward the end of cooking (so that it remains slightly "al dente") when the whole dish is simmering and blending all the flavors together.
This is also the time to add sliced mushrooms, unless you want them really soft, in which case you'd add them earlier, before (or right after) the milk (or broth).

When the gravy is simmering beautifully, with all the flavors co-mingled, scoop it over hot boiled or mashed potatoes (which you were preparing as the meat browned, right? ;) )

If you have some, add fresh dill just before serving -- at least a few tablespoons of it. It's a very Esto thing to do! I cut a lot of it (with scissors) right into the gravy.
Many cooks add chopped chives.
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley is another versatile herb which goes with everything.

Eat the hakklihakaste while it's piping hot! Try to leave some for tomorrow's lunch. :D

Being a woman of a certain age.....

...... I cannot wear short shorts in the summer just to nip out to the store anymore

...... I cannot eat many of the foods I like but which my body does not (letting me know in a very unkind manner)

...... I can no longer go out in public without a bra

...... I can only burn the candle at one end

...... I walk differently despite efforts not to, and sometimes even find myself shuffling along or waddling from side to side

...... I need to have a pair of magnifying eyeglasses handy in every room in the house

...... I am more blunt than before (and enjoy it)

...... I want to be called "Mrs. Raudsepp" by telemarketers and young store clerks (who see my name on my credit card), not "Marga"

...... I accept seniors' discounts anywhere I qualify for them

...... I like to be treated like a lady or, at least, as one's elder (it's called respect) when I obviously am

...... I lament over young people who can't spell or use proper grammar

There's chaos and then there's CHAOS!!!

I subscribe to an online blog called "Adventures in Chaos". It is written by a relatively young mother. At first I was amused by it, but now it's getting tiring reading about trivialities considered to be chaotic, when real chaos has not bitten this modern mom in the - ahem - hindquarters - yet.

The dictionary defines "chaos" as a state of complete disorder and confusion. Under the so-named blog, I naturally assume all entries will qualify its title. But do they, really? Let's examine one of them:

A couple of months ago, a blog post (see below this paragraph) was about things that ruin one's day. I have added my own submissions (see further down in this blog) that may just put a different light on these things.

• pants with a tight waistband
• flat hair
• a dirty kitchen floor
• two soccer games on two different fields at the same time
• an e-mail with an exclamation point attached that is not at all urgent
• an unsatisfying lunch
• having to ask your son four times to empty the dishwasher
• Magic Markers without their caps
• no fruit in the fruit drawer
....and she could go on, she added.

Her readers responded with their own frustrations and irritations, such as dust bunnies, slippers that have to be held on by clenching your toes, putting the wearer in a bad mood (me: easy solution - get rid of them!), non-thong, yet thongy underwear (me: I hear ya, but, again, I just toss mine), clothes from the dryer needing folding (me: you have a dryer that works? What the heck are you complaining about?), very uncomfortable shoes (me: refer to my slipper response), a pile of unread emails, frizzy hair, too short tights, and a weak cup of coffee ruining the start of a day!

Someone else states that mushy grapes actually gross her out as she cleans them (me: ever try to - oh, never mind...) and the mom who sighs over finding clean dishes still in the dishwasher when she opens it to load it with dirty ones is trumped by the woman for whom waiting while a dishwasher full of dirty dishes (because her hubby forgot to turn it on at night) goes through its cycles equals a day that is not only bad, but BAD BAD (me: at least your husband put his dishes in the dishwasher!).

The mom with the clean dishes in the dishwasher dilemma also gets miffed when her kid spills juice on the floor after the housekeeper has left. Gee, now the mom actually has to get down on her hands and knees and ....naw, she'll probably have the kid clean it.  The comments section ends with a bang - the "older" (almost 40 year old!) woman who is put in a bad mood by her bangs.

Thirty or so years ago I could have compiled a similar list, so I don't really fault the blogger (or some of her commenters) her age and inexperience with the deeper, darker side of life. She thinks she's old because she has a child in high school, but betrays her maturity using the well-worn, woefully wistful statement that in her head she's still in her early twenties.

I did that all the time - until quite recently, actually - but once I hit my 60s, that door closed with an audible slam. I no longer feel, neither physically nor mentally, that I am still the sweet young thing I felt best being. Too much has happened to me and my family for me to ever make that claim again.

Here's my submissions to counter the ones given in "Adventures in Chaos":

AIC: • pants with a tight waistband

•  having every pair of pants you put on dig into your huge abdominal tumour. Knowing you can never again in life wear a pair of pants that you don't have to buckle tightly to keep them (only temporarily) from sliding down over your bulging tumour and threatening to be around your ankles before you even get to the front door of the supermarket, makes you tolerate the hipbone-numbing pain caused by having to belt your pants tightly enough to keep them up.
  
  Never feeling empty - concave - in your middle (like when you used to suck your stomach in and touch your middle with your hand) because no amount of dieting can reduce the size of the 20-pound alien entity that you've been carrying around, with all the pain and discomfort it causes every day of your life, for over 16 years.
  
  Not being able to sleep on one's back or stomach ever again, and risking another heart attack when you turn from your right side (because of the pain emanating from the right hip bone) to try lying on your left side for awhile (the side which invariably causes your heart to start racing) just to be relieved of the pain.

AIC: • flat hair

• hair that has thinned to less than half its former volume because of the side symptoms of the medullary thyroid cancer one has in addition to the abdominal tumour (which comes from the tiny adrenal gland and carries the unwieldy name of pheochromocytoma); flat hair would be a blessing - it would mean I had enough hair to have it look flat instead of having to brush my skinny strands over thinning spots and widening parts

AIC: • a dirty kitchen floor

• I'd give anything to have such a wonderful thing to classify as a "day ruiner"! I'd swab the deck with a song in my heart.

AIC: • two soccer games on two different fields at the same time

• Two high school graduations at the same time in two different cities. Lastborn child's high school ceremony was held at exactly the hour next-to-last born's high school graduation ceremony was held two hours away. Next-to-last, being a ballerina, had gone straight from high school to European ballet company at age 17, leaving 6 credits unfinished.
  
  Still dancing professionally, but back on this side of the pond, she took the courses required to graduate at the age of 22. It was a triumph for her. Of course, being at one's youngest child's graduation is a big deal, too. So hubby and I each went to one of them. Hub was able to see daughter receive President's award (a total surprise) and I was there to see son receive 2 awards (hinted at) back home. How we had wanted to be at both events together!

AIC: • an e-mail with an exclamation point attached that is not at all urgent

• !!! Puh-leez !!! (send money!!!) !!!
  A day ruiner? Delete, delete, delete, tra-la!

AIC: • an unsatisfying lunch

• doubled-over kind of pain and huge discomfort after every meal due to tumour mentioned in tight pants post. A girl's got to eat so you learn to live with it. I certainly cannot do anything for an hour or so as my internal organs, intestines and blood vessels perform grueling calisthenics impossible to adequately describe to someone who has never experienced it.
  
  In medical terms it's simply referred to as "motility". The medical profession likes to use benign words to describe painful procedures and symptoms. (That's why, for example, when they take your blood and dig around for a viable vein that will support blood withdrawal, they say, "I'm just going to give you a little poke.")

AIC: • having to ask your son four times to empty the dishwasher

• waiting anxiously for the fourth time (as I am doing right now as I type) for the police to find your schizophrenic grownup son who has run away in sub-zero weather with no money (not to mention but I will: no watch, no cell phone, no bank card, and probably no gloves) in a city he does not know, from the fourth psychiatric hospital he's been in in the past year, before something happens to him as he is doing the bidding of the voices in his head

AIC: • Magic Markers without their caps

•  18-27 used coffee cups and soda glasses plus several dinner plates collected (every few days) from the basement where son with schizophrenia lived when he was at home

AIC: • no fruit in the fruit drawer

• no money in the wallet - just about every day 

...and I could go on..... ;) ....but you get the picture.

A-musing on Pantless Sunday

I can't believe a third of the month of January is already history! Wasn't it just New Years' Eve? Something should be done to celebrate this milestone. I think the winter months should be rife with celebrations - all kinds of strange and wonderful ones. Hmmm....how about getting on the subway trains and buses without any pants on? What? That idea's already taken?

Oh yes! I just heard on the news that today was "Pantless Sunday" on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission). Lots of (young) people boarded the subways and buses dressed in fancy underwear with some sporting killer socks as well. Winter fun in Canada!

Around here, within the walls of our home, pantless days are everyday events.

Just googled "Pantless Sunday" and found out it's not only a Canadian thing. NYC and Boston, and even Barcelona have it going. I wonder how many other cities are in on this? I say it's not a big deal unless you live where the weather is br-r-r-r-r-iskly chilly.

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Mr. Strongarm son went back to university tonight - with his pants on. His classes begin tomorrow at 10:30 AM. That's early, he says. First class should be at 1 PM, he thinks. I offered him the parental platitude "Life doesn't work like that", but secretly I agree with him. I stay up until the wee hours and sleep in every day. It follows naturally that when youngest son is at home, so does he. It's not that I don't enjoy getting up early - I've always loved the early mornings. However, it has been a life-long struggle to actually get up and now that I don't have to, I don't.
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My friend and her daughter went to Las Vegas today. That is one place I don't have one iota of interest in. Except for the fact that my best friend from university lives there, I have no reason to go. My friend who went doesn't like LV, either. She's been there before. But when it's a free trip provided by your hubby's work, you make the sacrifice. I hope she wins some money. And has a sexy drink or two. Or three.

Cheesecake

Down in the Dumps

Today hubbub took advantage of still having our son here (he returns to the ivy-covered halls Sunday) to round up old computers, electronics, boxes and other large items to take to the dump. Since it would cost $30, hub wanted to get his money's worth, so we were scurrying to find stuff to pack in the car.

After they returned hub was in the spirit of renewal, I guess, so had said son help him (19 yr. old Mr. Strongarm did the bulk of the work, naturally) shift the living room couches and chair to the family room and the family room couches and chair (with ottoman) to the living room. I heard the commotion while I was upstairs feverishly finishing knitting a scarf for sweet son to take back to university.

When I came down, it was as if to a new room. The living room was, for the first time since we'd lived here, bright! The family room's white leather sofas lifted the spirits of the room just as going down to the dump had lifted the spirits of the hub.

The family room, however, now looks real comfy, but dark and overstuffed. Those couches really don't go with this house at all! They were sold to us very inexpensively by a friend who was moving and we were grateful to have them. They have been slept on by many family members during all-home-events like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Fred, the cat, has used all the sofas in the house for his scratching posts, and the former living room chair was his favorite. One of its ends is clawed to shreds.

December's honored guest=January's curbside pickup

Epiphany is over. There's no more excuse to keep the tree up. Each year Christmas just flies by.

BBB, aka Best Banana Bread

Black-speckled bananas. Everyone knows what that means. Banana Bread! Every time I make a banana loaf, I use a different recipe since there are so many out there. I've made some terrific ones and some duds in 50 years of baking. This one, found at "RecipeZaar" (submitted by Susie from Texas") claimed to be the very best. So, thought I, and seeing it had some variations from the norm, let's put it to the test.

Right off, I had to modify it for a few reasons. First, I found I had no flour. Oh, I had had flour before Christmas, but when my visiting daughter decided to make cookies for her boyfriend and us, she opened up a "new" package and asked me if it was still good. I put my nose in it and did not get a nice fresh smell - rather, something on the okay side of stale. Since I had some more in my flour canister, I told her with a wave of the hand to toss it.

So it was that when I embarked on my very-best-banana-bread recipe, I not only had no flour (she had emptied the canister, she told me woefully), but I had no "okay" flour either. It was -15C outside so I had no desire to jump in the car and drive to the Metro.

I was burrowing in my pantry closet in search of any kind of flour, any kind at all. I came up with hominy grits and whey, which hubbub had bought me for Christmas (no inside joke, just him being silly), lots of rice - basmati, short-grain brown, arborio, long-grain brown; lots of sugar - confectioners's, fast-dissolving, sugar cubes, cane; lots of coconut - shredded, small flake, large flake, sweetened, unsweetened; lots of bouillon cubes - chicken, beef, vegetable; lots of pasta (too many kinds to list) -- but no flour. Except....!....Wondra!... that wonder of gravy thickeners, the one I buy by the armful in NewYork because we don't have it here.

That's how this very fine (both meanings of the word) flour became the flour I put into my banana bread. I imagined a lovely smooth texture instead of the usual coarse one - which I like - as a nice alternative.

After I puréed my bananas, I saw that they only came to 12 oz. instead of the prescribed 16. That meant doing math throughout the recipe, which I don't really mind at all - keeps the brain pointy. :)

This is how I got into a little more trouble. My best friend phoned from Connecticut and when I told her that I was in the middle of assembling my loaf and needed another 10 minutes, she said she'd phone back in 15.

Now I found myself in a race, running back and forth to the computer after each ingredient addition (my printer's upstairs) because I have short-term memory problems and can only remember one just-learned item (like phone numbers) at a time. Because of the search for flour, I lost time (hoping my friend would give me a larger window before phoning back). I was almost finished, but the loaf was still not in the oven, when the phone rang, just one minute after the prescribed time. What a time to be on time!

When my friend heard my saga, she promptly said she'd phone back again and told me to get that bread into the oven!

That's when I remembered I had forgotten to add the walnuts. The nuts are optional, but to me, banana bread is not banana bread without nuts. I chopped up a large pile of fresh walnuts and stirred them into the mixture which was already in the loaf pan.

Loaf pan into the oven and me back to the computer. I checked the ingredient list and, damn!...  saw that I had forgotten the baking powder. In my sprints between the kitchen stove, the computer, and the telephone, I had jumped from right from baking soda to salt. There was no way to add the BS now, so I just resigned myself to an end result of "Not the BBB". I had already wondered if I had lost the BBB title when I had to add Coke Zero because there was no Coca-Cola in the house. I don't think the "best" of anything ever has aspartame as an ingredient!

Nonetheless, and as you can see from the picture, the finished banana loaf looked splendid! Tastewise, it was okay, definitely not the BBB I had set out to make. However, hubbab, finding the still warm loaf when he came home, ate several large slices and came upstairs to exclaim, "I just can't stop eating your banana bread! It's so delicious!" I count that as a victory of sorts.

But, maybe it was the lemon juice I poured over the loaf after I tasted it and decided it wasn't moist enough. Citrus fixes everything!

Here's the recipe for you to try. I'm curious to know if, prepared to the letter, it will qualify for the title.

• 2 cups very ripe pureed bananas (approx. 6 bananas)
• 2 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup oil (if your prefer, you may sub. melted, unsalted butter)
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup Coca-Cola
• 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional) 

Preheat over to 300 degrees F.

1.  Spray two 9 X 5 inch loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray.
2.  Using your food processor, puree the bananas, then remove the puree to another bowl and set aside. No need to clean the work bowl of your food processor, just add together and blend well the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla.
3.  Measure and mix together, in a separate bowl, all the dry ingredients except the nuts.
4.  Return banana puree to processor work bowl.
5.  Add dry ingredients and blend, pouring in the coca cola as mixture is blending together.
6.  Blend until smooth, about 1 minute.
7.  Blend in nuts by hand.
8.  Divide mixture between the two loaf pans.
9.  Place loaf pans on a baking sheet in the oven.
10. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes OR until loaves test done in the middle with a toothpick.
11. Let cool about 10-15 minutes then turn loaves out of pans to finish cooling.
These loaves keep well or can be frozen.

Weather or not?

See the snowflakes? No? My camera must be melting them. :)

Relatively new to living an hour and a half from Toronto, our trips back to the city are frequent. Hubby drives back and forth every week, sometimes two or three times. Today he had a dental appointment plus a male choir practice in the evening and prepared to set out at 3 o'clock. It had just started snowing and he knew the 401 would be a slippery deal. When our neighbour's son showed up from having driven the highway, he said the road was really bad. So, I called the dentist to say hubby might be a little late because of the treacherous roads out our way (I tend to exaggerate, but I may be right this time) and the dental office suggested another day.


Hubby has never cancelled appointments or failed to enter into stormy climate conditions in all his life. He will go through anything to hold up his end of a promise to meet. That was not always convenient for me, much less him, because it led to things like him being in Israel a month after I gave birth to our 5th child, so that I was home for Christmas with 5 kids under 12 and he was in Bethlehem, of all places :).

I know I have nothing on military families, but back in 1985 this made me a tiny bit unhappy. The phone call from the place of Jesus' birth on Christmas Eve was pretty nice, as I imagined him standing at the spot which held the manger. It was only later when I discovered what a tourist mecca Bethlehem is - complete with booths selling souvenirs - that the beautiful serene nativity scene in my mind evaporated.

I ran to the front door to catch the hub-hub who was coming up the walk on one of his typical re-entries before takeoff, to say I had the dental receptionist on the phone and that she was offering him Thursday as an alternative. In the urgency of the moment, he took the phone and after some macho gruntings to aver his ability to take on any weather, he acquiesced to the change of date.

He was not happy to have to drive out today, but given the choice not to, his chance to stay put was replaced by disappointment in himself. With each passing quarter hour, he looked outside and said something like "I could've gone, it's letting up" or "I should have gone, why did I cancel?".

We talked to our daughter who phoned from Toronto, and he asked her about the weather there. "It's kind of rainy" said she. I can just imagine what was going through hubbub's head hearing that!

He said he's thinking of going to choir.

It really is snowing - honest!

The Sunday New York Times is missing!

I live a simple life these days. Gone are the hectic days of driving kids to different schools while battling the morning Toronto traffic and getting my share of  tickets for turning down the road that leads to the school instead of taking the labyrinthian course required of us school-bound chauffeurs by the traffic signage and the police who lie in wait of parents who are late and daring to make that illegal pre-9 AM turn at 8:57 AM every day.

I don't get out of bed early anymore, nor do I go anywhere in the car every day. My needs are few compared to the days when our 6 children lived with us and I was busy fulfilling many of their needs before I could even begin thinking about my own. I'm 62, wondering where the years, nay, the decades, went, and, shrugging my shoulders, saying "well, at least I have the Sunday crossword to look forward to".

My Sunday NYT crossword (and the rest of the paper) doesn't arrive until Monday because it comes bundled with the Globe & Mail and the Glove doesn't publish on Sundays, so our guy doesn't deliver the Times on Sundays either. That's okay with me. I eagerly look forward to Monday mornings, and because I don't get up early, I'm usually up at 4:30 - 5 AM when the paper gets delivered, and you can find me doing the puzzle until 6 AM or so, and then I go to sleep for the day. Don't look askance at me. My sleeping and waking hours don't impact you at all.

This morning, however, I didn't go out in the freezing cold and slippery snow and the dark to retrieve our paper from the edge of the driveway, and went instead to sleep, since one of my new year's resolutions is to start getting out of bed earlier, say, at 11 AM. So when I came downstairs at 11:30 AM, I was looking forward to a bowl of cream of wheat, a cup of tea, and my puzzle. R-e-a-l-l-y looking forward to it, now that Christmas and New Year's was over and I was getting back to my quiet routine. Actually, I don't have much of a daily routine except for Mondays, when the day begins with the puzzle. Do you understand yet what a passion this puzzle is?

Okay, so I'm in the kitchen, (warning: dig at dear hubby follows) cleaning the counters after hubby's breakfast and placing his banana skin in the compost just outside the door and his recycling also just outside the door (for all his strength and all my lack of it, he seems to have trouble moving our heavy sliding door back and forth in order to deposit his detritus in the proper receptacles) and his dishes in the dishwasher. Hubby has left the day's paper on the kitchen table. It's only the Globe & Mail. No New York Times. Hubby is upstairs taking a nap, so I can't ask him about it. I run around the house looking in the usual places for the missing paper. Living room, where hub likes to read it, nada. Upstairs bedroom, zilch. Front foyer, nothing. It hits me. There is no Sunday Times today!!!

I phone my newspaper carrier. No answer, not even an answering machine or voicemail of any kind. Archaic. Old-fashioned. The phone just rings and rings. Ordinarily I would think "good on you!", but today I was miffed.

It is now an hour later, I phoned again and got my carrier's wife on the phone. After giving her my angstful story, she - bless her soul - commiserated with me and promised to contact her husband right away, which she did, as evidenced by her return call just minutes after we first talked. Turns out, he didn't receive the New York Times either, and hoped that it would arrive with his Globes tomorrow, Tuesday. He would call his manager about it, too. All I could do was heave a sigh, chat a little more with the nice lady, and resign myself to my fate. I am dead sure there will no Times tomorrow.

This happened only once before, earlier this year, and there was no Tuesday Sunday Times that week. Oh, we got a free weekday paper, but a Tuesday Times puzzle, a little thing compared to the Sunday, and not at all as enjoyable (NYT puzzles get more difficult as the week progresses, with Monday being a breeze to complete and Friday being an ornery old thing that has one scratching one's head in frustration. Saturdays are the hardest of all, with my darling Sunday puzzle falling into a Wednesday-Thursday category.)

The Sunday NYT puzzle has a scrumptiously clever theme, large grid, fantastic clues, six to 13 theme entries depending on the puzzle constructor (some, lilke Elizabeth Gorski, are brilliant), and it's pen-friendly as it appears in the magazine and not on newsprint as the weekly puzzles do.

Oh, yes, I always do the puzzle in pen. I make mistakes sometimes, which I write over. I hate a messy puzzle, so try not to make mistakes! I also love the look of a good pen's ink as it fills the little squares, and I form each letter in my best penmanship. Doing the puzzle is so much more than just coming up with the answers to the clues. I can't get into doing it online, as so many speed-solvers do because it lacks the tactile sense of pen and semi-glossy paper. I also don't aspire to do the puzzle in record time (the best do it in under 10 minutes, which I find grotesque - it takes longer than 10 minutes just to read the clues, never mind figure our which nuance the constructor has chosen to deceive you with) because I enjoy the process too much. My puzzles take about two hours to complete. If that weren't so, they wouldn't be such a start-of-the-week treat.

Over the years, I've become better at solving as I learn the ins and outs of this particulart puzzle. When Eugene Maleska was the editor, I could never finish them. They were also a little boring then with more obscure clues. Will Shortz has jazzed up the editing during his tenure so that the puzzles are an absolute joy. He is even featured in the movie "Wordplay" based on the New York Times puzzle tournaments (they're held annually!) where avid solvers and constructors assemble to take each other on and frolic in the evenings just like anyone at a convention of like minds.

I'm off to do - I'm not exactly sure. Not having the puzzle has thrown my day out of kilter. I'll let you know tomorrow if Sunday's NYT arrives with .....

! NEWSFLASH !

The phone rang and it was my newspaper carrier's manager telling me that he was crediting our account fpr the missing paper, that they have no more Times's at headquarters, that Toronto siphons them off first before we in the hinterlands get them, that our copies are printed in Buffalo and they sometimes don't send enough up, that  - long story short - there is no way to get a Sunday Times to us. He was sorry, he understood, there was nothing he could do. Nice fella, and he was truly understanding, but that sill leaves me without a paper. I vented to him about there being nowhere in our area to buy the NYTimes, and Then. He. Said. The. Magic. Words: "Greenley's  in Belleville carries a few copies".

Greenley's in Belleville carries a few copies! Greenley's in Belleville carries a few copies! Greenley's in Belleville carries a few copies! my heart started to chant. I thanked the man, adding a "very much" to my thank you, and looked up Greenley's phone number. A lady answered and said, yes (YES!!) we do have a few copies of the NYT, we get them a day late, but, yes, we do have them. "Do you have a copy of the Sunday Times?", I ventured. "Yes we do", she replied. "I'll be right over" says I. "It is $10" says she. "I expected it to be. I'll be there within the hour". "Let me put your name on it". Oh, good, I think, that really makes it mine, all mine! I tell her "Marga", and we hang up.

I come here to tell all of you, and now I'm off to Belleville, tra-la! See ya!

Greenley's Bookstore

258 Front St. Belleville ON

P.S. I'm back home, having bought the Sunday times, the Saturday Times (last Saturday's!) and the NYT Crossword Puzzle Desk Calendar (50% off). The calendar is full of daily puzzles, which I hardly ever see, so they will all be new to me. Yippee!

I little messy, but okay. I had "adage" for "axiom" in the upper right, "out" for "cut" further down, was going for something to end in "clear" for "black and white" (lower left) but it turned out to be "squad car" (in NYC they're black and white) and, silly me, I ignored the question mark at the end of the clue "a little butter?" and put in the synonym "pat" instead of the clever "kid" for baby goat (my first knee-jerk reaction was "dab" as in a little dab'll do ya!), and for "Place where leaves are collected", I went with "navy" first before realizing it really meant tree leaves and the answer therefore was "eaves". In any case, I'm a happy camper!

The Christmas tree travels from room to room....

... in search of its decorations.

Fre-e-e-zing in Quinte

It's 15 below (C.) and sharply cold. Wind blusters, but the street looks pretty covered in snow. Second day into the new year and Lauri finally went to sleep. He was up for 2 days straight for no particular reason other than he didn't feel tired. He's been asleep now for about 15 or 16 hours and I expect him to wake soon and stay up all night again! In 9 days he'll be back at university, getting up early and studying late and losing sleep, as students do.

Tuna Helper (au gratin) was tasty and I had 3 helpings over the course of the day. Am presently cooking the veggies Andres bought for New Year's Eve at Metro-formerly-A&P (they come with a tiny container of dip) at the full price of $11.99. I had bought baby carrots the same day for .99, opting not to get the organic ones for 1.99 only to come home to see baby carrots as part of the tray of crudités at a pro-rated price of about 3.00 for a portion smaller than what I bought. So much for economy.

Anyway, after the dip disappeared, the veggie tray was relegated to the fridge where it sat until tonight and the leftover broccoli heads, cauliflower buds, celery sticks (I ate the remaining cucumber slices) and aforementioned carrots are now roasting in a frypan for consumption by me, the eternal vegetable-craver.

Boring stuff, eh?

Oh, and I finished watching the Corner Gas marathon on TV.

Ice fishing huts and Trenton fries

We have the best French fry trucks in Trenton.

They're a familiar sight in small towns and even at Nathan Phillips Square and by the waterfront in Toronto, but we have the best right here! I usually go to the one behind the beer store, especially if I'm on my way to Pharmaplus which is across the street, and have been going there since we moved here over 5 years ago.

Mike's fry truck on a Monday night (all fry trucks are closed on Mondays just like German delicatessens and the theater) 

It's called Mike's, but I would change the name to "Fries from Heaven" if anyone asked me. From inside the small truck unit, Mike and his wife, at least I assume it's Mike (and also assume it's his wife who works with him) serve up steaming h-u-g-e portions of fries heaped up in brown paper bags, always a few falling out, for just a few dollars.

These soft-on-the-inside-slightly-caramelized-on-the-outside potato delights are TO DIE FOR! We wait in the comfort of our cars or chat with other patrons outside until we're called to "pickup!"

Only recently have I also started to go to TJ's, the fries place next to the Price Chopper on the Trent River (where it meets the Bay of Quinte). These fries are just as heavenly as Mike's.

The bonus is that you get to eat them while watching the water or, in the winter months, the ice.

New Year's Eve found me there, making it my first stop of the day (I hadn't eaten yet, in anticipation) which had me aimed toward Belleville and the Michael's store in order to use my 50% off coupon on another whiteboard for Lauri's dorm room.

It was a cloudy day, but the sight of these huts made me happy to be living in small town suburbia instead of Toronto suburbia.

This is the view from my car window. I saw the ice fishing huts and wondered if the ice was thick enough.

The river still looked a little watery. But there were 3 huts and a snowmobile set up, and the vehicle wasn't sinking, so I figured what did I know?

Toronto suburbs lead to large buildings and traffic as you leave your local enclave. Trenton suburbs lead to nature and hardly any traffic at all. My street could easily be any street in Toronto, but as soon as I drive out a few blocks there are empty fields, farms, and water, water, everywhere.

The Bay of Quinte is to the south of us, the Trent River to the east of us and a small body of water I don't know the name of to the north of us as we drive the 6 minutes to the 401.

When I was back home, I leafed through this week's Trentonian and found that someone had beat me to the punch. There was a large picture of the same huts, but the paper's pic also had people on the ice. And a warning.

It seems the ice is not thick enough yet to safely put an ice hut on it! It needs another inch or two, especially it you're also expecting it to support a snowmobile. So, my musing was not off course at all. Oh, those intrepid fishermen!

The 3rd best place for fries is just outside Trenton. It's beside Sprenkel's in Carrying Place where I go for the best meats, and it's called Di's. I don't know how they do it, but these fries are also awesome.

Lest I sound too Trenton-centric, let me state that I have tried the fries in Belleville and Brighton, our neighbouring towns (well, Belleville is actually a city and Brighton a municipality), and they just don't compare.

Sprenkels Meat

I love going to Sprenkels - we always get our fresh Christmas turkey from them - for a few reasons besides their top-notch butcher department. (Note to hunters - Sprenkels is an exemplary venison-processing facility, too.)

When we first moved here our daughter, who'd long been traveling Wooler Road down to Consecon where her friend's family has a summer place, introduced us to the mile-high ice cream cones served at Sprenkels. First of us to try them after her were another daughter and me.

Not only could you order unique flavours like apple pie (it's all Reid Dairy ice cream), the sheer height of the double-and-then-some scoop for only $1.50 was awe-inspiring.

These days, the scoops are a little smaller and cost a quarter more, but that's okay with me because it was becoming too hard to finish the whole thing and I don't mind throwing in the extra 25 cents.

The second good reason is the vegetable and fruit seller who sets up shop in Sprenkels' parking lot in the summer. It's my second favourite place to go for veggies, the first being Laurie's who sells from her own yard on Highway 2 and is closer to my house.

But that's a Trenton story for the summer months.