Now We're Cookin!

           I put my commissioned Sweet Dreams book box in the mail this week. I haven’t heard yet how my beautiful friend Trish likes it. She won’t get it till Monday.

          Since I was sending a box, I decided to send some sweet treats as well. I had some fresh homemade yogurt, which is what I use in this Cinnamon Bread recipe instead of buttermilk. And Trish told me she liked the cinnamon bread the last time I sent her some.

          See! You have to be careful when you tell me you like something because you might just end up with more! Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy. Besides, you and I are such good friends that you don’t need to lie to me. There’s always a kind way to tell me you didn’t like or don’t want something.

          “I LOVE your book boxes,” the beautiful Jenn Kipp told me. “But please don't take that as me wanting one though... they're cool but would take up more space than they'd save me around here.”

          I smiled. She does have a tiny house.

          Remember to always start with a compliment before you break my heart.

          Just kidding. I’d rather know the truth.

          The last time I made cinnamon bread, I gave our fantastic friends and neighbors, the Kipps, a loaf.

          “Did you have a piece of that?” that handsome Lamar Kipp asked.

          I felt a moment of dread. “No. Why?”

          “I think it was some of the best you’ve ever made,” he said.

          I grinned from ear to ear. I think homemade yogurt is the secret, no-so-secret since I told you, ingredient.

          I’m puttering around in the kitchen when Mike calls from his recliner. “Peg!”

“What!” Sometimes I get a little irritated.

“What’cha doin now?” There must be a commercial on because I’m often asked that during commercial breaks.

“Making cinnamon bread!” I call back.

“Wah wah woh wah wah.”

If I’m banging bowls around, washing dishes, running water, TV on in the kitchen, or earbud stuck in my ear, Mike sounds just like Charlie Brown’s teacher on the old Peanuts cartoons. Rather than make him repeat himself ten times, I turn off the water, pull the earbud, dry my hands, and walk into the living room.

“Now. What did you say?” I ask.

“You shouldn’t be making stuff like that for her.”

“Why not?”

“Isn’t she diabetic?”

“Not that I know of. But Phyllis is so I guess I won’t make her anything when I send her box.”

Once the bread was out of the oven and cooled enough, I sliced off the end for myself. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. And it’s good.

When I talked to my beautiful, feisty, redheaded Miss Rosie later, I told her. “I made cinnamon bread.”

“Okay?” she says.

“I’m going to give you a loaf.”

“Okay!” I know the Kipps like it.

“It’s missing a piece. I wanted to try it.”

“That’s alright.” Miss Rosie didn’t have a problem with that at all.

In my refrigerator sat a bowl of Dream Bar crust mix. It’s been there since Christmastime. I was going to make them for a cookie exchange at church, but my butter was way too soft, and my crust formed lumps instead of crumbs. To counter this, I put it in the fridge for the butter to stiffen up a little and in the meantime, I got all out of the mood to make it.

Since I was baking, I decided to see if the crust mix was any good yet. I pulled out the bowl and opened it up. No mold. I didn’t expect there to be any since it was just butter and sugar and a little flour. I tasted it and it tasted fine. I used my fork to break up the lumps, but it wasn’t cooperating any better this time than when I first made it. I dumped it in the pan and patted it around as best I could.

There were gaps. Lots of gaps.

Oh well, I thought to myself. If the filling sits on the bottom, it won’t matter much.

The crust bakes for ten minutes before you put the filling on and bake it more. When the timer went off and I pulled the crust from the oven, I was surprised. I hadn’t expected this. It flowed out and filled all the gaps.

When it was done, I had to sample it to make sure it was fit to give away. I had to eat four pieces before I was sure. A big part of the rest went to West Virginia and a smaller portion to the Kipps’ house, along with the loaf of end-less cinnamon bread.

Friday, on my morning call to my Miss Rosie, we got to talking about supper.

“We’re having chili and I’m making that cornbread recipe you gave me.”

“I don’t remember giving you a cornbread recipe,” I said.

“I forget what it’s called but it’s gluten-free and dairy-free as long as I use my almond milk.” Miss Rosie tried to jog my memory but it wasn’t working. In my mind’s eye I can see her getting up from where she’s sitting because I can hear her rummaging around for her recipe. “It’s called Carla’s Christmas Cornbread.”

Then I remembered. I’d seen it on GMA and since it was gluten-free, I thought of Miss Rosie and passed the recipe on to her.

“Because it’s gluten and dairy-free and doesn’t leave a funky aftertaste like so many of these gluten-free recipes seem to do, it’s something I can have and we really like it. It goes good with chili.”

Now I was hungry for cornbread! I Googled the recipe and added what I’d need to make it to my grocery list.

Cornbread, or corncake as I like to think of it, is a recent love of mine. I made it for the first time about a month ago and discovered I rather liked it. It’s nothing my mother ever made for us while we were growing up, though I have to confess that I’ve eaten enough hush puppies to last me a lifetime.

“What are hush puppies?” you ask.

Basically, it’s fried cornbread.

“So, why are they called hush puppies and not fried cornbread?”

Great question! The legend goes this batter was left over from the rest of the meal while on cattle drives, hunts or working the ranch, and fried up to feed to the dogs or "hush the puppies".

Friday evening, a car pulls in the driveway. When it gets up to the garage door, I could see it was Lamar’s car. I went out to meet him.

“Hey Lamar!” I called, happy to see him.

A very bundled up Lamar gets out of the car and returns the dish to me that I’d given to them with Dream Bars in. I can’t get rid of that plastic KFC take-out container for nothin! It keeps coming back to me — and this time it had cornbread in it!

“I was going to walk up but Rosie said I should drive,” Lamar said.

“I think she’s right. It’s really cold out here!”

Lamar wasn’t out of the driveway when I was back in my comfy recliner, legs curled up under me, lap blanket in place, and munching on some delicious cornbread. I gave Mike a bite. “What do you think?” I asked.

“It’s okay but not as good as yours.”

I thought the same thing but it was still good and I ate the whole thing!

Now, I have to tell you something else here. Bondi had no idea someone was here until I opened the door and went out. Then she started barking. Even when I came back in, she was still barky. She’d put her head down for a moment, then she’d growl, lift her head, and bark at nothing. This went on for a good fifteen – twenty minutes.

“Mike, I think she’s mad that she missed someone at the door.” It reminded me of April, a Great Dane that we had when I was growing up. She once missed a salesman when he came in. She got up from her nap, went outside, and when the guy tried to leave, she wouldn’t let him get near his car.

Momma chuckled. “If she can’t get ‘em comin, she’ll get ‘em goin!”

Saturday, on my morning love call to Miss Rosie, she asked, “What did you think of the cornbread?”

Miss Rosie and I are good friends and we have a deal. We will never lie to each other — so I couldn’t lie. “It was good…” I should’ve just stopped right there — but did I! NO! “But I think the recipe I make is better.”

I could hear Miss Rosie being crushed. I should maybe have started with a compliment? “But I want to thank you so much for sending me a piece. I was going to make it and now I don’t have to.”

Miss Rosie’s diet really sucks. She can’t have any of the really good stuff.

We were having spaghetti for lunch — and I was still hungry for cornbread.

“I put green chilis in mine,” my beautiful friend Jessica said on Facebook.

Last time we were at the store, I’d picked up green chilis for just this purpose and even though cornbread doesn’t go with spaghetti near as well as chili, I wasn’t deterred — because it’s good all by itself, too!

So, it was spaghetti for lunch, as I already said. Even though Mike and I have switched to whole grain spaghetti, I still only eat a cup of it. When I make it, I make two pounds. When I portion it up, I portion up two-cup containers for Mike and one-cup for me and freeze them. A cup of spaghetti isn’t a lot so I use broccoli as a filler. A cup of broccoli in a cup of spaghetti makes a good meal for me and it’s lower in calories than all spaghetti is. Really, you can use any veggies you want. I’ve even used California Blend. That’s broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. It’s all good.

I warmed up my broccoli in a bowl then dumped it onto a plate so I could cut the florets into bite-size pieces while the spaghetti was warming in the microwave, and I see a worm!

Aye-yi-yi! I was grossed out!

I bent down to get a closer look and realize it was only a piece of spaghetti! The fork I’d used to stir the spaghetti with was the same one I’d used to dump the broccoli onto the plate with. I had to laugh at myself when I saw what a dumbass mistake I’d made.

“Peg! Why in the world would a worm be your first thought?” you wanna know.

Well, I’ll tell ya. About a hundred years ago, aka a long time ago, we were sitting in a restaurant waiting for our food. I had a good view of a server delivering food to a table several tables away. One plate had a good size pile of broccoli on it.

“I should’ve gotten broccoli,” I said after seeing it.

A few minutes later I see the broccoli lady waving her server over. I’m not close enough to hear but I see her turn back to her plate, use her knife and fork to open a floret up, the server leans in, quickly snatches up the plate and heads to the kitchen. I’ve often wondered what was wrong with her broccoli but didn’t have the nerve to ask.

“I’m glad I didn’t get the broccoli,” I said after telling Mike what I saw.

Ever since then, I look for something, anything, in my broccoli.

And I’ve never found anything but broccoli, either!

 

The weather has been crazy!

Big winds that take down spinners and this week it bent my ladybug!

We had a couple of days in the 50s and that brought out ladybugs of another kind. 

Melting, freezing, warming, raining, flooding, and cold again!

“We haven’t been out on the golf cart in a long time. You want to go for a ride? Mike asked.

We went down to the lower bridge.

I could see the remnants of the flood. Places where the ice was pushed against trees.

And where it got left behind in the receding waters. All of where you see the ice is normally dry land.

On the way back up the hill, our golf cart protested. It grunted and farted and refused to move. Bondi, sitting on my lap, sat up, then pulled her head back when the wind pushed the blue cloud of icky, oily-smelling smoke. in our direction.

After a few moments of rest, the cart would spit and sputter to life, lunging ahead a few feet before farting and refusing to move again.

After the third time, and only halfway up the hill, Mike said, “Why don’t you get off and see if you can push it.”

I jumped off and the next time the cart moved, I assisted. I really thought without my weight, that it would go the whole way to the top.

It didn’t.

A fart, a cloud of blue smoke, and it waited for me to catch up.

The next time, it made it to the top before farting and quitting. 

By the time I got there it was ready to go again and we didn’t have any more trouble with it.

“Was it just the pull of the hill?” I asked Mike.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he confessed.

Speaking of our road, it sank. Right where our township installed the pipe under it. This week they were out there adding stones to even it out.

We made a trip to Tunkhannock this week. Since we’ve made the trip lots of times in the years we’ve lived here, I didn’t see anything new to take pictures of.

There is, however, a brand spankin new car wash in the little town of Meshoppen, halfway between here and there. That’s to say, Wyalusing where we live, and Tunkhannock where we shop. This was our first trip past when it’s finally open.

“Let’s stop and wash the car,” Mike said. The car wash sits right on Route 6 but the entrance is off the side street. “Where do I turn? The road before or the road after?”

“If you turn on the road before, you can go around the block and I can take pictures of that old barn that sits back there.”

It looks like a fairly new trailer sitting there.

The house is trashed.

The back of the barn and house shows open windows in the middle of winter. I guess no one lives there. I bet it was a grand place in its day.

There are several old churches in this small town. Someone’s taken the stained glass from at least one of these windows. I can tell you from experience that old glass doesn’t cut well. I guess if you wanted to use them as they were that that would be alright.

 Who doesn’t like sudsy carwash pictures?

We stopped for gas. Someone left a smile sitting on one of the pumps. At least, it made me smile when I saw it. But you know what? I don’t think Mike ever noticed it. I bet a lot of people came and used the pumps and never saw it.

At home, we didn’t even have the groceries unpacked when Mike was giving Bondi her new squeaker toy. She was so excited! She loves new squeaky toys.

I think she had this one for all of twenty minutes before she got the squeaker out.

   

            Nature abhors a vacuum. Have you ever heard that?

With no Smudge here to climb into my emptied and set-aside shopping bags, Tiger has taken up that position. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him do that.

Once the bags are unpacked, I’ll fold them all up into one bag.

Tiger decided to check out my folding job.

 And Blackie decided to check on Tiger.

Tiger popped up. Blackie, startled, ran away. The bag fell over and Tiger climbed out.

 Bondi played with her new toy all afternoon, even if the squeaker was gone. She carried that thing with her all over the place, even taking it outside with her when she had to pee.

I know cat food isn’t any good for dogs. I keep our cat bowl inside a cabinet, on a stool, sixteen and a half inches off the floor.

Guess who discovered she can jump sixteen and a half inches? 

I know Bondi is still a pup, not yet a year old. But I’ve had to discipline her this week. She’s not happy and I’m not happy.

Bondi’s steps to get up into bed are foam and pretty light. During the day she gets up there and helps herself to the stuffed animals that live on the headboard or gets my power cables. Rather than fight with her and yell at her, I just kick the steps out into the middle of the floor once we’re out of bed.

Tiger and Blackie have been spending a lot of time together playing. At least part of that time is on the bed. I heard Bondi crying and when I went to see what was wrong, I found her sitting on the top step in the middle of the floor, whining, and the cats playing on the bed. She hates that she can’t join in. I’m waiting for her to figure out that she can pull the steps back over to the bed.

And this one I hate so bad! I hate what I did to Bondi.

“What did you do!” you wanna know.

Bondi’s been in the cat litter boxes. Last time I caught her I scolded her and told Mike that we needed to keep a closer eye on her. I spend most of my time in the kitchen area so I can keep an eye on the boxes out this way but the ones in the bedroom and closet were harder for me to watch. I blocked off the bedroom so she couldn’t go in there. That created a trip hazard for Mike during the day when he needed to go in there. After a couple of weeks, I stopped putting the barricade up.

“She just has to learn to stay out of them,” I told Mike.

Despite being vigilant, I caught her running from the bedroom yesterday, chewing something.

“Bondi!” She knew she was in trouble. “Come here!” Did she listen? No! In fact, she took off in the opposite direction. I chased her down. When I caught her, I pried her mouth open and swept my finger around in her mouth. Out came a mushy brown gob from the roof of her mouth.

“What is it?” Mike asked.

Right there, in the palm of my hand, was, “Cat poop!”

I scolded Bondi pretty hard and spanked her. I never spanked her before. Poor dog. She cowered and rolled over. I kept yelling at her and telling her what a bad dog she was. She ran for the kitchen door, which is understandable. Usually ‘bad dog’ means go outside and do your business.

Did I let it go at this? No. But I should have.

          She ran for the kitchen door, I’m walking that way, cat poop in hand, and notice there’s still cat litter stuck to it. I’m mad all over again. I shoved it in her face.

          “YOU SEE THIS! LEAVE IT ALONE! YOU’RE A BAD DOG!” and I spanked her again.

          Bondi was so sad — and so afraid of me. Every time I got up to do something, if it was in her direction at all, she’d lay her ears back, get as low to the floor as she could, and look at me with those sad — and fear-filled — eyes.

          My heart broke.

          I don’t think there’s necessarily any harm in her eating cat poop, as disgusting as that is to you and me, but I’m afraid the clumping cat litter I use will cause her a blockage and then she’ll have to have an operation. Who’s got two thousand dollars sitting around to treat a dog just because she thinks cat poop is a yummy treat?

          Late afternoon I went around cleaning the cat boxes like I do every day. Bondi followed along behind me. At one point she crawled around to the front where I could see her, sat up halfway, ears back, eyes full of sorrow, just begging me to forgive her.

          My heart broke all over again. I could've cried.

          I can’t do this ever again. I just can’t.

          One of the tips from the internet was to put the litter boxes up out of her reach.

          We’ve got a couple of small tables not being used so that’s what I did. I’m really hoping Bondi doesn’t discover that she can jump twenty-five inches.    

     

          Sometimes, in the middle of the night, we hear critters scurrying across our ceiling.

          “We have to do something about them,” Mike said.

          “I can put a trap up there but we’ll have to figure out a way to secure it so if it doesn’t kill them, they can’t run off with it.”

          Thinking about how to do that never made it past the ‘thinking about’ stage.

          A few nights later we hear them again.

          “Let’s just put some poison up there,” Mike says.

          I don’t have to think about that. I don’t hesitate at all. “NO! No poison.”

          “Why not?” he asks but I think he knows full well why not.

          “Because you not only kill the mouse, you kill anything that eats that mouse too!”

          A few nights later I’m awakened by the pitter-patter of little feet racing overhead. Then I remembered a mouse trap I’d seen on the internet that goes on a five-gallon bucket. The mice step on the baited flapper and they get tipped into the bucket. When I got up, I Googled them. They’re twenty bucks apiece.

          I started researching how to make a homemade one. Blackie was laying in front of me on the desk and this video caught his attention. He can see the mice.

          He gets up to get a closer look, even taking a swipe at one.

          When one of the mice ran off screen Blackie went around behind my computer looking for it. I had to laugh at him. 

          There are lots of ways to make one of these and the advantage is you can catch a lot of mice in one night, unlike a spring trap that can kill only one at a time. With Mike’s help we fashioned one from a bucket, a wire clothes hanger, and a piece of plastic pipe. I put peanut butter on the very center of the pipe roller and put it outside under the feral cat house. 

          I know there are mice out there because I’ve cleaned their poop from the cat food dish. There’s also too much food out there and they haven’t found my trap yet. I’ve stopped putting cat food out and hope they soon get hungry enough to find the trap.

          “What about the feral cats?” you ask.

          I’ve seen at least one in the cat house with Sugar and Callie. He’ll just have to get his supper in there from now on.

          I’ll keep you posted.

 

          We certainly have a busy night life around here, that’s for sure! Bondi jumping up and running out from under the covers woke me and was my first clue something was going on this night. She took off down the hall and Tiger comes running out growling. Bondi starts barking. I grab my little bedside flashlight and investigate.

          “What’s going on,” sleepy Mike says.

          “I think Tiger’s got a mouse.”

          Tiger was running all around, growling and trying to defend his kill against Bondi, Blackie, and Spitfire. I ran around trying to catch him. He’s way faster than this old woman and every time I’d get even a little bit close, Bondi would come charging in, barking, and he’d take off again.

          I grabbed up Bondi and with her in one hand and the flashlight in the other, I didn’t know how I was going to catch Tiger.

          “What are you doing‽” now grumpy Mike asks.

          “I’m trying to catch Tiger to put him in the garage but Bondi keeps barking at him!”

          “Put Bondi in the other bathroom and shut the door.”

          I did what Mike said but hadn’t gotten more than a few steps away before Bondi comes racing past me. That’s the first I knew that door didn’t latch. I put Bondi in her kennel and proceeded to chase Tiger around the house in the middle of the night.

          “Mike! You need to help me. No one’s getting any sleep until we put Tiger out in the garage where he can eat his mouse in peace!”

          Mike got up and stood guard over the door while I ran Tiger to ground and finally caught him and tossed him out.

          What a night, what a night!

         “Peg, you said you were going to send a box to Phyllis, your sister, right?” you say.

          Yes. Yes, I did.

           “What are you going to send her?” you wanna know.

          My beautiful little sister had such a harrowing experience with Fournier’s Gangrene that I wanted to heap as much love and gifts on her as she could stand.

          Phyllis really liked the Love Birds I’d made for Miss Rosie, so I told her I’d make one for her, too. She’s my little sister. I’d do just about anything for her. And that’s what I worked on this week and what will be in the box I’m going to send her.

          Mike’s brother Cork gave me the glass saw. Without it I could never make a piece like this. When I made this for Miss Rosie, I made the birds first and once they were soldered together, I made the frame.

          “How do you do it?” I asked Cork.

          “I made the frame and fit the glass pieces in,” he said.

          So that’s what I tried this time. It’s hard! It’s so hard! I think it was easier the way I’d done it the first time but I bet I’ll have a better fit doing it this way.

          I still have one piece yet to cut. Actually, it’s a re-cut. The first one is so far off that there’s no way it’s ever gonna fit. I thought it best to just cut a new piece. But I think it’s looking good — just like Phyllis. She’s healing nicely and way faster than her caregivers thought she would.

          “I credit the yogurt I was eating,” Phyllis told me. “It’s high in protein and protein is what you need to heal.”

          “Why not just eat protein?” I asked her.

          “I’m not hungry and don’t want to eat anything.”

          Phyllis has lost twenty pounds but it’s certainly not a fun way to lose weight!

          And Phyllis has asked me to pass along her thanks to all of you for all your love and prayers and support. “Thank you so very berry much!”

 

          Lastly, I have to tell you something my Miss Rosie does that tickles me.

          In the mornings, when I call her, she usually answers with a weather report, as in, “Good sunny morning,” or “Good muddy morning,” or “Good rainy morning,” or “Good freezing cold morning.”

This morning she answered with, “Good sunny snowy morning.”

          I laughed. She was right. It was flurrying and the sun was shining at the same time.

          “Are you going to look for a snowbow?” she asked.

          “I could. I’ve looked for one several times and never seen one.” I went out front and looked back over the house because that’s where I see rainbows when I see them, but this is all there was to see.

          “I’ve never seen one either,” she replied.

          It won’t stop me from looking. 

          And something else I will never stop doing is spending my weekends with you. 

          Until next time, know that you are in my heart.