The Give Away

Serves Four

Lately I’ve been thinkin about “porcupines”. Not the critter; all be-it I do identify with the defensive little feller. Nope, more like the approach of the dark season and memories of birthday’s past that got me dwelling on ‘um.

Momma usta always ask me what I wanted to eat for my birthday supper and when I was little, it was without hesitation that I would ask for Porcupines. Now I know you think there are few things that Southerner’s don’t eat, but NO, we do NOT actually eat porcupines, we fix’um.

(Here’s why they’re called porcupines – as they cook the rice starts to poke out and they look like little porcupines.)

Momma always used her electric skillet and I’m bettin’ that this recipe came with the book cause it’s a bear to make these in the oven. I could almost eat the whole pan by myself, but I know I didn’t cause momma always gave Daddy what she liked to call, “the “Lion’s share”. Funny, I don’t even remember what went with’um, maybe a pineapple salad with shredded cheddar cheese and Hellman’s mayo spooned in the center, or maybe canned pears with cream cheese, didn’t matter cause it was all about the Porcupines. I didn’t have to worry about my brother eatin’um cause they had texture and he didn’t eat texture, nope I don’t think that boy ate real food til he went into the service, but that is another story, today, the focus is on Porcupines.

Folks my age remember these meatballs made with ground beef, rice, onion, tomato soup, and Worcestershire sauce. Buck doesn’t know it, but I’m gonna make him a skillet full of Porcupines this week. It’s gonna rain and be cold here on Wednesday and that’s perfect Porcupine weather.

So thank you Momma, thank you for workin all day then comin home and it pullin together my birthday dinner. Later it would morph into spaghetti, then pork tenderloin with black-eyed peas and stewed tomatoes, but these little meatballs still have a special place in my heart.

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
1/3 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
dash ground black pepper
dash of Worcestershire
1 can condensed tomato soup
1/2 cup water

Preparation:

Combine the ground beef, rice, onion, 1/4 cup of the water, salt, and pepper. Shape meat mixture into 12 to 15 meat balls. Combine the soup, and rest of the water in a large saucepan; (electric skillet, but who has one these days) bring to a boil. Add meatballs; reduce heat, cover, and simmer over very low heat for 1 hour. Stir occasionally.
Serves 4.

Consider the Alternative

In the Friendly Village, most of the time we just put a candle or two on a cake, pie, or martini and call it a birthday. It’s the safe thing to do, given we are all approaching a potential fire-hazard stage. This year, for some odd reason, Jude decided that the world needed to be reminded of my long run in the drama that is, “The Monkey Named June Bug”.

I smelled it before I actually saw it, almonds, vanilla and butter cream, hovering about a perfect circle of fluffy white frosting and cheery yellow flowers. Then, there was a very brief moment of disassociation, because while I like numbers, these two, standing side by side, seemed to taunt; two waxy little brats with their tongues of fire, singing “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, naaah, you are fifty-eiiiiiight.” I shut them up as quickly as I could with a wish and a blow, but they still stood, silent, yet strangely defiant.

Now, fifty-eight isn’t a “Magic Marker” kind of birthday, you know the ones that indicate the end or beginning of an era (or error). No, those you know are coming and can prepare for by losing weight, coloring your hair, or purchasing something big and extravagant to further signify that you are embracing the zero. Nor is it a “Highlighter” birthday, those transparent little markers there to remind you that the next decade is “approaching” much like Birnam Woods. It is, however, a bit demanding in terms of accountability. It’s like an emergency preparedness check-list of sorts. You should feel like you have some control, because you have the list, but in reality, you are holding the list and thinking that being “prepared” is just too much work.

All of that aside, I am indeed happy to be who and where I am right now. I am putting my stubby 5 and 8 in a little box, filled with images of laughing friends, bits of ribbon, notes and cards, all to be opened and placed with great joy atop my eighty-fifth birthday cake!

Life is good!

I eat local...because I can

“Potential” Cherry Tomato Catsup

Crispin Sartwell, in his book Six Names of Beauty describes wabi-sabi, a concept from Japanese culture to describe “the beauty of the withered, weathered, tarnished, scarred, intimate, coarse, earthly, evanescent, tentative, ephemeral.”

Autumn calls us to remember our own fragility and cherish this beauty. Be Well!

Catsup

1 Pint of withered cherry tomatoes rescued from a fate not fittin' a tomato. ½ cup water, pinch of salt.

In a small skillet, bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer until tomatoes split open and water has all but dissolved.

Put tomatoes, skin and all, through a food mill or mess strainer.

Pour into a tiny little jar and appreciate the beauty and taste rendered on the last day of summer.

Cannin' Shoe-strings

My momma used to say that my grand-momma would can shoe-strings if someone left them on her door step. And while I know she wouldn’t can ‘um, I also know she would find a way to use’um in the process.

My Daddy’s Momma came from a family of thirteen and she was a frugal as they come. There was no such thing as a “scrap”; everything had “potential” as she used to say. She just about raised me cause Momma and Daddy both worked and I was always at Grandma’s. There wasn’t a craft in the world that she didn’t teach, or “attempt” to teach me, cause you know, “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.” I used to watch her turn little pieces of left over pie crust into brown-sugar “stickies”; tomato skins, celery leaves and turnip greens into as fresh a vegetable broth as you could ever want. And yes, lord, she put up tomatoes, green beans, squash and just about any other vegetable folks would leave on her porch-step. It was a matter of respect she would say. Respect for the farmer and respect for the beans.

Grandma was a dress-maker, that’s what she did for a livin' after all was said and done. I went to sleep many an afternoon, listenin' to the hum of her sewin' machine and ease-droppin' on the conversations of neighbors when they would come over for a fittin'. Grandma made her own patterns out of brown paper bags or newspaper, she had a knack for that, and she would fit it to a tee, right on you. She had a long silver mirror right on the back of the door and I could see by the faces in that mirror that most everyone was pleased. Grandma sat on the floor with pins in her mouth and chalk in her hand, but you can bet she had one eye on that “glass-face” to make sure all was goin' to the likin' of her customer. She could read the slightest turn of the head or pucker of the lips and knew right off which gestures signaled success and which meant a seam or dart needed to be “adjusted”. When hemlines started to go up in the 60’s, I saw Grandma bite her lips more than once when a little too much knee came poking out on a lady that had best have kept that little bit hidden from public view. But it was about the customer and Grandma would say, “Might as well put it where she wants it or she’ll roll that hem over when she gets home and somebody’s gonna think I’m gittin sloppy in my handwork.”

But all of this aside, it was all about the remnants; those little pieces of what was left over that Grandma worked magic with. “That’s just too good to just toss aside,” she would say. Now pull out that box of scraps and let’s see what we can put together." So bits and pieces became wool and satin quilts and doll clothes, while ugly yarn all to often became even uglier pot holders. But the bottom line was always, the “potential”.

And so I grew; and I learned to turn my head to the side and use “my other eye” as Grandma would say. She said people were the same way, if you look hard, you can find somethin' good, you can find potential in most everybody. She said, people, in the “right mix” could surprise you. Some folks don’t “stand alone” well, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have somethin' to give, didn’t have value. If somebody hurt my feelins she used to make me tell her, “what hurt” and work me through it if it was only my ego that got bruised. If I retreated, she gave me a chore, like sortin' buttons, or rollin' satin ribbon from the grab-bags that the ribbon mill gave out at the end of the month. By the time Momma got off work, everything was “All right”. That’s what Grandma used to say, she’d begin and end with those words, like they were one; allright.

But I digress cause I started all this to tell you about this sad little pint of withered cherry tomatoes I saw today at the farm stand that this lady was gonna throw out cause she said they weren’t worth sellin; and I clear as a bell, could hear my grandma whisper, “Sis, those are just as sweet as can be, take’um home and turn’um into somthin’. It wasn't a second, and the lady said, “Take’um if you want’um, some people can turn anything into somethin’, they’re probably allright.

They are always with us, those we have loved, they speak through people, circumstance, happenstance, and nuance.

So be still and listen. All-right?

The Detail Mirror

Lurlene knew something was missing, but she just wasn’t sure what.

When we hold up a "detail mirror" to our lives and weigh ourselves against others, we are not able to see the things that make us truly unique.

Word according to Lurlene. 9-3-2010

Here's another one of my little "bite-me" maps that my friend Carol showed me how to do one day at work. When I don't have "words" I like to think in pictures, and when I can't find the pictures I want, in nature, or through surfin Google images, I find myself in the proverbial pickle of havin to actually draw them.

So one day Carol says, "do you ever use PAINT, I told her that I liked pencil better and she, in her computer savy wisdom said, "No goof-ball, PAINT, on your computer." So I says, "Show me." and well, now, when I'm feelin down and low, I PAINT. So thank you Carol for openin that door for me.

Wanna Paint? You've all got it if you have a PC and thanks to the Gatesmiester General. You Macs, well, you're so good you don't need it! Think it’s easy? It makes Etch-a-Sketch feel like a walk in the park. I use my mouse only, no stylist or special tools.

So, if you gotta minute, (or an hour because it is addictin) click on Paint under "My programs" click on accessories and have a go. Don't judge yourself, "Just Do It" to quote the poets at Nike. Use the pencil, the brush, the spray, have a blast. It'le be fun.