Category Archives: I Like It

Things to consider

Earth Day

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I ended up with my mother’s cast iron skillet. It’s in the garage right now; it needs to be cleaned up and seasoned. Maybe I’ll do that in honor of Earth day. And then I might make wilted lettuce ’cause it’s so earthy.

I stumbled across a recipe for it in a book about growing up on an Iowa farm during the Depression, called Little Heathens.  Mildred Kalish came from a time and place where every meal was equal measure of labor and love.

Pick, wash and dry a large bowl of leaf lettuce. Fry about 8 slices of bacon in an iron skillet until crisp and brown. Crumble over lettuce.

Pour all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the pan. Add 1/2 cup water, four chopped green onions, 1 TB sugar and 3 TBS apple cider vinegar. Bring mixture to a boil while scraping brown bits from bottom of skillet.

Pour the mixture over the bacon and lettuce which will wilt the lettuce. Stir and serve immediately with some good bread.

Mildred’s family aren’t the only ones with a soft spot for wilted lettuce: I found 174,000 entries when I searched recipes. Though I didn’t read every one of them — it looks like there are only a few variations to the bacon, vinegar, boiling-mixture-over-lettuce-formula.

I did bookmark a blog so I can find my way back to it. It’s called Mixed Greens, lots of really good photographs, and ideas/recipes for taking advantage of local and seasonal food. Happy Earth Day.

Hold the Hill

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When I was growing up my father would declare on certain spring mornings, “It’s time to Muck this place out.” He had spent quite a bit of time in the military where I think he first learned to love that call to cleaning action.  

What would follow is a purge of out-grown clothes, bits and parts of over-used toys and the general flotsam and jetsam created by a family of 5 kids and 2 adults.  

Nothing would do except to tackle a room with a three-step exercise: pile everything in the center of the room, study it, decide its fate. It was one of three Keep, Toss or Giveaway; the Decide Later option I see organizers of today use was not a choice. 

I think about this as I am  shifting things on my desk to claim a working surface.  Muck out, I say to myself. The first thing I pick up is a snow globe with a kitchen aid mixer in it. I shake it a few times and see that the snow drifts as faithfully as ever. I see from the sticker on the bottom that it cost $3.99 from my favorite salvage store. 

Does it deserve prime desk real estate?  Well, it’s witty. It doesn’t leak, it reflects light nicely, it even has solid wood base.  I put it back. No muck for the mixer this spring.

I’m inspired, you?

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Looks like everyone likely to eat pork have signed on. The pork people aren’t looking for new customers; they are going to get pork-lovers to eat more. They changed their slogan, Pork, The Other White Meat, to Pork Be Inspired.

Frankly I don’t have high hopes for the campaign.

If you ask me I think the pork people should do what the prune people did. When they found out prunes brought to mind constipated old people, they changed the name.  No less than the US Food and Drug Administration told the prune people, “Yes, you can call yourself dried plum people.”

So why not just rename pork? Call it … dinner. What’s for dinner, mom? Well, dinner is for dinner, son. Oh, yay, yay says son.   

While they’re at it, pork people need to own a holiday. Candy people sell 2 billion dollars worth on Halloween. Set up a meeting with the Santa Claus people before the dried plum people get around to it. Let it leak that the cookies and carrots thing is so over. Make Santa happy with a side of bacon, a nice pork medallion or ham’n beans.  

Well what do you know, I just became inspired by pork.

Cash In

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How many times have you been sitting around with friends; someone says something funny and you all yuck it up. Then someone says that would make a great t-shirt! And everyone agrees. And life goes on.

Back in 2000, two guys who had entered an online t-shirt contest thought maybe they could make something of it. And so they started Threadless.

You upload your own t-shirt design to the site. Visitors and members of the community rate the design on a 1 to 5 scale. Each week a number of the top designs are selected for production.

Here’s the good part. The designer is paid $2000 and a $500 gift certificate (or an additional $200) plus $500 for every time they reprint the shirt. If designing isn’t your thing, send in a slogan; if it’s selected you’ll get $500.

Bonus: An online shop carries t-shirts for all ages and the prices are very good. 

Hammerpress

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One of the best presents I ever opened was custom designed monogrammed stationery. The paper was a rich sand color and my initials were embossed in gold. There were several sizes of cards along with single sheets for those times when a card wouldn’t hold all the news. I used it all.

So now I can get more!

I am in luck. Hammerpress is a KC design and letterpress outfit that has a growing fan base. They do relief printing with lead and wood type; images are then pressed into the surface of the paper. The craftsmanship of the process make their products stand out.

Bloggies

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Ruth Pennebaker tossed a 15-year-old granddaughter into the plot of her novel after her husband said a middle-aged woman taking care of her dying mother was a yawn. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a first novel for the Austin-based Pennebaker, a veteran journalist and avid blogger. 

Blogger? You say?

Her blog is called The Fabulous Geezer Sisters; her sister has actually left for a different pasture so — truth be known, it’s singular Geezer.  I found that her blog is a finalist in the Eleventh Annual Weblog Awards for Best Writing. I bookmarked it for later.  

With over 156 million blogs out here, any effort to recognize top dogs is welcome relief. 

The Bloggies are a great way to find things you wouldn’t other wise find. A blog can win a category for a maximum of three years. So new talent doesn’t have to sit around waiting for someone to expire. 

Among the categories are Humor, Food, Best Designed, Best Photography, Art/Craft/Design, (I like Just Something That I Made ) Politics and Gossip. A grand prize is Weblog of the Year.  In that contest, I’m watching Hyperbole and a Half, and Smitten Kitchen.

Museum Appreciation 101

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Ever since I nearly missed the gift shop at the Prado because of an earlier than usual  closing time, I go straight to the gift shop when I first visit any museum.

After a while I figured out that the postcard rack is a good place to find what the museum keepers consider the best stuff in their museum. I also discovered from gift shop photo cards exactly where to stand to take dramatic pictures of the building. (Then — to the cafe to make sure it will be open when you’re ready to kick back and congratulate yourself for being cultured.)

It’s unlikely that docents universally embrace my technique, but just between us — sometimes a short tour is all you need.

The Art Museum of South Texas is a stunner that sits right on the edge of the bay. 

Philip Johnson, of Glass House fame, designed the original poured concrete building in 1972; Victor and Ricardo Legorreta collaborated on an addition completed in 2006 that added 13 roof top pyramids and alfresco dining. Worth a trip if you’re in town.

Whoop! Ing!

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Today we did touristy things. On the way home, we notice several cars parked along a road bordering a fenced pasture close to the edge of the estuary in Fulton on the coast.  

We swing around and see that the object of fascination is the trio of birds slow stepping in the grass about a 100 feet or so from the road. At closer look, those assembled are as one equipped with cameras on tripods each with a lens the size of a pro-football player’s thigh. 

Well, laudy miz claudy, who knew we were looking at three whooping cranes!? Now these birds have been clawing their way back from the list of extinction for quite some time.  We know that a nearby reserve is a destination and through diligence their flock has increased. But this pasture is sorta a no birds’ land.   

One of the bird-people cum lens tells us that the bird pair has been coming here ever since the farm owner fed them in a dry spell. Evidently they are a territorial species and since the arrival of junior, return every year, settle in and prepare to defend their home land against intruders.

Well, I had not intended to take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count but destiny calls. I just completed my report.  Yeah, I know, I know — they are a little small, trust me they are not chickens. I thought it would be really bad form to climb the fence to get closer. 

Visit International Crane Organization for close-ups.

Good Ship Enterprise

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The other day, I stopped at a table in the grocery store to buy cookies from an enthusiastic group of high schoolers raising money for this and that at their school. I asked, “How much?” gesturing at a half-dozen chocolate chip cookies in a plastic baggie tied with a jaunty bow.

“Everything goes for a donation, just pay what you want,” one of the table honchos said.

Clever, I thought. A huge jar sat smugly in the center of the table with a challenge on its fat little face. What value do you put on teen enterprise and industry? Don’t let’s be cheap, after all, these are kids not Keeblers!

I stuffed a $10 bill in the slot to a chorus of high-pitched thank yous and tossed the cookies into my purse.

Looking for my keys, I came across the cookies this morning. Wow, this is great, I thought. Homemade cookies that I didn’t have to make at home. I am having one now, and I have to tell you even if I hadn’t boosted the school’s GNP, they are worth every penny.

BTW, I actually put a fiver in the jar, he wasn’t that convincing.