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Archive for memoir

My Grandmother’s Cinnamon Icebox Cookies: A Recipe

October 10, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
10 Comments

One day last week I’d planned to bake the Sour Cream Chocolate Loaf Cake from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts. (What a terrific book! A former sister-in-law gave me my copy for Christmas of 1980, and it’s had a lot of use. Read more about it here on Amazon.) It’s a delicious, undemanding cake that wouldn’t have been much trouble to make once I got home from running errands in town. Showing unusual forethought, I’d even set out the required quantity of butter to soften before I left the house that morning. But when I returned home that afternoon and was putting away the groceries, I realized I’d forgotten to buy the sour cream.

Well, crud. Now what? Even the closest grocery store would have taken me 90 minutes for a “quick” sour cream run. I sent a grumpy, self-pitying text message to The Daughter, who bracingly (and with an annoying lack of compassion) replied that she was certain I’d find something else to make instead.

So I started flipping through my cookie recipes. As I did, I asked myself what I was in the mood for. Did I still want chocolate? What about nuts? Or oats? How about crunchy vs. chewy? Really, I could have made almost anything. I keep a plentiful inventory of baking supplies on hand. (Except for sour cream. And almond paste. And candied ginger. Just about anything else I find appealing is always covered, though.) But at this point, late afternoon was approaching, so I needed something easy and quick to throw together. Then I came across a cookie that may be the easiest and quickest of the lot, an old family recipe that was handed down from my mother’s mother. It’s slice-and-bake, warmly aromatic and satisfying, and yes, that really is two tablespoons of cinnamon that it calls for. I hadn’t made this cookie in years, but it’s just as wonderful as I remember.

Cinnamon Icebox Cookies (makes two approx. 11” logs, each yielding at least 18 cookies)

1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. brown sugar (I use dark)
¾ c. softened butter
¼ c. vegetable shortening
2 eggs (lg. or extra-lg.)
3 ½ c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 c. broken-up or chopped pecan halves, toasted 7-8 minutes in a 350° oven until fragrant, then cooled

1. Cream the sugars thoroughly with the butter and shortening. (This makes a fairly stiff dough, so I use a stand mixer.) If using unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt to the mixing bowl.
2. While the mixer’s doing its thing, stir together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon with a fork or whisk.
3. When the sugars and butter/shortening are ready, add in the flour/baking soda/cinnamon mixture, alternating with the two eggs.
4. Add in the cooled, toasted pecans and give everything a final, combining stir-together.
5. Form into two logs, each about 11” long and 1 ½” in diameter, and roll tightly in plastic wrap or waxed paper.
6. Refrigerate for a couple of hours before baking, and keep stored in the refrigerator. If freezing the logs, give them an extra wrapping in foil and then in plastic bags.
7. Cut into ¼” slices, as many at a time as you like, and bake on parchment paper or Silpat (allowing a bit of room for them to spread) in a pre-heated 350° oven for 16-18 minutes. They will be firm enough to plate almost at once.

Notes:

• My ancient copy of the recipe calls for one cup of butter. But not all butter, mind you. The recipe declares the measuring cup must contain “part shortening,” which is one of my mother’s vague and unhelpful explanations that explain nothing, like the infamous “knifeful of shortening” she calls for in her flour tortilla recipe. Over the years, I’ve defined the shortening portion as one-quarter cup, while the butter makes up the other three-quarters.
• I’ve baked off several logs of these cookies all at once for holiday parties, and they’re delicious. At room temperature they’ve got good crunch, thanks to the addition of the vegetable shortening. But they are truly sublime when they’re hot from the oven: softer and chewier in the middle but crunchy around the edges, with the toasty-rich flavor of the pecans shining through. And of course, they’ll be gently redolent of cinnamon.
• Speaking of cinnamon, don’t be hesitant about the 2 Tbsps. The cookies won’t be over-spiced or acrid. They’ll be perfect. 😉

Enjoy!

Baking, Blog, Cooking, family, Featured Post, memoir, Recipes

The Procrastinatrix Strikes Again

August 29, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
6 Comments

Hi, my name is Susan, and I’m a procrastinator.

Yeah. Still.

That first sentence is how I opened “Would Procrastinatrix Sound Sexier?”, my fourth blog post from way back in May 2016. (Read it here.)

And guess what’s changed since then? Not a thing. Just ask Glen. He’ll carry on at great length about it. He’s a little frustrated with me. Why? Well . . .

A few weeks ago I had it on my calendar to enroll in Medicare. Our insurance agent had cautioned me not to wait until the last minute, because complications could arise. Other people had told me the same thing, warning me that it was prudent to begin the process two months before my birthday. Failing to do it well in advance could torpedo the entire process. (And I still don’t know why that is, but I was determined to be a grownup for once, and get it done. I hadn’t slogged through sixty-five years just to throw away my free medical care.)

When the day in early August arrived, I put it off for most of the morning, drinking more coffee than I wanted and fretting over the task before me. Finally I sat down at the computer and took a deep breath. Then, in a resolute, grab-the-bull-by-the-horns fashion (qualities that no one who knows me would believe I’m capable of), I got on the Medicare website and went to the enrollment page.

And that’s where my good intentions ground to a halt. Because it turns out I needed to enroll under the name printed on my Social Security card.

I can’t say what prompted me—some hazy recollection, perhaps?—to get out the card and look at it for the first time in many years. I’ve known my Social Security number by heart since early college days, so I had no need to see the card. But when I did, I discovered that the last name on it was not mine. It was my first husband’s.

Several days of panic ensued. First there was a phone call to the Social Security Administration. They told me I must have proof that I am who I say I am. Astonishingly, my driver’s license, birth certificate and decades of tax returns—all in my maiden name—don’t count. This was followed by a call to the county clerk’s office. I scrambled to get my hands on the final divorce decree, believing that my divorce attorney had included the change back to my maiden name there. That’s where the necessary proof would be! But he hadn’t. Nor was the name change documented on any other scrap of paper in my possession.

Here we are several weeks later, and I’ve lawyered up. My current attorney has drawn up the name change paperwork (which I signed and had notarized) and I went to the county sheriff’s office to have my fingerprints taken. Two sets, suitable for the needs of the FBI and the Department of Public Safety. I had never done that before (it wasn’t a requirement in the 1980s) and it was kind of interesting.

They need these to keep a close eye on me, because there’s no telling what frauds I might commit, given the chance. As long as I’m going to all this trouble, I may as well get some fun out of it.

For each part of this process, everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve signed my first married name, followed by my real name, which, for these purposes, is my aka. It’s a peculiar feeling to sign a name I haven’t used in forty years. My attorney and I await an appointment to go before a judge, but this is Labor Day weekend. It may not happen for two weeks. Once the change is approved, I have to get a new Social Security card. And in the meantime, it’s getting later and later to enroll in Medicare.

This is why Glen is telling everyone who will listen what a lifelong procrastinator I am. He can’t believe I didn’t get my Social Security card changed when my divorce was final. I can’t either. But what I really can’t believe is that for once in my life, I tried to tackle something in a proactive, timely fashion, only to be tripped up by a boneheaded lapse from my past.

So what does happen when you don’t enroll in Medicare early enough? I have no idea, but I’ll let you know, because I think I’m about to find out . . .

Blog, Featured Post, memoir

The Big(gest) Bang

July 4, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
10 Comments

I hope everyone is well and happy and that my U.S. readers are celebrating a wonderful Fourth of July with family and friends!

Of course it wouldn’t be the Fourth without fireworks, would it? I enjoy them, but you won’t catch me handling them. Even sparklers kind of scare me, so I’m happy to leave incendiary devices in the hands of the professionals. You know, people like your hotshot neighbor with the umpteen cars, the go-fast boat and the ginormous house. Or your judgment-challenged husband. Yes, I’m speaking of one particular July 4th that none of us in this family will ever forget.

Long before Glen and I moved to the honest-to-goodness country four years ago, we had moved outside of the Austin city limits. The last place was a one-street subdivision with acreage lots: the sort of place where, unlike in the city, setting off fireworks isn’t illegal—provided no burn ban is in effect. Only half the lots had houses on them, which gave all of us neighbors plenty of elbow room to do pretty much as we pleased. That changed once the rest of the houses were built, but those first few years were heady times. Which brings me to one memorable Independence Day around twelve years ago.

That evening at nightfall, fireworks began to bloom in the sky above a couple of houses on the street. Glen, The Daughter and I, plus a few friends who’d come to celebrate with us, went outside to watch. Glen had bought some fireworks for us, too, and he set off several in the driveway. Then the free-spending neighbor across the street (“across the street” only in the most literal sense; he was still two or three hundred yards away from us) got into the act. He was having a July 4th party and doing some showboating, putting on a display for his guests that was calculated to impress and keep them talking about it until the next July 4th. We watched for a time, oohing and aahing, and then Glen touched off a few more of ours. This seemed to send the neighbor into an explosive frenzy.

Shrieking, whizzing, starry bursts and meteoric booms filled the night. Every time Glen sent up another firework, four or five skyrockets and Roman candles launched across the street. The wind was blowing toward us, and soon we (and our house and our yard and our driveway) were covered in the gritty remains of the neighbor’s spent fireworks—that stuff that’s such a nuisance to sweep and rake up the next day. (Katie and I should know; cleanup duty was always our job.) Some of it was still burning and we had to run to stamp it out. What had started out as an amazing display was becoming annoying.

At last there was a lull. Clouds of smoke drifted across scorched asphalt and concrete. We assumed the neighbor’s show was over; all of our own fireworks were long gone. So we brushed the paper shreds and ashy bits out of our clothes and hair, did a last check for small fires on the landscape and started to head indoors. But that wasn’t the end of it. Turns out the neighbor was re-arming. Soon, fresh volleys of fireworks began hurtling skyward, and each new blast seemed bigger and louder than the previous one. Call us paranoid, but we all felt there was a bullying, “mine’s bigger than yours” taint to his extravaganza. (Interestingly, not too long after that night he ended up in a bit of trouble with the feds over some pesky fraud charges.)

Finally, Glen had had enough. “I’m going to my truck,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” Then he vanished into the acrid haze as spent fireworks debris continued to rain down on us.

When he returned, we could see he had something small in the palm of his hand. He went to the circular parking pad at the end of our driveway and waved at the rest of us to stand well back. We didn’t retreat far enough to suit him, so he waved us back some more, and then still more. As we peeked out from behind a stone wall by the front porch, hands over our ears, we saw him put a lighter to what looked like a pencil stub and drop it to the concrete.

And then he ran like hell.

The roar that followed felt like it was going to bring the house down. It was seismic, cataclysmic, like the detonation at the end of the world when the Earth tilts screaming into the Sun. At the very least it should have blown out our windows. But amazingly, everything stayed in one piece. Even the driveway.

In the aftermath there was a deafening silence. We stood there for a few minutes—stunned, wide-eyed, gasping—waiting for the pyrotechnic barrage across the street to resume. It didn’t. There was not another . . . single . . . firework. Glen raised his arms, triumphant.

As we all went into the house, giggling like fools, I asked him, “What in the world was that?”

“Just a little dynamite,” he said. “I figured a quarter-stick should do it.”

Happy July 4th to my U.S. readers! (And don’t try this at home!)

Blog, family, Featured Post, Holidays, memoir

Wising Up

June 6, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
12 Comments

There’s an old saying that I heard when I lived in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country decades ago:

“Too soon old. Too late smart.”

I spent a year there when I was nineteen, still young enough to believe that these words held no relevance for me—then, or ever. The old folks who quoted the saying (who, now that I think about it, weren’t nearly as old as I believed at the time) would often accompany it with a chuckle and a rueful shake of the head. I, armored by my youth, would feel somewhat superior and amused at the corniness of it all. With no earthly clue what they really meant.

But now, on the cusp of being eligible for Medicare, I think I’m finally starting to figure it out. A contented heart is way more important than . . . stuff. Than convenience. Than proximity. Or at least, that’s what it comes down to for Glen and me.

The other day I texted The Daughter that her father and I have been getting a lot of enjoyment out of life lately. Largely because we spend as much time as possible with each other. With increasing frequency, when there are errands we can combine into one day trip to town, we do them together. Usually it’s Costco, the grocery store, the bank, the post office (sometimes three banks and two post offices), then lunch before heading back home to the country. (After a quick stop at the feed store. Those cows have to eat.) Occasionally there will even be medical appointments. Yes. Astonishing as it seems to me, my husband and I have reached the age when we go to the doctor together.

Then in the late afternoons, we put that busyness behind us and sit out on the porch with our drinks. We watch the cows and the birdlife, study the clouds. We talk about what we accomplished that day, and what the next day might hold. Dull as it sounds, we’ve even been known to bring up the price of hay and what steers are fetching at auction. But it’s not dull, not to us. It’s peaceful. And restorative.

“Hear that?” Glen asks me, when we’ve had a chance to let the quiet settle over us.

“No, what?” I say. “All I hear are the birds.”

He smiles. “Exactly.”

Eventually we go inside to eat something simple and delicious. Dinner is often a collaborative effort. He does the grilling and smoking. I cook in the “freaking working kitchen.” We’ve always got homemade bread on hand, and during the hot months of the year, there’s homemade ice cream. Glen provides much of the meat in the freezers. There’s venison from the whitetail deer and the elk that he hunts, and Black Angus beef from our own steers that he raises. In the fall, there will be dove.

There’s nothing complicated or fussy or elaborate about the meals we make, nor about this new life we live, but it feels luxurious to us. And the more deeply rooted we become, and the more we count on each other for everything that nourishes us, the more distant our old life in the city seems. The conveniences. The easy distances. The stuff. All less necessary than we’d believed.

Too soon old. Too late smart. But give me a little more time. I’m learning.

“Hear that?” Glen will ask me.

“No,” I’ll say, “just the birds.”

Exactly.

Birds, Blog, country living, cows, family, Featured Post, Food, memoir, Ranch Life

Skunked

May 23, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
14 Comments

The other morning Glen and I were going into town together and drove through a lingering patch of skunk funk. That’s all too common here from about mid-February to mid-May. Skunks are mating in February and March, then raising their young, and all this activity evidently creates many opportunities for them to spray. Forcing the non-skunks among us to avoid breathing as much as possible for those three months. Because even in our climate-controlled houses, we can’t escape the stench that hurtles miles across country on the evening breeze. In our cars, we try not to drive over the still-pungent black-and-white-striped pelts flattened on the asphalt. (So many bodies!) If we’re lucky, that’s as personal as our skunk interactions get.* Some of us, however, are less fortunate.

Thirty years ago, Glen and I were living in a tiny South Texas town. It was our 5th wedding anniversary, the evening of Valentine’s Day. (Yes, we got married on Valentine’s Day; it seemed like a good idea at the time. But once we were a couple of anniversaries in, we realized going out to celebrate on that day was too foolish to attempt and the food at even the nice restaurants was sub-par and available only from a prix fixe menu. Prime New York Strip? Not hardly.) The Daughter was a toddler, not quite a year old yet. The date was meaningful to us, but otherwise it was an ordinary weeknight. We had no special plans. Just quiet time at home watching a little TV, then bed.

Dinner was over and cleared away, and Glen had settled down in his easy chair in the family room with a big bowl of popcorn. I was on the sofa nearby, and Katie and the cats and the Chow Chow Kodi were amusing each other at floor level. So far so good on the quiet part of the evening. Until all at once a horrendous sound—a hissing, shrieking, scrabbling sound—filled the room. It wasn’t the TV. It came from an air conditioning vent set high in the wall above Glen’s head.

We leaped from our seats and turned to look up at the vent. In our confusion and surprise, we couldn’t quite believe what happened next: A cloud of fine mist sprayed from the vent and settled on everything within a 6- or 8-foot range. And the room—no, the whole house—filled up with skunk stench.

That moment is seared into my memory. The aftermath, though, is kind of a blur. I can’t recall what happened to Glen’s popcorn, what the animals did, if we burned the clothes we had on, how we managed to get to sleep, or what Katie’s reaction was to it all. (Knowing Katie, she barfed. She’s always been an Olympic class barfer, that girl.) I do remember that we hired an AC service to come out the next morning. Turns out a partially exposed metal duct low on the exterior of the house had holes rusted in it, and that’s where the skunk crawled in. After wandering around in the ductwork for awhile he came upon the family room vent and decided we needed some excitement. Then, like Elvis, he left the building. The AC people did a thorough cleaning of the ducts and found no skunk in residence.

It was indescribably foul in that house for a time, but after a few weeks—thanks to the ductwork cleaning, continuously opened windows, air sprays, etc.—the worst of it faded. About 18 months later, we moved back to Austin.

We couldn’t leave skunks behind, though. One spring night eleven or twelve years after the skunk-in-the-duct, Glen’s Akita Zori encountered one. (Supposedly, Zori was one of the two family dogs, but we all knew who she’d swim through quicksand for.) Then she came to the back door to be let in. And Glen—failing to notice the reek because a sharp blow to the head had sheared off his olfactory nerves a year or two before—obliged. He somehow overlooked her copious drooling, too, even though his eyes are perfectly fine. Luckily, I was nearby, so I hustled her back outside before she could spread the fumes everywhere. Then Glen and I washed her together.

Apparently she learned nothing from the experience, because a few weeks later, she was sprayed again. And this time, in a stroke of good fortune for him, Glen was out of town. So there I was, hosing down “our” dog on the patio at midnight with V-8 juice and carpet shampoo. (I probably should have been prepared with something more effective, but who knew the dog would do it again?)

Happily, all’s been calm on the skunk front for years now. I was afraid we’d see an uptick in activity after moving to the country, but we haven’t. Our Australian Shepherd Lucy won’t approach them, and has strong feelings about other animals to avoid, too. Because of that, we’ve recently started calling her “Snake Dog.” Lucy’s barked alerts could give Lassie’s some competition. Sure, “Come quick! Timmy’s fallen in the well!” sounds impressive, but Glen and I think it’s nothing compared to “Look out! There’s a rattlesnake behind you!”

*Fun fact: While most sensible predators avoid skunks for the same reason we do, the Great Horned Owl actually snacks on them. Go Owls!

Birds, Blog, country living, family, Featured Post, memoir, moving

Pistachio Ice Cream: A Recipe

May 9, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
12 Comments

In the summer of 2017 I shared two of my recipes for homemade ice cream: Coffee Cinnamon and Chocolate Pecan Brickle. Both are uncooked, meaning they require no eggs or standing at a hot stove on an August day when your air conditioning struggles to blow tepid air and you have to keep stirring the custard until it thickens. They’re super easy to make and also fast, since you don’t have to wait for the hot custard to chill before you can churn the ice cream. These uncooked versions are endlessly variable, and so rich and delicious that I’ve seen no reason to make a custard base in decades.

But also in that post I promised that one day I’d share a method for making equally delicious “custard” ice creams without actually cooking a custard. So here’s what I do if I ever miss that custard flavor, that extra creamy sweetness: I use a trick my mother Eloise taught me.

I cheat.

Mother, God rest her soul, was kind of a snob about custards and puddings. Never under any circumstances was it okay to take shortcuts. Not by buying pre-prepared puddings in the dairy case, and certainly not by using boxed pudding powders. (She considered instant mashed potatoes another abomination.) She passed these convictions on to me, with the result that all the custards and puddings (and mashed potatoes) served in my house are scratch-made. However, when she bought a kitchen countertop ice cream maker (in the days when even those small electric models still needed ice and salt), it came with a little recipe booklet suggesting the option of using instant pudding mixes as an alternative to spending the effort and time homemade custards required. Since she didn’t enjoy waiting around for a hot custard base to cool any more than I did, she deep-sixed her scruples and gave convenience a whirl. The resulting ice cream was a huge success with both of us.

After a little experimentation [The Ice Cream Trials. Such a daunting, thankless task, but somebody has to eat all that test ice cream], I came up with the sublime recipe I’m sharing today, the one that makes Glen’s eyes roll back in his head. (Literally. You should have seen him last night when he put the first spoonful in his mouth.)

So here it is, the cheater’s version of:

PISTACHIO ICE CREAM

In a large mixing bowl, place:

1 c. sugar
5 Tbs. instant pistachio pudding powder, straight from the box (see photo above)
1/8 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. almond extract
3 drops green food coloring

Add:

2c. half-and-half

Beat together until the dry ingredients are mostly dissolved. A hand mixer is fine for the job. Then add:

2c. heavy cream

Stir all together until thoroughly blended and pour into the cream can of your ice cream maker. Process according to manufacturer’s instructions for most of the allotted time. Then, 5 minutes before the end, add:

½ c. (rounded) coarsely chopped salted pistachios

Finish processing and then transfer to a suitable container to finish hardening the ice cream in the freezer. Makes a bit more than 1 ½ quarts.

And if you’re craving some Chocolate Shell to top your Pistachio Ice Cream (it’s a spectacular pairing!), you can find that recipe here.

Enjoy!

Blog, Cooking, Desserts, family, Featured Post, Food, memoir, Recipes

The Empty Nest Cat

April 11, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
6 Comments

Sunday morning I got up much too early—before 4 A.M. I’ve never been a very sound sleeper (maybe that’s due to sleeping with my eyes open *snort*), but for the past ten years it’s been worse. And for the cause, I can point with a reasonable degree of certainty to this:

That’s Phoebe. Part Maine Coon. Part dominatrix. And guess who’s 10 years old? Uh-huh. Coincidence? I think not.

Ever since Glen and I adopted her from the Austin animal shelter when she was about 8 weeks old,

Phoebe (aka Tatonka, Jabba the Catt, Queen of All She Surveys and Tons o’ Fun [or Squirt, as Katie calls her]) has ruled the household with her incessant demands. And many of her demands interfere with my sleep.

Sunday morning, for instance, she demanded that I arise at 3:50 A.M. and entertain her. I wasn’t done sleeping, but that didn’t stop Phoebe from chewing the bedside lamp cord, chewing the bedside table leg, chewing my flipflops (bedside) . . . chewing anything she could fit in her mouth. (Also a lifelong pattern, in case you couldn’t tell by looking at her.) All just to make noise and get me out of bed.

Does she ever go to Glen’s side of the bed and try to wake him up? Don’t be silly. She knows he’d never hear her. A good thing she doesn’t, too. She’d probably fry herself chewing on his lamp cord. And Lucy’s hopeless; she’s the soundest sleeper in the house.

The situation is now so bad that I’ve taken to sleeping with a spray bottle full of water within grabbing distance. One good spritz will keep Phoebe at bay for two or three nights. Only rarely do I get to use it, though. As soon as I rise up on one elbow and reach for it, she scampers off (okay, galumphs off) into the darkness making gleeful little trills and chirps. At that point she’s too far away to spray and I’m too awake to go back to sleep. So I get up. And that explains Sunday morning.

The Daughter, on the other hand, is mother to the consummate companion cat: a 14-year-old Tonkinese named Tsuki. Less than half Phoebe’s size, Tsuki is oozy, clingy and adorable, and as limber as a Chinese acrobat.

Katie needs a warm furry neck scarf? Tsuki is there.

An advisor at the card table? Tsuki will oblige.

How about a rip-roaring game of hide-and-seek (daylight hours only)? A decorative centerpiece? A cat-in-a-blanket?

Tsuki’s available for all of it, always loving and perfectly behaved, never making unreasonable demands. (Well . . . maybe occasionally. She’s still a cat.) This has made Katie smug. She is fond of telling us that Phoebe is our “empty nest cat” and that as a consequence, “mistakes were made.” Meaning we made them. Oh, swell. How does that help us now?

But she’s right, of course, and it’s Glen’s fault. Mostly. It all started when Phoebe was still a kitten and he encouraged her to drink water from the faucet at his bathroom sink. She’s always had a bowl of fresh water available to her, but from her very first taste she preferred the cool water flowing from the tap. So much that multiple times each day I’d hear her meowing from the master bathroom, demanding (there’s that word again, but no other will really do) that someone (i.e., me) come at once and turn the water on. It didn’t take her long to realize that she was really thirsty at night, too. (Did Glen get up for those nighttime waterings? What do you think? Even though each time Phoebe leaped up to the sink, she thumped the cabinet loudly enough to wake the dead. But Glen slept on.) Tap water was at the top of the slippery slope, and from there it was just one misstep after another.

The last straw for Katie came one morning when she walked into the kitchen and saw something I’d sworn I would never allow: Phoebe stretched out on the kitchen table while I ate breakfast. (Yes, Tsuki has been on Katie’s table many times, but apparently not during meals. So how is this different?)

Now that Phoebe’s 10, diabetic and spherical, the bathroom sink is beyond her leaping capability. Thankfully, drinking from the water bowl on the floor doesn’t cause nearly as much commotion. But she continues to wake me in the wee hours, perhaps even more often now to compensate for what she can’t do anymore. And after she’s had her fun toying with me, she gets to sleep all day—a win-win for any cat.

But despite her shortcomings (and how I felt about her Sunday morning), Glen and I wouldn’t trade our empty nest cat for anything. Even Katie thinks she’s pretty special. We’ve never had another cat like her. Unflappable, not fussed by strangers, loud noises or dogs. If someone comes into the house, she doesn’t hide. She goes to greet them and investigate what they’re up to, and, if possible, sit smack in the middle of it. (Right, Gerard?) No, we wouldn’t change a thing. As far as we’re concerned, the mold was broken when Phoebe was made.

Probably because she sat on it.

Blog, family, Featured Post, memoir

The Versatile Blogger Award!

March 28, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
20 Comments

Last week I was wrapping up the day’s Twitter biz when I came across my name in someone’s tweet. The context was surprising, but most gratifying. Ashley, the blogger who sent the tweet, had nominated me and fourteen others for The Versatile Blogger Award! (Read more about the award here.)

Thank you, Ashley at Lellalee, for the nomination! You can find Ashley’s fun post about the award here on her blog, including who nominated her and the rest of her nominees. I also recommend exploring her other great content and luminous photographs. You might want to subscribe, as I did. Lellalee is a gorgeous, professional site.

To say I was gobsmacked by Ashley’s nomination is an understatement. We bloggers often feel as if we’re performing onstage, and only the people in the first row of seats are visible to us because we’re blinded by the stage lights. For all we know, the rest of the theater could be empty. But this just goes to show that you can never tell who’s been paying attention and what fun surprises might result from it.

THE VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD RULES:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and include a link to their blog. (Thank you again, Ashley and Lellalee! Woot!)
2. Tell your nominator and readers 7 things about you.
3. Choose up to 15 bloggers whom you admire for their content (writing and/or images) and creativity. Nominate them in turn.
4. Inform your nominees.

MY NOMINEES, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER (each writes wonderful, unique content):

• Salina B. Baker
• Diana Conces
• Tonja Drecker
• Cynthia Hamilton
• Carie Juettner
• Amy Elizabeth Miller
• Mindy Reed
• Julia Schmeelk

Congratulations to everybody—to be nominated is to win! Now you can pass on the love to others (and post a cool badge like this one on your websites).

And readers, be sure to have a look at their sites. You’ll find all sorts of interesting work there!

7 THINGS ABOUT ME:

1. If you’ve been with me awhile, you know I enjoy cooking and cocktails, and devising new recipes for both. But . . . I can’t make chocolate meringue pie, which is Glen’s favorite pie. I’ve tried several recipes over our 35 years together, and always failed dismally. [Amy, if you’re reading this, the pigsticker between the eyes/ER visit failure still trumps these.] The chocolate pudding is too runny, the meringue is too wet, the pie crust is ruined because of both of the above . . . By now I’m thinking it must be a mental block, because how hard can it possibly be?? So readers, if you have a FOOLPROOF recipe for chocolate meringue pie, could you share it with me in the comments? I’d love to learn how to make it before our 40th anniversary. (I hope 5 years gives me enough time.) One caveat: The chocolate pudding has to be scratch-made, please.
2. In high school, I earned my varsity sports letter on the rifle team. Interestingly, there was an indoor shooting range in the basement of one of the school buildings.
3. I’ve never seen Titanic or Forrest Gump. And don’t intend to.
4. However, I love The Horse Whisperer. We saw it when it was first released in 1998; Katie was 10 years old. That film caused some serious family discussions about moving to Montana, and we came very close to doing it. After considering it for months, we finally decided against the idea. You’d think snow would have been at the top of our reasons to vote no, but it was because we wanted Katie to marry a Texan. And she did! (You’re welcome Katie. And Wesley.)
5. When I was a teenager first living on my own and going to college, I sold my plasma for grocery and gas money. Ground beef was only $0.33 per lb. and students’ cars weren’t allowed on campus, so a weekly visit to the plasma center went a surprisingly long way.
6. I have a loathing for clowns and mimes. The worst part of a Cirque du Soleil performance is seeing the clown make his way among the audience before the show, coming ever closer to me as he warms up the crowd. I swear he can smell fear. On a visit to New Orleans, a street mime pursued our group of six a block down a street in the French Quarter, haranguing me (and only me) for not stopping to ooh and ahh over his performance. Mimes had not been on my fear and loathing list until that moment.
7. If it’s not already obvious, I personally care nothing about chocolate meringue pie. If I did, I would have figured out how to make it a long time ago. (Sorry, Glen.) And I know such selfishness makes me a miserable excuse for a human being. But I just pulled these out of the oven, and that has to count for something. He’s going to love them.

Baking, Blog, family, Featured Post, memoir, Movies, Writing

Surprises from the Past

March 14, 2019
Posted by Susan Rooke
12 Comments

Do you ever hear from someone in your distant past? Someone you haven’t seen or heard from since childhood and were certain you never would again?

This probably happens more often than it used to, thanks in large part to social media. Before that, the options for tracing people boiled down to, what? Private detectives, the Salvation Army and newspaper ads in the Personals section? (Are there still such things as Personals ads? I used to read them for fun. Sometimes I’d come across messages so cryptic that I was sure they were connected to drug deals, extramarital assignations or murder-for-hire schemes. ) Well, once in a great while, someone from the remote (as in decades-old) past will track me down and get in touch. It’s happened several times over the past five years, but one of the most recent was especially surprising.

About a year-and-a-half ago, a woman reached me by using the contact form on my website. I remembered her at once. We’d known each other for a brief time in childhood; she was a few years older than I. Our mothers were good friends. When I read her name, I had a vivid mental image of her as a girl: an intense and level gaze, beautiful skin, long brunette hair that was impossibly thick and healthy, often worn in a braid as big around as a man’s fist.

It developed that she was going through her late mother’s effects and found some family photos that my mother had given her. She wanted to send them to me. We exchanged a few lovely, cordial emails, and then, after not hearing from her for months, I forgot about the whole thing. So imagine my surprise when, a few afternoons ago, I opened my post office box to find a manila envelope bearing her return address.

Did I rip it open as soon as I got home? No. God, no. As I’ve written before (“Too Close to Home”), there are sizeable chunks of my past that are painful to look back on, and to do so can make me physically ill. The good memories, oddly, are more painful than the bad.

Instead, I put the envelope on the coffee table and watched it from the corner of my eye for several hours. But it stayed put, didn’t explode, didn’t lift its flap and begin speaking with the voices of the dead. Finally, I opened it. And, to my surprise, enjoyed viewing the contents. Kind of.

The photos were largely lighthearted and harmless: a badly faded, spotty record of a handful of people, most of whom are now buried, and some of whom dressed on at least one occasion in matching outfits.

For reasons best known (I’m sure) to my mother. My grandmother and I just put on what she told us to wear. The envelope contained nothing incendiary or toxic (but since when was I ever allowed to stand on the furniture?),

which was a big relief.

But still . . . No matter how pleasant the results, it’s such an unsettling feeling when a long finger reaches out from my history and taps me on the shoulder. A few weeks before the above photos arrived, there had been another tap. That time, the long finger was my own.

I had decided to reread a book I’d purchased and greatly enjoyed soon after its release in 1986: Perfume, by Patrick Süskind. But before I dove in, I lingered for a couple of minutes in pleasant anticipation (do you do that with books you’re really looking forward to reading?), studying the cover image, a detail from the Watteau painting, Nymphe et Satyre.

At last I opened the book. And this fell out.

I might have screamed just a little, but luckily I soon recognized myself. Thank heavens. Otherwise, I would’ve wondered who the dead person was. (But why did I stash the photo in that particular book? As a jokey contrast with the nymph on the cover?)

As I examined the photo, the circumstances came back to me. Early in our relationship, Glen had tried to tell me that I slept with my eyes open. That was so clearly preposterous that I refused to believe him. So he decided to prove it to me. I don’t recall how many nights he waited, listening to me snore, but finally he caught me in the act and snapped this Polaroid. Somehow I slept through the camera’s mechanical wheezing and clackety ratcheting. Not to mention the flash.

He told me I scared the daylights out of him the first time he woke up and found my corpse beside him. After seeing the evidence, I couldn’t blame him. And eventually, I even forgave him for taking the picture.

*GLEN: STOP READING NOW*

Or at least, that’s what I wanted him to think. Actually, I’m just biding my time until the night I rise up in the bed and bend over him, watching him with my creepy dead eyes . . .

Blog, childhood, family, Featured Post, memoir

Bringing It Home. Forever.

December 6, 2018
Posted by Susan Rooke
10 Comments

This past Saturday I witnessed something that was I was starting to think might never happen. (When I could stand to watch the drama, that is. There were a few moments that I thought Glen would wind up as a grease spot on the driveway.) This was a milestone in our relocation to the country 3 1/2 years ago. Yes, yes, we moved into the “forever home” in that time, and that was huge, of course. But this event marked the culmination of everything Glen has been working toward thus far in making us comfortable here.

Okay, in making me comfortable. He still has to finish relocating his welding shop and all of his equipment out here. But as far as I’m concerned, the pinnacle of his many achievements has reached its own forever home. “Forever” because he swears he’s never moving it again.

That’s right. Glen brought the smoker home.

And the day after that, he fired it up.

Here’s what I wrote about it in last year’s Thanksgiving post, “A List of Small Gratitudes, 2017”:

• That, on the smoker he designed and built, Glen makes the best Texas-style brisket and pork ribs I’ve tasted. EVER.
• For the day when Glen will finally move said smoker from his warehouse to our forever home so that we can enjoy his best-ever brisket and spare ribs at least one more time before the zombie apocalypse

He’d aimed to have it here by this Thanksgiving, but due to a driver who didn’t show up to transport it, he missed that goal by about 10 days. But that’s okay. It was worth waiting a little longer for.

It’s hard to get an idea of the scale of this thing in photographs. It’s 8’ tall from the base to the top of the smokestack and about 4’ wide. It weighs 3800 lbs., as much as my mid-size SUV. Every hinge and every handle is custom, fabricated by Glen and his friend Gene, also a welder.

The grilling side is on the left. This is the counterweight at the rear of the grill lid:

It weighs 300 lbs. It’s filled with lead. Without the counterweight, you wouldn’t be able to lift the heavy grill lid to check on your ribeyes or your swordfish. In the smoker, there are four racks that spin, making it easy to load and retrieve your sixteen sides of ribs or twelve briskets or twenty turkey breasts. There’s a thermometer built into the exterior smoker wall to keep track of the interior temperature.

As you might imagine, this thing took a long time to build. Glen (and usually Gene, too) worked late most nights every week for four or five months. Before he could even begin the cutting and welding, there had to be a thorough cleaning, because the smoker side is made of leftover drill casing pipe. There were practical design issues to figure out, like how to make the curved smoker door fit snugly to the curve of the smoker walls. Drill casing pipe is seamed like a toilet paper roll, and that caused a conundrum with the door which took days to solve. (Glen tried to explain it to me at the time, but I just nodded and smiled.) Sometimes, when he came dragging in exhausted on yet another late night, I thought he’d never spend his evenings at home again. More than once he wondered why he’d thought such an ambitious project was a great idea. But when it was finished, it added so much pleasure to our lives and opened up delicious new ways to entertain. And after doing without it for the last three-and-a-half years, I missed it terribly.

Finally Glen was ready to have it hauled out here to its new home, but with something this massive, the feat requires planning. He first hired a flatbed tow truck to bring the smoker out, and a few days later the tow truck returned with a SkyTrak, a type of small crane, which is needed to correctly lift and position the smoker on the ground. Here’s a screenshot of a SkyTrak from the Briggs Equipment website.

It’s a serious undertaking and tricky to do. Including Glen and the SkyTrak driver, there were four men outside the day it was moved into place. I didn’t take pictures because I was inside by the windows, peeking between my fingers. I was afraid I’d see someone smashed flat when the smoker tipped too far to one side. And when it finally touched down, exactly level on the concrete tiles where it will probably stay for the rest of our lives, I thought I was going to cry.

The next evening we enjoyed the result of Glen’s labors.

Please forgive the lack of artistry evident in the plating. It was all I could do to restrain myself long enough to take the picture, and you can tell I’m hovering too close to the food. Those ribs are bare not for their photo op, but because I’m a purist: no barbecue sauce. And no fancy rubs applied before they’re smoked. Just salt and lots of finely ground black pepper.
One bite told me: Glen still makes the best ribs I’ve ever tasted. And this home of ours? Now it’s forever.

Blog, Cooking, country living, family, Featured Post, Food, Forever Home, Holidays, memoir, Thanksgiving
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