A day to remember

Yesterday was a day that I hope I will long remember. The Sun shone and my heart was at peace. I got to see three people that I love and respect. I watched a young man deal with surprise and disappointment in a way we should all emulate. When he was surprised, joy and happiness beamed forth from him. When he was disappointed, I am not sure he was disappointed but an older more jaded person would have been, he just accepted it and moved on. There was no whining and crying and wheedling. He showed me how to make a snowman in the house. I finally made something that seemed to please a cook whose opinion is important to me. Her husband concurred and that boy really knows cooking. Thank you Lidia! I found a walking companion whose pace is the same as mine, a pace similar to an arthritic snail. On our walk we met a friend of mine. My friend later remarked "Your wife must be beautiful, for your daughter certainly didn't get it from you.". It was a day full of joy with no disappointment.
I awoke in the middle of the night with an answer I have long sought. Why should I believe in God? I have read and studied for so long and where is the proof? God gets nothing if a drudge like me believes. The answer came. I believe because I want to believe. It feels so good to believe. It is a reason that Pascal overlooked. I still don't know about all of the other trappings of religion but the basic premise is there for me. I think the answer came from Kristen. I asked her several questions, about things I have been pondering, and the answers she gave were crystal clear. She is aware of all of the alternatives that exist and has gone right to the gist of the whole subject. I believe because I want to!
I am concerned for all three of my daughters. They seem to share a common complication. Their lives are so busy. They seem to share their Mother's attention to detail, never glossing over a problem but addressing it immediately until it is solved. Not like their father whose philosophy seems to be "Life is like a drive in the country. Never mind if the seatbelt is buckled or the mirror is properly adjusted. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.". Yesterday was such a ride.

Tiny town

This tiny town is different from most places I have lived. Each day when I walk, I pass people who smile and say "Good Morning." or "How are you today?". There is none of the hustle and bustle of most places I have lived.
I used to live in a town where most of the people were very well off financially. They would pass and say "How ARE you today?" which seemed simply obligatory for them and another chance to sound like Kathryn Hepburn. They spent their lives worrying about losing what they had instead of noticing what they had. They spent their time doing the right thing, saying the right thing, wearing the right thing, and being controlled by the modes of the day. They were no more in control of their lives than Howdy Doody was. They were Marionettes.
This little town has several monuments to those that served in all the conflicts this country has experienced, from the Revolution to the first Gulf conflict. The same last names are on all of them. A little tiny town, somewhat insulated from the modes of the day, just flows on and on, like the river that runs through it. There is a quietness and humility here that belies the strength that lies beneath it. It is not exciting, it is just the definition of nice.

Sunday

Dear Kristen,
Sunday is perfect. Please remember to bring the steamer insert. Spring is here, the robins are on the lawn, the squirrels are bustling all over the place, and the Red Sox won the opener. Life is good.

Kristen

Sweetheart, next weekend would be wonderful. Please let me know which day. You have really brightened my day. Now I will be Ambrosius instead of Arthur. I already have the table.

Post posts

I woke up this morning, at 1:30 A.M., with an overpowering urge to delete the last two posts in this blog. There is a show on television, yes I am still watching television, about a man that drives a UPS truck. His father-in-law lives in his cellar. The father-in-law is as crazy as a loon, constantly raving about inequities and imagined slights. He is sure that the world is conspiring against him. His name is Arthur. I don't want to be like Arthur. My life is good. My children are healthy, I am free from pain, I have a full belly and a warm place to sleep. I have enough resources to make it through each month. Life is good.
There were times in my life when I was happier than I am now but I didn't realize it at the time. Life was too hectic and there was the constant desire to do better. I look back now and realize the high points of my life. The day I was wed, the days each of my children were born, and the day my brother became my friend. Each of these days have one thing in common. They are family related. I was raised in a community that stressed the acquisition of knowledge. I have lived most of my life surrounded by the Paradise of family and still sought out Knowledge. I think there is a book that addresses this issue.

One more resolution gone south

Once more a resolution I made withered on the vine. I was asked for help by my new dependent and gave it. I told him that this would be the last time and received a new litany of his new troubles and stories about the neighbors. He is very negative about the neighbors and seems overly involved in their lives. I have met all of the neighbors and they seem like nice people. If there is one thing that they have in common it is that they are all hard working people that are striving to survive in a world that constantly makes more demands on them. They all share the dream that I have always had. They have given up on getting ahead and dream of staying even. I pray each night, not for a blessing but just for no further disappointment. Becker's elastic is always watching.
The news of each day becomes more disturbing. The economy is in a shambles, the new elite of America are Hollywood stars and billionaires, and the simple moral values of this immigrant nation are rapidly becoming those that led to the downfall of ancient Rome and Greece. You can tell a lot about a society by how it spends its money. Care for widows, orphans, the elderly, and the disabled used to be high on our list of priorities. Now the top items are potato chips, bottled water, wars, and caring for investment bankers. The government seems to be caring for the voters of today but what about their children and grandchildren? The problem I see is that the government has a huge credit card, not a debit card. They make the minimum payment each month and the debt rises. I had hopes that a return to a Democratic regime would start rebuilding towards the surplus that was left by President Clinton. True to form, the Democrats seem to be self destructing. It would seem to be easy to find someone that could overcome the Republican administration, given their performance so far. We can't expect an F.D.R but a Truman or a Clinton would be nice. It is not going to happen. The republicans have a candidate that seems like O.D. O'Colgny who doesn't have to say anything nasty about the Democratic candidate. The Democrats are doing that themselves as they slowly self-destruct. The old adage rings true: " I am not a member of an organized political party, I am a Democrat.". Where is the old yellow dog when we need him? Can a person be President more than two terms if they are not consecutive? It would be nice to hear the soothing sounds of a saxophone emanating from the White House instead of the constant blaring of a bugle sounding the charge. President Bush is overseeing the bailout of the poor people that have mortgages of $700,000.00 while Jimmy Carter builds homes for the homeless. Bear Stearns and the savings and loan debacle come to us courtesy of Republican money experts that made their reputations using other people's money. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates made their fame using their own money and are using it to help the disadvantaged. Wouldn't it be nice to see one of them living in that big White public housing in Washington D.C.? I shuddered to read that the Bear Stearns loan may have to be adjusted in the future. Oh great, the government now has an ARM.

Guten tag

Yesterday was a good day. Nothing alarming happened and a few good things did happen. A minor foreboding was averted. I was able to help out another human being in a small way. Helping that individual has become a daily occurance. It is time to suggest to him that he should probably get a job. He is about forty years old and his eighty six year old Father is his sole source of support and shelter. I mentioned this to him once before and the litany of troubles that unleashed was endless. He was in an automobile accident about ten years ago and can't seem to get motivated since. He got a substantial settlement from the accident which he spent on a boat. His ex-wife now has the boat. The story goes on and on. When he got to the part about hearing voices and having evil dreams, I helped him out, literally and figuratively. He comes knocking at the door each day. I am torn between empathy and foreboding. He wants to get a job as a tree remover but he is afraid of heights. I can empathize with that. When I was a boy I wanted to be a cowboy. When I was in Texas I tried but had a major disqualification. It didn't seem fair. I am not afraid of cows and they don't call them horseboys, so I don't think it was fair. Life isn't fair, it is just gloriously wonderful. I have lived longer than Alexander the Great did, longer than President Kennedy did, and longer than Chance Vought Jr. did. Life has been and is Wonderful!

Mr. Rapunzel

Spring approaches on soft, dew laden feet. It is a time of newness and growth. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this while walking yesterday. A flock of goldfinches started the process. They have endured the paltry resources of Winter and now proudly display their golden promise of new life to come. I wondered how they will survive until the seeds appear. That was when I noticed a small bug flying by me. The intricate web of life begins again. It is a time for renewal and growth. The Lad of Shalott is making plans. I only hope that the breaking of the mirror will not portend seven years into the future.

Musings

I just spent half of an hour watching snow fall. It seems so typically New England and so reassuring. It snowed heavily at first and is now snowing lightly. When the snow is heavy, it is quiet yet forceful. Gradually it lightens up and gets familiar, like a Vermonter. I turned the heat up and made plans for the day. I have no reason to go outside so I will make pizza and molasses cookies. There are no cooking shows on PBS today, they are fund raising, so once again I resolve to not watch television. I have started a project that I find fascinating. I love Winter, the time of rest and contemplation. A time of renewal and optimism. The days of Sping and Summer will come with their bustling and perseverance but then comes Fall, with it's hint of cold and it's glory of color. October through February bless us with their groaning boards, roasts, pies, and breads. March through September reward our activity with salads, salsa, and disappointment. They do however have grilling. That is not enough to compensate for tennis, bicycling, and jogging. Winter in New England, I will sit by the side of the road and be a friend to Man.

Disturbing

There is disturbing news. I have been up since 03:30, I went to bed at 6:30 P.M., and have been perusing blogs. Several members of my family are having similar thoughts. Work is overpowering their family time. I remember those days and the havoc work can wreak on a family. You think that all you have to do is work and provide and everything else will fall into place. It is not so. The company I worked for for thirty years paid the supervisors according to attendance records of the people they were in charge of. If an employee had an average of three days out a year for five years, that employee could be terminated. My family depended on that job. One fellow I worked with was hired at fifteen years old onto a cable crew in Maine. When he retired he had fifty years of perfect attendance. That was the mind set where I worked. The company was especially cognizant off Mother's Day and Martin Luther King Day. You could get Martin Luther King day off if you asked but you would not be paid and it would count against you. One year the lady I loved dearly took sick on Sunday. The next day was Martin Luther King Day. I called in to take the day off. I was told NO and if you take the day off, you won't need to come in anymore. The children would be home all day, as there was no school the next day. and my love was unable to rise from the bed. I went to work fuming and telling myself that I must find another job but the allure of a generous paycheck and super benefits won out in the end. Frost was right,"Miles to go before I sleep.". There were days that I really didn't think that all of the working was fair and then I thought of my Father. He was a policeman from eight to five and then walked to a job in a mill from six to eleven and then walked home. You do what you have to do and live among the ashes of happiness. That happiness becomes a beacon of joy when you see your family having food to eat, clothes to wear, and a warm place to sleep. It is not easy being a man, it is just incredibly rewarding.

Capital idea

The previous entry has some things spelled out in capital letters, something I don't find agreeable. The reason for the capital letters is that I learned something in that step. I didn't learn the easy way. It is the same way I learned to not put my tongue on a parking meter in sub-zero weather as my brother suggested. My Father had to pour on lukewarm water to get it off. He looked at me calmly and said "It is usually the older brother that does this to the younger brother.".
Kristen, if you think her biscuits are wonderful with stew, try her herbed dumplings. Be careful though, dumplings are very addictive.

Pizza dough

Makes four ten inch pizzas

2 packages of dried yeast
big pinch of sugar
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
3 1/2 cups King Arthur flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil.
Corn meal

Warm oven, 200 degrees for 2 minutes should be fine. SHUT OFF OVEN!!!
Sprinkle yeast and sugar into 1/4 cup LUKEWARM water in WARM bowl. Let stand 2-3 minutes. Stir yeast and sugar to make sure it is dissolved. Place bowl in oven and let stand 3-5 minutes until yeast bubbles and doubles. If yeast does not bubble, start over with fresh yeast.
Sift flour and salt into mixer bowl.
Make a well in center of flour. Pour in yeast mixture,1 cup LUKEWARM water and 1/4 cup olive oil. Use paddle blade to combine ingredients. Use dough hook, oiled, for 6-8 minutes to knead. You might have to keep pushing dough down to keep in bowl. Take out of bowl and knead on lightly floured surface until dough is smooth and silky. If dough is too sticky, dust with a little flour and continue kneading. Place in large, oiled bowl. Turn dough over so top is oiled.Cover bowl with plastic wrap, I use a big elastic to keep it tightly sealed, and place in oven that is still WARM, for about 1 1/2 hours or until doubled. TAKE OUT OF OVEN!!!
Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
Squeeze dough down, break off 1/4 of dough. With the palm of your hand, flatten into a circle about 1 inch thick. Hold the circle in your hands and stretch dough by turning the circle and gently pulling your hands apart at the same time until dough is 7 or 8 inches across. Put on floured surface and roll with rolling pin from center to side until big enough to cover 1/2 of cookie pan. Dust cookie pan with cornmeal. Repeat with another 1/4 of dough. You can now recover dough and bowl and place in refrigerator for pizza tomorrow. Put on pizza sauce, thinly spread, and toppings of your choice, sprinkle with grated mozzarella and asiago or parmesan and dribble with olive oil. Bake on lowest shelf of oven for about 10 minutes.THE SMOKE ALARM IS NOT A TIMER!!!

Pizza Sauce

3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 Tablespoon finely chopped garlic
4 cups plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped but not drained. I like to put them in a bowl ans squeeze them instead of chopping.
1 six ounce can of tomato paste
1 Tablespoon, at least, of crumbled oregano
1 teaspoon of dried basil
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
Black pepper
1 large bottle of good red wine

Heat olive oil in3-4 quart heavy pan. Add onion and cook over moderate heat until onions are soft and transparent but not brown. Add garlic and cook until fragrant but not brown, stirring frequently, 1-2 minutes. Stir in everything else but wine, bring sauce to boil, turn heat to very low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 1 hour.
Open wine. You now have about one hour to spend occasionally stirring a pot, and an open bottle of good wine. Get a glass!!!
When sauce is finished it should be thick and fairly smooth. Taste and, depending upon how much wine is left, season with salt and pepper.
You only need about 1/2 cup of sauce for each pizza. It freezes well.

Use a 1 pound package of Whole Milk mozzarella for topping, 1/3 pound grated should do two pizzas. If you want Pizza Margarita, slice don't grate. Put four or five slices on each pizza and top with fresh basil leaves. Don't forget to dribble with olive oil.

Olive oil. Extra Virgin olive oil is wonderful in dressings and salads. It is a waste of money if it is going to be cooked with. Heating turns it into regular olive oil. I think Spanish olive oil is better than the others.

Tomatoes. Red Pack plum shaped tomatoes are the fine! Try to get tomatoes packed in juice not puree but puree is fine. Anything cooked with tomato paste is going to have plenty of tomato taste. Progresso plum tomatoes packed in JUICE are the best but are hard to find here.

Remember: Seven days without pizza makes one weak. (week).

The Prince

It is very early in the morning and, as usual, the wheels are turning. I read that Prince Harry of Britain served in Afghanistan. It seems to be a tradition among the English that the younger son serves in the military. We in America have nothing to be envious about. Prince George of America served in the Alabama Air National Guard. He almost became a lawyer but he couldn't pass a bar. Prince George went on to become King George of America. Didn't we have some trouble with a King George a while ago? Something about taxation without representation. I'm glad that that has changed for the wealthy in America. King George has stressed that the wealthy need much less taxation and with the tax money they save, they can buy plenty of representation. The Founding Fathers would be so proud, especially John Hancock.

Cornucopia

Grocery shopping is done. I wandered around the store, marveling at the huge assortment of products available to us in America. Tomatoes from Italy, olive oil from Spain, cheese from France, anchovies from Tunisia, the list seems infinite. Miracle of miracles, I found dried buttermilk. It has always bothered me to purchase a quart of buttermilk to get one cup and then have the rest spoil in the container. I got home and then performed the usual shopping day ritual, spaghetti and meatballs. Thank you Lidia, you must have learned from old Mrs. Tocci, just as my Mother did.
There are constant references to the new global economy. Business has gone global. Stocks, bonds, manufacturing, and resources are intertwined in a global network now. I don't think that they were the beginnings of a global economy. The silk road is thousands of years old. The trade in salt, which I learned about in a book given to me by an angel, is even older. The Basques fished for codfish off of Newfoundland in the early sixteenth century. Spain concentrated on precious metals and stones from the New World and that trade destroyed their way of life. They went from the most powerful nation in Europe to an inflation ridden afterthought. The Italians took the products of the New World, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, corn, and salted codfish, to heart and that way of life endures to today. The United States prides itself on the assembly line, steel , and invention but what were we before the self-scouring plow opened up the Great Plains to wheat and corn? The wheat was brittle and couldn't be harvested in large quantities until a cultivar from a small town in Russia was discovered to hold on to it's berries during harvesting. There has long been a global economy, based on food and shelter. What else do humans need? Instead of countries trading bombs and bullets over disagreements, the trade in food makes much more sense. Almost every culture has recognized the concept of one Creator. The conflicts arise from small men arguing over dotting the i's and crossing the t's.
America is a country, not a nation. We need a government that will bring us together as a nation. We could be the world's cook rather than the world's bully. Someone once said, I think that it was Eisenhower, that "The people of the world want peace, sooner or later the governments of the world are going to have to step aside and let them have it.".
I am up early and melancholy thoughts race through my head. I am fearful about the world that my generation is leaving to my children and grandchildren. It is not the world that our parents left to us. We have reaped the bounty of the New World and squandered it. One billion dollars for a bomber? How many homeless people could that house? How much corn could that bomber drop on Darfur? I will stay where I am, reading, cooking, and enjoying the bounties of this Earth. I don't think that many wars have been started in a kitchen or a library. I intend to enjoy the bounty of Tunisia this morning.

At last

March is here at last. February has been endured and March has roared in at last. I hope that the lamb portion comes soon. Today should be the monthly trip to the grocery store. It is amazing how much life has changed. It is possible to purchase a month's groceries at once and have them last, thanks to the miracle of freezing. When I was a boy we had an icebox, not a refrigerator. The iceman delivered ice once a week. Things kept cool but it was necessary to go to the market at least once a week. I can still remember the scent of eight o'clock coffee being ground and the sawdust on the floor of the market. We had a coal furnace which my Father had to tend to each evening. There was always a kettle of soup or stew gently bubbling on the stove. Home was warmth and food and people that cared about you. We got a refrigerator in 1953 and my Mother was so proud. She was not so proud but much more thrilled when we got a washing machine.
Then there was the television. My Father was not a fan of television. He felt that there was something sinister about television. He resisted getting one for quite some time. My Mother used to take us across the street in the evening to watch the television in the appliance store window. My Father would listen to the baseball game on the radio. He loved baseball and felt it was the only true sport. I had just started the third grade and came home one day in October. After climbing the stairs, we lived on the fifth floor, I walked into the dining room and there it was! A big black box on the table. She had gotten a television. I said "Oh Mom, he is going to be so angry.". She said "Don't you worry, it will be all taken care of.".
My Father got home each evening about five fifteen P.M.. At five ten she turned the television on and I soon heard his footsteps coming down the hall. He stopped in the dining room and I immediately saw the look. A scowl came over his face and suddenly disappeared. He called to my Mother "Betty, is that the World Series?". He sat down on a chair, she walked in with a cold beer for him, and that was that. He was a giant of a man and she was just a peanut but I learned that day that there is a difference between being in charge and running things. That concept was later enforced in my life by a trellis and a lawn chair. Life is full of times that seem crisises at the time and become fond memories. The birth of one's children is such a time. That the person you love so much will have to go through such an ordeal is terrifying but then a new miracle comes to your life. The next day the terror comes again. Am I strong enough to provide for a family? What if I get sick or die? The application for the life insurance is filled out that day. Why is it called life insurance? Shouldn't it be death insurance? It is not insurance against life. There is flood insurance, accident insurance, and theft insurance. Why would anyone insure against life? Death is just one of the other plans, life is what happens. This year I will be sixty-three. A landmark time in my family.