“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.”
It’s not winter even though my heater is going so I’m stuck calling this spring despite the cold and cloudiness. I suppose it could be sprinter, a new name for the shoulder season which isn’t one or the other. Rain is expected later, and I can already feel the dampness and the chill. I just put on some socks.
That weird trap caught another mouse yesterday. That’s two for the trap and one for the washing machine. I checked around 10:30 last night, and there it was inside the trap circling the small perimeter. I got Gracie and the two of us went for a ride. The mice are being freed at a different spot than last year’s just for novelty sake. This second freedom run went rather quickly because I had already figured out on the first run how to get the mouse out of the new trap. I watched it running toward the woods lit by my headlights and wished him well and hoped he’d find his friend, the mouse freed the other day. Today’s update: no mouse this morning.
When I run into weird words, I always wonder how I know their meanings. They’re not everyday words, were never vocabulary words and are used mostly by pompous people who scatter their conversations with archaic words so as to appear learned and intelligent. I chuckle. Pomposity does that to me.
My mother made great tapioca pudding. I liked it hot, scraping the pan hot, and I liked it cold. It was also one of my dad’s favorites. My mother made it more often than any other pudding, even more than chocolate. Sometimes I buy already made tapioca, and none of it ever compares to my mother’s.
I loved my mother’s pepper and egg combination. She made it for the beach and for road picnics when we were young. When we were older, it was often a side at barbecues at my parent’s house. My mother originally got the recipe from her sister which, I figure, gives it the stature of a family recipe. The squash dish always on our Thanksgiving tables came from another of my mother’s sister, but my mother unknowingly tweaked it. She switched butternut for zucchini. My uncle’s sausage cacciatore is one of legend. My sisters and I make it.
Food ties us to each other more than anything else.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: chill, cold morning, family recipes, mouse trap, peppers and egg, pomposity, rain, sausage, squash, tapioca pudding, vocabulary
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April 26, 2014 at 1:29 pm
We have meteorological summer here now, that means the average temperature during seven days in a row are above F.So even if nights are a bit on the cold side the days make up for it more than well.
I’m happy to say that my mother never tried to make any kind of pudding, she always bought ready made or powder. I know what she can do to the easiest cooked food 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ve never had tapioca pudding and really don’t know what it is. But I once had a work friend from Finland who was named Tapio and every time I called his name I giggled quietly because I always thought of tapioca pudding. I was easily amused when I was younger 🙂 🙂 🙂
I don’t think we have any family recipes but I have my grandmothers old cook books so I’m more or less cooking the food in the same way she did 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
April 26, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Christer,
The heat is still cranking as it is now rainy and cold. It is a perfect nap day!
I always thought boys laughed at the silliest things when I was little. Most boys were easily amused. Bodily functions would send them screaming in laughter.
Your grandmother’s cookbooks and the food you cook like hers are family recipes. I have nothing like that from my grandparents.
Have a great evening!
April 26, 2014 at 4:15 pm
It’s spring here but the AC is keeping us cool and allergy free. Today the sky is partly cloudy and a nice mid 80s temperature. Tonight and tomorrow afternoon and evening the forecast contains a slight risk of severe thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds, hail and tornados.
I never developed a tarter for tapioca pudding, rice pudding or anything other than chocolate. When my mother made the real stuff on the stove it would develop a thick chocolate skin on top while cooling in the fridge. The instant stuff never tasted the same nor did it have the skin. Anything made the old fashioned way beats an instant quick version.
Stereotypical Jewish mother’s demonstrated their love through food. I never saw my maternal grandmother sitting down and eating a meal. She ran around the table supervising. She would scope out your plate and then say something like, “what’s the matter you are not eating my mashed potatoes? Don’t you like them?’ When The person agreed that they liked them she would spoon out another portion and plop it on your plate while exclaiming, ‘eat, eat, look how you look,’ to my grandmother skinny people meant unhealthy people.
Please tell me, what is your mother’s pepper and egg combination?
April 26, 2014 at 6:41 pm
Bob,
If it’s spring and the day needs the AC, I wouldn’t want to be there in summer. No allergies here, not even the pine pollen. We got rain most of the morning and the dampness all afternoon.
My mother never made instant anything either and neither do I. I even make the chocolate for my chocolate pie. We never had a skin on ours as was my mother covered the top so it wouldn’t form. None of us liked the skin.
Pepper and eggs is just so simple. It is cutting the pepper into strips then frying it. The eggs are scrambled. You combine the two and add some tomato sauce, like spaghetti sauce, for taste. We ate it in sub type rolls.
April 26, 2014 at 9:07 pm
My wife has allergies and asthma. The pollen and the humidity take a toll on her breathing. We run the AC from early spring through October. You are correct it gets hot here in Dallas. We are on the same latitude as the Sahara desert.
Actually I liked the skin that formed on the chocolate pudding. I am a chocoholic. If I could mainline it I probably would become an addict. 🙂
Thanks for the recipe. I assume you mean green or yellow peppers. Could you scramble the eggs in the same oil that you fry the peppers? This sounds like an interesting, quick and inexpensive meal.
April 26, 2014 at 9:13 pm
Bob,
I too have asthma and allergies. During pine pollen season when the world turns greed I can’t have an open window and I wait until after it to put screens in the doors.
You can use the same oil. I don’t see any reason why not. Yes, on green, red or yellow bell peppers. Don’t use too much sauce. The eggs should still be a bit yellow. It is my favorite picnic dish. I also make it when we go to outdoor concerts on the green.
April 27, 2014 at 9:00 am
Hi Kat,
My mom made tapioca pudding a lot, too. She used the big tapioca things. Fish-eye, I think it is called. It did kind of look like fish eyes in the pudding. I liked my mom’s tapioca but detest all others.
The best thing my mother made was apple crisp. There is no apple crisp that beats my mother’s. She tried to teach me how to make it but simple cooking things elude me. She insisted that you have to cut the butter and sugar together with two butter knives. Not forks. Not one of those butter cutting gadgets. Two butter knives. I couldn’t get. it.
I just finished a murder mystery that a had a ton of strange words in it. It was English. The citizen detective was an Oxford professor. I was constantly clicking the dictionary button on the Kindle. The book was not worth reading and I stopped as soon as I found out whodunnit. I didn’t even stay to find out how he dunnit. 🙂
I had the same kind of lousy weather here yesterday. Looks like today will be similar.
Enjoy.
April 27, 2014 at 9:57 am
Hi Caryn,
I feel the same way about other tapioca. They seem flavorless compared to my mother’s.
We were never a big apple family. My dad loved his slice with cheddar, but my mother didn’t make it often. We were lemon meringue and blueberry fans. My sister won’t eat anything with a top crust so the crisp would be something she’d like.
I hate it when I start a book and know I’m not going to like it.
Yup, today is similar!
Have a great Sunday!!