Starting Over ~ Life in the Day Camp

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Linda Barrett

EASY AS PIE???

Pecan pie–this one’s too nice to be mine!

i’m writing this blog on Sunday afternoon while waiting for my home-made pecan pie to come out of the oven. You heard right. This New York born gal, who can do justice to an apple or blueberry pie, is trying her hand at the quintessential Southern pecan pie for the very first time. It wasn’t my idea. I don’t even like pecan pies But preparing one was my assignment.

Tonight, my golfer guy and I are going to the neighborhood Dine-In. On the first Sunday evening of every other month, the neighbors get together in each other’s homes with a pre-determined dinner menu. There is usually a theme, and each couple brings an assigned dish—enough to serve about eight people. There are usually about six dinner hosts. Afterwards between 36-48 participants gather at the dessert host’s house for coffee and….whatever.

Tonight my pecan pie is on that dessert menu. Oy.

I’m calling it an experiment because right from the beginning, the instructions puzzled me. The recipe called for one 9-inch pie shell, unbaked. So I walked down the supermarket’s baking aisle and bought a graham cracker crust pie shell.

“No, no, no,” my friend and neighbor said when I met her on the street. “Not graham cracker. Not that I’ve ever made a pecan pie before either. But I think you’re supposed to buy a shell from the frozen food department.”

“What?”

She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you one of mine. They come two in a package.”

Problem solved. Neither of us really knew about this, but Maggie sounded a lot more confident than I felt.

The next ingredient: 4 tablespoons butter, softened. Why couldn’t I just use Smart Balance, my already softened buttery spread? The canister said it was good for baking. But my golfer guy said, “Better not. I’ll run to the store again. What should I buy?”

“I don’t think butter is sold in single sticks.” Now I’m picturing 3 ½ sticks of real butter going to waste.

But that was nothing compared to: ½ cup cane syrup (no substitute). I didn’t even know what cane syrup was. In my pantry, I had molasses and Caro light corn syrup. But wait! Light corn syrup was another ingredient on the recipe list. So, on our initial trip to the supermarket, when we bought the wrong crust, Mike and I searched for cane syrup. We found a jar of 35% cane syrup. That was the highest percentage among the brand selection. We bought it because I was scared of the no substitution order.

We also bought a pint of heavy whipping cream because it was on the list. I thought it had to be blended into the bowl with the other ingredients. Wrong! I was supposed to whip it and serve alongside the pie. But the dessert was to be delivered to the hostess at 6 p.m. The guests wouldn’t arrive until 9. That just didn’t seem right to me. What would happen to whipped cream during those three hours? What if the hostess had no room in her fridge?

So, along with the graham cracker crust, Mike returned the heavy cream to the store. I told him to buy a container of Cool Whip instead. Yes, substitution! It could go in either a freezer or fridge.

Not finished yet. Directions: add eggs to softened butter and sugar one at a time, beating until light and fluffy, but not foamy.

Give me a break! Fluffy? Foamy? In my mind, they’re pretty close.

And finally, after adding the syrups and the other ingredients including chopped pecans, the directions said to “mix until well blended.” Does that mean to use the electric mixer which I’d used to get to “fluffy”? Or blend by hand? I thought the pecans would become mush with the beaters, so I did it by hand.

When I learned to bake with my grandma, everything she did made sense. I was able to understand a little of this and a little of that. I was there! Why are there so many guessing games with what should be a straight-forward recipe? One printed out from a recipe website? Am I overthinking? Or am I just ~~dumb~~ inexperienced?

Hold on a minute…the timer is ringing. I’ll be right back.

This one’s mine!

Hi again. Good news! It smells right. The middle is swollen, but I think it’s going down. Mike’s betting on a winner. I’ll let you know what happens.

I’m back again with the morning after report: my pie disappeared in the first five minutes. Everyone commented on the slight orange-y flavor. The recipe called for orange peel. I didn’t know how to make that, so I decided two teaspoons of orange zest would do (I know what that is), And they loved it. Phew! So, anyone for pie?

I think there has to be an art in writing clear directions for recipes. What do you think? Can you follow a recipe easily? Or have you had similar experiences to mine? Please share if you have tips!

ANNOUNCEMENT!! WE HAVE A WINNER OF JULY’S CONTEST. Congratulations to Beth Reimer who chose Material Witness by Lisa Mondello and my Family Interrupted as her two book selection. She has also won a $25 gift certificate to Amazon. I hope she enjoys shopping for more books!

NEW CONTEST FOR AUGUST: Leave a comment and your name will be entered into this month’s contest. Prizes are one of the three selections below, all written by the authors of On Fire Fiction, as well as a $25 gift certificate to Amazon or BN. Your choice!

Starting Over ~ Dive Right In

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Linda Barrett

I’m one of those people who eat to live, not live to eat. So I wouldn’t call myself a foodie. But there are definite exceptions to my take-it-or-leave-it eating habits. Why is it that I find the very best meals, meals that I would become a foodie for, in the small, elbows-on-the-table kind of places. You know the ones I mean. No tablecloths. Order at the counter. Grab your own plastic utensils and drinks. And then wait for your order to appear on giant paper plates.

When I discover a dive that sets my taste buds singing, I’m in heaven. At that moment, it’s all about the food. These place don’t depend on ambiance because there isn’t any. But the food…? OMG! Whether ethnic, American, breakfasts, lunches or dinners, I don’t care. When I find an eatery that makes we want to keep it on my list of “regulars,” I’m so happy.

I love Greek food. In Houston, I ate at Niko Niko’s, which i think I mentioned in an earlier post. I lunched there every week, never minding the wait to order. You can imagine that I sure wasn’t the only one in the place at lunchtime. The meal was worth the wait. Eventually, long after I discovered it and long after the owners enlarged it, the Food Network discovered it, too. It was featured on Drive-Ins, Diners, and Dives. But I get a kick out of know that I was there first!

I never, ever thought I’d find another Niko’s in Florida. But…drum roll please — I did!

Leave it to my golfer guy to drag me to this little place where the restrooms are in the outside of the building. What the H…? But clean inside. And the gyros…freshly sliced meat, and oh, oh, oh! The homemade tzatziiki sauce..(picture me kissing my finger tips). Delicious! The Greek salad, always one of my choices was delicious, too. So, now I’ll got to Peck’s for a real gyro and Greek salad. A new great dive. Maybe one day, it will be discovered by the Food Network. In the meantime, they’ve opened a second location – same family ownership – and everyone who goes there raves about it.

Just for the record, I’m picky about Italian food, too. There’s Italian and then there’s ITALIAN–when that first forkful of lasagna almost melts in your mouth, and you know you’re in Italy. This goes for pizza joints, too. I will try any pizza joint once. But it’s got to be way above average to land on my list of regulars.

Now, let’s switch gears and talk about pancakes. Why? Because I love them! I had a place in Houston called Frank’s. For $5.75, you ordered from a big breakfast menu…which was available throughout the day. Frank’s pancakes with a side of thick bacon slices got me through the weeks of chemo and visits to the plastic surgeon when my expanders were being filled in order to get me ready for implants. That experience was worse than the chemo, which in hindsight wasn’t too bad. I really looked forward to my pancakes at Frank’s as my reward for the fills. The portions of food were bigger than my stomach could hold. The pancakes, themselves, were the size of the dinner plate. But again, I was in heaven. Have I mentioned that I love pancakes? French toast, too. And Belgian waffles.

Once more in Florida, my sweetie took me for a ride. First, of course, we have to accomplish something. We never just “go for a ride.” In this case, we dropped off donations at Goodwill, which was a bit self-serving as we got to clean out the garage a bit. After unloading the car, my golfer guy says, “I know a place…for pancakes.” Well, he didn’t have to ask me twice. Off we drove to Poppi’s.

Pancakes and sausage at Frank’s.

It might have been Franks. It looked so similar with the casual booths and tables–no cloths–and with the efficient and friendly waitstaff. Windows all around. But the true test is always measured by the food. The pancakes matched the circumference of the plate. Oh, yeah. Three strips of bacon sat on the side dish. My heart started doing a tango. I drizzled the maple syrup just on the part I would cut. My fork slipped through the two layers, and I ladled it into my mouth.The outside of the pancake had a slight crispy coat–unusual and delicious. Rapture! Another OMG moment for me. I’d found home. In Florida.

I won’t embarrass myself in a high class French restaurant. But I’m basically a low maintenance gal who appreciates quality in the basics. I can usually take it or leave it in regard to food. Truly, I’m not a foodie. But if I visit some good dives on a regular basis, I just might become one.

How about you? Do you have a favorite inexpensive restaurant that sets your palette singing? A favorite food style that you MUST have from time to time? Let me know in the comment section.

As always, that so much for stopping by. I hope to see you for the next edition of Starting Over.

LEAVE A COMMENT AND YOUR NAME WILL BE ENTERED INTO MY JULY CONTEST. Prizes are a choice of two books written by the award-winning writers of On Fire Fiction, plus a $25 gift certificate to Amazon or BN. Remember, some of these stories are hot, hot, hot, while others…not so much. Your choice!

Starting Over ~ Solving the Mystery

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Linda Barrett

When cancer hit the first time, I chalked it up to randomness. I was that one in eight statistic we all hear about: one in eight American women will get breast cancer at some time in their lives. That’s 12.5%. Doesn’t that number seem large? Random or not, after receiving the diagnosis, I drove myself crazy trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Somehow that random statistic became personal when it applied to me.

Was it the food I ate? The water I drank? The air I breathed? In every general way, I was healthy-not overweight, exercising several times a week at the gym, I ate mostly healthy foods. I had nursed my youngest child, and at the same time appreciated that nursing was one of those factors that lowers the risk for breast cancer.

Accepting this new fact in my life took time. Several months into treatment (lumpectomy, chemo, radiation), I was still trying to make sense out of what can’t be explained. We, humans, like order in our world. We like to solve mysteries and puzzles. We’re uneasy with open endings and dangling threads–we’re itchy about unfinished books! We want to make rational those situations that have no reason, to understand what we don’t know. One plus one must equal two in our ordered world.

Acceptance of my situation did happen in time. Soon I was able to say, “I guess I was just that one-in-eight statistic.” I’d shrug, then chuckle. “Somebody has to be unlucky.” I certainly wouldn’t wish this on anyone else.

Nine years later, when breast cancer hit the second time, no one in my orbit accepted that this was a random act of unkindness. How unlucky can one gal get? I certainly wanted to solve this mystery. Without any fanfare, my blood was drawn to be tested for the BRCA gene mutations.

BINGO! My mystery was solved. The culprit was the deleterious BRCA 1 gene. Shedding this light certainly brought closure, but also brought up a new set of issues. Facing a bi-lateral mastectomy would seem to top the list. But figuring out what, where and how to tell the children…ah-h, that broke my heart. Genetic mutations are inherited, so my kids might be affected too.

No one in a family with this gene escapes the stress of waiting for the test results. No one escapes the fear or sadness, that terrible bellyache, that comes after being diagnosed as a gene carrier. I took comfort not in the diagnosis, but in the prognosis. A great prognosis…if I took action. If? If? Did I not want to live? With children, grandchildren and a wonderful, loving husband, the answer was easy. I had everything to live for!

So here I am, celebrating every day with Mike, my kids, and wonderful friends in a lovely place for “55 and better” I call the day camp. I will admit, however, that it’s great being on the other side of the diagnosis and treatment. I like living hopefully ever after.

If cancer seems to “run in your family” or if you have any questions about inherited breast or ovarian cancer, I highly recommend the only non-profit in American totally focused on inherited cancer: FORCE – Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered. Log onto their website for all kinds of information about this subject:

www.facingourrisk.org

FORCE LOGO

As always, thanks so much for stopping by. I hope to see your for the next edition of Starting Over.

LEAVE A COMMENT AND YOUR NAME WILL BE ENTERED INTO MY JULY CONTEST. Prizes are a choice of two books, written by the award-winning authors of On Fire Fiction, plus a $25 gift certificate to Amazon or BN. Remember, some of these are hot, hot, hot, while others…not so much. Your choice!