Blue Moon Reflecting on My Mother

Friday, August 31^st is a blue moon.  We haven’t experience one since 2009 and the next one will be in 2015.  August 31^st is also my mother’s birthday. There have been 10 blue moons since her death in 1987, but none in August and certainly none on her birthday.  Although Mom is never far from my mind, this really brings her much closer to my heart this week.

A few months ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting a woman through Facebook and this blog.  Ernestine Clark and I met for the first time at Beans & Leaves.  As we sat visiting, I was struck by her upbeat personality and sweet spirit.  As our time together continued, I was struck by something else, something that almost brought me to tears.  Ernestine looks so much like my mother.  So much so that I had to go home and dig out some old photos of Mom to make sure.

The second time we met at Beans & Leaves, Ernestine was very excited about a new coffee shop that some friends of hers opened on Film Row.  We followed her over there to check it out and have some lunch.  The Paramount OKC is located on the corner of Sheridan and North Lee in downtown Oklahoma City.  This coffee shop is another wonderful independently owned business.

As we approached our destination, I realized that this intersection was very familiar to me.  My mother spent the last decades of her life working for International Crystal Mfg which was located directly across the street from The Paramount.  I have to admit that it was a bit odd to be enjoying lunch within feet of a place that my mother spent so much of her life, with a woman who bears such a physical resemblance to her.  Mom would have loved this place, I’m sure.

Mom always enjoyed trying new foods and restaurants.  Her adventurous culinary spirit is a strong part of the legacy I carry of hers.  Some of my most fun childhood memories centers on trying a new restaurant or food trend.  I was thinking of this while I planned our Leo Birthday Party this month.  A friend of mine recently introduced me to Gado Gado which is an Indonesian salad dish served with a flavorful peanut sauce. I thought this would be perfect for the party.  As I was gathering the ingredients and studying on how to make the sauce, I thought of how my mother would have so enjoyed this.

I decided on fried tofu for the protein and steamed purple fingerling potatoes for the starch.  I also steamed some baby bok choy.  I sliced some cucumbers into rounds, served baby cut carrots and mung bean sprouts raw.  I sliced a jicama into matchsticks.  Now jicama is a fun new vegetable for me.  It reminds me of a cross between a radish and potato.  It is crisp and satisfying, perfect for dipping into the sauce.  I finished by frying up some shrimp chips.

Now, I’m not sure why they call them shrimp chips as there is no shrimp involved.  They start out as little plastic looking discs and when they hit the hot oil, they expand ten times or so to these beautiful crispy chips.  That was the most fun cooking.  I called everyone into the kitchen to watch.  Yes, Mom would have really enjoyed trying all of these different new foods.

As much as she would have enjoyed the food, I know she would have enjoyed meeting all of my close friends.  I regret that she did not live long enough to see me past the struggles of my early life to my life now full of love and happiness.  I never came out to her.  I believe she would have accepted me fully, but I did not progress to that point while she was living. I wish that Mom could have met Paula, Joey and David.  She would have loved Paula and been thrilled to accept her new grandkids.  Joey especially would have been spoiled by her, I’m sure. 

The night of the Leo party was a joyous night for me.  There was drumming and dancing, laughing and singing, and lots of wonderful conversation.  There were old friends and new friends enjoying the night.  It was a beautiful experience with some beautiful people.  My mother loved a celebration and this was a fantastic celebration.

One of the biggest adventures my mother and I had together was the August that I turned 25 and she turned 50.  We went to Las Vegas to celebrate the one time that I would be exactly half her age.  Neither of us had ever been to Las Vegas and we were very excited.

We arrived at 10 pm local time and couldn’t wait to get to the casino.  We got to bed very late that night and it was still difficult to go to sleep knowing all of the activity still happening downstairs.

The next day after some sightseeing, my mother ended up at Slots of Fun and I met up with a friend of a friend who was a dealer back then.  He showed me how to play all the games and we went to several casinos.  I had so much fun touring the town with someone who knew it so well.  My luck was amazing I won at everything!  I was shocked when I realized it was 2am.

This was before cell phones and I was concerned that my mother would be worried about me.  I hurried back to our hotel.  After sharing the winnings with my friend, I rushed upstairs…to an empty room.  My mother arrived an hour later with hands blackened from feeding so many coins into the slot machines.  This woman who was in bed nightly no later than 10 pm at home stayed up past 3 in the morning playing slots.  Vegas is indeed a different world.  We had such a wonderful time together on that trip.  A little over 2 years later, she was gone from my life forever.

So, this Friday is a blue moon and my mother’s birthday.  It will be a good time to reflect on her life and how my life has progressed since her death.  I think about her legacy.  My mother was compassionate and kind.  I see this in my sister and I hope I carry some of it as well.  I want to sit on my deck gazing on the moon and raise a cup to my mother.  She was a very special woman, one that you might only meet once in a blue moon.

My Activism Lies in Waffle Fries

When I was a little girl, I loved Campbell soups.  My favorite was cream of potato.  I would crumble saltine crackers in the bowl to soak up all that soupy comfort.  In those days, I could think of nothing that tasted better and more soothing to my appetite.  Then I started reading labels.  What at one time tasted so wonderful, now just tastes highly processed, salty and tinny to me.  I have to admit, though, I still long for that bowl of perfectly cubed potatoes, easy to make and easy to eat.

The soup did not change.  It is the same now with me in my fifties as it was when I was a pre-teen.  My perception changed and my palate developed.  Even though I sometimes long for the simplicity of opening a can for dinner, I don’t want to go back to my ignorance of nutrition, or give up the wonderful knowledge of the diversity of food that enriches my life now.  The potato soup I make today is so varied and complex and is still my favorite comfort food.

You may think this blog is another one of my “comfort food” blogs, but it is not.  In these past few weeks, I had my eyes opened again, and my heart broken a little.  My impression of a world that is kind and accepting was shattered.  I was astounded as I watched crowds of people flocking to Chick-Fil-A demonstrating against the sanctity of my marriage. 

This came on the heels of discovering that Oklahoma will not recognize my marriage with Paula and was followed by news of a man gunning down people in a Sikh Temple.  A few days later, Bryan Fischer of The American Family Association came out advocating an “Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households.”  You may recognize this group as one of the recipients of Chick-Fil-A corporate dollars.

I have always looked for the best in people and I avoid conflict like the plague.  I have never considered myself an activist.  I just live my life.  Period.  In the past few weeks, I have been trying to gather the shards of a shattered vision and put it back together.  I found myself not trusting anyone. 

I have not been able to write in this blog recently because all I could express was my anger, hurt and disappointment in the events of the past few weeks.  That’s not what I want this blog to be.  My vision for this blog is to bring people together through food.  For a little while, I wasn’t sure I could do that anymore.  Then a good friend of mine sat me down and gave me a “talkin’ too”.  She cautioned me to not let these events change my relationship with Paula.  She reminded me that the world is the same as it always has been and that my friends are the same they have always been.  She counseled me that maybe I care too much.  If I didn’t care so much, I wouldn’t be hurt so much.

I can’t help it, I am changed.  I cannot unsee what I have seen, nor unlearn what I have learned in the past few weeks.  I do know that I have a burning in my belly that wasn’t caused by one of my spicy dishes.  I have a churning in my gut that is only relieved by the expression of my emotions. 

I feel closer to Paula, my wife, than ever.  I feel more committed to our marriage than before.  Our marriage license is more than a piece of paper and no one, not the State of Oklahoma nor the crowds of Christians demonstrating against us can take that away from us.  I am working on embracing my new world view and realize the wealth of friends I have.  I have decided that caring is worth the hurting.  I do believe in love and goodness. Call me naïve, maybe, idealistic, certainly, but this is how I am. 

In the midst of all this turmoil came my 53^rd birthday.  We had a wonderful gathering of my closest friends and a joyous celebration.  My wife gave me a fun new culinary toy.  I have wanted a mandoline for quite some time and she bought me an excellent one.  And guess what?  It makes great waffle fries.  So my expression of activism lately has been perfecting pan grilled chicken and waffle fries.

I have never been a big fan of chicken breast, but this way it is flavorful, moist and healthy.  I use paper towels to pat the chicken as dry as possible.  Then I season it with salt, pepper and whatever other seasonings I have on hand.  I drizzle both sides with olive oil and then massage all of this into the meat.

In the meantime, my trusty cast iron skillet is heating over a high flame and the oven is set at 500 degrees.  When the skillet starts to smoke, I put the chicken in and leave it undisturbed for 4 minutes.  Then I turn it and put the skillet in the hot oven.  After 5 minutes, I remove the chicken from the pan and let it rest for at least 10 minutes.  The result is a perfectly cooked chicken, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.

I easily assemble my new mandoline and use the large ruffle cut blade.  The trick here is to make a quarter turn with each cut.  Then I fry the waffle cut potato circles in 350 degree oil.  Serving my family healthy chicken sandwiches and crispy waffle fries made with intent and love makes me very happy!

I don’t want to go back to canned potato soup and I don’t want to go back to a rose colored glasses view of the world.  I will honor my God, myself, my marriage and my friends.  I will express my opinions in the most loving way I can.  I am witness to the birth of my own brand of activism, one waffle fry at a time.

Three Sisters Chowder

I wanted to cook a meal with intent.  I planned to make what I would call Three Sister’s Chowder.  Remember the three sisters planting from my last blog?  I wanted to build a chowder based on those three ingredients; corn, beans and squash.  I also wanted as many of the ingredients as possible to be homegrown.  I made my weekly trip to the farmer’s market with this in mind.

I only stopped at booths that displayed the “Homegrown” sign and visited with each vendor inquiring as to who grew the produce.  I made my purchases based on this information as well as my instincts.  It was important to me that the food was grown with a positive intent.  I chose corn, butternut squash, onions, new potatoes, heatless jalapenos and sweet & spicy peppers.  On the way home, I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up some organic chicken broth and a can of organic black beans.  I had cream in my refrigerator, so I was set.

I wanted to make this chowder for our writer’s group.  Paula started this group about a year ago mostly to provide motivation for herself and a friend of ours, Linda, to keep working on their novels.  Linda is writing novel, Call of the Loon, and Paula was working on the revisions of Shadowboxer.  We have grown into a group of eight on a path to explore our writing.  My blog was birthed in this group.

 This group is as diverse as the writing projects we bring to it.  Our ages range from 14 to 60ish and much of the spectrum of life experience is represented here.  Besides Paula and Linda, there is Joey, 14. Although she is but at the beginning of her life, I often think she is wise beyond her years and on the precipice of genius.  It has been a joy to watch her writing improve in content and structure over this past year.

Another member of our group it has been fun to watch grow is Jacob.  At 18, it is wonderful to see him coming into his own as a young man and his writing has certainly reflected that.  He has a talent for weaving a tale of suspense with an unexpected ending.  Jeff is a dungeons and dragons sort of guy and currently writes for a young audience.  His themes focus on bullying.  I encourage him to get his stories published.  I think there are children, victims of bullying, who could benefit from what Jeff has to say.  He has managed to finish two manuscripts in the relatively short time he has been a part of the group.

Jessica is our newest member.  I am looking forward to getting to know her better as we hear her novel unfold from week to week.  She is also a chef at a local Italian restaurant.  Her second week, she brought handmade manicotti for dinner.  Oh my goodness!  Those were the best manicotti I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.  I am not only looking forward to hearing more about her novel, I am looking forward to learning from her in the kitchen as well.

Chris is our biggest fan.  Although he isn’t a writer, he is an equally important part of the group.  He has been here every week as Paula struggled with revisions on Shadowboxer and he was here to help us celebrate as it was finished.  Fittingly, the first shipment of the Shadowboxer books was delivered on a meeting night.   I am so proud of Paula and we are all fortunate to have an accomplished writer to lead us in our endeavors.

Paula is currently working on a novel, Graveyards, about an Oklahoma City cop struggling with her sexual identity along with realizing she is a vampire.  The main character, Ash had a passing role in Shadowboxer.

We all wait anxiously each week to hear the latest installments of Graveyards, Paula’s new novel; or to hear what has transpired in Jo’s life. Jo is the main character of Linda’s book.  A Call of the Loon is a whimsical reflection of Jo and her chosen family.  I feel like I know Jo and I genuinely care what happens to her.  Linda has made me laugh and cry.  She has made me get a bit pissed at Jo, too.  That is the beauty Linda’s writing.  She creates characters that are full and complex.  I will be so happy for Linda when she finishes this project, but I will be a bit sad, too.  I will miss Jo.

We generally gather for a meal before we begin our meeting.  It is a time of wonderful fellowship.  I wanted to prepare this soup with loving intent for a group I have come to love.

As I began cooking, I was filled with pride knowing that the result would be a pot of loving nourishment and comfort to share with our friends.  I began this dish as I do many with chopped onions, garlic and red pepper flakes sautéed in olive oil until they have merged into a perfect base for the soup.  Meanwhile, I split the peppers and roasted them in a 425 degree oven until they were roasted to point of almost blackened.

 

I took about half the peppers and added them to the onion mixture saving the rest to add near the end of the cooking time.  I cut the corn off the cobs and set it aside with the peppers.  I processed the squash into cubes and then quartered the potatoes.  By this time, the onions and peppers had been transformed into a flavorful paste that would infuse the chowder with its goodness.  I added the corn cobs to the pot and covered them with chicken broth.  I also added a little salt and black pepper to boost the flavor.

When the cobs had added there intense corn flavor to the broth, I removed them and added a few bay leaves.  This was after about 20 minutes or so.  I then added the squash and potatoes.  After about 20 more minutes, I checked the vegetables to make sure they were tender.  I removed the bay leaves and added the corn, beans and the last of the peppers.  After about 10 minutes, I did a final tasting for seasoning and turned off the heat.  I wanted to add the cream and finish the chowder immediately before our writers arrived.  I was proud of the result and knew it was wonderful.

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The evening of our meeting, I put the pot on the stove over a medium heat and added the cream.  I stirred the chowder often and kept a close eye on it.  I wanted it to gently heat as the cream blended with the other ingredients.  Soon, the chowder was heated waiting for our group to convene.  I had decided to pair the chowder with fresh tamales from Mariachi’s, a local Mexican market.

It fed my soul to watch everyone fill their bowls enjoying the meal I prepared for them.  Jessica hugged me telling me it was delicious.  This meant a lot especially from someone who is a professional chef.  Conversation was as abundant as the chowder and I could feel the camaraderie of our group as we enjoyed our meal together.

 As I began to eat, I felt the tension of my day begin to leave me, replaced by the comfort of the creamy, spicy chowder.  The sweet corn and butternut squash blended with the spicy peppers to create a complexity of flavor that I so love.  The cream brought it all together, just as I intended.   I planned this meal for the comfort of my friends, but I have to say, the comfort was all mine!