THE PIE THAT ALMOST WASN'T

The plan was to have Thanksgiving dinner at a buffet. It seemed like a grand thing to do until it started to storm. Although the storm stopped, it was going to be cold and windy. We decided to eat at home, both of us would man the kitchen, dividing the jobs and helping each other as needed.

Before I go any farther, I must say there are two things I always have on hand. One is brownie mix and frosting and the other is makings for pumpkin pie. Sometimes I even have brownies in the freezer. And so when the plan changed, all I thought was needed was cranberries and croutons. Yes, I know, I should have checked.

The cranberries were popping in the kettle and the celery and onions were cooking in a little olive oil when I went to the pantry for pumpkin stuff. Much to my surprise, there was no pumpkin stuff!!! Now there are two days one must have pie. One is Tom's birthday and the other is Thanksgiving!

Okay, so, what DID we have? WE HAD CURRANTS!!! Maybe we could convert a recipe for old fashion raisin pie using currants.

One crust or two? ONE
Ice cream or whipping cream? Whipping cream.

WHAT? It calls for corn starch
WHAT? It calls for brown sugar

SUB flour for corn starch.
HOPE the brown sugar, double wrapped in bags was not a piece of a rock.

Tom kept watch on the boiling currants and water. The blender whirled the flour, cinnamon, brown sugar. We added the ingredients together.

THEN we looked at each other and questioned what the stick together ingredient was. We knew it had to cook because the crust was raw. The method and recipe off the Internet was not complete. We would find another recipe which called for eggs. If it calls for two eggs, three is even better, don't you think? The pie went in the oven and after opening the shutting the oven door a few times, it was ready! It really was pretty good. I know that because I just had a piece for breakfast.

Now let's talk about the turkey. Remember it was only a side of breast, bought a few weeks ago to 'have on hand'. And so Tom said, "I need something to get the turkey off the bottom of the roaster". The roaster he was using was mini and all the racks we had didn't fit. We rummaged through all the cupboards and cabinets looking for something. WHAT did we use? Metal cookie cutters; a star, a Santa, a gingerbread man! I love ingenuity, don't you? Yes, I know, we could have used a bigger roaster.

THEN there was the potato thing. Now when I do mashed potatoes, I use the same kettle and measure the number I cook by how it fills the bottom of the kettle. That gives us two servings plus a little more. Has anyone ever asked you how many potatoes to peel? What did you say? Tom wanted to allow for peeling so he added more. Well, we have some extra potatoes here! I use the mixer to whip them. He uses a masher. I add whipping cream and butter and danged if he didn't use skim milk. But since he was in charge of the potatoes, isn't it fair and right we could do them as he wished? Yes, it is fair.

Two hours from start to finish to prep and bake and boil and 10 minutes to eat. Sounds about right, doesn't it?

In regards to the pie: Next time, use brandy for the water to cook the currants. That is, if there is another time!

Now the question is, when will the current currants crap out? Or will they get stuck in pitted areas of our old intestines? BUT, there is a pill for that!

And how was your Thanksgiving?

IT JUMPED THE FENCE!!!

Ever since the bull crashed the fence at Joppru's during a rodeo when I was a kid, I haven't liked being in the stands during the bull riding, except I really like to watch it from the safety of the house. I saw on the news this morning that some bull jumped the fence and some folks got hurt. ALSO at a bull fight in some far away country, a black bull JUMPED the wall and got into the place where the matadors wait. I mean this bull was running hard when he cleared the fence. I did not know bulls could jump like that!

Joppru's was a meat market/sales barn in my home town. The rodeo area was fence with sheep fence; not very protective. The 'stands' were nail crates with 12 x 12's. How do I know all this? My grandfather set up the area every fall for the rodeo. Joppru was quite the promoter. He also added a pie and coffee counter in the sales barn, then later, served chili. (The chili was always burned).

It was a family operation and still is! Did his two sons, Don and Dean become butchers? If so, where were they trained? It was a great place to party and if the inspectors ever knew kids were making out between the swinging sides of beef, well, let's just say, the making out was Grade A.

The operation was out of the city limits and there was always one Sheriff car sitting on the road next to the entrance trying to nab curfew and kids who were drinking. Didn't happen, everyone would just curl up on a cutting counter, take a nap, and go home when curfew lifted at 6A.

I wonder what my folks though when I came home smelling like rancid animal fat and saw dust? They never asked and I never said, "Hey, I have been out at Joppru's making out in the swinging sides"!

Would you?

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DECIDED ON.................

The little cylinder which held the erasers has been adopted for a use.

Many replied.

Belly button lint
Pizza cheese
Smog
Needles
Nose hairs

The best use: Fill it with sunshine for a cloudy day.

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ONCE UPON A TIME

There was the Sherman Anti Trust Act. When learning about it, it seemed to mean corporations could not gobble up corporations. And so it was in my youth, that the Dine-A-Mite was independently owned and not bought out by Rex Cafe` which in turn bought out Kief's. There were separate of each other.

But now we have conglomerates.

This thought track started because of an article in Consumer Reports about people knowing they get much better glasses and service from independent optical dispensers than from 'box store glasses" Not a week goes by the Tom doesn't hear the story from someone who has bought cut rate glasses which just don't work and don't fit right.

The sad thing about it is, big companies are buying little optical companies not buy the spoon fulls but rather, by truck loads and what happens is the laboratories are being gobbled up too, making it difficult to get that really great new lens without being part of it.

Old Trunks is not going to throw around names of frame manufacturers, but what she is going to do is hand everyone a tissue because that 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act no longer seems to apply.

Think about this: Pepsi drinker? Brad's Drink, as it was called in 1890 is now a part of Frito-Lay, General Mills, Tropicana, and Quaker Oats. Aren't Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC part of this too? Is that why they serve Pepsi instead of Coke?

Does it matter to you?

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HOW DO YOU REFERENCE?

Old Trunks processes memories according the the sections in her life. And just what does that mean?

We all have eras in our life. For folks that move about, they may store their memories in, let's say...........New York, Ohio, California, all before college, college. Or maybe one does it by marriages, or best friends. Old Trunks clearly sees four, although with much discussion, perhaps it is really eight or even twelve. As I think about it, my childhood memories are stored with the many houses we lived in.

Nevertheless, like loaves of bread, there is something buttered on each slice during that era.

It makes a person wonder, if you could only have, let's say three great stories, or memories from each era, which would you choose? Perhaps we need five.

It makes one think about a story I heard from a friend lately. Now, the lady has a lot of color in her writing, the kind that you can picture each movement, know what I mean?

She shared about her Aunt coming to visit while her house was being painted. Aunt Shirley was allergic to paint. She used the reference, "when Bob and I lived @........... See, she was splitting off. Bob carved in his office. He also had a huge selection of all running chime clocks in his office as well as a stuffed raccoon with a snarl. This is where Aunt Shirley was to sleep. In the morning, two clocks and the coon where outside the door and the cuckoo clock had been stopped.

Now Old Trunks is wondering, how do people capture memories? Are people who remember the best grasping with all senses? If you can not taste or smell, does that cut back on how much you can remember?

Me thinks I am having a Mrs. Spock moment, pointed ears and all.

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PUZZLED

Can someone explain to me how a grown man driving a combine can run over a bear in a corn field?

Yes, it really did happen in Southern Minnesota recently.

I think the guy was talking on his cell phone. Who could miss a 320 pound bear?

Imagine that!

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MORN NING

You know how you wake up in the morning and your mouth is all warm and fuzzy inside and you say, MORN NING to someone? Ever do that?

Well, I started to think, is that what they say on the social network called NING? Do they say, "MORE NING" or do the owners or creators say, "Let's have more ning"?

That reminded me of a booklet I made for my daughter when she was little. I took construction paper and printed, for example: ATE. These sheets were covered with something she could write on with a crayon.

ATE Now, tell me, what words can you make out of ATE by putting a letter in front of it?

A B C D E F G H I J K L are you running it through your head?

That got me thinking. If NING is a word are A E I O U?

NANG
NENG
NING
NONG
NUNG



NING: Social Network
NONG: Foolish person
NANG: Excellent
NUNG: Tai Language

Now remember, you heard it here FIRST!

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THE KEEPING OF THE RECORDS

I may have laughed at Grandma Mae when she wrote the weather on the calendar every day. But I take it all back as I retire the 'fishing record' book which started as a way to find a caught and loss record of fishing for top water bass on Leech Lake while on vacation. As well as where the bass where.

The first entry is 8-9-08 on Leech at Black Duck. Followed by the letters T and E, circles, numbers with inches, species, and size.

Not that it means anything to the reader but:

East side of big rice
North side of big rice
Flat tree
Geese in the rice
Picture: Eagle flying
Cat tails

T: 10 E: 12

Yesterday, November 5, I retired the book.

Pickerel
Snow patches in ditches
40 degrees
Water Temperature 48
T: 2 E 3

How fun!!!

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SHEETS, NOT THE GHOST KIND

a picture posted by Old Trunks came back to haunt us. It isn't about sheets but it is about what about sheets?


The photo was of a large family, standing in front of a need-to-be-painted two story house. There was a sleigh and even more people. I suppose to get everyone into the picture, the photographer stepped into the next county. That is the way it was done, yet wouldn't it be great if one could SEE the people's faces? Let that be a lesson to all. Please.

Now what tickled me so was LLA posted the picture as her icon on Facebook. I have no problem with that because it wasn't my photograph to begin with and since I don't copyright, I am out of luck anyway, unless, of course, I screw up the picture with a stamp.

Now, I am not certain why LLA posted a notice that she liked Wamsetta sheets but it struck me funny that it was posted next to a picture of a zillion kids, a sleigh and a need-of-paint house. We may have to leave that in the mystery box.

My question was: Did those people have sheets? And when did sheets start, anyway? I could not imagine living in a Soddy in NW MN and having a loom big enough to weave them, besides cotton isn't grown this far north.

Old Trunks has since learned the first mention of sheets was for the wealthy back in the mid sixteen hundreds. It was learned that, once again, wealthy people had them on the east coast. The articles talked about the pillow cases being embroidered and were part of the hope chest. When is the last time you slept on a pillow case with fancy stitching and crocheting, for that matter?

It is wondered if these folks even had sheets, rather slept between quilts and by the looks of the house several quilts. OR perhaps someone gave them sheets--that is--handed them down. Maybe they where on the third set of users. Maybe they were really thin. Maybe they were patched.

There is nothing that smells better than sheets have been hung on the line in the winter and freeze dried then brought in and hung over clothes drying racks. Oh, can you smell that?

Personally, sheets have always been a part of my history. They were all flat then. The beds were changed on Friday--every Friday. The sheets were mangled, (ironed). Until I left home, I never slept on a sheet that wasn't ironed. What a shocker! Imagine, not ironed sheets? I am smiling because it really was a treat!

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