Good breakfast to you!

Some mornings are just plain old tough, aren't they?

I've had them, you've had them, even Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet magazine for ten years, has had them. 

She was in Seattle promoting a new cookbook when called to immediately return to NY, no reason given. There she found out, along with her staff, that Gourmet was finished--

                               on her watch.

That upset me to no end when I heard it, I who had read the magazine for decades, but it devastated Ruth.

"And so I did what I always do when I'm confused,

lonely, or frightened:

I disappeared into the kitchen."

I won't go into the long story here but last Friday evening at about 5:15 p.m. our beautiful darling Mason got out a gate left open and disappeared.

About 19 terrible hours later we found him, soaked to the skin, a muddy mess, scared to death, but alive and well.

I don't remember what RH and I had for breakfast on Saturday morning while Mason was lost, something grabbed before heading back out to comb the neighborhood again and then home to make waterproof posters for the street.

But Sunday morning dawned full of sunshine and rejoicings

because our Mason was home with us again.

After feeding Mason and Bree their special breakfast of chicken livers and broth--they had both had dental surgery the Monday before and were on soft foods--we thought about our own breakfast. 

And we craved comforting oatmeal. Ruth Reichl's Butter Toasted Apricot Oatmeal. We didn't have any apricots but golden raisins were fine instead.

"Butter-toasted oatmeal,

rivers of thick cream,

brown sugar.

Fresh orange juice;

Such fragrant hope."

On this first day of March, I'm thinking of a dear New Englander friend who has recently moved to North Carolina and been shocked to find pork chops, of all things, on the breakfast menus of restaurants in her new hometown.

Here's a little breakfast menu I found that early New Englanders would have eaten, girlfriend, by another New Englander:

"On these icy mornings we like a good breakfast.

I think with nostalgia of the early Americans 

who lived in this house.

I know what they had; they had pie!

Good, robust, flaky, rich, spicy apple pie.

Aside from this they ate only

ham, eggs, pickles, cheese, sausage,

pancakes and sirup and,

for Sunday, codfish balls."

Gladys Taber

The Book of Stillmeadow

the March chapter

Mason and Bree and I wish you all a March of 

good breakfasts,

whether it's oatmeal or pork chops or codfish balls!

A Silver Golf Trophy and Prejudice

What does a silver golf trophy have to do with prejudice?

I'm not talking about the prejudice some people have against the scent of hyacinths. Really, some people hate it.

I happen to love their scent, and one gift I can count on getting from RH in February is a potted purple hyacinth.

Even if I have to remind him.

And I'm not talking about the prejudice that most designers have against keeping the pretty paper they come wrapped in.

I realize that's supposed to be removed and moss draped artistically across the top instead. 

The prejudice I'm speaking of here is one I hope no longer exists today, not in this country.

When I spotted a tarnished silver golf trophy at a thrift store a couple of years ago when we were living in Florida, I quickly put it in my basket. It was half price Saturday and only $12.

When I got home and polished it I was able to make out the inscription on it:

Beauclerc Country Club

Golf Champions

Husband-Wife

1958

Away to Google I went and discovered that the Beauclerc Country Club was a historic Jewish country club in nearby Jacksonville. 

I immediately remembered a movie starring Gregory Peck where he was a journalist assigned to cover the subject of whether there was antisemitism in New York City.

Surely not, he felt. But once he went undercover, pretending to be Jewish himself, he found it everywhere including in Darien, Connecticut, the home of his new fiancée played by Dorothy McGuire.

One scene in the movie particularly surprised me. When Peck's character tries to register at a nice hotel he finds there are suddenly no rooms available to him. 

When I began researching the history of the Beauclerc community and the country club there, I found out that it was first established because the San Jose Country Club nearby would not accept Jews for membership.

Disturbing, isn't it? 

I hope that the movie Gregory Peck starred in in 1947, Gentleman's Agreement, helped change some of the prejudices in our country then. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Celeste Holmes), and Best Director (Elia Kazan).

I guess prejudices will always be with us. 

Hopefully not as much as in 1947. 


Added on 3/6/18:

I am so glad I ordered the book after posting earlier about the movie. I not only discovered an author I loved but learned so much more than the movie covered. 

The title, Gentleman's Agreement, makes sense now after learning that the unwritten agreement among wealthy Darien, Connecticut residents was that they would not sell property or houses to Jews. 

Anyone else catch the irony in this? Gentleman? What gentleman, I ask you?

However, the book also brings up the bad problem of prejudice in California at that time, only there it was "the Filipino thing and the Chinese and the Nisei and the Negro thing..."

In other words, all the people of a different skin color who were doing the actual work that white people didn't want to do. Does that sound familiar?

Prejudice is a complicated thing, isn't it? Are some prejudices not as bad as others? The author of this book, Laura Z. Hobson, also covered stories of prejudice among Jews towards other Jews, the wealthy ones who form their own "snazzy golf club" and then "blackball guys of Polish or Russian-Jewish stock. Meaning, anybody who looks good-and-Jewish."

That reminded me of stories I heard back before the Black is Beautiful movement in my early married life where African-Americans looked down on other African-Americans who had dark skin tone. Does this still exist? 

I know that even when I was in school in the early 1950s through early 60s, there were popular and unpopular kids in school, mostly because of looks or grades or economic level. That's something that I wonder will ever change. 

And I don't remember a single student in my schools being physically disabled.

All this was before the Americans With Disabilities Act. I watched a movie the other night about the man responsible for bringing about that Act and heard for the first time ever that back before the AWD Act that there was an Ugly Law--I kid you not. It gave restaurants and other businesses the legal right to refuse to serve you if you were too ugly in appearance, or too disabled. Because heaven forbid someone ugly disturbs the meals of customers.

Can. You. Imagine.

Back to the book. A conversation Phil was having with a few fellow co-workers included what I hope we would all come to feel about the only kind of prejudice any of us should have.

They brought up the question of wondering, now that Phil had completed his magazine series, "I Was A Jew for 6 Months," whether they were obliged to like all Jews, even those who behaved badly.

Sam says that he has "a God-given right to dislike any louse alive, Jewish, Mohammedan, or whatever."

They all decided that "antilousism" was an accepted -ism.

I agree, don't you? Forget every single prejudice against anyone unless they are just a no-good mean louse, whatever color or creed they come in.

Or is it prejudice to dislike a louse?

In that case I guess I'm prejudiced.

Breakfast for One

Visions of being the Beaver's mom rise up to make me feel guilty once again.....a perfectly set breakfast table,
                                                     for two.

Scrumptious weekend breakfasts I usually manage,
sometimes a blogworthy breakfast table......though usually
something like our vitamins and daily pills lurk,
                                                    unnoticed.

Weekday breakfasts? A pretty table for two? 
                                                   Get real.

Both of us sitting down together at the same time? 
                                                    Not likely.

Both of us eating the same menu? 
                                                  
His quick cooked oatmeal or fried baloney sandwich?
               Gag to the second and where oatmeal is concerned,
I am most particular...steel cut oats sautéd in butter and at last boiling water stirred in, cooked at least 20 minutes,
cinnamon, chopped dried apricots and walnuts added...
                                                     That's oatmeal.

For breakfasts I last longer when an egg is on my plate,
the egg sandwich Mama used to make me at the very least.

But my weekday breakfast indulgence happens when RH leaves me a sausage patty from his early breakfast...
                             from locally made Jake's country sausage.

A toasted sourdough English muffin from the Publix deli,
          the sausage on top,
                      a scrambled egg next,
                              a smear of mashed avocado
                                  topped with chopped jalapeno.

A side of fresh pineapple, please.

Breakfast for one, on the sofa, dogs sitting by me...
                                                   hoping a crumb will drop.

TV remote in my hand, no cable news, no news at all,
              no talk shows.

HGTV on, something I can walk away from shortly and
                        not become mesmerized, hypnotized,
                               energy zapped...
                                         temper rising.

That's a perfect weekday breakfast for me.

What about you?

Join me in your jammies and tell me

what your perfect breakfast for one is.

Please. Pretty please with sugar on it?

"My wife and I tried two or three times in the last

forty years to have breakfast together,

but it was so disagreeable we had to stop."

Winston Churchill

            

I need Red like Laurel needs Hardy.

I need Red like steak needs frites.

I need Red like strawberries need cream.

I need Red like fish need water.

I need Red like squirrels need nuts.

In short, I NEED RED!

Not just at Christmas but all year round. 

Over the Moon Chocolate Pie

Christmas was a blur to me after losing Otis and Milo and being sick myself so long.

I'm just now starting to play catchup.

I hope to post about our new dachshunds 

on Dewena's Window soon.

I feel badly that I've totally ignored the Window

but the good news is that Bree and Mason

are busy writing it for me.

Before all of Christmas escapes me,

I want to show a pie I made,

the only baking I did for Christmas.

It was from Southern Living magazine

and was called Over the Moon Chocolate Pie.

They based in on our state favorite--Moon Pies.

It calls for a Marshmallow Meringue topping and

I totally goofed it up.

The recipe said to cook the egg whites

(in a double boiler) only until the sugar dissolved.

I'm paranoid about raw eggs so cooked it and cooked it...

There were no raw eggs in my meringue,

but it was like eating saltwater taffy,

yummy and good exercise for your jaws.

Next time I'll trust the recipe--

or maybe I'll just make the delicious filling

on top of that wonderful crust and call it a day.

Or top it with real whipped cream, I mean REAL, folks.

 Have any of you ever made a marshmallow meringue?

And had it to succeed? 

Here's the link to Southern Living's recipe.

Frost Ferns

Frost ferns grow on glass here this morning when I open the kitchen door to let Bree and Mason out to go potty.

A sight I have not seen since a child living in Inglewood in a white clapboard two bedroom, one bath bungalow built after World War II, one of others along a street where the opposite side holds imposing pre-War brick homes.

I've lost count of the recent nights with single digit lows, faucets left to drip, frost on the storm door that opens to our kitchen porch. 

It is only this morning that ferns appear on the glass.

I could google this phenomena and tell you exactly what conditions cause this if I were so inclined. I'm not.

I grab my phone and snap pictures and call for RH to bring the camera.

I know the ferns won't stay long, and they don't.

But for a few moments we are lost in a magic world of crystal gardens that may never appear again.

The Snow Is Faling

"The snow is falling, silently, gently, beyond the panes.

Every branch is limned with snow.

There is no footprint across the wide lawn

among the great trees.

The field where the ground pine creeps is white

and the stone fence beyond it

is white also.

The woods are still and secret under the snow.

I have ever had the feeling that the

home of a true writer is in the 

center of a still snowfall,

where all his world is hidden,

so that he may discover it out of his own vision."

Nelia Gardner White

from The Pink House