Mrs. Deering's House

It's not just my house that I'm in love with, it's houses in general. I'm fascinated by them and the stories of the people who live in them. A novel rarely interests me if the house the main characters live in are not central to the story. Even though I was too young to have any memory of it, could that fascination for houses have been birthed when my mother and I followed my father around from one Air Force base to another during World War II, living with people who rented out a bedroom in their homes to service wives? All I know is that I have many clear memories of the houses we later lived in, or visited, when I was growing up. I remember colors of walls, furniture arrangements, dishes on the tables. I remember windows, Christmas trees, landscaping.

A vivid memory of when I was not yet four is a fond one. We were moving into our new house, a post-WW II cottage, and Mama and I were alone in the empty house as we waited for furniture to be delivered. We sat together on a blanket on the floor in the middle of the living room, the blanket like an island surrounded by the shiny hardwood floors, not a scuff mark on them. This has always been a completely satisfying memory.

The house was a two bedroom, one bathroom house, but my goodness, how many relatives we crammed into it when holidays and family visits took place. One time it was so full that an uncle slept in the bathtub and another one under the dining room table. So much cooking took place in the little kitchen and outside on the small patio where Daddy grilled in the summer. My parents were both from poor families that had lived through the Depression, but all were hardworking men and women striving for a better life for their own children. By the time I was in elementary school, our family was typical of many 1950s era families, upwardly mobile before the term had been thought of.

There appeared a television, a blonde oak dining room set, and, wonder of wonders, an air conditioner sitting in a hole cut especially for it in the living room wall. No longer did we swelter during the summer with a slight relief felt when we went to bed and, lights out, my father pulled down the attic steps and switched on the large attic fan that sucked out some of the hot Tennessee air, drawing in gentle breezes of coolish, damp night air to move across my sticky arms and legs in shortie pajamas until I could finally pull up the thin white cotton sheet from the bottom of the bed.

My early life was filled with visits to family and friends who lived in houses fairly similar to ours. Each homemaker of these houses, housewives they were always called in those days, kept a spotless house, served wholesome meals, sent their children to school dressed appropriately, and went to the store, church, or doctor dressed like the ladies they were. On the other hand, in my memory, not one of them had the kind of decorating style that made me want to grow up and copy it. That's the truth of it so forgive me, ladies, please?

Then came the day as a pre-teen that I visited a different kind of house. Mrs. Deering played the piano at our church and was quietly elegant with a heavy chignon that shone. I didn't know the names of the labels in her clothes and wouldn't have recognized them if I had, but when I grew up I realized that she was the epitome of "The Talbot Woman" when that used to mean a whole lot. My first visit to her house with a group of girls from our church was a revelation. It was my first impression of realizing that the house "fitted" its owner in a completely perfect way.

It was an old brick two-story and inside was one room after another of antique furniture that gleamed from years of waxing. Lamps were scattered around the rooms instead of harsh overhead lighting, vases held loosely arranged roses from the garden, interesting accessories were mixed with books on shelves, and there were oil paintings on the walls. I felt as if I were in a trance as she showed us through her house, my heart thumping. I distinctly remember thinking, "Oh, this is what a house can be like. I never knew."

Two other things remain in my memory. In the master bedroom Mrs. Deering showed us how their bed, the spread made of a dull satiny material, swung apart at the footboards so that the linens could be changed and yet latched together at night. This was, you must remember, the day when married couples, always on television shows and movies, and often in real life, slept in twin beds. As our hostess showed us their bed, she smiled sweetly and told us, "I didn't get married to sleep three feet away from my husband."

Ro-man-tic!

The second thing that knocked my bobby sox off was that she served our group of young awkward girls a full nine-boy chicken curry lunch. It smelled divine and even those of us who were all elbows rose to the occasion and daintily served ourselves the chicken on top of the fluffiest riceI'd ever tasted, and next took tiny servings of the condiments of chopped peanuts, raisins, coconut, chutney (I'm betting it was Major Grey), apples, bananas, pineapple, and I can't remember what else.

It was the first time that I understood that food could be more than the sum of its components. It could look pretty, taste of foreign lands and foreign spices, and be served by a hostess who wanted to give young girls something to remember, maybe even something to aspire to.

From the day I visited Mrs. Deering's house I have had a love affair with houses. So much so that I dream about them. My most recurring dream has been one with different variations where I walk through my house, sometimes the one I'm presently living in, sometimes a former home, often a totally strange house but I know it's mine. And invariably I open a door and discover a new room that I never had known was there. Have you ever had a dream like that? It was not until I read Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun that I found out other women have these dreams too.

"I dream of former houses I've lived in, or finding rooms I didn't know were there.

Many friends have told me that they, too, have this dream...In house after 

house (my best friend's in high school, my childhood home),

I open a door and there is more than I knew."

Think of that!

I may not remember what someone is wearing if they invite me to their house, but I will remember each room I saw. And I will always remember Mrs. Deering's house. It may not have been quite as large as this one, but in my memory this is the way it looked.

Was the house you grew up in similar to what you wanted to live in as an adult? Or was there one you saw when you were growing up that made you think: "So this is what a house can be like."

To Sisters

I have all of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's journals--I must have read each one at least a dozen times over the years--and every book written about her that I could find, especially those written by her daughter Reeve. I think she was the most extraordinary woman of my lifetime, and my admiration for her knows no end. This paragraph is from her Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead and is from a letter to her younger sister Constance written in January of 1930.

"I want an open fire and a room full of flowers--spring flowers--against the gray windows

long window boxes of narcissus and daffodils 

and a big flip jar of fresh white freesias on the table in the middle of the room.

And red tulips where the firelight will reflect in them.

And bookcases up to the ceiling and two large roomy desks and you at one of them,

and Daffin in front of the fire.

And for lunch (on a yellow tablecloth with mimosa in the center)--

and we would make it ourselves--

clear (canned) soup and a poached egg apiece,

and FRESH asparagus on toast,

and you would read me your latest story."

Lindbergh ends with this last sentence. May I claim it for my own to my three younger sisters, Deb, Teresa, and Jenn? We have poured out our hearts to each other this past week in emails, and I understand how Anne Morrow Lindbergh yearns for her sister and writes this:

"I love you and I miss you..."

A Properly Made Bed

No, this is not going to be a tutorial on how to properly put sheets on a bed. Martha Stewart, I'm not.

Did you ever hear someone say, "He's made his bed, now he'll have to lie in it"? Have you ever wished  someone had said that to you when you were young--and that you had listened to them?

The new year has just begun. It is the time of new beginnings. It may look like this outside:

But in a few months it will look like this:

One of the wisest things I've ever read in a novel was in a 1951 book called Shoulder the Sky by D.E. Stevenson, Robert E.'s cousin. A shepherd in the hills of Scotland happens across the cook's son, hiding in the opening of a cave, reading a book, a truant from school.

"Now listen," said Daniel gravely. "Just you listen to me and I'll tell you something worth remembering. When we're young we make our beds and when we're older we have to lie on them. I'd make myself a comfortable bed if I were you--straight and tidy with the blankets well tucked in at the foot--then it'll not come adrift when you lie in it. If a bed's not properly made at the start the blankets'll maybe fall off in the night and you'll wake up shivering."

A child could learn in a few short months to make his bed properly. It might take a grownup a little longer but I'm going to give it a try because I don't want to wake up shivering next winter.

If you have been shivering a little lately from the cold, the flu, from bad news all around us, you might like to visit the blog I visited earlier through Cozy Little House's Welcome Wagon Friday. It's name is My Cottage On the Lake and the blogger had some lovely ideas for finding beauty all around us. Beauty is always good when you're trying to make your bed properly.

http://mycottageonthelake.blogspot.com 

"What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?"

A year ago, with a pile of vegetables to wash and chop, I turned on television to the last hour of a mostly forgettable movie. Two lines of the theme song were not so forgettable. They haunted me in the way that a song can where you think of it before going to sleep and the first thing upon awakening. Don't you hate it when this happens? This time it seemed important so I paid attention.

It went: "What are you doing the rest of your life? North and south and east and west of your life?"

I don't remember who was singing it in the movie because right away it became Frank Sinatra's voice in my mind singing straight to me: "Dewena, what are you doing the rest of your life?"

Weird, huh?

I emailed my sisters one of our Sister Letters, telling them about the music and the lines haunting me, challenging me. In turn, I asked them the question, "What are you doing the rest of your life?"

A dialogue opened up. One sister who had left a stressful career of decades wrote back that everyone told her to now do what she loved to do but she told them: "I do not know what I love. I have been too long at the rat race."

Isn't that the most frustrating of all? To finally be given time to do the things you love but you don't know exactly what it is you love to do? She wrote that she thought the song might be a message for her too.

A few days later our other two sisters joined in, one saying she couldn't get the song out of her mind, that it did cause her to reflect on the future.

The other sister jokingly fussed at me: "What are doing the rest of your life? Darn you (only she didn't say darn) for making us think! No, thank you, that was so good and so needed. I am working hard on that."

Somehow I think the first line of that song has stuck with us, focusing us, probably frustrating us too when other pressing personal responsibilities give us absolutely no time to pursue things that we would like to spend our time doing.

It made me determined to find more time to write. I began researching self-publishing as that seemed to be the only way I'd ever get published. For years, scribbling, scribbling, always scribbling. One short story and one magazine article published, then years of writing novels, never daring to submit them after the first rejection, too much fear of trying to promote them if one had been accepted. It was in the writing process that I found joy, not for me the search to publish, the marketing, phone calls, meetings. Rejection.

And yet as I heard Frank Sinatra's voice in my mind over and over, I realized that I wanted something more than just writing my stories. My sisters had suggested that I write a blog but I shied away from the idea because of the tech knowledge required. Still, I was spending chunks of my evenings enjoying my favorite blogs. Could I do it too? I knew if I did it could only be about what I knew--our house here and our life in it and my passion for houses and the stories of people who lived in them.

There is a quote from Diana Vreeland that sums up why I read about houses and the lives of the people who live in them, in books and on blogs. I feel strange quoting the esteemed editor-in-chief of Vogue from 1967-1971--can you imagine the expression on her face if she heard that I was presuming to quote her?--but when I first read what she wrote I said, "Yes, yes, yes!"

"Few things are more fascinating than the opportunity to see how other people live

during their private hours--in rooms they love, gardens they have planted,

among their personal possessions, pursuing their favorite interests,

enjoying their domestic arrangements to fit the pattern of their individual lives."

Isn't that what we bloggers write about, our own and others domestic arrangements? So I dropped "Across the Way" into the big pool of blogs for the sheer joy of it, trying not to care whether a small ripple appears and possibly grows or not. As an amateur I plod ahead writing posts, begging R.H. to take just one more photograph, trying to visit my blog roll friends and others faithfully, leaving applause for them, comforted and inspired by my visits to them, often astounded at the sheer talent out there,  rejoicing with their good news and often crying at their sad news.

Sometimes I get a little discouraged when there is so little response to mine. Then I remember how for one year and nine months, after I discovered the world of blogs, I read them daily, loving new discoveries, and yet never daring to follow or comment because that dreaded message would pop up wanting me to open a google account and I had no idea what that was about.

So, to any readers who might be reading this blog and never comment--and I have had two lovely emails from people who told me they were among my "silent" readers--and to those wonderful blogging friends I have made in the last two months, and to my family who check in regularly to see what Mom/Grandma/Mimi/Sister has to say, part of what I will do in 2013 is write on this blog.

I encourage myself with this much appreciated quote from G.K. Chesterton: "A thing worth doing at all is worth doing badly."

I like to think that the song, "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life," written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman--does their little tune "The Way We Were" sound a tiny bit familiar to you?--gave me the courage to attempt something risky, something different, something that will matter to me and might to someone else. For anyone who has given their valuable time to read through this long post, I would like to challenge you to ponder this question as 2013 is just beginning:

"What are you doing the rest of your life?"

If you feel like writing about it here in a comment I would certainly like to read it, but more importantly, just keep it in your heart. And please don't get mad at me if you can't get Frank Sinatra's voice out of your mind.

[I just tried to do a link here to Old Blue Eyes singing this song on Youtube but it failed. I am so tech challenged.]

How Is Your Breakfast Conversation?

How is your family breakfast table conversation? For that matter, what does your family talk about around the dinner table?

Is it lively, with everyone tossing pebbles into the conversational pool? Or is the television on with everyone facing it? If the kids have grown up and left home, what do you talk about at the table? I really want to know because R.H. and I have settled into a habit of the television being our honored guest.

At breakfast I like to flip back and forth between the network news shows while R.H. prefers cable news. At supper I'd prefer House Hunters while he'd still prefer cable news or a football game or something from the Military channel. That's why I keep a book on the table to prop up before me.

A couple of years ago I made an effort one morning to turn off the television and have good conversation at the table after reading Leslie Brenner's fascinating book, American Appetite. A Frenchman that she interviewed told her, "It's boring to dine in America--there's nothing going on. In France, they're totally inseparable, dining and talking. Why does lunch on Sunday at my parents' house go on for three hours...? Because people are talking."

Here is what I remember of our conversation after we ate silently for a few minutes, watching the birds, squirrels and chipmunks feeding outside the glass doors.

Me, in sentimental tone: "I've been reading the early 1950's diaries of that Washington D.C. man about their first trip to Florida. They took two weeks and traveled down the east coast and back up the west coast, and it just really gives the flavor of the 'old' Florida. It's so neat."

R.H., in loud furious excited tone: "I know. Damn foreigners, they ruined Florida. Blah, blah, blah..."

Me, screeching: "Stop! Stop! I was just trying to have a civilized conversation. I don't want to listen to a broken record."

R.H., sulking: "Well, we just won't talk then."

That went well, don't you think?

Of course, I know that nothing like that ever happens at your house. And if it does, we can always blame it on that monster television for destroying the American family. But did it, really? If so, why did M.F.K. Fisher write this chilling description in the May 1948 issue of House Beautiful?

"...our boulevards are lined with an infinity of bad eating houses

filled with dead-faced people placed like mute beasts in their stalls."

What? Do you really think these mute beasts went home to a good home-cooked meal, angelic children around the table and suddenly turned into Ozzie and Harriet, conversation flowing like a merrily babbling brook? Maybe so. I know that when our grown children and their spouses are here for a meal, there's rarely a pause in the conversation. I love those meals. They take ages because no one wants to leave the table and yet I know that I eat less then than when it's just me and R.H. here alone, with the television on.

Easy, you say? Simply turn off the television? We did that this morning when we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of my homemade buttermilk pancakes that you've seen the pictures of here. But then we also had the Sunday newspaper to read.

What did we talk about, though? I'm trying to remember.

Oh, yes, we talked about how wonderful the Texas red grapefruit were, that we only get them this time of the year so we had to enjoy them now and about how Kroger's had them on sale now so we needed to go back for more. Fascinating conversation.

Lest I forget, we also talked about how much we like using the old Bakelite grapefruit knives to cut through the membranes. I had to get that in so you would look in the pictures to see them.

Seriously, what do you other empty-nesters talk about at breakfast or supper? Help us out here, pretty please. A new year begins soon. I would like for 2013 to bring more conversation to our table. Fair warning, young married couples: you'll be facing this question someday. Listen in or offer your advice to us. Go ahead, don't be shy.

(Don't worry, R.H. is not only the cameraman of this blog, he reads my rough drafts too. We won't get our feelings hurt. Well, he won't anyway.)

Carne Mechada

"I've spent most of my life doing kitchen battle, feeding others and myself,

torn between the desire to escape and the impulse to entrench myself further...

For even as I chafed at kitchen confinement, cooking had begun its long conquest of me.

Food had infiltrated my heart, seduced my brain,

and ravished my senses."

Betty Fussell in My Kitchen Wars

Betty Fussell, despite her sometimes ambivalence toward cooking, reached heights I have never attainted. And I'm certainly not going to at this stage of my life. But darn it, I keep thinking I can. Food memoirs like hers are among my favorite reading. Cookbooks are not only in my kitchen but beside my bed to be read like novels. I do keep trying but never more so than at Christmas. One recipe never fails and only gets made, for some reason, at Christmas. It is called Carne Mechada and my notes say it is from the November 1969 issue of Redbook. I no longer have the magazine but I remember the lovely young married woman the magazine featured in that issue because I have made it so many times since then. Here is the recipe, along with pictures that Defee took of the preparation.

Note: I usually double this recipe, but this time doubled it again...using 4 eyes of round!

Carne Mechada

1 beef eye of round roast

1 3 oz. jar pimento-stuffed olives, drained, sliced

1/4 lb. bacon, diced

1 medium-sized onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped fine

1 tablespoon drained capers

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 box Rachel Ray Beef Broth

1 8 oz. can tomato sauce

1. Using a knife with a long, narrow sharp blade, cut a triangle shaped tunnel in roast.

2. Mix together olives, bacon, onion, garlic, capers, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper in bowl.

3. Stuff this mixture tightly into tunnel and save meat that is cut out to add later.

4. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat and sear roast on all    

     sides.

5. Remove from heat and slice into 3/4" slices. [R.H. uses an electric knife for this where most of the stuffing stays in the slices.]

     

6. Keeping roast together, return slices to the Dutch oven, adding the meat that was tunneled out.

7. Mix together the tomato sauce and beef broth and pour around the roast.

8. Cook, tightly covered, over low heat about 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until meat is fork-tender.

[Note: Since I fixed 4 of these roasts for our family Christmas party, I put all 4 in my large roasting pan, covered the meat with parchment paper and then covered the pan with aluminum foil, crimping the edges tightly. Then I used the "bridge burner" function and cooked these over the front and back burner. Normally, when I do 2 of these roasts, I use my large Le Cruset Dutch oven.]

If you want to thicken the sauce into a gravy, remove the slices to a serving platter and keep hot. Bring juices to a boil and stir in 1/3 cup flour mixed with 1/2 cup cold water, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Serve gravy with the sliced roast. I didn't do that this year, and yes, the sauce spread over the plate, but since I serve this with mashed potatoes it didn't seem to stop anyone going back for seconds and thirds. 

I did the garlic mashed potatoes with olive oil this year, for the lactose-intolerant family members, and left out any butter or milk. I also cooked frozen petite green peas with sautéed scallions and College Inn Culinary Broth/White Wine and Herbs. Instead of making the homemade mashed potato rolls that I used to do, this year I used the frozen Bridgeford yeast rolls, letting them rise for 4 hours. They were almost as good as homemade. And for a salad I fixed my standby large crowd salad of scoring English cucumbers deeply with a silver fork, slicing them diagonally and spreading out on a pretty platter, sprinkling chopped scallions over, chopped parsley, and topping with a simple olive oil and vinegar vinaigrette. 

I start making the Carne Mechada 4 hours early!

Then it was on to desserts, of which we only had pictures of the Viennese Sandwich Cookies I make every year. 

I have enjoyed seeing many of my blog friends Christmas dinners and hope you enjoy ours. Is your kitchen battle over for the holidays or will you have a big crowd for New Year's Eve? And then the Super Bowl cooking is not far off. 

People have to eat, don't they? And someone has to feed them!

     

So Fleeting

When we're children it seems that Christmas will never get here. We grow up and wait for it more patiently. At some point we realize that waiting is part of the gift of Christmas. R.H. and I waited a bit more impatiently this December because for the first time a new granddaughter would be coming here to celebrate Christmas with us. The day finally came and she arrived at Mimi and Pawpaw's house for the very first time.

There was a night of getting to know sweet Nora after not having seen her in several months, and of visiting with our son Defee and his wife Wallace after Nora went to sleep. The next morning we all spent the day getting ready for the rest of the family to come for dinner--and of trying to hold and play with little Nora every chance we got. And of taking pictures, lots and lots of pictures!

Wallace made the punch, Oprah's Vanilla Citrus Punch.

And R.H. took more pictures.

With Wallace's help, R.H. and I made Carne Mechada, four eyes of round stuffed with a mixture of chopped olives, onions, capers and bacon. Defee made pictures of this whole process and I will try to post those pictures and the recipe in a couple of days as it has always been a hit with our family. Meanwhile, R.H. took more pictures.

How could he resist that face? I'm sure you can guess that he took lots more, but we won't post all of them here. And soon other family members came, all except for grandson Luke who couldn't make it, and for Christy and Bryan who couldn't make the trip from Florida this time.

Grandson Alex arrived.

Grandson Drake came, and got stuck taking a picture with me.

Drake's brother Caleb came.

Their parents Gurn and Teen came and R.H. was so busy catching a quick photo of my camera-shy daughter-in-law, which is very cute, that Gurn is only in a tiny part of it.

 Zack and Laura came, but poor Bentley had to stay at home this time, what with a new baby in the house. (Bentley is our beautiful English Bulldog granddoggie.)

Sorry, Bentley, but even our Brown-Eyed Boy had to curl up in a nest outside the glass doors, and be content to look into the kitchen. Wallace said that his eyes look as if a person was in there, and she is right...there is. A person with a very old sweet soul.

The table got set and the food all prepared somewhere along the way. Would you like to see a picture of my pretty Christmas table?

See, I have been studying all my blogger friends like Laurie who do beautiful table settings. Now I must admit that I have only managed to accumulate 4 of these beautiful chargers to go under my Spode Christmas tree and the gorgeous, if I do say so myself, cranberry red and white Spode plates that I put on top of them. So for the real dinner we used only the Spode Christmas Tree plates. Maybe next year?

After desserts of my Viennese Sandwich cookies, custard chess tarts, and Costco's Red Velvet Cake, the evening wound down and eventually everyone went home except for Nora, her daddy Defee, her mommy Wallace, R.H. and I. We went to bed.

And do you know what came next? The next day they went home so that Nora could have her first Christmas in her own home.

Such good times but so fleeting. And I feel so bleak and bereft.