Pat Eby

I Say It's My Birthday

Illustration by Pat Eby, copyright 2011 

When I was a kid, I counted the days each August until my birthday, so anxious was I to grow up. Friends similarly age-encumbered tell me they harbor mixed feelings about their natal day.

Some sail through on puffs of candle smoke and stay sweet as buttercream frosting throughout. Others grouse weeks before, because “there’s nothing to celebrate.” More than a few prefer to forget the day. To the grouses and the glum ones I say, “Grow up. You’re entirely too old to complain.”

What’s so bad about living long enough to understand the world doesn’t revolve around you? It’s freeing to pass sixty years and realize it’s a slip-and-slide to the finish, unless you live in some goat-herding village, swill kefir and eat garlic daily so you can live to a hundred and fifty. To do what? Watch goats gambol?

Here’s some advice 

Those over sixty should give advice sparingly because nobody likes an old know-it-all.

Love yourself. If you’ve lived this long and nobody has killed you, it can’t be too hard.

Strengthen bonds within your family, if it isn’t too dysfunctional. Or, make money off them like Augusten Burroughs did with his tell-all memoir.

Surround yourself with good friends. Make sure some of them aren’t anything like you so you remember we all have different gifts.

Make dates with yourself and keep them. Find joy in solitude.

Do the things you enjoy. Don’t put off fun. Make time.

See new things, read new books, hear new sounds. When we create new memories, we’re not boring friends and family with re-runs. Plus, new pictures, sounds and feelings add to our inner slide show.

Have you heard this? Every old person holds the image of a younger self inside his or her aging body. Now I know why my dad nearly sparkled when he took his best girl, my mom, out on a date. She drove. He couldn’t see a thing, but in his mind’s eye, he was one handsome devil, and a remarkably pretty woman pushed his wheelchair.

Keep your mind and heart open to the possibility of love. Need I say more?

If you make a mistake now, you’ll have less time to regret it. Plus, you’ll probably forgive yourself sooner.

Remember, it’s never too late to give in to temptation. Start with your birthday cake.That wasn’t the image I conjured when I thought about temptation, but it’s a start. Take an end piece. Hell, put ice cream on it.

Celebrate, enjoy.  See yourself reflected in the good wishes of friends.

You say it’s your birthday?

Happy birthday to you!!

 

 

 

 

Spending Less, Appreciating Life More

 
Economic downturn. The two words seem almost benign from the distance of two years, but I remember my fear, and the sense of hopelessness and loss I felt when markets fell and jobs disappeared. The whammy of losing so much in a few short weeks helped me focus my thinking and created profound changes in how I work, spend and save. I’m grateful. Still worried, but thankful for my shell-out-less, enjoy more life.

So when fellow food writer Joe Bonwich interviewed Erin Chase, the $5 Dinners gal, I resonated with the read. The value of How to Feed Four on $5 goes beyond recipes for me because Chase makes the case for considered spending. She provides practical suggestions for cutting food costs, but she prods us to think about what and how much we consume as well.

The article led me to Chase’s blog to see more of the woman behind the words. The blog’s heavy on bells, whistles, videos and ads, but goddess bless a woman who’s able to turn her smarts into dollars.

So, start with Joe’s fun article, then visit Erin Chase online and fork out less for food, starting now.

Bill Bryson, a History of Private Life, and a Simple, Inexpensive Recipe for Potato Soup

 

 

Bill Bryson could write a history of dentistry in gloriously gory detail and I’d read it, squirming. He’s that   good. His latest book, At Home, A Short History of Private Life, came back with me from the library, solidly hardbacked and screamingly red.

Here’s what I love about reading Bryson. He shows how stories surround us, even in our everyday lives.  
 
He grabs an idea, fleshes it out with telling details and hooks me right into whatever subject he’s exploring. A Walk in the Woods; Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail remains my favorite Bryson book, but At Home delivered a whomping good tale, well told.   

He didn’t pile up miles as he did on the Appalachian Trail, rather, room by room, he investigates the very English Victorian parsonage he calls home in Norfolk County for this quirky book.

As Bryson wanders from attic to basement, parlor to scullery, history unfolds at his feet in the wood, the bricks, in concrete, paint and pipes. He unites disparate entities, like the evolution of upholstered furniture and the emergence of the dining room, with ease, competency and perfect prose.

He got me thinking about potatoes, and by extension, soups. I knew potatoes came to Europe from the Americas in the misguided hunt for rare spices in the 1500s, but I didn’t know the lowly spud was so highly prized by indigenous peoples.

Bryson recounts “. . . An Incan of five hundred years ago would have been able to identify varieties of potato in much the same way a modern wine snob identifies grapes.” Wow. He further explains the Incas cultivated over 150 varieties, few of which made it to the New World. The Quechuan language still contains over a thousand words to describe potatoes. The word Hantha, Bryson wrote, describes a potato past its prime but still edible. Now I know what to call the bearded ones that sometimes nest in my cupboard.

So when my local market sold potatoes for fifty cents a pound, a stalk of celery and three pounds of onions for one dollar each, I made soup. Sales and coupons always figure into my menu planning and food budget. My dollars stretch further, preparing food nurtures my soul and eating a home-cooked meal makes me appreciate my time at home.

Pair the soup with crusty artisan bread, a bit of butter, some cheese and a few olives. Toss in a ripe pear for dessert. White wine, two-buck chuck, of course. You’ll still spend under three dollars per person for a great lunch or dinner.

As always, the St. Louis Public Library enriches my life. Holding a new hardcover book makes me feel rich. The opportunities to keep up with favorite writers no matter the number in my bank account can’t be beat. When I read Bill Bryson, I laugh, I learn and I’m inspired to write. Always.

  

Bargain Potato Soup

Yield: 4 dinner servings

3 large stalks celery (approx. 1 ¾ cups chopped)

2 large carrots (approx. ¾ cup chopped)

1 large yellow or white onion, not sweet (3” in diameter; approx. 2 cups chopped)

2 large cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 to 5 red potatoes (approx. 3 cups chopped)

2 ½ to 3  cups water or stock or broth (chicken, vegetable or ham stock)*

½ teaspoon salt**

1 cup corn (optional)***

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup 2% milk

Flat leaf Italian parsley for garnish

salt and pepper to taste

1. Trim and chop celery, peeled carrots and onion in a 3/8” dice.
2. Heat the olive oil in a three or four quart heavy saucepan until the oil begins to shimmer. Add the onion, carrots and celery and cook over medium high heat, stirring often, for 10 to 12 minutes. Nothing should brown. The onion will be translucent and soft.
3. Peel and finely mince the garlic cloves. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and add the minced garlic to the celery, carrots and onion. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes.
4. Peel and chop the potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Add to the pot, then add the water or stock until the vegetables are covered with about ½ inch over the vegetables. Add salt. Set heat to medium, cover, then cook for 25 to 30 minutes until the potatoes are fork-tender.
5. Add the corn. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook, uncovered as you make a simple white sauce.
6. In a separate pan, melt the butter over medium low heat. Add the flour and stir into a smooth mixture. Slowly add the milk, whisking or stirring as you go. Cook until the sauce begins to thicken.
7. Drizzle the white sauce into the potato soup, stirring constantly, until the sauce incorporates. Mix well. The soup will thicken and get creamy.
8. Ladle out soup. Top with parsley. Serve immediately with good bread, sweet cream unsalted butter or cheeses.

* The aromatics in this soup are strong enough to use plain water, but for flavor variations try adding stock or broth. If I use stock or broth, I’ll use half water and half stock. Personal preference.

** If you use canned broth, reduce the salt to ¼ teaspoon.

*** It’s your soup. If you like spinach, broccoli or cauliflower, add some. One friend gently folds in leftover baked sweet potatoes, diced, after the cream sauce is added

 

 

 

The Pleasure of Reading Judith Jones

This past winter when the house kept chill even though the furnace chugged non-stop I snugged in most nights with good library books, my cat Chester and my two dogs, the good Princess and the valiant, but errant, Bitsy. I don't think I've mentioned how my library enriches my life, at the same moment tames my book-buying monster, thereby keeping more money in my pocket, but I digress.

Because I write about food, I read books about food, including more cookbooks than the average library patron. The brassy ones, over-sized and slick with lush color photos and flashy recipes, make good living-room reading. Paperback and spiral bound books tote light for good coffee shop fare. Some cookbooks heft like novels--hardbound, smaller pages, easy to hold. These I usually read in bed, a lagniappe after a hard day.

The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones fits the read-in-bed-category. The cover, with its lush color photo of a perfect souffle, seduced me from the new books display at the library. Budgeting a tight food dollar works better when I eat at home. Plus, I love to cook. It's a ritual, a connection to process, food and flavor I enjoy, but cooking for one presents challenges. I wondered what Judith Jones might have to say about making the solitary chore of cooking  a pleasure. What a find.  

The writing engages and teaches as Jones moves through the tasks of planning, shopping and cooking meals that not only satisfy hungers, but feed the soul. The type choices, layouts, photos and signature motifs make reading a visual delight, too. The delicious outcome, wasting not ingredients and wanting not for fabulous taste. Leftover no more, Jones transforms the extras into new and fabulous meals.

For example, she cooks a small roast larger than a one sitting meal, but she morphs the extras into a salad topped with sliced beef the following night and a wonderful hash for day three. She instructs so well how to think about cooking for one I've made my own triple-threat winning menus using her process.

I like best how Judith Jones  personalizes the everyday experience of cooking. The photos of her Vermont kitchen, worn and comfortable as favorite jeans. Shots of the 86-year-old Judith in the rich patina of age and not the blush of youth we see more often. Seeing her old hands preparing food moved me.

I don't often see good representations of the really old in any media. Old age seems invisible in our culture. Since I'm headed that way myself, with any luck and continued good health, I'd like to see more women like Judith Jones featured in print and media.I know we're out there.

Most of us aren't legendary editors like Jones. I'll leave you to your own devices to suss out her past. I'm headed next for her book The Tenth Muse to prolong my Jones fix. I'm searching for other works by older women exploring the territory of old age, the final frontier.

Let me know what ou think of Judith Jones and I'll enter your name in a drawing for a copy of The Pleasures of Cooking for One to be held June 30th. Comment on this or any other blog post to enter and good luck.