Saturday, May 27, 2017

Things I Do Not Know And Things I Did Not Do

I did not make pickles today although I did get out the canning kettle. I began to peruse my recipes and realized that my dill seed was a bit old and that I didn't have enough of it anyway. Also, I probably need more pickling salt. And I might as well get more jars while I'm at it. And lids and bands.
But besides that, I have everything I need!
Haha.
I want to make dill pickles and I also want to make fourteen day pickles. Fourteen day pickles are called fourteen day pickles because it takes fourteen days to make them. It's an investment in time and cucumbers and sugar and they are terrible for you but so what? They are delicious. There is no candy on earth as sweet as these pickles plus they also have a ton of salt in them which makes them even more toxic. I should make some mustard pickles with onions and green beans and maybe I will. When I was a good hippie woman I used to make all sorts of pickles and preserves and canned sauces and I know I've discussed this before but at one time I did all of this and had no air-conditioning so it was like 129 degrees in the kitchen as jars bubbled away and vinegar simmered on the stove and I filled up the sink washing things I had grown before I sliced or diced or did whatever I had to do to them before I packed them into hot jars, poured simmering vinegar or whatever over them, put their lids on and canned them.
Then I moved to town and didn't have much of a garden and went to nursing school and met Mr. Moon and got married and had two more kids and got back into the gardening business and sometimes did a little preserving or pickling on the side but I've never filled up the kitchen the way I used to back when I was in my young twenties.
Which is fine. I am not a Mormon.
I am still a hippie though, in my own way.
Which is all to say that I did not make any pickles today.

I did do a lot of laundry and hung it on the line and finished Maggie's dress except for the buttons and buttonholes and also, I sort of want to do a little simple embroidery on it. I may not, though, as it is a summer dress and summer is only going to last for about another six months and if I start embroidering it might take longer than that.
I don't know.
I don't know shit.

I do know that I am making spaghetti for supper. Not pasta but spaghetti. The kind with hamburger and onions and garlic and peppers and tomatoes and sauce. Like your mama used to make but not really. If you are my age, you probably grew up eating your mama's spaghetti at least once a week and if your mama was like my mama, spaghetti may have been one of the best things she made. Every woman had her own spaghetti recipe and I believe they all included a pound of hamburger, a can of tomato sauce and a can of tomato paste. At that time, no one had thought to make spaghetti sauce and put it in jars although Hunts may have had a canned sauce. I don't know. My mother's spaghetti sauce was fairly exotic in that she put a drop of Tabasco sauce in it. Only the one drop because Tabasco was considered to be nuclear in its hotness. Two drops surely would have melted our tongues. That bottle of Tabasco was brown because it had been in the cabinet so long. One drop a week doesn't do much to use up even the tiny bottle of Tabasco which is what my mother's was. And of course, there was always the green can of Kraft Parmesan "cheese" on the table when spaghetti was served.
Well, that's a tale from long ago and I would be interested to hear how your mama made spaghetti. I even knew a woman who used a can of tomato soup in her sauce and I have to tell you, it wasn't bad sauce. Of course, I was about sixteen years old when I ate it so what did I know?
I didn't know anymore then than I do now which means I didn't know shit.

Well. Here's a picture of August that Jessie just sent me.


He is getting so big. He'll probably be playing Carnegie Hall by the end of the summer or maybe the Opry House in Nashville. Either one or both. He may also be potty trained but maybe not. We shall see. 

Mick's out calling the girls to bed. A rooster's job is never done. Do you suppose that the derivation of the word "rooster" comes from the word "roost" and the male chicken's job of getting the hens to come in to it every night? 
Golly. I can't believe I never thought of that. 

See? I don't know shit. 

Love...Ms. Moon


27 comments:

  1. August holds that violin like he was born to it. Such a cute picture. I know you miss that boy.

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    1. Oh, I do miss him. And his mama and his daddy too. But isn't it wonderful that he's surrounded by musicians in Asheville? And cousins? And another loving grandmother and grandfather? I'm holding on to that and knowing he's a lucky boy.

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  2. My mother when she deigned to cook at all made spaghetti with barely cooked I.e. crunchy noodles and ketchup. Ugh. She was raised with nannies and maids and never bothered to learn though she was food obsessed and not in a good way. And of course the Kraft Parma-Powder. I too have always canned when I have had a garden. This year yes. I can't wait to make dilly beans. XO

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    1. I need to make dilly beans too. I will not comment on your mother except to say that she is gone and I am glad.

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  3. ps. Oh dear big that violin 🎻 be still my heart!!!

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  4. ps.ps. Bog not big. I am much too trembly to type.

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    1. I knew what you meant. Isn't that a beautiful picture? That boy is surely going to play music. Maybe. I hope. His parents met in a mandolin workshop. Remember?

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  5. My mom made spaghetti with the hamburger, tomato sauce and tomato paste but she added a jar or every spaghetti sauce on the market. (Prego, Catelli, Ragu...) back in hot day where food was still food. And yes, it was a delicious sauce!

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  6. My mom cooked ground beef and onions until gray, then added a huge can of tomato juice and a HALF package of "spaghetti seasoning". Then stirred the whole mess into very well done spaghetti noodles. She has always been better known for eating than cooking.

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  7. I think one of the first things my mother was made to do when she married my father was cook spaghetti. My father's parents were immigrants from southern Italy, so what they ate was my grandmother's sauce, and man oh man, was it good! My mother cooked spaghetti, though, much like you've described, down to the green parmesan container. Sometimes, she'd sprinkle garlic powder and parmesan on "french bread" and broil it in the oven to go along with the spaghetti. To tell you the truth, spaghetti is my favorite meal, as it is for my boys!

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    1. I was going to mention the garlic bread which I considered to be a gourmet treat for sure. I bet your grandmother DID make good sauce. Did she call it "gravy"?

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  8. Oh that boy with the fiddle. Priceless.

    You sent me some pickled okra that was so splendid. I shared it with my family and we ate it all up. This year I'll do some blackberry jam like I did last year. And I'll get my dehydrator out for plums. Old hippies never die...

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    1. I have done blackberry jam before but I have decided that I am too old to mess with going out in the broiling heat and snakey, buggy bushes to pick the berries. Also, the bushes have terrible thorns. It is a miserable business and best left to the younger-than-me.

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  9. Oh, My! That August already knows what he is doing with that fiddle! Born to it, as someone else said.

    I started making my own pickles when the kids were little because I wanted some without the additives and couldn't find them. We all love pickles and olives. Now my "kids" are 40 and 41 and making their own pickles. I still remember my grandma making watermelon pickle on our summer visits to Springfield, MO.

    x0x0 . N2

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    1. I have never made watermelon pickle and haven't even seen it in years. Did you like it?

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  10. My mom made spaghetti with fried onions and lots of meatballs and I loved it. We used hot chili peppers instead of cheese. It was yummy. Mmm I'd love to taste homemade pickles. August is a natural!

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    1. Sounds like your mother knew what she was doing! I'd love to try that spaghetti of hers!

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  11. My Mama made spaghetti the same way. I remember when Ragu first came onto the scene. She tried it and Dad said it tasted 'off.' She never used it again. She also never bought boxed Mac 'n cheese, or anything else in a box. But that Parmesan cheese in the can...a staple in our house! The good old days!

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    1. I do sometimes use Ragu but it's very sweet. Which, well- nice! Publix (our grocery stores) have one type or another of pasta sauce Buy One, Get One Free every week so I can try different ones I normally wouldn't. I find one I really like and then forget what it was. So- endless fun.

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  12. i've made spaghetti with shakey cheese, powdered milk, ramen noodles (sans the seasoning packet) and ketchup packets.

    yours sounds way better.

    xxalainaxx

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    1. Well, needs must, I suppose. We get creative when times are hard. I once made sweet and sour garbanzo beans. That sucked.

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  13. my mother didn't make spaghetti. my mother didn't cook except on Sundays and often it was cold cuts, a fancy word for sandwiches. my mother had a maid who did the cooking. and I don't think she ever made spaghetti either. I did though when I had my little family before canned sauce...tomatoes, sauce, paste, onions, bell peppers, and whatever else cooked down. it was usually watery though.

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    1. What did the maid cook? Was she a good cook?

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  14. My mom makes really good spaghetti, and I am ashamed to say I have no idea exactly how she does it. But I think I could make some semblance of it if I tried. It's WASP spaghetti -- pretty mild and nothing exotic.

    When I was a kid I got a children's cookbook that had a spaghetti recipe in it. We made it one time, and I kid you not -- the recipe included, among the ingredients, "two cans of spaghetti"! It was basically just an exercise in browning meat.

    I love how you can so confidently say you don't know shit. It's healthy, honestly. I don't know shit either but I still feel like I have to bluff my way, sometimes.

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    1. "Two cans of spaghetti"? Was that like spaghetti-O's? Or was it that nasty wormy stuff? I have just remembered that. Franco American? Oh my god.
      I am too old and it is too tiring to try and bluff. Mostly.

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