Beau Does Pork Chops

Hi Gang – Beau again. My Grandma’s real busy today so I thought I’d take over for a bit. They’re having a big party out here tonight – a barbecue and BIG bonfire, so they’re outside getting ready for that. Grandpa’s got a BIIIIIG pile of old railroad ties that he wants to get rid of, along with a bunch of brush and leaves, so it will be a hot time at the ole’ homestead tonight – heh! A year ago they had a bonfire of old railroad ties and Grandpa piled the ties 7 layers deep. Believe me, it kept everybody warm.

Daisy and I had a pretty good Thanksgiving too, although we didn’t get nearly enough turkey. And those darn folks set that turkey platter right on the edge of the table within nose reach so it was really difficult to mind our manners. But we did – aren’t you proud? We didn’t eat any turkey until Grandpa hand fed us and oh, was it good. Then Grandma cooked all those extra pieces that come inside of those turkeys and chopped them up in our dog food. Man, was that delicious (slurp).

But I have to tell you all about the other day when I ate something I wasn’t supposed to. Boy, did I get in trouble.

Grandpa had taken Daisy and I to town and we made a stop at Sam’s Club to lay in a stock of burgers and brats for the party tonight. Then Grandma called and asked him to pick up a package of pork chops too. So of course Grandpa found a huge package of the best lookin’ pork chops I’ve ever seen. They were thick and they didn’t have any bones so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting splinters down my throat. Well, Grandpa put all the boxes of meat and stuff in the back of the truck so Daisy and I could keep guard over them and no burglars would steal them. Then we headed for home. Before we got home Grandma called AGAIN – she had forgotten about getting the candy corn. She was making chocolate cupcakes (drool) and wanted the candy corn to decorate the tops. So Grandpa said he would stop in the little store in our little town and pick some up.

Daisy and I were still in the back of the truck keeping watch over the meat when Grandpa went into the store. And wouldn’t ya know it – he ran into somebody he knew and visited for a bit. Grandpa loves to talk and sometimes is kind of a windbag but don’t tell him I said that, okay? Anyway, I was watching the meat boxes very carefully when something over took me and I just couldn’t help myself anymore. I stuck my head in the bag where the pork chops were and started snacking (chomp, chomp).

Now if I had been smart enough to keep my tail DOWN Grandpa would have never known I was into the chops. But they tasted SO GOOD I raised my tail in the air and wagged it back and forth – just like a red flag. Grandpa happened to see my tail wagging and came sneaking out the door and up to the truck with his cap in his hand. Meanwhile I just kept gobbling when all of a sudden WHACK!! SMACK!! His cap came down on my backside with such a loud noise I jumped back and the pork chop fell out of my mouth. What a waste of a good pork chop.

I made my apologies to Grandpa by slinking over to him on my tummy and looking pathetic. I think he forgave me, but that was really embarrassing. To get caught with a pork chop in your mouth leaves one in a very difficult position.

And that darn Daisy just sat in the opposite corner of the truck box looking smug and took it all in. She thinks she’s SO smart. I wonder whatever happened to that pork chop.

PS: If Jane shows up tonight I just may bite her in the butt!! Won't be as good as those pork chops though.

An After Thanksgiving Poem

I ate too much Turkey, I ate too much corn,
I ate too much pudding and pie.
I'm stuffed up with muffins and too much stuffin'
I'm probably going to die.
I piled up my plate and I ate and I ate.
But I wish I had known when to stop,
For I'm so crammed with yams, sauces, gravies, and jams
That my buttons are starting to pop!
I'm full of tomatoes and french fried potatoes
My stomach is swollen and sore,
But there's still some dessert so I guess it won't hurt if
I eat just a little bit more!

My Chef Has Arrived

The table is set in fine white china on a white damask cloth.

The menu consists of

Lutefisk with melted butter or cream gravy
Potato sausage
Swedish meatballs
Lefse
Riced potatoes
Pickled herring
Brown Swedish beans
Rice puding
Lingonberries
Spritz
Rosettes
Kingler
Pepperkakor
Fattigman
Krumkakke

And a bit of Aquavit

The feasting will go on into the evening.

And now please let me present my chef.

No, it's not Wolfgang Puk

Nor is it The Iron Chef

It's not Emeril

Are you just dying of anticipation?

It's - - - - - - - -

Scroll on down - - - - - - -

My First Turkey Disaster

I bet I never told you the story about the very first turkey I ever cooked, did I? Well, get yourself a cup of coffee and get comfy in your computer chair. Here goes.

As a bride of only one year, Ole moved me off to the NATO base in Keflavik, Iceland. Prior to that time we lived in a small (very small) mobile home in a mobile home park on a lot about the size of a postage stamp. Needless to say, this didn’t make for good entertaining capabilities, so I hadn’t done much cooking or meal planning for more than just the two of us. I am fortunate that Ole will eat anything I put in front of him, and in those early days never complained about my amateurish cooking - with one exception.

His favorite pie was banana cream pie. It’s not anymore cuz I think I ruined it for him. I’ll tell you this short little story before I get to the Turkey Delight.

Anyway, one Saturday when I was at home and he was working I thought I would surprise him with not one, but two banana cream pies. I worked so hard on making the piecrust from scratch – none of those store-bought crusts for me. I filled the pies with the banana pudding and sliced bananas and then came to the meringue. I’m not a fan of meringue myself, but in Ole’s world banana cream pie had to have meringue because that’s the way his mother always made it (any of you ladies heard that before?) So I dug out my trusty old Good Housekeeping cookbook from 1957, looked up the recipe and proceeded. I broke and separated a half dozen eggs and proceeded to beat the living H-E-double toothpicks out of them, added the cream of tarter and then realized I was supposed to also add sugar – according to this recipe two tablespoons per egg white. Well, somewhere in my Young Bride brain I left behind the word tablespoon and superimposed the word cup. As I gradually added 12 cups of sugar to the six eggs, the peaks kept getting higher and higher. After putting the meringue on the pies I tucked them into the oven for browning. I watched carefully and pulled them out just at the right time – beautiful high peaks of meringue that were golden brown on the tips. Picture perfect. They were sitting on the counter cooling when Ole came home that night. He couldn’t wait to sample so grabbed a fork to dip in for a bit of a taste. I happened to be in the other end of the mobile home, but I could hear when the fork hit the meringue with a loud TWANG so hard it bent the tines. Then he tried it again in a different spot and again on the other pie. Same results – TWANG! Then he chuckled and asked me where I had gone that day to get concrete? That’s when I discovered that 12 cups of sugar is just a bit much for 6 egg whites. Actually, I haven’t made meringue since. Now if Ole wants something on top of his banana cream pie he gets Cool Whip!! Remember – simplify your life.

Anyway, back to the turkey in Iceland. We lived off base by choice when we lived in Iceland. We thought as long as we were there we might as well enjoy as much of the flavor of the country as possible. But this did present one itty-bitty problem. In order to buy groceries at the commissary and take them off base there were a number of steps you had to go through. First of all you were only allowed to take a preset dollar amount of groceries off base on a weekly basis. This was called your Take-off Allowance. This was all due to the fact that the Icelandic government didn’t want American goods making a negative impact on their economy. Guess they were afraid we’d sell all that cheap American food to the Nationals or something. Once you had made your food purchases for the week you had forms to fill out and then had to go through Icelandic Customs where they would check your bags and make sure you didn’t have more than what you claimed. Yah, this was a pain in the neck, but it didn’t take us or all the other Americans living off base to figure out ways around this little bottleneck. I won’t go into them now, as that’s another story, but if we’d been caught we would have had a record for “international smuggling.” How’s THAT for being a bad girl?

We rented a large house off base overlooking the ocean, which made for a beautiful view with all the snowcapped mountains across the fjord. Because our house was so big it was always kind of Grand Central Station not only for other married couples but also the single guys stationed there, and the guys who had to leave their wives back in the States. Kind of a sanctuary to get away from all the military bullshit that would take place on a NATO base. So I got the bright idea that I would fix Thanksgiving dinner for all these guys that frequented our house. Now, for someone who’s never fixed a turkey before in their life, that wasn’t exactly an intelligent decision. First off, getting the turkey presented a problem, let alone not knowing how to cook one. The commissary had ordered a limited number of turkeys that year, most of them going to the officers which left very little for the enlisted personnel to pick from. And because I was having a number of hungry guys for dinner I knew I’d need more than a 12 pounder, which was about all there was left. Not only was the size a problem, but also by the time I had purchased everything else I needed for dinner I had reached my limit of Take Off Allowance.

Never fear – the guys in the Supply Department where I worked, unbeknown to me, came to my rescue.

One afternoon, shortly before Thanksgiving, one of the guys who drove the supply truck through the gates out to the remote sites on a daily basis came up to my office and asked for my house keys. I didn’t question him about why, because several of the guys kept extra sets of clothing at our house so they could change into civies (civilian clothes) once they were through the gates. The Icelandic government requested that all military men, regardless of their rank, be dressed in uniform when they were off base. Guess it was a good way to keep track of them or something.

So Bud picked up my house keys, and about an hour later came back to my office and returned them. When I got home that night, I walked into the kitchen and there sat a 28 lb. turkey in my kitchen sink – frozen solid – and only three days until Thanksgiving. Remember – I had never cooked a turkey in my life and I’m presented with this behemoth!! Somehow I wrestled that thing around in my sink for the next several days trying to get it thawed out, having to twist and turn it periodically because only about a third of it would sit underwater. It still had ice crystals inside when I stuck my hand in to take out the “interior parts.” And of course it didn’t have a pop up timer either.

So Thanksgiving morning came and I was up at 5 a.m. stuffing that dam bird. I put it in a pan, opened the oven door and then realized that this bird was NOT going to fit into the oven of an Icelandic kitchen stove (they’re somewhat smaller than our American appliances.) After taking out all the oven wracks and jostling things around a bit, binding the turkey legs tighter to the body, I finally managed to get Mr. Turkey into the oven with neck and butt each touching the oven wall on their respective sides. Obviously there was no room for anything else in that oven.

I had invited everyone for dinner at 4 p.m. The guests arrived, 4 p.m. came and went, we fed them more wine, 5 p.m. came and went, more wine, wash, rinse, repeat. By 7 o’clock the bird finally decided it was done, although the rest of the meal was somewhat dried out, when we finally sat down to eat. The outer parts of the turkey were pretty good, but down by the bones things were still a bit on the pink side – not quite done. But after that much wine nobody really cared anyway.

Since then I’ve had a lot more practice, so things turn out a bit better now. And nobody got sick from the 28 pounder!!

Lena's Deep Dark Secrets

I've been interviewed - TWICE! Both Art and Fi sent me four questions, so here's a look at all my inner secrets.

You have been with Ole for a very (very) long time. Do you ever feel as though you have missed out on anything through marrying your high school sweetie?

Ole and I have been married 40 years as of last spring (I was 10 when we got married, snicker). We dated for three years prior to getting married. Do I ever feel like I’ve missed out on anything because I married my high school sweetie? Absolutely not. When I look at my marriage compared to a lot of other married folks, there’s no way I have missed out on anything. I’m not saying there haven’t been bumps along the road, but we’ve always managed to smooth out those bumps and come back to driving on a paved highway. To quote Ole, he says, “I’m mean, evil, bad, nasty and rotten, and besides that, I’m not a nice guy.” Everyone who knows him tells him that quote is only in HIS mind because he’s a big marshmallow. He’s a very loving and kind person who was fortunate enough to be very successful in the business world because of his personality. I am so fortunate in so many ways. He’s very family oriented and is an excellent caregiver.

Craft work is important to you. What does your hand work give to you?

I only wish that I had more time to do more. I love to crochet and quilt, and both give me a sense of accomplishment and completion. They seem to allow both my creative and artistic abilities to come to the surface. The only thing is I haven’t kept much of the work I have completed – I’ve given most of it away. I love to share things with other people who appreciate the work and time involved. It’s like giving them a part of me.

Furry friends play a big part in your life. If you were a furry creature, what would you be? (If it's a dog or a cat, we need a breed please.) And why?

I have to say that I would love to be any furry creature as long as I could live in our house. No – that’s wrong. I can’t abide anything that is mouse-like, for example hamsters, gerbils, etc. But as far as other furry house pets go, they are all loveable and depend on humans for their care. Anything that lives in our house is always well loved and spoiled to the nth degree and always ends up returning the love and affection ten fold that we give out.

If you could live anywhere in the world, except where you now live (BRRRR all that snow!), where would it be? And why?

Well, now, that’s not a difficult question to answer at all. It really doesn’t make any difference where I live as long as I’m surrounded by the ones I love. Ole and I only have one daughter, and as long as she lives in this area we will be here. Should she decide to make a move to any other part of the country we would follow. We hope at some point in time that she will bless us with grandchildren and we don’t want to miss out on that wonderful event. So, Lovely Daughter, you’re stuck with us for the rest of our lives!!


How long have you been blogging, and how did you find out about it?

I’ve been blogging for almost two years now. Lovely Daughter is the guilty culprit for introducing me to this habit-forming device. She has been blogging since about the year 2000 I think, and would tell me about all the interesting people she met throughout the world. Now I spend WAY too much time on the computer on a daily basis – and it’s all her fault!!

Have you written some good gossip about someone you know and they found out you posted it?

I’ve written gossip in the past about someone I know, but to my knowledge they haven’t found out about it – at least not yet!! I’m sure I’ll know when and if they do. (See Jane, see Jane run, see Jane run before she gets SMACKED!!)

Would you describe your first motorcycle trip, and were you scared?

Oh, my goodness. You’re really asking me to go back in time now. If you’re referring to the first time I ever rode as a passenger on the back of a motorcycle, that takes me back to my high school days, and yes, I was scared. I can’t even remember the name of the guy who drove the bike, but we ended up laying it down and I got my leg burned on the exhaust pipe. Never rode with him again. Never liked bikes much after that. Then along came Ole – a biker from his high school days. But in the beginning of our marriage he didn’t own a bike. Then one night, under the cover of darkness he came home with a little bitty Honda in the back of the pickup. Backed the pickup up against the wall of the pole barn so that I wouldn’t see the motorcycle. And I didn’t for several days. When I finally noticed it I asked him what the blankety-blank he thought he was doing with that!?! I think Lovely Daughter was probably in grade school at that time. I never rode with him during that period of time because I always felt that if something happened to us and Lovely Daughter was left alone at that age, it wouldn’t be good. When she graduated from high school I finally decided that it was time to venture out and see what all the fuss was about having a Harley. He had graduated through several bikes by that time and owned his first Harley. Guess I felt she could make it on her own at that point if she had to. I have to say that he was very conscientious when I finally decided to ride on the back, and says he felt like he rode like an old woman. As time went on I became more comfortable and enjoyed riding immensely. Every year he would ask me to go to Sturgis with him and I would always refuse. When I finally decided to go there were three stipulations – 1) I would not camp in a tent like he had been doing. The weather there is too unpredictable and my idea of camping was sleeping in a bed at the Holiday Inn. 2) I would not ride on the back of the bike all the way down there (650 miles) – we would have to put the bike on a trailer. 3) There was no way I was going to wear all that black leather like all the biker women did. They looked too tough and mean. I wanted RED leather. Well, Ole managed to secure a hotel room at a first class hotel; he bought a trailer to haul the bike down behind our truck, and then told me that we would buy leather when we got there, as it was much cheaper. All went well after we arrived until we started to shop for leather for me. It was then (this was 1994 and things have changed a lot since then) that I discovered that red leather only seemed to come in a size 4 and was only worn by prostitutes! So I definitely changed my mind about the leather and bought black with brown suede trim and lots of fringes. It’s beautiful!!! And doesn’t look like it’s worn by hookers.

Now to actually answer the question: My first BIG bike trip was to Sturgis, SD in the Black Hills, and no I really wasn’t scared. I have to admit that I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that Ole wouldn’t let me come to any harm. He’s an extremely conscientious driver, and there have been many situations that we’ve been in in traffic, that if he wasn’t so experienced and had so much training, we would have been dead.

What is the longest job that you ever had?

I’ve filled a number of positions throughout my working life, but you ask for the longest – not the most fun. I worked for 8 years in the Spanish Department of a local private college. I loved the work and loved working with the students. My daughter was a college student at the time so it really kept me in touch with the happenings of kids that age. She didn’t attend the college I worked at, but attended a different private college about a hundred miles from home. Unfortunately, the chair of the Spanish Department that I worked in demanded that I do a lot of things that went against my ethical and moral nature and I eventually walked out on her one day when I’d had enough. By the time I got home (a 20 minute drive) my phone was ringing and it was the director of human resources. Word had already gotten to her about what happened in our department that day and I was asked if I would make a written report to the President of the college. Following the completion of my report and the presentation to the President she (the chair) was put on probation and was eventually removed from her position as chair. Now if you want to know about the most FUN job, just ask.

Viktigpetter

I’ve officially gotten viktigpetter. For you poor souls who aren’t of ScandihOOvian background, that’s means I’ve gotten a big head!! Thanks to Poolie and Art – it’s all their fault (snicker).

Poolie tagged me to list five blog sites that have influenced my writing. And Art called me the Norwegian Princess who has given him incites into small town living. (Puts hands to mouth to whisper: I do so love Art, but let’s keep that to ourselves. We wouldn’t want Ole to find out, okay?)

Thanks for the compliments, both of you. When I started writing, I never for the life of me ever thought I would influence anyone – I just wanted to do it for the entertainment value (my own), just to see if I could actually do it because I've never considered myself a writer, and to occasionally vent. Those of you who have read me for a while know I’ve certainly done a bit of that (see Jane, see Jane run, see Jane run before she gets SMACKED!) But – on to more important things.

The blogger who had the biggest influence on me was my Lovely Daughter. I think she started writing back about the year 2000 or so. She would talk about all the people that she met through journaling, etc., and I thought it sounded so interesting. Meeting folks from all over the world from all walks of life while sitting in front of your computer just had to be a positive experience, so I thought I would give it a try. (And now I devote WAY too much time to this *&#@% computer, but don’t tell Ole, okay? Sometimes he wonders why his undies don’t get washed, teehee.) She designed my first website for me over at Diaryland, and things just grew from there.

And then there’s KitchenLogic. She was the first blogger to leave an entry on my page and I remember how thrilled I was that someone was actually reading the drivel that I wrote. Shortly after I started writing someone left one of those nasty comments, like some folks are prone to do. Not knowing at that time how ugly things can get in the journaling world, it broke my heart and I made note of the fact that I was going to quit writing. KitchenLogic immediately responded, educated me in that respect of the blogging world and helped me develop a thicker skin. No wonder I look like an alligator sometimes.

Art has been not only a positive influence on my writing but also on my life. He’s had a lot of bumps in the road along the way and has managed to overcome them. His bumps have made mine look like pebbles that I shouldn’t even feel. He’s a great example of how to climb out of the hole when you have those down days. Thanks, Art.

Another is a former fellow Minnesotan, the Pie-Rat. No matter what happens in her day she’s always got something positive to say. What a wonderful outlook on how to have fun and a good life in general.

And last but not least is Cosmicrayola. She’s been doing this for many years and generates a lot of stability in the blogging world. I think she’s a wonderful example of a positive attitude, and turning lemons into lemonade. She’s another that has had more than her share.

Now my assignment (if I choose to accept it) is to tag five more journalists to tell us who the five bloggers or web sites are that have influenced their writing. Here goes – are you ready? Isn’t the anticipation just killing you?

Lovely Daughter (aka Katress)

Forty Plus

MN Lady

KitchenLogic

Moody Gemini

Have at it Ladies. The World anxiously awaits your entry.