Me vs. Itallian Food

I made lasagne for dinner last night, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't have any.  We had lots left over and had it for dinner tonight too.  I was hungrier tonight, so did have some and have to admit it wasn't bad, if I do say so myself.

I grew up in the heart of (or, more accurately, on the outskirts of) North Beach, the Italian section of San Francisco.  (Though the city is more homogeneous now, North Beach is still predominately Italian, with a slop-over of Chinese from nearby Chinatown.)  My parents lived there for more than 30 years. Within walking distance was St. Peter & Paul church, which was the Italian National Church in San Francisco.

My father comes from Irish and German roots.  His father's grandparents came to this country from Ireland, and his mother's family (about which I know virtually nothing) came from Germany.  But in his heart, my father was Italian, with or without the blood lines.

We lived in a flat on a hill in the city and our landlord was a guy named Joe, who was from the old country.  His Italian accent was so thick I could barely understand him.  His wife was German and they were theater folks, with their walls covered, to the ceiling, with pictures of the activities of their thespian group.   I don't think they performed, but they definitely were active in theatrical stuff.

Irma was a large woman who bought clothes, when she liked something, in three different sizes...small, medium and large, to accommodate her always fluctuating weight.

My father worshipped Joe and spent a lot of time with him.  And along with worshipping Joe came his love of Italian food.  He loved it all.   Dinner in our house was invariably something Italian, if it wasn't something Amurrican or delivered Chinese food.  Whenever we went out to eat as a family, 90% of the time it was to a local Italian restaurant.

I grew up with spaghetti, lasagne, veal parmesan, ravioli.  My father learned how to make a lot of Italian food and to this date I have never had calzoni as good as his.

He would take me with him to order pizza in the days when pizza was a new thing. I remember standing on a box to look over at the pizza-making area and watching the pizza being assembled.  They usually gave me a slice of mozarella to eat while we waited for the pizza to be cooked in the big brick oven.  I never remember other customers being in the shop when we went there, which tells you how new the whole pizza idea was!

To go with that pizza, my father bought what he always called "Dago red" wine by the gallon in bottles without a label on them. (I think that he actually brought the bottles back to be refilled).  I don't remember him slinging the jug over his shoulder to pour a glass, but it was the kind of bottle that you expected people to do that with.

But I somehow missed the Italian-loving gene.  I listen to Italian cooks on TV today, waxing rhapsodic about childhood memories of mama's spaghetti sauce.  I never got it.  Spaghetti sauce was spaghetti sauce to me.  Oh, I don't dislike Italian food, but if you offer me the choice of an ethnic restaurant for dinner, Italian would be about the last on my list of choices.

I'm also a pretty good Italian cook.  I can make spaghetti sauce from scratch, or dress up a bottled version.  I make a fairly good pizza (not nearly as good as Jim's family--but his son is a pro).   I make a good lasagne (and actually prefer the pesto type that we had in Portofino) and I am willing to try just about anything, but as with restaurant choices, Italian would never be my first choice of ethnic food to cook.  But I cook it because it's easy, it's famliar, and Walt likes it.

But if truth be told, I'd really rather be cooking something Mexican.

(My father would be shocked, I'm sure)

Fat Tuesday

It's Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras (that's what "Mardi Gras" translates to, you know...Mardi is Tuesday, Gras is "fat").  A special day just for me!

The only vestige of my Catholic faith that I continue to cling to is Fat Tuesday.  It's an excuse to have pancakes without guilt, because isn't that what people do on Fat Tuesday?  Eat panakes?

Wednesday will be Ash Wednesday when it used to be that lots of people you saw every day walked around with big black spots in the middle of their foreheads, having gone to church and had the priest remind you that you were dust and to dust you would return....and then 6 weeks of Lent.

When did I stop paying attention to Lent?  I don't remember.   When I was a kid there was lots of Lenten observance.  We never ate meat on Friday during Lent or on Ash Wednesday.  On Fridays, the students in my grammar school were marched over to the church next door for the "stations of the cross," a ceremony where the priest visited and said prayers at each of 14 visual representations hanging on the walls around the church, of parts of Jesus' travel from being condemned to death to his burial in the tomb and including such events as Simon of Cyrene helping to carry the cross, Veronica wiping his face, the actual crucifixion, and ultimately placement in the tomb.

Each station came with prayers, standng, kneeling, genuflecting, etc.   And incense, of course.  Was there ever a Catholic ceremony that did not come with incense?

When I was old enough, we were supposed to fast on Fridays -- only one big meal, and two small meals.

And, of course, there was what you were going to give up.  It was traditional that you give up something you liked to do penance during the six weeks of Lent.  I always gave up candy and looked forward to the Easter Bunny bringing me lots on Easter morning, nicely mixing my religious vs. my fantasy beliefs!

My father always gave up liquor to prove that he wasn't an alcoholic.   He had a gin fizz first thing, after returning from Mass, on Easter Sunday morning. He probably would have had the gin fizz before Mass but in those days you couldn't eat or drink anything before Communion, so he would have had to give up going to Communion.

Going to Mass on Easter sunday was a Catholic's "Easter Duty" and if you didn't go on Easter Sunday, it was a mortal sin, I think.  I hate to think of the blackness of my soul since I can't remember the last time I was at any Mass, let alone an Easter Mass.

I wondered if it counted the day we got to church too late to get a seat, or to get standing room inside the vestibule of the church, so we had to stand outside, where we could neither hear nor see anything.  Did that count?  We were on church grounds, Mass was going on, and at some point we did get to go in and take communion....

This Lenten season, Catholics (and others) around the world will be thinking of the resignation of Benedict XVI.  I have to admit that I greeted the news with "it couldn't happen to a nicer person..."  I was not a fan of Cardinal Ratzinger and was very disappointed when he was elected Pope.  And he sent the Church reeling back to the 19th century and beyond, very firm on things like homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research and all those hot button issues.  Very liberal on priestly pedophilia and hiding the perpetrators.  

I am reading a book right now called "Holy Crosses and Nazi Flags" by Garry O'Connor, which is a fascinating look at the life of the about-to-be gone Pope.  It nicely complements the documentary, Mea Culpa, I saw recently about the sex scandal in the Catholic church.

I just hope that when the new pope is elected he will be someone I can feel comfortable with, and not someone who makes me sneer whenever I think of some of the hurtful things he has done to people I care about.

But in the meantime, I'll just eat my pancakes on this, Fat Tuesday!

Strike a Pretty Pose

The Westminster Kennel Club show starts Monday.  I have to admit I was rather confused about that because I had marked our DVR to record the show on Sunday and then watched the Today Show on Sunday morning and saw they featured dogs that would be in the show on Monday.  

I went and checked the recordings I had marked and discovered that the show they were broadcasting was from the 2012 show.  It's not that it really matters.  I watch dog shows (Eukanuba, Croft, Westminster) like I watch cooking shows.  I don't intend to ever do anything fancy with octopus, offal, or monkey brains but I like watching others create something.  Likewise, this may be the kind of dog that we have around...

and I may think that judging dogs based on their appearance and conformation, as opposed to their abilities, like in agility trials, is kind of silly, but I still enjoy just looking at all the breeds that exist in the world.  And, since I don't know one dog from another, it doesn't really matter whether I am watching 2012's potential champions or 2013's.

I went to my first (and, I believe, only) dog show when I was a kid at the peak of my collie period. Because of my sister's allergies, we couldn't have a dog (and then the first thing she did when she moved out was to buy a dog!), so I had to content myself with living the dog life vicariously through books, movies, and TV.

I had devoured the "Lad a Dog" books and was a fan of Lassie on TV and my mother took me to the dog show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco because Lassie (whose name was really Pal and who was really a male) was going to perform.

I still remember what fun it was to wander around all the backstage parts and see all the dog breeds, watch them being groomed.  And of course the highlight of that day was going off to the bathroom and coming down some back stairs to get back to my seat and running into Lassie and owner/trainer Rudd Weatherwax on their way to the arena.  I got an up close and personal with Lassie, who, if I remember correctly, kissed me.

I spent 2 hours with Westminster this evening (and then gave it up for Downton Abbey but will watch the end of the recording later).  It was fun watching how silly all the women in their 2-piece skirt/jacket suits and flat shoes were.  I can never see the hound group running around without remember Christopher Guest and his bloodhound loping around the ring in the wonderful Best in Show, and I was appalled at how ghastly some of the judges (one female judge in particular) looked, like she'd rummaged in the discard bin and chose a top and a bottom that did not go together at all and looked like it had never been ironed.

I loved how the announcers always looked at these "jowly" dogs and say something to the effect that they are great dogs, for someone who isn't averse to a little drool.  My goddaughter and her husband have Newfoundlands and I know for a fact that owners of jowly dogs have to contend with far more than "a little" drool!

I always look for the Komondor.

And wonder how in the world they take care of that fur.   I would think everyone would love to have this dog.  Put it on its back and run it up and down the hallway to mop the floor!

Everyone knows the Portuguese Water Dog now because of the White House dog, but the one they had trotting around the ring today was shaved like a poodle

Actually this wasn't the dog I saw, because that dog had the tight curls that you associate with the Portuguese Water Dog, but this is the cut on the body.   I swear the dog looked embarrassed.

Ultimately the Pekinese, my least favorite of the 7 finalists won.   It looked like a tribble with a face, and was cute, but I loved the Doberman...and I don't even particularly like Dobermans, but Fifi was spectacular.  Which is why I don't judge dog shows.

 
 I no longer watch these things for the "vicarious thrill" of seeing dogs.  I usually watch with at least one dog in my lap.  But it's still fun to see the dogs, to see the new offbeat breeds, to learn interesting factoids about some of them (which I immediately forget, of course) and to be glad that I don't have to worry about the grooming of those beautiful long-haired dogs!

Sunday Stealing

Would you swear in front of your parents?
At nearly 70, does it matter?  I probably used "hell" and "damn" in front of my father before he died, my mother uses 4-letter words occasionally and I am not uncomfortable using them in front of her either.

Which continents have you been on?
- North America
- Australia
- Europe
- Asia

Do you get motion sickness? Any horror stories?
As a child, I had horrible motion sickness and got sick whenever we had a long trip in the car (my father hated to take me anywhere).  I'm much better now.   I can even read in a moving car.  I have never been sick on any of our river cruises, but can get a bit queasy on open waters.  The last time I got really sick was on a whale watching expedition.  Puget Sound was so rough that after our boat left the dock, they decided not to let any other boats go out.  I vomited into the ocean and then in the bathroom, where I discovered I was NOT the first person to do so.   That was a miserable trip!

Why did you name your blog whatever you named your blog?
It's the name of a Lawsuit song (the lyrics of which are printed on the index page of this journal)

Would you wear a rainbow jacket? A neon yellow sweater? Checkered pants?
Yes to the jacket, yes to the sweater, no to the pants

What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Post a picture if you can.
Casper the friendly ghost.

In a past life I must have been...
...in a concentration camp.  I don't know why but I've always felt that. Whether as a prisoner or guard, I don't know.

If you had to look at one city skyline for the rest of your life, which would it be?
San Francisco on a crystal clear day

Longest plane ride you've ever been on?
36 hours to Perth, Australia.  (9 hours of that was a layover in Singapore)

The longest you've ever slept?
I can't remember.  I don't remember ever sleeping longer than 8 or 9 hours.

Would you buy a sweater covered in kitten pictures? Would you wear it if someone gave it you for free?
Kittens?  No.  The dogs wouldn't hear of it.  If someone gave me a sweater, it would depend on how obtrusive the kittens were!

Do you pluck your eyebrows?
No.

Favorite kind of bean? Kidney? Black? Pinto?
Black beans.  I never had them until we started hosting Brasilians, but I learned to really love them.  I haven't made feijoada in a long time, but that's my favorite way to have black beans.  I also make chili with black beans.

How far can you throw a baseball?
Not very far.

If you had to move to another country, where would you move?
I could live in England, Ireland, or Australia.  I feel comfortable in all of those countries.

Have you ever eaten Ethiopian food? Vietnamese? Korean? Nepalese? How was it?
Yes to all.  I enjoy them all. We live in "ethnic restaurant central" around here and it's quite easy to find cuisines from other countries.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
According to The Wall Street Journal, New York state wildlife expert Richard Thomas found that a woodchuck could (and does) chuck around 35 cubic feet of dirt in the course of digging a burrow. Thomas reasoned that if a woodchuck could chuck wood, he would chuck an amount equivalent to the weight of the dirt, or 700 pounds. So there.

Good Mail Day

I have gone through real "dry" periods with Compassion, where I might go two months with no letters from any of the kids that I either sponsor or write to for sponsors who pay, but don't write.

But this has been a pretty good week+.  First of all, when I logged into my Compassion account, I discovered that Theresa (Ghana) had a new photo.   I called Compassion and asked them to send me a .jpg so I could post it on my   "Compassion Kids" web site. 

I think this is the third picture I've had of Theresa since I sponsored her and I long for the day when I see a smile out of this little girl!

I also had a phone call from Compassion about Murugi, who was a correspondence child from Kenya.  I've been writing to Murugi since early 2011 and knew that it was going to be a short-term thing, since she was 19 at the time, so her time with Compassion was growing short.  

My cool experience with Murugi was that someone from Compassion actually went to Kenya, visited her home, and sent me some pictures from that visit, so I had a good sense of her school and her home.  She also took pictures of Murugi and some of the letters I'd sent.

 One of the things she asked the woman who visited her was whether or not Americans really let dogs live in the house with them (which she thought was very funny), and if she were to come to the United States, would people hate her because she was black.

Compassion was calling to let me know that Murgi has completed her education and has left the area.  They told me all the things she learned in school, and that she graduated with good marks.  Since she has left the area, there is no guarantee that she will receive a goodbye letter from me, if I write one.  But of course I will, though I will not know whether she receives it or not.

Luiz Hernandez from Brasil (my youngest child) "wrote."  He hasn't learned to write yet, so someone writes for him and his letter told me the names of his best friends and asked what a typical food of my country was.  He told me that there were a lot of frogs around where he lives, so I sent him a letter about frogs and included a picture of Davis's famous "toad town" and the famous picture of a little boy eating a frog.   I also told him about the book, "The Toads of Davis," which the Davis postmaster's father wrote after building the Toad Town.

I also had letters from my two favorite kids, Shallon from Uganda (whose mother is dead and who calls me her mother), and Fred from the Philippines.

Shallon wrote a two-page letter saying she had gone to the library because I asked her if she had ever eaten a cherry and had found a story about cherries there.  I'll tell ya, the cherry question was one I asked all of the children and I am still getting answers from them about whether they have eaten cherries!  Shallon shared that her favorite fruits are oranges and mangoes.  "At our place we have many of them and we also have a plantation of sugar cane."

She tells me that she likes the stories in the Book of Ruth in the Bible and shares with me a Biblical quote (Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.)

Fred shared that my mother has a bigger stomach because the baby inside is growing and he asks me to pray that mother's delivery will be fine and I will be more kind too.   He says he is learning about the 12 disciples and that he likes the story of Noah. 

Writing to these children is a real challenge for me, since their letters are usually so God and Bible centered. Shallon always includes a Bible passage for me to read.  I've probably read more of the Bible in the past few years than ever in my life!

There were two letters from Esther in Indonesia, both written December 16.  Esther rarely quotes the Bible or mentions God or Jesus, but her letters are more about what her family is doing.  This was written before Christmas and she says her family is going to stay home for Christmas, to "clean the house and decorate a Christmas tree."  We both like winter better than summer. She says that I like cold weather same as you, Beverly, because it is more fun than hot weather which makes me sweat.  She is also waiting for results of her exams, a big concern for all of the kids, especially as they get older.

Esther is the first of the kids who actually has eaten cherries.   I think it is delicious.  Usually cherries are eaten with cakes.

This has been an unusual week.  I don't take for granted that I will continue to get a letter a day, but I certainly have enjoyed my trips to the mailbox the past few days.

Note to Self

Self:  When you choose a book to read at Logos on your work day, do NOT choose one that is a guaranteed tear-jerker!

I was wandering around the store shortly after I got there today, looking for my book to read.  I had chosen a book -- I don't remember the title now -- but then went into the back room, where they store the books that haven't been priced yet, or are waiting for room on the shelves to move out into the store part of the store.

I saw a book that I naturally had to read.  It was called "The Compassion of Animals: True Stories of Animal Courage and Kindness."  If the title alone weren't enough to get me, the cover definitely was.

This book wasn't just a tear jerker, it was a tear jerker with every story, on nearly every page.  Dogs, cats, horses, pigs, an affectionate iguana, even a cow all acting heroically, lovingly.

They saved lives, encouraged the discouraged, chased the bad guys, pulled people out of icy waters and burning buildings.

They saved babies, saved strangers, helped the disabled, did things that were seemingly unheard of in the days when we were taught that only human beings could think, could reason, could use tools, could make compassionate decisions.

I loved it.

But I fought tears for 200 pages.  With customers in the store. I made so many trips to the back room to get tissues and surreptitiously wipe away tears.   But of course the problem with that is that I don't just cry beautiful tears, like Meryll Streep.  Once tears well up in my eyes, my skin gets blotchy, my nose gets red and it doesn't go away soon.  It's there for hours.  I tried not to make eye contact with any customers.  I have been told by my mother my whole life "Don't CRY!  You always look TERRIBLE when you cry."  But the book was so readable that I couldn't put it down even though I realized early on that I was making a huge mistake by reading it in public.

Fortunately, either nobody noticed, or nobody was rude enough to make a comment.

It was kind of a weird day at the store.  It had been deadly dull for Peter in the morning.  I had more customers so overall it wasn't a bad day, but there were noteworthy things.  For one, I had requests for "Johnny Got His Gun," "The Ugly American" and "Fahrenheit 451" -- all books I read in college and that nobody has heard of these days.  Just strange that they should all come up on the same day.

And then there was the short, round, balding middle aged guy who wandered around the store for quite a long while, until the other customers had left.   Then he came up and asked me, in a quiet voice if I had a certain book.  It was not one I had heard of before so I asked the author and genre.  He only knew the author's first name, so I looked it up on Google and got the author's last name.  He also said it would be a fiction book. I told him I had never heard of it, but showed him where he was likely to find it.  He looked around for a bit and said we didn't have it and I suggested that he try the other bookstore down the street, which had new books, not used books.

After he left, I got curious about his book and looked it up on Amazon.  I was curious because the name of the book sounded more like something Danielle Steele would have written, rather than the truck / history / war books that most men of his age and appearance usually buy in Logos.

Wellllll....turns out this is hard core erotica, which includes, in part During the period of his life that he describes here, he futtered his way from London to the Himalayas, coupling with two women at once, as an hors d'oeuvre, then taking his pleasure from gorgeous trios and beautiful quartets until his magnum opus—an extended orgy with a dozen female participants.

No wonder he couldn't find it; Logos doesn't have an erotica section...and it would never have occurred to me that this might be an erotic novel, though maybe he was throwing out clues that I was too naive to catch.

I wonder if my customer found a copy of the book at the other book store.  Somehow I doubt it.  I don't think they have an erotica section either.   But it did, briefly, spice up my life imagining him sitting in his living room reading this book!

Creatures of Habit

I sometimes think that I spend entirely too much time with the dogs.   Our lives have evolved into such a pattern and they read me so clearly that it's a no brainer who is in charge around here.  The only thing that gives me a slight edge is that I have opposable thumbs, but if they could get their own meals, it would pretty much be over for the concept of human dominance.

Our days have such incredible predictability.

I almost always wake up somewhere around 4 a.m.  When I wake up, the three dogs are asleep in their usual places, Lizzie on a chair, Sheila on the dog bed, and Polly at my waist as I sleep on my side.  I get up and leave the quilt over Polly.  No dog moves.  It's too early for them to be up.

I move to the recliner and settle in there.  Polly may or may not decide to join me.  If I fall back asleep, which I frequently do, the dogs will let me sleep until I wake up.  They won't bark at dogs passing by on the street, they won't try to lick me.  If they wake up, they walk quietly into the family room, look at me, and then go back to the living room.  They are very considerate (I know this because I often play opossum so they think I'm sleeping when I'm not ready to be up and awake yet).

The SECOND they hear me touch the handle that lowers the foot rest for the recliner, Polly leaps off of the chair and Lizzie and Sheila race in for a morning cuddle.  Love ins all around.  "She's AWAKE! She's AWAKE!"   It's the joy of the second coming every morning.

(I should add that if I can't get back to sleep at 4 a.m. and decide to get up and work in my office, as I am doing now, they totally ignore me because it's not time for their body clocks to be awake yet.)

Fully awake, or still groggy from sleep, there is no avoiding the fact that the dogs. must. be. fed. now.

I stagger to the various spots where they eat and pick up their bowls.  Sheila sits calmly in the family room, Polly claws at the backs of my calves, and Lizzie leaps over and over again at my waist until she sees that I really am putting food in the bowls.

There is a moment of peace and calm while all three eat.   Lizzie, who went through a year of barely eating anything, now scarfs down every crumb of her breakfast in an instant and then goes to sit behind Polly, waiting for Polly to decide she's full, so Lizzie can have the leftovers.  Nobody would dare do that to Sheila.

Throughout most of the day, Lizzie and Sheila mostly do their own thing (sleep) while Polly is firmly attached to my body.  If I sit, she must be in my lap.  They only time she will leave me alone is if I'm here in my office, then she gets in my chair and sleeps.  If she's had enough sleeping alone, she barks.   Not the constant yap-yap-yap of a Chihuahua, but sitting there and punctuating the air with a single bark.  And then if nothing happens, another, ad nauseam.  She is telling me that she needs a lap to sleep on.

At 5 p.m., Polly decides it's time to have dinner.  I don't know how she got this notion, since dinner time around here has always been 7 p.m., when Jeopardy is over.  But if I get up and move anywhere, it is with Polly at my calves and Lizzie at my waist again.  I'm better to either sit in the recliner from 5 to 7 or stay in my office.

When the Jeopardy think music plays, Polly leaps off of my lap and goes to find Lizzie.  The two of them do their dinner dance, which brings Sheila sauntering in.  I feed them all and start dinner for the humans.  

If it is something that requires a timer, I sit in the recliner while the food is cooking.  The timer on the stove has a quiet little "ding" as it starts the last minute count down.  As soon as she hears the ding, Polly leaps off my lap and stands there looking at me, letting me know that the timer is about to ring.   At other times in the day, if I am baking something and the timer goes off, Polly will run into my office to bark and let me know that the timer is beeping.  She has developed a wonderful Pavlovian response to the timer.

If I am going out somewhere, Polly knows it before I even get up from my desk to start getting ready.  She knows I'm leaving soon and she knows she gets a treat before I leave the house.  I have been known to leave the house early just because Polly drove me to it.  I swear she is a mind reader.

For all her intelligence and her ability to read my mind, Polly is a lousy psychiatrist.  She's not one of those dogs that knows intuitively when I am sad or upset and climbs into my lap to gaze lovingly at me and let me know that she understands.   She does not invite long intimate chats about what is going on in my life. It's all about her, her, her, and who cares if I'm sad or not.  Stupid dog.

As the day winds down and I watch nighttime TV in the recliner, I dare not take a potty break.  If I get up to go to the bathrom, Sheila is there instsantly, leaving her bed in the living room to escort me to the couch to sleep.   Even if I'm not ready to.  If I don't follow her, she paces, she worries.   She eventually goes back to sleep, but if I move again for any reason, she's there again.  It's time to go to bed and she can't understand why I don't understand that.   Jon Stewart?  Who's Jon Stewart?  Forget The Daily Show and go. to. sleep. now.

When I finally give in to her demands, turn off the TV, and go to the couch, Sheila has a routine where she walks between the couch and the coffee table so I can pet her.  She walks first in one direction, offering me her hindquarters to pet (not the most desirable angle) and then turns around and walks back in the other direction, standing by my head so I can pet her head.  When she decides I've done enough, she either lies down along side the couch or she goes to the dog bed to sleep.

In the morning, we start the routine all over again.

I have to admit I kind of like this little "pack" that we have become.  At least we seem to understand each other and there are few surprises in a normal day.