Archive | August 2011

Cooking…..

Aug28

Cooking is something I used to really enjoy doing and I was a rather good cook and baker, if I do say so myself!  I loved cooking for parties, large gatherings, holidays, family, friends, etc.  I made cakes to order and even made my own wedding cake.  I had a knack for making up dishes to stretch my grocery budget and utilize leftovers in new, creative ways.  Cooking was fun and the satisfaction I got from watching people enjoy what I created made it all the more enjoyable.

And then I just got out of the habit…….cooking for one just doesn’t have the same appeal and I end up throwing half or more of it away cause I don’t seem to know how to cook in small quantities.  I’m finding out that cooking isn’t like riding a bike – you can forget how!  I was usually a “little of this, little of that” sort of cook – just like my Mom and Grandma.  I just cooked from memory and if it didn’t come out exactly the same way twice, that was OK, cause it usually came out better when I’d improvise.  Now, I find that I either can’t remember what I used to put in stuff or it just doesn’t turn out right.  It is frustrating!  I also find myself turned off by leftovers, so generally don’t do anything with them.  And then there is my stove – don’t get me wrong, it is a very nice stove, but it is electric and I can’t get myself used to cooking on an electric stove – things just cook better and come out better on a gas stove!  So, I tend to just go out and eat most of the time or make something simple that I can throw together quick and not make too much of.

But, lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about cooking.  I have done some research and toyed with the idea of maybe taking some culinary courses after I retire and have the time to devote to it.  I also put in a bid and won two seats at a cooking class with Chef Hamm in an auction benefiting St. Baldrick’s – my friend Lisa is going with me and it will be so much fun!  I’ve had some dreams lately about cooking big meals in the house I bought in my home town and having all my family there to enjoy them with.  I even had a dream the other night about opening a family restaurant.  Then, tonight I watched “Julie and Julia” and got so involved in watching all the great dishes being made that I got online and ordered Julia Childs’ book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” – the volumes 1 and 2 boxed set!  And I fixed the stove problem – I had a natural gas line run to the kitchen in my Albion home and bought a GREAT gas stove with a two piece cast iron grate top and five burners!

Once I’m retired and have the time, I really think I’m going to get back into cooking………maybe a second career could involve cooking or baking or something like that or maybe it’ll just be a cool hobby that I share with family and friends.  I don’t know – maybe it is just a phase I’m going through – something new to think about and consider in my plans for the future.  Who knows!  But, for now, it is something I’m giving a lot of thought to…………and something my family and friends in Albion may benefit from, if I go through with re-teaching myself how to be a good cook and baker!  Hhhmmm – wonder what wonderful food I might dream about cooking tonight!

Movie Review – The Help

Aug21

I love summer hours Fridays!  I like getting off work early and either catching up on errands or just shamelessly wasting the time.  I’ve also used them to get a head start on a trip or other adventure.  I remember back in the early days at work, many years ago, that there was a summer or two that we worked 4-10s and had Friday’s off to conserve energy.  Well, we conserved energy, alright – there was a bunch of us (back then, a bunch was almost everyone who worked there) who would get up about the usual time, go to Mrs. Wenger’s for breakfast, and then go to Nancy’s house and spend the day by her pool eating, drinking, and soaking up the sun!  But, I digress…………

This past Friday, I got off work and ran a couple of errands.  Then, as I was headed home, I drove past the street that the movie theater is on and got the urge to see what time the next showing of “The Help” was.  I had planned to go see it last weekend, but it rained and I just didn’t bother.  So, I drove up to the poster wall and read that it started at 3:45.  I looked at my watch and it was 3:30 — PERFECT!  Without a thought, I pulled into a parking spot, got my ticket and popcorn, and went in to watch the movie.  As I waited for the movie to start, I thought about two things…….1) that this was the first time I’ve been to the theater since I fell in the one in Cary and cracked my rib and 2) that it is a great feeling to be able to just decide on the spur of the moment to spend the afternoon at the movies without having it interfere with anything important!  Aahh – life is good!

So, now for the review!  I’ll put it right out there…….I LOVED THIS FILM!!!  I downloaded the book onto my Kindle about a month ago, but haven’t gotten to it, yet.  I am now so motivated to hurry and finish the one I’m reading now so that I can read “The Help”.

The story is set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi (I spelled it out, instead of writing the abbreviation, cause I like saying in my head “M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-humpback-humpback-I”).  It was an era where rich southern white ladies all belonged to the Junior League, volunteered their time for causes, and had “colored” maids.  Yes, they paid them a salary – after all, slavery had been abolished by then – but it was little more than a token wage to prove they were progressive.  The help, as they called them, raised their children, cleaned their homes, and cooked their meals.  But, remember, this was the deep south in the early 60s.  Life was different then – the civil rights movement was just beginning to gain momentum and national attention.  The movie sets the time by showing the characters watching TV reports of Medgar Evers giving a speech and then, later, the news of his murder right there in their own town of Jackson, Miss, as well as watching the funeral of President Kennedy.

The story finds a way to show humor in the lives of these women without degrading them or making light of the times they lived in.  It provides the perfect balance of humor with scenes that testify to the injustices and humiliation felt by the maids.  It shows the heart and soul and strength and fear of each and every character.  Some scenes found me crying and smiling at the same time, wondering which emotion was more appropriate to what I was watching.  The answer was – both!

Skeeter, played by Emma Stone, comes home from college at Ole Miss with dreams of being a journalist.  She gets a job at the local paper writing a housewife column that provides answers to questions submitted by her readers about how to keep from crying when peeling onions or the best way to get a stain out of their table cloth.  She knows NOTHING about these things because she was raised in a rich white home where there was a maid that did all that stuff.  But, she’s thrilled to get the job and thinks it is the first step to fulfilling her dream.  Her mother and friends think she’s silly for wanting to work and do their best to try to convince her that she should just find a man and get married and forget all this nonsense!

Skeeter strikes up a friendship with Aibileen (Viola Davis), one of her friend’s maids, to help her with her responses for the column.  She also begins to see the way the maids are treated – in particular when her friend Hilly, portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard, announces that she’s drafted a “Home Health Sanitation Initiative” for the Governor to make it a law that all homes should be required to have a separate outside bathroom for the help because “they carry different diseases than we do”.  She pitches a story she wants to write to a NY publisher played by Mary Steenburgen.  The book will contain interviews and stories from the point of view of the maids.  She approaches Aibileen to start with.  Next, Aibileen’s friend Minny (Octavia Spencer) joins in.  The three women meet secretly to share their stories – no one can know because it would be extremely dangerous for Aibileen and Minny if anyone found out what they were doing and what they were telling Skeeter about!  The other maids are too scared to participate until a heart wrenching scene involving one of them gives them all the courage to “help with the stories”.  And the book is written and published with the author listed as “Anonymous”.

Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are wonderful as Aibileen and Minny.  Aibileen is the more mature, realistic one who just wants to tell her stories to help ease the pain of losing her son in a tragic death at the hands of white men.  Octavia is mischievous, “sass mouthed”, and proud.  She gets involved out of spite and, I think, just because she can!  The best testament to that is the scene where she tells Skeeter about the “terrible, awful thing” she does to Hilly after she fires her – I will never again eat a chocolate pie without thinking of that scene and the look on Hilly’s face!!!

Emma Stone is lovely and believable as Skeeter, a complex character who is self-reliant, opinionated, yet demure and shy all at the same time.  She finds it hard to swallow that “These women raise white children.  We love them and they love us.  But, they can’t even use the toilet in our homes.”  She wants to do something about it by bringing it out into the open while trying to protect the anonymity of the women who help her do it.

I also loved the two mother characters.  Sissy Spacek plays Mrs. Walters, Hilly’s mother.  Mrs. Walters is old and persnickity and Hilly treats her almost worse than she treats her maid, but she has spirit and I liked her!  Allison Janney plays Charlotte, Skeeter’s mother.  Charlotte is ill and frail, but still has some spunk and makes for a memorable character.  Another character I really enjoyed was Cecilia, played by Jessica Chastain.  Cecilia married one of the rich white boys after becoming pregnant – the boy just happened to also be Hilly’s ex-boyfriend.  Her character is fun and tries really hard to hide the inner pain from being the town outcast and personal tragedies.  She hires and quickly befriends Minny, who helps her through her heartache.

It was very hard for me to narrow down the characters I wanted to highlight in this review — they were all so interesting and believable and added depth to the story.

I rate this one a solid A++!  I’d love to see it again and can’t wait to read the book.  Plan a girls night out and go see this movie!  You won’t be sorry!  Take some tissues and be prepared to run the gambit of emotions!

Early Morning Memory

Aug3

As I laid in bed this morning with my blanket over my head trying desperately to pretend I had returned to a blissful sleep after hitting my snooze button for the third time, I was struck with a memory.  I have no idea what made me think of it or why I would, but there it was…..racing through my mind……making it impossible to achieve my goal of just one more nine minute span of sleep before the alarm went off for the fourth time.  You’d think that at a time like this, the only thing entering my mind would be something really quite important – like suddenly being reminded I have an early meeting or a call I need to make or maybe something I’m supposed to tell someone today or something that has some substantial meaning and benefit to me to remember!  Nope – not this time!

The memory went like this:  I had a vivid image in my mind of going in to the bathroom at my Mom’s house and sliding the door closed (her bathroom has a door that slides into the wall when it is open) and seeing a poster that I put there when I was in high school.  The poster is no longer there and all signs of it having been there are gone, as well.  But, apparently, the memory of it lives on!

Picture this:  Teenage girl purchases a poster she thinks will be so funny to have on that bathroom door to give everyone a laugh who goes in and closes it.  She sneaks it into the house, goes into the bathroom, closes the door, and uses double stick tape to secure it to the inside of the door.  Not just a little tape, mind you – no, she uses the super-duper industrial strength double stick tape and completely covers the entire border of the poster and carefully affixes it to the door so there are no wrinkles and no way it can fall off (or be removed with anything less than a crowbar).  She laughs hysterically at her ingenious idea and leaves the room.  She waits impatiently with great anticipation for the first time one of her family members goes in to discover the fun.  Soon, her mother is the inaugural enterer.  Snickering to herself, she awaits her reaction, but it is not the reaction she anticipated.  A loud “what the hell is this?” comment comes from the bathroom.  She runs to the door laughing and asking “isn’t it cute?”  The Mom did concede that the poster was cute, but was not particularly happy that it was literally cemented to the door.

The poster?  Well, it was of a monkey sitting on an old-fashioned toilet with his pants down around his ankles and a banana in one hand and the pull chain to the flusher in the other hand – the caption read “GO BANANAS”! Hahahahahahahahahaha – I still smile and laugh when I think of it!  Hahahahahaha

The poster remained on the door for quite some time — not sure if my memory that it stayed there for years is accurate or an exaggeration, but it was there a LONG time, regardless.  It had to - removing it was not going to be an easy task!  Guests who came and used the bathroom roared over it when they would shut the door.  Finally, it had to come down – it was starting to tear and look bad.  So, Mom carefully removed it……..along with the finish and the stain on the wood door in a perfect rectangle the size of the poster!  As she sanded and refinished the door, she drove home the request  order to NEVER do that again!

So, on with my day —- wonder how long this image will be stuck in my head as the day goes on!