hummingcrow: one squall voice

This is just for my mom. She needs a cat fix. 4:30 of me playing with my cat using a squeaky mouse toy on a string – he likes any version of “thing on a string.” And mom, the bed isn’t made because he likes to play better on a surface that has some topography to navigate. The bed’s made now. I swear.

While visiting my mother over the Thanksgiving holiday, we dug this out of some old papers, written by my great grandmother during Christmas 1943. I thought it would be fun to share, so I typed it up as written:

Our 1943 Christmas

The food was good but the chicken was tough
But we chewed and chewed ’til we had enough
For health and food we all were glad
But best of all we had our Dad

Some hunted, some talked, and some even walked
At doing things for us none even balked
As for the children, naught could be finer
Than to stand in the yard and see the Streamliner

At games, puzzles and cards, all of us played
And far in the night soft beds were made.
The children were tired and sleepy – not cross
And we soon showed them we knew how to boss.

So soon they were sleeping quietly away
And knew nothing more ’til early next day.
While we silly old folks sat till our games were all done
Then we too retired, long, long after one

Next morning was fine and all in a glow
The children went out for a romp in the snow
Then late in the day to their homes they went back
Leaving Grandpa and I alone in our shack

We felt very lonesome and each dropped a tear
Wanting all of our children at home with us here
We can yet hear them calling “Merry Christmas” so clear
“Merry Christmas to you and a Happy New Year.”

12-27-43
Grandma Warner (Anna Warner)

Holy Bisque, Kitchen-Man!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque, that is, as concocted and published by PJ Mullen, who says, and I completely agree, that “a dad’s place is in the kitchen.” I made a big bad batch of this soup today, and my taste-buds are singing!

Like Mullen, my dad did a lot of the home cooking while my mom toiled away at the office. Like Mullen, my dad loved to experiment in the kitchen and was always tweaking recipes, figuring out how to make them better. Unlike Mullen, my dad got stuck on the zucchini end of the squash spectrum, and spent way, way too much time figuring out different things to stuff into them. Unlike Mullen, my dad never got around to butternut squash.

Which is why, having bought several pounds of Maya’s butternut squash, I needed recipe ideas to use it up, and gratefully found myself ogling Mullen’s beautiful bisque. Thick, hearty, creamy, good for you and resonant with the flavors of fall. The longer I watched him make it, the more I had to make my own. And I have to say, after tasting the soup, the vanilla bean was truly a genius move.

Of course, like my dad would have, I tweaked Mullen’s recipe to what I had on hand. I was out of celery, so I threw in an extra apple. I let my onion really caramelize in the pan before adding the apple. Instead of using 6 cups of broth I used four. I replaced the remaining 2 cups of broth called for with the zest and juice of three oranges, because here in Phoenix, citrus is a Fall Flavor, too. I had no fresh ginger, so I tossed in a little ground ginger just before blending the soup. Being too lazy to go get celery, do you think I went and got mascarpone? If you guessed no, you are right. My finishing touch was a simple sprinkle of toasted walnuts on top.

But the soup is it’s-rainy-and-cold-out-and-I-want-something-warm-and comforting-inside-me heaven. We ate it for dinner, I’ve got two more servings in the fridge for later this week, and six more in the freezer for the next rainy day. And a new blog, peaches en risotto, to drool all over whenever I need food ideas.

 

 Podcast Video [1:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (177)
 AppleTV (960x540) [1:00m]: Download (155)
 iPod (640x360) [1:00m]: Download (225)
 iPhone (480x270) [1:00m]: Download (148)

I’m participating in a videoblogging game this month. Each day, a new person makes a short video inspired by the previous day’s video. I think the limit is 90 seconds, but mine is only one minute. Yes, today is my day. This video is inspired by Kath’s and will in turn spark the one John will make tomorrow. Not sure where he’ll post it so I linked to his twitter account. The whole month’s worth of videos for the game are being collected so you can see the whole sequence.

Kath published some intriguing thoughts about time, the data-body, and outsourced memories along with her video. Her piece begins with a quote from “Time Squared,” a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Which is kind of funny because when I think about time, I always come back to Delmore Schwartz’ poem Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day, which, of course, provides a big theme for the Star Trek Generations film: Time is the fire in which we burn. And I also come back to Don Charles’ song, “Little Pieces,” performed by D-Squared, which I used as the soundtrack. As Charles says, we’re all just “walking, talking, burning little pieces.” And for the origin of both, you can always look back to Heraclitus.