Dear Blog Reader:
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. I come to
you with the message of steady, steady; leave those cotton sheets in the linen
closet a few more weeks. I can see the sweat breaking out on your brow with the
temperatures jumping up into the 60s. Please, set the cotton summer weight
sheets down and back away from the cliff. Nature knows. Our ability to drink
cider in the fall is depending on our restraint. Just last week, while on an
evening bike ride, I nearly ran over a robin. I know what you’re thinking. “I
didn’t know you could ride that fast Roger.” I can’t. I am not sure why he
stood in the middle of the road as I came around the curve looking up at me
with forlorn eyes. I could look into his eyes and I am sure that I saw in them
a depth of despair. While peering into those black bbs, I got the sense that he
was thinking “Run over me please. I am cold and this winter is never going to
end. There are no worms. All is lost. ”
I know that I did not write last week. Couple of reasons
really. No. 1; a deep sense of bitterness and resentment had swept over me. Everyday the past two weeks, I have had to look at pictures of “friends” on the
beach, of beautiful sunsets over large bodies of water. The low point was
reading a sniveling post complaining about how cold the 60 degree high was. We
vote you off the island. I had nothing good to say about you so I kept my
fingers quiet.
No. 2; Last weekend my to do list had grown so long that not
everything could be done. I took the opportunity to make a Good Friday great by
riding from my door to Ben’s door 89.2 miles away. I didn’t realize that good
biking roads could connect our places. Ingalls to Bloomington
in 7 hours, including an hour’s respite in beautiful Franklin , IN Franklin for lunch, road with me for 10 miles and met me
in Bloomington Bloomington ride was that the forefathers and mothers of Bloomington Bloomington
Saturday was spent with family sharing the Easter holiday
with good food and fellowship. Then Sunday afternoon, the religious holiday was
marked by sending the recurrent thorn trees into the very fires of hell. Great
progress was made in the wedding meadow. One half of the thorn tree piles have
met their destruction. The rest will go after a little spot of rain to moisten
the tinder dry winter killed grass that dominates the wedding meadow landscape.
Plenty of time remains.
However, time is of the essence in another area. Fund
raising for the Cover Indiana Ride has fallen behind schedule. After an initial
blizzard of activity and generous contributions and promised contributions,
things have slowed down to a gentle flurry of activity. If you were intending
to support the ride with a contribution, it would put my mind at ease if you
would get on the website and make your donation. If you are more comfortable
with checks, you can send it to me. Make it out to Cover Indiana and I will
forward it on to Lafayette Habitat for Humanity. The website is http://www.hfhcoverindiana.org/
hit the make a donation button and select yours truly. Thank you. If you have
already tapped out your donation funds, I appreciate all of the support that
you have given to all of the other causes that compete for your generosity. Too
much? Laying it on too thick? I don’t think so.
Big news! Last Monday evening, I recognized that my life had
slipped into a rut. Changes need to be made. While we are long past the annual season
for resolutions, my life sometimes marches to the beat of a different drummer.
So on April 1st, I resolved to break out of this joy deadening rut
that I find myself in. Bev and I were eating supper on Monday. I looked past
her lovely shoulders. The view from there is a white Hoosier cupboard where we
keep all of the household cook books. I am guessing that we could select a
different recipe daily and not repeat for a thousand years. We love cookbooks.
Ever since I stole the first on from the Bryan Brethern
Church
Bev and I were sharing the events our day. I was gazing past
her lovely shoulders and my eyes come to rest on the Farm Journal’s greatest
cookie recipes cookbook. There it was in flashing neon letters, my epiphany;
you are in a cookie rut. Bev is a fantastic baker. Cakes, rolls, pies, and
cookies roll out of her oven with great and appreciated regularity. She is very
good and has had a brush of notoriety by placing 3rd in the Indy
Star’s pie contest a couple of years ago. I write notoriety because being
famous is not greatness. Bev is a great baker. It augments her hospitality
giftedness. It was the pushing out for notoriety that made her uncomfortable.
The pie? It was a lemon wild black
raspberry pie that was of her creation. It was to die for. There was a lemony,
creeeaaaamy, rassssspbeeery all in her flaky hooooooommmmmmaaaade crust.
Pardon me while I stop my pavloovian response. I lost track
of where I was. I am in a cookie rut. In a cookie rut and I was staring at 350
of the greatest cookie recipes. I pulled out the book and was ashamed to see that
the top of the book was covered in a thick layer of dust. Dust shouting down an
indictment of the ruttiness of my cookie experience. In the past when Bev would
ask what kind of cookies I wanted, I would respond “chocolate chip”; sometimes
to “change” things up, I would ask for cat crap cookies. Cat crap to the
uninitiated are really chocolate, oatmeal, peanut butter no bake cookies. As
you dollop the melted butter, sugar, peanut butter and oatmeal concoction on
the cookie sheet to congeal and harden they look like little mounds of cat
crap. This is especially true if you feed a cat chocolate, oatmeal, sugar,
butter and peanut butter.
In order to break out this life draining rut, I have
resolved to make a different batch of cookies each week for the next seven
years or so. As I opened the dust covered brittle pages, I notices several
things from this 40 year old treasure trove. These farm bakers were making
cookies for an active hard working population. They all start with 1 cup of
Crisco. The recipes that are described as “rich” start with 1 cup of Crisco and
1 stick of butter; Hurrah. Also, I noticed that these are huge recipes. I
picked one of the smaller recipes and it made 7 dozen. These people were
cooking for large families and a couple of hungry, overweight farm hands. Seven
dozen cookies a week in an empty nest house; I can do the math; Hurrah. I am
breaking out of a rut or creating some ruts if I eat a dozen Crisco infused
cookies a day for a year.
This conundrum can be overcome with recipe reduction and
just a little generosity. So friends and
coworkers can expect my installments of the greatest cookies over the next 7
years. The first? They were a chewy honey cookie. You start with a cup of
Crisco, a lot of flower, an egg, sugar, and a cup and a half of honey. Yum.
But you know what would make it just a little bit better . .
. some chocolate chips.
Take care
Roger
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