Thanksgiving Stuffing

Dear Blog Reader;

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. This blog puts me on the cusp of 200 blogs. This is number 199. I don’t know if I have a special 200^th edition or if I will find a regular shiny bauble to interest me into writing. We shall see. I do think that 199 is pretty epic.

You will remember from the last post that big doings were in the offing. Nephew Max was coming back to the scene of his greatest epicurean feat. Two years ago, he had eaten 7 honey buttered yeast rolls. It had started out as adoration for the roll. Out of all of the food on a fabulous Thanksgiving spread, Max chose the roll to love. There was turkey, and stuffing, mashed potatoes and noodles, some celery cut up and a carrot for veggies. There was pie by the half dozen with whipped cream piled high but it was the yeast rolls that caught young master Max’s eye.

In anticipation of the great day, I had immortalized Max’s feat of intestinal fortitude. Sibling and cousin love being what it is, my tome of gastronomical encouragement became a challenge for brothers and cousin. As everyone arrived after their arduous trek over rivers and through woods, I heard the first faint rumblings of competitive juices. Suddenly, we had three big eaters laying claim to the best. Three teen tummies denying themselves the cheeseball and cracker appetizer that the older grazers were brunching through. The wise ones in the room knew from experience that these sprints for glory are well past us. One should take it slowly when warming up to the task of annual gluttony.

Sensing competitive shortages ahead, the lovely Miss Beverly sprinted into action, pulled out another bag of flour, reopened the tub of yeast and doubled the roll recipe. She is a lovely life saver that Miss Beverly. As one o’clock rolled around, the noodles were done, the potatoes were smushed, the stuffing stuffed and the pies were sliced. It was time. Lord bless this food and the family. Thank you for the blessings of the past year and may the best boy win.

Before the eating could begin, the ritual talking had to take place. It is the American way. All of sports radio is a testament to the importance of talking about what you are going to do before you do it, or talking about what you are not going to do because “talkin ain’t walkin” as my grammatically challenged grandpa used to say.

“Wait a minute boys. How many rolls are you going to eat?” Sam the bold immediately responded, “Fifteen.”

“Fifteen? Well you better put those mashed potatoes, noodles, cheesy macaroni, and turkey back.” “Nah, I’ll be fine.”

“The heck you will. But never mind; go ahead, fill up and lose focus with all of those other goodies. Just don’t be disappointed when the “I told you so’s” come out later when you lose steam and don’t make your goal of 15.”

Fifteen was a well thought out goal. Sam the bold is 14. Any boy worth his salt should be able to eat his age plus one. In all fairness, Sam would have made Thanksgiving lore if it weren’t for the aforementioned carbs. There was still a chance. His plate had sensible servings. In fact, Sam sprinted out to a quick start. The arbitrary uncle’s council declared that we did not care how many were eaten before number 7. “Let us know when you get to number seven.” Let’s face it number one through seven is pretty boring. No one is going to throw up on one through seven. No one is likely to chew too quickly and have a roll go down the wrong pipe. The arbitrary uncle’s council is a lot of things but hovering and worrying about the preliminaries isn’t one of them. Our motto is “come back when you’re interesting in about 5 years.” Sam sprinted out to eight eaten when he faced a crisis. It is a crisis that we all face; a mini version of midlife. “I am midway to the goal. There is still a long way to go for success, and it will be hard to reach. Plus, I haven’t had any pie yet. It is a tough decision. I want to make the goal but that pie looks very good. I think that I will have a piece or two of pie.” Poof, goal is abandoned. Sam the bold’s count? Eight.

The beautiful thing about Sam’s boldness is that it cleared the way for Joe the sly, and Max the mighty. They were able to get in there and eat what they could eat without being targeted by the Uncle’s commentary.

Joe is the fleet footed “Illinois cousin;” a cross country runner of some repute. Obviously, he has an unfair advantage both on the course and at the table. “That boys got a holler leg” (thanks grandpa.) It makes him fast at cross country and a force at the feast table. He had kept pace with Sam. As Sam exited at the ramp to Pie-ville. Joe kept his foot on the pedal and kept rolling down the road. However, his cover was gone and the uncles were able to focus their laser like focus on the fleet footed one. We counted and watched. 11, . . . 12, . . . . . 13,. . . . . . . . . . 14, . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 was a bridge too far. It was a gallant effort. However, 15 was never Joe’s goal. It was Sam the bold’s goal. Joe was simply able to excuse himself, wipe the crumbs from his shirt front and go off to more esoteric pursuits.

Before we turn ourselves to the plight of young Master Max, I want to take a moment to commend Sam the bold. Certain uncles have been known to run a joke into the ground. Sometimes even hurting the feelings of the recipient. I have never recalled witnessing such running amok but I have had the opportunity to apologize for certain excesses in the past. Mr. Sam the bold stood up to the teasing quite well and even came up with a couple of great jokes himself. So good that he nearly caused his brother, Max the magnificent, to lose his good work by laughing uncontrollably with a mouth full of his sixth roll. That would have been “icing on the cake”; so to speak.

That left Max the mighty. He of the 7 roll fame two years ago. He is a smart one that Max. He kept his goal simple. “One more than my brother.” That would make 9; nine rolls to glory. One bite at a time Max slowly worked his way to the goal. He would take the roll break it into pieces and slather each piece with honey butter to help everything go down. As mentioned earlier, there was a near crisis at roll 6. A fit of laughter caused by a helpful brother nearly sidetracked Max’s climb to greatness. 7, 8, 9; it was done. He had made it. Fist bumps all around. It was time to go play with the cousins.

Isn’t it great to boldly proclaim even if you fall short? Isn’t it great to hang in there and put away 14 yeast rolls and not throw up? Isn’t it great to beat your older brother? I love Thanksgiving.

Take care.

Roger

Gift of the Mag-pie.

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. Today finds me with nearly a full stack of wood, a brief respite from the cold weather and family starting to congregate getting ready for Thanksgiving. These are good things. I am blessed.

This weekend is the start of big doings. It is the first of two big doings. The lovely Miss Beverly has been enlisted by my side of the family to make pie. You may have seen the Instagram last evening proclaiming success. As I stepped into church, this morning the ringing of praises filled the

sanctuary. “Bev is so gifted at making pie.” “That pie sure looks good.” “You are so lucky to have that Beverly making you pies.” That last guy’s wife didn’t seem quite as pleased at Bev’s giftedness. I may have been reading her body language incorrectly, but I am pretty sure that holding a rolling pin wielded menacingly above the head is a sign of displeasure.

Pie making is a good thing to be gifted at; to enjoy, to have in your wheel house. People know this intuitively. Pie is good. Pie is great. Everybody wants to eat pie. More importantly, we want to eat good pie. Sure, we will eat cheap pie. I will eat the $3.79 eight inch pumpkin pie. I will eat it gladly with 3 heaping serving spoons of whipped cream smeared over its 50.2 square inches. Measuring pie in square inches often confuses me; pie are round not square. It confuses me until I think about 50.2 square inches of whipped cream enhanced pumpkin, and I get over it.

We will all eat that $3.79 pie from that gourmet pie shop called Target, but we won’t ever say that the Target pie fairies are gifted. Spiffily dressed maybe, but they are not gifted pie makers. We know what gifted pie making tastes like, and it doesn’t come from a box from Target. Good pie crust is flakey with a stick of Crisco cut in. The crust is thick but not too thick. The filling is chilled before it is poured in the crust. Go ahead and put an extra dash of sugar in the pecan and an extra pat of butter in there too, take that extra time to brush the egg whites on the top crust of the raspberry pie.

We do rely on the lovely Miss Beverly’s giftedness. She always comes through. It is a good thing too. The dessert counter would have been pretty bare without her six pies. And as we all said on the way home, “that was good practice for Thursday.

Speaking of practice for next Thursday, anticipation is building this year. Everyone coming to the Hoover feast is holding their breath. It is the two year anniversary of Mini Max’s triumphant seven honey roll binge at T-giving two years ago. You can read all about it in the November 26, 2012 blog “Wish you were here.” It was an epic battle of boy against honeyed yeast goodness. A case where grandpa Doyle would have said “don’t let your eyes be too big for your stomach” in good hearted teasing. And the boy would have responded “don’t worry grandpa. I got this.”

Things were tense for a moment. The seventh one causing a bit of sweat to break out on his forehead; swallowing hard; crazy uncles and cousins balancing on that thin line between encouragement and too much encouragement. But he did it. He ate all seven and kept them down. He even had a strong enough pancreas to secrete the insulin needed to metabolize all of that sugar. We were all impressed.

Now as the rematch between boy and food approaches, questions abound. Is 11 year old Max as good as 9 year old Max, or has he lost a step to the ravages of age? One would think that his stomach has not stopped growing. Surely, it is getting bigger. But what about his heart? Has his drive, his determination, that certain something that separates the greats from us mere mortals, has that stopped growing? Can he eat his age in honey rolls? Next Thursday around noon, Max will sit at a table piled with platters of food. Will he focus on the rolls or be distracted by the noodles? They are both tempting starches; both comfort foods. Time will tell.

His fan club will be there in full force. I hope that there is time to make a banner. "Go Max Go. Eat Those Rolls. Eleven or Bust." Aunts will cheer. Cousins will howl with laughter. And Uncles will "throw up" their arms in wild exultation and experience a moment of self-congratulation for keeping another piece of Bev’s magic pie for themselves.

Take care.

Uncle Roger

Time to embrace the flannel

Dear Blog Reader            

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. This winter weather has gotten pretty serious in a hurry. Just goes to show you what will happen when you throw hurricane force winds at Alaska. That’s right the Alaskans get honked off and send an early artic vortex can of whoop butt on our Hoosier Thanksgiving.

I do want to take this small opportunity to do some advertising. To the right of this blog is a button that lets you follow the blog. If you join ranks of blog followers, you will become part of an exclusive group of followers in the world. You will have something in common with 30 or so other followers. Out of all of the millions of people in the world on the internet, you would become part of the cool few who get notification that a new post has been perpetrated on the world. That would be a great Christmas present for yourself; nothing screams merry Christmas to me like the prestige and honor of knowing that you are part an elite, connected, group of cultured, hip, and well educated individuals. And I will get a kick of having a few more people follow “You Said What, Roger?”.

The Lovely Miss Beverly and I were sitting around a table with some good friends the other evening. (I can call you good friends. Can’t I?) We were speaking about the blog, and a recurring theme discussion started. “What do you think the recurring themes of your blog are Roger?” Without hesitation I said, “Assassin deer.” Which isn’t entirely true. It is Assassin deer and flannel sheets.

I was reminded of this by one of the blogs super readers. (I can call you a super reader. Can’t I?) After reading last week’s blog about the assassin deer attack on the Lovely Miss Beverly’s car and gathering walnuts for the impending winter. I received the following message in my in box. “When are you changing to flannel sheets?”

I was dumb struck. I had dropped the ball. I was so focused on the Assassin deer that I had forgotten about the flannel sheets. It is true that most of my focus in on removal of flannel sheets in the spring and trying to rally the troops to keep them on through May 15^th in an homage to the weather gods capricious nature and their desire to ruin the apple crop with a late season freeze. My focused obsession in one area had kept me blind to this other danger lurking in the shadows sneaking up on me. I had left the Sharritt’s exposed to mortal danger. We were one quick cold snap from freezing to death in our sleep. (Or at least being uncomfortable for an hour or two in the middle of the night trying to outlast the Lovely Miss Beverly. Hoping she would get up walk across the cold floor pull out the emergency quilt and lay it lovingly over my cold body, thereby allowing my body to generate more warmth through the shear exertion of supporting 50 lbs of blankets.)

To make excuses: the weather had lulled me into complacency. Sure October temps were cool for their daytime highs, but the overnights stayed pretty warm. The average frost date in Indianapolis is mid- October. 3 out of the last 4 years we received a frost the last week of September. This year? It was late October. Average temperatures are such a tricky thing. So the nights have not been cold enough to need flannel sheets.

Also, the Sharritt’s have made a technological leap. This past summer we put in geo thermal air conditioning and consequently, heating. We have relied totally on wood heat for the past 10 years. I have always felt like the exercise of cutting wood has made me a conservationist. Every room that I shut the heat off in is a ½ piece per day of wood that I do not have to cut. Every degree that I leave the temp below 70 degrees is another ½ piece of wood per day that I do not have to cut.  Pretty soon those 120 days of one piece of wood add up and I save a couple of trees. The other challenge with the old technology is that the house took a long while to heat up. Turn up the heat and then sit in front of space heaters and under blankets while the house warmed from 60 up to 70 before bed time. Then we would turn back the heat and bask beneath the heavenly flannel sheets for our long winter’s nap.

With the new technology, the wood heat is augmented with the geothermal and wow the house heats up very quickly. We can jump the temp 10 degrees in about 45 minutes. The temperature changes so quickly that we are concerned that tornadoes could be spawned across the warm front as it moves through the house. The other thing that happens is that we find ourselves waking up soaked in sweat because we have set the fancy thermostat to start warming the house at 4:10; 20 minutes before alarm clocks start sounding for Bev and I to start our days. Literally, I started to empathize with the frog sitting in the slowly warming water not realizing that the critical boiling temperatures were arriving until it was too late. Morning after morning, I have been throwing the covers off in fitful bursts trying to keep from spontaneously combusting. The situation would become truly dire if we were to have flannel sheets on the bed.

Not to worry, I have been adjusting the fancy thermostat so the heat comes on later and later. A couple more days and the conditions will be right for flannel sheets and all will be right with the world.

Isn’t that the trouble with technology? Every advancement leaves us searching for answers to cope with the changes the advancement created. On the way to increased warmth, we get too hot so now we can’t enjoy the goodness that is a flannel sheet. We adjust until we learn to live with the progress that technology has brought, and find ourselves in nearly the same spot where we started.  We see it with computers, smart phones, microwave popcorn, and the electric tooth brush.

For now though, it is time to turn back the heat and put on the flannel sheets. Winter is coming and nothing says warm like flannel on a cold, dark, winter’s night. It is time to embrace the flannel.

Take care.

Roger

I say nuts to that.

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. It leaves my hand doing pretty okay. How’s that for a resounding   endorsement as to the state of my affairs. The Sharritt’s do feel a bit under attack. Last week, I wrote of the effort to spy on the lovely Miss Beverly and me by the Assassin Deer and one of his minions, Ricky Raccoon. As you can read in last week’s blog, it did not end well for our enemies. This week saw a direct frontal attack. Not to worry, no one was injured. Although the Subaru received a bloody nose and is a bit dinged up.

The lovely Miss Beverly was heading for work on her usual route. (I know; routine is the enemy of personal security. This fight will take constant vigilance.) At the bottom of the hill, a quarter of a mile from the front door, a doe comes streaking in at an oblique angle from the northeast. Bev’s fast reflexes kick in. She slams on the brakes and takes evasive maneuvers. Stupid antilock brakes lengthened the stopping distance. Consequently, there was contact. However, the damage was minimal. Unfortunately, the terrorist perpetrator was able to limp off. Actually, the doe went over to the nearest fence and leapt over it without any sign of lasting hurt. Bev returned to the house and we examined the damage.

The damage was not too bad, I peeled off the chrome piece that advertised to the world that we drove a Subaru Forester. I should not be too surprised that the Assassin deer would attack an icon of encroachment; the Forester. I have kept it for a souvenir, and am waiting for the opportunity to tack it on to the Assassin deer head that I am committed to mounting in the man cave in our home. (I have been informed that that act of vengeful home decoration will require the lovely Miss Beverly’s dead body. I can always mount it to the radiator of my wood hauling tractor.) The right front head light might shine off a bit more to the right now. Which is a good thing, it gives a great view of the side ditches in rural South Madison County; side ditches that are the staging ground for Assassin Deer attacks. The Side Ditches of Madison County: wouldn’t that be the title of a great book and follow on movie with Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood? Meryl could play the lovely Miss Beverly and Clint (after extensive make up) could play the bitter Assassin Deer. Somebody call my copy right lawyer.

Like the Assassin Deer driven by the change in day length, temperatures or the calendar, I am feeling the change of the year. My life is definitely in the gathering mode. I am gathering wood to burn for heat in the winter and this year I have been gathering walnuts. Like a ground squirrel on meth, I have been scurrying around picking up all of the walnuts that I can find. I literally have more than 10 gallons of hulled nuts stored up for this winter.

I find myself having to give a walnut primer at this point. Walnuts, when found in the wild, have a green husk that grows around the hard woody shell that encases the nut meat. When the walnut falls to the ground the green husk turns all black and gooey. They are nasty things to look at, and nastier things to touch. That black and gooey part has tannins that will permanently stain whatever it touches a dark brown to black. Your ancestors when they became tired of looking at clothes that were the natural white of cotton or wool, realized that they could change all of their cloths to a dirty brown color by soaking them in a tub of water with plenty of walnut husks mixed in. The puritans were a dower, sullen looking people for a reason. They had just stained their cloths a depressing color and it wasn’t coming out. They were stuck with it.

This husk has to come off. Once discarded, you still haven’t reached to good meat on the inside. A huskless walnut is a wooden structure that is hard to break. You can run over them with a car and they don’t break. You can squeeze them with pliers and unless they are the huge channel locks, you aren’t going to open them up. You can hit them with a hammer but you had better wear eye protection because they produce some serious shrapnel. The hammer method is too much of a good thing. Sure the nut is open. However the good stuff is smashed to smithereens and infused with splinters of the shell. No walnut cracking is an exercise in physics. You want a long lever to generate a lot of power with a short throw so that power is limited in the damage that it can to. Once these attributes are finely balanced and in harmony, the nut is opened revealing the tasty nutmeat.  

I have the nut guy to blame for my walnut obsession. It is an obsession. Two weeks ago, I had cleaned up all of the walnuts around our place. We went to a friend’s house and walking between their drive way and the back door. I went in and asked if he had a 5 gallon bucket that I could use to take some nuts home. The nut guy is a friendly retiree at the Pendleton Farmer’s market who promised that “these walnuts are the best you have ever eaten.” That is a lie. His walnuts taste like any other walnut in the world. But I believed him and bought a couple of quarts last year. After breaking a couple of store bought nutcrackers, smashing my fingers using channel lock pliers and having several nut shrapnel slivers removed from my face, I still had a quart and ¾ left and still had no nutmeat to show for it.

Like the one tracked minded person I can become from time to time, I turned to the internet and found the best walnut cracker ever. Most of the time when you look for the “world’s best”, the selection is simply narrowed down to the top 100. Not so with walnut crackers. There appears to be one claimant to that title. The owners of that title are a small mom and pop business in rural Iowa. They have harvested the laws of physics. The cracker is about a foot tall, it has a handle about two feet long and it moves a steel piston approximately 3/8 of an inch; “just enough to crack the walnut and not damage the meat.” And it costs $100.

Sure, I could have just thrown away the $3.00 of walnuts gone to Trader Joes and bought all of the $12.00 a pound shelled walnuts I could ever have wanted. But no, I had a problem that needed solved. I had 25 walnuts that could not be cracked. I had found a solution; a $100 nut cracker that took up 3 feet of counter space in the lovely Miss Beverly’s kitchen. It seemed that my path was clear. I would convince the lovely Miss Beverly that fresh cracked walnuts were better for you; the nut guy’s walnuts were much better than store bought walnuts, and never let her see the receipt for the $100 nutcracker until I had cracked enough nuts to get the price per nut below the store bought nuts. So the nutcracker arrived in December. I cracked my 25 walnuts at a $4.00 a nut rate, and waited for this year’s nut crop to come in.

After collecting, hundreds of nuts this fall, husking the nasty black hulls and staining my hands, I am set. By next September, after cracking 4 nuts a day, I will be nearing the ½ way point to bragging about how cheap the world’s best nut cracker is. Like all of the rest of the squirrels, I know that life is good when it is November and you have 25 lbs of nature's free goodness stored for the long winter ahead.

Take care.

Roger.