Christmas, New Years and cooking

Sorry, it's been a while. I'm not empty, just couldn't think of a good serious topic to post here, and then the holidays and associated mayhem. So I'll say something a bit mundane perhaps, but still a part of me.

Cooking. Me. Men.

My mother is a strange being. On one hand, she was ahead of her time, on the other hand, tightly following conservative religious dogma. But I fiercely love her. She's almost 88 now.

But she taught me the basics of cooking, bless her, and her father, from which she got that 'ahead of her time'. Her father is a hero to me. My "grandpa". My hero.

Cooking... yeah. The importance of reading recipes and following them, which is where ALL cooks begin. Only later, with experience and imagination/inspiration, can one blossem out into a real cook. Look at a recipe, add one's own ideas and tastes, modify/reject/and add or reduce amounts and ingredients, and go....or perhaps just an inspiration and go.... Whatever.

Willingly. Not out of duty and "must" as so many women/wives/mothers must do, alas.

When it comes to cooking, men do enjoy much more freedom, without the expectations. Unfair? Yep. Men get all the credit. Women do all the work....What's new?

The last 5 years I worked very changing hours. From early to late, and then back to early. Took everything I had to do that, even though the work was enjoyable for me, for the most part. It became a survival routine, with no room for many things, cooking among them.

Now I'm retired. And this means my whole life has changed, as well as what determines it. But slowly I'm coming 'round to my own rhythm. The demands of that in retirement are one of the surprises of life.

Some guys don't survive this. Without the external demands of an employer, their routine is lost and they don't find another, at least in time. I kid you not; it is not easy to switch motives and life routine after roughly 45 years of "must". All of a sudden, there is no external "must" from an employer/emperor; yet life goes on, and so do duties and expectations from others, including wives and kids. But I digress (again...I do that a lot. Have patience, I'm a recovering Calvinist).

Where was I? Oh yeah...cooking. I think. Jeez, do I get off on tangents!

Pea soup.

Yeah. Soul food to the Dutch and those with Dutch backgrounds perhaps. And other Europeans. Misunderstood, underestimated, just as the Dutch. Poor babies! (here I go again).

But real soul food. You know. You KNOW!

I've been thinking - more and more - of getting back into cooking and baking. Real soul food, hearty, delicious, maybe spicey (even though my wife can't take spicey). Dutch, American, Mexican, Italian, German....And baking. Mostly...BREAD! The real stuff. But not that far yet. But I'm getting there....

I'm still busy with finances, who does what around the house and "will we have enough money to make it on a retirement income with 2 kids at home?" And my wife is going nuts with her work as well as a husband in the way now 24 hours a day. Yeah she works; we'd never make it otherwise. 20 hours a week, soon to be 24. And I get up after she leaves for work....heheheheheh. Pure luxury after so many years of a night owl having to get up early. Digress again...pooh!

Anywho.....I finally got into action yesterday. Made a huge pot of pea soup with everything in it that belongs there...Dutch style. And some "griesmeel" pudding (semonela). Tastier and finer than tapioca, another favorite of mine. Hours of pleasure making and eating.

Dutch pea soup. Snert, they call it here in the vernacular. G-d! what soul food!

I tried to pass the (my) recipe on to a dear friend in Spokane, Washington. Good luck, Walt. You can't duplicate it exactly; no knolselderij in Washington, and your smoked meat is far too "factory" and salty. But you can modify, as all good cooks do, and come up with a reasonable resemblance. That's the art of cooking. Oh yeah, and making do with what ingredients you have on hand...and within your budget. And THERE is the art.

Tonight we eat pea soup par excellance! I can't wait. Nor my kids. My wife, bless her, cannot stomach it and will make chicken soup from a box with our own chicken added.

And then, later, shoot off a whole bunch of fireworks, and watch others doing the same. In our neighborhood, people go nuts with fireworks for New Years eve! What an experience. A glass or two of wine to toast 2006 in with fireworks, and "oliebollen en appelflappen"* (another two Dutch treats) to bring in the New Year!
*Olliebollen are deep fried pastries and appelflappen are apple filled pastries, deep fried or baked.

I wish you a healthy and satisfying New Year from the bottom of my heart.

Peace.


Earl

Am I dualist or what?

I sing in a men's chorus. I love it. And it's made up of guys from churches in our area.

Except......I've stopped going to church some time ago.

Black sheep perhaps, but most of them don't know I've stopped. At least, they don't act like it. Topic for another post, I suppose.

Even though I've stopped with church, I have NOT stopped being spiritual. The church gets in the way for me, and many members also do; but not all, certainly. Nor do I deny God, as I understand her/him. And since my roots are very churchy, I don't get off much on too many other forms of 'spirituality', the trendy or exotic kinds, you know. Except American Indian and perhaps a bit more, but then that's not trendy, at least from my side. Another topic for another post.

But my singing in our men's chorus has to do with touching base in a very, very meaningful and gut-level way for me. Not that I hang onto all the words, let alone theology, of the songs. I don't. But many of them I do. If they're not too Calvinistic or fundamentalistic or scare tactics about death etc...

There's just something about good music....

And our chorus doesn't sing just religious music; often it's classical or non religious. The right music can touch me in ways that no other things can.

Christmas. And Christmas performances. Last night we sang with another men's chorus from a few miles away; another city. They have 4 times the members as we. This made for some 150 male voices singing....

Almost always, singing with another chorus/choir, director, accompanyment etc. is - at best - mediocre, a bit awkward, uncertain. This performance went absolutely perfectly; we sang as one group that had been together for years. Perfectly. Flawlessly. Effortlessly.

And we - and the church full of people - were touched - no, more than touched - in our deepest being. Of course, the audience sang along in various numbers. Ere Zij God was the last such number. Devastating, it was. While our chorus is Dutch, we sing often in English and German, and sometimes other languages, depending on the original music, of course. Heck, we even sing Negro Spirituals from the US and Russian work songs, Jewish...but I digress.

I'm in a real spiritual struggle. I admit this readily, but not so easily to my mother. This is the fight of fights, for me. Separating the lies and B.S. from the true spirituality, separating what is real from what has been force-fed to us from the 4th century, when it was all politically decided.

Politically.

And many think that this is the true stuff, word for word, from the time of Christ.

Yeah, I also get into politics rather heavily. My other blogs. Not this one.

This blog is personal; what has happened and what is on my mind.

And after last night, I couldn't sleep for hours, so "up" I was. Not bad for a "searcher".

There are more dimensions to life than we know of.

Shades of the 1950s!!!

It's been a while, a long while, since I've seen the mentality of the American 1950's about sex. But I ran across it quite through coincidence in my internet travels. Without further ado, here it comes....as a political spoof, you understand.

A Very Special Iron Hymen Dispatch from First Lady Mrs. George W. Bush: »TEN THINGS EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BOYS AND THEIR VILE PRIVATE PARTS
But first, some testimonials...

Cool Program Testimonials
Sue-Jane R.: "Watch out, boys! Because thanks to Iron Hymen, my baby cave is better guarded than a maximum security prison – even one ringed with electrified razorwire and a crocodile-infested moat!"
Brianna K.: "Iron Hymen taught me how to use super-effective strategies for just abstaining from natural stuff. And it works so good, that now when I get all old, I'm going to abstain from wrinkles and dying, too!"
Crystal F.: "I used to suffer terribly from dirty dreams about boys. Thankfully, now my Iron Hymen Libido-Be-Gone™ thong panties keep my dreams clean – and my yucky cooter bone-dry!"
Muffy P.: "OHMIGOD, like, Iron Hymen taught me to respect myself way too much to ever let some hairy creep hock man-lugies on my Godly cervix like it's some gross subway platform!"

And then on to "Take the IRON HYMEN Abstinence-Only Pledge"
I, [MY NAME], hereby pledge:

1. To never let grubby boys touch me – unless it's just fun innocent stuff like tripping me and pulling my hair. (But only the hair on my head!)

2. To never wear trampy stuff like shorts or t-shirts or open-toed shoes, which basically tell horny perverts that I'm a major tramp who's just asking for it.

3. To never do rough stuff like ride horsies or bikes with hard seats, which could break my vagina's freshness seal and make me totally unlovable.

4. To never let tampons violate the sanctity of my hoo-hoo, because tampons are really nothing more than thirsty little albino penises.

5. To never have premarital sex, because Jesus doesn't want anyone messing around inside my girly hole until after His church makes some money off a wedding.

I understand that abstaining from sex protects me from:

Forcing my wonderful parents to use "tough love" and kick me out of the house for embarrassing them by being such a little whore.

Having adoption-hungry homosexuals circle my pregnant belly like vultures, hell-bent on corrupting my unwanted bastard child.

Ok.....here comes the introduction....:
"Take it from me, girls – there's no good reason to rush into S-E-X. That's why I hope these scientific facts help you choose abstinence, so you need never know the heartbreak of being trapped in a loveless marriage just because you drank too many margaritas one night and gave up your honey pot to a pushy young cokehead from a so-called 'good family.'"

And now......go to the original site to read the "10 commandments for girls only".