Where Are They Now?

   Prior to taking down the more than forty-year-old spruce tree last Friday, the contractor stripped its branches to find, about seventy feet up in the tree, a nest with three baby  birds in it.  He left that part of the tree until the next day, with the hope that the mother bird could somehow relocate the babies. A mourning dove appeared, once the noise and cutting activity had ceased, flying over and around the tree where the nest was, and in and out of the trees in the front of the house. The next day when the  worker climbed the tree, armed with a basket in case the birds were still there, he found them dead.
    Of necessity, the noisy work continued throughout much of the day, and the dove could be seen, and its distinctive notes heard.  When the workers finally stopped and left, the bird flew into the brush beneath the tree, and then out again.  Tonight, two days later, I still hear the sound that doves make, when they cry.  She is still looking.  I know how she feels.

Say it isn't so, Sam!

I always thought those notes played by Sam the Bugler were intoxicating.  They should recall his Bobbleheads, don't you think?

Word of the Day

Maybe a real word, maybe a made up one, but there is a lot of it going around lately-----"Humblebragging."

Better Butter Batter

   Today was Greg's turn.  I picked him up after his golf lesson, and we broke out the cookie recipe files.  Butter cookies are not as popular as many other cookies, and we needed to search through to find a viable one.  We even googled; there is a lot of variety among the recipes.  Yes, all recipes call for butter, and flour, and baking soda, but there the similarity ends.  Do we use an egg, 2 eggs, or no egg?  White sugar, or brown sugar?  Vanilla, or lemon juice, or orange juice?  A little salt, of course, unless you are sodium restricted.  Decisions were made, the batter was mixed, and the dough was contained, labeled, and put in the fridge with the other prospective entries.  We didn't turn the oven on for the taste test; it was too hot.  We're hoping for the best.  

Thje Pumpkin Capers

        Years ago, I used to plant a few pumpkin seeds out in the back, and would reap a harvest of a dozen or so pumpkins, with only a few having suffered woodchuck bites.  Then came the long dry spell, where nothing I planted seemed to flourish.  Flowers that formerly thrived failed to germinate or else dried up and withered away, even the traditional and dependable  petunias.  The grape vines twined over the old child's gym set used to supply enough purple grapes for jelly or grape juice.  But for the last ten years or so, the grapes develop normally almost to the point of ripeness, and then just as they start to turn from green to purple, dry up and fall off the vine.  I've googled possible causes, but there are no definite answers or else such a myriad of potential causes that none offers any help.  Sunflowers used to self-seed from the seeds cast off from the  bird feeders, but this year not a single one sprouted.
    This spring I invested in a package of pumpkin seeds purchased at Rite-Aid.  I was determined not to have to buy a Halloween pumpkin.  The packet contained ridiculously few seeds but I planted them with care.  Well, maybe not such great care, because I forgot where I planted each of the dozen or so seeds the packet contained.  Though I did expect I would recognize the plants when they sprouted.  And I did----3 separate plants in 3 different locations.  Three healthy looking vines with numerous yellow blossoms that should have or could have developed into the fruit of the pumpkin vine. Alas, I could count only 3 baby pumpkins.  One grew to the size of a tennis ball before it was nibbled on, by the resident chipmunk I believe, and eventually carried off.  Another, near the pool, grew a small pumpkin, whose progress I diligently tracked for a while, and then it disappeared.  So that leaves one pumpkin.  It is under  the barberry bush on the lawn in front of the house.  It is still green but has developed to a size about midway between a softball and a soccer ball.  It looks promising.  The chipmunks scurry around that area, helping themselves to the offerings from my Patio Tomato plant from time to time, but I don't think they are interested in my one and only pumpkin.  I can only hope.
   SURPRISE!   Today, I was given a pumpkin, from a most unlikely donor.  She asked me if I ever made pumpkin pie from scratch.  I said I had; I did not say I had no plans to ever do so again---canned pumpkin is fine with me.  She offered me a pumpkin a friend had given her.  She was told it was a pie pumpkin, and she didn't go that route, so she didn't want to keep it.  She even offered to carry it out to the car for me.  I carried it myself though, and it is the biggest pie pumpkin I've ever seen.  It is bright orange, weighs in at 14.5 lbs. and has a diameter of 36 inches.  I'll keep it in the coolness of our cellar and hope it lasts until it's time for it to sit on our front step to welcome the fall season.  Don't know about the from-scratch pie.
 

Recipe for Success, Cookie-wise

     We're hoping.  With August coming to an end, it's time---time to make the cookies, or the cookie dough anyway. The Schaghticoke Fair is just a few weeks away.  One of its long-time  exhibitors was in the house, and available for the first venture---sugar cookies.  The recipe we traditionally use calls for shortening, and there was none in the house.  I've pretty much switched to using margarine or olive oil in its place, wanting to avoid the dread animal fats.    But I didn't want to chance having the cookies be too oily or too flat, so I searched for another recipe.  The best I could do was a recipe which called for half a cup of butter and half a cup of shortening, and we decided to use margarine in place of the shortening.
      The recipe is called "Crisp Sugar Drop Cookies."  The biggest challenge was trying to grate lemon rind, a new venture for the entrant, especially since he had to use a cheese grater, and the lemon had an especially firm rind, or so it seemed.  The recipe also called for 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, but since he had already attacked a lemon, we used lemon juice instead.  All the other steps went well, and we test-baked half a dozen cookies before storing the rest of the dough in the refrigerator.  The cookies passed the taste test with flying colors, first place for sure, the 3 of us in the house decided, or maybe that decision was only mine.
    I took another look at the recipe booklet, which had been stored in my cookie recipe file, and most likely never used.  Time was when I fully expected to use every single recipe I collected, the same as when I had every expectation that someday I would have used all the recipes in my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, a wedding gift in 1968.  I've used that book thousands of times, but actually have only explored a small percentage of its offerings.  But back to today's recipe.  The booklet is titled, "New Fashioned Old-Fashioned Recipes."  It is copyrighted 1951, and every recipe in it calls for Arm & Hammer Brand or Cow Brand Baking Soda, and also vinegar.  What? we ask.  Vinegar?  So I turn to the forward page in the little pamphlet, and find the explanation, by Martha Lee Anderson of the Home Economics Department of Church & Dwight Co., Inc. in New York, N.Y. (No zip code, not yet)
       She writes, "I think most of us have a warm spot in our memories for some special food, which, long ago, nobody could ever bake so well as Grandmother.  Chances are it was Baking Soda which made those old-time baked goods so extra light and tender, moist and delicious.  To get them that way took real skill, because Grandmother's leavening was provided by Baking Soda and sour milk, with  its variable acidity.  Today, there's a new way of using Baking Soda, which produces fine, uniform results.  This new way calls for Baking Soda and vinegar.  Because of the fairly uniform acidity of vinegar, the use of this new method is dependable.  The vinegar releases the same amount of leavening gas from Baking Soda.  I hope you will follow the new-fashioned way to old-fashioned goodness with the recipes in this book!"  
    It's probably a safe bet to assume Martha Lee has probably long since stopped caring about whether the combination of vinegar and Baking Soda ever made its way into the annals of good cooking.  She, if ever an actual person, has provided Ben with valuable insights into chemistry as well as enhancement of  his baking skills.  Maybe someday in chemistry class he can follow up on the difference between the variable acidity of sour milk as opposed to the more uniform  acidity of  vinegar.  And maybe even gain further insight into how vinegar releases leavening gas from baking soda.  That process used to fascinate him and his brother when they were toddlers---I think they called it making a volcano back then.
  P.S. I do feel a certain amount of guilt for having substituted lemon juice,
   
   

Word of the Day

"haboob"    You could look it up.....