new artsy photographer on the rise

Here is a photo taken by DollinkGranddaughter LBPS.

When: June 2009 (LBPS was 22 months old at the time)
Subject: Grappa
Camera: G-Ma (aka MiNo)'s Canon Digital SLR

No computer image manipulation, save for size reduction for blog.

plucked from the plethora ...

... of 'Michael' articles and videos offered up by the media these last few days ...
this one by TIME music critic Josh Tyrangiel comes closest (thus far) to expressing some of my own reflections on
Michael Jackson: Performer Extraordinaire.

For me, over and above the weirdness he lived - the music truly defines the man.

Included in this video are snippets of my fave MJ tunes.
Those with a beat that 'You can't not move to'.

Crank the speakers.
Get a grooooooove on.

So much of Michael Jackson's music is magic that flows through to the core.
I dare ya to steady your booty.

Photo of young MJ from this website:
- Also check out the photos of young female celebs.
Appreciate that celebrity is
more often than not - cultivated from 'just us normal folk'-

musical interlude

Ode to Betty Crocker's Chiffon Pie

Yesterday, I made a Lime Chiffon Pie.
Clearly, doing so was a step in the opposite direction of my current return to better-eating-and-exercising-for-health program.

Five steps forward, three steps back. A reasonable forward and back motion considering the challenging times. (liken it to the status of our personal finances...).
Ahem and Amen.

Anyways.
Armed with a recipe for Citrus Chiffon Pie from my Betty Crocker ** cookbook, and four fragrant limes, I assembled the ingredients to make a frothy tangy and a wee bit sugary pie.

To my thinking, 'chiffon' is Pie Lite, and this I maintained as rationale for making a dessert with just two people in mind to eat it. This was my first attempt at a true chiffon pie. Not one of the Cool-Whip + Jell-o Instant Mix variety - though that combo of chemicals does yield a convincingly tasty (albeit too sweet) version of the real deal. Nope - my chiffon pie will be made from scratch or not at all.

~ Citrus Chiffon Pie ~
from the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook
1/2 c. sugar
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2/3 c. water
1/3 c. (fresh-squeezed) lemon, orange or lime juice
4 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 T. grated lemon, orange or lime rind
4 egg whites
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 c. sugar

Blend sugar, gelatin, water, juice and eggs yolks in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it boils. Add rind. Place pan in cold water, cool until mixture mounds slightly when dropped from a spoon. Fold into a Meringue of egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar. Pile into a cooled baked pie shell. Chill several hours until set. Serve with a generous amount of whipped cream.
P.S. If you aren't adverse to the idea, a teeny
tiny drop of green food coloring can
be added during the mixing. I dipped the very tip of a
toothpick into green food coloring and that
was just enough for a visual hint o' lime.

Some folks shy away from uncooked meringue (you can substitute pasteurized dried egg white), but I am OK-fine with it. I have little fear of the traditional Caesar salad made with raw egg, and have consumed my share of the Original Orange Julius (remember those?) drinks with raw egg added for extra protein. The eggs I used for this pie were washed/scrubbed after they were laid by a duck - by the name of Mavis. (No, Mavis didn't wash the eggs - her owner did). In the future, I'll be using egg white substitute for this pie - so no one freaks out about eating uncooked egg white. OK? OK.

** The Betty Crocker New Picture Cookbook (1961, 5 - ring binder edition).
(consider this a temporary link ` until the book sells for $325)

Walking down Memory Lane with Betty C....

On many a Saturday morn in the 1950's and 60's, my Mom and I could be found boarding the Powell-Mason cable car for a ride downtown. We'd spend the day browsing department stores, always with a stop for lunch at the JC Penney cafeteria (chicken pot pie!) or Woolworth's lunch counter. Mom and I weren't shopaholics, therefore never went on crazy shopping sprees, but there would always be a few sensible and/or novel, purchases made by day's end.

At age 12 or so, I was developing an interest in the alchemy of food. Particularly fascinating was the notion that certain combinations of flour, liquid, leavening and flavors - mixed, then baked in the oven - would result in a variety of yummy things to eat. We didn't bake in our home, but I did learn something of cooking and baking 'American-style' by way of junior high school Home Economics.

Not only educational, but lots of fun - were the hours I spent in Home Ec class kitchenettes. It was like playing house. Each mini kitchen was equipped with a small sink, refrigerator, stove and oven. There was a table and four chairs. Shelves of plates, drawers full of utensils.

Until cooking class, I'd not actually prepped food using measuring cups, baking pans, rolling pins, cookie cutters. Rubber spatulas! Waxed paper. Crisco! I could hardly wait for my turn at sifting flour and wielding a rotary beater...

Well then - back to the bit about shopping with Mom.
We were perusing the book department of The Emporium on Market Street. Mom must have taken note of how I lingered over the display of Betty Crocker cookbooks, for she asked if I was interested in owning a cookbook. That cookbook. Who, me - own a cookbook?!?

Being a public library kind of kid and getting my book fixes on loan, I didn't actually own many books. I agonized over the decision, since the cookbook was less practical than say - underwear, pajamas or school clothes. Those were the type of things Mom and I would typically shop for. The book was also a bit pricier than non-essential knickknacks we'd sometimes consider on our shopping trips.

What to do. What to do.

For want of something new as well as novel (pun intended), the cookbook won out. Mom paid, handed it to me and I walked off cradling, like a newborn babe - the bag which contained my very first cookbook, ever. Once home, I ceremoniously removed my prized possession from its bag and pulled off the shrink-wrap plastic. I then smelled the book before proceeding to flip through every slick page, taking the time to savor each recipe, drawing and photograph. Wow.

Since the acquisition of that first cookbook, there have been many added over the decades. I now own more cookbooks than any one person could use in a lifetime. So stated, in my recent Urge to Purge extraneous personal belongings, I've since gotten rid of a few. Just a few. At best, getting rid of cookbooks seems a little unpatriotic.

The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, binder style, circa 1961 - remains a favorite.

With over 45 years of use, my very first cookbook, ever shows inevitable signs of wear and tear - emphasis on tear. It's actually fallen apart several times. The last repair was done with filament tape, which is neither acid free nor archival. This is a tough-ass cookbook. A survivor.

And now it's ready for another 45 years.

This IS fast becoming a food blog, is it not?

Bloody Beets

(great photo of beets is from this wonderful website)

Yes, I know. Another food post. You must understand, when it comes to sharing the joys of food, 'I Can't Help Myself'.

Today's food topic of choice: beets.
Fresh beets.
Earthy rough and seemingly tough-skinned beets.
Unbelievably tasty beets.
Bloody beets*.

At the beginning of the 1970's, when I was going through my first 'fresh and organic please' phase of food thought, processing and eating - a good friend and I became obsessed with fresh beets. Up until that time, my buddy and I had not tasted a fresh beet. We'd only ever experienced the rather insipid canned variety.

L and I cooked and ate together often, and one weekend we planned a simple supper of a main course salad, to be served with a loaf of crusty San Francisco sourdough bread. We'd already shopped for the bread, which was so aromatic and fresh (hot from the baker's oven) that we wisely decided to buy two loaves - one to eat while preparing dinner, one to eat with the meal.

Back in L's tiny apartment kitchen (OK, we dug into the hot bread on the way home), we happily set to work, chopping off the pretty green beet tops, washing both root and tops, then setting the big fat roots to a boil. Forty-five minutes later, after plunging the cooked roots in cold water, we were able to slip the skins off with ease. The raw leafy beet tops we'd already sliced and mixed in with organic lettuces. All other ingredients were at the ready for assembly of the salad.

The skinned beets were cool to the touch, yet let off a bit of steam upon being sliced with one of L's sharp kitchen knives. The aroma that reached our nostrils was like an earthy perfume. L and I looked at each other and smiled. Taking in the rich deep color of the beet slices, we smiled again. Both of us not only appreciated, but knew how to coordinate a meal using complementary flavours as well as combining food to create pleasing color combinations at the table. We were, to be sure, self-professed foodaholic / 'aestheticians'.

Let's see....varied greens of the lettuces and avocado, the clean yellow and white from the boiled eggs, sassy pink of shrimp meat, a sprinkling of browny green from toasted pumpkin seeds - and now a lusty red from freshly boiled beets: the salad will definitely look appetizing. To be certain that the addition of beets to our composition was not an error of judgment in flavor, we each grabbed a slice off the cutting board for a taste test.

OMG.
The firm slice of beet yielded to the tooth, yet maintained a wonderfully crisp bite. Flavor-wise...ooooooh....such a natural sweetness that defies addition of seasonings or dressing. In appearance, sliced beets offer a subtle variation in texture with their built in 'rings' - so it looked pretty too.

L and I were instantly enamoured of 'cooked beet au naturale' and decided that the sliced orbs deserved presentation in a pretty bowl of their own - separate from the salad.

The two of us sat down and proceeded to (very giddily) devour a generously sized salad with all the fixin's, fragrant crunchy sourdough bread and all four of the very large, unbelievably delicious beets.

Though I still, on rare occasion, partake of beets from a can and/or at a restaurant salad bar - those overcooked, squishy and relatively tasteless roots cannot compare to the royal taste treat of freshly cooked beets.

Beets: boiled, roasted, raw.
Eat 'em and weep...tears of joy.

Food post in the not too distant future:
The Sensational Savoy (cabbage).
I know y'all can hardly wait.

* L and I called each other in a panic the next day. Both of us feared (erroneously) that we might require hospitalization. From that point on, we referred to our beet eating initiation as Bloody Beets. Oh what fun!

New fave bread

I am a huge fan of BREAD - and typically adopt one type of bread or another as my current 'fave' (read: once chosen, I tend to overeat it).

My fave bread of late has been Trader Joe's Cranberry Walnut. I can sit and eat an entire loaf of this yummy bread in one sitting, and it's become more like a dessert bread for me. Delicious when mounded with gobs of soft butter, I'd say it can be downright deadly.

Not so with Mestemacher bread.
A little goes a long way to satisfy both the palate as well as the bread addiction.

A package of Mestemacher pumpernickel bread resembles a brick doorstop and weighs just about as much.
A thin slice of the bread is dense in texture, dark in color and tastes a bit sour.
Very satisfying.
Even a half slice.
I've been eating it toasted - sans butter - totally plain (can you believe?!?).

Not trying to rush through this loaf, but at the same time, am very eager to try other 'flavors'.

Mestemacher.
A healthier (?) bread alternative (?).

I hope I hope I hope.