BlatherMangia

A legacy of popcorn

My father was fanatical about popcorn and making it was one of the few rituals he observed and I remember every detail of it.

You may think the word fanatical is just more of my tedious and inevitable hyperbolizing, but my old man was a liberal Republican from the Pacific Northwest, where "process is our most important product," and popcorn, for him, was all about process.

He'd put a large skillet on a hot burner with a little corn oil and exactly three (3) kernels of popcorn.

It's as important as just about anything to wait until all three of the test kernels are detonated before, pouring carefully -- not dumping -- the rest of the corn into the hot pan.

Of utmost importance: put on the lid!

Shake the pan as the popping begins slowly, increasing into a madness that’ll make a small child who's unused to such kitchen violence cry out. Then suddenly, except for scattered gunfire, it's over, peace and quiet reigns again.

My dad was always patient waiting for the last shot to be fired. He left the pan on the burner as long as possible to minimalize unexploded ordinance which were then called “old maids” but are now called “widows,” out of respect for older, single women, a demogrphic appreciated more today than then.

He'd repeat this process several times, filling my mother's huge striped brown and beige ceramic bread bowl panful by panful, pouring in melted butter layer by layer, and tossing it all with two table knives.

Then, let me be clear -- and only then -- would he add salt. He believed butter contained enough salt, and only after careful tasting would he add more.

This mixing was a thorough process that took way too long for the hungry and impatient kids haunting the kitchen during this long process, He'd say that there should be butter on each and every piece, and he didn't stop mixing until that was true. 

Then he'd spread an odd collection of wooden salad bowls, ceramic cereal dishes, a stainless mixing bowl or two and mete out the popcorn among them. Then he'd take the bread bowl to his chair and his book.

He was the kind of guy who loved to polish brass, the silver, and the family's shoes; he did it with the same deliberateness that he made popcorn. Since he was a banker and politician, polishing shoes was about limit of his maintenance skills, but he did them methodically and perfectly.

The old man would collect all the scuffed leather shoes in the house -- I can still see the reflection of his face in the shiny toes. He'd let the chickens get fungus, the lawn could jungle-ify, but we ate popcorn with the butter perfectly distributed among the kernels, and we trod through our childhood in shoes that bespoke the decency of our upbringing.

My dad was raised like an only child; born late in his parents’ life, his sisters much older. He was the only boy-child, fair-haired, and treasured. Although they owned the bank in our small town, his parents were Kansas farmers at heart and had no notions of better-than-you. His task, growing up in the Depression as he described it, was to make sure that everyone liked him despite his family's having more. Even though it really wasn't that much more,  he was embarrassed by what they had and it shaped his life. He worshipped at the Shrine of Looking Good and gave everything he had to the Goodwill of Everybody Else.

He was loved by all, and to prove it, he ran for election and never lost a race. His was a frantic schedule of taking temperatures and slapping backs; the immediate family was left at home, barely surviving him years before his death.

As he lay dying years later, I held those soft, hands so deft at spiffing up the surfaces; spreading the butter so that everyone thought they were getting their share; or wiping the tears of somebody else’s woman.

My kids throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and say they like what comes out better than the stuff I make using my dad's skillet and bowls and butter knives. They're full of shit, of course, and have no taste, but I persist performing his measured ritual.

Its yield, I find, is more than a just popcorn. 

My father was fanatical about popcorn and making it was one of the few rituals he observed and I remember every detail of it.

You may think the word fanatical is just more of my tedious and inevitable hyperbolizing, but my old man was a liberal Republican from the Pacific Northwest, where "process is our most important product," and popcorn, for him, was all about process.

He'd put a large skillet on a hot burner with a little corn oil and exactly three (3) kernels of popcorn.

It's as important as just about anything to wait until all three of the test kernels are detonated before, pouring carefully -- not dumping -- the rest of the corn into the hot pan.

Of utmost importance: put on the lid!

Shake the pan as the popping begins slowly, increasing into a madness that’ll make a small child who's unused to such kitchen violence cry out. Then suddenly, except for scattered gunfire, it's over, peace and quiet reigns again.

My dad was always patient waiting for the last shot to be fired. He left the pan on the burner as long as possible to minimalize unexploded ordinance which were then called “old maids” but are now called “widows,” out of respect for older, single women, a demogrphic appreciated more today than then.

He'd repeat this process several times, filling my mother's huge striped brown and beige ceramic bread bowl panful by panful, pouring in melted butter layer by layer, and tossing it all with two table knives.

Then, let me be clear -- and only then -- would he add salt. He believed butter contained enough salt, and only after careful tasting would he add more.

This mixing was a thorough process that took way too long for the hungry and impatient kids haunting the kitchen during this long process, He'd say that there should be butter on each and every piece, and he didn't stop mixing until that was true. 

Then he'd spread an odd collection of wooden salad bowls, ceramic cereal dishes, a stainless mixing bowl or two and mete out the popcorn among them. Then he'd take the bread bowl to his chair and his book.

He was the kind of guy who loved to polish brass, the silver, and the family's shoes; he did it with the same deliberateness that he made popcorn. Since he was a banker and politician, polishing shoes was about limit of his maintenance skills, but he did them methodically and perfectly.

The old man would collect all the scuffed leather shoes in the house -- I can still see the reflection of his face in the shiny toes. He'd let the chickens get fungus, the lawn could jungle-ify, but we ate popcorn with the butter perfectly distributed among the kernels, and we trod through our childhood in shoes that bespoke the decency of our upbringing.

My dad was raised like an only child; born late in his parents’ life, his sisters much older. He was the only boy-child, fair-haired, and treasured. Although they owned the bank in our small town, his parents were Kansas farmers at heart and had no notions of better-than-you. His task, growing up in the Depression as he described it, was to make sure that everyone liked him despite his family's having more. Even though it really wasn't that much more,  he was embarrassed by what they had and it shaped his life. He worshipped at the Shrine of Looking Good and gave everything he had to the Goodwill of Everybody Else.

He was loved by all, and to prove it, he ran for election and never lost a race. His was a frantic schedule of taking temperatures and slapping backs; the immediate family was left at home, barely surviving him years before his death.

As he lay dying years later, I held those soft, hands so deft at spiffing up the surfaces; spreading the butter so that everyone thought they were getting their share; or wiping the tears of somebody else’s woman.

My kids throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and say they like what comes out better than the stuff I make using my dad's skillet and bowls and butter knives. They're full of shit, of course, and have no taste, but I persist performing his measured ritual.

Its yield, I find, is more than a just popcorn. 

Zucchini nights

OOOOOH! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, it must be two foot long or even more.
And it's such a lovely color, so big, and round, and fat,
I've never seen a zucchini grow quite as big as that,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before.
           ~~ Tim Curry, The Zucchini Song

In Ferndale, our family scraped the weeds off the garden plot each Spring, got a nearby farmer to come by, plow and disc the dirt, then we planted in it, the ugliest and most un-designer of vegetables in the vegetable universe.

In this day when radishes have appellations like sauternes, this 1950's vegetable matter was hybred for maximum bulk.

There were beets, not golden ones, Chioggias, or babies, but beta vulgaris which we left in the ground until they were big as soft balls and as tasty. And carrots, not tiny, skinny sweet ones, but big orange horsefingers known as "dicers.")

No edible peapods... but round English peas to be shelled, canned and then mixed at a later date with the carrots and served in a long out-of-fashion dish called "Peas & Carrots." Stringbeans were beans and thick, not haricots and thin, green not purple, despite they were known as Blue Lakes.

The best attribute a veggie could have in those days was BIG. We'd get heavy producing varieties out of the Burpee's catalog with names like 'Tennessee Honkin' or "'Whale Boots', Big Dump', or 'Bull Tush."

If the Big Boy tomatoes grew so huge you could only get one in a jar, that got you bragging rights.

When you said 'squash' back in those days, we said hubbard which we, as young boys, carved into forts or carriages pulled around by Labrador retrievers. Or yellow long necks the size of banjos, or patty-pans like flying saucers which we let grow to the diameters of dinner plates.

The garden was a big ugly food producing place. When it didn't smell like chicken shit, it produced family food staples, damn it. On late September nights, with great toil (and without a modern stapler) these staples were stuffed into jars and cans, and cooked to shit in a kettle.

The whole dreary process from spreading the chicken shit to being force-fed peas & carrots turned many of us against vegetables for the rest of our lives.

I remember well when zucchinis hit Ferndale. They were touted to be "gor-may" and Eye-talian and folks didn't trust 'em at first. They seemed flighty and lightweight as we imagined Italians to be because we'd never actually met any.

Besides, zucchinis didn't taste like much, (this was before the days of basil).

But they grew like hell, and they grew BIG. After discovering this, everybody put in hills and hills of them, and produced enough zukes in Ferndale to supply Bellingham, but, problem was: Bellingham already grew enough to supply Seattle.

It was a problem.

We tried. People found creative uses like substituting zucchinis for apples in pie, or ricking the zukes up in the backyard and using them for firewood; some shredded them and blew them into the attic as insulation.

(This was 20 years before the invention of the battery-operated personal vibrator, so perhaps they were used as "marital aids" by the unsatisfied wives and the so-called "spinsters" of the era -- according to the oral traditions of the male high school population, they were used that way, though I have no other direct knowledge of such things).

None of these things dented the zucchini surplus. After awhile, even the pigs turned up their snouts at them, holding out for the basil that wouldn't be discovered by the Ferndale citizenry for decades.

Therein started a guerilla zucchini war and summer squash-related crime wave that continues on the North American continent wherever zukes are found.

Since no one would ever steal a zucchini or buy one, they were really hard to get rid of -- a thorny problem that we're still dealing with in the 21st century.

It was sort of reverse robbery. You'd answer the door and find no one there but a grocery bag full of zucchinis. Sometimes they were on fire.

You couldn't leave a car unlocked for fear of receiving a "bag from hell."

(We once found a baby abandoned on our front porch and my mother was so grateful it wasn't more zucchinis, she named it Zeke and raised him as one of her own).

What's worse than the actual surplus of the vegetable is its derision and the proliferation of jokes -- the zucchini jokes of summer are the fruitcake jokes of Christmas. They are to gardeners what drummer jokes are to musicians.

Pumpkins, other squashes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers — all produce prodigious amounts of pithy flesh, yet are never as maligned as zukes. It's sad and it's wrong.

Zucchini "Apple" Pie

4 cups zucchini, peeled, seeded and sliced
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp butter, diced
1 9-inch double crust pie shell (store-bought or your own recipe)

1. Boil zucchini until tender. Drain and let stand in cold water for about 5 minutes, then drain.
2. Add sugar, flour, cinnamon, cream of tartar, lemon juice, salt and nutmeg. Mix well. Put into pie crust. Dot with butter. Put top crust on.
3. Bake at 400 degrees F for 40-50 minutes

OOOOOH! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, it must be two foot long or even more.
And it's such a lovely color, so big, and round, and fat,
I've never seen a zucchini grow quite as big as that,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before.
           ~~ Tim Curry, The Zucchini Song

In Ferndale, our family scraped the weeds off the garden plot each Spring, got a nearby farmer to come by, plow and disc the dirt, then we planted in it, the ugliest and most un-designer of vegetables in the vegetable universe.

In this day when radishes have appellations like sauternes, this 1950's vegetable matter was hybred for maximum bulk.

There were beets, not golden ones, Chioggias, or babies, but beta vulgaris which we left in the ground until they were big as soft balls and as tasty. And carrots, not tiny, skinny sweet ones, but big orange horsefingers known as "dicers.")

No edible peapods... but round English peas to be shelled, canned and then mixed at a later date with the carrots and served in a long out-of-fashion dish called "Peas & Carrots." Stringbeans were beans and thick, not haricots and thin, green not purple, despite they were known as Blue Lakes.

The best attribute a veggie could have in those days was BIG. We'd get heavy producing varieties out of the Burpee's catalog with names like 'Tennessee Honkin' or "'Whale Boots', Big Dump', or 'Bull Tush."

If the Big Boy tomatoes grew so huge you could only get one in a jar, that got you bragging rights.

When you said 'squash' back in those days, we said hubbard which we, as young boys, carved into forts or carriages pulled around by Labrador retrievers. Or yellow long necks the size of banjos, or patty-pans like flying saucers which we let grow to the diameters of dinner plates.

The garden was a big ugly food producing place. When it didn't smell like chicken shit, it produced family food staples, damn it. On late September nights, with great toil (and without a modern stapler) these staples were stuffed into jars and cans, and cooked to shit in a kettle.

The whole dreary process from spreading the chicken shit to being force-fed peas & carrots turned many of us against vegetables for the rest of our lives.

I remember well when zucchinis hit Ferndale. They were touted to be "gor-may" and Eye-talian and folks didn't trust 'em at first. They seemed flighty and lightweight as we imagined Italians to be because we'd never actually met any.

Besides, zucchinis didn't taste like much, (this was before the days of basil).

But they grew like hell, and they grew BIG. After discovering this, everybody put in hills and hills of them, and produced enough zukes in Ferndale to supply Bellingham, but, problem was: Bellingham already grew enough to supply Seattle.

It was a problem.

We tried. People found creative uses like substituting zucchinis for apples in pie, or ricking the zukes up in the backyard and using them for firewood; some shredded them and blew them into the attic as insulation.

(This was 20 years before the invention of the battery-operated personal vibrator, so perhaps they were used as "marital aids" by the unsatisfied wives and the so-called "spinsters" of the era -- according to the oral traditions of the male high school population, they were used that way, though I have no other direct knowledge of such things).

None of these things dented the zucchini surplus. After awhile, even the pigs turned up their snouts at them, holding out for the basil that wouldn't be discovered by the Ferndale citizenry for decades.

Therein started a guerilla zucchini war and summer squash-related crime wave that continues on the North American continent wherever zukes are found.

Since no one would ever steal a zucchini or buy one, they were really hard to get rid of -- a thorny problem that we're still dealing with in the 21st century.

It was sort of reverse robbery. You'd answer the door and find no one there but a grocery bag full of zucchinis. Sometimes they were on fire.

You couldn't leave a car unlocked for fear of receiving a "bag from hell."

(We once found a baby abandoned on our front porch and my mother was so grateful it wasn't more zucchinis, she named it Zeke and raised him as one of her own).

What's worse than the actual surplus of the vegetable is its derision and the proliferation of jokes -- the zucchini jokes of summer are the fruitcake jokes of Christmas. They are to gardeners what drummer jokes are to musicians.

Pumpkins, other squashes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers — all produce prodigious amounts of pithy flesh, yet are never as maligned as zukes. It's sad and it's wrong.

Zucchini "Apple" Pie

4 cups zucchini, peeled, seeded and sliced
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp butter, diced
1 9-inch double crust pie shell (store-bought or your own recipe)

1. Boil zucchini until tender. Drain and let stand in cold water for about 5 minutes, then drain.
2. Add sugar, flour, cinnamon, cream of tartar, lemon juice, salt and nutmeg. Mix well. Put into pie crust. Dot with butter. Put top crust on.
3. Bake at 400 degrees F for 40-50 minutes

Republican sidedish- power vagina with moose meat

by Michael Hood

You could look at it as bald-faced pandering to get women and the religious right to pay attention to him, or you can see it as another of Olde John's, 72, doddering follies.

(We speak of his new friend, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, 44, former beauty queen (Miss Waspilla 1984) and Miss Congeniality -- his choice for Vice President of the United States).

Or you can view Olde John's choice as I do: it's historic.

And why isthe nomination is in BlatherMangia? It's because she's the first vice presidential candidate with a vagina who can slime a sockeye, gut a deer and... she loves her moose meat!

We agree with Dr.James Dobson who made a rare exception to his stance on women -- he doesn't even believe they should be Christian ministers: “This is one of the most exciting moments in this political season."

She may not know her running mate's position on Iraq, but let's face it, when us guys think about mates -- even running mates -- do we think of foreign policy, economics, or skillset to be Commander-in-Chief?

Hell no: we think of that vagina, and can she cook?

What a woman! Sarah Palin reportedly has the prerequisite organ and the beauty queen equipment to go with it. She can not only cook, but she can shoot it and gut it out...  and she's got the equipment to do that too!

(I don't know about you other guys, but I'm up to here with women who go EE-YEW to pig's feet and liverwurst. Sick of the prissy elites who glove their soft hands in latex before handling a boneless, skinless, chicken breast. I yearn for a woman (like my mother wasn't) who not only can shoot and bleed the kill, but cut out the heart, and eat slices of it still warm with sips from a long-neck of Moose Drool out in the garage with the guys).

No more candy-ass women like Olde John's heiress wife Cindy (also a beauty queen but, I might add, NOT Miss Congeniality) who got caught trying to pass off girly-man dishes as "Old McCain Family Favorites" like Passion Fruit Mousse or Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Salad that she swiped off the Food Channel website.

Perky? Positive? I'll say. Palin's a lemonade kinda gal: when their 5th child was prenatally diagnosed with a disability last year, she not only didn't flush the tyke, she found language to keep the glass half full: "'Down Syndrome' sounds so negative," she said. "we call it "Up Syndrome!'"

She's locked and loaded for the vice presidency: she's Gidget with The Bomb.

(Congenial vagina, and killery/cookery notwithstanding, it's a bold, brilliant political move by The Olde Gentleman. Only last week he was floating trial balloons about naming a pro-choice Jew like Joe Lieberman. When the balloons were popped almost immediately, he deftly named an anti-abortion evangelical instead. Palin doesn't believe in global warming, believes creationism should be taught in schools, and fought putting polar bears on the endangered species list, and wants to drill, drill, drill. Pro-life, pro-gun, evangelical Christian Democratic women who hate polar bears and love aerial wolf-hunting will surely flock to her. As I always say: gotta problem with sexism? Call a Republican! The religious right has been stirred out of their ennui. Geov Parrish has noted: "She's got every Christianist in the country praying that President McCain will have a heart attack on Jan. 23")

Getting sick of Braised Bullwinkle? Here's a Gov. Palin's moosemeat favorite and some of her moose-y tips from Bowhunts.com 

Bleeding the carcasse
A quick, clean kill will prevent the animal's blood and adrenalin from rushing into muscles as it bounds away wounded. After your animal is down, approach it carrefully from the rear. Make sure it's dead before you get close so you don't get kicked with its sharp hooves. Bleed the carcass immediately by keeping the blood from getting into the meat and tainting it, you can prevent any gamey tatste often associated with game meat.

Moose Nose in Jelly
- 1 Upper jawbone of a moose
- 1 Onion; sliced
- 1 Garlic clove
- 1 tb mixed pickling spice
- 1 ts salt
- 1/2 ts pepper
- 1/4 c vinegar
Cut the upper jaw bone of the moose just below the eyes. Place in a large kettle of scalding water and boil for 45 minutes. Remove and chill in cold water. Pull out all the hairs - these will have been loosened by the boiling and should come out easily ( like plucking a duck). Wash thoroughly until no hairs remain. Place the nose in a kettle and cover with fresh water. Add onion, garlic, spices and vinegar Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the meat is tender. Let cool overnight in the liquid. When cool, take the meat out of the broth, and remove and discard the bones and the cartilage. You will have two kinds of meat, white meat from the bulb of the nose, and thin strips of dark meat from along the bones and jowls. Slice the meat thinly and alternate layers of white and dark meat in a loaf pan. Reheat the broth to boiling, then pour the broth over the meat in the loaf pan. Let cool until jelly has set. Slice and serve cold.

Posted by michael hood on August 31, 2008 at 12:56 AM

by Michael Hood

You could look at it as bald-faced pandering to get women and the religious right to pay attention to him, or you can see it as another of Olde John's, 72, doddering follies.

(We speak of his new friend, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, 44, former beauty queen (Miss Waspilla 1984) and Miss Congeniality -- his choice for Vice President of the United States).

Or you can view Olde John's choice as I do: it's historic.

And why isthe nomination is in BlatherMangia? It's because she's the first vice presidential candidate with a vagina who can slime a sockeye, gut a deer and... she loves her moose meat!

We agree with Dr.James Dobson who made a rare exception to his stance on women -- he doesn't even believe they should be Christian ministers: “This is one of the most exciting moments in this political season."

She may not know her running mate's position on Iraq, but let's face it, when us guys think about mates -- even running mates -- do we think of foreign policy, economics, or skillset to be Commander-in-Chief?

Hell no: we think of that vagina, and can she cook?

What a woman! Sarah Palin reportedly has the prerequisite organ and the beauty queen equipment to go with it. She can not only cook, but she can shoot it and gut it out...  and she's got the equipment to do that too!

(I don't know about you other guys, but I'm up to here with women who go EE-YEW to pig's feet and liverwurst. Sick of the prissy elites who glove their soft hands in latex before handling a boneless, skinless, chicken breast. I yearn for a woman (like my mother wasn't) who not only can shoot and bleed the kill, but cut out the heart, and eat slices of it still warm with sips from a long-neck of Moose Drool out in the garage with the guys).

No more candy-ass women like Olde John's heiress wife Cindy (also a beauty queen but, I might add, NOT Miss Congeniality) who got caught trying to pass off girly-man dishes as "Old McCain Family Favorites" like Passion Fruit Mousse or Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Salad that she swiped off the Food Channel website.

Perky? Positive? I'll say. Palin's a lemonade kinda gal: when their 5th child was prenatally diagnosed with a disability last year, she not only didn't flush the tyke, she found language to keep the glass half full: "'Down Syndrome' sounds so negative," she said. "we call it "Up Syndrome!'"

She's locked and loaded for the vice presidency: she's Gidget with The Bomb.

(Congenial vagina, and killery/cookery notwithstanding, it's a bold, brilliant political move by The Olde Gentleman. Only last week he was floating trial balloons about naming a pro-choice Jew like Joe Lieberman. When the balloons were popped almost immediately, he deftly named an anti-abortion evangelical instead. Palin doesn't believe in global warming, believes creationism should be taught in schools, and fought putting polar bears on the endangered species list, and wants to drill, drill, drill. Pro-life, pro-gun, evangelical Christian Democratic women who hate polar bears and love aerial wolf-hunting will surely flock to her. As I always say: gotta problem with sexism? Call a Republican! The religious right has been stirred out of their ennui. Geov Parrish has noted: "She's got every Christianist in the country praying that President McCain will have a heart attack on Jan. 23")

Getting sick of Braised Bullwinkle? Here's a Gov. Palin's moosemeat favorite and some of her moose-y tips from Bowhunts.com 

Bleeding the carcasse
A quick, clean kill will prevent the animal's blood and adrenalin from rushing into muscles as it bounds away wounded. After your animal is down, approach it carrefully from the rear. Make sure it's dead before you get close so you don't get kicked with its sharp hooves. Bleed the carcass immediately by keeping the blood from getting into the meat and tainting it, you can prevent any gamey tatste often associated with game meat.

Moose Nose in Jelly
- 1 Upper jawbone of a moose
- 1 Onion; sliced
- 1 Garlic clove
- 1 tb mixed pickling spice
- 1 ts salt
- 1/2 ts pepper
- 1/4 c vinegar
Cut the upper jaw bone of the moose just below the eyes. Place in a large kettle of scalding water and boil for 45 minutes. Remove and chill in cold water. Pull out all the hairs - these will have been loosened by the boiling and should come out easily ( like plucking a duck). Wash thoroughly until no hairs remain. Place the nose in a kettle and cover with fresh water. Add onion, garlic, spices and vinegar Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the meat is tender. Let cool overnight in the liquid. When cool, take the meat out of the broth, and remove and discard the bones and the cartilage. You will have two kinds of meat, white meat from the bulb of the nose, and thin strips of dark meat from along the bones and jowls. Slice the meat thinly and alternate layers of white and dark meat in a loaf pan. Reheat the broth to boiling, then pour the broth over the meat in the loaf pan. Let cool until jelly has set. Slice and serve cold.