Past Blogs

I won’t be getting a GPS for Christmas. Everyone who knows me realizes I would rather be hopelessly lost than take directions from a disembodied voice on the dashboard.

I’m a born traveler and a lover of maps. My road atlas is dogeared, coffee stained, marked up and tattered. I agree with Van Gogh who wrote, “The sight of stars always sets me dreaming just as… those black dots on a map set me dreaming of towns and villages”.

My very ancient ancestors were capable of navigating by the stars. I figure the least I should be able to do is read a road map. Not only do I want to know where I am on the planet, I also want to know where I am in relationship to the other places on the sphere.

The only way to get map smart is to use maps. Practicing anything involves taking some wrong turns. I’ve seen plenty of interesting new scenery and places thanks to my map reading errors… no permanent harm done.

My work of the last 23 years has involved driving about 800 miles a week and showing up on time at hundreds of different schools and libraries in three states. I pour over maps beforehand, plotting the best routes. Then, I add extra travel time to accommodate detours, rotten weather, traffic jams and unforeseen events such as an entire tractor trailer of green peppers dumped out onto the highway.

One of Robert Frost’s famous poems includes the line, “But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep…”.

I hope so. There are many more maps and miles I want to explore.

There will be no knife problem this year. We are celebrating Thanksgiving in California with our son who undoubtedly has a carving knife in his kitchen drawer.

When we host the meal, our daughter always brings the knife. It is long, sharp and scary. Not being red meat eaters, my husband and I can’t justify owning a carving knife that would only be used once a year to dismantle a turkey. We’ve tried carving the bird with a paring knife with poor results.

I love to cook a feast for family and friends. Thanksgiving, however, does offer some unique challenges. I’m not comfortable around a big, dead, bluish-tinged bird. I should probably let the cats prepare the bird, giving me more time to fuss over the pies and side dishes.

Through the years, I’ve worked out a deal with the turkey. I leave most of him at Piggly Wiggly and just bring home the breast. Armed with a large roasting bag, a bottle of mustard marinade and a quarter pound of butter, I wash the bird and gingerly jam it into the bag with the above ingredients, plus one tablespoon of flour. Six slits in the top of the bag guard against explosions.

Once the bird is safely in the oven, the fun can begin. Corn souffle, Waldorf salad, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish and pumpkin and pecan pies are a pleasure to concoct.

If it weren’t for my belief that traditions define us, I would skip the turkey. My vegetarian granddaughter surely would approve.

I was about to roll out a pie crust the other day when I stared down at a half dollar size hole in the middle of my pastry cloth. “Time to get a new one,” I begrudgingly thought. Then I realized that after 45 years, the pastry cloth had earned its retirement.

Shortly after, I was visiting friends in a large city and stopped in an upscale kitchen equipment store that fills two floors of a gracious old home. After checking various locations for pastry cloths, the young clerk informed me that, “We don’t have those things.”

The next week my husband was at our local Fleet Farm picking up 50 pound sacks of animal feed. He also brought home a pastry cloth that he readily found in their kitchen aisle.

With the holidays approaching, my new $2.99 pastry cloth will begin work soon. I will enjoy using it as I have heeded a piece of pie making advice from Julia Child. In one of her mid-century TV shows, she declared that many people don’t want to buy a big bucket of lard just to make a few pie crusts. “You can produce a decent pie crust,” she intoned, “by using a pie crust mix and adding two tablespoons of butter.” Ever since, I have produced good pie crusts with a 69¢ box of Jiffy Mix and two tablespoons of butter. And I don’t have stockpiles of lard around for which I have no other use. I am not into deep frying turkeys.

Of course, I could buy the lard and put the remains of the bucket in the Tooley Cafe. The raccoons would love me.

One of my all time favorite movies is “The Brave Little Toaster” (1987). I generally shy away from animated feature films, but this particular toaster won my heart. The story line is simplicity itself: Five appliances find themselves abandoned in their family’s summer cabin. Led by the courageous toaster, they set out on a difficult journey to find their boy in the big city.

I have owned two very admirable toasters in my lifetime. The first was a wedding gift from my brother-in-law. It produced perfect toast for twenty-eight years.

When it finally sprang its last piece, I sadly went out to replace it. The new toaster burnt the top of the bread and left the bottom “raw”. After two months, it refused to toast at all. This was not a noble, faithful appliance. And I was not about to replace it with another of the same ilk.

I bought our next toaster at an antique store. It’s a streamlined, chrome beauty. After seventeen years with us, it’s still making lovely toast. Heaven only knows how much toast it made for its first family. Sometimes its mechanical timer stops ticking for a few mornings, but it always magically heals itself.

A few years ago, we were in a small Chicago antique store. My husband spotted a vintage toaster, still in its original box. “We should buy it,” he urged. He was right: it would have been the prudent thing to do. But I’m a very loyal person. I couldn’t hurt our brave little toaster’s feelings while it’s still popping up beautiful toast.

I was not a supermom. My generation of women did not have to do it all. My daughter’s generation didn’t get so lucky… they have to do it all and then a little bit more.

The responsibilities of a career, family, home and grad school are all in a day’s work for these moms. Their husbands’ schedules are alarmingly similar.

When my children were born, I happily stayed at home, never thinking I wasn’t doing a full time job. I baked cookies every Tuesday, did art projects, took the kids to the neighborhood library, cooked interesting dinners each night and volunteered for causes I believed in. When my youngest went off to preschool, I went with him as the part-time art teacher at his school. He stayed three years; I stayed nineteen.

A generation had passed, and I started a new job, Children’s Programmer (a.k.a. storyteller) for a suburban library. There I had the pleasure of meeting the most amazing supermom. She was the young head of the Physics Department at the local high school. A fierce proponent of women in the sciences, she encouraged scores of girls to take the advanced science courses. She was also the faculty advisory for the school prom.

Nevertheless, for years she faithfully brought her three young sons to Wednesday night 6:30 story hour and joined in with gusto. One evening after the program, she cheerfully told me she was going to head home and make brownies for her oldest son’s kindergarten class. This is also the woman who put on a sensational “Ms. Wizard” science show for our summer library patio nights.

My daughter’s generation superbly juggles multiple jobs… with one exception. They don’t do sleep well, never having time to practice.

I raise my glass to all of you; you’re amazing! Now, meet a friend after work for “tea time” one of these days. And the tea doesn’t have to be tea.