One potato...two potato...three potato...four

I am glad I like potatoes. I am REALLY glad. My several doctor friends are trying very hard to improve my quality of life in these years of fading away. Doctor Q says, by all means, cut out sugar to control your diabetes. Yep! I try. Doctor R says: "You cannot tolerate ANY milk products. (I LIKE cheese). Alas. Doctor X tells me I cannot eat anything raw. So there goes salad, and in California yet. Doctor Y suggests limiting fruit because of high sugar content. Oh my. Doctor Z quips salt is not good for your blood pressure. Doctor reminds me that spinach works wonders with vitamin K...remember when we had to increase your coumadin? Doctor W warns against cabbage, brussels sprouts, sauerkraut, cauliflower, broccoli and onions. (too much gas) My German heritage rebels and clings with ragged fingernails. Oh well. Doctor M cautions against anything with seeds. There go strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, poppy seed muffins and even zucchini. Doctor N says NO CHOCOLATE and he wasn't kidding. Mrs. Sees, it was nice knowing you.

Potatoes here I come. Whether boiled, baked, French fried, mashed, twice stuffed, scalloped, soup, stewed, roasted in a campfire, grated into pancakes, topping onto shepherd's pie...you are for me!

Now all you lurkers out there in cyberland, take a minute and say hello.

Getting Ready

Peppertree development, all 33 of us are having a community garage sale on Saturday. Oh what treasures we've found! And to think they have been collecting and multi-plying on our garage shelves for most of the twenty-two years we have lived in this house. Just why do we really need to have a port-a-crib? When we have guests with small children they just use folded up blankets on the floor or egg crates. And in this age of electronics and electricity, why do we harbor a treadle sewing machine? There are boxes of Tupperware and pots and pans; camping equipment and oodles of vases and glassware. Some of it is quite pretty so no doubt we'll keep it and use it when we find some storage shelves in our kitchen. We're getting excited about decorating with SueBee's Party Flags and our party garlands of silver and green. We'll hang the Chinese lanterns and space out some outgrown clothes. Freckles already prepared some freshly planted terra-cotta saucers. Today I'll give some spider plant startings a home in pretty gray ceramic pots. Deb plans to bring some Austrian crystal earrings that she's made. I have some beach robes and towels for sale. Maybe CC will bring her 30's style aprons. I have been reminded that a garage sale is just that...getting rid of stuff!

Ikebana

What a glorious feeling emerged! Freckles and I got busy before the heat really hit us, and armed with our oscillating fan, proceeded to clear out our garage shelves right beside the garage door. Oh what treasures we found! Oh what junk we got to throw away! Oh what potentials for our upcoming Peppertree garage sale! A little watering pitcher is basking in a layer of catsup to restore its brass gleam. From Japan, an iron trophy, bas relief and beautifully decorated urn shape is soaking away the crud inside. Stored away were some of my flat, bonsai dishes and also bases for sogetsu ikebana left over from the classes I took. So what happens now? I'm inspired to work again in these artful media. For whom? Well, the creations can always be used for presents. Besides it will bring back happy memories of the time we spent in the Orient.

Quilting

How do you tell someone how to cut for a quilt when you don't know how to do it without drawing pictures? I'vw been using all, and I do mean ALL the descriptive words I know. When I live in the middle of Riverside County and my beginning quilter is in San Diego, I can't readily drop by for some "hands on" instruction. Basically, I don't want her to become discouraged. It can be loads of fun. I've always found it so. Marcia Hohn has some fabulous ideas (with drawings) on internet. They might come up in German, but your computer can, and will, translate for you. I made my first quilt for Babeeboobee out of tan, forest green and rust corduroy blocks sewn onto Suebee's old quilted fern green bedspread. You know, start by placing first block on the corner, then the next block, wrong side on top, stitching, folding out, then the next block. It turned out o.k., at least it was warm enough for another cover. The next quilt was for Legs on her 16th birthday. I did it log cabin style in shades of peach, green, brown and ivory. I don't know if it is still around or if it has vanished into never-never land. Then I bought some books, took some classes. Now I have some 42 quilts finished and given away. I have yet to do one for myself, although I have put aside the pattern of "Storm at Sea" that I think would be pretty in blues to match my draperies. Legs did take a class with LaLa and gave that project to me. I love to snuggle under it when I snooze in my recliner.

Chiyeko

My usual routine in the mornng is to clear away all clutter from my kitchen counter and to load the dishwasher. Yes, my dishwasher claim is that you just load it and forget it. All the crud is supposed to wash away and swirl down the drain in its process. Perhaps I'm just a doubting Thomas from Missouri, but I always scrape and rinse before I load. It was while I swirled my sponge around the inside of the lid to my favorite pot that I thought again of Chiyeko...This San Francisco-born lady proved to be my best friend during our stay in Japan. We visited her in Tokyo and I lamented the fact that our furniture, etc. had not yet arrived. I was happy with my newly purchased rice cooker and the electric skillet we bought, but I seemed to think I needed a pot! Immediately Chiyeko rummaged through her ampile supply of kitchen equipment and found a prize for me, a pot she "never used" and presented it to me. I was so grateful. It was a very heavy duty aluminum pan with a tightly fitting copper colored lid. That was forty years ago. Many vegetables were steamed, a chicken carcass boiled down to make stock. It's where I alwaysI burned the limas and stewed the tomatoes for soup. It made applesauce and oatmeal, sauce for barbecue on the grill. I cherish my very favorite kitchen implement. But it is the love she showered on me that now brings a tear to my eye while I remember.

Old Crock

Yesterday when reminiscing with old friends my memory was triggered back into that part of my childhood that included that old crock. It was really ugly, pale tan ceramic, bottom, dark brown on the top and inside, about two feet high, 15 inches in diameter. We kept it stored in the cellar of 1021 Chestnut Street in Columbia. Along about September after garden harvest, we brought it out, set it on the wash bench and started filling it with a layer of shredded cabbage, then a sprinkling of salt, another layer of cabbage and some more salt until we reached the top. After we put it back in the base of the fruit cupboard, we put an especially prepared rounded wooden lid on top and weighted it down with a piece of iron railroad track. In just a month or so we had SAUERKRAUT!

In summertime we used the crock again, this time we put a couple pounds of granulated sugar in the bottom, a crumbled yeast cake, a bottle of Hires extract. We worked it all together with hands, then added water to the top. Out came the funnel and our previously sterilized collection of bottles. We ladled the liquid into the bottles leaving about two inches space from the top. Aunt Myra lent us her capper...a Rube Goldberg apparatus with a base to hold the bottle, a lever and hinge we operated to affix the cap and bend the edges over the lip of the bottle. Carefully we carried the bottles up the cellar steps to the back yard where said bottles were lined up on their sides in the sun. Then came the magic! I guess the sunshine activated the yeast. Happily we stored them in the fruit cupboard in the cellar. We looked forward to refreshing summer coolers and root beer floats.

Do you remember?

We had a very happy time "remembering" st Siam Garden again this noon. First there was lunch with the usual, wonderful care of our waiter/owner. The occasion was a get-to-gether of Marg, Sharon, Bev and me.(Sharon is here from her new home in Bonn Germany) in southern California visiting her daughter and worked us all in to her plan .And we did a lot of going back to the fond memories we have of our writing group. Some of the gang has passed away, and we do miss them: John B., Ira, and Marlene. Some have dropped by the wayside with other pursuits like Glen, Pat, Nancy, Jerry, Anita and Nina. Ingrid was out of town with Harry visiting family in Oregon or surely she would have joined. We do remember some of their offerings that showed much of their personalites and circumstances, foreign, farm, city, troubles, successes, children, parents and on and on and on. Each comment triggered another fond thought. Now I'm ready to put my feet up and take a much needed rest. Maybe I'll even fall asleep?