Horse Manure Park

I remember holding my breath until I was dizzy, loss of consciousness was near as I started seeing black and purple spots. I remember involuntary tears rolling down my cheeks.   I remember thinking to myself (because I didn't dare say it aloud) "Man, I hate this." I'm talking, of course, about being forced against my will (gasp!) to help make home made horseradish sauce as a kid.  But more about that in a minute. Today's entry is a sort of continuation of a subject I broached back on May 3rd of last year.  I mentioned then that my sister-in-law, Marilyn, had given me an entire box of my mom's cookbooks; an absolute treasure of childhood memories.   In May, I was giving serious thought to launching a whole new blog devoted entirely to Mom's recipes.  I honestly have enough to post a new recipe a day for about five years. Instead, I think I will simply post a recipe here every now and then when I suffer from a lack of anything better...

There are literally a dozen things I should be doing today.  Instead, I've accomplished basically nothing.  Spent the day at home letting the Girl and the Boy burn energy outside. My dad would have called me a bum.  As usual, he would have been correct. Actually, I spent a part of the day looking through my mom's old recipes.  In March, my sister-in-law Marilyn (the world's best cook, just in case anyone was wondering) brought a cardboard box full of my mom's cookbooks and recipe cards for me to look through. I already had a large box of recipe cards (all in Mom's handwriting) and this is a wonderful addition to my collection.  I'm trying to decide what to do with all of them and I'm seriously thinking of launching another blog dedicated exclusively to her recipes.  Most likely, this will be my next winter project (always thinking ahead, I am). One of Mom's worn and much-used cookbooks.  This one is from 1967. Mom loved to cook and there a...

I was sad to hear Paul Harvey died yesterday, February 28th. Interestingly, he died exactly 12 years to the day after my dad passed away. Harvey was an icon in American culture. As far as I'm concerned, he was a legend. Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom four years ago, Harvey's career spanned 75 years, but he first received national acclaim in 1951 when his program, "Paul Harvey News and Commentary" debuted. Harvey cut back to part time in May 2008 at the age of 89, after 57 years of daily broadcasts and as the show's only writer. Remarkable. I remember my parents listening to him every day and they always got a chuckle out of his insights, wit and wisdom. He was one of those rare breeds who had the gift of saying things just so, never offending anyone, but always getting his point across -- in most cases, quite powerfully. "The Rest of the Story," a short program in which Harvey would talk about the story behind a famous event or pe...

I noticed that 334 people have visited my blog since I started counting 18 days ago. Good heavens, the pressure is on! I better get up-to-date here. My readers await me! Could I get more full of myself? Yeah, I probably could... Beth is at work, Ava is watching "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast," a cartoon about a little girl with a very active imagination (hmmm... fitting my daughter should be watching it), so this is a good time to catch up on my blog. A light snow is falling outside, much to Ava's excitement. She's already asked 14 times to go out and make a snowman. I've already explained 14 times that we don't have enough snow yet, but her neurons are not making that connection. Some things cannot be processed by a two year old mind. "Not enough snow" is one of them. "Daddy stands up to tinkle because he's a boy" is another one. But we won't get into that today. Today is Veterans Day, or if you are old school, Armistice...