Tried and True recipes

I decided to make a seafood soup yesterday. I wanted one with a tomato base, so I dug through my Time Life cookbooks to find a suitable recipe.
I found one, and typically, just scanned the list of ingredients, saw I had everything and decided to go ahead.
That’s when I ran into trouble. But it’s also the start of an epiphany for me. You see, I ‘know’ things, but sometimes I really have to learn them again to truly ‘know’ thing.
I started by sautéing onions and garlic. While they are caramelizing gently in olive oil, I needed to assemble the stock. A can of tomatoes, two tablespoons of fresh basil, two cups of red wine...
What? Two cups? Are they nuts? Even if I had two cups of red wine, I wouldn’t be putting that much into a soup recipe I’d never tried before.
Oops, I tell a lie. I do have two cups of red wine. Years ago, my husband took a tour of Dieppe, France, while still in the military. As a souvenir, he brought home a bottle of a Grand Cru de Bordeaux, for which he paid a hefty sum. We decided to age in the basement, and it’s been there ever since. So I do have two cups of red wine, but of a Grand Cru de Bordeaux wasn’t going into this soup. But, I did have about two tablespoons of red wine on my counter, something I kept to deglaze my next fabulous pot roast should that ever come. So into my soup it went.
The next thing on the list is one whole lemon, thinly sliced. Well, I did have a quarter of one that my daughter had for her Perrier water. But lemon? In a soup? Going on faith, here, after all, this is a Time Life cookbook, I thinly sliced it and tossed it in.
I took a sniff. Phew! It smelled like a university dorm after a win at homecoming. Talk about awful. After dumping the seafood and onions in, I slapped on the lid and let it simmer. Surely, the Time Life chefs made a mistake here, but I would try it. It’d have to simmer for a while, anyway, if we were to eat that lemon. I mean, wouldn’t it take a few hours to soften lemon rind?
Not wanting to lift the lid again, I let it go for the full two hours. Then, I finally screwed up my courage...
It smelled wonderful! Amazing! The alcohol had long since burned off, leaving whatever gets left behind when wine is simmered, and the lemon and garlic had mellowed into something smooth and delicious. I took a taste and found it a flavorful blend of sweet and tart and rich and satisfying. I loved it!
The Time Life guys do know what they were doing. And you know something else? God knows what he’s doing, too. He can mix people in the strangest combinations, either in a marriage or a small group or a church body. He can put oddball characteristics together in one person and in His time, the result is amazing.
We just have to trust Him, like I trusted those chefs. Then we have to set the lid on our judgements, keep the heat just right, and not rush the results.
My husband and I enjoyed that soup very much, and if I remember this lesson, I’ll enjoy all the people I have in my life, in my small group, and in my church. God knows the end results. His are tried and true recipes.

The Tim Phinney Memorial

Something extraordinary happened this past weekend. Besides all the busyness that comes with this time of year, as we wind down schoolwork, and gear up for the summer, the Phinney family decided to get together. You see, we lost a brother last year, and one of my husband’s other brother suggested a get together to honour their brother’s birthday, May 10th.
A barbeque with family after a long day of volunteering for two fundraisers sounded like a good plan. As soon as we arrived, my good brother-in-law produced a bowl of names. Pick out a name, set up a round robin tournament.
Or washers. You know that game, a square box with a short tube in the middle. You throw heavy-duty washers into and hope you’re better than you know you are after a long winter.
You hope in vain. Up here in New Brunswick, it’s still cold. And Saturday saw rain and wind. No one, not even the diehard washers experts, wanted to brave a backyard that looks out at the Bay of Fundy on a cold May evening. Brr.
My brother in law knew we needed a bit of incentive.
"I’ve got a prize for the winner."
Personally the prize would have to include tickets to somewhere warm to interest me. But we all looked up from around the kitchen table.
He produced a large trophy. Below the winged victory on the top, an engraved title plate.
The Tim Phinney Memorial Champions.
Who could bow out now? The sweet gesture stirred the family on. Okay, it’s not plane tickets to Florida, but the heart is in the right place here for all of us. Tim would be touched.
So we braved the wind and cold. My partner is my husband. He complained he was going uphill while I said the wind was against me. We were playing a pair who hadn’t played washers before. They beat us, pummeled us, whomped us. We were out of the running, but so were other teams who realized the cold winter had dulled their washer skills. In fact, we all decided the wind and cold and yes, even the slope of the land just wasn’t good for the game. It couldn’t be our skills or lack thereof.
Regardless, the tournament went on until the final game, outside, in the dark, with no lights, and washers now taking on the colour of the night.
The game literally came down to the wire. With all the tension of a Stanley Cup final game, we watched the nail-biting action. Then my daughter, with great finesse, threw the final washer…
…into the wooden box.
We all jumped to our feet, screamed enough to be thankful for no neighbours, and poured ourselves onto the playing field like team members onto the ice.
My brother in law and my daughter had won the championship game.
Camera flashes blinded us. (all right, it was only one small camera, and it was mostly because I’d asked my niece to snap a few shots of me for my website, but that’s another story).
Anyway, my niece did take a few pics of my mother in law doing the honours of presenting the trophy, but just a few, as apparently I used up most of her megabites.
But the evening, in the words of my sister in law, was one of those moments we will all remember.
Tim would be proud. Just not proud of our washer skills.

Very Much Fat

I have bought a pedometer. Our treadmill is on its last legs and I can't stand the noise the motor is making. The pedometer was on sale, and since I work in a school, I always wanted to know just how many steps/miles/kilometres/calories I took/used up/burned. So I attached it to my belt and headed into the classroom.
I also told the kids that if they acted up, all I had to do was touch one button and they were zapped into another universe.
One kid believed me, and one said I'd been watching too much Star Trek.
Oh well.
But this pedometer was a bit different. It measures fat too.

Okay, here goes. After several hours of tinkering with it, trying to take the alarm off, that I had accidentally set on, I was ready to press my thumbs to the sides, hold my breath, and pray the thing had even an ounce of mercy in it.
The stupid thing doesn't.
It regisitered me as not just fat, but in its Chinese-interpreted English, it said I was 'very much fat'.
Immediately, I returned to the instruction book, hoping to discover how I had accidentally done something wrong. Apparently, it uses some kind of electrical impulse through your arms, across your chest etc.
Well, there's the problem! Every woman knows how much fat she has across her chest. This needs to be done with the toes, just for a more accurate reading.
Besides the fact that it's extremely hard to press your toes down on the sides of the pedometer in order to get the proper reading.

Still the same stupid, idiotic number.
Oops. I just remembered something.
The electrical impulse gets sent through the chest when using the thumbs. So where does it meet when using the toes?
You betcha. The rear end. The largest part on most women.
Flustered, I sat down, suddenly too pouty, and obviously too fat to move anywhere.
I flipped the pedometer over.
Made In China.
Well, that's the problem! Where I live there is a large Asian population, and most Asian women are small-boned, petite, thin and delicate.
I must look like Zena's older, fatter sister (or aunt) to them, an Amazonian whose build exceeded even Anna Swan's in her heyday.
Of course, I'm 'very much fat' compared to them. Which means there is no way I can get a true reading of my body fat. Nor can I ever reach those unattainable goals.
Mind you, what I can do is get off my pouty, disappointed butt and actually do something just for me. I paid $3.99 for this pedometer, and I am not going to waste it.
And for those of you interested, I walked 2.8 miles, used 218 calories, and took 6670 steps yesterday in school.
Though I am still very much fat.
Barbara Phinney
author of Love Inspired Suspense books that feature normal woman with fat in all the proper places.

A tribute to Flora Kidd

It's been a while since I posted, so forgive me, but this post is all about a writing pioneer who has just passed away.
Flora (Betty) Kidd published 64 romance novels, plus historical fiction, and anyone who read romance in the 1970's cut their teeth on her great books. She was inspiring to many writers, but especially those of us in New Brunswick who could always find kindness, sensibility and honesty in her. She loved life, doing more than just writing. She was a teacher, a mother, a wife, a painter, who sailed, loved history and all good literature and arts, and always had a kind word for aspiring writers.
Flora wrote of the Scottish highlands, of Canada, of England, and her love of travel and people flourished in her stories.
Flora will be sadly missed by her family and friends, and also by those of us who write romance here in New Brunswick. She was a pioneer in the world of romance, though she loved all books, and like her contemporaries of the seventies, she helped pave the way for all of us who write now.

Flora Kidd

1926-2008

http://http://www.fundyfuneralhome.com/Obit_detail.asp?ID=915

The price for a bit of extra safety?

We're booked for a trip to Cuba. Here in eastern Canada, many of us escape winter by flying down south, either to DR or Cuba. They're inexpensive, all inclusive, and warm. Everything my hubby wants in a vacation.
So, the airline we're booked on emailed me to offer a prebooking of our seats, to, as they put it, save time.
Sure, why not?
I surfed over to the site, but couldn't go any farther without the file number, so I emailed my travel agent. She replied quickly, saying she'd be happy to do it, and which credit card should she bill it to?
Credit card? Bill it?
It turns out that if we want to choose our seats, we will be charged anywhere from $15 to $25, depending on where you want to sit. It seems that right by the emergency exit is the most expensive.
Now, you may argue that it's the leg room, but I want to counter that. Not every plane has that extra leg room by the emergency exit.
I say it's because of the perceived notion that you'll be safer near the exit, and be able to get out sooner should the plane crash. Except....
as a friend of mine pointed out, you'll also be trambled to death by others, if you in any way hesitate.
I told my husband, who, like I said before, like inexpensive vacations, said to me, 'Forget it. I don't care where I sit.'
But it got me thinking. The airlines are cashing in on people's paranoia. People want that extra bit of peace of mind, and sitting by an emergency exit will do it. Sure, you get to sit with loved ones, but frankly, I've not been on a plane where you couldn't get a seat close to a loved one. People don't mind moving around. And I don't buy that notion that you need to pay extra to sit by your loved one. Where the heck is your loved one going whilst flying in a plane? And frankly, having raised two kids, I would only be too happy to put my darlings next to some stranger, especially if they refuse my request to change seats.
Sure, mister, sit by my son. You'll never refuse a seat exchange request again, once you get a whiff of his cologne, (he's 15 and loves to bathe in Axe) and he loves to share his music with all those in earshot. It's been techno geek music lately.
But what burns me is the fact that airlines are just trying to get more money out of us. They're basically saying, 'You want to think you'll be safer by that emergency exit? You'll have to pay for it.'
What's next? 'Oh, ma'am, you want a life jacket? That'll be an extra $50. The ones that come with the plane only inflate halfway.'
Barbara, who will still enjoy her trip.