This Ain’t Chow Chow

/ cigarman501 / 10 Comments

“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.” ― Ruth Reichl

As I placed the fork full of what I thought was goodness in my mouth, my thought became “this ain’t chow chow” …or chowchow, chow-chow or any other spelling. Nope, nope, nope.

I was given some Amish chow chow. It was touted as “Best Gourmet Chow Chow is the South’s Most Famous Relish that goes great with your favorite comfort foods!” Nope.

Not that it was bad, it wasn’t. It just wasn’t Aunt Alta’s chow chow. I would like to point out that Amish Pennsylvania is not the South, and that should have been a dead give-a-way like salsa made by a company in New York City.

Looks good but “This ain’t chow chow!”

My bride and I had also been gifted a plate full of salmon patties and I thought anything advertised as the “Best Gourmet Chow Chow” would make a great accoutrement. I even used the French pronunciation, A.ku.tʁǝ.mɑ̃ , in my head. French is so sexy…even when discussing a condiment.

The chow chow wasn’t bad, and it did spur some research, but it wasn’t what I remembered from the best chow chow made by my Aunt Alta Rodgers. First the research.

In my part of the world, chow chow was a way to turn excess green tomatoes into something eatable other than “fried green tomatoes” or “green tomato chocolate cake.” Yes, that is a thing. It is quite good.

Just before the first killing frost, green tomatoes were collected, ground, or chopped, combined with ground or chopped cabbage, onion, peppers, and pickling spices. The relish produced would garnish about anything and is a big deal in the South…or it used to be important in the South, and I have no understanding of how it found its way to Pennsylvania.

Chow chow posssibly came to the southern United States by way of French Acadians fleeing Nova Scotia after The French and Indian War in 1763. Forced to leave their homes by the victorious British, they settled primarily in Louisiana bringing with them the word “chou” which means cabbage.

French words of endearment include “mon petit chou” which translates to “my little cabbage.” See, everything sounds better in French even a vegetable.

The dish’s origins are widely debated, however. According to the magazine Southern Living, Southern food historian John Egerton believed its origins weren’t Acadian, but could be traced to piquant sauces brought over by Chinese railroad workers in the 19th century. I don’t like this story. Piquant doesn’t sound as sexy as the French “chou.”

It is reasonable to make the short leap that the word “chou” became “chow”. Not so reasonable is why it became known as chow chow. Nor is it reasonable to think there is a set recipe…there isn’t.

So, what is it? As in what is chow chow?  Chow chow is a pickled relish dish that was used to preserve summer vegetables for later in the year. Recipes for the relish are regional, and tend to be generational recipes, passed down through families. Check any old Methodist or Babtist cookbook and you will be likely to find a recipe. While no one batch is the same, most Southern chow chows use green tomatoes, cabbage, bell peppers, and onions.

Aunt Alta Rodgers Howie, my grandmother’s sister, made use of green tomatoes, cabbage, bell peppers, and onions. The Amish version was good, but I don’t remember green beans, lima beans, carrots, cauliflower, and corn. This Amish version was more of a pickled vegetable medley like Giardiniera…without the pearl onions.

Aunt Alta was typical of the Rodgers’ girls. Short and a bit squat in her later years, she had been blessed with a green thumb as her backyard flowers and shrubs attested, and an outstanding “cook’s” gene that might have skipped my grandmother.  Like the rest of the Rodgers’ girls, she liked to “put up” her own vegetables. Put up means can, and chow chow was one of her specialties.

Aunt Alta Rodgers Howie, Pretty in Pink

According to her daughter, Cousin Cindy, this is close to her mother’s recipe.  Enjoy but it is a time and labor-intensive endeavor as are most things worth their salt.

Aunt Alta’s Chow Chow

Ingrediants

  • ½ gallon green tomatoes, Chopped
  • 1 small cabbage, Chopped
  • ½ pint onion, Chopped
  • 1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped (Add Cayenne or Jalapeno if you want heat)
  • 1 Green Bell Pepper, Chopped
  • All the above can be ground together using a food processor
  • ⅙ cup salt
  • 5 cups vinegar
  • ½ cup water
  • 3 ½ cups sugar
  • 2 tsp mustard seeds
  • 1 ½ tsp celery seed
  • 1 ½ tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp pickling spices

Directions

  • Grind the green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and peppers together using a food processor. Aunt Alta used a hand grinder I am sure.
  • Place the veggies into a stainless steel, glass, or porcelain container and sprinkle with salt. Cover and let them stand overnight.
  • Using a colander, drain and rinse well.
  • Using a saucepan, bring the vinegar, water, and spices to a boil in a stainless-steel pan. It needs to be a constant boil and the sugar needs to dissolve. Stir frequently so that the spices are well mixed.
  • Add green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and peppers and bring back to a boil.
  • Simmer at a low roll for 3-4 minutes
  • Prep sterile pint jars using Ball lids. Boil lids for at least 10 minutes, jars at least 25 minutes and keep them simmering until you are ready to use them.
  • Fill pint jars up to the mouth, cover with lid, tighten with band, and process jars using a boiling water bath for at least ten minutes.

Don Miller hopes to release his new book, Food for Thought, within the next month. Until then, https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR0-51cAJ7NDk3eySsF4aRNY7ezrdpOmbqi8VGtzOdbHQvWcdv81AOTASeg&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Oysters….

/ cigarman501 / 11 Comments

“He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating of oysters.” – James I

I do wonder what the first person to crack open an oyster thought. “Look, Look, Look! A slick, gray loogie! Let’s eat some.” Why in the world would he or she decide to put it in their mouth much less chew and swallow…must have been very hungry.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they did. I love oysters…raw, roasted, smoked, fried, with spinach in Oysters Roc, and the oyster dressing I wrote about earlier. I especially like oyster stew which is what I am craving at this moment. It is a cold New Years Eve, a fine night for oyster stew.

Oyster stew has been a New Year’s tradition in our house since we began celebrating it by sleeping through the midnight ball drop. That tradition is on hold as Linda recovers.

A history lesson. “Gather ’round chilin’s!”

Had it not been for the oyster the Jamestown colony might not have held on during the “Starving Times” of 1609. Jamestown prevailed only because sixty or eighty of the First Families of Virginia dragged themselves downriver from their original swampy landing site where they subsisted on little but Crassostrea virginica, the native American oyster.

The English weren’t fans of the oyster…Europeans in general weren’t fans. The generation that founded Jamestown regarded oysters as poor fare. Shakespeare described oysters as “foul” and linked them with the poorhouse. King James I is the earliest candidate for the authorship of the assessment that “he was a valiant man who first adventured on eating of oysters.”

I agree with James I but am so glad all of that changed…it took a while for me to jump onto the bandwagon. I know some of you are not fans, but the lowly oyster has gone from “poor folk” food to being coveted by the rich and everyone in between.

I get triggered by memories, but I am unsure where this one came from…well, it is a cold evening, perfect for oyster stew.

When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes make oyster stew. It was very basic. Butter, milk, oysters, salt, and pepper. My father might add a bit of hot sauce or catsup to his. I didn’t find it particularly filling unless I added half a sleeve of crushed soda crackers to it and to be honest, I wasn’t a fan of oysters at that age.

My grandmother would never make oyster stew, she would make salmon stew. It was much cheaper than oysters, came in a can, and fit in with her Depression Era frugality. I was probably a bigger fan of the salmon stew but used a half sleeve of crackers with it too.

Thinking about oyster stew, I looked at my bride who was snoozing. She is recovering from her sixth chemo treatment and a week later stroke and needs to be snoozing. As a blustery wind blew, I thought about a raw and blustery night some thirty years ago on the coast of Carolina. It seems some of my most perfect memories occurred on raw and blustery coastal nights.

We have a love affair with the coast of South Carolina. I thought we would end up living there…we had our chances, but they never quite panned out. The timing was always wrong. Now we have found our little piece of heaven to be as far from the coast as we can be and still be in South Carolina. Not so far that we don’t have access to oysters…mountain oysters.

This day began with a football game at Myrtle Beach. The North-South Allstar Football Game is played there, and I was lucky to have an athlete honored. It was gray and misty and by the time the game was over, dark, and cold.

We had decided not to spend the night and would make the four-hour trip back home afterwards, but one does not come to the coast without sampling the coastal faire and it was a perfect night for oyster stew.

We went to the Sea Captain’s House because we knew of its oyster stew was great or we went because it was close by. The key was that we went. The stew was oyster and artichoke. The company was great and that probably made the stew great.

This was the mid-Eighties and the Sea Captain’s House hadn’t been crowded by tall hotels yet and gone through modern renovations and enlargement. During those days it was truly an old house.

We sat in what once was the old residence’s Florida room and watched as the sea birds rode the waves in the light cast by the spotlights on the side of the house. It was quite romantic. Holding hands listening to the wind rattle the storm windows and sitting hip to hip watching a fire roaring in the fireplace…life’s little and simple pleasures. Oh, and there was oyster stew too.

We stayed too long…or not long enough and didn’t drag ourselves home until four in the morning. I miss the years when we were young and foolish. I am making a promise. I will be old and foolish just as soon as my bride recovers her strength.

Reality check: I made the mistake of pulling up the Sea Captain’s House’s website. They no longer offer oyster and artichoke stew and judging from the prices, we couldn’t afford it anyway.

Basic Oyster Stew for Two

Ingredients

One pint of oysters

Four cups of whole milk (For creamier stew substitute half of the milk with half and half)

¼ cup of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Crackers (Oyster or Saltines)

Parsley

Directions

Put a colander over a bowl; drain oyster juice and reserve juice.

Rinse oysters gently in a colander to rinse away any shells…be sure to check for pearls.

Melt the butter in a soup pot or large saucepan over low heat.

Add rinsed raw oysters and gently warm for a few minutes never taking heat off low. Let the oyster edges curl.

To the oysters and butter, add whole milk, oyster juice and stir.

Gently warm soup (low simmer), stirring occasionally until heated through. THIS IS KEY: Do not boil and do not scald milk.

Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Garnish with parsley and serve with oyster crackers or saltines.

Don Miller’s works may be purchased at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Images from Canva and Shutterstock

Bah Humbug…I’m Blessed but I’m not Happy or Merry

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and Other Christmas Writings

It is a drizzly Christmas morning…perfect. The puppies hate me.

I’m struggling. I want to be happy and merry. Afterall, it is “tis the season….” I can’t be happy and will not make merry in the traditional sense.  I will be blessed…I am truly blessed despite our misfortunes.

This is my “hard candy Christmas” if you are familiar with the song from the movie “The Best Little Whore House in Texas.” No, I’m not closing my house of ill-repute but there is something sad yet hopeful about the song and there is much sadness in my heart…but I am blessed that there is joy there too. I could have been much sadder had the roller coaster left the tracks.

Three weeks ago, we were celebrating our last chemo treatment as our oncologist used the words “full remission” pending a CT scan. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” rang in my head before Dolly’s “Hard Candy Christmas” played. Linda was in full remission. Doesn’t get any better than that.

The elation lasted a week. I found my bride alive but unresponsive that following Thursday. One week after her last chemo. One week of smiles and making plans for the future. One week until an infarction landed in her brain. A week in the hospital and another week and counting in rehab. Christmas and the New Years will be spent in a hospital room unless I kidnap her.

There is happiness along with sorrow. We’re blessed, I still have her to kidnap and she is making headway, not a pun, in her recovery. She has a long row to hoe yet, but she is hoeing like crazy.

We’re blessed that family and friends have rushed in to help even if it is just a visit or send their love by other means. I can’t be merry, but I can be blessed. I can tell funny stories but the laughter is on the outside not the inside…unless Linda laughs with me.

Daughter Ashley has been a life saver as have Linda’s friends, Lynn, and Louise. Yes, a great blessing. Thanks to Ashley’s friend Jill who “might” have pulled a few strings. Blessed she had strings to pull.

My own family and friends have given me the support to remain upright. Steve and Rebecca, Hawk, Zack, thanks for being my blessing. Lynn thanks for checking in and keeping me upbeat.

Beth, Barbara, and Robbie, thanks for taking the pressure off with my 98-year-old mother-in-law. Maybe after this you can audition as a singing group. “And now…Beth, Barbara, and Robbie….”

The doctors, nurses, and therapists have been wonderful…many who were former students of Miss PE. Glad she didn’t fail them because they didn’t fail her.

I just can’t be happy and merry. Happy and merry were seasons ago but I can hope for happiness and merriment to return. I don’t want to be the old man feeding pigeons alone. I want to be the old man with the old woman feeding pigeons…I want to do more than feed pigeons.

Young people…never, ever put things off.  Live your life a little bit of retirement at a time. Never turn down dessert and eat it first if you want to. Avoid if you can, the “Hard Candy Christmas.”

Blessings to you on whatever holiday you celebrate.

“I’ll be fine and dandy
Lord, it’s like a hard candy Christmas
I’m barely getting through tomorrow
But still, I won’t let sorrow bring me way down”

,

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

“Plumb Tuckered Out”

/ cigarman501 / 5 Comments

“Rest is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Take the time off to replenish your energy and recharge your soul.
In the midst of life’s chaos, find solace in the stillness of rest that is where true rejuvenation resides.”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

I am at the point where I must recharge and to do that I’m stepping away from my blog until the beginning of the new year…maybe.

To quote my grandfather after an eight-hour shift in the cotton mill followed by four or more hours behind a plow, “I’m plumb tuckered out.” To quote Jimmy Buffett, (I’m) “down to rock bottom again” although I don’t think he meant it the way I do in his song “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”

The tank that contained what little creative appeal or energy I might have had is making sucking sounds. Overall, my energy tank is making sucking sounds, too.

Thanksgiving is behind me, and Christmas is ahead. My holiday spirit is as elusive as one of our coastal “haints.” My “git up and go has got up and went.”

I am normally affected by SAD, seasonal affective disorder, but this year it is as oppressive as I have ever felt it…but then this year I actually have reasons to be depressed.

I’m tired but I don’t want to whine too much. I don’t get enough sleep or rest, but my bride has been fighting a deadly disease and my frustrations seem to be quite selfish at best. Also, she has, to this point, fought the cancer to a standstill. There is reason for Thanksgiving, but I can’t seem to smile.

Chemo treatment number six comes this next week followed by a PET scan at some juncture afterwards. The PET scan will tell the tale. I will withhold my smile until after the final diagnosis. I am hopeful it will show full remission.

So…to everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings, I hope your Thanksgiving was truly thankful and that all your holiday wishes come true. I’ll touch base again in the New Year. Hopefully I will have good news to share and a revitalized spirit to go with them.

An early Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all.

Don Miller’s authors page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Oh, Great Swamee….

/ cigarman501 / 3 Comments

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” ― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

I don’t know if it is spelled Swamee or Swami. The Hindu spelling is Swami but I’m more into the hillbilly, Junior Samples spelling, Swamee and don’t want to make fun of a religion I don’t understand. I reserve the right to make fun of religions I understand.

Before the grammar police hit me up, don’t. Instead, visualize Johnny Carson as Carnac the Magnificent. Ed McMann baritone echoes in my mind, “And now, the great seer, soothsayer, and sage, Carnac the Magnificent.”

Carnac’s last appearance on the Johnny Carson show.

My mind is crowded this morning, Doris Day is crooning “Que será, será, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que será, será,” and it is playing on an endless loop. You would think that one of the voices in my head would hit “End” or at least turn down the volume.

The simplest things send me down pig trails and activate the voices that argue in my head. It can get crowded. This time it was my close friend, Lynn, who was advertising her business with an offer to end all offers. You see, Lynn is also a great seer, soothsayer, and sage but looks nothing like Johnny Carson…a little like Doris Day?

What is her business? She provides on-line psychic readings and is offering to predict what 2024 will have to offer. I made a joke about the Great Swamee and here I am. Voices argue while my pig trail falls into a rabbit hole the size of the Grand Canyon.

After 2023, why would I really want to know what 2024 has to offer? I would only want to know if certain physical maladies are going to correct themselves and if a certain Orange Marmalade Monster will go down like burned toast in a blazing defeat.

As Riordan‘s beginning quote told us, “Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing” unless IT IS a good thing and includes knowing when to buy that billion dollar winning lottery ticket.

If you could know the future, would you want to? Would you really wish to know the date of your day of reckoning? I lean toward not knowing when the “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” is going to drop his cosmic meatball on my head. I like surprises.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster

A rendering of Noodles: The Flying Spaghetti Monster

Too sacrilegious for my religious friends? It’s okay, I haven’t gone over to the dark side but I’m spiritual and believe that cosmically when my time is done on Earth my matter and energy will be converted to something else ala Conservation of Mass and Energy. That being said, I guess I could find my mass and energy damned to the fiery hell of the Sun’s surface. That is something to ponder.

I don’t believe I’m being blasphemous. My God has a sense of humor, and I am on a first name basis with him. He calls me Don and I call him Herb. I thought Herb sounded good along with Jesus. It sounded like a singing group. One of the voices in my head now sounds like Ed Sullivan introducing them, “And now, singing their number one hit, ‘You Nailed Me’…America’s Duo…Jesus and Herb.” How hot is the Sun’s surface?

In all honesty, Herb doesn’t call me anything. I speak to Herb often, but I never hear from him. He has ghosted me for seventy-three years. A soft, breathy, and sultry voice joins the others, “You big dummy. You are trying to pray to the wrong person. You can call me Sage…not the herb Sage, the wise Sage.”

I told you my rabbit hole was the size of the Grand Canyon…and somewhat blasphemous. Forgive me for my sins Herb…or rather Sage.

Is my friend really a psychic? I don’t know. I do know she is an empath who knows what to say at just the right time. At any rate, if you are interested, for a mere $11.11 you can have your 2024 psychic reading at   www.etsy.com/shop/megspsychicreadings. Give it a whirl and find out when the Flying Spaghetti Monster might strike.

For more of Don Miller, go to https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Ruby’s Oyster Dressing…Well, Maybe.

/ cigarman501 / 3 Comments

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

I’m one of those guys who likes to leave Halloween and ease into Christmas. Are you aware that there is a holiday in between? Despite the Christmas decorations being sold at Wally World a week after the Independence Day celebration there is Thanksgiving to celebrate. Family, friends, football games and glorious food…and a turkey induced nap in the afternoon.

It is never too early to plan for the Thanksgiving feast. For some reason I was triggered…might have been a Butterball turkey advertisement or just the pig trails my mind wanders down.

In a time warp long, long ago, I sat down with my first set of in-laws for the traditional Thanksgiving feast. I would later have two different sets of in-laws before I finally got matrimony right, but this pig trail isn’t about in-laws or ex-wives; it is about oyster dressing…and a little forgiveness.

Oyster dressing. I had never had it before that fateful day…not unusual for me, I didn’t eat my first pizza until my freshman year in college and really didn’t understand the bounty I was receiving until the pizza arrived in front of me. I was truly “country come to town.” I continue to eat dishes I hadn’t heard of in the late Sixties…and a lot of them still resembles pizza.

To my sorrow and loss, I haven’t eaten oyster dressing since my first set of in-laws turned in to my first set of ex in-laws…ex-laws?

I intend to change this fact myself this year but have a quandary since my ex-mother-in-law is no longer in the land of the living. Which recipe?

Ruby isn’t around having gone to that great kitchen in the sky a couple of decades ago, and I’m not going to contact my first ex-wife, the red-headed one, to find out what the recipe was. She was not the stereotypical redhead, but I will take no chances.

What a conversation I’m having in my head with one of the many voices residing there:

“Hey, Dianne. Longtime no…see.

“Yeah, I know, I’m the scum of the earth but I do hope you are doing well.”

“Well, that’s a bit harsh.”

“Uh, I need a favor. I need Ruby’s oyster dressing recipe. Can you oblige me?”

“When hell freezes over, you say?”

No, I don’t think I’ll be making that phone call.

Instead of making the phone call from hell, I have perused many recipes online but none of them seem quite right…and stuffing ain’t dressin’! I think I’m going to have to combine certain parts of certain recipes into one. I thought I had found one, but it uses tarragon instead of sage. Who uses tarragon instead of sage in their cornbread dressing? Blasphemy to the angelic hands of my Southern foremothers…or is it heresy?

So, I require suggestions or maybe some gentle criticism. This to be a pretty simple recipe for a pretty simple process, I think. In the back of my head, I hear my grandmother’s voice saying, “It’s not about the process Boy, it is about the outcome.” I also hear her saying, “Nothing is ever as simple as it looks.”

Ingredients

8 cups crumbled cornbread. I will make my own the day before…or rather Linda will, and it will be made in a cast iron skillet.

1/2 teaspoon each, Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

3 1/2 cups chicken stock

6 large eggs

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley, this I’m not sure of.

One large yellow onion, chopped.

4 stalks of celery, chopped.

5 cloves of garlic chopped.

1 teaspoon of dried sage, I might stub my toe and put in a little more, but I like sagey, sage dressing.

1 pint of small oysters and their juices.

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9- by 13-inch baking dish.

In a large cast-iron skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. (I might cheat and use a little bacon grease with the butter.)  When the butter is foamy, add the onion and celery, and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 6 to 8 minutes.

Stir in the garlic and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. Stir in the crumbled cornbread and cook, stirring, until lightly browned, then remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs until smooth. Whisk in the chicken stock, parsley, and sage. (I’m still not sure about the parsley.) Stir in the cornbread mixture and the oysters. Pour the dressing mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake until dressing is set and golden brown, about 1 hour. (Alternatively, cover the mixture and refrigerate overnight before baking. Cornbread will soak up more goodness.) Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

***

Ruby, I’m gonna make this in your honor. You were a good mother-in-law…better than I was a husband to your daughter. Please forgive me. Uh, you wouldn’t want to come to me in a dream maybe and let me in on your recipe? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Don’s author’s page is at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

I Reckon I’m a Liberal

/ cigarman501 / 16 Comments

“No school can supply an anti-liberal education, or a fascist education, as these terms are contradictory. Liberalism and education are one.”
― George Seldes

This letter popped up on one of my memories last week. Being from South Carolina, I drew much criticism for my decision to come out of my conservative “closet.” To be honest, until the 2016 election I had been in denial. I always considered myself middle of the road but 2016 pushed me left of center, 2020 further, and if this lead up to the 2024 election cycle is any indication, my friends are thinking I’m standing next to Karl Marx. Well, at least we are still friends.

An open letter from Lori Gallager Witt to friends and family who are/were shocked to discover I’m a liberal…

This is going to be VERY long, so: I’m a liberal, I’ve always been a liberal, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of you apparently think it does.

Some of you suspected. Some of you were shocked. Many of you have known me for years, even the majority of my life. We either steadfastly avoided political topics, or I carefully steered conversations away from the more incendiary subjects in the name of keeping the peace. “I’m a liberal” isn’t really something you broadcast in social circles where “the liberals” can’t be said without wrinkling one’s nose.

But then the 2016 election happened, and staying quiet wasn’t an option anymore. Since then, I’ve received no shortage of emails and comments from people who were shocked, horrified, disappointed, disgusted, or otherwise displeased to realize I am *wrinkles nose* a liberal. Yep. I’m one of those bleeding heart commies who hates anyone who’s white, straight, or conservative, and who wants the government to dictate everything you do while taking your money and giving it to people who don’t work.

Or am I?

Let’s break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: Not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines.

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. Period.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that’s interpreted as “I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.” This is not the case. I’m fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it’s impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes “let people die because they can’t afford healthcare” a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I’m not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone. It doesn’t necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I’m mystified as to why it can’t work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don’t believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don’t want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can’t afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don’t throw around “I’m willing to pay higher taxes” lightly. I’m self-employed, so I already pay a shitload of taxes. If I’m suggesting something that involves paying more, that means increasing my already eye-watering tax bill. I’m fine with paying my share as long as it’s actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn’t have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is – and should be – illegal) All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I’m not “offended by Christianity” — I’m offended that you’re trying to force me to live by your religion’s rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia on you? That’s how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don’t force it on me or mine.

8. I don’t believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe we should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don’t believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN’T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they’re supposed to be abusing, and if they’re “stealing” your job it’s because your employer is hiring illegally.). I’m not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

10. I believe we should take in refugees, or at the very least not turn them away without due consideration. Turning thousands of people away because a terrorist might slip through is inhumane, especially when we consider what has happened historically to refugees who were turned away (see: MS St. Louis). If we’re so opposed to taking in refugees, maybe we should consider not causing them to become refugees in the first place. Because we’re fooling ourselves if we think that somewhere in the chain of events leading to these people becoming refugees, there isn’t a line describing something the US did.

11. I don’t believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It’s not that I want the government’s hands in everything — I just don’t trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they’re harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

12. I believe our current administration is fascist. (The Trump Adminsistration) Not because I dislike them or because I’m butthurt over an election, but because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

13. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you’re using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person? Your refusal to adjust your vocabulary in the name of not being an asshole kind of makes YOU the snowflake.

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I’m a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn’t mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don’t believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

So, I’m a liberal.

(c) 2018 Lori Gallagher Witt. Feel free to share, but please give me credit, and if you add or change anything, please note accordingly.

Written in 2018, I find I am still a liberal in 2023. I also find this letter has been shared so much I am in good company.

Don Miller’s Author’s Page https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Oh, the Horror….

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“It’s Halloween; I guess everyone’s entitled to one good scare.” Halloween (1978)

It is two days from Halloween and my horror has already begun. Someone shared Michael Jackson’s “Triller” and like a dolt I clicked on it. “Cause this is thriller, thriller night. And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike….” Now it’s going to be in my head all freaking dayyyyyyyy! Happy Halloween to me…not!

As much as I have heard and seen “Thriller” way toooooooooooo much, I dearly love an old horror movie. Specifically old movies where most of the horror takes place off camera and the special effects are created in your own head. Not the newer, more blood and swimming pools full of gore movies.

Bela Lugosi nibbling at necks, Colin Clive hovering over Boris Karloff manically yelling “It’s Alive,” or Vincent Price grabbing you by the throat from the “Oblong Box.” I even loved the humor of Marty Feldman as Igor extorting Gene Wilder to “Walk This Way!” or Count von Krolock licking his lips as he watched a bathing Sharon Tate in “The Fearless Vampire Hunters”…a few less bubbles please.

I loved them even though they really didn’t scare me. There WAS that disturbing scene with The Monster and the little girl. My fear was reserved for another generation of films that probably began with Michael terrorizing Jamie Lee in “Halloween” and “Carrie” burning down the town. Yes, I did scream during the final scene.

The one movie that absolutely terrified me beyond any reason was a 1972 low budget film called “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things.” Snappy title. I found out later that it had been filmed in fourteen days and believe me it looked like it. A theater group of young people find themselves on an island filming a horror film.

Using Satan’s own “book of the dead” they accidentally raise an island full of dead and the theater group ends up dead, torn apart by zombies who end the movie by getting on a boat headed toward a nearby city to continue eating. “More Brains Please!”

It shouldn’t have been that scary and probably wasn’t, but I haven’t had guts enough to rent it. During my coaching days, after Friday night football games, I always found it hard to sleep and usually tried to put myself to sleep by watching TBS on cable and sipping Jack Daniels.

This TBS was the old version that was still owned by Ted Turner, featuring Saturday afternoon wrestling after an all-night horror fest of reasonably new films, sandwiched around cartoons and such.

Being in the early Eighties, “Children Shouldn’t Play…” was reasonably new, only a decade old or so. I was alone, my roommate brother out for the night participating in an evening of “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll” I am sure. My significant other…there was no significant other at the time as I was still waiting around for the love of my life to ask me out. You really should not watch a horror film at two in the morning without someone to snuggle with or at least call-in case you need to be talked down from your fear.

It wasn’t the movie…the plot was too easy to follow. You just knew that as soon as they finished their “raise the dead chant” terrible things were going to happen and that the black guy would be the first victim. He was and was soon followed by the two amorous youngsters who had snuck off for a little quality time alone.

I laughed…until that damn music started. It really wasn’t music; it was more like a million fingernails being drug over a chalk board or a million out-of-tune violins being played with a crosscut saw. With the hair standing up on the back of my neck, the bodies started popping out of their graves like daisies in the spring sun. That should have been laughable…except for that damn music!

“Who you gonna call?” Not “Ghostbusters” because it had not been released yet. Well at least another theme is running through my head now instead of “Thriller.” “Who you gonna call, GHOSTBUSTERS!”

Happy Halloween! May your treats be more numerous than your tricks and the bite on your neck be from your love and not Bella Lugosi.

Don Miller’s authors page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

The Haunting of Hemlock Hills

/ cigarman501 / 6 Comments

“It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years.”  -Nora Roberts, “Key of Knowledge”

Haunted houses have always been a mainstay of the horror genre. From “The Haunting of Hill House”, or the Bates Motel in “Psyco”, to the Marsten House in “’Salem’s Lot” there is something malevolent about the old, worn down and crumbling homes…including my own. Sometimes first impressions are not the best impressions.

We don’t have the Spanish moss or swamps that go hand in hand with Southern Gothic. Just an old farmhouse sitting on top of a hill surrounded by hemlocks and memories. The numerous hemlocks made it easy to name our homeplace “Hemlock Hills.”

The original front porch shone with a silvery gray color in the moonlight…from the silver paint applied by a wandering group of shysters who convinced the previous owners to let them paint the roof.  The silver paint had been washed off by the first winter rain, staining the original lapboard cladding the old farmhouse.  The shysters are long gone but the house still stands. Moss covered chimneys in disrepair rose above the rust-stained, metal shingles.  If you need a site for a horror film, I have one for you.

This was the house we purchased thirty-five years ago…a house we fell in love with as soon as we saw it.  A house we renovated and brought into the twenty-first century.  I wish we had left it the way it was when we first saw it but sometimes my memories are softer than the here and now.

Spirits reside here.  Renovations have not chased them away. They aren’t the haints from Gullah legend or Bell Witches or Wampus Cats from Appalachia and the Cherokee that haunt according to South Carolina lore. They are softer and welcoming. They are ghosts of the past that live in our memories.

Mike Franks, a character from the television program NCIS made the following observation, “With the memories we make. We fill the spaces we live in with them. That’s why I’ve always tried to make sure that wherever I live, the longer I live there, the spaces become filled with memories of naked women.”

I always laugh when I hear him say that.  I think too, our spaces become haunted not only with the memories of naked people but any person who has been lost…people we don’t even know…people who lived their lives and died within these walls.

At least three different families contributed to the memories I believe haunt this old farmhouse.  Except for a period in the Fifties, it has been occupied continuously since the 1890s… a lot of spirits I would guess.

Despite our renovations, this old farmhouse still creaks and moans.  If the wind is exactly right and the TV is low, late at night you can hear the spirits…whispers in the dark, a light footfall, a woman’s giggle…or is it just a scurrying mouse or a puppy moving in her sleep at the foot of the bed or a flying squirrel landing in the cubby in the bedroom?

Sometimes when I’m reading or writing, as the witching hour approaches, I catch movement just outside the periphery of my vision…beyond the light cast by my reading lamp.  A shadow that doesn’t quite belong, a flash of light despite the darkness that surrounds me.  I don’t fear them, I welcome them. I don’t understand why they don’t come closer.

In the moonlight outside as I stand at the kitchen window, dapples of silver and gray make me wonder what I might be seeing. The spirits of long-dead animals that once played in the backyard still come out to frolic in the moonlight.

We’ve spent thirty-six Halloweens inside of these walls…we’ve never had a trick or treater.  No little ghouls or goblins, real or imagined.  The house looks haunted in the darkness of night with moonlight filtering through the hemlocks.  It is their loss.  A not so wicked witch lives here.

I’m comfortable with my spirits.  The spirits residing here…and the ones I brought with me from a time gone by, from places that no longer exist anywhere other than my mind.  No vampires or werewolves, just spirits that lovingly caress a cheek or place a steadying hand lightly upon my shoulder.  Comfortable and loving spirits from a long past who visit me every day, not just Halloween.

For more of Don Miller’s ramblings https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Cornbread as Dry as the Sahara

/ cigarman501 / 12 Comments

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” ― James Beard

I doubt James Beard grew up with bad cornbread, with or without butter. I did. Come to think of it, rarely have I had good cornbread. Mostly it is too dry. Dry like the Sahara Desert. Did you know the word Sahara means “desert” in Arabic? We’ve been saying the “Desert Desert” in all our geography courses.

Photo of the “Desert Desert” by Greg Gulik on Pexels.com

The Sahara gets between zero to three inches of rain per year with some areas not receiving any moisture for years and years. The Sahara isn’t even the driest desert. That goes to the Atacama in Chile and Argentina. How dry is it? As dry as Nannie’s cornbread.

I have made it a lifelong quest to find good cornbread. I have been thwarted…mostly. Most people would have quit but being a Southern gentleman, I feel compelled to continue eating cornbread or give up my Southern gentleman’s card.

My grandmother, Nannie, made bread for every meal. Biscuits or cornbread. On those nights she made cornbread I cringed. Dry, dry, dry. How dry was her cornbread? If it had been a cow, it would have given evaporated milk. “Ba-dum…BUM” rimshot.

I can remember my grandparents crumbling up their cornbread into Their Looney Tunes jelly glasses filled with buttermilk. Sylvester the Cat did not look impressed. Any liquid, even buttermilk, adds moisture to the driest cornbread. Adding Nannie’s cornbread to buttermilk seemed to be combining two evils to make a greater evil. I like buttermilk in dishes like biscuits but have never developed a taste for it as a libation with or without crumbled cornbread in it. Okay, I’ll be sending my Southern gentleman’s card back ASAP.

With Linda’s malady many friends and family have contributed meals for which we are thankful. Many have featured cornbread to be crumbled into soup. Good thing. Good cornbread by taste but…dry. Dry cornbread goes good in soup…if the soup is good and it has been. Thankfully, no cornbread has included sugar in its recipe.

My wife, by chance, tumbled onto an alternative recipe. She made ‘close’ to good cornbread before the alternative recipe. She will tell you it is because I like my cornbread just underdone and she would take the pone out early and cut a few wedges out just to suit me before returning the cornbread to the oven to finish.

I agree with her. Truth be told, I like my biscuits slightly underdone, too.

I have memories of being allowed to eat raw biscuit dough made with lard and how many times did I lick the spoon from cake batter made with raw eggs, and unpasteurized milk? The horror! Raw lard and yet, I survived. Same with cookie dough.

So, what was the alternative recipe? The same as a regular recipe except for one ingredient…squash.

One summer we had an overabundance of squash. I gave it away to friends, family, and unsuspecting souls who drove by my garden with their car windows down. Still, I ate it every day for a month.

One of those days we had leftovers of boiled squash and onions and had earlier run out of different ways to use squash. With a mess of green beans cooking away on the stove, cornbread was an option. We pondered what we might do with the leftover squash. One of us suggested she use it in her cornbread and my quest for moist cornbread came to an end.

The cornbread was wonderful and so moist I had to eat it with a fork. With cornbread containing squash, and a mess of green beans, we had the “Three Sisters” covered and I was happy to ask for a second helping of cornbread. Summer squash is so mild it really didn’t change the taste of the cornbread.

After doing some research I feel a little akin to that lost explorer, Christopher Colombus. I discovered something that wasn’t lost. Seems like I’m not the only one looking for moist cornbread and recipes abound on various internet sites incorporating squash.

Ok, I’ll be takin’ my Southern gentleman’s card back! Truth be told, I loved Linda’s cornbread before we added squash.

Linda’s Cornbread

Ingredients

Two cups of Aunt Jemima’s self-rising cornmeal

One cup of White Lily self-rising flour (Used Red Band until it was discontinued)

Two Cups of buttermilk…maybe. Add buttermilk until you get the consistency you want along with a squirt of water.

One egg

One large tablespoon of Duke’s Mayonnaise

A dash of salt and pepper

A pinch of sugar (Optional)

Butter, Bacon grease – enough to cover the bottom of a cast iron frying pan

If using Squash, a cup of pre-cooked, drained, and chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Coat the bottom of frying pan with butter or bacon grease, or both. Yes, you can use vegetable oil if you must.

Place frying pan in the oven but don’t let butter burn.

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix well.

Turn down oven to 350 degrees.

Remove frying pan from oven and carefully pour the mix into the pan. There should be a satisfying sizzle.

Cook for twenty to twenty-five minutes and see if it has browned enough. If not, turn it back up to 425 until it is. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come back clean.

Please give Don’s author’s page a look-see at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true