Jun 19

Are You Sure We’re Sisters?

My sister and I have always been two very different people, despite my mother’s best efforts. (The time that my brother, sister, and I had to wear sailor outfits for formal pictures was considered cruel and unusual punishment by all three of us.) The difference is most evident in our food preferences. My sister listed her three favorite foods while we were driving around this past week: Potatoes, cheese, and macaroni and cheese. I was having a hard time narrowing down my favorite foods except for Vietnamese hot and sour fish soup and bun bo Hue. A few other places where my sister and I diverge food-wise:

  • Mayonnaise. She adores the stuff. I abhor it. She’d get along well in Belgium, where french fries are served with mayo. Here she eats fries with tartar sauce.
  • Fish and seafood. I haven’t seen her eat fish of any type since we were in high school. As for shellfish, she’d utter in disgust, “EEEEUW!”
  • Asian food. She’ll eat Chinese take-out, but that’s about her limit. I nearly passed out when she tried a red bean-stuffed bun at Uwajimaya and said it wasn’t bad. She left the room when my nephew and his wife brought back weird stuff from their trips to Singapore and Japan.
  • Zucchini. She agrees with Julian that it’s an abomination.
  • Sweets. She can take or leave them. I take them – at least the good stuff.

To be fair, she has a more diverse palate than our brother did. He never met a green vegetable he liked.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/06/19/are-you-sure-were-sisters/

Jun 15

Bittersweet Homecoming

I’m Back East in my hometown, not for vacation. My mother fell last month and landed in the hospital. She didn’t break anything, but she had ceased taking her medications. She was in rehab for a couple of weeks. She will now be in assisted living, if not skilled nursing, for the duration. I flew home to make sure she was getting good care. I also needed to help my sister clear out Mom’s apartment.

Mom is in a good facility. It used to be the Catholic high school in Oswego, but has been repurposed for adult day care, rehab, and skilled nursing. A newer facility on the grounds offers assisted living. Mom looks healthy, and she’s just as ornery as ever. The staff is attentive. The wound care nurse came in while I was there yesterday to check for spots that could become bedsores. Her temporary roommate is someone she knows from my hometown.

The bigger challenge is cleaning out the apartment. In her old age, Mom’s become a bit of a pack rat. She’s kept clothes that fit when she was 60 pounds heavier. She had bags and jars full of coins squirreled around the apartment. The food had already been disposed of by the time I arrived, mercifully. My sister and I tackled the kitchen first. Last year I threw out and organized a whole bunch of plastic containers when I was here. In the interim, she acquired more of them and/or the suckers started breeding. This afternoon we took two SUV-loads of pots, pans, utensils, and the aforementioned plastic storage containers to the Salvation Army. Tomorrow we commence tackling clothes.

While it’s never easy to sift through and cull stuff accumulated over a lifetime, I’m grateful that I didn’t have to do this alone. My sister downsized from a house to a granny flat three years ago, and she has the take no prisoners attitude required for this chore. However, she did take Mom’s cookie jars for her collection. I will send a few of Mom’s cookbooks (ONLY A FEW, JULIAN!) home to Casa Sammamish. The furniture in the apartment will go to my nephew and his wife, who are in the process of buying a larger house. My niece may take a few other things. I think things are as under control as they can be under the circumstances.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/06/15/bittersweet-homecoming/

Jun 12

Summer in the City

I’ve mentioned several times that Seattle doesn’t do winter well. We can now add hot weather to the climes that Seattle doesn’t do well. I had a conference down at the airport. Getting down there via bus and light rail was easy. Getting back, on the other hand…

The train was slow in arriving and stopped several times. The tracks were getting hot; in addition, the switch for the trains to change tracks was stuck in place. It took us over an hour to get three miles from the airport to the Othello train station. Finally three of us shared a taxi to get to downtown Seattle, after which I took my usual bus home. Although I left the conference around 4, I didn’t get home until nearly 7.

The word from this wiseacre: Skip light rail in Seattle in the summer.

A postscript: It was hot enough in Seattle to buckle a street south of downtown. Several cars sustained damage as a result.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/06/12/summer-in-the-city/

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/06/01/wheres-the-chicken/

May 27

Our Garden, 2019 Edition

It was a brutal winter, with two weeks of snow and ice. Most of the ferns and ajugas in the planter boxes were pretty beaten up. The surviving ferns were planted on a bare strip of ground near the entry, along with three new ferns. One ajuga is barely holding on; the others were dispatched to the compost bin.

This year’s entryway.

This year we put heucheras and impatiens in the planter boxes. Both varieties seem to be thriving, although one impatien in the box nearest the door looked to be eaten by a rabbit. We got a replacement to take its place. We also got a beautiful big-leaf coleus plant that I put in a pot near the entry, along with the mint, rosemary, cilantro, and rau ram.

This coleus begged me to buy it.

As for the upper deck, it will be basil and peppers. There will be four varieties of peppers and three of basil. I’ve already harvested my first two peppers from the Mirasol plant. It’s a hot one. There’s also a salvia plant and a hanging basket of petunias. I have two lavender plants that I haven’t figured out where to put. I think the hummingbirds and bees will be happy this year.

In addition to our humble offerings, we have new next-door neighbors who brought numerous plants from their former home. One member of the couple is a Master Gardener. So the dirt could be flying fast and furious hereabouts this summer.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/05/27/our-garden-2019-edition/

May 26

For My Nephew

I saw this car on my way downtown to catch the bus home on Friday. My nephew has been interested in moths and butterflies since he was a kid. So, Randy, this is for you.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/05/26/for-my-nephew/

May 18

Happy Mount St. Helens Day!

Where were you when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980? I was living in Dallas when the bulletin interrupted Charles Kuralt’s Sunday morning show. The iconic picture of the mountain blowing its top is seared into my memory. My grad school roommate grew up in Pullman, in southeastern Washington. Her school was actually closed for several days due to falling ash. The volcano has had a few returns to life, most prominently in 2004. A new lava dome has formed in the crater.

Since Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska are on the Pacific Ring of Fire, any of our mountains could erupt at any time. Our local chief worry is Mount Rainier, which last had a significant eruption in the 18th century. So any time Rainier  is visible with an intact peak, locals breathe a sigh of relief.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/05/18/happy-mount-st-helens-day/

May 12

Sign at Pike Place Market

It may be tongue in cheek, but I daresay some passersby would have the same question.

Proof that the state of nutrition education among the masses is sadly lacking.

I told a coworker about this sign and she admitted that her husband did not know what a carb was when they began going out together. She’s since schooled him.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/05/12/sign-at-pike-place-market/

May 05

Dining Out on the Dental Diet

After a week of mostly liquid meals, Julian is slowly adding soft foods to his diet. We’ve had baked salmon and Thai curry with cod. Yesterday we went to Bellevue. Julian suggested having dim sum for lunch. “Some of those dumplings should work with my teeth,” he said. For the uninitiated, dim sum are little nibbles of dumplings, buns, and other items. The classic dim sum restaurant has wait staff rolling carts around the dining room with different offerings. Customers point to what they want. The bill is calculated based on the number and type of items ordered. As I mentioned in this post last year,  dim sum is the equivalent of Sunday brunch in areas with large Asian populations.

Our destination was Din Tai Fung, part of a Taiwan-based chain. The Seattle area has four of these restaurants. Bellevue’s was the first one to open. Din Tai Fung’s specialty is xiao long bao, or soup buns. Cubes of gelatinized broth are wrapped in dumpling dough and steamed. There’s always a long line at Din Tai Fung restaurants because they don’t take reservations. Luckily, we were seated in the bar area immediately upon arrival. We ordered hot and sour soup for two, steamed cod dumplings, and shrimp fried rice. I also ordered a cucumber salad so I’d have some vegetable to chew on. Julian could handle most of the items except for  bamboo shoots in the soup and the shrimp. Soon he’ll be able to eat items that he can cut with the side of a fork, which will liberalize our diet significantly – until the next round of surgery.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/05/05/dining-out-on-the-dental-diet/

May 01

Phonographic Memory

Some people have photographic memories, I have a phonographic memory.  I can hear a song that I haven’t encountered in years and still remember the lyrics. I think it comes from  having a transistor radio attached to my ear as a kid. And there are certain songs that automatically take me back to a particular time or place. I’m sure the late neurologist and author Oliver Sacks would have something to say about this quirk, but I have yet to read his tome, Musicophilia.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/05/01/phonographic-memory/

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