"Overdone and Undercooked" Newspaper Columns©

On these chilly winter days nothing is more appealing than hot soup, a cozy fire and home.  Dill weed, garlic and other spices leave the room scented with their own sweet tangy perfume.  The soul of homemade soup that makes the tasty stock is the spices.

Did you know that an aluminum tea ball caddy can be filled with your soup’s spices and immersed when cooking?

After cooking re-move the caddy and your soup will be free of floating bay leaves, and spices will still have all the delicious flavor.

To remove any excess fat from soup just drop in a lettuce leaf let it remain until the grease is absorbed. Remove lettuce leaf before serving.

So simple and effective these little tricks make you feel more confident in your kitchen.

Here are a few more:

If you add mashed potatoes to any cream soup it will act as a thickener. Replacing the use of flour. It also adds taste and not as many calories.

To bring out the tang of your tomato soup, add a little sugar and for an instant cream sauce substitute one can cheddar cheese soup or cream of mushroom celery or chicken broth plus ¼ cup milk.

Try my favorite “sit at home and enjoy” soup recipes below. When their aroma begins to tickly your nose you will remember what is so special about these frosty winter days.

 

OYSTER STEW

1 PINT MILK

½ CUP CREAM

¼ CUP BUTTER

1 PINT OYSTER

1 TEASPOON SALT

DASH OF PEPPER

Heat milk and cream to scalding. Just before serving, melt butter in saucepan add oysters and liquid. Cook gently just until oyster edges curl. Add to scalded milk and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

 

BEEF BARLEY SOUP

2 POUNDS BEEF SHORT RIBS

5 CUPS WATER

1 LARGE ONION, SLICED

1 16-OUNCE CAN TOMATOES, CUT UP

1 TABLESPOON INSTANT BEEF BOUILLION GRANULES, SALT AND BASIL. SIMMER COVERED ONE AND ½ HOURS.

 

In Dutch oven slowly brown the short ribs on all sides. Drain off excess fat. Add water, undrained tomatoes, onion, bouillon granules, salt, and basil. Simmer covered 1-1/2 hour.

Add carrot, celery, green pepper, barley, and parsley. Simmer covered 45 minutes. Remove meat and bones. Chop meat. Discard bones. Skim excess fat from soup. Return meat to cooker. Season soup to taste with additional salt and pepper.

 
It’s a pleasant, wet and rainy day, and I am standing in a semicircle of approximately 133 “you cut ’em” Christmas trees.
 
My husband is running with a sawblade in his left hand, a blue tarp in his right hand, and a translucent look in his eyes.   Evidently, he has spotted yet another tree that might meet his specific conditions.
 
My 7-year-old daughter is lying on the ground at my feet, moaning deliriously that she is “tree sick.”  Her tiny limp body is lying quietly as she explains that after rows and rows of trees, she can no long muster the energy to walk another step.
 
I don’t know about you, but when I go to ‘cut’em” I don’t waste a lot of time. I stride briskly to the most attractive tree standing and shout, “Here!”
 
Your professional Christmas tree cutter (husband), on the other hand, does not even think about cutting until he has conducted a complete tree study of the site-circling the selected tree warily, as though it were an alien space-ship, checking it out from every possible angle, squatting and squinting, finger in the air checking the wind, feeling the needles, analyzing the distance from the road to the truck, back to the tree…
 
And so, amid an atmosphere of unbearable tension, comparable to not being able to find your car keys when you are already late to that very important meeting, my daughter and I wait, and wait, and wait.
 
By now our daughter is trying to make snow angels in the mud and I am unbelievably letting her.  I see other families in the tree farm.  They’re staring intently at trees way off in the distance, but I think they’re staring at us.  We have been here so long.
 
I think about grabbing my daughter’s hand and pulling her up to her feet and taking her down the hill for our third cup of hot cider and her second candy cane, but too late, she has been entertaining the crowds by holding her breath as she runs up and down the tree rows.
 
The more time that passed with virtually nothing happening, the more excited I got about that cider.  I started down the hill when suddenly I heard a loud, long, whopping yelp that I recognized as my husband.
 
I turned to see him stand up, wipe tree pitch off his hands, and in a voice that would have made a gold digger stop, announced, “This …is the tree.”
 
There it stood in all of its glory-all 14 feet of it.
 
“That’s too big,” I said.
 
“Not so,” he said. “I will trim off the bottom.  You’ll see.”
 
“Don’t you remember last year?” I asked.  “It was too big; you did not trim enough.”
 
“Did so.”
 
“Did not.”
 
“Did so.
 
“Did not.”
 
“Did.”
 
“Not!”
 
Like anything else, success depends on the proper tools, so in the back of our truck is an assortment of many saws, blue tarps, gloves, rope and any necessity to fall Paul Bunyan’s tree.
 
“Quick, run back to the truck and pick out the yellowed handled two blade milliliter saw.  Oh, and by the way, grab me a cider,” he says with a big smile.
 
Rolling my eyes back in my head and shrugging my shoulders, I approached the tree surgeon punched him in the arm where he pretended to be knocked into the fir tree, and I headed to the car trying to consider the many, many complex factors involved in the “you cut ’em tree man.
 
This is a once-a-year experience.  And this tree-prepare to experience a heart tremor- was home cut.  How were we going to get it in the truck, let alone through the front door?  At least when I finally do get home, I can make a nice hot cup of:
 
HOT SPICY APPLE CIDER
 
6 cups apple cider, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 teaspoon lemon rind, 1 can (2-1/2 cups) unsweetened pineapple juice.
 
Heat cider and cinnamon stick in a large pan.  Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered 5 minutes longer.
 
 
SIMPLY DELICIOUS EGGNOG
 
1 egg, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup chilled milk, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.  Beat egg and sugar together.  Beat in milk and vanilla.  Serve cold in a tall glass sprinkled lightly with nutmeg.  Serve immediately.
 
Note:  This column was published in Sandra Haldeman Martz of Papier-Mache Press, anthology “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays”.  Where I was welcomed by two different Barnes & Noble bookstores that held a book signing and reading.

They say that home is not where you live, but where they understand you. And everyone knows there is no place like home for the holidays. Even if you are surrounded by relatives who say all the wrong things, it is home.
 
Stuffed stomachs and flushed cheeks stagger from the Thanksgiving dining room table and toward the couches and soft chairs of the living room.  Too many people in a small room sacked out on the sofa or burrowed close to one another like biscuits in a tin. Thankful for another year.
 
It is at this time of year we were taught to be thankful for what we have and to think of others less fortunate. But how many of us have wondered what happens to those less fortunate during the rest of the year.
 
Something remarkable is happening–right here in Seattle–and it happens every week. It starts on Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. at the Josephinum Hotel in downtown Seattle. This beautiful building was built in 1906. The ceilings in the lobby are stained glass. The original lighting fixtures, huge orb shades, rise in the cathedral ceiling alongside the marble columns. In the lobby, next to the piano, the room embraces a group of homeless people. They all admit to being clean and sober and ready for a commitment.
 
They are about to begin a journey back.  Back before homelessness, hunger, isolation, and hopelessness, took them far, far away from home. They are about to take a tour of a facility called FareStart.
 
FareStart transforms the lives of homeless and disadvantaged men and women. They have a vision to transform our community, so all people have a sense of belonging, enrichment, and hope in their lives.
 
And it is working.  Combining the operations of the hotel restaurant, café and in-depth life skills instruction these people are given a chance to start over; to find a life.
 
The tour takes them inside the hotel’s restaurant. The front wall displays pictures of recent FareStart graduates, holding their certificates and wearing ear-to-ear grins.
 
After the tour-if they accept-they are given shots by the health department, housing, and a 16-week commitment of hard work which will prepare them for future food-service jobs.
 
“The first two weeks are the hardest,” says Lillian Hochstein, FareStart’s development director. “By then the true commitment comes out. Twenty-five percent don’t make it to the third week.”
 
Those lucky enough to make it to the third week begin Life Skills. Life Skills training takes place over three weeks with a licensed counselor. “Here everyone has a chance to deal with anger management, trust issues, being a capable person,” says Hochstein, a petite blond who rolls up her sleeves and tells it like it is. “They learn to butt up against it and deal with it.”
 
FareStart generates 60 percent of its annual operating budget through Head Start programs, daycare center meals, the restaurant, café, and a Guest Chef night.
 
Hochstein-a part-time grant worker-and volunteers raise the rest of the operating budget. They rely on individuals, corporations, foundations, and special events.
 
An extensive network of the area’s finest restaurants, hotels and institutions are eager to place program graduates. That is why during weeks 13 through 15 students spend time in Life Management classes.  Here they are taught resume preparation, interviewing skills, relapse prevention and job-placement counseling.
 
Hochstein gets a bit misty eyed when asked if the environment might get a little disheartening. “It is more heartening than not,” she grins. “That first student during his first week: no eye contact, head down, and to see him again at the end of the 16th week: upbeat, employable, chatting. To see the change is amazing. Homeless people feel very isolated and FareStart gives them the feeling that they are needed, especially when they see the amount of volunteers who care about them.”
 
Head Chef Cameron Orel of Yarrow Bay Beach Café volunteered her skills at FareStart when she was a Guest Chef.  Guest Chef night is every Thursday.  A different Guest Chef runs the kitchen producing fabulous meals and also giving the students the ability to work with a variety of chefs.
 
Orel remembers being very nervous.
 
Not because the students were homeless; her father instilled charity into her. When she was a little girl, her father worked near the Kingdome. She remembers his generosity to people on the street. “Never look down upon someone who has fallen,” he would tell her.

She was nervous about the students getting the food out in time. She was “floored.” Fifteen students with minimal experience and 15 personalities shined.
 
She remembers one student in particular who did exceptionally well. She hired him after his graduation. She recalls because it was such a gratifying personal experience.
 
She showed him how to present the plate. He asked if she would show him again. Then he remarked to her that the second time it was different. Orel replied that each plate you can make different designs. He was so excited to have the chance to be creative he was almost overwhelmed.
 
Over 2,000 meals a day are prepared and served. FareStart has doubled the students in the last three years and has added a double shift.
 
A home and understanding make each day at FareStart a Holiday.
 
 
  

Fall brings a season of delicious harvests.
But who cares? It is October! I can feast on apples and pears any ol’day. But at the end of this month, it is Snickers and Mars bars. Bite size, king size, oh-h-h-h for a chocolateholic is there any better holiday than Halloween?

What other holiday do you send your child out to roam the streets in the dark to come home and deposit $100 worth of candy on the kitchen table. There gleaming under the kitchen light: Butterfingers, M&M’s, Baby Ruths, Dots and Hershey bars.

You beg and cajole with your children to pleaaassse share that tiny Tootsie Roll, only to have their grubby (oh, I meant chubby) little hands grab it and yell, “NO!”

Halloween is such a wonderful time for children, full of spooky stories, costume parties, games and good things to eat.

With all that trick or treating children will be thirsty. Have big pitchers of cold apple cider or have a large bowl of punch or grape juice and tell the children they have to stir it well to make their spells jell!

Let’s face it. Halloween is sugar, sugar, sugar! Let’s get the kids (and Mom) started now!

Trick or Treat!

P.S. It is October–the beginning of the frightful threes: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Soon we will be plunged into heavy holiday eating. But stop right there, because the fact is, like a lot of us, I need to regain my composure and admit there are only two months until Christmas!

We have got to paint the living room, sew drapes, hook a carpet, make matching outfits and bake!
HELP!!

MONSTER MUNCH

1 cup chocolate pieces

1 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup peanuts

1 cup corn Chex cereal

Melt chocolate pieces until all are smooth. Mix remaining ingredients with the chocolate. Shape into round balls, place on wax paper.
Chill.

KEEN HALLOWEEN ICE CREAM

1 gallon of any flavor ice cream. Width-wise slice one inch thick and place each slice on top of a graham cracker. You have an ice cream sandwich! Freeze on wax paper until serving time.

TRICK OR TREAT BASKETS

Cut firm oranges in half and scoop out the pulp. Be careful not to break the skins. Save the pulp and press through a strainer and use for juice at breakfast. Fill the empty orange halves with canned or fresh fruit cocktail and before serving, top with scoops of vanilla and orange sherbet ice cream.

JACK O’LANTERN CAKE

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 1 tsp. ginger (powdered) 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl beat one egg until fluffy. Add 3/4 cup milk and 3/4 cup dark molasses. Sift 1 tsp. baking soda with 2 cups flour and add to above mixture. Bake at 325 degrees in ungreased round cake pan for about about 35 minutes. Cool before icing.

ICING: 1 cup confectioner’s sugar, 1 Tbsp. butter, 2 Tbsp. milk, orange food coloring. Mix the sugar and butter in a bowl with a fork. Add the milk slowly. Stir until creamy. Add drops of food coloring, stir until you get a pumpkin color. Spread icing on the cake.

PUMPKIN FACE: You will need gum drops, candy corn and red licorice. Arrange some gumdrops in a triangle shape to make the eyes. Arrange the candy corn in a triangle shape to make the nose. Use the licorice whole as as strip or in pieces to outline the shape of the pumpkin’s mouth. Presto! You have a Jack O’Lantern cake!

I made a mental note to myself that I would not let another year go by without apologizing. But, you see, it started way back at the beginning of the very first school year, when I received your first parent handout…on the last day of school.

When I originally suggested that as parents, we would appreciate some sort of weekly correspondence to the other moms, they all turned and looked at me like they had never heard a simple suggestion before. Then, as years went by, I grew suspicious when I found out there was a… weekly handout.

But I considered that small potatoes when my children came home in their pre-school years and could finally tell that a nickel was not more money, just because it was bigger, than a dime.

I was pleased to see the few notes that did come my way. If you’re keeping track, I have given notice as a volunteer.
So how did I know that the entire homeroom phone tree collapsed because I did not get my weekly notice? The request seemed reasonable. Call parents in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, they sent my list of parent’s names home with the weekly notice. As for poor Barb Shertzer, homeroom parent, I apologize.

It never occurred to me that you may not realize the true reason why I am writing you today. It is–well–it’s embarrassing. I mean, I wouldn’t bring it up, but yes–that was–my signature on all those excuses and notices that did make it home. You–did get them, right?

I know what you’re thinking; how could anyone have such bad handwriting. Well, let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I was never in a relaxed upright position, with glasses on, a cup of coffee next to me, sitting in my easy chair. Oh…no.

I don’t think that there is anything that can make my moment like hearing a hysterical 11-year-old brooding over the urgency of a school note that must be signed NOW! There was no doubt in my mind that she was talking directly to me even though I could not see her, as I had an armful of laundry, the newspaper in my teeth, just hit my crazy bone while going down the stairs. I had to sign my John Henry with my toes.

Or the time I was on my hands and knees, hoisting the mattress on my back trying to flip it over, when Junior, who I had just seen kiss the dog on the lips, kisses me goodbye. Leaving for school, tears welling in his eyes, he explains the crumpled paper in his hand is the note to allow him on today’s field trip. I used my teeth to glide the pencil across on that note.

Let’s see, and there was the time in the car I had to use the steering wheel to write my name; while being kicked from the back seat by the neighbor’s kid…What the heck. This is like yesterday’s leftovers. Old news. I promise that next year will be different.
There I feel better.

Sincerely,

A Parent

P.S. I have never found it sound practice to compare myself to other people (up until a few days ago), so I would like to share with you this great recipe. I know you might get a lit–tle bored this coming summer without your students, and cooking is a practical hobby.
“Aw, c’mon forgive me please…”

TROUT FOR TEACHER

4 Large Trout

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Sauce: 2 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard, 2 Teaspoons wine vinegar, two egg yolks, salt and pepper, 6 Tablespoons unsalted softened butter, 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh chives, ½ cucumber sliced thin.

Wash and clean the trout. Cut off the heads and dry the fish. Wrap each trout in a piece of oiled aluminum foil and put them in a baking dish. Bake in the center of a preheated oven at 425 degrees for 15-18 minutes.

Remove the dish from the oven and open the foil packages to allow the trout to cook slightly. Slice each fish among the underside and, with an appointed knife, carefully loosen the backbone. Ease the backbone out gently so that most of the small bones come away with it. Set the trout aside to cool.

To make the sauce: Beat the mustard, egg yolks, and vinegar together until well blended; season to taste with salt and pepper. Gradually add butter to the egg mixture, beating all the time until the sauce has the consistency of thick cream. Finally, stir in the finely chopped herbs.

Before serving, peel the skin from the cold trout. Cut each into two fillets. Arrange on a serving dish. Pour the sauce over the fillets. Lay thin slices of cucumber on top of trout.

“You know what this weekend is?”

“A honeydew weekend? Honey, can you do this. Honey, will you do that. Honey, over here. I have another chorrrreee…”

I turned and glared at my husband. “No silly. Remember last year at the Delmont’s?”

He clutched the arms of his chair and moaned.

“Yes,” I paused. “It is our annual late Summer weekend.”

As long as we have been neighbors, we have gathered together for this annual event. But this year, like last, the outdoor table was laden with goodies: corn on the cob, sweet pickles, potato salad, pickled beets, deviled eggs, kidney bean and macaroni salad, coleslaw, fresh melons, corn bread, apple pie, strawberry tarts and brownies.

Appetites where whet and the meat was ready to grill. Then it happened.

“Twenty-four thousand BTU control burner with 225-square inch cooking area, push button igniter and view window, model 5450,” smirked Lawrence Delmont, our host for our late summer weekend, as he wheeled his new toy onto the deck.

Libby, Lawrence’s wife grinned and rubbed Lawrence’s arm playfully as she told the other guest, Margo and her husband Bill and me and my husband Rob, about their new gas barbecue. “It taste just like briquettes. It is the lava rock you know makes the meat taste better.”

Lawrence had put on his Chef hat and apron with the words. ‘Cook with Class Use Gas.’

Libby continued on, “Well, no more bags of briquettes every time I go to the store. No lighter fluid. ”

Behind Margo, Bill groaned. “Yeah and no more taste either.”

Lawrence coughed pointedly. He paused his oven-mitted hand lingering over the meat, looked at Bill intently and said, “Oh, are you one of them?”

“Them?” Bill inquired.

“Yes. You know. . .there is no difference.” Lawrence said authoritatively.

“Who are you kidding. If it ain’t barbecue with the real thing it ain’t barbecue.” Bill scoffed. ‘You might as well cook in the oven.”

Libby appeared at my elbow and nodding toward Rob said, “Well you guys know how great gas is.”

I bit my lip and looked at Rob, who was fighting with a lawn chair.

“Well to me it is kinda like Coke and Pepsi. There’s a definite difference,” I stammered.

“What?!” hollered Lawrence, throwing up his hands in disgust.

Margo was at the table putting olives on each finger and pretending she didn’t know us.

“You see,” said Bill. “Any connoisseur would have an electric starter to put on their briquettes and would not use a lighter fluid. And would never ever stoop to plugging in an outdoor oven that will never give you the flavor of that delicious charcoal-grilled…”

“Well…I suppose,” Lawrence interrupted that you are the type that can bake bread on a stick and broil trout on a hot rock. And have you ever taken a look at that old oil drum you cut in half to make into a barbecue? You lose your appetite just looking at it. But I must say, that was better than what you use to use a wheelbarrow full of sand with bricks holding up the grill. . .”

It never really got too ugly, I recalled with a sigh until they brought out the Coke and Pepsi.

“Yeah, said Rob, as he got out of his living room chair. “I would rather have sat around the house with a lip full of Novocain.”

I began to hum and pick lint off my shorts. He stole a glance, and our eyes met. “Oh, no we’re not. . .” Rob said, alarmed.

‘No honey, we’re not going over there this year. They are coming here.”

“Do I have to go to another family reunion where the folding table sits on an uneven lawn and once again summer comes and everyone forgets to water the hamster or feed the fish, and we all have to attend the funerals.”

“My weekends are full of projects my husband starts, “Libby giggles. “I take five minutes on the lawn chair just to feel a cool breeze, take a deep breath, close my eyes and vroom—the chain saw starts or the Weed eater, or the yummy scent of Formica glue hits me between the eyes.”

“Here that?” I shouted.

“Oh no! We all say in unison. The dreaded sound of “THE ICE CREAM MAN.”

In our house it is utter panic when they hear that music. Kids can’t hear you call their name from the next room, but they can hear that music 10 blocks away. They will sit forever on the sidewalk and wait but they will not sit 10 seconds to let you blow dry their hair.

“Well,” Libby said. “Summer is no school volunteering, zucchini, kids running constantly until you notice one day they haven’t washed their hair or feet in weeks, hot days floating on an air mattress on the lake, oh and hey, great blackberry cobbler. You guys want the recipe?”
Here ’tis.
BLACKBERRY COBBLER
4 CUPS BLACKBERRIES
1 1/2 CUP SUGAR
1/2 TEASPOON CINNAMON
1 CUP FLOUR
1 1/2 TEASPOON BAKING POWDER
1/2 CUP MARGAINE
MIX BLACKBERRIES WITH HALF CUP SUGAR AND CINNAMON. PUT IN BAKING DISH. COMBINE RET OF INGREDIENTS AND CRUMBLE OVER TOP AND BAKE AT 400 DEGREES FOR 25 MINUTES. YUM!

4TH OF JULY!!!
Experts agree that the correct way to get into the holiday spirit is to relax and not allow yourself to become overwhelmed.

For example, the other day someone told me that it was the end of June.

“WHAT?!”

Helpful strangers standing yards away, shouted. “Three days until Fourth of July!”

“How could it be?” I queried the clerk as I scratched out “May” on my check for groceries. Then my faithful friend, Margo arrived on the scene and without a second’s hesitation reminded me I am to bring the main course for the annual Fourth of July picnic. What was I bringing?

By now I am considering making a break from the grocery line but I had other items on my busy agenda, with number one being remembering how to breathe.

I remembered to rely on the techniques for living a well-balance life that I had just read as I waited in line to check out my groceries.

So here was the procedure:

Visualize what you want to accomplish (I cannot believe I signed up for MAIN COURSE!)

Try to see as an opportunity for growth and learning (The worst part is you have not a clue what to make and you are at the end of your monthly budget.)

Do things that bring joy and fulfillment into your life (And don’t think for a moment that you are going to get out of it, because you aren’t.)

I came out of my unconscious state mumbling, “Hot Dogs.”

“HOT DOGS!” Margo yelled over her shoulder.

I look down the crowded aisle of shoppers and they look at me with the bright polite smiles of people who do not have a clue what had just been said.

“Whoa! Now, Margo lets not be hostile. I mean I’m not going to serve them with Cheez Whiz,” I explained.

‘To the best of my recollection, Cheez Whiz on a hot dog is mighty good,” said the customer second to the left in line.

I smile weakly.

Not feeling exceptionally energetic after purchasing $107.82 worth of groceries I knew as a food columnist I had to give that weenie a gourmet twist.

“Did I say Hot Dogs? No, no, no I meant Frankfurters,” I said. I felt a quiet giddiness and relief until I realized–condiments.

I pondered on this on the drive home. As I breathe deeply (so as not to become overwhelmed) I thought there has to be more than one way to butter a hot dog bun. Never doubt it, it only takes a rise in blood pressure to stagger the imagination to make a pretty dull weenie into…FOURTH OF JULY FRANKFURTERS

Score frankfurters about 1/4 inch deep. Brush with a sweet-sour BBQ, or zesty tomato sauce. Grill 6 inches from heat, turning and brushing once or twice with more sauce. Grill for 10 minutes or until hot dogs are puffed and richly glazed. Now take your pick of homemade condiments:

-Top grilled hot dogs with mashed avocado, sliced ripe olives and crushed cornchips.

-Line toasted hot dog buns with sautéed red and green peppers seasoned with chili sauce.

-Serve with grilled (canned or fresh) pineapple spears, chopped macadamia nuts and diced green peppers.

-Insert tiny pieces of white American Cheese into scored hot dogs before grilling; spread mustard on hot dogs buns and arrange slices of red and green pickled cherry peppers around hot dog.

-Spread toasted hot dog buns with canned deviled ham, place grilled hot dogs over and top with chopped Bermuda onion or Walla Walla sweets.

-Wrap lean bacon around hot dogs before grilling and top with hot dog relish in toasted buns.

-Fill toasted hot dog buns with rice salad and place grilled hot dog over top with dairy sour cream seasoned with mustard.

-Top grilled hot dogs in toasted buns with orange sections and sweet onion slices.

My front page piece on: ‘Emergency Mothers’ Help Scared Children By Shanna Family Editor

Who can a lost, frightened or sick child turn to on his way to or from school?

If the Pilot Club of Houston County has its way, there will soon be mothers on each block around local elementary schools to give comfort to any bewildered youngster.

The club last night kicked off a new “Emergency Mothers Project,” designed to provide a safe place school children can go to in time of need.

Large signs with the letter “E” in red will be placed in windows of homes when mothers will be home during school hours.

The volunteer mothers will be screened thoroughly by the principals of Parkwood and Shirley Hills elementary schools, where the project will begin, it was revealed.

Janice Ten Hoor, chairman of the club’s education international relations, said, “A sign will be placed one per city block, and volunteers are needed.”

Mrs. Ten Hoor said the club got the idea of the Emergency Mothers project from a similar program in Arizona called “Helping Hand.”

She explained children at the schools will be told they can receive help at any of the homes marked by the big, red letter “E.”

If a child is lost or frightened, or being followed or bothered by someone, the youngster can find safety in a home designated by the letter, according to Mrs. Ten Hoor.

“What we want to do is help make the streets safe for all our children,” she said.

The Pilot Club hopes the idea will spread to include all elementary schools in the area and plans to make Emergency Mothers a permanent club project if support is received.

Members were told last night that the idea has received enthusiastic support from the schools and the police department.

To help support the Emergency Mothers project, Warner Robins Chief W.H. “Pip” Rape and Lt. Hubert West, community relations officer, spoke to the group last night.

“There are not enough men on the police force to make all out streets totally safe for youth. We must all work together to support this project,” Chief Rape said.

“We are proud to support such a project, and as long as I am police chief, you will be protected,” he added.

Rape also said broken homes add to the development of many delinquents. “Parents must take the responsibility for their children, and children must have respect for their elders,” the veteran police chief said.

Lt. West said the police department is understaffed but commented on the good relations and cooperation with the Houston County Sheriff’s Department.

Planning for the project began this summer and is now officially started. This program will run throughout the school year.

The Pilot Club of Houston County is made up of select businesswomen such as lawyers, nurses and teachers who give their services to worthy needs.

It strikes with little warning and affects your entire day.

Let me repeat: Your day can be lost if this happens to you:

1. At 6 a.m… you hear the garbage truck and remember once again no one took it outside.
2. The hairbrush you couldn’t find the night before, mysteriously appears under your foot, first thing when you get out of bed.
3. At the breakfast table your little league guy reminds you of the camp out and that you had been elected to go from house to house to pick up 22 checks, since no one got them on time to rent the park.
4. It’s your turn to ask (beg) your office co-workers to donate to the money pool for the new Mommie-to-be. As you approach her you look her right in the eye and say how good she looks pregnant. She looks you right back in the eye and tells you she is not pregnant. Suzy down the hall is…

Right now, your left eye is rolling around in your head, independently of your right one.
What can you do?

Well, how does cinnamon bread, a caramel twist, or a chocolate biscotti sound. It is the only thing that will help in this day of need.

No time to cook? Need it now? Then don’t walk run to Rettig Farms Bakery located right here in our own neighborhood.

“We have something that is exclusive to our bakery,” says Barbara Beden-Hill, the proprietor of Rettig Farms Bakery.
“We have the original recipe for cinnamon bread directly from Arthur’s Bakery.”

Located for 37 years in Bellevue the bakery was famous for the cinnamon bread and caramel twists.

Excitedly, Beden-Hill explained how they not only have the bread recipe, but also Arthur’s bread pans.

Only a baker knows that having a bread pan that fits the recipe is premium that way there is no adjusting of a recipe due to the limitations of the bread pan.

Tony, Beden-Hill’s husband and co-owner and Chef at the former Trudeau’s of Kirkland explained that another exclusive treat comes from his very own Italian great-grandmother- twice-baked biscotti.

He enjoyed creating delightful variations from her original recipe by introducing seven new types of biscotti.

Cranberry/Macadamia/Lemon/Pistachio/Chocolate/Almond and Anise.

A loaf of bread prepared by hand tastes soooo good and is so little trouble to turn your upside down day to right side up goodness!!

“That lasted about five minutes.”

“You sound shocked,” I said to my neighbor, Margo, as we listened to the refrigerator door pop open, and slam shut, the cupboards bang back and forth.

Margo brushed the hair out of her eyes with her purple, dyed fingers and deftly peeled a hard cooked egg and popped it whole into her mouth.

“You kidddddss goeth to your roooomm,” Margo stammered, grinned, and chewed all at the same time.

I shook my head and watched the kids slam the last cupboard door. I think I knew we were in trouble after the kids dropped the last dye pellet in vinegar and the dog knocked it off the table and everyone was crying.

“It’s nothing.” Margo spoke clearly. “But your fault. If you hadn’t hid the Easter candy in the oven, we would still be dying Easter eggs.”

“And how did they find out the candy was in the oven?” I asked suspiciously.

Margo held up her hands in disgust. “After wiping up the dye, I came back up from under the table and I used the oven handle for support, the kids saw inside, and it was over.” She sighed.

Peeping over my coffee cup I murmured. “I guess so.” Nevertheless, it was true. I have run out of hiding spaces in my house. We must have a dozen Easter baskets and where do you put them? They do not fit in a drawer. If I store them in the garage, months later I find them holding nuts and bolts. It was discouraging. I felt like a fool. The way it stands now I can’t depend on any of my old hiding places.

You know the good ones. The oven lid drawer. Inside beach bags, the laundry bin, the canisters marked “flour” that no one has ever looked in except me.

I find Thank-You notes in those places now.

“You want to talk about hiding things,” I said to Margo who was now eating the Easter candy. “My husband, the thief, has more things that belong in this kitchen hiding in that garage of his.”

Margo stirred her coffee slowly. “Let me guess. You found your roaster pan and he used it to change the oil in the car.”

“Yes! OH, yes,” I said with relief. ‘Remember when I told you that things were mysteriously disappearing? My sewing scissors, kitchen knives, pots, juice jugs, the list goes on.”

“My goodness, that’s a lot of things,” Margo said, unconsciously lining the yellow marshmallow chicks in a row.

“Well, last night I go walking into the garage and my husband barks at me to stay back. “Why can’t I come in the garage? I asked defensively as I walked toward him.

“I don’t want you to touch anything!”

“Get serious,” I said, resting my elbows on the workbench, cupping my face in my hands, and looking up at him. (Sometimes you must act coy to catch them.)

His eyes narrowed and I had the feeling he knew, I knew, he was hiding something. We stared at each other. Then he half turned, and I heard a thud. On the floor was my best bathroom towel with an engine on it.

“Well, I’ve got to go home,” Margot said, as she leaned back in her chair and flipped a jellybean into the air and into her mouth. ‘I’m starved. I have to go home and fix dinner.”

As she exited thru the kitchen door, she poked her head back through and said, “Oh by the way, what are you going to do with five dozen hard-cooked eggs?

Here’s what you do:
SCOTCH EGGS
One of my all-time favorites. Great hot or cold. Portable and very filling.
¾ lb. pork sausage
12 hard-cooked eggs
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs
Fat for deep frying
Divide sausage into 12 equal portions. Shape each portion into a flat patty and wrap completely around one peeled, hard cooked egg, then roll in breadcrumbs until completely coated. Place Eggs in preheated deep fat until golden brown and heated through, 6-9 minutes. Drain on absorbent paper.
PICKLED EGGS
For fun have kids throw a few peeled, hard-cooked eggs into the pickle jar. They are tasty even if a little green, other wise: 2 cups white vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 medium onion, sliced and separated into rings, I teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon whole mixed pickling spice, 12 hard-cooked eggs.

In medium saucepan combine all ingredients except eggs. Simmer over low heat, uncovered, until onion is tender.
Arrange eggs in each of two one-quart jars (save your pickle jars) with tight fitting lids.

Pour one cup vinegar mixture over eggs in each jar. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight to blend flavors. Eggs may be stored in the refrigerator up to two weeks.

HOPPY EASTER!