Encore le Menu!

The last post generated so much response in the chat room that the topic of TTF(Typical Tasteless Food) begs for a sequel.

At every dinner of my childhood, 4 slices of white bread on a serving plate graced the table.  Everyone was expected to eat one slice each. (Remember the butter and sugar?) We never had pasta of any kind. Ever.But we did have potatoes--boiled, baked and mashed. No rice--that was breakfast food.

In addition to not allowing casseroles, soups were likewise banned. But chili beans were permitted. After all, Daddy was from Texas! How we loved that dinner. We could TASTE it! Also, chili powder was added in addition to the de rigeur salt and pepper. (Did I mention that hot dogs were on the banned list and hamburgers were reserved for kids' birthdays only.)

Although it came perilously close to spaghetti(banned as was pizza) porcupine balls were another staple. Did anything taste better than that can of Del Monte tomato sauce poured over those ground round balls with the rice inside? I admit it was a bit tough going if Mama hadn't had time to cook the porcupine balls long enough to get the rice completely cooked but that was the exception.  It was only later on when I was asked if such a delicacy wasn't difficult to obtain did I catch the double meaning.

Since Daddy was a career Marine, like many military families, SOS was a regular item on the menu. We were told it stood for "Same Old Stuff" and that was close enough. Since not leaving a clean plate wasn't an option, we ate it dutifully--somehow thinking we were making a patriotic statement by choking it down. Semper Fi!

 

 I mentioned canned hominy but left out canned waxed beans. Actually if anything came in a can, it made an appearance on our dinner table--beets, brussels sprouts, asperagus, beans, lima beans, navy beans, pork and beans and even carrots. Fresh veggies were limited to tomatoes, radishes and green onions. Period. 

Please don't think we felt deprived. It was quite the opposite! We felt we were the luckiest people in the the most fortunate country in the world to have all this food just one (hand) can opener away. Even though everyone said the vegetables in the can were already cooked, they generally got a minimum of half an hour extra cooking aka BOILING just to be on the safe side.

 If entrees seemed mundane, we excelled at desserts! Back then, dessert was obligatory. I'd lick the milky SOS gravy off my plate just to get the ice cream--2 flavors, vanilla and not vanilla, store-bought cookies, Betty Crocker cake with powdered sugar frosting, brownies(good ol' Betty again), frozen pies(after we got the larger freezer in the ice box), jello(with tons of sugar) or canned fruit cocktail if Mama's bridge game ran late and she didn't have time to thaw the pie. The only dessert I could never get excited about was--I am not making this up--crumpled up soda crackers or corn bread in milk--with LOTS of sugar!

Thank you for bearing with me in this walk down meals from history. Maybe some day I will relate the ONE time Mama decided to surprise the family with stuffed bell peppers. Now--where did that new can of Cheese Whiz go?

Red Yellow and Blue Balloons Printed on the Wrapper

And where else would it be printed? On the bread? The other day cyber chat turned to the distinguishing characteristics of the Food of the Fifties. Conclusion? There weren't any. As one chatter commented, "A time when we all learned that food could be tasteless."

We had 3 seasonings at my house: salt, pepper and sugar. Yes, sugar!  But how, you may be wondering was sugar used as a seasoning? EASY! We used sugar on sour cream, cottage cheese, white bread with butter, iced tea, coffee, bananas, rice, potatoes and anything else we could think of! Salt, of course, went on everything--tomatoes, cantaloupe and even watermelon.

It was a time of canned everything. The cans held faded replicas of original food soaking in puce-colored liquid. But it was opened, heated and served and we all felt so modern. My mom wasn't slaving over the sink and stove as grandmother once had to do.

As the small 1 square foot open front freezer in the "ice box" got a bit larger, we added frozen vegetables to the family menu. Do you remember those old frozen peas and corn? The ice crystals on each kernal made it look like a variant of the H1N1 virus under a microscope. Even after cooking those frozen pellets for at least half an hour to "make sure", they were still only one grade above sawdust in flavor and texture. And how could anyone forget hominey???

My dad wouldn't allow a casserole in the house. That, he would say, was for poor folk who couldn't afford meat. And we would have meat! Meatloaf, Spam, Vienna sausages, canned ham, tough as rawhide pot roast and fried pork chops and chicken. In fact, if it couldn't be fried, it probably wasn't worth serving. Maybe that's why we never had salad until we were well into the Sixties. Can't fry lettuce--besides, that's chipmonk food anyway.

I'm getting cravings these days for Cheese Whiz--the kind that came in a jar with the little red pimentoes. Then you used the jar as a glass afterwards. Aerosol-propelled Cheese Whiz ranked right up there with Yuri Gagarin going into space as far as the Advancement of Science was concerned. Let the Russians go into oribt--we had Velveeta "cheese" and Vienna sausages! (BTW, a favorite dinner was sliced Spam with Velveeta cheese melted on the top--served with frozen mixed veggies, of course.) Eat your heart out, Sonoma cuisine!

Bedside Manner

How kosher is it for a doctor to tell his patient that the diagnosis is "you are turning into an old lady?" Harumph--is this preparation to go before the death panels in the future?

"Look at her--hands and thumbs all splinted up. Elbow bound tight. Using up perfectly good drugs. Why, she can't even look good on the golf course--perfectly useless. Matron--fetch an iceberg and send this one out to sea ASAP."

I wonder why when doctors are telling you all the things you can't do because of lumbars 1-4 and tendonitis, et cetera, they always phrase it in terms of fun things?

"Nope--no more golf for several months, I should think. Driving the RV? Wouldn't think so--not with those hands. Play the piano? Bit of a rough go with the splints and velcro holding your wrists still. Photoshop and typing? Probably not--rest those hands and arms."

Why don't they explain limitations in down-to-earth terms? I'd love to see this on a prescription pad!

"Looks like you won't be vacuuming those carpets. Forget mopping floors and wiping down counters. Cleaning toilets and carrying laundry baskets or groceries? Not a chance. Nope--not for months anyway."

But the coup de grace was being told I was turning into an OLD LADY!! This doctor seriously needs to work on his communication skills. But perhaps a little agriculture is in order--after all, he is a joint doctor.

One of My Favorite Websites

I don't have to blog a topic we have recently experienced! "Stuff White People Like" has summed it up perfectly.

Since Mr. T, Son of T, SIL of T and 3 grandsons recently did the male-bonding camping thing, #128 on SWPL is perfect. The only claim to fame is that the camping was done with both the trip to REI, the tent, AND the SUV and RV--conflicted to the end.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

A Shadow Blog by a Shadow Person

(In keeping with my internet curse, you will have to put the correct pic with the matching paragraph. Blogspot is not letting me move images around and my fuse is a hair's width from reaching C4--and I don't mean Photoshop!!)

I may only be a glimpse from another parallel reality. In any event, it has been life at the edge for too many weeks now.

To sum up:


My own version of techno-hell:

Replacing camera body--no time yet to read manual

Losing cell phone--no time to read manual but I like the hot purple color

Getting Mac--didn't even come with manual; had to order books from Amazon

Decide Mac is a cult, not an operating system and there's not a damn thing wrong with Windows with exception for Vista

Trading in Mac plus books for PC that is running some version of Windows 7--no manual

I signed up for an online class to learn Photoshop CS4. What a disaster! Things were so disorganized and I kept being told to go to my "cubby." EXCUSE ME--my grandson has a cubby. Grown-ups do not have CUBBIES. This was my same reaction to the Mac--hey, dudes! Can I get a grown up 'puter now???? Can we drop 'cutsey'? As a friend pointed out to me, the Mac is totally, like, left wing. The close box has been moved--arbitrarily to the LEFT instead of the RIGHT where it used to be. And one does not close a window--one RED balls it! Can't say I wasn't warned about lib brain invasion merely through touching the keys.

After 2 weeks, I dropped the online class. When signing up, it was pretty easy to follow the step-by-step online process and pay them my fees. But try and withdraw and get a partial refund! Oh no--I'm to find the elusive 'cubby' and then do everything on my 'puter. Except there are not links and it is not at all easy to follow. Big surprise there! I finally got a real person on the phone who wanted me to drive all the way out to campus and stand in line for a refund--no way, Sean-O. After a blustering contest, Sean-O finally walked me through the maze of clicks and links to the site where I could withdraw from the class. His parting words were, "The check is in the mail."

I had actually driven to a neighboring town to sit in on a REAL college class. I was next to 2 young students, obviously fresh out of high school. They sat through the entire 2 hour lecture without opening a textbook or taking a single note. They didn't even have paper or pen supplies! They occasionally put their heads on their books or whispered back and forth to each other. I'm too old for this!

The Techno Nightmare Writ Large

I am not the same Toc. Within two months I have had my faithful desktop PC crash and burn beyond repair or retrieval of anything on the hard drive. The POS Dell, of course, keeps limping along, backed up by Carbonite. No such luck with the desktop. For my birthday, Mr. T got me a Mac--trust me--it is NOT your daddy's Mac. I can't made heads or tails out of it.

Then my faithful Olympus camera fell out of the Jeep and shattered on the pavement. Even though I got as similar a model as I could, I am going to have to open the pages of the instruction manual. As we used to say, BUMMER.

And now the final insult--I lost my cell phone. This was the cell phone I've clung to for years. I refused to upgrade and have to sign a 2 year contract with Verizon. I wasn't going to get another cell phone--who needs one? Well, it turns out that I need one! All the time!! Off to Best Buy to stimulate the economy once again. I got the phone that resembled my old one but it doesn't really. The only thing going in the new phone's favor is that it's purple. Guess I'll be in bed with all those Verizon support folk for the next two years now.

Since I've moved so far out of my techno-comfort zone I then signed up for an online class to learn Photoshop CS4. On the Mac. Which I can barely turn on. Which looks nothing like a PC. Which is weird--sorry Users--it's weird. We shall keep you posted. How does one know what time to show up for an online class?

Some of you more astute readers might be wondering where the time will come from to play golf. Try and keep on the same page--golf is out. Racked up too many joints, tendons and soft tissue injuries. The doc has put me on the DL--at least for the next few months. At least I never got around to investing in all the ugly golf outfits.

So, for now, with both thumbs splinted and my right lower elbow trussed up like a turkey, I will try to amuse you with learning this new version of Photoshop on a computer that might as well have dropped from the planet Zenon. It's so pitiful it's almost funny.

Free Fall

We did arrive home. Have you ever been hit with so many disjunct hits on your brain that you shut down rather than try and assimilate it? I think that has been my condition since crossing the state line from Oregon to California.

As we moved closer to the Bay Area the traffic increased directly proportional to the deterioration in roads. One wonderful night spent camped at Lake Almanor in Chester didn't compensate for the crazed drivers, pot holes and unrelenting traffic.

Poor Mr. T.--we pulled into SeniorLand and his back promptly went into spasm. Writhing on the floor in pain, I quickly tried to minister to him with adult beverages, drugs and elbow massage. He spent 3 days in a semi-conscious state until the spasm abated.

We returned to find that our neighbor had died. It's like that in SeniorLand. We knew Hospice had been called inn but apparently he (conveniently) died before the end of the month and his house had been completely cleared out and the "For Rent" sign was up. How blithely we slip out of existence and onto the "next" list.

Even though I have been off the nasty cocktail for my "hot tub" lung disease, the side effects have lingered. Apparently golf had aggravated my thumb and elbow joints to point of seeking medical help. Bad news--NO MORE GOLF.

Now this is getting serious. I was getting into that game. I agree it was a pointless game but it was somewhat interesting. True, the clothes were nothing to get excited about and very difficult to accessorize--but it was still the first exercise I've ever done in my life. Well--say good-bye to the links.

But I have an idea--I could invent an entirely new personna for myself. I could devote my days to watching chick flicks and reading trash novels. Swathed in matching floral muumuu and stretch turban, a few spit curls sticking out, I could get a Pekingese lapdog and entertain lounge lizards when I start pouring cocktails beginning at noon. Pink boa slippers, changing the nail polish color everyday and cultivating the company of lounge lizards could make for interesting posts.