Jar of Goodness 3.30.25: Brenda

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for Brenda.

Or, as we sometimes call her, Brenda Hoover. Or Brenda Hoover Kirby Eureka Dyson. (Because she’s always ready to eat.)

I mentioned her earlier, but she’s overdue for a formal introduction. I’m including several pictures of Brenda taken since September 2024.

We more or less adopted her sometime last September. She was one of the “neighborhood” cats—you know—the ones that appear, first on the outer margins of our yard, then gradually encroach nearer our house despite our few TNR cats that mostly repel new cats from forming a tribe in our yard.

It was about a year ago, in February 2024, that she first appeared; we guess she had lived with people who lived along the creepy alley on our block. On the other side of our privacy fence, we heard the woman who lives in the house just north of us hollering at a child: “That cat is pregnant! She gonna have kittens!”

It had to have been Brenda, but no, Brenda wasn’t pregnant; she was just overweight, and she has a nervous overgrooming condition that makes her lick and chew the fur off her belly. Brenda is ear-tipped, for goodness sake; she's been spayed.

Sue started calling her “Brenda” early on; she makes up these little names for the neighborhood kitties spontaneously. They are already named before I even notice them. Brenda started sneaking around one end of our fence, sitting or standing there, watching to see when our regular TNR cats were done eating, then moving in to, well, hoover up whatever food was remaining.

But Berry, the empress of our TNR cats, made her feel pretty unwelcome. So Brenda figured out that she would be okay if she kept to the southwest corner of our house. And Sue figured out that she could put a separate bowl out, on that side of the house, just for Brenda.

(This is Berry, a miniature black panther; would you want to cross her? I didn't think so.)

We had always figured that Berry, the empress, who is the oldest of our TNR cats, would be first in line to come live with us inside the house (she already spends most nights, and all severe weather, inside our downstairs sunporch). But Brenda moved quickly. We’re not sure how old Brenda is, but we think she’s old enough—or at least, had a hard enough life—that it pained us to think of her trying to live outside during the winter.

We basically held the front door open for her, and she came right in.

In addition to her weight and nervous overgrooming habit (which I chalk up to PTSD, anxiety, or whatever gives cats nervous behaviors), she seems to have spine, hip, or leg problems. I’m not sure she sees really well, either. Her eyes often seem dilated more than necessary. Also, I wasn’t sure her hearing was very good, but I now realize she hears just fine, since she hears a cat food bag opening, or the sound of spoons clinking on dishes, from two rooms away.

It was sometime in September when we started letting her in. At first, she spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping. Outdoors, she had slept on the ground under our forsythia and lilac bushes. That can’t have been very comfortable, or restful.

Since she came to live indoors, she has auditioned nearly every surface a cat could nap on. The blue ottoman. The living room sofa. “Chairey,” the green overstuffed chair in the corner. The floor. Any bed low enough for her to jump up onto. Then she discovered the third floor, and the daybed up there. And the chair in my office. And the cushion-covered trunk in my office window. Now that it’s gotten warmer, she discovered the back sunporch and its chairs, the table, the sofa out there. She’s even learned that for a few hours in midmorning, the sunshine beams right onto the floor in the doorway to the outer sunporch. Perfect for a nice morning bask! This place must be like a wonderful, wonderful dream to her. So many new rooms full of comfortable places where she can relax!

It’s really gratifying to see a cat, who’s had such a rough time in life, explore what must seem like heaven, by comparison.

This isn’t to say it’s been smooth sailing. First, Lois and Brenda haven’t exactly been friends. Lois, for no reason whatsoever, went on the defensive and acts like the underdog. She runs from Brenda; Brenda only hisses at her, but Lois scampers away like a frightened bunny. Fortunately, Lois has been learning that Brenda, though much heavier and equipped with a deep, loud hiss-megaphone, is not likely to pursue her more than a few inches at a time. Lois can easily run circles around Brenda.

The other strange thing about Brenda’s integration into our household was the litter box. For the first few months, Brenda never used the litter box, I suppose because it smelled of Lois. But Brenda never had an accident in our house. Instead, she held it until she could get our attention, lead us down the steps to the front door, and be let out only for potty purposes. (She used the mulch in our front flower beds.) She never ventured far from our front door, and she learned to scratch on our aluminum screen door if we didn’t let her back inside after about fifteen minutes.

Just in time for the winter’s first bad weather in November, she started using the litter box. And she really hasn’t been outside since then. She hasn’t even asked.

For her first few months, she got to eat however much food she wanted. She ate all the food in her bowl, plus anything Lois didn’t immediately finish, and she gained weight. That was probably a mistake on our part. In late January, we switched her to “indoor cat” food (higher fiber, lower calorie), and we've been gradually decreasing the total amount of food she gets per day. It’s easy to limit her food, since Lois can get her own food on a high surface that Brenda cannot jump up to. (Yet.)

Brenda has a fun, though crochety personality. Yes, food and napping are foremost, and so is safety. She hates being picked up (I think it’s from fear, and not pain) (someone really mistreated her). When picked up, she mutters “Noooo . . . !” and grabs anything she can to prevent being lifted. When she’s relaxed, she slowly, slyly wiggles her tail tip. When she’s in her full nap “zone,” she snores and she presses her face against nearby pillows. When disturbed from a nap, she lifts up her head and stares at the noisemaker with groggy annoyance.

When she tucks in to her food bowl, she makes a chewing noise like “nyuh, nyuh, nyuh.”

She comes off as a big ol’ grouch, but when she gets a choice, she always chooses to be near us.

Now that she and Lois are starting to understand each other better, Brenda has been inviting her to “play.” First, the good old cat game of “gatekeeper,” where one cat simply blocks the other’s exit from a room. Lois, for instance, might be on the outer sunporch, and Brenda plops down right in the doorway between it and the rest of the house. Staring directly at the “trapped” Lois: “Try to get by me!” Cats apparently find this game great fun.

Another invitation to play is when Brenda just plops down anywhere near Lois, exposing her belly, with her head on the ground. It’s like she’s saying, “come and rub my belly. I’m just resting.” As if. Lois doesn’t take her up on the invitation, but she stares and, on some level, realizes that their relationship is no longer revolves around animosity.

Lois, for her part, has fun creeping around Brenda on the margins of the room, sneaking behind the sofa, zigzagging behind chairs and floor lamps, making a bridge out of a guitar case—getting past Brenda, who can’t help but track Lois as she sneaks by. Lois also likes to approach Brenda quietly as she sleeps, then sniff at her tail or foot or back—whatever is nearest—then back away quickly if Brenda awakens.

This is all to say, they are getting along. Brenda is fitting in nicely, growing more comfortable, sleeping on beds and sofas with us, running to me when I pick up her comb, and yes, doing a little Brenda dance next to her bowl when I’m opening her food bag.

So, welcome, Brenda, you’re an official member of the Opulent Opossum Elm Street community!

Jar of Goodness 3.23.25: Blue Lights, Firepit Nights

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for our blue lights, firepit nights.

One of the fun things Sue and I have been doing in recent years is flat-out enjoying the backyard in the evenings. In 2018, I bought a bunch of decorative lights: cobalt-blue stringlights and spotlights, and retro-incandescent-bulb-looking stringlights (which look golden-orange when blended with the blue), and hung them around our backyard and sunporch. I do say, they add a nice festive touch, cool and warm. I've tinkered with, added to, repaired or replaced, and improved the lights since then.

And we have a very cheap, old firepit we’ve been using for years. It’s a rusting, shallow saucer on a just-strong-enough stand, with a rusty, decrepit screen that we really don’t use much anymore. This “firepit” is lightweight and tucks away easily when not in use. We always have a pile of miscellaneous sticks that we need to get rid of, and it’s excellent tinder and kindling. We also manage to accumulate a variety of small logs (mostly branches that fall out of trees in our yard, or Mom and Dad’s), which we saw into ridiculously short eighteen-inch sections that fit in our little fire pit. Our firepit is basically a surreptitious way of disposing of woody yard waste.

But it’s also an opportunity to have fun. We have a bottle of wine. We listen to relaxing music on my little bitty Bluetooth speaker. We roast some weenies and have some potato salad. We look up at the sky. We visit with the backyard Wild Things cats. Sometimes an opossum or raccoon ambles through the yard.

Our opportunities for enjoying these blue lights, firepit nights are not great during the winter, since we don’t bother to cover the wood and we won’t try to burn it wet. Plus, we don’t want to have to hover over the fire to even be outside.

But when the weather starts to improve, and the sticks and little logs dry enough to burn cleanly, and we get an early spring day without winds and red-flag warnings, it’s a perfect time to sit and enjoy our backyard, and each other’s company.

. . . Also known as the simple pleasures of life.

Wherever you are, and whenever you’re reading this, I hope you’re finding ways to enjoy your life, too.

Pansies for Edna Day

This is one of the big ways we celebrate the beginning of spring here on West Elm Street: The annual planting of the pansies. This little tradition goes back eighty years to when my dad was a kid. He’d buy a shoebox of pansies from old man Hugo Busch on Dunklin and Madison for his mom’s birthday—which almost exactly coincides with the first day of spring. She would put them in her front planters, for everyone to see. Dad has written about this on his own blog, so I won’t repeat it.

This is one of the first subjects I wrote about when I started the Op Op, too. Look here for that blast from the past.

So yesterday, two days before Grandma’s birthday, I put pansies once again into the front planters. After the drab winter, the pansies, and the flowerbeds full of daffodils, are incredibly cheerful. And we need it.

My little addition to the traditional is to use a little bit of mulch, and to place crystals and interesting rocks artistically around the pansies, which helps hold the soil in place during these sometimes severe spring storms.

Each year I arrange the rocks and stuff a little differently.

As spring always does, there are chilly days mixed with warm ones. Sometimes a chilly day, though, is sunny enough to warm up our front steps, and I can sit on the steps and bask a little after work and before I make dinner. And the pansies are there to make me smile a little bit.

Here's how I arranged them this year.

David’s Pancake

Y’all, this is really good. A friend shared this recipe with me back in about 1987, and I had never made it. Who was David? Probably an old boyfriend of hers. Was he the Vietnam vet? She was older than me and had a lot of interesting stories from the 1960s and 70s. The recipe card has languished in my recipe files all this time.

Actually, I think I tried to make it once, but it was a disaster because I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t have the proper equipment. I’m surprised I kept the recipe.

Over the past few years, I’ve been compiling and typing old recipes into a big Word document, and (not knowing if this recipe had gotten a fair shake in my kitchen back in the late 1980s) I decided to try it again.

And hey, it’s really good! I think the term for the dish is “Dutch baby.” It’s like a big popover made in a skillet, or like a soufflé. And just like a soufflé, it can go in a sweet or savory direction. You need to pay attention to technique, but it’s not hard. (If I can do it, then anyone can.)

Here’s how I’ve made it into a resounding success.

Equipment: I use an approx. 6-inch diameter iron skillet (it’s heavy, it holds heat, and it’s fine to go into an oven); also, I use our little toaster oven/convection oven, on the convection setting. The little skillet fits perfectly in there. (Or, if you’re making more than one at a time, or using a larger skillet, use an actual oven; but it must be fully preheated.)

The idea is to start on the stovetop: heat a couple tablespoons of butter in the skillet (the skillet should be on a pretty hot burner; once the butter foams, and before it turns brown, it’s ready); pour the rather liquid batter into the skillet; then place the skillet into a preheated 425-degree oven and let it cook, undisturbed, for about 15 minutes.

That technique I just wrote? That’s the part I didn’t understand before, but it’s the principle that makes it turn out well.

Here’s what happens: The batter starts cooking as soon as you pour it into the hot-hot pan. Then, during the 15-minute oven time, the pancake cooks and puffs up. With a 6-inch skillet, some of the butter may seep over the side as the pancake rises, but let it. The pancake usually doesn’t quite get entirely solid in the center. I mean, I don’t think you even would want it to get completely “done” in the middle. The edges balloon up and get done faster, and may even get a little crispy. The eggy, custardy, soufflé-like center will deflate when you pull it out of the oven.

You’ve got to eat it hot, right out of its miniature iron skillet. Very cozy. To protect your tabletop, serve it atop a potholder or trivet.

I like sprinkling over it some fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar, which makes the center kind of like lemon curd. It can be a breakfast, lunch, or snack, or possibly a dessert, if you added, say, a sweet fruit compote on top, or chocolate and whipped cream, or whatever. But see the suggestions at the end.

I think this makes one serving, but if you’re eating it with other foods, such as a fruit salad, it could be enough for two. Especially if you make it in a pan larger than a 6-inch skillet . . . but then you need to slice it in half (very unpretty). Better to use individual little skillets.

• ¼ c. flour
• ¼ c. milk
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• pinch of nutmeg
• 2 T. butter
• 1 T. confectioner’s sugar
• Juice of ¼ lemon, or jelly, jam, or marmalade

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

In mixing bowl, combine flour, milk, egg, nutmeg. [I would add a pinch of salt, too.] Beat lightly/don’t overbeat. Leave batter a little lumpy.

Melt butter in a 12-inch or smaller skillet with heatproof handle. When butter is hot [foams/stops foaming], pour in the batter. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Sprinkle confectioner’s sugar and return to oven (to warm it, if desired).

Sprinkle with lemon juice; maybe add more confectioner’s sugar, or jelly, jam, whatever.

Yield: 1 or 2 servings.

Alternate treatments: In addition to lemon juice and powdered sugar, or jelly or jam, you could top it with chocolate or maple syrup, fruit compote, whipped cream, butter-sautéed sliced banana with brown sugar (and maybe a bit of rum) . . . anything you might put on any other pancakes.

But! You can also stir small-diced ham or crumbled bacon and grated cheese into the batter before pouring it into the pan. Or some chopped baby spinach and herbs. Or a duxelles of mushrooms. Or whatever . . . as you would an omelette. Yum!

Grandma Schroeder’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I can’t believe I haven’t shared this recipe yet! It is a true family favorite. It goes waaaay back. It’s a tangy coffee cake with a center layer of cinnamon and brown sugar; cinnamon and brown sugar are on the top, too. This moist cake is nice as a breakfast or coffee-break treat, but it’s also excellent as a dessert.

Several nearly identical copies of this recipe exist in Grandma Schroeder’s collection. Two of them appear as pictures in this blog post. This is one right here:

Plus, Dad got a copy, and I made a copy of his. This is a really good cake. I’m sharing my version of the recipe, which creams the butter and sugar first, then adds the eggs, then adds the sour cream and vanilla (all the wets) then adds the combined dry ingredients.

I think a few tips are in order. You should have a plan for constructing this cake: you will need to spread half of the sticky batter into a 9 x 9 pan, then sprinkle a crumbly layer of brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon on that, then spread the second half of the sticky batter on top of that, before sprinkling again with the sugar-cinnamon mix. This is problematic: the sticky batter is hard to handle and spread, and it can be next to impossible to try to spread the second half of the batter across the first, crumbly layer of cinnamon-sugar. Here are some ideas:

• If you have an offset spatula, this is a perfect time to use it.
• Try dipping your spatula in a pitcher or tumbler of warm water to keep batter from sticking to it.
• Or, just use your immaculately clean, damp hands to pat down and even out the first layer.
• It’s a good idea to use slightly less batter for the lower layer (it gives you more batter to play with as you try to cover the sugar with the second layer).
• To apply the second layer of batter, start by doling it out in portions atop the cinnamon-sugar. Then, spread those portions with the spatula or with your hands, joining the blobs together.

Remember, Grandma made this all the time, and she wasn’t fussy. It really doesn’t matter if that middle layer is perfect. The cake is delicious no matter what.

Make sugar mix and set aside:

• ⅓ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Then make the cake batter:

Cream together:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 stick oleo

Beat in:

• 2 eggs

Then add the rest of the wet ingredients:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients:

• 2 cup. flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt

Combine the wet and dry ingredients to make the batter.

Pour half the batter into a buttered pan [9 x 9; if you use 9 x 13, it is harder to spread out the two layers]. Sprinkle with half the sugar mixture; pour the remainder of the batter and sprinkle remainder of the sugar on top.

Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes, or until done. [Note that some versions of the recipe have it at 325°F; your oven may vary.]

Jar of Goodness 3.9.25: Op Op Anniversary

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for this, the Opulent Opossum!

There have been sixteen years of the Op Op! If you want to start reading from the beginning, visit my humble first post.

Sixteen years. Looking back on that first year, goodness, I blogged a lot. Twenty-six posts in the first month alone! And in the first year, 206 posts!

The annual tally came down quite a bit starting in 2012, with annual posts equaling what I was posting weekly that first year.

From the start, my goal was to post something at least weekly. I had plenty of ideas. I was so enthusiastic. But these days, it’s hard to feel enthusiastic about anything. Okay: Coffee in the morning. The first truly warm days. Crocuses starting to bloom. Ibuprofen. . . . Things like that.

So, the Jar of Goodness concept keeps me plugging away, keeps the focus short and sweet. I guess I’ve gotten too lengthy in most of my recent posts. Too much to say on any subject. Too many tangents. But JOG keeps me on my toes.

But as always, I do have a list of things to write about and share here on the Op Op. I wonder if anybody really reads this. I don’t have a sense of my “audience,” because I don’t believe I actually have one anymore. Do I need to update my design, my masthead, my look? Do I need to animate the thing? Who cares about any of that? I don’t think my posts ever come up as results in Google searches; page titles and key word labels appear not to have any impact on that at all. Maybe it’s because I don’t “monetize” my blog? Do I really need to change the way I label my posts, to try to game the search engines? Look, I ain’t got time for that.

As I write this, it’s clear I’m experiencing another one of my “down” morning moods, so I’m going to stop while I’m ahead. Hooray for the Opulent Opossum! Sixteen years! Op Op Hooray!

Jar of Goodness 3.2.25: Journaling

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for my habit of keeping a journal.

Decades before I started this blog, in which I mostly share happy things (because I need to do it to keep myself out of the Slough of Despond), I started keeping actual handwritten journals. Bound books, in which I’m unfettered by propriety. I can write anything, draw pictures and cartoons (well, my pictures are all pretty much cartoons), and glue in anything that fits.

It’s a record of my life and my mentality. I keep notes. I can tell you with accuracy what I was doing and thinking the afternoon of June 25, 1989. A summer that changed my life. What my attitude was. If I only took photographs, it would be harder to revisit the moment, the mood, the magic. Or whatever. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t take photographs, because it forced me to take notes. Everyone around me seemed to have a camera, so why should I need one? I provide the background story to everyone’s snapshots.

And writing, I’m able to put it down, let it go, whatever “it” is. A frustration, a joy, a moment of magic. The pleasures can be immortalized, remembered. The angers, injustices are frozen in stasis, finished, banished into history.

And someday, my journals will turn up in a stuffy flea market, and some lucky buyer will have a helluva hoot reading them. (I know I’d buy someone’s journal collection if I found it at a secondhand store!)

What's in a Name?

The name “Julie” isn’t really very common in America. It’s so uncommon, I see it spelled on receipts by boneheaded young people as “July” and “Julle.” (Seriously, Jason, Justin, Joshua? Seriously, Brooklyn, Kennedy, and Madison?)

Now, Susan has a name that comes up ALL THE TIME. Often, in cringeworthy ways. Because of this, Sue hates being called “Susie.” There’s only two people in the whole world with permission to call her Susie, and one of them (her mother) is dead. And I am not the other one.

But I’m not used to seeing my name appear in jingles, ads, and product names. In recent years though, I found my little name popping up in odd places. Behold!

Naturally, I had to try these products. What kind of stuff is my name connected to? And what kind of personality is my name being associated with?

First, there’s this company in Malaysia that makes biscuit sandwiches (cracker sandwiches) as well as wafers, waffles, cookies, and more. I kind of like the ones with cheesy filling, but they make a lot of products. I found these at the international store in Kirkwood. Check it out! Julie’s Cheese Sandwich crackers!

Their logo shows a blond girl with overalls. Is that what a Julie looks like? That could kinda be me, though I wore pigtails. The company’s been around since 1985. They recently updated their logo. Here’s what their website says:

It took us quite awhile to get to where we are today; 39 years in fact. We started sharing our love through our delicious and delightful biscuits since 1985. We’ve always been known as the biscuit brand with the humble and kind girl as its logo.

And now it’s time for a change and a makeover. Over the last 37 years, while we have retained much of humble disposition, we have also grown more open, braver, and funnily more human. Open because we have grown to share our love to over 80 different countries. Braver because we want to be better and inject more fun and playfulness in biscuit makers. More human because we have learned that biscuits are more than just a culinary delight; biscuits are about people. They are about making connections, breaking barriers, and building bridges.

Following this perspective, we have revamped our entire brand look, feel and experience. Julie, our trademark icon, now looks confidently up, into the future and towards her next aspirational adventure. The colourful rays that emanate from her marks the brand’s incredible zest for life. We ask you to join her. Look up, smile, put on your best energy, grab a pack of your favourite Julie’s Biscuits, and join her in her amazing adventure.

One small biscuit can bridge the big, big world

Julie’s, bridging the world with biscuits

Julie’s, share a bite, bridge the world.

Life isn’t only about the big defining moments. It is lived in the small, everyday ones.

What happens in these moments shapes the course of our lives and eventually defines the world we live in.

Imagine what the world would be like if, in these moments, we were ever-so-slightly more open. More open to family member, more open to a neighbor and even to a stranger who wasn’t one of us. We’d learn new things about them and about ourselves. And perhaps most importantly, we’d learn that we have more in common than we thought.

At Julie’s, we want to help people open their hearts and minds to each other. For us, each biscuit is a small yet exciting opportunity to share a bite and to share a moment. A moment that bridges worlds, one small step; one shared smile; one biscuit at a time.

Julie’s. Bridge the world.

So, what do you think? If you had to have your name applied as a kind of “type,” this ain’t too bad, is it!

Exhibit 2 is a bit closer to home: Julie’s Spinach Dip from Schnuck’s. I’m not sure they invented it, because there are a lot of “Julie’s spinach dips” out there on the Internet. Of course, I had to try it.

And yes, two thumbs up. In addition to being used as a dip, it’s also a nice spread on sandwiches, a real upgrade from mayo.

Not the healthiest thing on the planet, but if it gets you eating veggies, then it’s better than not eating veggies at all.

In this case, there’s no logo of a “Julie” for me to ponder. It’s not like if your name was Jemima or Betty Crocker.

Do you occasionally find your name on a product? Does your name stereotype you in some way? What do you think of it?

Jar of Goodness 2.27.25: Lidocaine

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for lidocaine.

. . . Or whatever local anesthetic Dr. Powell used on Tuesday to turn the left side of my mouth into concrete while she did her thing on my lowermost left molar. Because I got a crown. (And not the “good” kind.)

This explains why I’m late for my Sunday-goal post. I spent the weekend getting wigged out.

This was a big deal for me, because I’ve been lucky enough to have had very little dental work in my entire life. One tiny cavity a long time ago, then a replacement of the filling for that cavity. I had braces in fourth or fifth grade, but I didn’t need any teeth pulled for that. Indeed, I think the braces helped set me up for decades of good dental health. In college, I had my wisdom teeth removed—but that was done at an oral surgeon’s office, and I was knocked out for that grimness. I know I’m being a big baby about it, but then I don’t have a lot of experience with these kinds of things. So cut me a break.

So I was dismayed my last checkup. “Hey, my molar’s hurting when I bite on it a certain way, or have tortilla chips.” I had thought it was the upper molar, but they determined it was the lower one. She could see the crack, and biting down on a perfectly positioned wicked little plastic pointed device helped demonstrate the precise location. Yeow!

So Tuesday was a new “adventure” for me. I won’t go into the details, but fortunately Sue prepared me for most of it. The worst and best parts were, of course, the injection. I wasn’t prepared for the sensation, or reality, of my lower lip having uncontrollable spasms as she stuck in the anesthetic. Of course, I was grateful to be numb for what followed. The fifteen minutes spent drilling away the exterior of the cracked tooth was an eternity, and then more was needed as they checked and rechecked the shape, drilled again and again, to get it just so.

I wasn’t expecting it, but I was also grateful for a gadget they wedged into the right side of my mouth (the side they weren’t working on) that I could just let my teeth close on, so I didn’t have to hold my mouth open the entire time. I could relax, well, sort of. It also had a suction tube attached, so I didn’t have to swallow. It wasn’t as good as not visiting the dentist at all, but it made the procedure easier to cope with.

As she drilled, and I caught the scent of tooth dust, it struck me as weirdly disturbing to be able, in essence, to smell the dust of my very own bones. Ashes to ashes. Usually such mortifying sensations are limited to battlefields and violent accidents. But hey, I paid money for this little lesson in mortality. (I know they drilled pilot holes in my bones to fix my foot and ankle fractures, but I wasn’t awake for that, hallelujah.)

As one comedian pointed out, “I recently read that a majority of household dust is composed of our own dead skin cells. Hey, I knew we turned into dust, but I didn’t realize it was an ongoing process!”

To keep me from overthinking during my dentist visit, I had an earbud playing Tim Clark’s Blue Bamboo, music that I often play in earbuds as I mow the lawn. It is melodic, rhythmic, and intriguing enough that it makes time pass very quickly. So I’m grateful for that music, too.

At this point, I’m living with my temporary crown, I haven’t made it fall off yet, and I’ll go back in a few weeks to get the permanent crown.

Today’s lunch was a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, and I’m grateful for that, too!

Aloo Palak Tacos

Rejoice! Today, I present to you: the Aloo Palak Taco!

It’s a tasty, hearty, Indian-inspired vegetarian sandwich.

In the process, I’m also giving you a straight-up recipe for making aloo palak, a north Indian/Punjabi “dry curry” vegetable dish (sabji) of potatoes and spinach, which you can have on its own as part of an Indian-inspired meal, with, say, rice (chawal) plus a sauced/wet curry dish (ones with a lot of sauce or gravy, such as butter chicken or anything-korma), or with a dal (bean/legume dish).

(Here, I serve my aloo palak taco along with a basic masoor dal and white rice. Delicious!)

Not counting the sections for appetizers, salads, and breads/rice, my recipe file of Indian dishes has separate sections for dals (the bean dishes, which are typically a little soupy); “wet curries” (whether with meat or vegetables, these have a kind of “gravy”); and “dry curries” (sabji/sabzi, “dry vegetables”).

Dry curries, or sabji, are vegetable dishes lacking a gravy, though they are usually spiced up really thoroughly. You typically make a masala (say, with oil, onions, ginger, garlic, plus your spices), then add your main ingredient, and cook (carefully, usually at a relatively lower temperature), sprinkling water in the pan only to keep the ingredients from sticking, but not so much as to make the dish “wet.” The masala flavors permeate the main ingredient. You might be familiar with aloo jeera (cumin-flavored potatoes), bhindi masala (okra fried with onions and spices), aloo gobi (potatoes and cauliflower), or bund gobi and mater (cabbage with peas).

If you are not interested in learning how to make your own Indian food, you can simply order a dry curry/sabji from your local Indian restaurant, and use the leftovers from that.

Well, I like to play around with these vegetable dishes, since recipes usually make plenty for leftovers, and they’re already nicely flavored. They make delicious vegetarian sandwiches, burritos, and tacos. They’re good in omelets, too. For big burritos, you can add some leftover rice. For burritos and tacos, I usually add some neutral-flavored cheese, such as mozzarella, Monterey jack, or provolone (sliced or shredded). Having a layer of melty cheese against the burrito or taco tortilla helps give it some structural integrity. Which is so important for hand-held foods.

Which brings us to aloo palak tacos.

Making the tacos is straightforward, if you know how to treat flour tortillas nicely. Whether for burritos or tacos, you need to heat your flour tortillas so they will bend and not break. I use a big, heavy skillet. You might have a griddle or tava. You might need to very lightly oil the surface to make sure the tortilla doesn’t stick. Heat on one side, turn it over, add a layer of cheese, let it get warmed up. Don’t heat the tortilla until crispy, only until pliable. Then add your filling—in this case, a few spoonfuls of reheated leftover aloo palak. Bonus points for garnishing with some chopped fresh tomatoes. Ta-da!

And now, here’s my recipe for aloo palak (potatoes and spinach). It’s based on a recipe I received from Aman and Gurcharan Aulakh, a mother-daughter duo who, in March 2009, taught a series of “Punjabi Home Cooking” classes at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The ingredients are the same, but I’ve tweaked the method a bit from what they told us. (The biggest difference is that they precook the potatoes in a casserole dish in the oven, covered with sliced lemons to prevent browning, while I simply steam the potatoes.)

Aloo Palak

Prepare the two main ingredients:

• 4 c. peeled and diced potatoes (approx. 1-inch-long rectangles): steam until just done, not mushy, but completely done, and set aside
• 2 c. frozen chopped spinach: thaw and squeeze out moisture (I thaw in water, then squeeze out in a wire sieve); set aside

Make the masala; note that at any time the ingredients start to stick, sprinkle some water, but not so much water that you make a sauce:

• 3 T. vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 t. minced garlic
• 1 T. minced ginger

In a wide, heavy-bottom skillet, cook the above until the onions are translucent. Then add the masala spices all at once; lower the heat to prevent burning; sprinkle water as necessary:

• 1 t. turmeric
• 1 t. cumin seeds
• 1 t. black pepper
• ½ to 1 t. red chili powder (ground) (I use Kashmiri red chili powder, but use whatever ground red chilis you want, or none at all; it’s to your taste)
• 1⅓ T. ground coriander seed (yes, it’s a lot, but you’ll be glad because this is really good)
• 1½ t. salt (or to taste; I usually use 1 t., then taste at the end)

After the masala has cooked enough (about five minutes) (you’ll know when, because the oil kind of starts separating out, and it looks and smells like the spices, oils, and onion are all melded), stir in the spinach. Again, you’ll need to sprinkle water to keep it moist. Then add the potatoes and stir gently. Again, sprinkle water if necessary. The potatoes should absorb the flavors of the masala.

Finally, add:

• 1 T. kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves, which you can buy at an international store) (I rub the dried leaves in my hands to break them up a little)

Stir and heat through. Taste for salt.

Jar of Goodness 2.16.25: Papaya and Lime

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for papaya and lime.

Because we’re getting more snow, and it’s gonna be impressively cold this week. Super cold. Frigid, freezing, frickin’ fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh COLD.

And tropical fruits are a lovely antidote. And yes, we recently had The Cold that’s been going around. We’re recovering nicely. And again, tropical fruits help.

If you’re not used to enjoying papaya, get you some, and try it. Wait until the rind is getting yellow and a little spotted. Cut it up like you would a cantaloupe. Discard the seeds.

And don’t forget to anoint it with fresh lime juice; it makes all the difference.

So delicious. Yum!

Jar of Goodness 2.9.25: OTC Cold Meds

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for over-the-counter cold remedies.

The reason for this should be obvious, so there’s not much to say. But also, thanks for functioning immune systems.

Naturally, we didn’t go anywhere to watch the big football game, and since we don’t pay for any TV services, we’re not watching it. It’s not like we’re big fans of sportsball, anyway. So, pffft.

I’m trying to keep my cooties to myself. Hopefully, Sue won’t get this.

Jar of Goodness 2.2.25: Sportsball?

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I think I’m expressing thanks for sportsball. Sort of. Read on.

I never thought I’d ever mention football on my blog. It’s seriously nowhere near close to my favorite things.

But when the weather’s rough, the ground’s sloppy, and you have plenty of other things to be unhappy about, it’s kind of nice that the closest NFL team has been on the ups in recent years. When your team wins, you feel like a winner, too.

So, with the “big game” next week, people around here are pretty excited. Gives us something to hoot about.

By the way . . . (spoiler alert: this is what I’m really grateful for this week) . . . this winter, one of our favorite locally owned restaurants, the Dandy Lion on Main, has been hosting watch parties for the local team, and they’ll be having one of these parties next Sunday, too. In case you want to support your friendly little local diversity-welcoming place.

You might decide to pick up some homemade bakery goods to have tomorrow for breakfast. Next time you are hosting a dinner, have them make your favorite kind of pie. Or maybe you’ll see that they’re doing lots of fun special events there—movie nights, game nights, live entertainment, crafting, etc. As well as drag brunches. They are “a space for caffeination, creation, and connection.”

You might even want to follow them on Facebook in order to be in the know about their upcoming fun events.

So, whether or not the closest gigantic, billionaire-owned, mega-sports-franchise breaks some kind of record and wins “big” for a third year in a row, is kind of beside the point.

We’re basically looking forward to an excuse to hang out at the Dandy Lion for a few hours.

“Go team!”

Jar of Goodness 1.26.25: Cozy Mysteries

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for cozy mysteries.

“Whaaaat?” you say? “Julie, don’t you have a degree in English literature? Aren’t you a professional editor with fifteen years’ experience in scholarly publishing? Aren’t you just a little above mass-market, easy-reading, often-sadly-edited, formulaic, shallow, etc., etc. novels? What used to be called ‘dime-store’ novels? The successors to, say, Harlequin romances?” (Insert retching sounds here.)

Well, I’m coming out of the closet. It turns out I’m not above it. And I have my reasons.

First, I started reading these when Mom had gotten shingles and her vision was messed up. One of her great pleasures these days is devouring these cozy mysteries. (We can’t keep up with her in buying ones she hasn’t read yet. And yes, she says she remembers all the stories, so it’s not like she can reread them and like it.)

So while she was at rehab places, she was already in the dumps because she wasn’t at home. And naturally, we all strive to keep her happy, or failing that, contented. So I found her current book next to her chair at home, brought it with me to her room at Columbia Post-Acute, and read to her, starting a little before where her bookmark was. (This is quality time between us, see?)

It was kind of funny to pick up reading at the midpoint of the mystery novel. Who’s who? Why is everyone looking for whatever-it-is? Whatever does ice cream have to do with this—it’s in the title, right? And why are recipes added in here and there, the way a bad romance novel has sex scenes gratuitously sprinkled throughout the story?

As I read to her, I occasionally interjected: “OH! Mom, I think HE is the killer! He’s GOTTA be! Don’t you think?” Mom would just look at me, smile, and shrug. She’s read enough of these, she can probably figure out who “dunnit” by the time the murder occurs, usually by the end of the fourth chapter.

Anyhow, after we finished that one and started on another, Mom graduated from the rehab place and went home with her books. She got glasses that corrected her off-kilter vision, and since then, she’s reading books herself. (I might be misremembering: she’s been in and out of the hospital and rehab places, I might have read other books to her here and there. It’s hard to keep track of them. They’re like bunnies.)

Actually, I know more than a few professional manuscript editors who like to read mysteries (not necessarily cozies, however). I think it’s that the pace and the content—the puzzle—exercises a part of one’s mind that allows the editor to temporarily bypass the part that notices the sylistic inconsistencies, infelicities of grammar, typographical errors, misused homonyms, and so on. You just kind of gallop through a page-turner. You can enjoy reading again, as long as the book lasts.

I also like it that these sorts of books blot out whatever else is on your mind. Like what's going on in politics. How Mom is refusing to do what she needs to do to help Dad and allow me to keep a job. This form of escape is quite nice when you’re having trouble getting to sleep. I read until the type turns different colors or starts to wiggle around, and my eyes close, and the book folds shut on my hand. Blissful sleep.

Honestly, I haven't cared about mystery novels since I quit reading Nancy Drew books in about fourth grade. What's the point? After my preteen sci-fi craze, I quickly started devouring self-help books and nonfiction natural history books. But I kind of like these cozy mysteries.

Sue and I recently reread Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, the one that parodies the “horrid” Gothic novels of her day. In it, although she pokes fun at people devouring stuff like Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (Sue and I read that too, and laughed at it even as it drew us in), she also mounts a spirited defense of the novel as a literary form. In the early 1800s, mysteries and such were viewed as primarily women’s reading, and lightweight, worthless, even degrading stuff. But in such books, Austen pointed out, “the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.” Look, they are fun to read, and the best novelists have the ability to make their characters and plots seem absolutely real. It’s magic.

Mass-market cozy mysteries hardly contain the “best-chosen language,” or (superlatively) the “liveliest effusions of wit and humour,” but they do usually contain some well-crafted dialogue with a good ear for common speech, and the characters in them often are well-rounded and interesting. (Okay, a lot of them have characters that are flat “types,” but many of the books are in the first person, and at least the interior dialogue of the heroine is interesting and relatable.)

These books transport you, too. They all have a certain setting, such as a cheese shop in Sonoma, a candy shop in Ohio’s Amish country, a bicycle shop on Cape Cod, and a Granadian-immigrant family bakery in New York City’s Little Caribbean. I don’t think any are set in a grim apartment complex in a boring Midwest or southern city about a person who, say, edits online content, or works at Walmart for a living.

There are rules about cozy mysteries: no truly gruesome details, torture, or deaths; no slaughter of the innocents (all the victims are generally people who had it coming to them, so there are usually multiple suspects); no explicit sex scenes; the protagonist is almost always a female who is some kind of small business owner living her dream; male friends are platonic friends; male love interests typically don’t do more to advance the plot than be fantastically supportive (“you’ve had a rough day, honey; come home, I’ll make dinner, we’ll have a glass of wine, and I’ll rub your shoulders while we snuggle on the sofa and discuss the clues and suspects, and whatever else is on your mind”). The boyfriends don’t always “save the day”; when cornered or captured, the heroine saves herself through her own wits, cunning, and physical capabilities. There is actually a kind of feminist vision at work here.

You can see why these are so popular: it’s like grown-up Nancy Drew, minus insipid Ned Nickerson and Carson Drew rescuing Nancy and her chums. Don’t you wish you could own a popular breakfast/brunch diner–slash–vintage cookware shop in scenic Brown County, Indiana, and have all your workers and customers be your dear friends and neighbors? Don’t you wish you had so many dear friends and neighbors? Wouldn’t you like having a super-handsome boyfriend who doesn’t get jealous of your success and in fact helps you in all kinds of ways, anticipating your needs? Huh?

The first cozy mysteries I read were the “Spice Isle Bakery” series by Olivia Matthews (Patricia Sargeant), which has a flawed, insecure, self-deprecating protagonist and a family so well characterized they seem truly to live and breathe. The spunky, outspoken granny speaks in Granadian dialect, which is fun. As a culinary cozy, it necessarily includes lots of descriptions of foods and their delicious scents (in this case, Caribbean foods like currant rolls, coconut bread, curry and jerk chicken, and callaloo; and the bakery is always scented with nutmeg, cinnamon, coconut, and butter). And yes, there are recipes.

The series ended with three volumes, but I found I sincerely wanted more. More, more, more!

I’m trying not to descend into the same bottomless well that my mom is in, where she’s reading just about any cozy mystery she can find, that she hasn’t already read. I’m sticking to a few well-established publishers, because I don’t think I could tolerate self-published, poorly edited stuff. I’m also sticking with authors I’ve already read . . . like the ones in these pictures.

So, cheers to cozy mysteries!