RUTABAGA RULES!

    

Ryan reveals an efficient method for reducing the super-hard rutabaga to mincemeat. 

Rutabaga lovers listen up.  For years, at rutabaga prep time, this weakling cook delegated the daunting task of paring and chopping the rutabaga to others.  This lovely vegetable, underappreciated by many folk, is tough to cut up leading rutabaga connoisseurs to plan and plot new strategies. 

There’s the microwave partially method… It doesn’t work.  There’s the pound on cleaver with hammer to divide method…Sort of crude and the cleaver gets stuck.  Then there’s the drop whole in boiling water to soften first method, which promotes wax floating everywhere.  Some methods work some of the time, but with a rutabaga you never know what you’re gonna get.  You can’t tell by looking, squeezing, or smelling it, how hard it is and how sweet it will be.

If you know something I don’t, know please clue me in.

Christmas morning, after opening presents, sampling chocolates, cooking the traditional sausage and refried beans meal and trying out a few gadgets, we got an early start on prep for the main Christmas feast.  As usual, I determined that the potatoes and rutabaga would taste best if someone else did the chopping and paring.  The rutabagas, two ugly little orbs, were waiting.  If they were really hard as I knew they could be, the son-unit should put some male brawn into the job. 

“Here, peel first, then chop it into one-inch squares” I directed, gesturing to the kitchen knife selection.

He disappeared into his bedroom where he has god-knows-what spilling out of muddy bags from his recent return from Hispaniola. 

I feared he might be ducking the job but he soon returned bearing his trusty 200-peso machete. It’d been his constant companion and multi-task tool for the past 27 month-- So of course he brought it back.  Who knows what he might run into back in Michigan! 

He quickly pared off the waxy skin and started chopping.  He hacked his way efficiently through those two baggies in no time at all.  It was better than a Ginsu knife. 

My Christmas shopping list for next year just got very simple; Machetes for everyone!

  

SAINT SEEN IN ST IGNACE TODAY!

A saint of sorts arrived in Saint Ignace today at noon.

The bright morning dims to another gray Northland day.  The Straits of Mackinac are bleak and dismal.  A Sheppler’s ferry streams in from “The Island” as they refer to Mackinac Island here.  There are no tourists or travelers on the open deck that’s for sure. There must be someone huddled inside or the boat probably wouldn’t have made the crossing. 

“Hmmm”   I say to myself.  (At least I think I only said it to myself)

"Just who is crossing to the mainland this time of year?"

Could be shoppers, could be islanders gathering parts and registrations for the fleet of snowmobiles that will roar to life once some snow falls.   It’s certainly not Jamaican workers—they’ve all gone back to another warmer island for the winter.

The water on the straits is all slate gray swells with occasional frosted tips of whitecaps.  Mostly just swells though.  The ferry is the only boat traffic I see. 

My mood, paralleling the highs and lows of sunlight levels, begins to slide down into its own gray trough.

When what to my wondering eye should appear,

But an elf dressed in red who walks right in here!

He shakes hands in the lobby and shares candy canes,

Then hands one to me as my gloominess wanes.

Santa Claus arrived in Saint Ignace today!  He looks great!   

His red suit is plush and his beard  is snow white and lustrous.   It doesn’t look like the economy or the recent turmoil in the world is affecting him at all.  He confides that he is moonlighting for a radio station though, so maybe he’s feeling the pinch.  The station that hired him is one that’s already switched to all Christmas music even though it's still early December.

They have the perfect guy for the job! 

Saint Ignace: You better watch out. . .

Santa Claus is here on State Street and he's watching you!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

MICHIGAN MEN

Where oh where are the single men?    Where oh where can they be?
  

Fit and mature Michigan Man. 



I’ve reviewed a few .  .  .  dating site profiles and know there really are single guys in Michigan.  Based on extensive sampling most have a sense of humor, like dogs and are easy-going according to their friends.  The smokers are trying to quit and they only drink socially.  They are fit and athletic, just average or have a few extra pounds. They all love Michigan and its beaches and sunsets. Very promising.

Just for fun mind you, I read further and look at pictures.  I just love the pics of guys on boats with the Great Lakes in the background. I also like pics of guys in Greektown, flying over the Mackinac Bridge or hiking the Pictured Rocks. 

My preferences: Intelligent, educated, physically active, active sense of humor, like to travel and eclectic taste in music.

My rejection triggers: Smokers with exhale-in-your-face attitude, machine heads, too religious--sorry, can’t string two words together, more than one pic on a motorcycle, only like country music, T.M.I. about sexual preferences.

It’s good to know that sex is still an interest and a possibility but really guys, should I have to Google tantric, ectosexual, etc. before we even exchange the first e-mail?  Call me old-fashioned but I like coffee and conversation first and not just as foreplay.   

On many days I look fairly young for my age but I’m turned off by guys who say,

“My friends say I look much younger than my age”



Cute and youthful looking but
I'd prefer more mature, wouldn't you?

 Think about it; this wasn’t good when you were 23 and looked like you were 11.  And it’s not attractive now that you’re 57 to pretend you only look like you’re 45 in the hopes that some woman who is only 33 will want to date you. 

Smugly, I wonder just what kind of 33-year-old-woman is attracted to an immature 58-year-old man who thinks with the mentality of a 23-year-old. If you find a 33-year-old woman who is attracted by this you must be made for each other. Congratulations!  I hope you live happily ever after.

Confession—I’ve smirked disdainfully at a few profiles but really it’s good that people expose foibles.  It helps to eliminate and that’s not a bad thing.  There are awesome, wonderful guys out there who I don’t want to date.  So if you’ve winked at me and I’ve ignored you--I’m still flattered that you noticed. 

When I signed on to the cyber singles site I was pleased to discover so many interesting guys.  If I were at a coffee shop and could talk to them I would.  There are many that I ignore.  If I were at a coffee shop I’d probably talk to them too but I wouldn’t give them my phone number.


I’m not kissing frogs or dreaming of a prince.  Someone human, alive and in-between might be just right.  But if a frog or prince or the King of Siam came along and sang to me I’d listen. 

Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you.

And just maybe, after a few cups of coffee, a rendezvous, a glass of wine, a walk in the park, some shared sunsets and conversation, things would roll around to:

You are precisely,
My cup of tea.

In the meantime, I’d better go tweak my dating profile.

Pure Michigan Thanksgiving

The biggest travel weekend of the year is upon us as 1.3 million travelers hit the roads.  Auto travel is definitely a Michigan tradition from the first concrete paved stretch of road in the U.S., Woodward Avenue M-1 in 1909, to the spider’s web of well-traveled highways reaching every nook and cranny of Michigan today.

Wednesday November 23, 2011:     I and my fellow Michiganders are on the road. 

              Over Bear River and through the Emmet, Antrim, Otsego woods…

To Rochester Hillbillies house I go.

My car knows the way,

AND NO DEER WILL I SLAY,

And the road is not drifted with snow. J

At midnight I enter the embrace of Dutch-ancestry relatives with sharp horns and witty but not-too-sharp tongues.   The countdown to Turkey Day dinner has started.  The Moe is threading a large needle to truss the 26- pound turkey once it is stuffed in the morning.  The brother-family who sprung out of Harbor before me, have already deposited their dinner offerings of trifle and other delicacies in the fridge.

My contribution, sauce from Whitefish Point cranberries picked by a friend who wisely harvested cranberries BEFORE the ten-inch snowfall blanketed Paradise last week, is snug and cool in the trunk for the night.  Thanksgiving has become a springboard for Christmas so my other dish, spinach dip, makes for a nice green and red holiday offering.

Thursday morning:      The big day arrives.

The advantages of sleeping on a soft couch in the living room on T-Day are many.  From this nest I witness the day unfold.

I wake in early morning darkness to the sound of little sis scurrying down to her kitchen to truss the turkey and stuff it into the oven.  Luckily, as I achieve enough consciousness to think about offering to help, she flicks the lights off and heads back up to bed.  Shucks.  I’d better get some rest so I can offer to help with the dishes.

Strange stirrings from the dog crates rouse me and I drag myself up and out to give the host dogs some relief.  Standing on the lawn in my zebra outfit hoping the neighbors are not looking I spy another 21^st century Thanksgiving tradition: The carcass of a large lawn turkey deflated on the grass.  It’s a colorful sight but which is odder, Zebra woman or asphyxiated turkey carcass??? 

Give the dogs their early morning snack then back to couch for more shuteye.  I really should make coffee like a good guest.  Shucks again!  Before I can lift a hand, the Alpha Male host concocts a lovely brew and serves me a cup in my living room nest.  And a second cup!  I’m in heaven.  And conversation about Thanksgivings past and the new tradition of people who are not truly homeless but camp out starting on Wednesday to get door buster deals on Black Friday!! Crazy.  But we all have our traditions that we love.

This couch perch view of Thanksgiving unfolding is great.  One negative, the turkey is wafting luscious scents throughout the house and I’m hungry.  Can I stand this lovely scent for seven more hours??

The traditions to come: 

* Chestnut soup from Antrim Ridge Farm nuts harvested in October by the migrant siblings at Farm Party Weekend.

The Moe tends the Turkey

* Roasted beet salad with feta and those awesome candied sweet potatoes prepared by the vegetarian siblings in their nearby warren. 
* The hillbillies from Farmingtown are bringing the apple walnut salad that we have come to treasure.
* Pumpkin pie and pecan pie ala Moe are resting on the table already.
* Large quantities of potatoes and rutabaga are peeled and ready to simmer on the stove.
* Turkey

I’m reeeeaally getting hungry

O.K., it’s not just about food it’s also about more.  The parade is forming on Woodward, television celebrities-for-a day are perched above Detroit to incite home viewers.  The ultimate traditional anthem of the day, Alice’s Restaurant, is coming around again on the radio.  The newspaper is full of touching stories of love and family and an inch or three of advertising for our holiday shopping planning pleasure.  I’m anticipating a series of Thanksgiving parade walks around the hilly neighborhood with gangs of family.

Then, when all the people and food are here, we’ll pause to give thanks for all that we have.  We’ll pause to remember all those who have passed on but passed traditions down to us.  We’ll pause to be thankful for the love and nurturing that empowers us to create beautiful new traditions.

It must be the powerful smell of turkey that is making me sentimental. 

Gotta go.    Santa just arrived in Detroit and I have to hear his words of wisdom.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fall Falls Into…

Gray emptiness envelopes the northland.  As the leaves are beaten off the trees by days of late October rains and winds, the tourists disappear. 

Main Street,  Harbor Springs.  The first Sunday in November though, is a late-season gift of the gods.  Sunny,  golden, mild and desolate.  Volunteers pull up wooden framed planters around the trees growing through the sidewalk.  A few oddball groups of real human stragglers wander about. Most shop windows feature closed signs with a few valiant exceptions.

The waterfront docks are fenced over.    No admittance.   Huge blue, plastic-wrapped boats stud the landscape.   The atmosphere is peaceful, placid.   

Could it just be weeks ago that we wandered here from beach to beach chasing elusive purple fish and wallowing in warm water?  Was it only weeks ago that  we jockeyed for  a  waterside table at Dudley’s and tracked  minnows and gulls even while devouring tasty luncheon treats. 

Male tourist hogs September limelight
in front of indulgent female relatives.

September, then October, slipped away into a beautiful but quieter November Sunday.

The walkways, where Tomas hammed it up in the center of each shot and always in front of Maris, are empty.  

The air should ring with the sounds of kids laughing and calling. 

If this were a movie I'd make the air echo with the remembered childsong but today, in reality,
it is silent.

November: Real and surreal.

Winter:  Even now gathering forces to obliterate the straggling golden days.  Whooossssshhhhh!!!

MACKINAC ATTACK

A McCheeseburger and a shot of carbonated caffeine resting on the vehicle’s picnic platform, I steer down a secret byway known mostly to the local saints of Ignace.  The point of driving on LaBarbe is that eventually a vista of the Mighty Mac appears in the windshield that's like having side-stage tickets at a Rolling Stones Concert.  Not that I’ve ever had any tickets to a Stones concert.

As the twin pinnacles of the beautiful structure rise gracefully out of the Straits, I instinctively reach for the camera.  I must capture this on film or its digital equivalent. 


<><> <><> <><>

Randon tourist child under bridge. 
Not Pte. LaBarbe view--that's secret.!!

“Darn”

No camera.

I feel a compulsion to stop—I’m cruising for a good spot in between the tall weeds at roadside.   My hands grasp at empty space and my heart is bereft that I can’t capture this view. 

“Get a grip”  The voice of reason intones.

This view will still be here later today, tomorrow, and probably even next week.  At home, in cyber and paper collections, I have zillions of shots of the Mackinac Bridge.  I don’t need another.

“Steer away from the bridge.”  The voice of reason chants.

Before tearing myself away from the scene, I take a deep breath and revel in my special view of the silvery bridge rising out of the mist.

Photos of the bridge’s 54-year lifespan plus oddities of the five-year construction phase would fill a gallery stretching the whole length of I-75.  Better photographers than I have been sucked into this compulsion.  Maybe there’s a support group.

Or maybe I’ll come back by with my camera this afternoon to get just one more shot of the iron mistress of Michigan.

--Sireen

FARM LIVING IS THE LIFE FOR ME (OCCASIONALLY)

October: Before the Change in the Weather

It was down to the farm for harvest party weekend at a secret central location in Antrim County.Chestnuts popping, Chardonnay grapes ripening, Fall busting out all over. Mild, warm, sunny, dry and beautiful.The sun set in golden splendor, the moon rose in cold white light, then set in splendor also.The sun returned each day to set the woods afire and make the fields gleam in green swells beneath us.



Antrim Ridge Grape Harvest

Beautiful night stars competing with bright white moonlight illuminated camping, dining, bonfires, night walks, stargazing and conversation.     In the heat of day, after harvesting nuts and grapes, Lake Michigan called and hot sweaty migrant siblings, relatives and friends, splashed  in a refreshing October Lake Michigan swim.

Sunday night the sun set on the 2011 harvest party and before it rose again I headed north to Newberry to work.  Weak light peeked beside me as I crossed the Mighty Mac and crept up behind as I headed west on US 2.  With daylight, fall colors erupted to dazzle a sleep-deprived brain.  My mission on this trip (in addition to work) was to snap a picture of the huge Paul Bunyan billboard that graces US 2.  He is missing or had his back to me because I never spied him.  Was he the victim of a vicious zoning attack or did he disintegrate in old age?  His picture was to adorn a tall tale of a previous trip on the US 2 freeway—oops—highway. No luck, he’s gone, I may have to launch an investigation.

Sadly, no time to savor the sights of Newberry this trip.  I made a lunchtime visit to a wonderful woman who is cared for at Joy’s Autumn Annex.  After sitting with her for 20 minutes, holding hands, singing quietly, and me babbling on about family news with no indication that she heard a thing, I was rewarded with a fleeting smile.    Happy—haunting—bittersweet.

No picture of Paul, a fleeting Mary smile, and a full day of work concluded, I hit the trails again for a shadowed drive past the falls, Whitefish Bay, and the always spectacular Tahquamenon Rivermouth.  The time on the road must be taking its toll because I hardly remember passing back over the Mackinac Bridge which is normally a landmark pleasure even after thousands of crossings. 

My head hit the pillow…  Sleep, and another interlude known as the workday interjected itself then it was back to the farm.  After Newberry, where everything is up to date, the farm seemed rustic.  The grapes, which I'd come to harvest, were not ready to vacate the vines yet.  Chestnuts were popping out all over though.  Armed with substandard gloves that only poorly protected my hands from the bristles I managed to collect half of a five gallon pail.  As darkness overtook the orchard, I scrambled to collect just a few more.  Reading glasses helped locate them in the fading light.  Finally, too dark to go on, I gave up.

Pop-plop-thump! 

One more ripe chestnut exploded, noisily dropping its fruit onto the ground to taunt me. I looked back but could barely see the trees in the darkness.  NUTS! They’ll have to wait for another day if the deer don’t get ‘em first.

The green white grapes previously collected by crews of migrant siblings need to be squished, pressed and have the juice wrung out of them.  The harvest and wine making process is on a long learning curve at Antrim Ridge Farm.  The new experimental method uses a tomato press to entice juice from the grapes.  This seemed promising as the golden green liquid flowed out in a small steady stream.  Soon, the crank refused to budge—something was jammed.  GRAPE NUTS! Poking; digging; peeking into the apparatus through different orifices didn’t free it up.  


On to Plan B; Farmer Smith resurrected and quickly modified a previously tried grape press. After valiant pulverizing with an enormous improvised mortar and pestle, (2X2 in a bucket) and tag team cranking on the screw of the wooden press, the juice flowed again.  Another half pail of yellow-green juice was the precious harvest. 

Clean-up, weariness, good-bye hugs, then the moon beaming dancing shadows over the hills as I drove off North again. 

The satisfaction of a harvest and hard work with hands is strong enough to draw this former suburb slicker back to the farm again and again even after seeing the urban delights of Newberry!