How to Spend a Holiday in September

Sometimes you just need a day with nobody in it. You just need to walk around in your nightgown all day long wearing no makeup and shoes. There needs to be a day when nobody is coming over, you are not going anywhere and haven’t racked up a list of chores to do. This is one of those days. The weather is cool and pleasant enough to just sit on the front porch. The noisy neighbors are not running their lawn equipment. The cat finally got off my lap and found her own chair. I have been perusing the stack of magazines that have accumulated since my last porch sit.

Some people like to sleep late on a holiday. Maybe I used to, but o have learned that the best part of the day comes early. I grab a cup of tea or a bad for me diet cola over crushed ice and head for my chair. It is a Victorian caned rocker in the corner of the porch where I can see everything that happens in my little corner of the world. I am surrounded by beautiful green plants and trees. I see that my 10 foot tall confederate rose is finally starting to get buds. I hear all manner of noisy birds, but they are in a different category from the neighbors’ machinery.

I use the first part of the day to read something inspirational to think about, then I daydream awhile looking at the magazine stack. I then decide what I’m going to cook. To me, cooking is a form of recreation. It is a thing I do to relax and create. I set some perimeters for myself, because that is part of the creative process. I know that I must use foods that I have on hand, so I won’t have to dress and go to the store. Part of the treat of the holiday is that I don’t have to scurry around like I do on most ordinary days. I know that I must use what is on hand and create from that.

Yesterday, I came in from a trip. I had been invited to my friend Melissa’s for Indian Food. I put it in capitals because the serving of authentically prepared Indian food in rural Southwest Alabama is an Event. On top of that, after dinner, we went to see the movie Julie and Julia down at the local picture show. We are so fortunate to get first run movies. I was proudly showing the local theater to my city nephew. I pointed out to him that we have first run movies. He dashed my pride by saying “You mean you don’t have but one?”. One is enough when a food movie is showing right after a home cooked Indian dinner.

My contribution to the meal was to be some mango chutney. I bought some in the city along with some good madras curry powder. It was raining when we got home, so I left them in my mama’s car. I looked for them long enough to realize what I had done, so I went to plan B. We had stopped at a roadside stand in Georgia to buy some fresh peaches. I spied them lying on the counter and thought “Why not?”. I whipped up some peach chutney on the spot. It turned out so good, I decided to use the rest of the peaches in a larger batch of chutney today. My son had gifted me with some lovely red sweet Hungarian peppers which I had used along with some grocery store yellow onions in the chutney. I always keep fresh cilantro on hand sine the local Walmart started carrying it for the growing Oriental and Hispanic populations. However, I have been on the road so much lately that it was wilted into oblivion.

I love to shop Big Lots for unusual ingredients and snack. Apparently they get the foods that big companies test market that don’t turn out to be winners or else they overstocked then closed out. I found some cilantro bouillon cubes which turned out to be perfect for the recipe.

Here’s the Emergency Peach Chutney recipe I came up with:

2 large fresh peaches, ripe, but firm, one big chopped onion, 5 red Hungarian peppers or 2 red bell peppers, ¾ c dark brown sugar, ¼ c balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice ( who said it was authentic?), dash msg, dash turmeric. Cook until onions are transparent and other ingredients tender. If I’d had raisins I’d have put them in, but I didn’t.

It turned out very well. The other Indian Food was authentic, so it was just a condiment – a fusion sort of thing. Maybe soon I’ll find the seven dollar jar, but in the meantime, I’m making another batch. In this batch I put a little hot pepper and some garlic.

A friend just called and said she was stopping by. She lives out in the country and is a renowned cook, so I asked her if she had any little canning jars sitting around that she wasn’t using. As a matter of fact she did. She is saving me a trip to town, so I’m surprising her and her husband with lunch. I just happen to have made another dish while I was in the kitchen whipping up the chutney. I wanted to do a casserole, so I checked my freezer. I had a good many fresh frozen wild Alabama shrimp that a friend gave me in my birthday box. I decided to make a shrimp pot pie. I’d never made one and thought iy might be a fun thing to create.

What goes in one? I had a crawfish pie once, so I figured the shrimp one couldn’t be too different in it is ingredients. I thought of the holy trinity – onions, bell pepper and celery. I didn’t have any celery. Two out of three are not bad, so I chopped the bell pepper and onions. I did have some celery seed, so I threw that in. I peeled a pound of raw shrimp and put them in a gratin pan. I put four small red potatoes in the microwave for 3 minutes to make sure they were not crisp in the final dish. I chopped them. I added some garlic, some Zatarain’s powdered shrimp boil, ¼ c of ketchup and a can of golden mushroom soup. I didn’t intent to use golden mushroom soup, but I didn’t have any cream of mushroom on hand. I mixed everything up and put it in with the shrimp/ I topped the whole thing with defrosted frozen biscuits. I stretched the biscuits out thin and tamped them down around the edges of the pan, so none of the goody would escape. It turned out gorgeously puffed and attractive.

The morning’s barely gone and I’ve felt very creatively expressed. I am back on the porch waiting for my lunch guinea pigs to arrive and test the shrimp pie. Nothing you can do to fresh shrimp could be that bad unless you candied it. That will be a creative endeavor for another day.

Getting Old is a Bitch (Even if You’re Famous)

I couldn’t believe what I heard on NPR. Bob Dylan was performing in a big concert up north somewhere. He decided after the concert to go out for a bit of air, so he took a walk. Apparently people don’t go walking at night a lot in whatever city he was visiting. He was stopped by the police. They didn’t believe his story about being Bob Dylan in town for a concert. Either they were too young to remember “Blowin in the Wind” or the guy they saw didn’t look like the frizzy headed young man they had seen pictures of. The pictures of the icon Bob Dylan were taken in his heyday and presumably didn’t bear much resemblance to the bleary eyed old codger they saw walking alone at midnight.

Unfortunately, aging happens to all of us, even the rich and famous. Anyway, the police were not buying his story. He insisted they take him back to the hotel where he was staying so that he could be identified. A couple of the staff identified him. The police apologized. Dylan was a free man. He was free from everything, that is, except aging. It happens to us all. Some transitions are more graceful than others. Take Cher for instance, she is in the same age group as Bob Dylan, but has held up much better. White hair and thousands in plastic surgery look good on her.

I always thought Robert Redford could have aged better. He’s awfully wrinkled. I was amazed to read an un-tabloid article that quoted the doctor who admitted to doing a facelift on Redford when Redford was in his forties. He’s now in his seventies and needs another. I guess even plastic surgery doesn’t hold up to Father Time.

I’m glad I live in rural Southwest Alabama where it’s okay to get old if you don’t mind being called Ma’m by people forty and under. Even if you don’t think you look old, getting called Ma’m will put things in perspective.

One of my favorite stories about aging is by southern writer Florence King. She says that the South reveres its matriarchs. Her famous quote is “as the bosom falls, so does the mask.” What she means is that as southern women age, they become more who they are. As young people in the south are taught, we must be nice to everybody. We must take care to be diplomatic and polite. AS we get to be old people, this is no longer required. We can be free to say what is on our minds.

We no longer have to wear tight clothes or tight shoes just to try to look better. We develop our own look and stick with it, sometimes from our college years to the grave the look never changes. I know a lot of women in the geriatric ward who still tease their hair, even when it gets so thin we can see through it. Funny thing about that though is the younger women are buying hair accessories now called bump to make their hair stand up like ours did when it was teased in the 60s. Why don; they just learn to tease and save the $10.00?

My high school class is having a reunion this weekend. I wonder if we’ll all recognize each other. I wonder who decades later will be chosen the person who has changed the least. I think that would be the boy in our class who died in his 30s. We can post his picture and give it the prize. For the rest of us, we all have gravity issues. The sagging chins, wrinkles, and excess poundage will disqualify the rest of us. We do have one thing going for us. W are still here to enjoy the rest of our lives. As far as I’m concerned these are the Good Ole Days, not the ones mentioned in those nostalgic emails about our leenage years.

I wouldn’t go back to those days for anything, even if I could take my experience with me. My bosom has dropped and I’m taking off the mask. I have a lot to look forward to. Aging may be a bitch, but I get to be one, too.