A winter without end

 

Usually, Cookie is ecstatic around Ground Hog Day - because it's the beginning of the end of winter.  And this past February 2nd, Cookie was high as a kite on the idea that January was done. And you know March, in like a like lion, and out like a lion, with a week or ten days of lamb time. 

And here we are the first of March, and mother nature has dealt everyone a punishing month. 

But a week of warming, and rain has turned our backyard into a water meadow and is making our sump pump work overtime.  At least something in this house is working.  The effing timer for the light over the front door is not.

Our latest problem is that the electric timer we had that turned our front door light on and off died. Now, you have to understand that we have used an intermatic timer for our outdoor porchlights for the last 30+ years.   Set it and forget is wonderful. 

Our problem is it is no longer 1990, but 2021, and things don't use electricity like they used to. The problem is that our house has the original 1928 BX wiring, which is safe if you just don't taunt it.  So none of the timers they make today - ALL of which are for these upgraded systems - work with our older wiring. Oh, we can buy one of the few remaining timers that will work with our house, but they only work with incandescent lightbulbs - the rough service variety that we used are up to nine dollars a bulb.  So we either spend $150 for a $15 dollar timer, and nine dollars a bulb, OR, we spend a thousand on rewiring that switch and another $500 for plaster repair, OR we live with the manual switch. 

And so we decided to be screwed with the manual switch.  The problem with that is that neither of us can remember to turn that damned thing off in the morning.  And because we're both stuck here at home, the damned light stays on all of the time, OR, gets turned off at 2 PMish.  Some savings. 

Oh, we have left tickler notes in paper, on our phones, set off alarms, but we keep forgetting to turn the fucking light out. 

We are just pathetic. 

Looking at the week ahead - it's pledge weeks on PBS which means a lack of decent programming.  I am thinking that I am just going to run through the two seasons of Derry Girls that we have. 

Oh, tell me you have watched Derry Girls, popkins.  Don't let Cookie be disappointed in you.  Make you a deal, watch it if you haven't done it.  Once you get the hang of the accents, it's a snap. Or you can turn on the SAP feature on the television, eh?

Hope your lives are at least more soothing than mine.

Crotchictyly yours,

Cookie

Current mood

 

It's Valentine's Day.  Whoopie. 

This little girl isn't bummed about Valentine's Day, but some May Day celebration in the USSRT in 1968.  Still, I feel her pain.  And she expresses my angst to a T: lackluster color, droopy hose, even balloons lacking in color.  And the hair!  Cookie needs a haircut, too. 

Husband and I fine, but he's been working 20/hr a day since this cold snap hit the midsection of the country, and it's been hard on Cookie because it's been hard on him.  You can't plan dinner because whatever I make will be cold for him.  And if I wait to eat with him, it could be Midnight before he shuts down.   

Dinner at Midnight?  I mean dinner at eight is civilized, Cookie is not that civilized that I could hold off until midnight!  Why I would self-digest by that late hour!

But, if places like Tulsa can just tough it out a few more days, then the temperatures will moderate.  This sub-zero patch should begin to end by mid-week and by Sunday it will be a balmy 50 degrees there.   And then our lives can get to normal.

It's been a miserable week here in Baltimore.  Snow, ice, and now a melt. All this white stuff should be gone by Wednesday.  I loathe winter. 

On the plus side, today is February 14th.  And in two weeks we'll be at the March 1st - and that means we are closer to the start of spring than the first day of winter.  And that means warmer temps and that means an end to winter isolation. 

Our next week forecast is highs in the 50s, hooray!

Childhood WANT: Aunt Jane's Pickle Mobile

 

This one stayed in the box for fifty-five years. 

Pictured above is one thing that Cookie wanted more than anything when he was a three to four-year-old, an Aunt Jane's Pickle Mobile.  

In the mid-1960s was a company named Marx Toys and Marx Toys produced OK plastic toys. I mean, your parents wouldn't have found them at the FAO Swartz at Shaker Square.  Topps or Uncle Bill's, yes.  But never FAO Swartz quality. 

Anyhow, there was also a company called Aunt Jane's Pickles, and Aunt Jane's was kind of popular in the terms that Vlassic is today. Aunt Jane's was the number two selling pickle brand in the U.S.  And Aunt Jane's used radio and television commercials in heavy rotation to sell those pickles. And they were clever.  Clever like Stan Freberg clever. And they appealed to kids with their tongue-twisting mispronunciations of the word 'poockle'.  I mean "pickle".

And in some of the commercials, being "made the old fashioned way," some of the commercials featured brass era vehicles delivering pickles.

Into this comes the old advertising gimmick of a give-a-way.   In the mid-sixties, Aunt Jane's Pickles starting offering - for a nominal fee - a battery-powered, child-sized car shaped like the Mercer Runabout of the 1910s.  The car, built by Marx, wasn't green, but usually appeared in yellow or white and it had "Aunt Jane's Pickle Mobile" bumper sticker plaster on the hood. 

To a child, the idea of a car of your own that could move on its own was cool.  To a car happy kid like myself, it was intoxicating.  So much so that I can hear the jingle. 

Never mind that I had every pedal version of conveyance known to child kind.   Cookie coveted that Pickle Mobile.  More so, my cousin who lived a couple blocks away ALSO coveted it.  We agreed to nag our parents together.  

"We want a Pickle Mobile!" we said, sang, and screamed. 

And you know what? 

Our parents refused. 

"You don't need that."

"No, and stop singing that commercial jingle!"

We were thwarted.  I mean we wanted one, but our parents were totally within their rights.  And we did have more than most children.  And after time, the commercial stopped and was no longer on our top ten list of toys.  Eventually, we even forgot about the brand.

And can you imagine the mess created by that battery technology in the 1960s?  It would probably roll under its own power a hundred feet and then die. It was for the best and Shaker did not have smooth concrete sidewalks, but stone slabs that were laid smooth, but went this way and that as the ground either settled or heaved because of tree roots.  And Marx quality toy? The plastic would crack under a child's use. 

Eventually, Aunt Jane's Pickles disappeared as well.  Apparently, the Michigan based family-owned company was sold to Borden Foods, and like all of its varied food lines, Borden's shift in focus to chemicals in the 1970s allowed it to wither and die. 

The family behind Aunt Jane's, the Gielow's, however, wasn't out of the pickle business for long. They started up anew and continue to manufacture refrigerated pickles in Michigan.   

Still, every now and then the child in me remembers the jingle.  "...in an Aunt Jane's Pickle, Pickle Mobile..." and feels a pang of desire for the Pickle Mobile he never had.

Cooking shows and one of mom's recipes

 

We have three "local" PBS stations. 

WETA, Washington DC, programs its Saturday afternoons with cooking shows.  Including Julia Child's episodes from the late '80s, early '90s.   It's not Julia cooking, but Julia watching other cooks and commenting.  

"And the aroma, viewer, which you can't smell at home, so I will take another inhale, is full of rich and satisfying beefiness."  Thank you, Julia. 

One of the cooks piped potatoes around one end of the service plates and I got a flashback to Fanny Craddock.

There is another guy, Nick Stellino, but he talks too much.  Cook more Nick, talk less.

There is Cristopher Kimbal, who was with America's Test Kitchen (which I love) and is now on Christoper Kimball's Milk Street", a name I find disturbing.  It's named after the organization Milk Street, Boston address.   But I am troubled by Kimball's "milk" in the "street".

My favorite is, and she has always been my favorite, Sarah Moulton and Sarah's Weeknight Meals. I simply adore her - she seems like a friend who invites you into the kitchen and says "this is so easy and tastes for good and I am going to show how easy it is, and we'll have fun cooking!" 

Ah, but tonight, it's about comfort food, and leftovers.  Tonight the husband is cooking "Chicken and Greenbean" casserole.  Here's the recipe its old school - hold your disgust - it's yummy. 

Pound and a half of chicken breasts, off the bone.
1 bag of frozen green beans
1 box of Uncle Ben's Wild Rice
1 cup mayo (or a half cup of  mayo grosses you out)
1 Can of Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup
1/2 cup of diced pimento
1 can water chestnuts, drained and rinsed in water
1 container French's "French Fried Onions"
Two cups sharp cheddar cheese

Bring to boil a large pot and add a pinch of salt when the boil becomes roiling. While it's heating, cut the chicken into strips and then add that to the boiling water.  Cook until done. Remove the chicken and shred. Leave the "stock" in the pot - we're still not done with it. 

Prepare the rice according to the box instructions in a saucepan, but instead of water, use water from the stockpot. 

Add the frozen green beans to the stock water and cook until tender and drain.  Dispose of any stock water left.

In a bowl, mix the mayo, soup, pimento, and one cup of cheese. 

In a 9x13" pan, scatter evenly the shredded chicken, water chestnuts cooked green beans, and rice.  Pour a mixture of the soup/may over the chicken.  Add the other cup of cheese over this and then add the French Friend Onions on top. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-minutes (Gas Mark 4 if you use that, 177c if you use that.)

Remove from oven and let it stand for 15 minutes.