Happy Memories Archives - Respect Food Roles

Some Modern-Day Versions of Ma

May 4, 2020April 8, 2020 by Debi Simons

Martha Goertzen, my dad’s sister, who lived from 1924-2019. Image retrieved from the website of LaCanne Family Funeral Services, Windom, MN.

Later today or tomorrow I’m planning to put up a brief exercise video, something you can put to use on your living-room floor, and then I’ll be posting much less frequently on this blog as I concentrate on my other site, Behind the Music. That material is much more heavily trafficked, and I have quite a bit of material on sale there, with more being added periodically. If you’re a subscriber to this blog but not to that one, please take a moment to sign up if you have any interest at all in choral music. I write posts about the music we sing in my lovely, lovely choir, The Cherry Creek Chorale, and I also have several books on major choral works. So take a look! All materials except for the books are free, just to be clear.

I did want to finish up a few ideas about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her estimable mother Caroline. As I mentioned in the last post, Laura and her daughter Rose shaped the narrative as they wrote the Little House books. They re-arranged and sometimes left out events, also giving the impression

How Not to Fall into the “Let’s Make Lots of Cookies During the Lockdown” Trap

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 by Debi Simons

Have you been encountering articles online about how it’s a great idea to get into cooking and baking during the coronavirus shutdown? Make bread! Make cookies with your kids! Etc. And while I’m all for positive family activities to hold everyone together during these long days, I’d sound my usual note of caution about discretionary eating. It’s all too easy to binge/gorge on food as well as Netflix. Neither choice is going to have a good end result.

How Do You Measure Success These Days?

March 22, 2020 by Debi Simons

Image by Manuel Darío Fuentes Hernández from Pixabay

From Emily Landon, chief infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Chicago:

“It’s really hard to feel like you’re saving the world when you’re watching Netflix from your couch. But if we do this right, nothing happens, A successful shelter in place means you’re going to feel like it was all for nothing, and you’d be right: Because nothing means nothing happened. And that’s what we’re going for here.” (“One doctor’s straight talk about the coronavirus strikes a chord with anxious Americans“)

Happy Halloween! (And How to Stay Away from the Candy)

October 31, 2019 by Debi Simons

I have a podcast on my “favorites” list from Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary, the flagship divinity school for the Southern Baptist Convention. I’ve heard him preach a number of times at our former church, Capitol Hill Baptist, which we attended from 1999 to our move here in 2009. He’s a great guy for whom I have great respect and is very much concerned about the direction our society is going, but sometimes this concern causes him to overreact a little. So back when the whole drag-queen story-hour brouhaha broke out (and if you missed out on that one, lucky you! I’m a committed David Frenchian on the subject), Dr. Mohler saw it as a “cultural crisis.” We all needed to Do Something About It. But the thing of it was, and is, that these events are local and non-compulsory. Giving so much attention to them vaulted the performers into the spotlight for weeks.

Use Food to Promote Conviviality without Promoting Indulgence

June 19, 2019 by Debi Simons

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about party food, even more than usual, because I’m working on a cookbook about such stuff (working title: Tiny Bites). Lately I’ve been testing my take on Swiss buttercream frosting. (Yesterday’s version was root beer. The batch is now in the freezer awaiting its use as a topping for root-beer brownies at the wedding reception I’m helping with in August. It was pretty good, but I’m still tweaking the basic recipe.)

So, as I’ve often said, food can be a tool that promotes conviviality. People aren’t eating because they’re hungry

The Thanksgiving Post-Mortem

November 30, 2018November 24, 2018 by Debi Simons

Roast Turkey just out of the oven How was your Thanksgiving? I have to say that this was one of the nicest I can remember in an unbroken string of enjoyable holidays. We had our 15 people who ate, played games, talked, watched college football, and hung around for a long time. That’s always my yardstick for measuring how successful a party is.

But since I’ve been writing about the food, I’m going to tell you how that part went. Also, if you don’t particularly care about my results, at least scroll down and read about the two things you shouldn’t do when cooking a turkey. As I said in an earlier post, this is a bit late for Thanksgiving but you may end up having a turkey for Christmas too. (I’m hoping to be asked to do some cooking for that meal, too.)

A Glorious Trip–Glitches and All

October 8, 2018 by Debi Simons

One of the few glimpses of the hot air balloon fiesta that we glimpsed!

My husband and I went on a trip this past weekend to Albuquerque NM to see visit the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. Here’s what went wrong in the first 18 hours or so:

1. We realized that we’d hit a stretch along I-25 in northern New Mexico where there weren’t any gas stations, and our little Honda FIT has only a 10-gallon gas tank. We’d been watching for a gas station but hadn’t seen any for some time. Suddenly we realized that the gas gauge was telling us we were in trouble. Where was the nearest gas station? Turned out it was 21 miles back the way we’d come. How had we missed it? Did we really need

A Light-Hearted Look at 1920’s France

July 17, 2018 by Debi Simons

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough, originally published in 1942, now available in many formats. France in the Twenties is a charming place, and the authors are charming, too.

I was reminded of this book (how many of my reviews start that way?) while I was writing some travel tips based on our recent trip to France. One of my recommendations, passed on from Rick Steves, Mr. European Travel himself, was to wear a money belt. His statement brought to mind the so-called “security pocketbooks” that Cornelia and Emily were forced to wear during their own trip to 1920’s France. This was, of course, during the days before women wore pants very much, and while they weren’t wearing layers of petticoats their skirts were longish and baggy. So see if you can picture this: an elastic belt around the waist with a narrow band attached to it hanging down and a purse thingy attached to that, dangling between the wearer’s legs. As long as you stand still or walk slowly the thingy should be unobtrusive, but if you’re at all active it will start swinging. There’s a very funny scene early on when Emily and Cornelia are dancing (I think it’s onboard their ship) and their purses start bumping into the knees of their dancing partners. Both girls exit the dance floor looking embarrassed, followed by their partners who look puzzled.

Another Life Lesson from PBS’s “Victoria”

March 1, 2018February 14, 2018 by Debi Simons

I wrote back during Season 1 of this fabulous series (are you watching it? Whyever not?) about how one scene made it so achingly clear how quickly time passes, with moments of utter joy being over in a . . . well, moment. Season 1 ended with the birth of Victoria and Albert’s first child, Vicky, and now we’re about two-thirds through Season 2, with three of their nine children having been born and two more episodes to go. Both Jenna Coleman (Victoria) and Tom Hughes (Albert) are continuing on for season 3, for which all of us fans are very grateful. Over all of the scenes looms the specter of Albert’s death, which we all know is coming when he’s only 42, after he and Victoria have been married for a little over 20 years. All that passion, all that rivalry and head-butting, all that love—all gone. And Victoria left to live on as a widow for 40 years, double the amount of time she spent as a wife.

Savor this Fleeting Day–and All the Ones to Come

May 4, 2019December 25, 2017 by Debi Simons

Christmas lights at twilight I had every intention of getting this post written at least by yesterday, but the rush of company, outings, etc., got in the way. It’s Christmas morning. I’m up early because I couldn’t sleep, so here are the thoughts I wanted to get down, and I plan to get the newsletter out later today in between the biscotti-baking, the green-bean casserole making, and the last-minute gift-wrapping flurry.