I recently had an epic kitchen fail that included a totally ruined cake and a broken heirloom bottle. I tossed it all out because I didn’t want a bleeding stomach on top of all that. Here’s the story.
One night at house church we celebrated a member’s birthday with a simple cake. Our fellowship leader asked a great question. What was your favorite or most memorable birthday, as a child or an adult?
All of us are above 60 so we found that most of us had only one or two birthdays we remembered from our childhood. Birthday parties were not nearly as frequent as children celebrate them today when big, blow-out birthday parties are often thrown for each child, every year.*
I shared that I could only remember one actual birthday party when I was allowed to invite friends. The normal birthday in our family included 1) an opportunity to choose the supper or dinner menu; 2) Mom making our favorite cake; 3) one gift. (Don’t I sound old-timey?)
My favorite cake was angel food, decorated with a cooked 7-minute frosting and one year I remember specifically indicating I wanted the frosting to be pink.
I’m not so much into pink frosting on angel food cake anymore but I still enjoy the lighter, buoyant nature of the food of angels. Plus did you know there is no shortening or fat of any kind used in angel food cake?
But it wasn’t until I tried my own hand at making an angel food cake recently (rather than buying one of those ready-made ones) that I remembered the truth of why I was so fond of angel food cake as a child. My friend Janet, who also gave me an Artisan bread recipe (here), made an angel food cake for another house church birthday and I enjoyed it so much, I decided to try making one myself. It had been years!
I used a box mix (had to go to a second grocery store to even find one) but the frothy batter whipping up as I was making it was just plain exciting to watch. Licking the beaters was like indulging in cotton candy.
The taste of my childhood came rushing back. I was so excited by the taste of the batter, I felt like a little girl again. And a little silly to get so excited. Coming out of the oven, it looked great!
The box said bake 30-40 minutes and cautioned not to under-bake it. I didn’t want it to get hard and tough, so I took it out at 30, when it looked perfect.
Very explicit box directions. Enlarge to see.
Inverted cake, first try.
My flopped cake.
My excitement was deflated minutes later when, after turning the cake upside down to cool, it suddenly fell. Like a balloon losing its air, and just as disappointing as an escaped helium balloon. It not only collapsed, the ruckus caused me to knock over and break Mother’s old glass Welch’s Grape Juice “sprinkler” she used for dampening clothes before ironing them (yeah, that’s way back), upon which I had tried to perch the upside down cake. So I not only had a fallen angel food cake on the counter, but broken glass mixed in. (I have a small collection of old bottles, so I was not happy to break this special one.) What a mess.
I cleaned up the disaster and decided the only thing to do was throw out the cake, even though parts of it were still edible. I didn’t want to risk swallowing glass. That would have been dumb on top of dumb.
Inverted cake, 2nd try. Check to see whether bottle fits cake pan opening ahead of time.
A few weeks later I would try making the cake again and this time baked it the full 40 minutes. It needs to feel light in the pan, not wet and still slightly gooey inside. It’s a bit of a trick to run a knife around the edge of the pan to get the cake out smoothly.
Success! I enjoyed my angel food cake, shared it with a family with a couple of new babies in the house (twins), and also at an office potluck.
If you are feeling really adventurous, here’s a recipe for Angel Food Cake from scratch from Mary Emma Showalter’s Mennonite Community Cookbook, originally published in 1950.** This is one of the 600 cake recipes that were tested in creating her collection, with 100 recipes she personally beat by hand. For this one, which requires whipping egg whites, she must have used an old fashioned rotary egg beater. Whew. That would be a lot of beating. It also includes a variation for Cocoa Angel Food by substituting 3 tablespoons of cocoa for 3 of the tablespoons of flour. Maybe I’ll have to try that sometime …. (Nah, not likely!) Note: I used a boxed mix in the creation of the 2 cakes you see pictured here! I would love to hear from anyone who tries making this scratch recipe. 🙂 Note that this recipe says to bake one hour.
Angel Food Cake
1 cup cake flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups egg whites (11 to 12 eggs)
2 tablespoons water
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
Sift flour and measure. Add ½ cup sugar and sift together 3 times. Beat egg whites with rotary beater until frothy. Add salt and cream of tartar to egg whites. Continue to beat until whites hold peaks.
Slowly add remaining sugar to beaten whites, folding in with a wire whisk. Add flavoring. Then sift flour and sugar mixture, a tablespoon or two at a time, over beaten whites. Fold in lightly with a down-up-over motion.
When well blended, pour into a large, ungreased tube pan (10 inch diameter). Cut through batter with a knife to remove air bubbles.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Remove from oven and invert pan to cool.
Recipe submitted (1949) by Mrs. Henry Eichelberger (Hydro, Okla.); Lola Brunk, (Delphos, Ohio); and Mrs. John Martin, (Waynesboro, Va.)
Do I really like the cake as much as all the goodies I pile on top?
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What was your favorite cake as a child, or one you requested for birthday parties? What was your most memorable birthday as a child?
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If you have small children, how do you deal with what seems like competition to have the biggest and best birthday party?
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* TOO MANY BIRTHDAY PARTIES? One mom confided that they run to birthday parties ALL THE TIME, because almost every child in her kids’ classrooms invites every child (a good custom if you’re having a party), but that makes at least 20 parties a year! She gets a batch of gift certificates from our wonderful Green Valley Book Fair to have on hand so they’re not constantly needing to go buy stuff.
** BEST CHURCH POTLUCK EVER. You can win a free Mennonite Community Cookbook (new 65th anniversary edition) over at Mennobytes blog, by entering a photo of favorite potluck dish in the “Best Church Potluck Ever” and a short essay of 50 words of less of why you like church potlucks (if you do. Not everyone does!). Don’t worry about the best essay or the best photo–the drawing will be random, not judged! Deadline June 15, 2015.
***
Buy Mennonite Community Cookbook here or check out all the other great cookbooks from Herald Press.
Pier at Sunset Beach, NC
Maybe it was because I grew up so far from an ocean
that the first time I ever saw the sea,
I was hooked.
Ever since, I have felt that same visceral thrill almost every time we have driven to the sea;
crossing over that last bridge or peninsula to an island or beach where the sea gulls swoop–
opening the car window you get a rush of salty sea breeze
and if you are riding with one of my siblings,
someone is sure to squeal “eeeeeeeee!” with unbridled glee.
Sam + James First Beach 2015
Maybe it was this deep love for the sea that made me especially happy to introduce my two grandsons to its thrills and wonders in early May.
Sam’s first good look at the beach. He’s ready, crab shirt and all!
First sandcastle.
The water was too cold for Sam, but slinging sand to his bucket was fun.
James, Brian and Michelle upon James’ first look at beach.
What’s not to love about a wide open space to walk?
Oooh, this water is cold, Mommy.
It had been six years since I’d been to a beach. Oh happy day.
***
One of my favorite pictures this trip, though, was not captured by me or anyone else in our family, nor will I ever see it, short of an online miracle. Here’s the story.
My mother had access to a wonderful wheelchair which we dubbed the “beachmobile,” provided (free) by the beach town of Sunset Island. It had tire tubes for wheels, the better to roll over the sand. (Check all that PVC piping for a frame!) But Mom, at almost 91, is normally someone who maintains a strict exercise regimen walking at least five times a week—outside if the weather is fit and inside in her apartment complex if it isn’t. So she wasn’t about to go to the beach and not actually walk on it.
Still, and especially after a fall at my sister’s house, she wanted to be cautious, so she asked that my sister and I take her hand on each side.
So we walked that way down the beach: two sagging sisters in their 60s, holding the hands of their frail and thinnest-she’s-ever-been 115-pound mother. Mom reminisced about how she usually walked the beach alone; even when Dad was able to get out on a beach, how he much preferred to swim, just fall asleep in the sand, or jump waves with the kids. She talked about how she envied other women walking with their husbands, which always looked so romantic. Thus her normal beach walks were times of solitary reflection which casts its own kind of redemptive spell for a harried mother and homemaker.
As we walked, we became aware of another beach walker some 20 feet behind us, and both my sister and I noticed her snapping a photo of our threesome with her phone.
The woman caught up to us and said “That is so precious. You should be on a postcard.” We laughed and she wanted to know how old Mom was. “That will be me in a few years,” she noted.
I wouldn’t have minded having the photo but the moment was soon gone. My sister, after the woman went on her way added, “Yeah, we probably looked like one of those funny postcards showing the backsides of old wrinkly ladies at the beach.”
Some “photos” are best only in our memories.
***
Our beach party included a pair of precious one-year-olds, two kids newly in double digits, some 20- and 30-something young adults, a late-30s dad, and us older ones, all making tracks and memories in the sand. In my previous beach post, I said I did not expect to go in the ocean much over my ankles, it being the first couple days of May in North Carolina, but the sun was warm. Finally I sucked up my breath and rode a few waves and got my hair wet without going under.
But our favorite stroll was an evening when the full moon cast brilliant moonshine over the waves. We had a great time photographing it, and photographing each other doing so.
I was so reminded of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s beautiful book, Gift from the Sea:
For a full day and two nights I have been alone. I lay on the beach under the stars at night alone. I made my breakfast alone. Alone I watched the gulls at the end of the pier, dip and wheel and dive for the scraps I threw them. … And it seemed to me, separated from my own species, that I was nearer to others: the willet … the sand piper … the pelicans … the old gull. I felt a kind of impersonal kinship with them and a joy in that kinship. Beauty of earth and sea and air meant more to me. I was in harmony with it, melted into the universe, lost in it, as one is lost in a canticle of praise, swelling from an unknown cathedral. “Praise ye the Lord, all ye fishes of the sea—all ye birds of the air—all ye children—Praise ye the Lord.” (Psalm 148: 7, paraphrased)
(Gift from the Sea, Twentieth Anniversary Edition, 1975, Vintage Books/Random House, p. 43)
***
What are the “photos” which linger only in your mind?
***
Are you a beach lover? Why or why not?
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For more from my newspaper column, head over to Third Way website and find Another Way.
So we went on a family vacation to Sunset Beach, North Carolina May 2-6. Yes, that is a little early for beach weather even in the Carolinas, but we got lucky. The weather was warm and lovely for the three days my husband and I we were able to be there. (So fortunate to have missed the first named tropical storm of the season, Ana just a week later in the same area!)
Since it was early May, I said I wasn’t going to go in the ocean much over my ankles. I’m chilly by nature, so I figured I’d freeze. I’d wade like a proper grandmother of two, play with the little ones in the sand, and walk the beach.
Nephew Scott trying out the paddleboard.
The first thing I knew there was my nephew, Scott, walking on water, kind of. Scott was standing up on a paddleboard which looks like a surfboard but is flat, and paddling like he steered a gondola everyday. This was on a calm canal behind the beach house we were using. But then, Scott’s a strong and agile guy just in his late 30s.
It looked cool, but no way was I going to do that.
Scott, left, and sister Pert on paddleboard. Yay Pert!
The next thing I knew there was my next older sister standing up on the paddleboard like she surfed everyday.
The ante was upped. And I was back in my childhood where siblings egg each other on to do things they maybe wouldn’t ordinarily do. If Pert could do it, two years older, I would have to, too.
Besides, it was free, provided by the beach house owner. And it would make a great blog brag, right?
Should I go upstream first, which was harder, or float downstream?
Later that day, indeed I tried my sea legs on the paddleboard, with plenty of support and suggestions for how to stand, wide-legged, for better balance. I didn’t venture very far, but checked another thing off my imaginary bucket list.
Blue skies ahead! I matched my sister and upped the ante again.
I knew my oldest sister—actually more of a daredevil than I but with more health issues—would not be able to let her little sisters outdo her.
Oldest sister Nancy on the paddleboard, with her grandson, Stone, backing her up. Yay Nan!
Cha-ching! Three sisters in their sixties all passed the paddleboard test, and no one ended up getting wet.
A couple days later my nephew talked my husband into trying out the kayak that was also sitting on the dock wanting to get wet. Stuart has long wanted to try kayaking, but never really had or made the opportunity. With some mobility issues, he knew it wouldn’t be easy getting in and out. Scott said “Better do it while you have a chance” and talked him through it and also provided some muscle getting out.
Stuart, left with nephew Scott alongside.
But more than just daring each other to go further than we’d gone before in adventures, its great when family members keep you going in other ways as well: encouragement, praise, constructive criticism, hugs, a helping hand, support across many miles. When the going is tough, as it has been many times in the past for our wider family and just as it surely will be in the future, I thank God for sibs to share the daring-do and the holding each other.
Stone, left, accepting a rescue paddle from younger sister, Megan.
As a fitting example of sibs sticking together, we all enjoyed watching “baby sister” Megan “rescue” her 13-year-old brother Stone (Scott’s kids) a day or so later when Stone launched the paddleboard without remembering to take along a paddle. She got in the kayak and brought him a paddle. Aw, how sweet. Aren’t sibs great?
Not to say others can’t step in and be there for “only” children. Sibling-like ties can come through love and a long or shared history, and stepping in and up as needed.
Who has your back?
***
Do you have each other’s back or are you more like constantly quibbling puppies?
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Or, any stories of how a sibling, young or old, egged you to try a new stunt? Or a new skill? Results?
Pert and Kathy’s new pugs, sibs Thelma and Louise. You’ll meet the great vet hospital where they hang out in a later blog post.
Our church helped host Open Doors, a roving community thermal homeless shelter hosted in area churches a few weeks back (the program runs from November until April). This year I signed up to make food. Mary Lou McMillin, a wonderful cook and hostess sent me this recipe the planners had organized for one night, called simply “One Pot Dinner.” It includes several kinds of beans, ground beef, and bacon—loaded with protein which helps fire the fuel that keeps us warmer, internally.
While the shelter is great resource overnight, all guests must be back out on the street by 7 a.m., which is sometimes a brutally cold and harsh reminder of the reality of life on the streets. Other years I’ve cleaned the bathrooms in the morning and for me it was hard to see them having to get up and vacate so early. Some of course go to jobs even as they seek shelter overnight with the program, as they try to get back on their feet and save up enough money for a rent deposit.
At any rate, this is a hearty and flavorful meal for anytime you want an easy dinner ready after work, or to take to a potluck. I’m sure it’s tasty even without the extra flavor of the bacon, if you want to skip that, and you can substitute the beans of your choice. We enjoyed the small dish I set aside for our own evening dinner.
One Pot Dinner
1 lb ground beef
¾ lb bacon, cut in small pieces
1 cup chopped onion
1 can (15 oz size) pork ‘n beans
1 can (15 oz size) black beans
1 can (15 oz) kidney beans
1 can (15 oz ) lima beans
1 cup ketchup
¼ cup brown sugar
3 Tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper
Brown ground beef in skilled; drain off fat and put beef in crock pot. Brown bacon and onions; drain off fat. Add bacon and onions and remaining ingredients to crock pot. Stir together well. Cover and cook on low for 4-9 hours.
Beans before cooking in crock pot.
Add salad and bread for a complete meal.
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Do you have a go-to crock pot meal you love? Or, have you helped with a homeless shelter at your church or elsewhere? Reflections? Have you been homeless–or had to couch surf for awhile? It happens in the best of families.
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Rhapsody on Redbuds
I finally have a redbud tree.
Or perhaps it has me.
The redbud has long held me in its thrall.*
I’m thrilled that planting a free Arbor Day redbud seedling about seven years ago was all it took. We planted two and they are thriving.
Redbud trees are so hardy, springing up everywhere in the wild especially on the edge of forests.
I never knew what a redbud tree was, or even that there was such a thing, growing up in northern Indiana. Or maybe I was just ignorant and flower-poor. I certainly don’t think we had them growing there wild, in woods and byways everywhere. I’ve read that Chicago is about as far north as they grow well.
But I lived in the mountains of eastern Kentucky as a volunteer “teacher” the year after I graduated from high school and became acquainted with the Eastern Redbud, native to the U.S. My roommate hailed straight out of the desert surrounding Phoenix, Arizona, so she was the first one I heard rhapsodizing on redbuds. She would go on about the beautiful springs in Kentucky, stunned by so much green. She loved the dogwood too, and the interlacing of white blooms and purplish pink. It was only my 19th spring and having lived in only two places, I too fell in love with the rampant redbud. Something about the artistry of its dark branches accented by bright purple, looking like Japanese wall décor, maybe. The Chicago Tribune, where I was reading about the redbud, says they “set flowers on the bark, which trace the outline of the branches.” Ah, yes, that’s it!
Of course a redbud is more purple and pink than red. That’s why people get confused when they first start looking for or noticing the beauty of redbuds. Conversations go something like this: “What are those purplish pink trees along the road?” “Redbud.” “No, the flowers are purple.” “Yes, that’s redbud.” Would you call the flowers fuchsia?
However you describe them, I think it is the way the tiny blossoms lace through our barely turning woods on these Virginia mountainsides that speak to me of joy and new life and wonder after the long hard winter. Tints of soft green on other woodland trees paint a gentle contrast.
Our redbud just two years ago.
My sister, with some experience as a groundskeeper at a campground, told me how to prune it early, so that we wouldn’t have two or three trunks, and allow it to focus its strength growing into a main trunk. That was hard and painful. What if I pruned back the wrong one? As I inspected other redbuds that just sprang up wild near my office, I knew that many could prosper with several trunks growing closely together.
Yet we wanted this to be more of a tree than a bush, with a hardy trunk to withstand the wind on our knoll. Like these older, nursery redbuds which have long graced the parking lot at my office.
I’m happy we pruned the extra stems back, and can now imagine this tree with sturdy limbs and delighting us each spring with a new, if short lived, show.
Applause for the Creator of all things wild and beautiful, from one small creature here.
The redbud speaks to me spiritually, pointing me to beauty, to hope, to thriving life in the midst of the hardships of forest life.
***
* “Thrall: The state of being … under the sway of an influence.”
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What is your favorite flowering tree? What for you is the best part of Spring where you live?
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Or what have you pruned in your life that was painful, but for which you were eventually glad ?
The little backyard playhouse had to be happy.
It was once again enjoying the pitter patter of little feet.
Little guys Sam and James finally are old enough, and walk well enough, to go out and visit the little white and red playhouse that their great grandfather first made, and their grandfather, grandmother and one of the mothers helped restore.
The project had waited for years; it was sorely in need of a new roof, new siding and trim, and once they got into it, a few replacement rafters. Yet it is easy to put off such a project, especially when no grandchildren seemed imminent. But in the fall of 2012, Michelle suggested she take a week of vacation—she had more vacay time to use up than her husband, Brian, and come for a week and launch the grand playhouse restoration.
It would take us almost a year to complete, including moving the project indoors to the garage so work could continue through the winter. You can read the back story here, including the joyful discovery they made once they got into the inside paneling of the playhouse. We were also grateful for Uncle Brett who added some muscle as we carefully moved the finished, refurbished playhouse back outside.
Uncle Brett on the ground helping set up the restore playhouse,
with neighbor Harold (tipping hat) after moving the playhouse with his tractor.
But that’s history. Sam and James won’t understand all that for some time. I had observed how much fun both Sam and James had removing pots and pans from the cupboards in their own home kitchens.
I knew they were ready to enjoy the pint-sized cupboards and the old plastic dishes their mothers and aunt played with.
Never mind boys maybe aren’t supposed to play “house.” In time, we fully expect the playhouse to become a hideout, a fort, a sleepover place, an anything-they-want-it-to-be hangout. And if they end up “serving take out” through the drive up window like their mothers and aunt, so be it. That’s how we’ll roll.
Easter weekend, 2015, with Sam and James in wagon, James’s mother Michelle; 2nd row: Sam’s mother Tanya and Michelle’s husband Brian; back row: Stuart and daughter Doreen. Sam’s dad Jon had to work that weekend. Playhouse in background.
They, and other cousins who we hope may eventually join them, can use it and their imaginations to create their own worlds. Perhaps a space station. An underwater sea lab. A no-girls-allowed club?
How happy their great grandfather would be, to know the little playhouse is ready for a new generation. I know I’m very happy to have it ready for little ones again!
Stuart, Dad, and 18-month-old Michelle building the playhouse in 1982.
Pitter patter. The march of generations goes on.
***
Does play across traditional gender roles get your affirmation? What have you observed in your children or grandchildren?
When as a Yankee I married a Virginian, one of my first cooking lessons was learning to fry chicken. My husband’s brothers and my new sister-in-law were all great southern fried chicken fixers. Unfortunately, my husband himself never really learned. With two big brothers who could cook who took over the kitchen, why learn yourself, right?
The brothers did so well in the kitchen because their dear mother, Estella, who I never had the pleasure of even meeting, died in her late 50s of complications from crippling rheumatoid arthritis (and this was before modern treatments for RA). She, by all accounts, was an awesome cook and lovely woman. I wish I could have known her.
At any rate, I knew before I said “I do,” I would have to learn to fry good chicken. It was something they had almost every Sunday for dinner. So I mostly learned by watching my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and pumping them for hints.
They said to use a coating of flour, poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, and paprika and a little baking powder. Roll the chicken pieces in milk, dip in the coating mixture (or throw the mixture in a bag and shake until coated). They used cast iron skillets; my early attempts at seasoning a cast iron skillet and keeping it that way didn’t work out so well but maybe it’s time I try again.
So currently I cook mine in a stainless steel large skillet with a lid, in about a half inch of melted shortening. For many years while the children were home, I made fried chicken for most Sunday dinners since that was traditional at Stuart’s house. We’d have chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and sometimes cole slaw. Until we got home from church and I got all that cooked, it was often at least 1:30 until we ate. Now, I can’t believe I did that so often.
There are many other ways we like chicken; among them: barbecued, breast meat or tenders sautéed lightly in olive oil, baked in a coating of Italian dressing, cheesy chicken which I talked about here. But my husband feels the bones and juices of a cut up chicken add so much flavor to the finished product that if I want to treat him, I put on my best Paula Deen accent, my apron, and fry away.
I ran across this knock off recipe for KFC Chicken and thought it was worth a try. It was! A bit of work, but for a special dinner, it was fun to see how close it came to that traditional fastfood favorite. (But as cheap as rotisserie chicken is these days, usually a raw chicken from the meat aisle costs more than a fully cooked hen, rotisserie style. A way to get people in stores, of course, where we pick up other items.)
So, you can try the Davis method described above for a shortened recipe for the coating, or this:
KFC Chicken
1 chicken cut up
3 beaten eggs
4 Tablespoons oil – or more
Coating
2 cups flour
4 tsp. paprika
2 ½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. tarragon
½ tsp. garlic salt
½ tsp. onion salt
½ tsp. celery salt*
Place flour and spices in a clean plastic or paper bag. Begin heating oil. Coat chicken with beaten eggs, then put pieces in bag with flour mix, one at a time. When oil is hot carefully put chicken pieces in fry pan. Brown slowly on medium heat on one side, uncovered. After about 15 minutes or when pieces or nicely browned, turn pieces over. Cover skillet and keep cooking on gentle/low heat another 30 minutes or more if the chicken was very large. Remove lid for last 5-7 minutes to make crispier chicken. Drain on plate covered with paper towel. Serves 4-6.
*Yes, that’s a lot of salt, all together. You can omit any of the last six spices without noticeable difference in the outcome.
***
Was there any traditional food your spouse loved that you learned to like or make?
What traditions did you have for Sunday dinner?
***
There are numerous places to find knock off KFC recipes online and they vary a great deal! Here are some I found and would like to experiment with; cooking methods vary from deep fat fryer to pressure cookers to cast iron skillet.
http://www.food.com/recipe/kfc-original-recipe-chicken-copycat-393795
http://homecooking.about.com/od/chickenrecipes/r/blchicken46.htm
There’s been another male sharing my bed for the last eight years.
I first fell in love with him when my daughter sent a somewhat desperate email in 2008 with his picture. He had beautiful blue eyes and a mane of soft luxurious hair. He was so so so cute!
OK so I need to stop with the Buzzfeed type gotcha lead-in sentences; yes, Riley was a cat. And now he’s dearly departed. And I miss the old guy like, well, like a sweet buddy who has devotedly followed you around for eight years.
A friend of my daughter’s roommate was seeking a new home for her eight-year-old cat, Riley. She was facing that frequent dilemma: my boyfriend or my cat? The boyfriend apparently won out; she said it tore her heart in two, but she needed to find a loving home for Riley.
My daughter brought him home to us for a weekend visit, to see if he adjusted to us and we to him. He was Himalayan and the most gorgeous cat (in my eyes) we ever owned: beautiful white coat of long fur and azure eyes. After cowering a few hours behind my washing machine in the utility room, he came out and eventually made up to us.
He was sociable, debonair, devoted, and dignified. He amused our visiting female family members by sitting on, playing in, and sniffing their intimate clothing if they happened to leave items laying on a floor or bed somewhere.
His previous owner, or someone, had had his claws removed, which meant he was an indoor cat. Or should have been, but the call of the wild “I wanna go out”* was strong. Guardedly, we allowed him walkabouts since we live in the country. He would step gingerly on the grass as if luxuriating in the thick carpet. We watched him closely, for fear neighbor dogs or dipping hawks would spy the slow and juicy target, since he had no claws to defend himself.
But basically he was a pampered indoor cat who nobly tolerated our dogs, first Fable and more recently, the new kid on the block, Velvet. We owned another stray when Riley moved in with us, by name of Pixie. Pixie developed an open sore which would not heal, likely cancer, and had to be put down a year or two later. Eventually my youngest daughter, living at home a few years post college, pleaded to adopt newborn Paisley, a farm cat whose mother died and needed not only a home, but early syringe feedings. The two cats were a picture; I took lots.
So Riley ruled our animal world with his gentle ways. As he grew older, his soft fur grew more matted. We had to have him shaved at the beginning of most summers. They say a cat’s tongue loses some of its natural roughness which enables them to comb out tangles.
Sharing a water bowl with new dog, Velvet.
In the last two years he also began having thyroid problems causing him to urinate frequently; we consulted a vet, who wanted to put him on medication and a special diet. As a Himalayan, he was subject to hairballs and frequent vomiting anyway, all his life. I’d love to have the money back I spent on paper towels. But we were reluctant to invest heavily in medical care for an aging cat. I did not wish to manage keeping our two cats apart while eating, especially through the day when we were both gone.
About two weeks ago he could no longer jump up onto the bathroom counter to get a drink, which he adored. His barely ate. I sensed his time was ending.
Our family came home for Easter and grandson Sam discovered the joys of Riley, even though Riley was less sure about his new little friend.
The Sunday after Easter, Riley enjoyed what turned out to be one final walkabout.He pushed his way out the patio door onto our gated deck, where I thought he could safely take in the fine spring day. But then he slithered through the rails of the deck and jumped to the ground, even though our dog was right below, playing with neighbor dog, “Blue.” Velvet and Blue just kind of stood back and followed the old guy as he took his lingering walk to the newly tilled garden.
He headed back of our shed, and I think he might have just kept on walking through the pasture, maybe down to our woods to pass away quietly, I don’t know. But we intervened of course, brought him back inside. We worried through Monday night. Tuesday morning I could see his breathing was very shallow. I covered him with a towel. He did not seem to be in great pain. Should we put him down, shorten his suffering? I decided to go home over lunch on Tuesday and resolved to call the vet if he was still struggling. I had a busy day (and week) but thought I could squeeze in a humanitarian visit to the vet. But Riley saved us and himself a final, possibly painful move and trip. He was at peace. We buried him on a knoll overlooking our land, near the dog, Fable.
Can you find all three pets in this picture?
This past Saturday morning doing my routine cleaning, I found a small clump of his hair near a wastebasket in the bathroom. It was a piece I’d trimmed out earlier. Oh. Such soft fur. Such a sweet cat. He will live on in pictures, memories, and stories. 
As is always the case when we lose a loved one, I had flashbacks of “oh he should be sitting there in his chair.” No Riley hopping up onto the bar stool beside me as we eat. No begging for that morsel of buttered toast he’d come to love. No climbing up beside me and plopping himself in front of my computer monitor, to my annoyance. 
I’d coax him to the side, tell him to sit over there, and I tapped the desk impatiently to show him where. Some of these things I’ll miss. Some of them I am happy to have over. Pets are a good reminder of the care needs we all have as we age.
The truth is, I was not that much of a cat person. Riley charmed his way into my heart with his big blue eyes. I would have to count him as the first cat I called “mine.” Oh, as a Mom, I may have been chief cat caretaker but seldom really took time to do more than feed, water, clean litter boxes, take them for shots, and perfunctorily pet them now and then.
Riley was one of God’s creatures who needed love and care: we gave him both. He gave back his own devotion and affection. I will always remember his eight year sojourn in our home.
RIP Sir Riley Davis — 2000-2015; shown here with Fable, our dog from 2001 – 2013. I wrote about Fable’s passing here. We buried them near the same spot.
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Have you ever had a pet who you came to love unexpectedly? How? I’d love to hear.
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My thanks to Pert Shetler and Kathy Duford at Waterway Animal Hospital for all of their informal pet advice.
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The Garrison Keillor Cat Song can be found here:
Harrisonburg’s Green Hummingbird Fair Trade Clothing Store
There I was sitting in the first row beside a fashion model’s runway. We’ve all seen the runways on TV or magazines—sparkly lights, photographer flashes going off, models strutting with exaggerated sways down the “catwalk.” What was I doing there?
Emily Estep, model, junior at JMU.
It wasn’t a New York or Paris runway of course but a humble Harrisonburg set up in the Madison Ballroom over at James Madison University, organized by JMU communication students. For a “senior project” they were trying out their skills in a practical, real job type environment, putting on a fashion show: promotion, media contacts, programs, music, models, door prizes, speeches or narration, refreshments.
But the real reason I came was in support of a friend from our church, Eleanor Held, whose own store’s fashions at Green Hummingbird were featured in the fashion show.
Eleanor, owner
This isn’t just any clothing store—but a “fair trade” boutique she opened late last summer, stemming from her faith and beliefs in trying to trying to help others.
Eleanor’s Green Hummingbird is set on the south edge of a revitalizing business area of Harrisonburg, a stone’s throw from Harrisonburg’s bustling Farmer’s Market. It’s the first store students come to on a longish walk downtown from campus. Students headed to the ever-popular Klines Dairy Bar see the store, as well as those angling toward the longtime novelty store, Glen’s Fair Price, or hankering for the renowned hotdog dive, Jess’ Lunch.
Ann Held talks with fashion show attendees.
Eleanor is hoping students with disposable income (a sizeable chunk of the JMU crowd) will be the bread and butter for her store—and the rice, beans, and medical care for thousands of families around the world. She envisions the clothing she sells offering children the opportunity to continue their education instead of toiling in dangerous, unhealthy and exploitative conditions. (Think about the “play” kids miss when tied to a carpet loom all day.) The beautifully embroidered or hand sewn purses, scarves, dresses, tops, jackets, sweaters and more (including handmade jewelry) is only part of the “feel good hum” you leave with when you buy something from “The Humm” as Eleanor abbreviates her store’s name.
Two of the fashion show models checking out merchandise after the show.
Fair trade, of course, works to create opportunities for artisans and farmers all over the world but especially those in countries where long time poverty limits access to “long term, well-paying jobs,” according to the Fair Trade Federation’s operating statements. They have a long and admirable list of guidelines and as Eleanor addressed the 40 some students (mostly female) at the Thursday night show, she spoke of having connections through suppliers who work directly with the artisans whose products she carries. One of the things that fair trade fights is sweat shop conditions, and as Eleanor succinctly put the concept, “Think of fair trade as the opposite of sweatshops.”
Models pose at end of show.
As the models (including one guy) strode the runway (they walked so fast my camera wasn’t set well to capture it!) in eye-pleasing summer fashions including colorful gaucho or “harem” type pants made out of recycled Indian saris, thoughts of sweatshops and ethical fair trade might seem far out of the minds of the college kids mostly thinking about acquiring cute clothes for the next party.
But I’m guessing the student attendees and those who put on the show couldn’t help but be impressed by Eleanor’s story of how just nine years ago as she herself was graduating from college, running or owning a small store was furthest from her mind. “Not for me,” she put it.
Model Melanie Robinson
Eleanor didn’t go into these details but I know a little of her history as she pondered what she would do with her ideals, interests and passions. She spent a year working as an intern for a church and eventually got a master’s in religion and society among other things. For this audience Eleanor zeroed in on the time she spent at Stony Point Conference Center near New York City, where she was able to help manage a fair trade store gift shop for conferees and the local community. The idea of running a similar shop began to grow in her mind, but focused on clothing, to give customers the chance to see, touch, and try on the actual clothing. Our town has its share of fair trade stores but none focused on clothing.
At an intermission between the show’s “First Walk” and “Second Walk,” Eleanor shared the story of why she named her store “Green Hummingbird,” certainly an offbeat name fitting the somewhat unusual clothing.
The name comes from a folk story from Africa as told by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathi. In the middle of the forest, one day the forest caught fire. As all the animals stood by, horrified that their homes were slowly burning to the ground, a little hummingbird started flying to a nearby stream. She scooped drops of water into her beak, and flew back and forth from the stream to the fire, squirting out drops in an effort to put out the flames. The other animals chided her. “What are you doing?” they asked. “What good can you possibly do? You are just a tiny hummingbird. What can one bird do?”
The green hummingbird simply responded, “I am doing the best that I can.”
We can all do the best we can as the little hummingbird did by supporting and patronizing fair trade stores and products whenever possible, especially in buying gifts: a gift that gives at least three ways: to the artisan and the family, to the local store owner including young and unlikely entrepreneurs like Eleanor, and the loved one with whom we share a gift.
While some fair trade stores tend to be expensive in order to make sure the workers get a fair price, Eleanor keeps her prices—and her cut—on the lower side. She’s not in this to get rich.
Check out her store, visit her website and like her Facebook page for Green Hummingbird. That’s something anyone can do!
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A current slogan promoting JMU is “Be the Change.” Fit’s Eleanor’s store quite well, I’d say. JMU’s student newspaper, The Breeze, also featured the fashion show, here.
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What’s a Fair Trade store near you? What are your favorite things there? The tea and mug set I often feature in my recipe photography is a tea set from our local Artisans’ Hope store, given to me for serving as chair of Anabaptist Communicators for a two-year term. I love the tea set and think often of the hands in Vietnam who formed and painted it! Harrisonburg is also blessed with a Ten Thousand Villages fair trade store just up the street from Eleanor’s Green Hummingbird.
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Memo to me: If you ever cover a fashion show again, set your simple camera to sports action!
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For more background on Eleanor and why she got interested in Fair Trade, visit my weekly newspaper column on this topic, Another Way.
At Least 60 Things I’ve Known
So you’re a 60 something person struggling with technology or to bring a friend’s name to the brain or finding yourself calling your dog or cat by a prior dog or cat’s name—for the third time in one day.
So what. So you forget a few things.
These are the things that I have crammed into my brain from since approximately the age of two.
- Which shoe goes on which foot, and in general, right from left.
- How to get peas on a spoon.
- Your childhood telephone number, which in my case was 838-J. Yes, I go back that far.
- How and when to say please and thank you.
- How to count to 100 and onward.
- How to count backwards from 100.
- My ABC’s and eventually, in Spanish.
- The multiplication tables.
- How to do long division.
- The notes and names of the musical scale.
- My social security number.
- The zip codes for all the places I’ve ever lived, plus for some of my relatives.
- How to conjugate Spanish verbs, including the irregular ones.
- My husband’s social security number.
- My daughters’ social security numbers, which I knew for many years but thankfully don’t have to keep up with any longer.
- The names of everyone in my fourth grade class, most of which I can still remember.
- The names of the five Great Lakes in or bordering the U.S.
- The names of everyone in my freshman class in high school, of which I forget a few.
- The names of everyone living on my freshman hall in college, whose names I mostly now forget.
- The cell phone numbers of all my immediate family. The phone numbers of my mother, my husband’s brothers, and my one sister. The others have changed their numbers too often for me to remember.
- Passwords on my work computer.
- How to use Word Perfect, Excel spreadsheets (kind of), Microsoft Word, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest (kind of), Instagram (hardly there yet).
- The names of every pastor I’ve ever had, and most of the people in the churches where I’ve been a member.
- My most recent pastor’s address and phone number.
- The names of my husband’s friends, my children’s friends, their spouses, their in-laws.
- The names of my doctors, (and know the phone numbers for some).
- How many surgeries I’ve had and the approximate dates of hospitalization, plus those of my children.
- How many states I’ve been to.
- The names of the countries I’ve visited.
- The names of all my nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, steps and if pushed, the great steps and more.
- The makes of all the vehicles my husband and I have owned.
- Countless novels, poems, characters, and writers from my studies as an English major in college. Ok, I crammed them in my brain once, I didn’t say they are still there.
- The names of all the presidents of the United States. Oh, wait, I never learned them, but my children all have it down, compliments of the old Animaniac song “George Washington was first you see, he once chopped down a cherry tree…” (to the tune of the William Tell Overture). Why couldn’t that song been around when I was young enough to have learned it!
- 300 Bible verses memorized for Bible Memory Camp, a program which was around when I was young enough to learn them.
- Most of the abbreviations on the periodic table of elements. (Of course now there’s a song for that too.)
- Nursery rhymes.
- Songs learned in my childhood from dime store 45 rpm records Mom brought us every week when she bribed us to stay home with Grandpa and Grandma at our house so she could sneak off to town by herself. Now I understand the bribe.
- How to play piano. Somewhat.
- The names of most instruments in a typical orchestra or symphony.
- What I planted in the garden last year (ok, that is only with the help of a gardening journal).
Names of dozens of flowers, trees and shrubs. Not nearly as much as some people know, but, some.- How to fold contour sheets so they look neat in a cupboard.
- SAT verbal analogy questions like: crumb is to bread as splinter is to wood.
- The yearly deadline for FAFSA student aid (and if you don’t think that’s important or easy to overlook, you haven’t put three kids through college).
- How to pant properly through a contraction.
- How to do a down-dog, plank, lunge or child’s pose.
- How to write a book.
- How to write a script for a TV documentary.
- How to produce a radio program.
- How to edit a magazine.
- How to write a news article, a feature, a tweet.
- How to make change.
- How to pump up a resume without lying.
- Names of all my aunts and uncles on both sides and at least the first cousins.
- Names of all my spouses’ aunts and uncles on both sides and at least the first cousins.
Photo by the late Polly Fryecousins.
- Birthdays.
- How to sew a dress, skirt, blouse, jacket, slacks.
- How to raise bread—without stopping to read all the directions.
- The words and tunes for many many beloved hymns.
- Finally, I’ve learned that you no longer need to really memorize most of this stuff when you have a smart phone and Google at your fingertips.
I hope my list brought to mind many of the great and silly and important things we cram into our brains over the years. And we can’t purchase and install a bigger memory card.
It is no wonder we can’t remember them all, or I forget my boss’s wife’s name when trying to introduce her to someone!
What have I forgotten to put on this list?
What comes to mind for your list?
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