Tag Archives: Friends

Dilly Rolls & Ham Salad

04 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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There are many subjects I could write on this cold December night where temperatures are dropping to twenty-something — but it’s these two dill-flavored recipes that rise to the top like cream.

The reason is simple.  After an entire day of keeping house, and putting up the last of the Christmas decorations, I still find myself in the cleaning and “putting-in-order” mode — and as my recipe file has been cluttering the top of my kitchen counter since Tuesday, when I mixed up our most recent installment of ham salad, it’s time to put it up.

We had ham with our Thanksgiving turkey — and come to find out, so did Aunt Carol and the rest of my Utah family.  According to Aunt Carol, my Greek grandfather never served one without the other — as a restaurant chef for most of his life, Papa was adamant that pork always be served with turkey — he believed doing so would ward off a cold that eating turkey alone would surely deliver.

I never put much stock in Papa’s sayings.  They went in one ear, out the other — for, even as a child, I had a barometer for truth.  I had discerned at an early age that Papa was good at sandwiching truth between lies.  And one of Papa’s favorites was  how he had come to America sailing on the Titanic!

Amazingly, I heard a version of this tall tale from a cousin of a cousin just last Monday.  Ninety year-old cousin Rose (who’s not my cousin) sounded a little disappointed to hear the boring truth; it made me wonder how many miles this Titanic story had traveled over the years.

But here’s the gospel truth that I ran across last summer:  An old ship manifest of the S.S. Athinai, lists my grandfather, great-great-grandmother Kaleroy and great-great Aunt Mary as passengers from Tripoli, Greece, arriving in America on June 11, 1911.   But fifty years ago, all we knew for sure was that Papa had immigrated to the U.S. from Tripoli, Greece.  We thought he had traveled alone.  And no one knew when.  Like most of Papa’s activities, no one had specifics.   Papa had told so many lies over the years, even he had forgotten the truth.

But today I’m thinking a little more like Pilate, when he looked Jesus in the eye and said without blinking, “What is truth?”   These days I wish I had listened.  I wish I had written down Papa’s sayings because they were pretty darn cute, especially when spoken in his broken English.  Aunt Carol reminded me of this one recently — “Hurry up. Your SOUP’s getTUN’ cold!” — which he’d yell to other drivers who passed him like a speeding bullet, while he slowly made his way through the world in his 1955 “spring special” Chrysler Windsor like Mr. Magoo.

Neither of tonight’s recipes are Papa’s though they would combine nice with a bowl of soup.  The ham salad is a variation on a recipe I pulled from the internet seven or eight years ago.  And the spoon rolls  come from a nice church lady from Lake Jackson who would have a hard time telling a lie.

Before this evening, I’ve never thought of serving the ham salad on the spoon rolls —  but how good they would go together!  With or without soup.  “And that’s the truth.”

Dilly Ham Salad

Serve with crackers or enough for 4 sandwiches

In a bowl, mix together:

2 cups finely chopped honey-smoked ham (I use a food processor)
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1 1/2 tsp dried dill weed
1 Tbsp chopped green onion

In a small bowl, mix together dressing ingredients:

1 cup mayonnaise (I use Duke’s)
2 tsp. vinegar
2 tsp. sugar

Combine together and chill until serving.

Dilly Spoon Rolls

Makes 18 rolls

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (divided)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. dry dill weed
1 tsp. salt
1 pkg. yeast
1 1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup butter
1 egg

Grease 18 muffin tins.

Combine 1 1/2 cup flour with sugar, dill, salt and yeast.  Blend well and set aside.  In a small sauce pan, heat milk and butter (120 to 130 degrees F.)  Add to flour mixture with egg.  Blend, then beat 3 minutes.  Gradually add remaining flour to form a stiff batter.  Cover with tea towel and let rise 45 minutes.  Stir down and spoon into greased muffin tins.  Let rise for another 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Bake rolls for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.  Turn out on cooling rack and serve warm with butter.

Overcoming Hurdles

15 Wednesday Sep 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

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My friend Anne doesn’t ‘do’ computers. But no hurdle is high enough to stand in Anne’s way;  the one she cleared Sunday evening  — of tracking down her long lost friend ‘me’ —  took over three months and help from her husband and oldest daughter.

It had been twenty-four years since Anne and I had talked.  And before that, ten.  Two conversations in the space of thirty-four years is scary witness of the fragility of personal relationships.  Once a close friend,  Ann served as one of my three bridesmaids; she was a staple of high school years, though seeds of friendship were first sown in the sixth grade Camp Fire group which my mother led.   I had forgotten this last connection until Anne reminded me of it Sunday night.  But, of course, the intervening years and physical distance lulled me into forgetting something more important.

While I was forgetting, Anne has been in the business of making connections.   That’s how Anne approaches each day — she wakes up and says out loud to God, “Okay God, what are we going to do together today?” I’m not kidding.  And I don’t think Anne is either.  Because Anne lives her life doing one good deed after another.

Anne littered our two-hour conversation with evidence, though not to make a case.  She talked in the matter-of-fact way of catching me up on the last 34 years of her life.    Until recently, Anne devoted  herself to the care of an elderly woman.   They had no ties to one another, but a tie was built, as the eighty-year old grew to depend upon Anne’s time.

As I write, Ann has a young mother and an infant living with her — Anne offers free care to the infant so that the young mother can work.  And there have been eleven other  people before this, people who needed a helping hand and a place to call home.

A few weeks ago Anne ran into a woman in K-Mart, while picking up some little item.  She noticed a customer with a shopping cart full of  household goods.  The cart proved catalyst for good conversation — one sentence led to another before the woman told Anne she was new in town, that she was buying the household items due to her recent move.   A veteran of twelve moves herself, Anne convinced her fellow K-Mart shopper to empty her cart of those items which Anne had at home — then the woman allowed her daughter go with Anne (the stranger) to Anne’s house, so that the woman’s daughter could bring back Anne’s offering.

Anne makes light of the way she lives.  But after our conversation, I began to wonder:  What would the world come to if we had more Anne’s — if we had more strangers — or even close friends and family — like Anne?  It was news of Daddy’s death which caused Anne to overcome the hurdle Sunday night.  She tracked me down because she had read of Daddy’s death and wanted to let me know how very sorry she was.  When she heard the news about Mother, she let me know how she had loved spending time at my house growing up, how Mom and our house had been her refuge.

All that to say this:  We can never know how our lives will impact another — for good or ill.  Nor do we realize the incredible power we hold to do good for each other.  And even when aware of the simple good we do —  like making others feel welcome in our home as Mother did — even then, we can’t  fully appreciate the good that will someday grow from our own.

Good ripples through life, without boundaries.  Good overcomes hurdles.  Good even sneaks up to catch us unaware — only after we broke our connection Sunday evening did I realize… that I had been Anne’s good deed for the day.

Another Chapter

22 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Life at Home

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Oh Daddy.  It’s been a terribly long day.

I hope you’re resting easier now.  I hope the fever is gone — that all the bedding changes, necessary but tiring, are over.  How many sponge baths did you endure today?

It’s been a day for wondering.  Biggest of all, I wondered where you are  — is this just another chapter in your ongoing struggle to stay alive?  Or have we turned the page to the final chapter and don’t yet know it?  I wish I could skip ahead, just like I do with a really good book when I’m too tired to stay up any longer to read, to see how you and this particular story are going to end.

The nursing home called Sis at 1:00 AM.  Listening to the litany of indecipherable clues, Christi finally had to ask, “Are you telling me to come?”    Surprisingly, there was no pause.  “If he were my father, I would.”   It really does help to cut through the vagueness with sharp, penetrating questions.  I need to remember to do this more often.

Christi threw on a jacket, brushed her teeth and picked up her eyeglasses and her purse before she hurried into the dark to sit by your side.  She could have woke up Jane to go with her.  But she decided to drive herself instead.

The drive was thirty minutes.  Quick.  No traffic.  She had a full tank of gas.  And by this time, Christi is a well-oiled machine.  Christi can respond to your distress calls with no need for help.  Wouldn’t you say, Daddy, that Christi has grown up a lot over the last eleven months?

Of course, just because we can doesn’t mean we should.  We aren’t made to go it alone, are we?  I know Daddy, how relieved you must have been to see Christi’s face when she walked in the door at 1:45.   Can you blame her if Christi wasn’t similarly relieved?

It didn’t take Christi but a few minutes to call me.  An hour and a half later I walked in with Jon.  It was 3:15.   Christi waited until a more decent  6:00 AM to call Jane.  And an hour later, Jane walked in with Aunt Jo.  Where else would mother’s sisters be, but by the remnants of mother’s family?

It was a long terrible day.  But Daddy, even though you were mostly oblivious to it all, there were moments of terrible beauty throughout it.

The hospice team we engaged are wonderful.  I can tell they are old pros at this business of compassionate dying.  I sense that they will steer us through whatever is to come.  The will let us know, the best that they can, where we are in your book of life.

Then there were all the kindnesses we received throughout the day.  Breakfast brought in by Jane.  Coffee and snacks made by Dottie, the manager of the nursing home kitchen.  All your nurses.  Everyone trying to make a painful process less trying.  It was only later that I thought that this is how it should always be, that we should always go out of our loving way for others.

Then there was your ever faithful sidekick Larry.  Larry didn’t at all appreciate being closed out by a wall of curtains.  I just smiled as he asked the nurse to  push back the curtains.  Larry wanted to keep his practiced eye on you.  I felt sorry for the nurse — in these days of HIPAA, what’s a compassionate nurse to do?  I offered her a helping hand — I  told her to please push back the curtains — that Larry was your family too.

What else is there to say at this point of the story?  But that I love you Daddy.  I hope you get a good night’s rest.  I hope the same for all who love you and us.  Because tomorrow promises to be another long day.  But don’t worry.  We’ll get through this.  We can hold hands through the scary parts.