You know you’re retired when you wake unsure of what you’ll do with the day then deciding to make a “torta rustica” (“rustic pie” in Italian) for breakfast. Neither Kathy nor I had ever heard of the dish when we saw it on the brunch menu of Sauces, Italian bar/restaurant attached to the not bad Hilton Garden Inn where we’d stayed after seeing Boz Scaggs the night before at the Capitol Theater in Flint, last August. They’d not made any tortas yet, so Kathy and I settled for an Italian version of frittata and eggs Benedict respectively, washed down by a couple of nice tall bloody Marys. But I vowed to check out that dish to see if it was something I could make.
The morning I first wrote this (8/7/23) was the time for that. Dr. Google had several recipes and I made an amalgam I would try. Good old open-at-6 Kroger made it possible to pick up the spinach, parsley, and cheeses I lacked.
The dish is a staple at Italian Easter tables. I held off on this blog so it would hit in Easter season. I can see why, as the layered ingredients make for a lovely display. I could find no Christian symbolism other than that Tortas, with their elaborate meat and cheese display, make a great way to end the 40-day fast of Lent.
And not just for Easter anymore! This is a dandy, fancy dish that would impress company anytime. As a pie, it begs some comparisons to quiche (which real men still won’t eat), but that’s pretty egg based whereas Torta gets its substance from cheese and vegetables, maybe one egg in the whole recipe.
All the layering makes it seem kinda fussy, but it’s really a pretty easy recipe, and so impressive at table!
So, you wanna make one? Here’s what you do. Let’s go ahead and start with the recipe card. If you want to see how the pros do it, check out (1).
See here a spread of all the ingredients (except the crust). Maybe some you may not have laying around the house. Roasted peppers? Pancetta/prosciutto? And a lotta cheese (parmesan, mozzarella, feta, ricotta). Spinach? I’m strong to the finich cause I eats me spinach (2).
Those frozen pie shells make it a whole lot easier than it could be, If you envision yourself as a pastry chef, knock yourself out! But still some TLC is required. See here as my pastry chef wifey spreads out those shells into the springboard pan. The latter is kind of important, as you don’t get those tall sides of the pie without it.
After that comes the layering. Take care with this step as you want those beautiful layers showing when you cut the pie.
She’s a beauty sitting in the oven, and even more when it comes out.
La piece de resistance comes at table. Now, Italian chefs cool their tortas to room temperature before serving. But the cutting and service deserves at least a drum roll, and maybe a little snip of Vivaldi. So you can make this a while in advance and let it set. A dish that’ll make your Easter table soar, even if you’re not Italian. Buon appetite! (that’s “bon appètit” in Italian).
So you know where it goes: years of NASA immersion, a decade of telling undergrads how to write, it can only come out as Children’s Books! That’s where my sweetie dove, big time, and we’re getting ready to reap the efforts. She’s dabbled in children’s books before, writing 2 that featured her nieces and nephews and their stuffed animals (1). But with her retirement, she’s had more time to think about the project. Word of her plans got some interest, and she went serious by joining a writer’s group and employing an actual illustrator for her books. Yes, books. She now plans 10 books showing kids across the solar system. That’ll keep her busy. The first is just about ready to go. See the cover below.
There’s even a “launch date”. She’ll be publishing on Amazon/Kindle, but is allowed a release date. That’ll be May 5th, “space day” (the day Alan Shepherd went to space). She’ll give a talk at the UofM Natural History Planetarium. Her plans are to deliver her message to elementary school groups far and wide. Should you want her to visit, contact auntieKC.com. With kids in the woke sexual sewer these days, it will be great to have them reaching for the sky.
Let’s wish her good fortune as she trains again her eyes upon the stars.
Three years ago, I wrote and published a little book about a tragic incident from my youth. I’ve recently updated it with more illustrations and have just put the update on KDP Amazon. It’s too skinny to be a paperback, but is available on Kindle for a buck. You’ll laugh you’ll cry. Take a chance.
The germ may have been planted by my dear late Uncle Jim, my mom’s baby brother. That’s him on the left.
He was never given to boast, although he had much to boast about. He played cornet in Michigan State’s marching band in their first ever Rose Bowl in 1954. He took his honors management degree to Columbus, where he earned his PhD from The Ohio State University while starting up what would become a very large family. After dabbling in academia for a year at Louisiana Tech, he took his brood back north to test the waters of the Potomac. A 32nd degree Mason, like his dad, he credits the secret handshake he gave to his interviewer for securing his post at the Department of the Interior. The job let him get outside, which he loved, but still led him into some serious bureaucratic work.
He expanded his family to 10, adopting the last two, calling them all “rugrats”. When he finally retired after 30 years in Interior, he bought a small farm in Kings County and maybe there found his true self. His grandparents had been farmers, his dad bolting for the more secure and far less strenuous urban job of fireman. Uncle Jim grew all sorts of things. His peaches were prized at the local farmers’ market. Apples, too. He loved his sweet corn, and now could enjoy it fresh picked from his own field. He grew you-cut Christmas trees and had his farm designated a Station Stewardship site for local youth groups to come learn about proper care of the land. It was there Kathy and I met up with him and wife Joan for the last time. It was 2002 and Kathy’s time at NASA was running short. Part of the tour, besides the tractor ride through the property and review of the barracks he and son Rick had built for visitors, was a trip downstairs in the main house. It was there Uncle Jim had what he called his “braggin’ wall”. In those decades of public service, he’d bumped into a lot of important people, and their pictures were up there, usually with him. I don’t think he had the pic my Aunt Dorie (Jim’s younger sister) liked to show: Jim sitting with some Saudi potentate, legs crossed, showing off his white socks atop his wing tips. Impressive looking certificates abounded, too. While I came away impressed my Uncle Jim had been a serious and accomplished person, I carried no notion home of replicating the display. Uncle Jim lived 27 years on that farm before moving in with children on the west side of the state. He died nearly 5 years ago at age 87.
Then came COVID and Kathy and I realized we each had extensive poster collections that could be displayed. Hers were space related, of course, and mine leaned to music, particularly the concert posters I’d snatched off walls back in college. We had a few up already, but now we can count in our living room 15 space posters (including a charming pic of 8-year old Kathy with John Glenn) and 10 music posters, and that’s just the upstairs. To spice up things, we have a few Michigan posters, like a print of a wolverine in the wild, signed by Don Canham and Bo Schembechler, and an aerial shot of Michigan Stadium and Crisler Arena. Downstairs, we have such things as a signed portrait of Neil Armstrong in his space suit, a composite of the 137 astronauts active in 1998, a group picture, signed, of the original 7 NASA astronauts, and a composite of mementos from Apollo 11, including a first day cover and several pins and medallions. Side rooms upstairs, especially Kathy’s office, have more.
From there we came up with an idea as I muttered to my wifey that maybe we should take the bare walls in the back hall from our bedroom to the bathroom and plaster them with the various certificates we’d garnered over the years, creating a “hall of memories”. Uncle Jim’s “braggin’ wall” was clearly the inspiration. As 2 academic strivers at it for half a century, we had plenty of impressive-looking paper. I’d framed and hung my diplomas and other medical certificates in my UofM office, so I had the head start. They were just sitting in a box waiting to go. But I don’t think I was prepared for the beast I stirred. Not only does Kathy have 3 UofM degrees to my 2, she spent some time with an outfit you may have heard about: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Besides taking us to the moon and Mars and maintaining the satellite systems that make modern life possible, they excel in producing posters, patches, and pins, of which my wife I think owns every one. Add to that she earned certificates of appreciation right and left while there, some even in Russian. The notion of a “hall of memories” followed that deep dig into our amassed poster collections, which now hang throughout our house. I’m thinking of having 1611 Harbal designated a gallery and charging admission.
But the “hall” took a little longer, and still is a work in progress. Even though Kathy got a larger area than me, she’s got it more than covered. Our bathroom has a sliding “barn” door, which Kathy discovered has enough clearance for thinly framed objects, and they’re going up as I type. Our first “viewing” was from Cora and Barb, my dear nurses from back in the day who were over for dinner. They seemed to get their biggest kick out of the line of i.d. cards I’d plastered up, letting them see the young handsome doc before they knew him. To keep up with my missus, I had to revisit my very youthful youth.
Of course, I’d saved everything. Up there now are a certificate acknowledging my service as a lieutenant in the school safety patrol in 6th grade (I actually was captain briefly) and one I earned by winning the biological sciences division in the Kalamazoo science fair when I was a junior. I’ve just framed some others to go up, including my certificate for completing the State of Michigan Pleasure Boating Safety Course in ’67, and mining the rich lode of achievements as I graduated from little Vicksburg: a general Certificate of Award from the service clubs of the ‘burg, my certificate of merit as a National Merit Scholar, recognition from the State of Michigan for outstanding performance in the state scholarship competition, and my first one from U of M, designating me as a Regents-Alumni scholar. Yes, 1970 was a very good year for me.
It’s not all certificates. Besides the i.d.s, there’s a ribbon from that science fair, the shoulder patch from the security guard uniform I wore for 4 summers at Fisher Body Comstock, the union card I carried for that job (solidarity forever!) pictures of me with my mentors Bill Arnold and Giles Bole, and the cover from Musculoskeletal Medicine which had some nice art work for my article on arthroscopy. I snuck in a pic of me with my star fellow Sara and dear colleague Ruben.
In the middle, between the two walls by the window, sits a neutral zone sharing some of our treasures. Above the window hang 3 canes, given to me by patients who no longer needed them after my treatments. Below is a bookcase containing our yearbooks (and parents’ yearbooks) plus other things, like a binder containing all my scientific papers, and another 3 binders containing all my best medical slides. On the top shelf of the bookcase sit our 2 prized trophies: Kathy’s Golden Apple for best Kinesiology teacher in 2019 and my crystal trophy from the American College of Rheumatology for my Clinical Scholar Educator Award 2003-5. I have a much bigger trophy from the 1968 Kalamazoo Science Fair Kathy wants me to display, but it’s pretty garish, and would tilt the trophy balance in my favor. Knowing Kathy, she’d find a way to go out and win or discover one to even up. There’s nothing pretty about an arms race.
Kathy’s walls blow mine away. Besides the usual certificates, there’s one from then Governor Engler and others in at least 2 languages, and of course her All America certificate (swimming), plus pictures with astronauts and celebrities (Jay Leno, Jean-Michel Cousteau). Then there’s my favorite, using the space above the transom to display her sports letters and implements. I’m looking for a spot for her swim goggles to complete the triad of her 3 sports career at College of Wooster. Wadda gal.
No, it’s not boasting at all. I look up at that wall and feel all warm and fuzzy for the many years I put into this. If you come to my house, you’ll see this only if you want to. It’s off the beaten path. But I’ll be proud to show it to you and guide you through it. It can’t match the razz-ma-tazz of my spacey wifey, but it’s me and I did it all. Better it’s up on the wall than stuck in some box or binder. Uncle Jim never got to see my wall, but his kids will.
I met my buddy Juwan at Pretzel Bell (1) Monday night. I asked him for a picture, reminding him we’d taken one together 3 1/2 years ago. I also mentioned all the mileage I got by the pic seemingly showing me taller than him. I’d maxed out at 6’8″ while Juwan was listed 6’9″ or 6’10” when playing. He stood up and snapped to full height like he was prepping for a playoff game. The new pic tells the story, and I accept it. I’ve seen my compression fractures. More concerning is how we’ve both aged. You’d think with all the stress he’s under, Juwan would show it more.
Also there was our spitfire of a woman’s basketball coach, Kim Barnes Arico. Her girls are having a better time of it this season than Juwan’s boys (18-12, 9-9 Big10 vs 8-22, 3-16 Big10). Kathy knows Kim a little and she says she’s in awe of our height. I had to remind her that Kathy is out of eligibility.
We’re still lovin’ our Wolverine hoopsters, regardless of records. Go Blue!!
Or “meer-ah-pwah”, like you Francophiles might prefer, is a concoction of simple vegetables used to flavor other dishes. It popped up as an ingredient for the octopus boil en route to octopus ceviche, which was the recipe I was pursuing. I’d heard of the concoction during my years of cooking, but never tried it. As Julia says “The mirepoix is one of fine cooking’s great inspirations, an all-purpose flavor enhancer made of finely diced sautéed onions and carrots, and often celery and ham. Used in sauces, with braised vegetable like celery or with chicken breasts poached in butter, it imparts real ‘je ne sais quoi’ of sophistication to anything it is associated with (1)”. The word mirepoix comes from the last name of a French aristocrat, the Duke Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix, whose cook is credited with establishing this mix of ingredients as a staple in French cooking in the eighteenth century. Love the French. If you’re a good cook, you can be immortal.
So, do you want to make your own mirepoix? Here’s the basic recipe very simple.
And on the blow-by-blow:
Here’s the veggies you need.
My onion was a little short of 8 oz, so I added a shallot, Always helps to add a shallot of recipes that call for any sort of alliums (2). Then you peel the carrot and chop everything, leaving a nice-looking bowl.
That goes into a skillet melting 1T butter (or ghee) on low heat. We frown on brown here. In 6-8 minutes, the onions should look translucent and thus ready. This isn’t something you want to dip your spoon into and chow down. Save it for providing some sophistication to soups, stews, and sauces. We took our half yield and dumped it in the octopus boil.
I bought my first octopus day before I first wrote this. With the Stanley Cup far off and our Wings even farther, we decided to eat it. It’s very clear you’re about to toss a once living creature in the pot.
An hour in the mix of bay leaf, mirepoix, and water renders the tentacles tender. Making something edible out of the head requires more effort, and some recipes say just toss it. Not us! The impetus to pursue this recipe came from our Florida trip. Prior to Karla Bonoff’s concert at the Murray Theater in Safety Harbor, we landed at Marker 39 Floribbean Cuisine, a funky little place with great outdoor seating (3). They had octopus ceviche on the menu and we had to try it, amazed with how good it was. I wrote it down as something I wanted to try when I got home. Next to us was a table of Ontarians, also pleased to be down here shedding the northern cold. I regaled them with tales of my Canadian citizen birth dad and Toronton baby sister. When they left, I sang them some lines from their national anthem “I stand on guard for thee!”.
Back to the cooking. Sounds like a joke “first you buy an octopus”. We found one at Whole Foods, their last. No prep other than a little rinsing, and into the boiling pot it goes, joining that mirepoix and a bay leaf. An hour later, it’s done.
Let it cool for a bit before hacking away. We threw ours in the freezer, then transferred to the fridge overnight. Very easy to work with the next morning. Tentacles sliced from the body easily to be chopped into 1” pieces. The head is supposed to be a hassle, and some recipes say just discard it. Apparently, there’s a beak involved but I didn’t encounter one. Maybe Whole Foods removed it. But I got the whole octopus. After that, it’s just basking in an acidic marinade for a couple of hours. Muy tasty. Here’s the whole recipe:
Some worry that octopus will be rubbery, but not the case here by any means. All-in-all, a wonderful dish, whether for appetizer or “soup” course, provided you don’t mind some suction cups staring up at you.
Did you ever iron your recipe cards? I just did. Several that had been in high circulation had gotten splashed, stained, and wrinkled. They just didn’t look nice anymore, despite the treats they promised. Sure, they’d still fit in the recipe box, but they deserved better. So, when I went downstairs to iron that remaining blue handkerchief from my last load, I took them with me. The silicone barrier sheets from t-shirt transfers make the process easy peasy and out emerged some nice flat recipe cards. I even ironed a recent reprint that had become a little wrinkled laying around (1). Since med school when I realized I’d better learn to enjoy the time spent doing mundane household tasks, I’ve loved ironing. Bringing order to a wrinkled piece of cloth using a dangerously hot implement has such an appeal. As my dear Grandma Slater emerged from her stroke, one of the first things she wanted to do was iron some things. I puzzled over it then but understand it now. This was bringing order out of the chaos of life, with a very predictable outcome. That stack of nicely ironed and folded things speaks to some time well spent. Not near as much call for ironing these days with Perma Press and all sorts of other conveniences. Here on Harbal I haven’t ironed a white shirt since my obsession years ago that the collar should be neat. All that comes out wrinkled and asking for attention are dishtowels, formal napkins, and handkercheifs. And I approach those with relish. We have what’s called our ‘SRO’ (sewing room, office). In it are Kathy’s sewing doo-dads, file cabinets full of important stuff, all my vinyl records, some books, most of Kathy’s 200 plus stuffed animals, and some well respected ironing equipment. The ironing board hangs on a couple hooks behind the door (2) while the iron itself sits on a gen-you-wine ”Slater Safety Stand”, an item invented and patented by my Grandpa Slater, a Grand Rapids fireman at the time (3). He’d observed that so many of the house fires he was called to were started by the woman of the house laying her hot iron on the ironing board and neglecting it. That shall not happen at Harbal! Hot iron will continue to meet wrinkles, but expect no flambé as a consequence.
References
1. Ike RW, McCoy SS. Learn labial salivary gland biopsy online. J Clin Rheumatol 29(7): 363, October 2023.c
As I unpacked the final item from our Florida trip last week – the CD holder from our car – I realized it might be high time to write this puppy up. We’d been home 5 weeks or so and I’d started the writing long ago. Time to get it done before I start forgetting the details! So here goes:
Well, that was a trip! As we pulled into our driveway Friday, we’d logged 2,926 road miles (not including local driving) – or almost 39 hours in Michigan units – touching down in 10 cities and towns, and sleeping 8 nights in beds not our own, 7 of those one-nighters. A straight shot down I-75 to Madeira Beach would have been 1193 miles (17 hours 11 minutes), only 2,386 miles round trip, but where’s the fun in that? The notion of escaping to Florida for a portion of the winter came to us a decade or so ago when we realized that my having a brother in Clearwater was a good excuse to visit there. Wishing to be close to the water, we booked our first places in pricey, crowded Clearwater Beach. Anything right on the Gulf was out of our range, but we found a place on Clearwater Bay on the other side of the peninsula that proved very adequate. The expansive Gulf Beach was a short walk west, with its great open bars and restaurants. A short drive up the spit got us to Honeymoon Island, and a fun ride on the water taxi took us to Dunedin, winter home of the Blue Jays, hometown of Gov. DeSantis, with a great beer trail (1). We took Gulf Boulevard south to explore the rest of the Pinellas Spit. After 25 minutes of driving past luxury waterfront homes and high rises, we came upon funky Madeira Beach. Any place with a bar named “Saltwater Hippie” is our kind of place (2). Mad Beach would be our winter touchdown spot thereafter. The best places we could find on AirBnB were “steps to the beach”, but it was tantalizing to be so close to that Gulf but not on it. One afternoon, Kathy went knocking on doors and discovered the blue frame house we now rent through VRBO.
Featuring a well-appointed kitchen, electric outdoor grill, comfy beds, and a long front porch with plenty of padded chaises longue and rockers, it’s a place we’d leave less and less each time down. We’re already booked for next January. But it and the house next door are the only low frame houses on the beach for miles in either direction. You can count on the fact that some day soon those houses will be bought and bulldozed to make way for another soulless high rise. We’ll enjoy it till then.
I’ll tell you more about Madeira Beach later. Back to the trip that just happened. Getting to MB is easy. The flights from DTW to TPA are plentiful and relatively cheap. We can always get a Jeep through Turo (3), and the only pain is fighting the traffic for 25 miles on the Bean Parkway over 3 bridges to the Beach. After last year’s stay, we thought maybe we’d drive down next time. Come November, that still seemed like a good idea. Friends from Michigan, New Mexico, and Colorado had moved to places in Dixie where we could touch down along the way. Kathy’s 89-year-old Uncle Chuck was the Ohio River away from Dixie in Cincinnati – still right off 75 – and our 18-year-old niece Ayslin was a junior at Vanderbilt (home schooled). Just like last year (4), Jimmy Harbaugh complicated our January vacation plans by putting the team in the championships, but we could watch that game from somewhere in MB. As we worked our way down, complications ensued. Chuck’s Kathy was medically indisposed and wouldn’t be good company, so we passed Cincinnati by. We were expecting to land with June, in Loudon outside of Knoxville. She didn’t return a couple of my warning e-mails, but we proceeded, nonetheless. We caught up with her about an hour out. She was driving north from her daughter-in-law’s in Florida. No meet up this time! We camped in a nice Marriott in Knoxville (on points!) and moved on to South Carolina to find Donna.
She’s a red-headed spitfire who’d been my Division chief’s secretary. She was smarter than most of the docs she served, and of course no-one suspected it because of her accent. We bonded on our politics and other shared views on life, even going out on a few “dates” before she bolted for the South. She’d found a lovely place in SC (tho’ she’s from NC), which she’d spent 2 years fixing up. You know how those Southern girls can talk, and Kathy kept right up. I kicked back, sipped whatever they served me, and tossed in a pithy comment or 2. Donna took us out for a soul food dinner, at a place run by a Punjabi (5). Fine to crunch into chicken and slime back them collards. With no booze served at the place, we had to retire to Donna’s to remedy that. Leaving the next morning with a good Southern breakfast under our belts from Donna’s kitchen, it was off to the redneck panhandle, where we hoped to find Ana.
Ana had been friend, attorney, and brief romantic partner to Kathy’s brother Bob in Santa Fe. We’d befriended her at a mutual dinner and really hit it off. She’d been focused legally on medical liability (“ambulance chaser”) but with COVID turned her focus to those wronged by such things as COVID mandates. She’d established a foundation – “New Mexico Stands Up!” – to coordinate these efforts. Her efforts drew attention, including an episode last year convincing her that her life was in danger. She decamped to Florida, where her crusade continues. She serves on the Operations Advisory Board of Freedom Healthcare, a Tennessee-based organization with nationwide ambitions that operates as as a Private Ministerial Association (6), specifically addressing the needs of those who were fortunate enough to avoid the. COVID vaxx. We enjoyed her filtered water, fresh from the back yard eggs, and gen-you-wine New Mexico enchiladas. The next morning, after consuming some of her eggs pulled fresh from the coop, we were off, straight on 89 over and down the panhandle, 4 1/2 hours to MB.
The MB arrival held no surprises. Our main pressure was finding a place where we could watch the National Championship game. We wanted to marry a TV view with Gulf breezes, so Caddy’s just down the beach was our target (7). We’d eschewed any gatherings mentioned on the UM Alumni board, and resigned ourselves that Tom Brady wasn’t going to invite us to his place in Tampa for a watch party, even though we knew the way, and anyway his old house is being torn down (8)! I think you know how the game came out. We jumped and screamed in the privacy of our home. We’ve worn our Michigan gear everywhere ever since, garnering many kudos.
Little could have gotten our butts out of our porch seats had I not several months previous scanned the Capitol Theater web site and bought tickets to three concerts I thought we’d like. Kathy said I was crazy at the time, but she’s come around. First, there was Paul Thorn, a 59 year old ex-welterweight prize fighter from Mississippi, son of a preacher and nephew of a pimp, who caught my attention with some pretty crude songs (9,10). His output is witty and joyful, which you can catch on this setlist from last October (11).
Next night was Karla Bonoff, who was slated to play at the Murry Theater at Ruth Eckhard Hall, 18 minutes due east from the Capitol Theater. We managed to find a fabulous dinner at Marker 49 Floribbean Cuisine (12). We sat outside and conversed with a Canadian contingent of snowbirds about culture and politics. Are Ontario and Michigan really that far from each other?
Karla was fabulous, too. Just her, a piano and guitar, and a gray-haired lady accompanist. Those not familiar with her may not know that she composed many of Linda Ronstadt’s hit songs. She sang many of these, with a soulful way that recounted Linda. For an array of what she did, you can review her setlist, as on this from a few months previous (13). She closed with her two favorite songs. The first may be the sexiest song ever recorded, especially with the video (14), and the second a traditional song through which I can never hear without coming to tears (15).
The next evening would be lighter, with Jay Leno at the main theater. We preceded the outing with dinner with brother John, wife Karen, and son Ian at Clear Sky, right across from the Capitol Theater, where we originally thought the concert would be. 21 minutes across the peninsula, it was Jay doing the stand-up he used to do before the Tonight gig. He hasn’t lost his chops. Asked if he was worried about being “cancelled” for his sometimes controversial humor, he responded “do you see how old my fans are? How long do you think it would take to storm the stage?”. Nobody did.
Sundays are for church, and we found a lovely one in MB (16). Church-by-the-Sea was just down from Sweet Brewnette, our coffee shop (17). So, it meant for us to get Sunday morning to walk down there. The church’s steeple looks like a friendly bird, and that spirit pervades their congregation.
We walked in with our Michigan gear and got many kudos. After the service, someone pulled Kathy aside and said maybe we should tone it down, but she replied this rarely happens to us, so we want to show off. I think he understood.
The afternoon found Jim from Sarasota coming up. Usually deluged by family, he had a glimpse of free time. We’d been friends since high school and were copacetic on so many issues.
Jim said the pic was snapped at his girlfriend’s house in Columbus OH, during a party right after the Michigan game. Jim’s a Kalamazoo Hornet, but his heart’s in the right place on the Big Blue. The plan was to feed him an early dinner, then turn him loose. He was eager to watch the Lions game that evening. He came early enough to have a bite of our late breakfast omelet but left before dinner went on the grill. .
Too bad, as it was set to be spectacular, some red snapper, fresh out of the Gulf (we couldn’t get grouper) plus some sides.
We missed seeing the sun set in the Gulf most of the trip. It was cool and cloudy early in the week, and our concertizing got us out of the house before sunset for 3 evenings. But on Sunday, the good Lord blessed us with a dandy.
And our Lions won, in a game only I stayed up to watch. Time to say Go Blue (Honolulu, too)!!.
Monday was set to stop over at Shutesies in Ocala. Unfortunately, the wife of his guest brother-in-law landed in the hospital with pneumonia. Their stay extended and our guest room taken away, our overnight tuned into a drive by. Even that lunch date was screwed up, as we selected the wrong site for the meet up. Eventually, we found a mutually acceptable spot from our wanderings in Belleview, 20 minutes south of Ocala (18), had a great Italian lunch, and moved on.
Up from that we were off to Georgia, where my crazy but dear Romanian colleague Elena had bolted to Athens from the U (“the Athens of the North”) when she found their ways too oppressive. She and husband Matt had a wonderful southern expanse with a wraparound porch. All that was missing was a slaves’ quarters. Kids and animals kept things lively. After a dinner and solving the world’s problems, we were off the next morning.
Then it was up to June in Tennessee. June is widow to my dear friend and double classmate (VHS, UofM) Sam. It’s such a blessing that Kathy and I have become such good friends with her. I’m sure Sam is looking down, smiling. A snow and ice storm had made the going a little treacherous, particularly the route into June’s place. She lived in a lake development with big time hills leading in. We were happy for our 4 wheeled-drive – first time we’ve used it all year – as we coursed our way down. June recognized the plight of the current weather and recommended an eat-in spaghetti dinner, which we happily accepted. That gave us even more time to discuss the problems of the world. June’s new dog Bailey ran around and gave enthusiastic support to our points of view. June laid an egg breakfast on us the next morning and we were off.
Our next-to-last evening, in Nashville, had us taking Ash (Ayslin) out for dinner. The Vandy campus was an even more compact a maze than UofMs. Given Ash’s choice, we ended up at a decidedly non-fancy place that was perfectly adequate. The girl had come off a ski trip to Utah for which delays ended up that morning. A nap left her ready for us, and we had a wonderful time. A bulky sweater masked her comely appurtenances, quieting my dirty-old-uncle urges, at least somewhat.
On our next to last morning, facing a short hop from Nashville to Cincy (a mere 4 hours 18’), we dipped south to the Overton Lea neighborhood of Oak Hill, a one-time horse farm where now Nashvillians move to when they seek some peace and quiet (19). There, on 1108 Overton Lea Road, is the house where John Prine lived his last two years. Since neither he nor wife Fiona live there anymore, I wouldn’t be stalking. Here are the pics I managed with my phone.
There’s a much nicer spread in the article that came out after the place sold for $4.26 million last March (20). Pretty good, not bad for a singing mailman (21).
We dissembled and went over to meet Uncle Chuck for a nice dinner. His Kathy was still under the weather, but we learned the medical details. Chuck’s True Blue roots stem from his MBA at what is now known as the Ross Business School. Watching games real time make him too nervous so he’ll only watch a taped game after he knows the outcome. Thus, he enjoyed the tales Kathy and I had about what it was like to go through this Championship season.
Home from Cincy is a straight shot up 23, but it wouldn’t be home-sweet-home without some effort.
One big advantage of driving is all the stuff you can take along. The hold of our Jeep was well stocked with everything from suitcases, my CPAP machine, a cooler with cold blocks, frozen meat, cold cuts, milk, tea, and cream, a SodaStream machine (22), jackets, a full CD carrier, tall coffee mugs and insulated water mugs, road atlases, jackets, and miscellaneous empty bags and totes. Some entropy was to be expected over the course of the trip.
Yet, we faced our last morning without an important implement. We awoke to see that Mother Nature had blessed Cincy with a few inches of the white stuff. We reached in the back for a snow brush/scraper and came up empty. The wimpy winter in Michigan up to time of our departure had not called for one, and who packs a snow brush for Florida? Not an omission we’ll make next year.
Coda: When we pulled up to the driveway at about 2:45 PM Friday, 2 weeks after we’d left, all looked intact, our beloved house looking inviting with its snowy highlights. No packages on the porch, indicating our neighbors had indeed been vigilant, although an Amazon driver would walk up and hand us another one while we were unloading. Our neighbor Tom, responsible for all the vigilance, had texted Kathy that he could no longer work the keyless entry pad on our front door. We’d been having trouble with it for a couple weeks. We figured, o.k., we’d get in through the garage. Imagine our surprise when the keypad on the door to the kitchen from the garage wouldn’t work either. Apparently, its battery went dead. Undaunted, Kathy had me carry our extension letter to the back, where we propped it up to the deck railing by the hot tub, and she scurried up to the deck finding the sliding door to the sunroom, as closer doors to our bedroom and the living room were locked. After a quick tour of the interior to assure all was well, we threw open both doors to the outside and unloaded. Another Christmas awaited us with all the packages and held mail.
I started a fire and graciously offered Kathy my last beer, as I’d found some bourbon that was “Ready-to-Drink”.
We usually put on Sinatra’s “It’s So Nice to Go Travelin’” when we return home from a trip (23). After this one, I just put on the whole damned album (24). It made a nice soundtrack as we sat in our Stressless Maxes sipping our respective libations and opening stuff. Life is good.
It began as something for the Spei family mid-February Christmas celebration extravgangza. The February date allows individuals to have their close family Christmas then be available sometime after Valentine’s Day for a bigger blowout. My birthdad, Dick Spei, was a gourmet/gourmand who taught all his offspring to approach each meal as if it were their last, advice heeded by all out to a couple generations now. With a little friendly competition, an enormous spread is produced – from old family recipes to new experiments – that takes 3 days to consume, always with leftovers for all. There are no big gifts, even with all the rugrats running around. Small individual gifts come out of the “Chimney”, in a ritual orchestrated by my sister Suzanne (1). Little foodie gifts go to the adults, anything from an interesting useful utensil to an array of homemade concoctions. I finally joined the fray a few years back and decided to continue my participation this year. I’d been pleased with the ghee I’d been whipping up (2) and wondered to my #1 nephew Jake – who’s the main organizer of the event – how little jars of that might be received. Excellent idea, said Jake. I’d start with 10# of butter and see what I got. Even though plans were set weeks in advance, I didn’t get around to executing them till the days before the event. Fortunately, Kroger had a nice sale on Land o’Lakes, $3.99/#, almost half price. But to get that price you had to scan a QR code to make an electronic coupon. Thus, I had to download and learn a new app, then go to the store on successive days because the limit was 5/customer. But the haul made for an impressive stack.
That was Wednesday. Getting ready to start making it, I found I had no 8 oz jars, requiring a hardware store trip the next morning.
Needing a few more things down the road at Busch’s, I saw they were having a sale on their store-brand butter, $2.99/#! I laid in 5 more pounds, as you can’t have too much butter. Would prove helpful the next day. Other afternoon errands left me too pooped to take on ghee, so the process got booted to the next day.
Now Friday was the day this shindig was supposed to start. Jake had decided to move the venue to someplace nicer. So instead of the rustic stuck-in-the-50s Cowboy Creek Lodge in Onstead, on the edge of the Irish Hills (3), 44 minutes away, we’d meet in Huron, Ohio, occupying a pair of big well-appointed houses on what was not too long ago a farmer’s field (4). Turned out to be fine and dandy – a big upgrade – although we didn’t get to use the pool or the tennis/pickleball court. But a good 2 hours away. We wouldn’t be able to check in till 4, so there seemed to be plenty of time for the prep. The day before I had chopped, peeled, and vacu-sealed the potatoes, turnips, and garlic cloves for the garlic mashed potatoes for 16 (I had been making for 32, but there was always a lot left over).
My trepidation was how well my ghee recipe would ramp up. I’d been making a pound at a to me, filling a quart jar. Now I’ve got 10#, aiming for 20 8oz jars.
It’s important to be able to see the butter solids settle, so a clear pot is essential. Fortunately, the little amber Pyrex pot I’d been using had a big brother downstairs.
That big fella took on 5#, it would be two batches. Can be done.
Of course, it takes a lot longer for 5 pounds of butter to melt than it does one pound. Idle time for the chef to sit back and sip at his companion beverage. The foam roars up like slag on an open-hearth steel furnace and must be skimmed with a spoon.
This stuff is Kathy’s favorite part of the ghee process, so she was happy I was getting a lot of it. Once that first bloop comes up, you’re done. There can be a lot of solids.
Time to pour contents of the pot through a double cheesecloth lined strainer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop most of the solids and it remains an exercise in finesse to pour the clear stuff into jars and leave the solids behind. Of course, I save the left-behinds. It’s still buttery good. I don’t know if I should call it “chunky ghee” or just “seconds”.
So, repeat with the 2nd 5#, but once through those, I’ve only got 15 jars filled. This batch method has a lower yield than my 1# approach. Is there anymore butter in the house? Why yes!
So, in go those Busch’s bargain sticks and 20 jars be filled.
Of course, they need labels. Fortunately, my Brother p-Touch has a German script for the Speis and the offerings are ready.
But by then it was 7 o’clock, the chef was toasted, and we’d heard of some bad weather in northern Ohio. Our fate was an extra night at home. The big dinner was for Saturday night, so we wouldn’t be missing anything too important.
We finally arrived about 4 PM Saturday. We were warmly greeted, and no one gave us much crap about missing Friday night. Many commented that that snow and ice had made passage in the area treacherous, which it still was on the ice-covered pathways around “The Grand Lodge.”
I started getting acquainted with this wonderful family nearly 15 years ago, but I keep learning new things about them.
I learned several things from my oldest brother Nick. He’s 13 months my junior, so our dad didn’t waste any time.
• Spei translates from the German as “spit”, sez Nick. My GoogleTranslate doesn’t know what to do with the word. My Duo-Lingo German scholar wifey disagrees, pointing out that in Latin, Spei translates as “hope”. She and some Speis got into it Saturday night and found “speise” (pronounced “spy-zah”) is German for “food”, which would be apt for this bunch.
• Nick’s maternal grandmother was Polish! That was her recipe of sauerkraut and sausage cooking in one of the pots. My family tree charts put the Speis at German English with a little Irish. A proud line regardless. I was hoping to claim some Polish blood, but that maternal line didn’t come my way.
• He clarified how Dad ended up in Canada. When I tell folks Dad left Dee-troit for Canada in 1969, I tell them what he told me: he was fed up with the politics and the violence. And I have to add he was not a draft dodger. This is how it went, per Nick. Dad was having an affair with an English woman, cad that he always was. Nick’s mom went to the embassy and requested the woman be deported, as she was breaking up an American family. The woman fled to Windsor, and Dad followed her.
• Nick went to Grosse Pointe High, a fairly hoity toity HS with a lot of old money rich kids. It was site of a pretty funny 1997 movie, Grosse Pointe Blank, that starred John Cusack, Minnie Driver, and Dan Ackroyd (5). Nick’s family then was certainly not “of means”, what with the divorce and all, and he hung out with the “Italian kids”, who Nick said were all grandchildren of the Purple Gang (6). Good story, brother, but my refs say the Purple Gang was mainly Jewish! One for next time.
• To make some change in high school, Nick became the local condom dealer. He’d buy boxes of 12 at the drug store for $2.50/box, then sell the individual condoms for a buck apiece. Pretty good markup. Nick did well and had many satisfied customers. He’s still proud of all the unwanted pregnancies he helped prevent. I told him he should be put up for a Margaret Sanger award. High school authorities shut him down when some of Nick’s customers began to show their gratitude by hanging their condoms on his locker door.
• Nick faced the draft year after me, drawing #7 in the lottery. He’d chosen not to attend college, but those 2-S student’s deferments ended with my class, so it wouldn’t have helped. At his draft board physical, the doctor noticed something irregular in Nick’s back. He had a slight curvature of the spine. Nick at the time was working for a moving company and hauling around pianos and such without a peep from his back. Nevertheless, that doc’s observation was enough to gain him 4-F status and save him from Viet Nam.
• At these food fests, Nick liked to go around with a plastic fork in the front pocket of his flannel shirt. He liked to be ready to stab anything that looked good. As I was talking to him, I looked around and saw that all the other Spei men had affected the same accessory and were wearing flannel shirts!
I don’t know about the flannel shirts, but the fork was also an homage to patriarch Dick, who wanted his boys always to be ready. I felt a little left out in my pocket-less UC Santa Cruz banana slugs sweatshirt. Nephew Pete noticed the shoulder pouch I was wearing, with a front pocket, and suggested I stick a fork there. I did, and immediately felt closer to that crowd.
I’ve got plenty of flannel shirts, and I’m wearing one next year.
Marty is my next oldest brother, and an entertaining character. He’s a full-fledged artist-sculptor with a studio in Santa Fe (7). I can keep up with him on coffee snobbishness and Dylan quotes so art and science get along. He announced he’s moving his studio 47 miles up the road to Dixon (pop’n 926), an enclave up in the mountains 20 miles south of Taos where a few old hippies mingle with the predominant Hispanics with what sounds like an amazing organic food scene. Marty said Dylan lived there for a while, but I’ve yet to find electronic evidence. Regardless, once Marty gets settled, we’re coming to visit!
I was too pooped after Saturday’s late dinner to stay up for the rest of the proceedings. Suze’s Chimney offerings were little spoons and spreaders whose handles bore some message of personal significance. Mine had a stein of beer and Kathy’s a NASA logo. We got jars of spices, bags of gen-you-wine Santa Fe hot peppers (from Marty), Dan’s jars of jam which still bore his late wife Elise’s name, and infused oils from Cyn’s (Jake’s wife) Magic Butter (usually used for more intoxicating concoctions). Jake gave us a special bottle of wine, recognizing our mutual Trekkiness.
And Marty spread out some of his etchings to take, and I snagged one Sunday morning. Full size is 9 3/16 X 11, and the caption reads “I should of been a cowboy”.
Breakfast was slow to convene, as some had been up till 2 watching the clear sky through Katie’s telescope (you know who was out there). Ample leftovers, but nephew Alex whipped up some dandy bean burritos that hit the spot for me. You don’t usually think of cashew brittle and key lime pie as breakfast items, but dessert artist brother-in-law Dan had made them so I had to have a taste. Leaving is always hard, and a little awkward. You must squeeze in the hugs between other folks gathering up their stuff to leave. With Mike and Suzanne’s new 4500 square foot log house nearby, we had to have a Mike-guided tour. What a magnificent orgy of wood, looking over a bend of the Huron River where bald eagles like to play.
Yes, we were happy with our takings from the affair, although most of our takings are new memories to add to the very nice pile I now have with my not so new family. As always, the true joy is in the giving, not the taking. Now I’ve got a year to figure what I’m going to butter them up with next time.
I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day, dirty foreheads and all, some of you. Mine was wonderful, although it didn’t start well. Unable to tell my wife when that Kerrytown Cabaret show started, I went looking for the tickets and couldn’t find them anywhere. I dashed off a frantic e-mail to the concert house, but it was 7:30 AM and they don’t open their office till 1:30. With the afternoon melting away and no response, I broke down and called. They often do their tickets will call, so maybe they were waiting for me. Nope, no tickets for that name, but a few tickets remained, which I snatched. As Kathy found out, nothing adds to the romance of a wife’s Valentine’s date like hearing her husband spell out his credit card number over the phone to pay for the tickets. She’d gotten a taste of that same feeling the night before at Kroger’s as I paid for that bouquet of red roses along with the rest of the groceries.
Next would be the romantic dinner. Kerrytown is several blocks north of Ann Arbor’s restaurant row on Main Street but has a few nice places close by. Of course, all of those would be crowded with couples working to squeeze as much romance out of the evening as possible in spite of the mediocre food. Fortunately, I’ve got Kathy convinced that the best kitchen in town is right here at 1611 Harbal. So, when I quoted Dave Frishberg and said “Let’s eat home” (sung here by Rosemary Clooney (1)), she was all for it. It’d be a simple repast: angel hair pasta with meat sauce, salad with homemade Italian dressing, and the nice Barolo on which we’d splurged. I had a bunch of my own ragu (Italian for meat sauce) frozen away and spiked it with an Italian sausage and some mushrooms. Kathy’s in charge of salads, and decided to try a more elaborate Italian dressing, which was very nice.
Kerrytown Concert House is about 3 minutes from our house. Right across from the Farmers’ Market, it’s an old white frame house with what used to be a big living room and dining room converted to a concert space, seating maybe 50 at most. They feature a wonderful array of jazz, classical, and folk (2). Last night’ s show sounded both unusual and fun when I first spotted it a couple months ago (3). Tyler Driskill is on faculty at the UofM music school, as were 2 other performers. The 2 ladies on strings piece together a living by giving lessons and performing with various groups. The husband-and-wife singers – the Bogarts – are both seasoned Broadway vets.
If you weren’t in the mood already upon arrival, the (free) offerings of 3 different champagnes and many different little cakes set up in the side room en route to the coat rack sure helped things along. Professor Driskill kicked things off, solo on the piano, with 4 fairly obscure gems from the Great American Songbook*. After the Cole Porter we all recognized (“From this Moment On”), the ladies with violin and cello came on to kick our brows way high, Driskill accompanying. After 3 numbers, the ladies were replaced by the Bogarts. Just to make sure there was no doubt about the hard shift, they opened with a Queen song, before settling into more GAS* classics. Jessica brought down the house with her rendition of “I Cain’t Say No”. All were songs about love, for Valentine’s Day, of course. I recognized them all but one, “How Much Love”, a moody, brooding, compelling song by Michael John LaChiusa, an NYU prof 10 years my junior known for his daring off-Broadway work (4).
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who entered the night air with a warm glow. And it wasn’t just the champagne, which they continued to pour throughout the show.
I know Valentine’s Day 2025 is a long way off, but if you’re gonna be anywhere near Ann Arbor then, I highly recommend this show, which they do every year. I can’t think of a better VD date. I know Kathy and I will be there, God willing.
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