Paul Schutter was a teacher of mine back at Vicksburg High School. He taught me driver’s ed and math and served as my golf coach and chaperone to a junior year DC venture. A mountain of a man with a college sports past he never talked about, he was our gentle guide through all these things. He died last December after a long bout with Parkinson’s.
Last weekend’s venture to the ‘burg for “Christmas in…” (1) was followed the next morning by services at Vicksburg United Methodist Church, where I am still a member after signing up at age 16. In the bulletin was listed “Remembering Our Church Family and Friends with Christmas Wishes”. They were mainly shut ins and those who had lost a loved one. On the list was one Marilyn Schutter. She’d be one dealing with a loss, still. The emotions that welled up in me thinking about her husband made me sure I had to write her a letter. I was going to post that letter here verbatim till my wife Kathy, who’s very good and well-practiced at reining in my potentially inappropriate behaviors, pointed out that Mrs. Schutter might not want to see so personal a communication become a public document. But Kathy said it would be o.k. to share my reminisces of my dear teacher, so here goes.
I first knew Mr. Schutter as a teacher, of course. I believe he taught me how to drive a stick shift, “3-on-the-tree”. Then, he became our class’ guide through the angles of geometry, our Captain Cosine (the nicest of several nicknames we cooked up for him). There in the front of the class was this giant of a man who could have beaten any of us to a pulp (and some of us deserved it), but all we got was his gentle way and self-deprecating humor. He never let on about his sports exploits at K and Western (he was a star football player and champion shot putter), but when he took us to those places, he proudly pointed out their features, like how Western never paved a footpath until students had walked it for a couple years, establishing the best ways to go.
I at least played one sport well enough to get to know him as a coach. I canned football after my freshman season, so it was on the golf course he got to try to make something of me. My teams were never champions, but I did letter, and proudly wear that big V on my varsity jacket still (2). But Mr. Schutter was also assistant coach of boys’ varsity football, and he certainly looked the part.
Next to him are head coach Mike Blough and fellow assistant Eddie Knapp. Mr. Blough coached me in JV basketball and Mr. Knapp had some championship baseball teams. The diamond at VHS is named after him.
Mr. Schutter was charged with chaperoning two from my junior class and 3 from the class of ’69 on a “Domestic Exchange” trip to D.C. where we’d visit Lee High School in Alexandria Virginia. He was also the driver. I don’t know if he was with us at the time, but I had my first taste of beer at a bar in sight of the White House. He was always a good sport, and even took pictures of us in scenes less embarrassing than they looked.
He grew to be a friend of my dad, probably through church. They played golf and became buddies. He was one of Dad’s pallbearers at his March ’03 funeral.
I regret I lost contact with my old teacher. I’m sure he was kinda surprised when my dad told him tales of how I seemed to be making something of myself. I heard through the grapevine of his struggles with Parkinsonism. So sad a man who could once do so much with his strong body would now be shackled with that horrible disease.
When I heard of his passing last December, I communicated the news to all my VHS’70 classmates who had an e-mail address. I received many replies with fond remembrances. If the Captain had any enemies at VHS, they weren’t in my class.
There’s a video with scenes from his life as part of his obituary on amsfuneralhomes.com (3). I recognize some of those shots! It demonstrates clearly how the Schutters had a rich and full life together.
I’ll forever miss him, grateful for all he did for me, and will never forget him.
‘Tis the season! For the last few years, my wife Kathy has gotten me to write a Christmas letter detailing our adventures in the past year. It’s great fun to relive those experiences, and even more to figure which of your friends, family, and acquaintances you’re going to inflict them upon. This year, we dug up 130 victims. Thank God for e-mail, ‘cause if I were sending each of them a Christmas card it would run me $85.80 at present rates! And that’s not accounting for international postage! You can buy a lot of beer with that! For the rest of the world that we have not managed to capture, it’ll all be out here on my blog. So I hope you’ll take a few moments to chuckle over what the Ikes/Clarks had to endure this past year, be glad it wasn’t you, and join us into looking toward a better 2024. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Go Blue!
Kathy and I opened this year across the pond, underground. We were starting a trip we’d been anticipating nearly 2 years, booked in January ’21 and delayed by COVID. The main attraction was Hogmanay, a raucous and fiery New Year’s Eve festival the Scots have been having since Mary Queen of Scots in 1561 forbade them from celebrating Christmas, as it was “too pagan”. The intrepid Scots merely moved things up a week and have been reveling ever since. But instead of being out in the streets reveling with the natives, we were in the basement of Globe Bar, eyes fixed to the big screen their owner had assured me on-line that he’d stream the Peach Bowl. Our boys made some uncharacteristic mistakes, but the game remained close. When we stepped outside to see the fireworks at midnight, they scored 2 touchdowns in quick succession. Not enough. Despite this bummer of a start to the year, we dragged ourselves at 4 in the morning in the rain to our waterside cottage in South Queensferry by the Firth of Forth, a North Sea inlet. We had a lovely view of the bridges from our flat, especially at night. We had a bird’s eye view for Loony Dook, in which crazed Scots celebrate the new year by taking a dip in those icy waters. Edinburgh was a bus or train ride away, but ol’ S.Q was pretty cozy with nice restaurants, a good pub, and trails that went everywhere.
Home saw a quick turnaround, as we’d booked a house on Madeira Beach Florida, on the Pinellas Spit, set to start in 10 days. Kathy could relax a little, as this would be the last time we’d be out of North America all year. After the whirlwind of the 6 months itinerary following her retirement, seeing 5 countries and 24 American cities*, she’d asked that I cool it a bit. Being a good husband, I listened.
In Florida, we had everything we needed: a comfy porch overlooking the Gulf and proximity to those stores we’d need for provisions. My brother John and his wife Karen came over from Clearwater for a visit in which a large grouper was mercilessly devoured. John likes a good cigar and we indulged.
February saw two Texas trips. Kathy went to Galveston “on business” (no pictures) then dragged me down to Fort Worth a couple weeks later to see the first ever live show put on by Babylon Bee. They’re a bunch of funny kids out in California who dump outrageous and unbelievable political humor in your inbox every day. Some highlights of the show we saw are accessible on YouTube, but if I provided links, I might offend some of the recipients of this letter. As VIPs, we got to wear name tags, and they let us pick out own pronouns!
We mostly stayed put in March, but we did go out. Of the 37 concerts we saw in 2023 (so far), 9 were in March. 4 of those were in Chicago packed into a 5-day St. Patrick’s Day train trip.
We always love an excuse to visit La Jolla, ever since my 2017 Winter UCSD sabbatical. We’d become very fond of a church there, La Jolla Presbyterian (“LJ Pres”) and they were given responsibility for this year’s Easter Sunrise service in Balboa Park. Two days after Palm Sunday we were off for a 12-day visit. Easter morning was magnificent, and we’ve already made plans to be out there in 2024, even if a different church will be doing the honors. See the glorious pavilion that served as ground zero for our services: Spreckels Organ Pavilion,built in 1914 and the largest outdoor organ pavilion in the world.
Those west coast trips usually include a jog up to the Bay Area to meet a couple of my old Barnes buddies and catch up with the Pescadaro branch of the Clark clan. See us here after dinner at the Costanoa Lodge, which hired Orion after talking with him at the table. Those Clarks can get so silly sometimes.Left to right: Janet, Mertz (Jim), Kathy, Aislinn; back Orion, Skyler, Uncle Ike
May and October are the prettiest months in Ann Arbor, so why would we go anywhere? Except for a brief trip to Battle Creek to see their Brass Band and a jaunt south to Cincinnati to visit Kathy’s 87 years old Uncle Chuck. We had a great time bringing him up to date on all matters family and Wolverine.
Visitors came to us. My good Barnes (StL ’79-‘82) buddy Dave, now a concierge doc in the Bay Area (Petaluma) wanted to come visit his brother in Livonia. We offered up our downstairs guest bedroom and he accepted. The facility, including its bathroom, hadn’t been used for a while. Dave noticed his sink didn’t drain but managed by coming upstairs to use other sinks. After consulting 3 plumbers after he left, we learned our problem wasn’t a simple clog, but a totally rotted out sewer system that needed replacing. Thus began an assault we’d endure well into the Fall months. We’d get a nice new driveway and front porch out of it. Cost a bundle, and our homeowners policy picked up a little less than half. It brough to mind a moment with one of our neighbors, the late much-missed Victor Hawthorne, a charming Scot who had been dean of the School of Public Health. Faced with a similar project, albeit on a lesser scale, he said “That’s life. One day you get a nice vacation in Bermuda and the next you get a new sewer line.”
Here are some of the excavations.
We were homebodies in July, too. Usually, mid-month sees a special day, July 16, on which Kathy, my birth mom Marlene, and my birth dad Dick were all born. We’d gather again at her house in Stanwood that day, but this time it was for her memorial service. She’d passed away in late April, 2 ½ months short of her 91stbirthday. Mom’s place often saw big crowds for. celebratory events, sometimes spawning tent cities. It was a big Irish wake this time – complete with pig roast – just like she wanted. But I can’t say there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.
Another one of those visitors showed up end of July. It was my oldest living cousin, Rinnie-Linnie from Arlington, escaping that Potomac steambath for Michigan, where she had relatives on her mom’s side in Lake Odessa and whereabouts. Her late dad gave her that nickname, as he did all his 9 kids, based on her affection for Rin Tin Tin. She brought along her two eldest, firefighter Maria and engineer Luke. We kept each other entertained. Linda spent time taking pics of all the space posters for her sister Sandy’s husband, a big-time space nut. They seemed to deal with the bad sink drain o.k.
In August, it was time to travel and see music again! Flint for Boz Scaggs, Cuyahoga Falls for the Outlaw Music Festival (featuring John Fogerty and Willie Nelson), Paw Paw for my VHS70 classmate Cheryl Shelton Dennis and her Jazz and Blues Heads, and Three Oaks for Robbie Fulks.
September means the coming of school year and the football season. Both Kathy and I still feel the tugs of the former, but no one’s expecting much of anything of us these days. For the latter, the hype was unavoidable. We were about to see the greatest Wolverine team since Crisler’s ’47 National Champion Mad Magicians. So, of course our various travel plans would have us missing 4 of the 7 home games. One of those breaks was a much-needed respite to Windnsea Beach in La Jolla, escaping those jackhammers for a week.
We did go on the road to Minnesota first weekend in October to see the battle for the Little Brown Jug (we kept it). Minny was o.k., and afforded Kathy a chance to tour the North American Jellycat Headquarters, in the TractorWorks Building on North Washington.
Mom gave us another trip in November. For years, she spent her winters in her condo in Mazatlán, by the Gulf of California. Shortly after she died, my sibs figured it would be a good thing to congregate down here to remember her. Indeed, it was. We took a bottle containing her ashes out on a sailboat into the Gulf and tossed it as bagpipes played. There were instructions on the bottle what to do if found, but not in Spanish.
November culminated in The Game, of course. That’s one ticket we were so happy not to give up, although selling it would have paid many bills. Can’t put a price on that feeling seeing the final scoreboard and watching all rush onto the field. 3 straight!
Which brings us to where we are now! We did take a short train trip to Chicago to experience Christmas there, but it didn’t seem the same without snow. We’re still waiting for that in AA, although a few big flakes came down Monday morning. Regardless, the hygge is high at Harbal, we have a fresh cord of wood in the rack and plenty of bottles of Blaufränkisch Left Foot Charley to make glühwein. Merry times projected. May you all enjoy something similar
So, from Harbal by our concolor fir, we bid you Merry Christmas and Go Blue! We extend to you a hearty Norwegian Sköl with a nice California pinot.
I love it to be presented with a castoff I can turn into yet another taste treat. You’ve seen what happens with duck and turkey cast-offs (1). This week found me receiving more bounty. Kathy liked my brined turkey breast so much it was gone quickly. So when they came on sale at Kroger’s, I picked up another one which is already in the brine same day, smoked the next, and being eaten as I type. Then at Meijer’s the next day, I saw they has big butt hams on sale. I get a lot of mileage out of those, so of course picked one up. The home butchering got some big chunks ready for slicing, some smaller bits ready for snacking or soups, and of course the bone. This being a butt ham, it’s not just a nice smooth femur, but that bone and its articulation with the acetabulum of the pelvis. So I’ve actually got 2 bones. What can you do with them? Oh my! My Dutch soul craves some tasty split-pea soup. But I’m also gonna have this turkey carcass. So this calls for a little creativity. I’ve already landed on a name “turham splt pea soup”. Maybe a little homage to my best friend, Eric Durham. That name got embellished when I learned the Dutch call their soup “Erwtensoep” (pronounced: Air-ten-soup) or “snert” (2). Who wouldn’t want a bowl of snert! But now the recipe! I have 9 recipe cards for split pea soup in my box, all cut out of newspapers and pasted for later use. None by itself seems right for this project, so I do what I always do confronting a new recipe, make a spreadsheet! From this I can discern trends and pick and choose what I want in my recipe. I added a 10th column for my recently discovered “true” Dutch split pea soup.
So this is how I approach a new recipe. I pick and choose ingredients that look good. I nearly always add more garlic and whatever it might take to bring up the heat a little. With this one there was a vegetable choice.
Nearly all threw in some celery, such a common ingredient in soups. But I chose to follow the Dutch into their root cellar and grab some celeriac (celery root). This ball of goodness ain’t going to win any beauty contests. It’s what those stalks grow from, but the root is prized for its flavor, nutritional (even medicinal!) properties (3), and preservabilty.
In the dead of winter, when the boer is craving some snert, he’ll have some balls of celeriac around when all the celery is long wilted away. The root still has the celery flavor as well as some starchiness, especially nice when your low glycemic index sweetie says no potatoes. So, here’s my recipe
The making of it was not without some drama, as I was shocked to find my cache of legumes of many varieties did not include split peas! Out to Kroger’s Kathy goes, a 5’ drive. Then it was time to take a leek, and none of those! Kroger’s had none so a 30’ round trip to Busch’s was necessary. It’s good that she loves me still. Cooking stuff in this Insta-Pot thing in nothing flat is possible with its pressure option, but I wanted the ingredients to get to know each other in their leisurely overnight bath, so Mr. hi-tech Insta-Pot became a plain old slow-cooker.
In the morning, dem bones came out, and showed their bath had been a pretty thorough cleanse. All that color they once had turned into more goodness for the soup. I’m sure it’s a sacrifice of which dem bones can be proud.
A little more cooking as the newly chopped but well-cooked onions and the meat have to join in.
And boy do I have some snert! Some will get frozen in a few days after I figure how fast we go through this stuff.
It’s a meal in itself, but a little rye bread on the side sure helps. With all that ham, I made sure to lay in some rye bread. I’ve got a nice loaf of Zingerman’s Jewish rye, and thanks to my Latvian friend in Kalamazoo, I have an outstanding loaf of Black Rooster Baltic Rye (4).
So here we are in the middle of winter, almost Christmas, and can all use some snert. As our old bones are soothed by the goodness we ingest, remember to thank dem bones that made it possible (5).
It’s been 9 years and a week since the accident. On a bike trip in the hill country of Chile on little Christmas eve, a rocky hill presented to be negotiated, little dogs accompanying the locals who came to see the crazy gringos. When one of those pups ran across my path near the bottom, I hit the brakes and hurdled over the handlebars into the ditch as the bike stayed behind. That would change my life for at least 6 months, and in some ways longer. Even when fully recovered, I could not mount a bike without fear and had to cast aside that once treasured pastime (1). Although my right arm was worthless for 6 months, I never missed a day of work and don’t think I killed anybody.
After I was home for a month or so, Donna, my chief’s secretary, asked if might write a recollection of the experience for RheUMination, our Division’s quarterly magazine. Even though I chose to respond in verse, she still published it (2). A certain reader out there has been chiding me about my poetry chops, so this is for her.
There were a couple last lines that didn’t make it in. I’ve lost the original. But I think it went like this, including the first 2 lines:
“So 3 months into this venture
The numb dumb hand
Still can’t do much
But others have. It’s grand!”
Not an experience I’d care to repeat, for sure. But nothing makes for a better doctor than becoming a patient, and boy was I. I lost track of how many, but my doc count was well beyond double digits. Kathy sometimes said I should have declared disability and taken the 6 months off. I would have gone nuts. Figuring out the daily challenges of clinical medicine is what used to drive me. Add the challenges of a chronic injury, and I had my plate full, in an interesting way. Thank God, it’s all in the past. But the experience shall forever be with me, and I’ll never look at a weiner dog the same again.
She was married when we met. 6 kids and 12 grandkids later, still is. A freshly minted nurse and a newbie intern, we clicked in a way that’s sustained a friendship now into its 5th decade, almost all at a distance. It opens and closes, of course. My curious letter that wedged the latest opening last year found in the updates some things I hadn’t known about her. For example, she’s a budding artist, following in the footsteps of her very talented late father. She was surprised I was still obsessed with a wild band from the 70s, Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen. Those would come together to produce a curious product, which I’ve just now seen.
As I bombarded her with all things Commander Cody, I shared a picture taken after a concert at Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley, Massachusetts (1), Saturday June 13, 2015. Bill Kirchen, once Commander Cody’s lead guitarist, was the headliner, and George Frayne (Commander Cody) himself was guest. Those pairings were rare and precious, so it was worth the plane ticket. The picture was just my wife Kathy, me, the Commander, and Kirchen, clowning around on stage after the concert.
A few years back, I asked George if he would paint it. An accomplished artist with 2 degrees from UofM Art School and an internationally recognized body of work outside of music (2), he occasionally did paintings on commission in addition to his own paintings and sculpture. He said the picture was “too detailed” for his style and turned down my request. He died a year later. When I told my nurse friend this story, she offered to take on the project. She put in some serious work over the summer, asking for more pictures and videos of Bill and George, and even for the TED talk Kathy gave (3), figuring she’d get a better take on Kathy’s looks from moving images than from stills. She’s never met Kathy. She figured she knew what I looked like, even if she hasn’t seen my face up close since 1982. Tougher for her with my image was getting my very detailed “Hot Rod Lincoln” t-shirt right. We had some general discussions about background color. She’d hoped to have it done by my September birthday and came close. Neither of us wanted to trust this treasure to the post, so we had to engineer a handoff. One of her sisters lives outside of Grand Rapids, and Kathy and I were set to travel there in mid-September to meet up with some friends and family. Her sister had an appointment that took her away when we would be by, but the package was on her doorstep as promised, and the handoff was complete.
I didn’t expect what happened next. Instead of tearing into the box right after I brought it through the door, I carried it to a corner of our bedroom, where it sat till such a time when I thought I’d be emotionally ready to view it. The artist would ask me periodically if I’d seen the work, chiding me for my reluctance, even citing how the paints she used had to breathe, and how leaving them in that box could harm the appearance of the picture. Another issue was where to hang it. Kathy and I have plastered nearly every square inch of our wall space with posters and pictures. The solution came to me as I was folding laundry last week. We’ve yet to attack that room, and there’s one good size wall where the picture would hang nicely. Because of some clever things I’ve done with some of the other wall space down there, the room is now on the “house tour” on which we take interested visitors. So, when I finally took the package down there and opened it, I figured I should tell the artist about it. Here’s how it looked (the 4X6 photo is now a 24×30 canvas):
Here’s what I wrote (song interjects later).
“I didn’t finally see it till 6:36 this morning. The pre-dawn unveiling wasn’t born of anything romantic. I wanted to get all that cardboard into the recycle bin for the Wednesday morning pickup. All my Tuesday plans, including the hanging, were a wash with yesterday’s 1:40 awakening. I got up after 5 today, so it’s going to be a better one. After doing the dishes, I snuck into the bedroom so as not to disturb the sleeping Kathy, picked up the package and headed downstairs. I’d stuffed several sharp objects in my pockets, along with my cell phone and Oontz. Setting up, I asked Spotify to play the Commander Cody channel, and it obliged with “Hot Rod Lincoln” right off the bat (4). It didn’t take all those songs to get the job done, but I sure enjoyed “Willin’” (5), “Seeds and Stems” (6). and “Lost in the Ozone” (7). The only sharp instruments even near your box were my scissors cutting the strings. After that, I just peeled off the duct tape. I swear there was a flash of light as I opened it. Must be that amazing deep electric blue you used in the background. But all the characters are very bright (at least on canvas). Kathy looks nice, no trace of Wicked Witch I could see (the artist and my Kathy had had some earlier encounters that were a little contentious). You made the two tall gray guys look better than they really are. The Commander looks a little befuddled and simian. Maybe the latter is apt. He did share the bill with Godzilla in “Hollywood Boulevard”, the 1976 movie in which the band appeared (8,9). But bottom line, I love it beyond belief and will be forever grateful for your efforts.
Oh, I had to cut off Spotify after “Lost in the Ozone” and turn back to WRCJ and my usual classical music morning. The Commander’s music does not promote responsible behavior and I have a big day planned.”
And one thing I forgot to say: I may have blown this as a birthday present, but it sure makes a wonderful Christmas present! Ho! Ho! Ho! Hic! (10)
P.S. Commander Cody never made a Christmas album, but Kirchen sure did! If you’re looking for some Holiday honky-tonk joy, check it out! (11). You can see the whole show on YouTube, and see Bill in his COVID silver tresses! (12).
4. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Hot Rod Lincoln. (from Ten for Two, premiered 4/1/72. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). Posted to YouTube by RW Ike 3/19/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8TeHA4UL_8
6. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Seeds and stems again blues (from Ten for Two, premiered4/1/72. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono). Published on YouTube by RW Ike 3/4/21. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb_Bz4SssxM
Stuffing a bird in a bird in a bird then roasting it probably goes back to Merry Olde, although the stuffing of three boned fowl – chicken into duck into turkey – was probably born in Louisiana, popularized by Cajun superstar chef Paul Prudhomme (1), who copyrighted the name. It really went mainstream when the late and much beloved John Madden, a multi-legged turkey aficionado, brought a turducken onto his table for a Thanksgiving Lions game broadcast (2). The video of John explaining the turducken is blocked in the article, so here it is (3). Since deboning a whole bird is an arduous process (4), deboning 3 and stuffing the results into each other is more than any but the most dedicated chef would want to take on. Specialty meat vendors will do that for you, but their products are pricey, with a 15 pounder (which will feed 20-25 people) running close to $100 or more (5). Expertise in constructing these may be pretty widespread, as I see my buddy ace butcher Bob Sparrow of Kerrytown made it to the Google search. They don’t come tiny, though I’ve seen some as small as 5 pounds (but not with a commensurate drop in price).
In tidying up my Thanksgiving feast (6), I think I’ve stumbled onto a much easier way to create this blended fowl taste, the results of which I can heartily recommend (and Kathy seconds the emotion). You might recall how excited we were for the soup that would follow from the carcass of our devoured duck. Then I came across a swimming partner for it.
Kathy’s been craving cold cuts as protein rich snacks to help with her low glycemic index diet. In our last ditch run to the grocery store Wednesday before Thanksgiving, taking a peek at the prices of cold cuts, I realized I could produce something similar. Turkey breasts were on sale, so I bought one, took it home and brined it, then hung it in my Pit-Barrel smoker for 2 ½ hours till it was done. Just delicious. Here’s the recipe.
It’s not hard to roll off the breast meat into two boneless wonders, leaving behind a pretty good size carcass. I already had the Instapot loaded with duck carcass and remaining bones, so chopped up the turkey carcass, doubled up the non-bird components of the recipe, and proceeded. It’s a two-stage affair, with creation of the broth then adding vegetables and other spices. Started on Friday morning and by evening, it was soup. Here’s that recipe.
Going fast, but still had a little to photograph before I downed some for lunch today. You don’t have to serve it on a bed of snow, it’s just that the light was better on the deck.
My title suggests a 3rd bird could enter the soup pot. For sure, if you have a chicken carcass or 2, toss ‘em in. The ramp up on the non-meat items would be less than what I undertook for the turkey addition, as chickens are much smaller. But it’s soup, not some science experiment, so just guestimate.
“Thanksgiving is Friday!’ Our Thanksgiving came on Friday this year. O.k., I’m late. TG was Thursday, our nation’s most unique and wonderful holiday when we express the gift of gratitude while stuffing our faces before or after watching the Lions lose. Oh, that waxing gibbous moon, can’t beat the heavens!
Our Thanksgiving Day began sprightly enough. I’d been working on the menu for several days and had it in hand. Our duck was swimming in its brine. Just the two of us this year, so no bigger bird necessary. I’d done the chop-chop-chopping prep for the sides Wednesday, so just a couple hours in the kitchen and the sides were ready. The goal was to get a meal to warm up after the Lions game. But something must have happened. Faced with another gorgeous sunny November day, we thought a little hike through Cedar Bend Park and North Campus might be in order. I’d really slacked off on my walking routine, so Kathy was happy for anything that got my ass out of the house. We picked quite a hilly path (we do live on top of a glacial moraine). The old man negotiated it ably, with no falls, slips, or even stubs, and only a few pauses to rest. Much of the path went by the flowing Huron River, very soothing. Home, my activity tracker said I’d done 2.8 miles. Not bad. Do that every day for the next year and maybe I really will get back into my 501s. When Kathy offered a glass of sparkling water, our usual post-hike beverage, I instead opted for a Wolverine Brewing Massacre, the wonderful potent dark lager they put out this season every year (1). With all that red wax on top of the bottle, you have to work to drink one, but it’s worth the effort. Then I had a few nips making those sides. All great chefs are alcoholics, which I guess I become facing the stove. My red cabbage dish called for Calvados, a French apple liqueur (2). I couldn’t find that, but did find a Michigan product “Spirit of Apple” from Black Star Farms in Traverse City, an 80 proof apple brandy (3). Michigan apple growers, second largest producers in the nation (4), have finally figured out when you turn your product to booze, you really go to town. I pulled down one of my túath glasses (5), meant for Irish Uisce Beatha, and splashed a little of that apple juice in. Pretty tasty! Don’t know how many refills I had, but when I put the 375 ml bottle away after my kitchen morning, it was half empty! And there might have been another Massacre in there, too. But I figured the fresh air, and a good walk would burn that all off. The walk came after the morning kitchen chores.
Once home, I managed snacks of roasted Brussels sprouts and Indian-rub grilled chicken breast to have for the football game. I stayed up long enough to watch the Lions suck and to snarf up my share of the snacks. But Morpheus was upon me, and I slithered off to bed. The duck was in the oven with plans to emerge about 5. I slept through the entire game, which Kathy assured me was no loss, and when I finally got up, hardly chipper, the duck was done, and it was time to swing into action for Thanksgiving dinner. I still felt stuffed from the game snacks and was in no mood for a feast. Kathy was very understanding, and all courses sat in our 350garage awaiting a rewarming for Friday.
Come Friday, I was facing a pretty easy Thanksgiving dinner prep. Can you call them leftovers if no one’s touched them yet? My giblet stock had had a chance to cook. I didn’t put it up yesterday until I emerged from my nap, about the same time the duck-is-done timer was going off. That stuff should go at least an hour, and is critical to the gravy, so I was looking at a shortchange right there. Sleeping on this meal was the right thing to do. And why not extend the feeling of Thanksgiving? I know the day after has been given over to rapacious capitalism and often violent combative pursuit of bargains, but the only shopping we ever do this day is for our Christmas tree, and maybe some more beer. That morning outing at Braun’s Tree Farm, a mere 4 miles from here, seeking out and cutting down the perfect tree in the brisk late fall air provided us with something we lacked yesterday: an appetite! See us arriving home with our 9’ concolor fir bounty. Our 2-dr ’16 Wrangler is the only of our 2 cars that can handle a big tree (the 4 dr Wrangler is also a soft top, but lacks the buttresses on which to bind a tree). 340 and sunny is fine convertible weather. As our Norwegian ancestors said “there is no bad weather, only bad clothes”.
So, once we got that tree in a bucket in our garage, we were ready to heat up them leftovers!
Friday after TG is also the day we break the seal on all things Christmas. Decorations make their way up from the storage room and we start playing CDs from our big shoebox of Christmas favorites, even a few LPs. What else we do depends on our ambition and the weather. Sometimes even the outdoor blue lights go up. With Kathy finding ever more things to string lights on, the effort becomes more extensive every year. I turn a few thoughts to our Christmas letter. I know highly organized people get their Christmas cards out day after TG – and that letter is our Christmas card – but I’m not quite in that club yet. So, you can see here some activities needing a little fuel! Please see here our station.
Here’s our modest table. Kathy’s congratulated me on my portion discipline. The cutbacks were mostly dictated by supply issues.
Still wearing the Lions’ gear to show we’re not fair weather fans. If you want to try to make any of these things yourself, here ya go.
The main course: the duck. We like a duck over a turkey if it’s just the two of us. Even the smallest turkey inundates with leftovers. We got our duck at Meijer’s, even though my former colleague Michelle and her farmer husband Mark raise them (6). But those free-range ducks are muscular and lean, and you want your duck flabby and fat (translates to tender and tasty). I’m hoping Kathy has the same opinion about husbands. The brining experiment was new this year, and well worth the effort.
The sides. Here came the biggest challenge. Like Fats Waller sang, nothing worse than seeing “all that meat and no potatoes” (7). But my Kathy’s been on the low glycemic index train all year, with excellent results. We’ve found you can cheat a lot with cauliflower, and sure enough there’s a faux mashed potatoes recipe. Not quite Yukon golds and turnips, but it soaked up my gravy fine.
Red cabbage. Both the Dutch and German-English sides of my adoptive family were big fans of red cabbage. I always ate some dutifully but was disappointed it didn’t taste near as good as it looked. Some years ago, I acquired a recipe in response to a radio announcement (I forget the program), and it’s been a hit ever since. Feels good to place it on the table and think about all those family dinners of my youth.
Sprouts. The Ikes loved these little cabbages. Once I discovered the wonders of garlic and chicken stock, they became our favorites, too. Since we had some purple pearl onions lying around – such great fun to prep – the sprouts came out this way this TG.
Dessert. Here I cheated. Since Kathy lost her sweet tooth several years ago, she’s not much for desserts of any kind. But that box of Walker’s mincemeat mini tarts caught my eye.
The Slaters used to shriek with joy whenever anyone made or brought a mincemeat pie to the table. I don’t think they ever fed me any. Clearly an adult taste. I enjoyed the few Walker’s I sampled pre-TG and even got Kathy to take a bite. Still too sweet.
When I wrote up our TG dinner 3 years ago, I included the wine list (8). We’re a little less fancy about it these days, since we’ve found that with our Vivino apps (9), we can get some pretty good wine at Busch’s, which has some amazing discounts in addition to their 10% off if you buy 6. Duck and pinot noir pair well. We had a bottle of The Prisoner 2021 with some Crossbarn 2019 waiting in the wings.
Leftovers were few. Carcass and bones were carefully gathered for the always much anticipated duck soup (10,11). The cook was beat and gathered himself to an early bed, the better to rest up for Saturday’s contest. Go Blue!
We’ve been having stuffed jalapenos so often lately at our place they’re starting to feel like a staple. And why not? That delicious bite into hot, zippy, creamy, crunchy, and rich is pretty sublime. While they’re pretty fussy to prepare, the ritual can be entertaining, and so rewarding! Now, there are many versions of these treats. What we’re making here at 1611 Harbal aren’t those peppers stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon like you might get in a bar. Our protocol came from a family Christmas gift. My birth father’s offspring are all gourmet/gourmand foodies, having followed his dictum “approach each meal as if it could be your last.” This crazy bunch holds their Christmas get together in February, so each member can attend to individual needs around Christmas. It works out fine, and 2 months delay doesn’t seem to dampen our Christmas spirit (1). At these gatherings, we give each other little food-related presents, with the identity of the giver often a mystery. Several years ago, we emerged with a black metal contraption with some paperwork attached that included a recipe and a strange implement. It was a metal rack with holes for jalapenos, to be hollowed out with the implement and stuffed according to the recipe. It sat unused for several years till I came across it looking for something else and decided to give it a try. The recipe was demanding. Jalapenos had to be the right size to fit into the 7/8” holes in the rack without falling through but still managing to fit. I recognized the names of the Italian ingredients but had never worked with them much: fontina cheese, prosciutto, and pancetta. It took two grocery stores to get the ingredients. Busch’s but not Plum had the fontina while Plum had the fancy thin-sliced Italian hams. Fortunately, the two stores are right across the street from each other. The peppers can be got most anywhere, but we had to take the rack along to make sure we got some of the right size.
I thought I’d take you for a ride on the latest preparation.
It starts by preparing the peppers. Cut off the top (and save it) then hollow each out with the corer. See here 16 setup for duty (2 had rotted and had to be discarded). See them here in their rack, with corer in front.
Next is making little ½” X ½” sticks of fontina.
The sticks go into the peppers. They’re usually too long, to be cut off and put into the remaining empty peppers, the rest making excellent snacks.
Next the meat. Pancetta, on left, is fattier and gets sliced longitudinally in thirds. The leaner prosciutto gets sliced in half lengthwise.
For each pepper, pull out the cheese stick and wrap one layer each of the meat, stuffing the assemblage back into the pepper. Now the poppers are all ready to pop into the oven. But they can sit for a while. I put up today’s batch at 7 AM after finishing the dishes. Only problem was when Kathy saw them, she was urging me to make them for breakfast.
When you’re finally all ready for them, preheat oven to 3500 and cook for 20’. Let ‘em cool for a few minutes, and pop away!
Here’s the recipe I’ve used.
Equipment is easy to come by. While I’ve lost the ordering info for my curvy rack, entering “jalapeno poppers grill rack” in Amazon with get you an ample list of racks, most coming with the essential corer. The name suggests this dish is one for the grill, although I’ve never done it that way. I suppose the advantage of the grill is your guests can ooh and ahh over the coming treat for those minutes in cooking. Of course, then you have to be ready to whack away hands aiming to pick one out before its ready. They’re plenty tasty after the mundane oven prep, and you can do it when it’s snowing, especially since jalapenos are available in the grocery store year-round.
For those of you who haven’t yet sidled up to Delbert (1), here’s a booster. I was annoyed that a track from “One of the Fortunate Few” was skipping and not playing, no matter how clean I got that disc. With the choice of buying a new disc versus leaning on the Ann Arbor District Library, I chose the latter. I’d copy their disc then burn it to a new one and volià! But that required a dive into their “card catalogue” and lookie at all the other Delbert CDs! I’ve got 6, but that’s way short of his output per discogs (2). The AADL didn’t offer enough to fill this deficit but there were 4 CDs I didn’t have and 2 more “Don Imus Ranch” CDs with a pretty interesting mix. So I picked them all with intention of copying and burning. Plus, there’s all the “software”, getting the CD inserts and booklets so what you’re left with looks very much like the article off the shelf. Copying those insert booklets can be pretty eye opening. Just look at the firepower Delbert assembled for his 2002 Room to Breathe album.
It’s a who’s who of Texas superstars! Steve Earle, Emmy Lou Harris, (a young) Rodney Crowell, (now the late) Guy Clark, Joe Ely, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Oh my! What a concert that would be with all them on the bill! Delbert doesn’t go at this alone.
Here’s the track I wanted to fix. Check out the guests (3)
Come next month, I’ll have not seen a patient for 5 years. But those questions coming in from friends and relatives can still jog this old medical brain. A couple weeks back, Ron, who’s a distant cousin, good friend, and husband of much missed Barb (1), a nurse who used to field most of his medical queries, sent me his latest. Writing for his brother, still having quite a bit of trouble after a stroke, came a link to a recent paper addressing the use of etanercept (Enbrel) in post-stroke pain (2). While very familiar with Enbrel, I was not aware of this application. To quote the South Park kids, “I learned something today” (3) and want to pass it on.
A stroke is a horrible thing. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of long-term disability. The annual incidence of stroke in the U.S. is about 795,000 (4). Whether embolic, thrombotic, or hemorrhagic (I’ll explain), that segment of brain suddenly deprived of blood flow stops sending signals to the portion of the body it controls, and there goes function. That sudden loss was so striking to the ancients who observed it, they considered it a strike from the hand of God, possibly a punishment. Several Brazilian neurologists published their contention that a clear description of stroke symptoms appears in the Old Testament, Psalm 137:5,6 (5). David writes (RSV)” 5– If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right-hand wither! 6 – Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!”. The authors provide their neurologic version “If I forget you, oh Jerusalem, I will suffer a stroke of the left middle cerebral artery, causing motor aphasia and right hemiplegia, if I do not remember you, if I do not keep Jerusalem as my greatest joy.” They comment “Psalm 137 is a relevant contribution from Hebrew culture to the history of neurology.” Is this description of a punishment corresponding to the symptoms found in cerebrovascular stroke of the middle cerebral artery a coincidence? Or did the Hebrews know at that time that left hemiplegia may occur without aphasia, did they know of cerebral dominance about 600 years before Christ?” Interesting, to be sure, but maybe a bit too much inside baseball for what I want to communicate here. But just a few more basics. The sudden cessation of blood flow to a portion of the brain can come about from a plugging material arriving from another part of the body, like the heart in atrial fibrillation (embolic), from a clot forming in a feeding blood vessel (thrombotic), or from bleeding into the brain (hemorrhagic). “Clot-busting” interventions are fraught with hazard as they do nothing to those thrown plugs and can worsen the bleeding of a hemorrhagic. Some recovery is usually possible due to the brain’s incredible plasticity (ability to take in one part over functions handled by another). But post-stroke care still consists mainly of physical therapy. Recently, it has been understood that a stroke was followed by a fairly intense inflammatory response in the brain. Not a surprise, as our bodies respond to damage and death anywhere with inflammation to clean up the mess and start to effect repair. The brain response included high doses of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a prime inflammatory mediator. Similar high levels of TNF in inflamed joints led to development of an agent to block its attachment to cells: etanercept, a compound that transformed my rheumatology practice (6). Getting this agent into the brain and seeing if it made a difference in poststroke patients was the focus of the paper Ron sent me. I’m glad I finally read it. Here’s my reply to Ron.
Well, Ron, getting stuck in the back of the plane for the ATL-DTW last leg of our Mexico trip last night finally gave me a chance to look this over. Had it been a manuscript sent to me for review, I would have scrawled red ink all over it and sent it back to the editor to have the authors make some major revision, but they got it into Cereus, which is not a bad journal. What they describe are the effects of injecting Enbrel (etanercept) deep enough into spine to get it into blood vessels that run right up to the brain. The justification for this is the fact that strokes bring out an inflammatory process, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is a major mediator in this process. Enbrel blocks the attachment of TNF to cells, and is something I used since 1998, when it first became available. It was the first “biologic” (an agent grown in living tissue rather than made in a test tube) and is remarkably effective in rheumatoid arthritis. It really transformed my practice, as patients came back happy instead of just enduring their burden ever so slightly modified by my ministrations. Many other biologics followed, all very expensive ($1000/mo and up) with a few peculiar side effects and conferring an enhanced susceptibility to infections. RA patients just inject themselves in the leg once a week. That wouldn’t work for post stroke inflammation, as TNF is too big to leave the central nervous system and Enbrel won’t cross that barrier. Hence the perispinal injection (7). That must be delivered by a doc, and I’m guessing this is a thing now. When I Googled to find difference between perispinal and intrathecal injections (intrathecal injections are a spinal tap where the drug is delivered right into the cerebrospinal fluid – some chemotherapies go this way), up popped a choice “perispinal etanercept near me”. The author’s very sloppy table did describe 4 studies where this treatment seemed to have an effect.
I even found a YouTube describing the whole process (8).
Thanks for making me dive into something I really knew very little about. Hope this helps.
Bob
My bottom line, stroke patients having troubles with pain or slow return of function should consider this therapy.
Joseph AM, Karas M, Jara Silva CE, Leyva M, Salam A, Sinha M, Asfaw YA, Fonseca A, Cordova S, Reyes M, Quinonez J, Ruxmohan S. The Potential Role of Etanercept in the Management of Post-stroke Pain: A Literature Review. Cureus. 2023 Mar 15;15(3):e36185. doi: 10.7759/cureus.36185.
5. Resende LA, Weber SA, Bertotti MF, Agapejev S. Stroke in ancient times: a reinterpretation of Psalms 137:5,6. Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2008 Sep;66(3A):581-3. doi: 10.1590/s0004-282×2008000400033.
6. Burness CB, Duggan ST. Etanercept (SB4): A Review in Autoimmune Inflammatory Diseases. BioDrugs. 2016 Aug;30(4):371-8. doi: 10.1007/s40259-016-0188-z. Erratum in: BioDrugs. 2016 Oct;30(5):481.
7. Tobinick EL. Perispinal Delivery of CNS Drugs. CNS Drugs. 2016 Jun;30(6):469-80. doi: 10.1007/s40263-016-0339-2.
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