Christmas thoughtfulness IS friggin’ exhausting! After writing like crazy for the past three weeks to make sure all my commercials were done at work, I leaped into frantic home decorating mode, then shopping mode, then wrapping mode, then cookie mode, then elf delivery mode. And now with about 12 cookies left and people I still want to gift, this elf is beat!

But I ended up baking with my kids the day I wrote this, because I’m nuts — and because holiday baking with my kids is what I love most! It takes me back to my sweetest memories of my mom. (Plus, it helps me perfect recipes I thought were already perfect, like my Lemon Cheesecake Squares.)

Christmas has been a combination of exhausted, happy and sad for me. This year,
the sad was magnified because my college roommate’s sweet father
passed away recently.  And last week, a friend was at work when he got the news that his mom had died suddenly.

He only took a few days off, then came back to work because he said it was too hard because of all the traditions they shared. He needed something to take his mind off what he’d lost.

I can understand that, although it’s the opposite of what I did when my mom passed away. I dove deep into baking and crying. I listened to Christmas songs, baked, cried, wrote a book for my family with her recipes and stories, and cried some more. I thought I was all cried out.

It’s been almost 27 years since my mom passed away, but just remembering can still reduce me to tears – partly because I have the constitution of tissue paper, and partly because no matter how many years pass, you never get over losing someone you love. And the holidays, without the person who shaped how you celebrate, can be tough.

Unless you tread boldly in their footsteps.

No matter how many Christmases I live through, I re-realize the wisdom of that line from my favorite Christmas song, “Good King Wenceslas. “Mark my footsteps my good page, tread thou in them boldly. Thou shalt find the winter’s rage, freeze thy blood less coldly.”

It’s not in blocking the memories and traditions, but in boldly embracing them, and re-creating them, as our mothers and fathers would want us to, that makes us, not only able to go on, but able to go on joyfully.

“In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dented. Heat was in the very sod, which the saint had printed.”

Treading in those steps is hard without them at first, and then you realize that, it’s in carrying on those traditions, you feel the presence of your loved one the most strongly.

They’ve been there all along.

Merry Christmas to each of you. I am thankful for you every day. I wish you a Christmas with no expectations, only pleasant surprises and really great cookies! And now, with no humility whatsoever, here is my recipe for:

The Best, Easiest Lemon Cheesecake Squares with Buttery Crust!

Crust

1 cup + 2 TBSP flour
1/2 cup butter melted (regular butter, not unsalted)
1 Tbsp. powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
Combine flour, powdered sugar, melted butter, vanilla and salt in bowl until mixed thoroughly. It will be pebbly,  like pie crust starts out.  Press it into an 8×8 square baking pan. Bake the crust at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes. Then prepare the next two layers.

Lemon Filling

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ cup or 7 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. lemon extract (or 1/4 tsp Boyajian Lemon Oil)
In medium bowl, mix eggs, sugar, lemon juice and extract with mixer or a whisk. Set aside, and mix cheese cake layer.

Cheesecake Layer

8 oz cream cheese softened.
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Mix cheesecake ingredients with mixer until smooth.

(Before you pour the cheesecake and  lemon layers over the crust, be sure to lightly grease the sides of the pan above the crust.) Pour the cheesecake over the crust first. Then whisk the lemon topping once more and pour it gently over the cream cheese mixture. (Be sure to reduce oven temperature to 325) Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in 325 degree oven, or until lightly golden on top.

Then watch baking magic happen as the lemon layer goes to the bottom and the cheesecake layer is on top!

Risotto is one of those things I don’t usually make because I always worry about the carbs. But, I just made it on Halloween night and it was creamy, delicious heaven. Not only did I not gain an ounce, I actually lost a pound, so go figure! Maybe it was because this had so many veggies in it — spinach, zucchini, mushrooms and leeks — and it was perfect!

And for all my vegetarian friends – it’s vegetarian! You could even make it vegan by eliminating the pat of butter, the cheese and the shrimp and it would still be good. Continue reading →

Formerly cool, now “cute” Fran.

This is the second in my series of blog posts about not aging gracefully.

I remember the day I became invisible. I was in New York City. I was 55-years-old, walking down Broadway, and couldn’t get a soul to look at me. Not one person.

My first thought was, Wow, I could rob banks now and it would be months before I’d be captured because I don’t register on anyone’s radar anymore. It could have been liberating, if it hadn’t been so ego deflating. My daughter sometimes complains about men making comments about her and I always tell her, “The only thing worse is when men stop noticing you completely.”

I was almost over being invisible, when I started going from cool to cute. Continue reading →

A friend of mine sent me a link to a website where a woman talks about growing older gracefully now that she’s in her 60’s. God bless her, God bless anyone who can be graceful about growing older…I just don’t happen to be one of them.

I look in the mirror and pull my cheeks up a little and think, Yeah, that’s how I should look. But  you can’t walk around looking like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone all the time, so I just dealt with it.

But it does a number on you. I just didn’t feel cute anymore, and when you don’t feel cute, you’re less outgoing because you feel like no one will respond. This was quietly reinforced by the fact that I seem to have turned invisible sometime in my 50’s.

I remember quite vividly when I noticed my new invisibility.

Continue reading →

I admit it, I am a judging judger.

I try not to judge people, but there are people who you instantly click with and people you don’t.  Some people I instantly make decisions about, based on what they wear, how they speak, how many nose rings, tattoos or piercings they have, or what their political party is.  It’s not good. Continue reading →

What pushes a mostly sane woman to wade into a flesh-tearing patch of blackberry brambles? The promise of hot, crisp blackberry pie with peanut butter crust and crumble. Add vanilla ice cream and you have a holy experience.

And I must say thank you to Brian and Pam Ellis, my former next door neighbors, who always let me know when the berries in their yard are ripe for picking. Good neighbors, are a treasure.

Fresh blackberries, (or Marionberries – I think) so worth it!

I’ve written about pie before. This was one of the pies included in my Pies and Virginity blog. But, in retrospect, I think  blackberry pie with peanut butter crust and crumble really deserves its own blog post because it’s a delicious pie, that’s destroyed many a diet. It was pioneered by my mother, and proudly carried on by me.

I may not remember the name of the actress in the movie I saw 20 minutes ago, but I never forget a life-altering food moment. One of them was the time my mom decided to put peanut butter in a crust she was making for a blueberry pie. I tasted it and knew my mom was a food genius, it was that good.

Then, I decided that if a peanut butter, double crust pie was that good, how great would a peanut butter crumble be, especially one with crunchy peanut butter? And if blueberries were good, wouldn’t blackberries be great? That question got answered a few years ago when I made it for a family get together.  Both my brothers, who don’t throw food compliments around liberally, said, “I think this might be the best pie you’ve ever made.”

You can also just make this a crisp, by eliminating the pie crust bottom. It’s also killer good, faster, and a lot less work.

As I’ve said many times, we are all ho’s for blackberry pie and the peanut butter puts a blackberry pie in a whole new category of yum. To make the crust, I just take my regular pie crust before it’s rolled out, put a tablespoon or two of peanut butter in the middle,  fold it over, roll it, and fold it again a few times, then roll it out. It leaves the crust looking swirled with peanut butter.

*Also, make the crust first, then the crumble so it’s easier to assemble quickly. You don’t want to put the berries in the crust too long before you bake it, or it will get soggy.  And bake it closer to the bottom of the oven so the bottom crust gets crisp.

Mary Tunno’s Pie Crust with Peanut Butter Swirl 

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup Butter Flavor Crisco

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. sugar

1/2 to 1 cup very cold whole milk (you can put an ice cube in it to make it colder but remove it before you add the milk)

Mix flour, salt and sugar together then cut in Crisco and butter.  Mix well, it forms small crumbs.  Add enough milk so that dough can be molded into soft balls.  Better that the dough is too soft and sticky than too hard. Once you add the milk and have made about four or five balls, wrap each one in flour coated plastic wrap, flatten it into a disc, and cool it in the refrigerator or freezer.

Then take one of the flattened, cooled pie crusts, roll it slightly, and add one to two tablespoons of creamy peanut butter to it.  Fold it over, roll it out a little,  then fold it over three or four more times. The peanut butter should look like swirls in the crust. Roll it out on a floured board and place it in bottom of a pie pan.  Flute the edges then fill it with berries.

Peanut Butter Crumble

1 cup flour

2 cups whole, uncooked Old Fashioned Quaker Oats

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 stick melted butter (not unsalted)

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (I use Laura Scudder’s)

Blackberry Pie with Peanut Butter Crumble

6 to 7 cups blackberries or blueberries

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 Tbsp. flour

Mix together the berries, flour and sugar thoroughly, then place them in the bottom peanut butter swirl crust. Sprinkle a light covering of the peanut butter crumble top of the pie. You don’t want too much because the crumble absorbs a lot of the liquid, so you’ll have all crumble and not enough fruit.  (You may need to lay a piece of aluminum foil lightly on top of the pie or crisp, so the crumble doesn’t burn.) Bake at 350 for an hour or more or until you see the pie really bubbling and crust is brown.  Use a pie crust shield to protect crust from burning. And make sure you put a cookie sheet underneath or some aluminum foil to catch the drips!

I celebrated Earth Day by picking up all the crap stupid people have thrown in the street in front of my house and cursing them under my breath. Then, I came upon an empty cardboard box in the street with a name and address on it. I wanted to drive to this person’s house and drop it in the street in front of where he lived with a note that said, “How do you like it when people throw trash in front of YOUR house?”

But I could just hear my daughter saying, “Mom!  That’s what a crazy old lady would do.”  So I did the slightly less crazy thing and sent the man a letter, enclosing the label from the box I just recycled for him.

As if a waitress was on every corner.

I couldn’t help it, I was so ticked off! . My block is only 287 steps long, I only picked up my side and it totally filled a kitchen garbage bag!

So, below is what I wrote. Please read it and let me know if I’m getting pissy, or what…because I think I might be. At what age does getting cranky/pissy/irritable start? I know some 20 year olds who can be pissy, so I don’t think there’s an age limit. I think I’ve just been too nice all my life and finally, I’m fed up. Especially when it comes to littering our beautiful earth with trash.

Dear _________

I was out walking this morning and saw you left an empty cardboard box, with your name and address still on it, on the street near my home. Why would you do this? Do you not have recycling or trash cans in your home? Was your car so full you couldn’t have taken that small box home and disposed of it there? There’s a garbage can right down the street from where you carelessly dropped the box, could you not have dropped it in there, at least?

What the hell?

You must be somewhat intelligent, you’re ordering things for your computer, so how do you not understand the effect of dropping your trash in the street?

The world, and my street are not your trashcan. When you leave trash in the street, it gets pushed into our rivers and oceans, polluting them for our children and grandchildren. Maybe you don’t have any children today, but you may someday and you’ll have to answer to them about why our oceans are so polluted. It’s because people like you don’t care at all where you toss your garbage. Please think about it and do your part to save the environment, while there’s still something to save.

In the meantime, please keep your trash to yourself or in the trashcan, not on the street where I live!

Sincerely,

A Concerned Resident

He is probably laughing his head off, or maybe it got through. I ‘m an optimist, I like to hope it got through to him, particularly since it cost me 50 cents to send it.

I remember the very first Earth Day. I was in ninth grade and through the window I could see high school kids scurrying around on the fresh spring grass, picking up trash. I was so hopeful that people would start caring about the environment, but I definitely don’t see much evidence of that on my street. And it’s a shame. As French President, Emanuel Macron so eloquently put it, “There is no Planet B.”

So, a belated Happy Earth Day to you. I plan to contact my local government to see if we can get some trash cans installed or someone (besides me)  to come and clean up the area, or get an education program started, or something, so I don’t get really cranky and start accosting people on the street. And I think a Sierra Club membership may be in order. If nothing else, it’ll be a group of people equally cranky about the environment, and we can all rant together.

I wish you and all of us an Earth that gets more beautiful as time goes on.

This was all the garbage on my side of the street –one short trashy block.

Last week I was at work getting coffee,  talking about wanting to lose weight with a co-worker. I was saying how frustrating it was that I haven’t been successful. She’s one of my favorite co-workers. She leaned over to me smiling and said, “Sometimes Miss Fran, you just have to buck the f__k up,” which made me laugh so hard I almost spit.  She would know, she’s been a single mom for years.

But it’s so true. My half-hearted attempts at losing weight fail because I’m not pushing myself hard enough, and I know it. Simply put, I eat too damned much and haven’t been exercising enough.

It’s so easy to blame everything and everyone else, but if I really wanted to lose it, the weight would be off.  My life is everything I’ve created it to be up to this point. If I don’t like it, only I can change it.  That’s both liberating and depressing, if you really stop to think about it.

Stupid discipline — it was my father’s forte, but apparently isn’t mine. I have it in spurts. I even went running last night just to prove I could do it.  So, I’m attempting to hone more discipline so I can drop this 10 pounds I’ve gained since I started working at a job where all I do is sit and write.

In keeping with my new ninja-like determination, I’m trying to create healthy lunches like the one I had today.  It was made of farro, zucchini, green onions, and sundried tomatoes, sprinkled with a little Parmesan cheese.

Farro is an ancient grain that apparently has great health benefits and has been hip for a while after falling out of favor for a few hundred years. In 1/4 cup of uncooked farro there are 7 grams of protein, 160 calories, no cholesterol, 3 grams of dietary fiber, no fat and no sugars! It’s really good and kind of chewy, and filling.

Trust me when I tell you, I will never become one of those obnoxious people who forces her health crap on you because she’s seen the light. I’ve had people do that to me with food, religion, alcohol, you name it and it drives me nuts. My blog will always contain healthy stuff and trashy stuff because life is no fun if you don’t let loose every once in a while.  Be good and take care of your health, but when you do decide to have something trashy,  REALLY ENJOY IT!!! Then go back to being good again. I live by the good 90% of the time, bad 10 percent of the time motto. It keeps me mostly sane, even if I am usually 10 lbs. overweight.

And when you can make something like this Farro Zucchini dish, that tastes good and is good for you, well that’s proof there is a God, and she likes to eat too!

Farro with Zucchini, Green Onions and Sundried Tomatoes

1 cup farro

2 cups water

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 bunch of green onions chopped in 1 inch pieces

2 small zucchini, cut lengthwise in half, then chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

8 sundried tomatoes, choppped into small strips (I get big jars of sundried tomatoes at Costco and they are great!)

Parmesan or Romano Cheese

Farro cooks much like rice. Just put the farro in a pan with twice as much liquid and add a pinch of salt. Let it come to a boil, then let it simmer until it’s tender (about 20 minutes).  When it’s done, set it aside

In a medium skillet, saute the onion, and zucchini in the olive oil about 5 to 7 minutes, or until slightly golden on the sides.  Then add 1/2 of the farro (save the other half for the next night!) to the zucchini-onion mixture.  Toss to mix and add the sundried tomato pieces to the mixture. Mix thoroughly, and pour into a bowl. Sprinkle with Parmesan or Romano and serve.

You can also add chopped parsley, or chopped black olives, feta cheese, or whatever sounds good to you. I made it again with leeks and zucchini and it was fabulous! I’m sure whatever you choose it will be good!