Plans!

 Winter Approcheth. Winter in the Deep South is more of a concept than a reality. Around here it means dreary days of rain with the occasional complete shut-down inducing flakes of snow followed by black ice on bridges. Anyone remember Snowmageddon that closed Atlanta for several days and caused Chik-Fil-A to deliver sandwiches to stranded motorists on I-285? I remember it. I wasn't living in Atlanta so I just shrugged and made soup.

Anyway, Capt and I make Winter Escaping Plans. Last year we went to South Fla in the Pompano Beach area for a dive trip. That was fun! The year before we went to Key West and I got my first real life exposure to drag queens and snow crab claws. Also Fun!  Capt's making noises now about another trip down to the Keys, for a couple of days of diving and boating (we're going to take The Other Line along), then drive to Tampa to spend a couple days with friends there. I want to hit up the Goodwill store in Naples because c'mon....Naples. You KNOW the Goodwill has to be something special. It's the first place I ever saw 4 McLarens at a stoplight. And some sort of supercar we couldn't identify but later determined it was a Volvo. I didn't know Volvo even made a supercar but there it was.  We ate at a restaurant that had Martini and Mussel Monday (I think it was Monday....might have been Wednesday) and I got the BEST mussels I'd ever had *AND* a proper martini. There were lots of fancy Ladies Who Lunch there and the whole thing was some sort of cultural experience that made me smile.

So yeah, we're making Winter Plans again. Nothing's firm, and initially I was kind of "hmmm" about it but then I remembered the Keys have John Pennecamp State Park and I have dive gear including tanks we could get filled somewhere and Pennecamp is some of the best diving in the country so there's that.  Plus the boat and Capt's kind of grooving on the idea of boating around the Keys and possibly catching a fish. Our friends in Tampa have ample room and a private dock, and Capt would love to explore the flats in the area and maybe do some more fishing. 

The more I think about it, the more I'm loving the idea of it. There's something about getting away to a Tropical Locale in the middle of Winter (or what passes for it in Central Alabama) for a complete change of venue that is deeply appealing. 

I'd have to probably shave my legs. 

And do a couple of practice dives maybe in a Florida spring, just to make sure I remember how. If he's teaching a class at the University around then, I could go into the pool and fritz around. Just to be sure.

Anyway, it's a possibility. For now we're going to do some fishing expeditions in the North Florida flats around Apalachicola and Port Saint Joe because it's that time of year and redfish is delicious.

Where has the time gone?

 Geez it's been a couple of months. What can I say? I've been busy, y'all.  Doing what? What on Earth could a 56 year old fairly recently remarried window mother of 4 grown kids POSSIBLY be busy doing? I mean seriously. I'm not even formally employed. Or apparently employable. A couple of years ago I threw my new resume out there into the proverbial wind. I got a few nibbles to which I enthusiastically responded but my enthusiasm was met with (what seemed to be) Oh. You're Old. I wanted to put on my resume', down at the bottom, something along the lines of "As a 56 year old woman, I will not be called by the schools to fetch sick children. I will not spend the day crying because my boyfriend didn't call yesterday. I will not be out 3 days a month due to menstrual cramps. I make excellent coffee and am not too highly educated to do it." But no. I'm 56. I have grey hair and occasionally swollen ankles. I am not a pretty piece of boobage to ornament the front desk and flirt with the clients. Never mind I can make them feel like their mother just gave them a hug and offer them the best coffee they'd had in a month.

Frustrated much? Naw. Not in the least. Nor is my ego damaged because of it. Their loss, not mine.

Which is slightly a lie. No one likes to be rejected. 

So what HAVE I been doing? Well, The Boat came in. A fine piece of flats-floating work Capt named The Other Line (as in "Can't come to the phone right now, he's on The Other Line"  get it? Huh? Get it? Haw!) So work has been proceeding on getting it fully equipped with all the ancillary stuff like tackle, EPIRB, life jackets, things, the Coast Guard insists on. Also figuring out the best places to fish. Other business stuff like cards, magnet things to go on the truck, getting a website (site has been bought but not yet established)...you know...the stuff of today's business environment. 

Also...a lot of embroidery work...sort of.

And some reading, writing, cooking, gardening, general figuring out of "where do we want to go from here?" Capt's office is getting arranged. The desk needs sorting out and there's some boxes of stuff that don't have a home yet. 

I'm trying to figure out my dog. Bless him. He refuses to let us know when he has to poop so we find it in assorted places in the house and that has resulted in a banishment to the outside. I hate that, but one can't have one's members of the household making deposits of the non-financial sort on the floor. The cat, on the other hand, is very smug about it all. 

Food continues to be a source of stress. Capt has so little he can eat these days without upsetting his system in one way or another. For a person who's a committed foodie, that's more than just an inconvenience. It's having one of your favorite sources of pleasure removed, but knowing it's still there mocks you. Going to the grocery store used to be fun, now it's a minefield and very discouraging. He tells me I don't need to restrict my diet just because of him, but I'm not going to sit down and eat a giant Reuben in front of him, or a pizza, or any other thing he used to love but now can't eat for fear it will make him sick. How rude would that be?  

Today? I'm trying to ignore the news. With a vodka cranberry. 

Sometimes you just need a cookie.

 What's your favorite cookie? I like oatmeal raisin. Those are my comfort cookie. I like them made with real butter, and I spice them up a bit with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Nothing fancy recipe-wise, just the one on the back of the oatmeal box. Add raisins and chopped pecans or walnuts. I have nothing against other cookies. Chocolate chips are good, snickerdoodles are even better, and good ol' 3 ingredient shortbreads are even better than oatmeal raisin but I don't make them often because I'll seriously eat the entire pan because...y'know...butter, flour, and sugar. You can't get more elemental than that.

When I was growing up, my Mom made spectacular piecrust, like really REALLY good that would bake up crisp and flaky. She would cut off the trimmings and bake them with cinnamon and sugar on them. She called the piecrust cookies and they never lasted long enough to even cool off properly. I have been know, occasionally, to make piecrust without the pie, tear it into pieces and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, just to have the childhood memory of Mom making a pie and the added treat of the cookies.

I truly don't know what my kids favorite cookies were. They would eat anything. I know one of them always asks for a German chocolate cake, but the others never (to my recollection) had a particular preference. My late husband always wanted peanut butter cookies and Capt likes chocolate chip with pecans. 

Now, it's 2 of us here with an occasional Grandpunkin and #3 dropping by. When I make cookies now, I don't bake the entire batch and have 5024 cookies on a plate goading us into eating them all in one day. I will make a whole batch of dough, use my tiny ice cream scoop (about 1-1/2 inch diameter) and scoop balls onto a tray to freeze. Then they go into a ziploc bag in the freezer, and when one of us wants cookies, a few balls go onto a baking sheet and we have some cookies without having a gluttonous frenzy. I can throw a few balls into a container and send home with #3 to share with Grandpunkin, or take some to Mom to have with her afternoon tea. She also loves oatmeal raising and Dad likes chocolate chip.

I'm not going to take the time to write out the recipes because they're just the ones off the chocolate chip bag and the oatmeal box. The only differences are these:

• I always ALWAYS use real butter.
• I use all brown sugar, or turbinado sugar, instead of 1/2 brown and 1/2 white
• With oatmeal, I add 1/2 teaspoon each ground cinnamon and allspice, and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. I know nutmeg isn't everyone's cup of tea so leave it out if you aren't a fan. You can also use 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie or apple pie spice blend
• Occasionally I've made Kitchen Sink cookies. Those are oatmeal cookies with ALL the good stuff added: chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, coconut, anything you can think of. About 1/4 cup of at least 4 things.
• When mixing the butter, eggs, and vanilla, I whip it in a stand mixer for several minutes until it's so creamed together it's almost white.

There. That's my cookie post.

"CRS is highly permanent right now"

 There's all kinds of theories about memories, loss, recall, all that stuff...whether they're gone, or it's recall that's a problem.  Or (my favorite Highly Unscientific But Far More Palatable) that your brain gets full and when a new memory comes in an older one gets shoved out...usually during the night and that's what the wet stuff is on your pillow. Old memories, not drool. Of course, that doesn't explain the memory issues of walking into a room and not remembering why....only that you've got a plausible reason for doing so.

Do you ever make a reason up, just to keep from embarrassing yourself? Even if no one is around and you're the only one disturbed by situation. I do that sometimes. I'll go into the storage room to get something, and have no idea why, so I'll grab some toilet paper or ziploc bags and go back in the house. Then I'll remember it was mason jars...but was it quart or pint? Then I have to parse *that* out. Am I canning beans or pickling jalapenos or making marmalade? Oh right....marmalade. 1/2 pints. And I'm out of them so I go online to see who has them nearby and wouldn't you know Tractor Supply has Wrangler jeans on sale! I need to call (whoever) and let them know! Why was I at Tractor Supply? I don't want need any horsefeed or bearings or giant bags of candy orange slices. Oh well, I guess I'll go read a while.

4 hours later....

darnit I needed 1/2 pints.

Even Capt, who's memory is usually exceptional, has his moments. I think like me, his mind works in overdrive but he's better at keeping things compartmentalized so the mental colors don't run together. A couple of days ago when I was expressing so much frustration as being an airhead, he gently said "you're not an airhead, your mind is just always 3 steps ahead and you lose track." Maybe. But it's personally embarrassing to forget I need 1/2 pint jars and get toilet paper instead. Even if bringing it in the house served a practical purpose.

Then there's that perpetual Mother of Several situation of calling your kids by the wrong names. I do it every. single. time. Almost. It helps if there's only one here and I can tell myself silently "his name is (X) his name is (X) his name is (X)" but that's still no guarantee. "his name is (X)" in my head and "HEY (Y)! Great to see you!" "Hi Mom, I'm X.." Oh. I knew that. hi anyway, its still great to see you.

There's one area where I'm guaran-damn-teed not to forget. Never will I ever, because my brain at 2 am will call all this up and beat me about the head and neck with it. It's all the everything I have ever done really wrong. The time I inadvertently offended someone in the 7th grade. She'd gotten new glasses and I said something rude. Then there was the time....and the other time...and that one time...Shut up brain. Why won't you remember 1/2 pint jars instead?

The statement there on the title comes from Capt. He said that earlier today. "What's CRS?" I asked.

"Can't Remember Shit."  

Oh...he said that right after he asked what I fixed for lunch and I replied with "same thing I fixed 10 minutes ago when you asked." But then right now he's not firing on all cylinders, through no fault of his own. Soon he'll be back to his normal self. 

Square Peg, meet round hole.

 All Summer we've been considering the possibility/desire/opportunities of moving to an Island Locale, Caribbean Destination. We both have long had a dream of living in a very warm place surrounded by blue waters and excellent fishing/diving/(insert water activity). The concept of waking up to the sound of the waves and screeching wildlife has a certain appeal. Lizards in the living room, monkeys rearranging the closets, coconut concussions....can't you see how fun that would be? Completely different lifestyle from the one we currently live in Central Alabama.

But, a certain anxiety has accompanied all this consideration. An unease, that I chalked up to excitement and all the logistical machinations of moving to another country during A Pandemic. They are myriad. What to do with the dog and cat? Can we actually work there or do we have to remain a tourist spending tourist dollars? About the only thing that was completely certain was the wardrobe options: very simple. 

I was looking for...I don't know what to call it....a sign, perhaps. Some sort of confirmation of Yay or Nay to tell me This Is The Thing or This Is Not The Thing. 

We had these plans to check out Panama, the Bocas Del Toro province, which is an archipelago on the western end of the country, near Costa Rica and Belize. It's all about fishing and diving and cheap cost of living. We'd talked to a real estate agent there who was going to help us find affordable places to live, an attorney who would help us with all the immigration, and a logistics person to help with the moving of stuff. No contracts signed or anything, just preliminary feelers put out like some sort of octopus poking out a tentacle to see if the water is fine. 

Anyway, we were due to leave on Tuesday, August 10. Plane tickets, hotel reservations, all the right things were in place and good to go. We'd been gone the weekend for Capt to run a few charters for a friend who hadn't had a day off all Summer, and came home Sunday evening. Monday was meant to be spent packing, getting $300 worth of COVID testing (ouch...what a racket that is), dog to the boarding place, ad infinitum. Only, Monday I woke up with a cough, sinus congestion, and a low grade fever. 

You know darn well I'd be treated like I was wiping my Ebola infected blood all over everyone's lips if I'd tried to go into the Atlanta Airport, or get on a plane, and the Panamanian Authorities....I have NO idea what they would do but I doubt a 4-star hotel would be involved.  

So...the trip was postponed. We lost the deposits (1 night's stay) on the hotel rooms, and the plane tickets could only be transferred. Fortunately the COVID tests hadn't been done, and the dog boarding situation was easy enough to cancel. 

We spent most of Monday and Tuesday discussing the situation. Are we really supposed to be leaving the country? Why are we wanting to leave? (Me: Political situation, cultural issues in this country, general disillusionment with the USA and where it seems to be headed, lower cost of living) What would be required to get our selves in order once we're there, and enable us to do the things we REALLY want to do? He wants to lead fly fishing charters. He has a beautiful new boat meant to do just that. He'd have to get the boat there, fish the areas for a year to learn them, before ever even starting the charters. I'm not even sure what I'd be doing. Most of what I enjoy doing are the sorts of things the locals would be doing and last thing I want to do is take work away from people who really need it. Logistically it would be really, really complicated.  We both felt a degree of anxiety, that I was chalking up to excitement but maybe it was unease, or the discomfort of trying to maneuver that square peg. I kept trying to shave off the corners to make it fit in my mind.

Thing is, I am a very firm believer that God opens and shuts doors. He's done so all my life and the times I've shoved through that door, or tried climbing through a window, it's never really gone well.  The times I've recognized a door, either open or shut, and walked through it, or sat down and waited, it has gone exceedingly well. You think I'd have learned by now. We both came to the conclusion that we weren't supposed to be going to Panama right now.  My father called with a "why the hell do you want to go to Panama right now? State Dept issued a No Travel warning!" (are you nuts??...he didn't actually say that out loud but I knew he was thinking it). 

And the funny thing is, once we made the No decision on Panama, moving that is, we both felt a sense of relief. The anxiety I was interpreting as excitement wafted away. Capt enjoyed those charters he ran so very much. He already has people lined up to hire him for fly fishing trips on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The people who are customizing his boat want him to enter it into a boat show in Mobile. He can't do that if it's in Panama (or Belize/Costa Rica/ Enter Caribbean Locale). I will be reachable by my family and can come back up to here (Central Alabama) regularly. We already have a piece of land in Florida that will be simple to get set up for parking the RV and making into a second homesite. It's big enough we can make a second RV parking spot to rent out or let family use. There's so much here that we can easily do without having to involve agents and attorneys and immigration officials. The ONLY issue I have is that...well...I'm so very disillusioned with the way our culture and society seem to be headed and I don't want to participate in it anymore. That, of course, is a whole 'nother topic.

So I've quit trying to fit the square peg into the round hole. Now we're going to go with Plan A...the one we'd originally made before I got an attitude about the way I think Society is crumbling around us. The location of the land in Florida is in a very politically compatible area, there's plenty of work for Capt on easily accessible waterways, it's close enough for family to visit if we ever decide to tell them exactly where we are, and I can keep my embroidery business intact.  Round hole, meet round peg.

Jalapeno Popper Bites because life is better with fried cheese.

 We don't eat a big meal in the evening. We've turned into those old people who eat a big lunch, take a nap, then have an Adult Libation and A Nibble in the evening. Sometimes the nibbles are a simple as potato chips, or a wee bowl of peanuts. We sleep better that way. Capt has a favorite nibble, one that takes a little effort but not so much that I dislike fixing them (that's Southern for "preparing them") (they aren't actually broken). These are ripe for messing with, changing up the seasonings to suit personal tastes, and also for fixing (excuse me...Preparing) a whole bunch ahead of time then just fixing (ahem...) however many or few you want in the moment.  I generally double the recipe, freeze most of them, and pull out however many Capt requires for his Evening Repast. These probably would be fantastic for some sort of sports party (I don't do those) or cookout thing. Anyway, here they are, Capt's favorite nibble:

Fried Jalapeno Popper Bites (double if you want to) (also, alternatives in parenthesis)

Ingredients

Filling

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 3 jalapenos, seeded and diced
• 1/4 cup chopped cooked bacon (or 1/2 teaspoon Dark and Smoky Flatiron Pepper)
• 2 Tbsp Sriracha sauce (or some other hot sauce)

Coating

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour (gluten free is fine)
• 1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs (also GF)
• 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs (also GF)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 tablespoons water

Oil for frying

• Combine the filling ingredients until well mixed. I do it in a stand mixer with a paddle. 
• Using a small cookie scoop (like a tiny ice cream scoop, about 2 tablespoon size), scoop the mix onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and stick them in the freezer until solid- 2 or 3 hours.
• Mix the coating stuff together in a bowl, except for the eggs and water.
• Mix the eggs and water together in another bowl.
• Heat several inches of oil- something neutral like canola or vegetable- to 350F. 
• While the oil is heating, roll the cold cheese balls in the egg mix, then coat with the bread crumb mix, and set on a plate.
• When the oil is hot, fry 6-8 at a time until golden brown- roughly 3-4 minutes. Drain on a paper towel and serve warm with Ranch dressing (Capt likes to mix some Flat Iron 4 pepper blend red pepper flakes into the dressing, or gets the Jalapeno Ranch made by Lighthouse)

I make up a double batch of the cheese balls, scoop them out, and freeze them. They all go into a big ziploc bag in the freezer, and I'll fix however many we want (like 6-8) at a time. The coating blend can also be made ahead of time and stored in the freezer. 

Our jalapenos come out of the garden. I reckon, if you're so inclined, you could use a milder pepper like a poblano, or a hotter one like a serrano or even a Hairy Chested Fool type like a habanero.  The first couple of times I put in bacon, but then we had some guests who needed it Halal (like Kosher but for Muslims) so no bacon. I used a bit of smoked pepper blend from Flat Iron Pepper Co. and it gave a lovely hint of smoke and I liked it even better than with the bacon...primarily because I didn't have to fix (prepare) any to go into it, but the flavor was lovely.

An Unpaid Endorsement for Flat Iron Pepper Company: Y'all. They have all sorts of combinations of peppers for all sorts of different applications even one called I Can't Feel My Face that is just the thing to give to your smart-ass son who thinks there's no such thing as a pepper too hot for him. We got some of that, opened it cautiously and sniffed from a distance and both of us our faces went numb. Just the thing. We have most (if not all) of their blends and yes. They're amazing. Some are too hot for my delicate feminine constitution, but they also have milder versions of some of them and those are really good. The flavor blends are kind of like....I don't know....a fine coffee blend or anything else improved by a bit of this and a touch of that. Don't get me wrong, they tend to be hot and if you're someone who can't handle the heat of a jalapeno you might be careful and stick with the Hatch Valley Green and the BBQ rub and use them sparingly. That said...y'all. So good.

Po-tay-toes: smush um, fluff um, mix um with a choux

 More potato things...because who doesn't love taters?  Now, I'd never made pate' choux before. It's the dough that cream puffs and eclairs are made from. Light and crispy and fancy sounded all French and such. Surprisingly easy if you follow the directions to a T. Don't shortcut. Don't substitute margarine for the butter. in fact, NEVER substitute margarine for butter. For anything. I don't care if the recipe says margarine. Just don't. In fact, if you have margarine (and you're not dealing with a dairy allergy or maybe you're a vegan) (though to my knowledge I don't know any vegans) (not intentionally anyway) just back away from the margarine and use the all natural-from-a-cow-as-God-intended-it butter. 

One of the most disappointing culinary experiences in my entire life involved a gorgeous 17 layer caramel cake at a coffee shop. (anyone in the Deep South knows of which I speak. Every Baptist church has at least one person who makes this confectionary miracle and brings it to the 4th Sunday potluck lunch, or it should.)  I got my delicious fresh pour-over coffee and a lovely slice of that glorious cake. My first bite was anticipated like a 6 year old anticipating Christmas. It had been so very long since I'd had a delicious, buttery slice of caramel cake. and....(you see where this is going)....it had been made with margarine. It felt like that 6 year old got socks for Christmas. That were wrapped up in a Nintendo box. I didn't even want another bite though I did in the hopes that maybe my taste buds had somehow briefly glitched and it actually was a butter caramel cake. It wasn't. They hadn't. 

So what I'm saying is this: please use real butter. It doesn't matter if it's salted or unsalted (easier to control the seasoning if it's un- but you do you.) So here's the super fun and easier-than-you'd-think recipe for Potato Puffs.

• 4 small Yukon Gold potatoes, quartered (apparently you can also use russets but Yukon Golds tend to be smaller)

For the pastry dough:

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter
• kosher salt to taste
• 1/2 cup flour (I used gluten free though not grain free)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 450F. Generously butter a 24-cup mini muffin pan

Put the potatoes in a pot and boil them until soft. When they're done, drain off the water, peel, and mash them until smooth. I used a ricer so they had no lumps at all. I don't think you'd want any lumps.

For the dough, bring the water and butter to a boil, with a bit of salt. Turn off the heat and add the flour, stirring vigorously to make a kind of stiff dough. Put it over into a mixing bowl and smush up the sides of the bowl so it will cool quickly. When it's cool, add the eggs and beat until it's smooth. I used a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. A hand mixer would work just fine.  Add the potatoes and beat some more, until it's smooth.

Scoop about 2 tablespoons of the mixture into each well greased (IMPORTANT. Don't assume because it might be non-stick that you don't want it buttered) muffin cup. Bake for 20 minutes. Let them sit one minute after taking them out of the oven, then turn onto a wire rack to cook 5 minutes. Serve warm with butter.

Note: I think you could add chopped herbs/chives/bacon to the dough. I don't know how cheese would affect the way they puff up.

I want to try making the dough ahead of time (maybe the day before) and see if that messes with the quality of the end product. Since it doesn't have any leavening in it there's no time-specific chemical reaction taking place that would be ruined by a long wait. It would be nice to be able to make it ahead of time, because it kind of takes up a lot of counter space.

I made these in 2 batches because I have just one 12-cup mini muffin pan. Everyone kept "testing the first batch for quality control purposes". (You know, you don't want to serve substandard food to guests. Here, let me check one to see if they're any good. Ok, I'd better check again to be sure. Hey guests, try one and see if you think they're ok. Try another one to be sure.)  They were light, potato-y crispy goodness, like a cross between a pre-stuffed cream puff and a tater-tot only smooth. I kept the slim remainder of the first batch warm while the second batch baked and there was no loss of quality. Even at the end of the meal when everything was cooled off and there were 4 left, those were still delicious. I really would use a ricer to mash the taters. It makes such a smooth, chunkless result. If you're a more diligent sort than I, and can make perfectly smooth mash without one, more power to you. 

For your viewing pleasure, here's some Yukon Gold potatoes.