Monthly Archives: April 2012

I catered dinner to My Captain’s firehouse again tonight.  A fantastic Chicken Pot Pie, and an out-of-this-world Pineapple/Apple Cobbler. (I’m nothing, if not humble in my culinary abilities)

As usual, I made twice as much as they could possibly eat.  (Although it’s been insinuated that maybe Lt. Tom might snack around the midnight hour and clean up the leftovers.)

The thing about having leftovers at My Captain’s firehouse…they don’t have any complete sets of Rubbermaid, or Tupperware containers.  I took out everything on all three shelves devoted to food storage, and nothing, NOTHING matched.  No lid would mate with a single box. How in the world do they manage to do that??! I mean, I could see losing one or two lids, but to have a hundred lids that do not fit a single bottom….HOW?  And talk about a mishmash of shapes…I even found a diamond shaped box (with no lid, mind you).  I ain’t ever seen one of those!  No-sirreee Bob!

(I have no idea why I just started writing in a country voice.)

I was astounded that these guys are in such a state. These are the men who’s engineering feats at many rescue sites have won critical acclaim.

These are the men who can shore up the nastiest of collapse situations (They were at 9/11 at the Pentagon, and the Oklahoma City Bombing, and Hurricane Katrina, to name a few).

These are logical, mathematically-minded, structural-engineering-experienced fire and rescue professionals.

And they cannot manage to keep a single plastic food storage bin married to its lid.

My Captain came into the kitchen while I was bemoaning the fact that such capable men are so incapable of such a minor task.

He raised an eyebrow and smirked, reached over me to the next cupboard, opened it, took some Saran Wrap out, deftly wrapped the lid-less Rubbermaid container I had just emptied leftover potpie into, and said matter-of-factly,

“Adapt and overcome.  You can complain about it, or you can do something about it.”

Man I wish we had politicians like him.

I’ve been told by those “in the know” that I need to get a Twitter account to help Mamaboe.com reach all the masses.

First of all, I doubt very seriously that ‘the masses’ are so hard up for entertainment that they want to read my drivel.  As it stands, I’m deeply concerned about you guys….the ones who are reading this now.  You DO realize that these are just the ramblings of a normal, every-day, nothing-to-see-here-people-move-along woman, right?

Secondly, I’m not hip enough to get on Twitter.  I could not possibly ‘Tweet’ enough to keep people entertained.

Thirdly, I just can’t stand the name ‘Twitter’.  It has got the word ‘Twit’ in it, and I just don’t need to align myself with that word any more than my day-to-day stupidity already does.

Fourthly, I don’t have a fancy phone to continuously update. I have an old folding phone, remarkably similar to Captain Kirk’s Communication device.  If I tried to ‘tweet’ on it, it might just explode.

Fifthly (is that a word?), I don’t want to.

So there you have it:  The reason Mamboe.com will never reach national notoriety is that Pam refuses to get a Twitter account.  The mystery is solved.

I’ll never be the next Rodney Dangerfield.

Even though I do look like him just a little bit.

I get so tired of hearing hate spewed from political parties and their activists.  Listening to generalizations getting thrown around.  Watching broad, unfair, inaccurate brush strokes being swiped over complete strangers on both sides of the aisle.

But that is the way politics have always been.  We haven’t evolved or devolved.  People who say this country is going to pot have never looked at the rhetoric used in colonial days.   Sure, the phraseology was different, but there were personal and party slurs being thrown around then, just as there are today.

I have decided that it all comes down to people who want control of the Sandbox.  That’s all it is.  Oversized children who want to control the sandbox.

Some want to control because they are predators, and enjoy the power trip.  Some want to control so the predators can’t gain power over them.  And either party could say that about the other.

As for my role in all of this, I see myself as the fat kid with the Baloney Sandwich in the sandbox, watching the two other kid’s bicker about what they want to do with it.  My Sandwich.

I see both parties that way.  Neither the Democrats or the Republicans doubt  or question that they will be taking part of my baloney sandwich.  They figure it’s a done deal.  And they are slinging sand and mud all over each other while they determine who is in control.

You know what I am doing while they duke it out?

I’m eating my Baloney Sandwich.

My plan was to cook a healthy meal tonight for My Captain and me.  I bought skinless, boneless, free-range, organic, guaranteed-not-to-contribute-to-heart-disease chicken breasts.  My plan was to bake them and serve them alongside whole grain brown basmati rice with peas and carrots, and then a nice romaine lettuce salad on the side.  Our Doctor would have been so pleased.

And then….

The yard work took too long today.  Which made our furniture shopping go late today.  Which made our trip to the hardware store go late today.

It was 9:15 before I got to the kitchen.  We were both beat.  I needed to reduce the cooking time for everything.  Basmati Rice takes 45 minutes, done right; baked chicken can take a while too.

I had to punt.

Always one to think quickly on an empty stomach… I mean, on my feet, I grabbed a fast-cooking box of Rice-A-Roni, threw in some white wine, a can of mushrooms, some frozen peas, cut carrots and called it Rice.  I felt guilty that it wasn’t whole grain, so I added 1/4 cup of Benefiber (YIKES!) and 1/4 cup of Wheat Germ.  I re-named it Intestinal Distress Rice.

Then I threw the skinless, boneless, free-range, organic, guaranteed-not-to-contribute-to-heart-disease chicken breasts in flour and dunked those bad boys in a vat of boiling oil, where they quickely morphed into heart-attack-inducing-lumps-of-deliciousness.

When they were done, they looked a little lonely.  So I put some bacon I’d cooked earlier today on top of each fried chicken breast.

That looked a little weird, so I grated some New York Sharp Cheddar Cheese on top of that, and stuck it in the oven to melt.

I spied an onion, looked at the vat o’ oil, looked at the onion again…..OHhhh YEAH! Oh BABY!  I sliced it up and violently threw it into the still bubbling vat o’ oil.

When the fried onions were done, I put those on top of the now melted and bubbly cheddar, which was on top of the crispy, smoky bacon, which was on top of the no-longer-healthy-but-seriously-tasty fried chicken.

Of course, I placed Texas Pete Hot Sauce on the table, along with some Ranch Dressing and jalapeno slices just in case we needed to add some more flavor…..

Thank goodness I served it with a salad.  Otherwise it wouldn’t have been a healthy meal.

I’m conscientious like that.

My Captain took me to dinner tonight.

We drove an hour to the historical Old South Mountain Inn, which sits atop…er…South Mountain.  It’s right on the Appalachian trail, very close to the first Washington Monument.   It’s a romantic century-old stone building with walls a couple of feet thick, heavy drapes, wingback chairs, wooden floors…TONS of history.   A special place, it had exactly the romance I needed.

We’ve not seen much of each other lately, and we were pining.

Ok, I was pining.  (read: whining)

I had put on a pretty flowered skirt and applied (gasp) a little make-up.  I have to be careful with make-up…I’m not very good at it, don’t do it often, and my kids tell me I look like a clown.

I’m not entirely sure they were referring to the make-up when they made the clown comment, but I let it slide.

Anyway, my point is that I took a small amount of effort into my appearance so that I might, if not dazzle, then at the very least, not embarrass My Captain at this nice restaurant on this romantic dinner.

Our meals were wonderful.  I had a fantastic French Onion Soup that I shared with My Captain.

French Onion Soup is not easy to eat.  The melted cheese on the top makes it a challenge.  But I shared it as carefully as I could.  Still, I dripped quite a bit of it on the linen tablecloth in my efforts to get the spoon to My Captain’s mouth.

The Filet Mignons we had were lovely.  They had been served in a red wine demi-glace…delicious.  One thing about red wine demi-glace, if you have a puddle of it on your plate when you are cutting into a hunk of beef, if you’re not careful, you might splatter some of it on the white linen tablecloth that you just dribbled French Onion Soup on.

We finished our meal.

The waiter took the empty plates.

I gazed lovingly across the table at My Captain, my belly heavy with delicious vittles, my heart full with love and appreciation.   The candlelight flickered on his face.  I marveled at this handsome man, and the fact that he is mine.

He, however, was looking down at the table with raised eyebrows…more specifically at my side of the table.

I looked down.

There were soup and demi-glace splatters, both of which were red-ish brown, all over my side of the table.  It looked like someone had slaughtered a beast where I was sitting.  I mean, it looked like I had GONE  TO TOWN on my meal…juices and sauces were everywhere.

I chewed on my lip and shifted in my seat.  Why can’t I be classy for just once in my life?? I mean, I have come to terms with the fact that I am a woman who enjoys her food…I don’t pick at things, I don’t push things around on my plate and eat like a bird.  And I don’t make excuses for the fact that I love food and eat enthusiastically.  But do I have to leave the table looking like I had decided to forego the use of hands during my meal?

I looked back over at him.  He was grinning at me, with a twinkle in his eyes and love in his face.

He’s a keeper.

But next time I’m going to order a sandwich.

The Old South Mountain Inn.  Give them a try! And Tell ’em Mama Boe sent ya.

(They’ll be like, “Who???”)