RECIPES AND ADDENDUM TO RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES

RECIPES:

Recipes accumulate and I like to refer to the outstanding ones as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The first recipe I remember ever collecting happened when I was in the first grade.  Mom let me enroll in a local Brownie Scout unit and I faithfully attended meetings and participated in crafts and saluting the flag.  I also trotted home with a recipe for Chocolate Mayonnaise cake.  The ingredients are simple; flour, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla and Mayonnaise.  No eggs.  Mix, bake at 350 for 30 minutes, serve when cool, no frosting. This is a lovely moist cake with a hint of bitter chocolate.  Do not store in the fridge because the temperature drop hardens and dehydrates a perfectly lovely product. And as Mom ALWAYS told us each and every time we used the recipe, DO NOT USE Miracle Whip sandwich spread unless you really want a nasty sour tasting cake.  Nope.

Do not EVER allow a three quart sauce pan of eggs to boil dry.  Ever.  The stench from the blackened exploded eggs is incredible and lodges deep in the sinuses and rivals the stench of skunk and slaughter houses.  

The ugliest recipe I ever attempted was to make sauerbraten with venison.  I followed the recipe and pickled the meat with spices and vinegar.  The result was a disgusting grey mess that was inedible and was immediately thrown out. Far far away.

The best instant success happened one day when my son was about two years old. I started to make him a sandwich and realized that I had no bread.  It was a really long walk if I wanted to hike to the store.  I looked around and found some soft shell taco shells.  So I fried some bacon, sliced some tomato, shredded a bit of lettuce, fried the taco shell and schmeared on some Mayo.  That was an instant success and I have made BLTT's, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Taco's many times in the years since. Yummy!!

A weird failure happened when I decided to make banana muffins using the recipe I found on the side of a box of Malt-O-Meal.  I mashed the bananas to a smooth consistency and followed the directions.  I poured the mixture onto a small cookie sheet and baked it for 30 minutes at 350.  Allow to cool.  Strangely enough the texture was a very flexible rubbery texture.  We called them Banana Slabs but they got eaten up.  In the immortal words of my Mother, FOLLOW THE RECIPE.

One time when I worked in Barrow, I purchased what I thought was ham.  I found that I had purchased a pork shoulder and decided to cook it in a slow cooker.  Eight hours later the meat deboned and shredded nicely.  I cooked some rice, threw in some hot sauce and some canned green chilies and took it into work.  Everyone in the hospital stopped into the medical records department to get a cup of Chiles Verde, Kind of.  It was pretty tasty and I got to take home an empty crock pot.

One time when I was in high school my girlfriends and I decided that we would make a pizza.  There was only one Pizza place in the early 60's and it was 35 miles away in Boise and they did not deliver.  We had an Appian Way box of pizza mix and followed those directions.  We decided to make a hamburger pizza with olives, tomato sauce, and cheese.  We put it all together piled about two inches thick and put it in the oven.  It cooked in about 30 minutes and we immediately scarfed it up.  It is a wonder we didn't kill ourselves cooking the raw hamburger on the raw dough.  Ack.

ADDENDUM TO RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES:  Years ago a Jewish friend of mine, Sylvia, told me that her daughter was engaged to a Mormon boy.  The couple was married in the brand spanking new Temple in Boise.  A few weeks passed until I once again saw Sylvia.  I teased her, "How does your daughter feel, now that she truly is a Gentile?".  Which is an inside Mormon joke.

LANGUAGES

LANGUAGES:

I have always admired people who can speak more than one language.  I decided to make a list of all the languages of which I know at least one word.  This might take a while.

I was born in America and thus grew up speaking relatively unaccented English.  One of my grandfathers came from Sweden so I listened to that musical intonation as a child.  I learned Glad Yul was Merry Christmas and that flicka meant girl.
  
The next language was Spanish.  I can order beer,"Mas Cervasas, por favor" and food related items, Taco, enchilada and Mole Enchilada Con Poyo.  Could I get chips with that.

Long dry spell. Sim means yes in Portugese.  Nein means no in German and as far as sentence structure I think all sentences begin with a noun or maybe it is a verb.

I grew up in Basque country and listened to it but never learned anything other than five syllable names.  Dr. Jewell could never pronounce Cihigoiniche and it always came out "She's a gonna getcha".  Malexachebaria.  Cengotito.  I don't even know the Basque word for sheep.

There was actually a Latin teacher in the Junior High School.  When she left that was the end of Latin.  I collided with Latin root words later on in medical terminology class which I found fascinating.  My favorite quote in Latin is "Carthago delenda est". Carthage must be destroyed and eventually it was completely wiped off the face of the earth. 

In high school, we had an exchange student from Kenya.  Her name was Ellen Ogada and she was pure shining black and had very white teeth.  I begged her to teach me some Swahili and all I can remember 50 odd years later is "Kiazi kizuri kidogo" which means three small potatoes.  Might come in handy on Safari.

I learned a few Inupiaq words when I worked in Barrow, Alaska.  Eiii is yes.  Mukluks boots. Kuspik, ladies dress. Arigaaa means wow. Muktuk, fresh whale blubber.  Nanuk is polar bear. Usik is walrus penis bone.  These were commonly carved and sold, always guaranteed to break the ice at a party.

While there I also learned a couple American Sign Language signs.  I would hold up my hand and twist and back and forth rapidly in applause.  I could hold up my fist and bend it back and forth which was "yes".

The year I came back to Idaho about 1975 I worked the apple harvest in the Dewey apple sheds.  I sorted and packed apples.  I had a chance to meet one of the Romanian exchange farmers.  We spoke a bit finding commonalities and I asked him what "Good Evening" was in Romanian.  He replied, "Buna Sera." I exclaimed that sounded like Italian.  He then explained that Romania had been invade by the Romans a few centuries ago and some of the language remained as a result.  

The same place had some exchange workers from Japan.  They were a bit more difficult to interact with as they were hauling boxed apples to the railhead in town.  I did get offered "Cigaretto?" and declined.  

The only French I know is from a "French For Dummies" book I purchased and which languishes to this day on the book shelf.  I of course recognize many French dishes and know enough to avoid snails on the menu. I learned that there are cognates in French that look like a familiar English word but invariably DO NOT MEAN THE SAME.

Italian, same thing food items with which I am familiar.  The place names in Italy crack me up when translated into English. Liguria is Rooster, I think and that is very funny.

Chinese, menu items only except a girl friend married a Hong Kong born gentleman and as a friend I was invited to his parents Chinese New Years celebration. Wow! I learned all about pork steamed buns.  God Bless the Chinese.

I read a scifi book years ago, set in Earth future.  It is highly desired that a person speak as many different languages as possible.  It is not uncommon to know and speak 10 to 15 different languages. These people make excellent diplomats as well as translators.  The women of this group also speak as many languages as possible.  However the social group represses the women so that they do not do much more than have children. They have been creating a separate women's language in a very quiet rebellion.  They are happy to know something that the men do not. 

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES:

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES:
I was raised in the Judeo-Christian flavor of religiosity.  Most of the influence came by way of Grandma Horn.  She attended the First Christian Church.  Occasionally I would attend with her.  We didn't attend Sunday school because we arrived and left with Grandma.  '

About once a month or so, Communion was passed among the members.  Communion was served on a large round silver tray.  The Host consisted of small square tan buttons and the wine was served in a couple dozen small wine glass each sitting in a hole in the tray. The glasses jiggled and the wine sloshed about. I asked Grandma once if I could have some and was told no.  I have since been puzzled why she did not pursue my question with perhaps a query if God had spoken to me, but she never did.
  
Each Sunday the pastor would ask if anyone wanted to come forward for salvation.  I don't remember seeing anyone do that.  I did attend a formal baptism once. The baptismal font was a large concrete tub in back of the alter behind a curtain. There was a large cross with light bulbs on it.  I did wonder what would happen if the cross fell into the water while someone was being baptized.

Mom would enthusiastically enroll me and my siblings in any and all Church Summer Camp.  These ran about a week and we were usually taken there by bus, thus freeing the parents for a chance at connubial bliss and to allow the bus driver the sense of Christian duty satisfied with the potential salvation of our tiny heathen souls.  All I remember are session of making pasta art.  

One time when I was a teenager, I was tasked with taking my three younger sisters to Summer Church Camp near Riggins, Idaho.  Again, transport via bus.  I remember one of the ladies asking me about my children. I was aghast and told her they were my sisters!!
I attended an Easter Sunrise Service in the city park once.  The Kiwanis were making pancakes.  It was cold.

When I and my first husband got engaged, we attended marriage classes in order to be married in the Catholic Church.  We managed the marriage and a few midnight masses.  Charlie was born and he was baptized Catholic.  When ever we were at the ranch, I went to the little church in Philo for services.  They did not have Sunday School, all children participated and those unruly ones would get taken outside.  

The year I worked in Dillingham, Alaska, my boss lady was invited to a Seventh Day Adventist Ladies retreat.  She wanted me to go with her.  I had a horrible cold and was coughing my head off but I gulped down some Alka-Seltzer Colds Medicine, took some cough drops, packed for the weekend and away we went.  We parked on the shore of Lake Aleknagik and a man in a small tug boat pushing a barge helped us on board with luggage and supplies for the weekend.  He was 90 years old and told the most corny jokes.  I loved him.  We putt putted to the middle of the lake to a small island that held a very nice house. We all off loaded and entered the house and got situated.  

Cough, cough, put on mask.  It was a two day event consisting of singing, prayers and a guest speaker.  Cough, cough, mask.  By the second day, I was really miserable.  I was very surprised when the guest speaker asked me if I wished for her to pray for me.  I cursed silently and nodded in agreement. She anointed my forehead with oil and prayed over me for what seemed like the longest time.  I thanked her when she finished.  After that I had to stifle my cough and pretend I was cured so she wouldn't feel bad.  That is how miracle cures work, I figure.

The only other religious events have been funerals.  Those are never fun but my Mom's funeral was a bit more lighthearted than others.  Most of us got up to speak briefly.  When it was my turn I got up and told everyone that I had been thinking hard about what to say because I wanted to tell a story from when I was a little girl.  I told about when Dad had purchased a small tract home on Clover Drive that ran behind the Veteran's Home.  We lived there long enough for me to attend Sunday School in some generic Christian Church where we listened to Bible stories and they were fund raising.
 
Also I was enrolled in Brownie Scouts and Mom volunteered to help at a week long day camp.  We made crafts, there was heavy involvement of glue and macaroni and we sang songs. Mom taught us to sing, "Daisy, Daisy, Tell Me True" or "Bicycle Built For Two" and other current songs then popular on the Sunday evening broadcast of Walt Disney. I concluded by repeating a story she had told me.  

It happened one school morning.  It was very busy, getting the three girls and one brother off to school. Phillip needed to go to baseball practice after school. One of the girls needed a written absence excuse for yesterday and they needed to get breakfast done, make sure everyone was clean, dressed out the door in a flurry, much babble and scurrying.  Phew! 
The phone rang about 9 am.  She answered hello. 
"This is Cleo Adams, the school nurse.  Am I speaking to Mrs. Baseball?" 

"Cleo, I didn't" Mom shrieked! The stories told after that were pretty good as well.

I never did learn to read music, so the Hymnal was not much help when it came to singing.  It is my opinion that while God is enjoying the chorus that human ears are not meant to enjoy the singing. I only ever heard one person singing beautifully and that was at a funeral for a friends mother, it was lovely.  Everything else has had to be professionally produced to be close to be appreciated.  Later on in life I found that I enjoy Gospel music.  Thank God for enthusiastic black choirs. White people generally cannot carry a restrained constipated tune.

FORMAL EDUCATION

COLLEGE:

Let me see, my approach to higher education has been somewhat dilatory. I always knew where Boise Junior College was located by the Boise River across the Julia Davis Park.  I drove past it dozens of times but had no close acquaintance until many years later it had become Boise State University.  

The summer I spent after graduation, I was 17 and too young to officially work.  One day I hoped on the bus to go from Petaluma to Santa Rose to visit Santa Rose Junior College.  I applied and submitted a written exam.  Only problem was transportation and the fees.  I was flat broke.  So I thought, maybe later.  Never happened.

A few months after I started work at Fairchild Semiconductor in San Rafael I decided to enroll in some classes at Redwood Junior College.  I looked over the stuff and decided on Astrology, Spanish and Art.

Astrology was interesting.  I really liked the idea of peering at stars through a telescope on a dark romantic evening.  Unfortunately the professor started talking about the mathematics involved in computing azimuth and zenith and other arcane terms.  My math skills were poor to phobic so I immediately dropped that class.

Spanish lasted a bit longer, I memorized lists of words, worked on my Castilian accent but never got to conversational stage.  Dropped that class.

Art:  Much better.  I loved it.  First project was clay sculpture.  My sculpture was a figure of a man swan diving downward.  One of the classmates looked over and sniffed, "Oh how cute, a phallic symbole!".  Er whut?  Next projects involved quarter inch copper wire being spot welded and then being covered with patient newspapers soaked in glue. I made several of these and they were universally ugly.  I wish I just kept on welding bits of copper on and that might have looked at least artsy.  I put the sculptures in the garden of the house I was renting in Novato.  I left them there when I moved out.  Hope they brought a good price as scrap metal.

Ten years later I am divorced and back in Idaho looking for a means to survive.  I took basic round peg in square hole testing at the employment service.  The sorting hat  person looked my scores over and pointed out a couple of things to think about.  I could become an OSHA inspector (almost as unpopular as game wardens), an atomic lab worker (Have to move to Idaho Falls) and medical record technician.  Um what is that I asked.  BSU had a two year associate of science degree.  I applied, qualified for BEOG and managed to get in line for a small cash bequest and I was off!  Best thing I ever did, the degree was extremely potable and paid enough to keep us above the Federal poverty level.  In 1978 Idaho that was the equivalent of comfortable. and I had no student loan debt. 

PORN

PORN:

Or as Archie Bunker called it, Hard pore conography.

My first exposure to actual porn was when I was a young married.  We were friends with a couple who lived in the City.  We met and decided to go the The Screening Room.  Well, the audience was sparse but we sat in the very front row.  The entertainment consisted of short stories of varying degree.  Viewing a six foot vagina gives you a new appreciation for gynecologists.  After having viewed a few of these, the final capper was an outright advertisement for porn stars.  It paid 50 dollars per hour.  My initial thought was, "Who could last that long!?"

Fast forward 20 odd years, second husband had a couple of videos that he needed to return to a friend.  The plot was missing, production values were equivalent to a Brownie 8 mm camera.  One scene involved a young woman surrounded by men in masks twirling their schlongs. One man had a very long piece of equipment.  There after he was always in a mask unless he played the unmasked good guy.

Let me go back for some historical bits and pieces.  A co-worker in my home town told me once that her uncle managed the local power plant.  He had control of who had power and who did not have power.  The local madam in the ah "Hotel" had failed to make the payment on the power bill. He demanded that the bill be paid.  She replied that she did not want to pay the bill.  So he cut off the power until she um made arrangements.

Also a few years ago, I went on the underground tour in Pendleton, Oregon.  While over all fascinating we also got an above ground tour of the old cat house.  It lasted well into the 60's.  The madam provided Sunday services in a little parlor which also served as meet and greet space.  Each girl was given an education on typewriting or secretary.  Laundry was provided. Health care was provided.  The ladies went to a local hair dresser for haircuts and styles.  They dressed well.  There were four sex rooms that had glass fronts on them so that patrons could see what was going on and to provide security if the client got a little out of hand.  There were also apartments in the building.  During WWII the black GI's were referred to a separate building.  I think there simply weren't many black girls but the ladies provided segregated services.

The only other professional I never met was the Mayor of Sausalito, Sally something.  She was a former madam who owned The Riding Academy in the city.  I read her biography and it was fascinating.

TRAVEL

TRAVEL:

My people are of a semi-nomadic nature.  I am 10 generations (not officially documented) descendent of John and Priscilla Alden.  The exploring attitude came with that but the rather rigid religious and social constructs failed to establish themselves in my bloodline.
My paternal grandfather came from Sweden, he got a sudden name change at Ellis Island, kept moving until he and his family hit Minnesota. 

My personal travel has been nothing in comparison to the lighthearted souls who scamper off to the Seychelles or Antarctica. I have managed to never left American soil.  Never visited Canada, never visited Mexico. Could have, just didn't occur to me. 

As a young adult I worked in California and a girlfriend invited me to go home with her to West Virginia.  We drove for 33 hours almost nonstop.  We pulled over to the side of the road in Missouri in the wee dark hours.  The constant whipping traffic from big rigs did not allow even a nap.  We kept on. At one point we were clearly lost in the mountains of Kentucky, up at a cross road on top of a hill.  A truck came by and they stopped to make inquiries.  We chatted until my girl friend recognized a place and asked which a way and off we went.  We eventually wound up in West Virginia at her parents house located in Gossip Bottom.  I loved that name.

The summer my sisters spent with me was the summer by youngest sister developed a yen for travel.  She has since then done just about everything BUT the Seychelles and Antarctica.

The most fun I have had as I traveled has been people watching or wonderful conversions on the airplane.  I met an actor on his way to Seattle.  He worked in Children's Theatre. The conversation was purely education.

On the other hand, I sat behind a father and daughter on a trip from home to Anchorage.  He flopped all over the place and dangled his hand in my face.  On the approach the girl started chanting in a teasing manner, "We're all going to die!" How cute.  I recommend 80 mgs of Benadryl for those kinds of situations. 

One time on the leg from Anchorage to Barrow, I was seated a few seats behind a couple of guys who were chatting about hunting.  This I learned simply from hand gestures.  They had very deep voices and spoke in a Nordic language.  I heard a lot of "Yaaaa" and "Herna murna flurna, yaaaa."

I have had a pass port since the 80's, I never got to use it. I applied for a job in Saudi Arabia and got as far as an interview in Houston.  Which is just as well while I do well in other cultures, the heat would have finished me.

I have always wanted to travel by train and one of these days I may go hop on Amtrak and go north.

FOOD

FOOD:
This is a big deal.  Being a member of a large family, food never went to waste.  And a secondary rule at the table was this, "If you don't eat what is in front of you, you don't get dessert". My father wanted and had gotten the basics and a dessert at every evening meal.
Thus, Mom had accumulated dozens of dessert type recipes, many jello recipes, cake recipes, cookies fell into a couple categories.  Chocolate chip cookies. The recipe on the bag was followed faithfully except Mom quadrupled the ingredients with the exception of chocolate chips. We grew up savoring the cookies with very few chips.  The other cookie was ten cup cookies; one cup of sugar, oatmeal, raisins, walnuts, coconut, eggs and so on.  These two recipes were the standard and appeared frequently.  We knew better than to snack on them as they were dispensed judiciously and we were not allowed random access.
CAKES:  Were a separate area of much goodness.  Mom liked angel food cake and had made many of them from scratch but when she discovered the mix. Instant change and we certainly did not have sophisticated palates.  Angel food was always served plain, no frosting, no berries, no nothing.

Raisin Spice Bars, a recipe of a sheet cake proportions.  It was a simple batter of flour eggs, sugar and cinnamon. It was always topped with a thin frosting of powdered sugar and water.  This cake was made and consumed at home and was ALWAYS the cake of choice for potlucks at family gatherings and went to the local country dance where folks danced until midnight, stopped for the potluck meal, passed the hat for the band and then danced another hour or two.
Once, on a visit to the Cow Camp in Eastern Oregon, my Aunt Fern made a cinnamon pull a part cake.  She made little rolls of home made and raised dough, coated them in a mix of sugar and cinnamon and stacked them in a bundt cake pan and baked them in the wood burning stove.  It was delicious.  Mom got the recipe and tried it exactly once. While it was delicious, the amount of work involved was not worth the effort.  Remember this was well before Rhodes frozen rolls, so.  

JELLO DESERTS consisted from the very simple, Lime jello and cottage cheese to the annual cranberry relish jello salad.  This involved using the meat grinder to grind up the berries, after being washed and bad ones thrown out.  Because the jaws of the grinder did not fit on any of the cabinets, it was affixed to a pull out board.  The board was put on the table and it took two kids for the process. One to sit on the board to keep it from sliding and one to keep the bowl steady underneath to catch the juice.  There was much yelling involved.  Also the recipe called for black cherry jello, chopped walnuts, one whole orange with peel was ground in with the berries and that mixture was set aside with two cups of sugar to macerate for an hour or so.  Then everything was combined together with the jello having been brought to a boil.  This mixture went into the fridge to set.  And it has remained my favorite ever since.  I have since dispensed with the meat grinder and converted to the blender which works well. One other all time favorite jello recipe was for pineapple jello cheesecake recipe.  The graham cracker crust was wonderful.  Mom had to hide this from us and it went very quickly.

PIES:  My Grandma Horn made the best pies and she had a dab hand with pie crust.  My father raved about her pies but Mom's were not bad at all.  Pie!!  Dad's favorite pie was apple.  We lived in fruit country and the apple of choice was yellow delicious.  There were no sour apple varieties growing in the valley at the time so yellow delicious was the choice.  And it cooked up fine.  It was served plain.

Pumpkin pie was my favorite.  The recipe came from Grandma Horn who got it on a little cook book she received with her brand new Home Comfort wood cooking range.  My sister has the booklet. The recipe was simple, 2 cups pumpkin, 2 eggs, 2 cups sugar, one tsp cinnamon, one tsp allspice.  Pie crust of choice usually lard and flour and not worked to death.  This cooked into a firm piece of pie when held in the hand could be eaten without utensils and any other pie suffered in comparison. To this day I cannot stand a slightly wobbly pumpkin pie and if the spices include ginger it becomes disgusting.  Keep it simple, stupid. Oh yeah 350 for one hour.  Whipped cream optional.

BEAN DISHES:  One time Dad purchased a 100 pound sack of Pinto beans.  He purchased if from a farmer who was going to use it to feed his calves.  Dad gave him a few bucks and remarked that he had some calves of his own to feed.  Every once in a while Dad would say that it was time for chile.  So he would go get a three pound coffee can worth of pinto beans and bring it to the table. He would spread out the beans and we would spend a few minutes picking out small rocks and debris.  Mom would rinse the beans and set them to soak over night.  The next day she would heat the pot of beans and let them cook until done.  Drain and add a little salt, pepper, tomato sauce and that was pretty much it.  Spices such as Chile powder or chiles themselves did not enter into it because we always heard the refrain, that Dad had an ulcer in the army and could not have spices.  Didn't matter, we ate it
Mom found a recipe for the 1963 Hungry Boys casserole winner.  It was three kinds of beans, lima, kidney and garbanzo.  Ground beef was browned and a can of tomato paste was added.  Chopped celery was sometimes added depending on how many veggies Mom could sneak into a dish. One top the recipe called for biscuits filled with the ground beef mixture with the addition of chopped green olives and almonds.  This particular combination lasted for one dish.  We gobbled it up like a house a fire.  The next time Mom made it without the biscuits.  I have since adapted the recipe to use peel and stick bickies and it cooks up just fine.  Yummy. 

RICE DISHES:  There were three basic recipes.  One was just simple rice cooked and we treated it as dessert.  Put some rice in a glass, pot on some sugar, pour in milk and that was dessert.

Spanish rice: Mom would cook rice, ground hamburger and add a packet of Spanish Rice mix.  It fed the ravening hoards.

Mushrooms and Rice: Mom had no idea she was cooking risotto but basically she browned the rice in some butter until the rice was slightly brown, then added some chicken stock and opened a can of mushrooms.  Fresh mushrooms were not ever purchased.  The whole thing came to a boil and there was the dish. 

PASTA DISHES: Consisted only of spaghetti and meat sauce.  Very plain, very simple.  At no time did garlic enter the picture.  Salt and pepper only. Oh wait occasionally macaroni and cheese, boiled mac and cheese added, baked in  the oven.  None of the boxed stuff.

SALADS:  The only fresh salad we ever had was wedges of iceberg lettuce with salad dressing of choice usually Thousand Island.
Potato salad was simple boiled potatoes, eggs and mayo and mustard.  The addition of chopped dill pickles was considered fancy.

MEAT DISHES:  We had turkey or ham for the holidays.  Dad would purchase a steer from the local auction house and get it butchered and from that 400 hundred pounds of ground beef, steaks and roasts. Nothing fancy. However occasionally Mom would cook the calf brains which we universally reviled.  It tastes like chicken! No it tastes like nothing!  You eat it and they did.  One time I came home to a giant boiled cows tongue sitting on the table.  I asked Mom what she was going to do with it.  She actually ground it up and mixed with mayo, pickles and it made a very good sandwich spread. Fortunately I was the only one who saw the original ugly organ.  Erg.

FISH DISHES:  Consisted of trout caught locally or fish sticks not so locally. One time my brother caught dozens of catfish and his wife fried them up.  They were delicious.

EATING OUT:  Dad and Mom took us everywhere with them.  Granted most of the time we sat in the car while they shopped for what ever.  But when it came to eating out it was Chinese, Smorgasbord or a couple fast food places.  The Chinese place was in downtown Boise called Louie's Golden Dragon.  Dad would order a dish of short ribs that fell off the bone in fatty dark sauced goodness.  There was fried rice and some noodle dish and we thought we were in heaven.  The Smorgasbord was buffet style of exotic dishes and there were FROG legs as well as some pickled fish in sauce. Nope, didn't want them. Occasionally we went to McDonalds, one of the very early ones in Boise.
I also must address the food we ate when we traveled.  Driving around with hungry kids involved pretravel purchase of food items. The travel was usually an aimless Sunday drive and usually started with the purchase of a gallon of root beer, cans of Vienna sausages or occasionally a whole roasted chicken.  Dessert was always maple bars.  It was a strange mix that kept us fueled.  We also sang in the car as the radio reception was spotty.

FRESH VEGGIES: Occasionally we were served Spring onions trimmed.  The teaspoon was filled with salt and the onion was dipped into that.  Also radishes.  No idea where that came from. 

BREAKFAST: I almost forgot the best.  Mom had a starter of sourdough.  We knew we were getting pancakes the next morning because the starter had to be put in a bigger bowl and have sugar added and allowed to sit out and bubble up.  Next morning Mom saved some starter in a container and mixed the rest into pancakes by adding eggs, milk, flour and to the frying pan.  These were lovely pancakes and my favorite way to eat them was with butter only.  That was fabulous.  The rest of the time we would eat boxed cereal or oatmeal. 

HORSE DUVERS: Dad loved to get a box of Ritz crackers, a bottle of cream cheese mixed with bits of pineapple and sardines. He would put these together and eat them.  We preferred the crackers without the sardines.  Bon Appetit!!!