In my grief class we’ve been asked to write a letter. The kind of letter you would write to someone dear who doesn’t  understand where you’re coming from in this whole grief thing. The kind of friend who maybe nudges you to get out of your grief slump. The kind of friend who just doesn’t “get it”  – who doesn’t understand that everyone grieves differently and for different periods of time. I’m new to this – I’m in the kindergarten of grieving. But I sat down and wrote this letter anyway. I haven’t had any friend or relative nudge me yet, but probably because it’s just simply too soon. This post isn’t in any way about food. Stay tuned in – there will be a recipe up soon. Two, actually.

April 18, 2014

Dear Friend:

I’ve never been down this path before, to this place called grief. It’s a very lonely place, even though I may be surrounded by friends like you and even close relatives. And even though you are there and I’m with you or them, I almost feel like I’m standing inside one of those bubbles that can protect a child with no immune system. It’s a cloudy bubble that keeps me from interacting very well with you. I can’t quite hear what you have to say, and you can’t really understand what I’m experiencing and although you can hear me speak, you probably can’t understand me very well either.

Someone describes this as a “House of Mourning.” When Dave died I guess I went there, to this new House. It’s a House in my mind, really. The soul, the origin of our emotions, surely. Sometimes I take a short journey out of the House – maybe it’s to meet you for lunch, or attend a meeting. You might think I’m acting quite well, just looking at me. In fact some friends have mentioned how good I look. I don’t exactly know what they expect – that I’ll have huge black marks under my eyes perhaps? Or to find that my face is constantly solemn? In fact, I can smile, even laugh, and I don’t have black marks under my eyes, but that doesn’t mean that inside I’m okay. I’m not. When I’m out of the House, sometimes it’s an illusion. The laughs may be real – they’re not contrived and it feels wonderful. But then it’s as if my soul is sucked back into the House again. The House is where I’m incredibly sad, bereft, crying more often and feeling terribly alone. The House draws me back and reminds me that Dave is gone. That he’ll never return.

Staying in this House reminds me that I must go through this process of being alone and sad before I can come out of the House for longer periods. And maybe smile more, and laugh with abandon. Eventually I’ll be able to concentrate again for more than about 2 minutes at a time. I’ll even be able to read a book and know I’ve actually read the pages. Or that I truly engaged you in conversation and didn’t get sucked back to the House in mid-sentence – your sentence.

So just bear with me. I trust God that I’ll come out of the House eventually, this tunnel of darkness, sadness and loneliness. Listen to me when I cry and want to describe my distress. Hug me often. Just let me talk, let me cry and be my friend. I need you, more than you’ll ever know. Though I may not express it right now, your friendship means the world to me.

Thank you, my friend.

Carolyn

Tweet

Friday morning I woke up and knew it was Friday. Exactly 3 weeks since Dave died. I laid in bed in sadness . . . thinking about that morning. The awfulness of it. The phone call from the nurse who said “there’s been a medical emergency; you need to come to the hospital immediately.” I asked what had happened and she wouldn’t say, just repeated that there was a medical emergency, you need to come right away. The drive to the hospital (about 20 minutes away) was horrible. I was crying and driving – probably not very safe. I prayed over and over and over. I think I knew, but I held out hope. I remember parking my car in the multi-level parking garage, and the endless walk/run from there to the front door of the hospital, having to wait in line to get my ID badge to go to the ICU. The wait for the elevator, the wait at the ICU doors for them to open them up so I could enter the ICU unit. My mad dash down the rooms. The nurse who announced loudly when I was about 15 feet from the room, saying “his wife is here.”

I remember seeing them administering CPR with about 10 blue-clad uniforms surrounding Dave’s bed. The nurse I knew who held onto my shoulders and made me sit in a rolling desk chair outside the room, the ICU doctor crouching in front of me telling me what had happened. Hearing the people in the room say something like “let’s try the paddles again one more time.” But I’d heard what the doctor had said, the one crouching in front of me, that even if they were able to get the heart to beat, his brain had had no blood for 25 minutes. And he said “you need to let him go.” I turned to the nurse who had been so kind to me and she said the same thing, “you need to let him go.” I said yes. And I sobbed. They stopped. It was over.

So, on Friday, as I went about my morning routine, I thought a lot about Dave. About those 9 days he’d been in ICU with all the ups and downs of the brain in trauma, the rhythm of the ventilator, the blood pressure cuff that automatically took the readings every 15 minutes. The tones of the machines that administered drugs hanging on the pole by the bed. His temperature was up, then down. Blood pressure up, then down, then up again. Then down very low. His blood sugar up and down, up and down. Pulse fast, then slow. His brain must have been struggling mightily during those days. He was peaceful. Of course, the early days it was a drug-induced sleep and peace, but he didn’t wrestle with anything, which is comforting. I remember the day before he died when his eyelids flickered open often, but he didn’t seem to see. Or follow. Or respond to my voice.

I’m sorry if this is more information than you ever wanted to know. I try not to relive those moments all the time – it’s too heart-wrenching. But Friday, at that 3-week interval, I mourned hard. Some hours later I glanced at my watch at exactly 8:30, that was when his heart had stopped. And the Code Blue team had been called. I just think Dave somehow let me know that that’s really when he went to heaven. I hadn’t been watching the time – I really didn’t want to. But at exactly 8:30 I did look at my watch. I don’t want every Friday to be a bad day. Or every 21st day of the month to be a bad day. Dave wouldn’t want that for me, I know.

All the food has been eaten now – all my wonderful friends who brought things for me. Last night I  defrosted a flat Ziploc of cabbage patch stew, one of my favorite things. My cousin Gary, who is still with me, and I had that for dinner. Very much comfort food for me. Today I need to cook. Todd, one of the sons in law arrives with his daughter for a few days. They were here last week, but this is Taylor’s spring break week, so they’re coming down to spend it with me, which is nice. So, assuming what I’m making today tastes good (a pork shoulder recipe) I should have something new to report in another day or two.

Dave’s chair, the one pictured at top, isn’t a comfortable chair for me – not an emotional discomfort, but a physical one – because it has a very deep seat. Dave was a tall man, and that chair was definitely his. It sits directly facing the big TV in the family room. It’s where he watched his favorite westerns, the 007 movies, the news. Golf tournaments and football games. I think I’m going to need to rearrange the room because the chair is very uncomfortable for me – I’m a short person, so I have to slouch to sit in it at all –  not at all an easy angle to watch TV. One of these days I’ll think about it. When I have some strong backs to push and shove the furniture to new positions.

My cousin Gary, who is still here with me, you might recall, has to eat gluten free. Or at least flour free. The only thing I did make a few days ago were the absolutely fantastic GF peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I made them the first time this past December and posted about them. There’s nothing IN them except peanut butter, brown sugar, soda, salt, vanilla and chocolate chips. And you’d absolutely swear there must be flour because they look and taste just like a cookie that contains flour. I made a double batch and he’ll take most of them home with him. I kept out a few.

I wrote the program for the memorial service we had last Monday. About 300 people came. What a tribute to him that so many people came to bid him goodbye. The program was really crowded with information. I wrote this on the back cover – just information about Dave that most people might not know. Our 3 children wrote a paragraph each also, but this is the paragraph I wrote first, when I sat at my computer and started to write the program.

Did you know about Dave’s favorite things? That he loved red roses? And jazz! And travel. His favorite movie was The Music Man, and he’d cry every time at one particular song in it. His 2nd favorite was Casa Blanca. Western movies made him happy, especially those starring John Wayne, and anything 007. Sailing gave him such peace and freedom and he was very proud of his boat, Decadence (so named because it has a shower and an oven in it). It was his pride and joy, along with his new BMW convertible and his wine cellar. Many mornings he visited one of the local coffee stores for good conversation with people. He loved the Lord; he read and reread Psalms and Romans. And he truly loved his guy friends in his men’s Bible study group. He loved music – God spoke to him through music especially singing in the church choir. He loved candlelit dinners any night of the week – ribeye steaks along with a good bottle of Zin or Cab, enjoyed in our dining room with the sun setting on the horizon. He was fanatic about washing dishes – funny, but true. He loved his children (and grandkids), worried about them nearly every day as parents are wont to do. He was a real romantic and he loved me for 31+ years. Goodbye, my darling. . .

Tweet

I’m still not up to doing much cooking yet. Dear friends came over a week ago and we collaborated on having the St. Patrick’s Day dinner we’d planned in mid-March. I made the corned beef, according to my friend Linda’s recipe, Corned Beef for St. Patrick’s Day, a post from a couple of years ago. We  had the usual side dishes of cabbage and onions. Cherrie made her Colcannon, the mixture of mashed potatoes, leeks, cream and kale. I sent Bud and Joe to our wine cellar to find a really good bottle of red, which we opened in Dave’s honor and gave him a toast. I cried.

We also opened a bottle of bubbly, which Cherrie and I just love (it’s one of the many things she and I share a love for) – it was a pink champagne, but not sweet. It was wonderful. It tasted good. The whole dinner tasted good to me.

Cravings during grief probably vary with everyone, but what I crave is carbs. Not normal for me. I’ve eaten more breakfast cereal in the last 3 weeks than I have in two years! But my doctor has suggested I make sure I get protein 3x a day, so I’ve started having the one link of sausage (I’ll need to make a new batch of my home made ground pork and turkey sausage that I like so much, but for now I have Costco’s in the freezer) and a tiny bowl of yogurt with blueberries and raspberries. I’m not hungry much at all (also very different for me), and since pounds are coming off (a good thing) I’m able to limit portions without any difficulty. Eventually, I’m sure, my appetite will resume, so I’m going with the flow. I do eat 3x a day, so I’m getting plenty. My usual chocolate craving has virtually disappeared, although I did eat about 5 chocolate chips (not cookies, just the chips)yesterday, so maybe that’s resuming also. I do crave bread, mashed potatoes, toast. A half a sandwich used to be my norm if I ordered a sandwich (I’m more a salad girl, actually) but sandwiches have appealed to me. Now I eat half of a half a sandwich and save the rest for dinner. That’s worked. Friends took me to a Jewish deli the other day and I really enjoyed the 1/4 pastrami sandwich on fresh, soft rye bread.

And how am I doing, you want to know? Well, maybe a little bit better. Sleep still gives me fits and if I’m not rested I don’t cope well the following day. My doctor has given me something to help me sleep, but am very reluctant to take it every night. I still cry at odd moments every day. Sometimes several times a day. Looking at that one picture of Dave still brings me to tears nearly every time. Reading the cards from people – oh my gosh, I must have nearly 100 of them – makes me cry. Sometimes it’s the verse on the card. Sometimes it’s what the friends wrote about Dave. I still have a pile of cards to open – it’s very emotional doing that – so I try to just do 3-5 a day.  One of my blog readers commented today – I love what it said – “Sometimes my memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks.” So very true. Thank you, Connie. A friend brought me a book of daily Christian reading for grief. I ordered two books recommended on www.griefshare.org. I’m going to start going to a 13-week grief workshop in about a week. It may be too early for me, but the class won’t be offered again for several months, so I’m going to try.

As relatives and friends begin arriving this weekend I’ll probably do some cooking. I’ll have to. I have 2 large coffee cakes in the freezer to bring out – gifts from friends. Another dear friend, Kathy, brought me a batch of frozen lentil soup this morning (Ina Garten’s recipe, she said). That will taste particularly good. And my darling PEO sisters are bringing a dinner to serve 20 people on Sunday. And food for 6 for breakfast too. God bless them – I do feel so blessed. My cousin Gary, who spends Christmas at our/my house every year, is coming down for 10 days. I hope I’ll be UP to doing some things, not just having to do paperwork and dealing with our family living trust issues, etc.

Thank you, dear readers, for your patience with me. I will get back in the kitchen eventually.

Tweet

hol·low

noun \?hä-(?)l?\

1. A cavity, gap, or space: a hollow behind a wall.

2. An indented or concave surface or area.

3. A void; an emptiness: a hollow in one’s life.

4. A small valley between mountains.

This blog isn’t going to become a forum for grieving, but since I’ve received so MANY emails and comments from all of you, my readers, with kind words of encouragement and prayers, I thought I’d just write a little bit. Hollow is all I can feel right now. Our son and his wife had a photo of Dave on their family photo wall (at left), and when I took it down, I crushed the frame to my chest. It’s so HIM! I held it and I sobbed. I wish I could carry it around with me everywhere. Practically, I can’t hug it to me as I lie in my lonely bed at night, but I sure do hug it periodically during daytime hours. I’ve propped it up on my kitchen island and I see it there every time I walk in the kitchen. They’ve loaned it to me for now.

Many tasks await me – coordinating with the dear friends who are going to deliver eulogies at the service (April 7th); writing and printing the program for the service (our church would do it for me, but I want to do it myself), flowers, decorations, food, coordinating and ferrying people flying in from all over, responding to emails from my/our friends who have just poured their love on me. I want to do this right because I want to honor Dave, my helpmate, the man who treasured me for 31 years. Sara, our daughter, is putting together two separate powerpoint slide shows with pictures of Dave over every stage of his life – one to be shown before and during the service, and the other (with more lighthearted pictures) to show during the reception. We went to Kinko’s yesterday and scanned them in (most are printed snapshots).

Hugs are my undoing – I cry every time. Here’s hoping that gets better as nobody likes to hug some teary old woman!

Tweet

My dear darling hubby, Dave, passed away yesterday, the 21st. He fought valiantly and had begun to regain consciousness from the stroke and drug-induced coma, but the doctors believe he had a sudden lung embolism (a blot clot that lodged in the lung and it stopped the heart and brain). They gave him CPR and the paddles to the chest but his heart had stopped. It was an agonizing decision to tell them to stop. My family surrounds me. I’m not cooking, obviously, but eventually I’ll get back in the kitchen, I suppose. We have 3 children and 5 grandchildren. And yes, I’m just devastated. He was the love of my life. A wonderful husband, dad, and grandpa. We were married for 31 years.

Thanks much to those of you who sent me emails or left comments. It’s a terribly lonely time when you lose a spouse but I do feel surrounded with loving and caring family and friends.

Tweet

Last Tuesday (over a week ago) my husband, my dear darling DH, Dave, had a stroke here at home. He had severe vertigo and then the vomiting that goes along with that. I, of course, didn’t know that he’d had a stroke. I called 911 a few hours later and he’s been in our local hospital, in ICU, ever since. He had surgery last Thursday to relieve pressure on the brain (because the cerebellum, where the stroke occurred, was swelling – the cerebellum controls equilibrium and fine motor skills). They kept him in a drug-induced coma for 4+ days and took him off the sedation on Sunday, but so far he’s not waking up yet. They tell us this isn’t unusual. His heart went haywire within those 4 days and they did have to use the paddles to the chest (called cardioversion) to shock his heart back into rhythm, which it did. His blood pressure was way up, but as the days have gone on, his vital signs are all stable and good. He’s on a ventilator, of course, they’re feeding him through a tube. He opened his eyes yesterday for about 20 seconds (but we don’t think he focused on anything – he didn’t track movement or voices), but so far he’s still wanting to slumber. I hesitated telling all my readers about this because most of you don’t know him. I don’t have any more posts “in the bank” as bloggers sometimes refer to it. The Nutmeg Muffins I made were the last things I baked prior to Dave’s stroke. I have one more recipe to go, but I haven’t written it yet. It will just have to wait. There’s been not one stitch of cooking going on in my kitchen for 8 days. And I have no idea when I’ll start again. If you’re a believing person, pray for my hubby.

I’m doing okay – as long as I get enough rest I’m functioning. I have been spending long days at the hospital. Two of our kids live locally and they’ve been wonderful. I don’t lack for friends who want to help, to visit me, or bring me a sandwich, or friends who want to give me hugs – and oh, do I ever need those! One of our pastors has visited him every day. We don’t know how much he will be affected by the stroke – but as a double amputee it’s quite possible he’ll have to learn new ways to walk, although since he lost his legs (below the knee, to diabetes, in case you didn’t know) he’s used his eyes to balance as he walks, so perhaps he’ll adjust more easily than they think. Won’t know until he wakes up, sits up, and stands up. I’ll write another update when I have more to tell.

Tweet

If you’re a regular reader of Bon Appetit, then you know Andrew Knowlton. I have always enjoyed his “take” on the culinary world. He travels a lot and always has an opinion about things. But this January issue had a list of things he is telling us about – and I just don’t know, Andrew. You’ve maybe gone over the edge. I’ll tell you all about it . . .

The article is titled The Year 2014 in Preview. He predicts the next big ingredients, cuisines and cities that will shape what and how we eat.

1. Pancakes for Dinner. Well, if you read my post about pancakes for dinner for my DH growing up, and waffles for me and my family growing up, this sounds right down the same alley. But no, it’s not. He says they’ll be savory pancakes with fillings like sea urchin, squid, smoked sturgeon. Sounds dreadful to me. But then, blini with caviar has been around for a century or so (but I don’t eat that, either, do you?)

2. New feathery fronds – he says we’ll be seeing bronze fennel as the new garnish. I’ve never heard of it or seen it and we certainly don’t live in a culinary backwater. I found a photo on the web, see right.

3. A Boilermaker. It’s a drink, of sorts. It used to be a tiny shot glass of whiskey down inside a big glass of beer and you drink it together. Andrew says you’ll have the beer and the whiskey alongside each other. Well, okay. I don’t drink beer or shots of whiskey, so he won’t find me bellying up to the bar to order that one.

4. The next big food town: Pittsburgh. The winners in recent years were Houston, Charleston and Nashville.

5. The new “in” cuisine will be Filipino. He cites Smalls in Chicago, Qui in Austin and Maharlika in NYC as places that currently highlight the food of the Philippines.

6. Za’atar – I might agree with him on this one. Za’atar is a spice blend from the Middle East. You can buy it in many countries or make your own. Or buy it at one of the spice purveyors you know. It’s good stuff, but I don’t know if it’s going to be that wildly popular. We’ll see.

7. A new trend in restaurant design with a “living green wall,” a wall of hanging ferns, ivy, even succulents. I haven’t seen such a thing; maybe you have. He’s seen them at 4 restaurants so far (NYC, Miami, DC and Charleston).

8. Cheese that will rival or one-up Burrata – Fossa, Scamorza and Cloumage. I’ll be watching for them.

9. A new fish for the diner’s table – the porgy. It’s upstaging branzino, he says. They’re abundant, inexpensive, mild-tasting and work well for whole-fish serving because they’re small. But every porgy is loaded with small bones. I won’t be ordering that anytime soon.

10. Egg Yolks. Well, not just egg yolks, but dried egg yolks, cured, aged, grated over pasta, and even sugared and sprinkled on top of crème brulee. Really? I’ll be looking for that.

That’s it, folks. What do you think?

Tweet

Ever since Christmas my usual high level of cooking interest has waned a bit. I really didn’t over-indulge much over the holidays (a good thing), so I wasn’t scrounging low calorie meals particularly, though I prepared a few new ones, all with dismal results.

I also have been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting with my leg up on an ottoman. Why? Because I had a skin cancer removed from my right lower leg on December 24th and had no idea when I made the appointment that the regimen was rest-rest-rest. (The office forgot to mention that part to me or I’d have waited until after Jan. 2nd.) It’s hard to cook meals from a sitting, semi-reclining position.

Perhaps I mentioned it some days after the 1st of January that after the doctor admonished me severely (she could tell I’d spent too much time on my feet) that I truly did sit with my leg UP. And languish. And get bored. I read. I watched TV, I caught up on some of my magazine reading. The wound itself is much larger than even the doctor thought it would be. It didn’t really hurt except the first couple of days. On the skin surface it looked about the size of a penny, but using a MOHS method of surgery, that sucker had spread out underneath, so the wound was big, slightly larger than a silver dollar. Now, 5 weeks out, it’s maybe slightly larger than a quarter and closing in. But it’s an open wound that must be carefully bandaged every 3 days (my DH does it for me as it’s in a very awkward place to try to do it yourself) with special cream, a sealing bandaging thing, leg wrapped and then I have to wear a compression stocking all day (promotes healing, they say). I can’t get tap water on the wound (for fear of infection) so have to cover my leg in a plastic bag every time I shower. Big nuisance. And no, my dr. did not want to do a skin graft.

This growing old stuff is for the birds! My back had fits from so much forced sitting, so I did make a few trips to the chiropractor. Then my left knee acted up – a pulled tendon or muscle – I think (from what, I don’t know), and after about 5 visits to the chiropractor for that one, it’s back to nearly normal now.

In between times I was up some, down a lot. After about a week of this forced rest stuff, at one of the follow-up visits to the dermatologist I asked the nurse if I could be “up” to fix dinner. She said oh, of course you can. You can lead a normal life, but just spend a few hours a day with your leg up. Ah-ha! I was back in the kitchen and my DH was a very happy camper I can tell you for sure!

I defrosted some chicken one night and made a chicken and artichoke heart sauce to go over rice. It was awful, I thought. But I had way too much left over to throw out, so I re-engineered it and made a casserole with pasta and cheese, hoping the cheese would enhance the flavor. No. After 3 meals of it (4 chicken breasts to start with) we threw out the remaining. I was glad to see it go. I made a new salad dressing and didn’t like it at all, but hated to throw it out, so we ate it, not liking it one bit.

Then we discovered that our freezer part of our refrigerator/freezer in the garage – that holds most of our frozen meat, including the Berkshire pig meat, steaks, roasts, chicken, fish, etc. that I keep on hand all the time – was on the fritz. Oh dear. I tinkered with it for a few days, finally bought a freezer thermometer and was aghast when I discovered the temp was only 28°F in the freezer. No wonder the salmon I took out was almost bend-able. Finally we unloaded most of it (with the fish, I had to throw away all but one piece of sole as it had defrosted) into thermal coolers with dry ice, bought a new upright freezer at Best Buy, on sale, and waited until it was delivered 2 days later. I shopped for plastic boxes, just the right size, to store things in, that would fit on the shelves. Then I catalogued all the meat in there and re-positioned everything so I now can go to the pork box and pull out what I want. And I bought a white board so I will know (I hope) what’s IN the freezer all the time.

We also bought a small refrigerator freezer for the garage too. It was on sale as well. It’s quite small, but has enough room to hold a turkey in November and has room for the myriad of plastic boxes that contain all kinds of jarred stuff that I don’t have room for in the kitchen refrigerator. Do you have stuff like that too? Like a jar of harissa with just a tiny bit I’ve used, some preserved lemon, walnut oil, specialty mustards, lots of different nuts that I don’t use much, 2 huge jars of maraschino cherries that I use in December when I bake Bishop’s Bread. A reader (thank you) sent me a link to a farm in Washington State, near Yakima, that sells maraschino cherries that don’t have that wicked red dye in them. I ordered a jar (Tillen Farms) and it will sit there unopened until next December. I hate to throw away the other 2 jars, though. You can see that new jar sitting on the middle shelf. Sometime soon I’m going to make a list of everything in those plastic boxes in the refrigerator (I have another white board to go on that door too) so I’ll know at a glance what’s there. And I won’t have to open the refrigerator since I’ll have the list on the whiteboard on the front. That extra package of hot paprika that Janet gave me for Christmas. Check. The hazelnuts. Check. Asian plum sauce. Check. Hoisin Sauce. Check. Hazelnut oil. Check. Ah, 2 jars of preserved lemon. Check. Mint sauce from England. Check. Garlic jam to serve on cream cheese. Check. And on and on it goes. Getting organized is hard work!

Tweet

Normally I don’t talk much about movies here on my blog. Like many people, I’m fairly addicted to my electronics (2 Windows desktops – one in my upstairs office – and this one in the kitchen, my iPad, iTouch and my iPhone; and then there are 3 TVs in our house plus my Tivo, and my DH’s and my gift to each other before Christmas, a Sonos system too). With the iPhone you get Siri, the voice, the intelligent voice in newer iPhones, which I don’t use as much as I should. I asked Siri the other day “how old is Judi Dench?” She responded: “Judi Dench is 79 years old.” Wow. Cool.

This was just after going to see Philomena, the true story about an Irish girl who got pregnant in her teens (Ireland, c.1948), was sent to a Catholic convent home for unwed mothers, and was required to sign a contract to give up her child. And she had to agree to serve 4 years of indentured servitude at the convent to pay back (supposedly) the cost of the convent caring for her during her pregnancy and the delivery, and for the child. The young mothers were allowed to spend 1 hour a day with their children. And then her son was adopted at age 3 and the young mother (superbly played by Judi Dench) watched helplessly as he was driven away. Eventually she was released, married and lived a full life. But she visited the convent many times trying to find out about her son. I don’t want to spoil the story – just go see it. It’s wrenching (the convent nuns were despicable). But some parts of it are heart-warming too. And Judi Dench was just phenomenal, wrinkles and all. Which posed the question of how old she is. After I pulled into the garage I sat there with my iPhone and couldn’t remember how to GET to Siri to ask the question (usually I just type in the question in Safari, the internet interface). Eventually found it – hold down the home button until Siri starts.

So, what does that have to do with “her?” Well, it’s a movie just out by that name. Joaquin Phoenix (I only saw the trailer of it) plays a very depressed about-to-be divorced guy who has a phone with some kind of AI (artificial intelligence), surely more advanced than we have today, but something similar to Siri. In the movie, the girl-voice, Samantha, has a personality (the voice in the movie is Scarlett Johanssen). And she definitely interacts with the guy. She gently wakes him up, tells him about his work schedule, gives him advice and of course, he takes “her” everywhere. He falls in love with “her.” And that’s really about all I know.

Skip forward to yesterday. I was reading my blog reader (I opted to use OldReader after Google axed theirs), was looking at AppAdvice, a very prolific blog about apps for smart phones. I can barely keep up with the blog traffic on that site since their creators post 10-15 a day. Anyway, the first one in the queue was this one, and it caught my eye because it had Siri in the title. It actually comes from BuzzFeed, if you want to go to the source.

So, the guesswork is that the Siri gurus at Apple decided to have some fun with Samantha. They’ve given Siri a personality as well (at least when it relates to Samantha, the female voice in the movie), and apparently she doesn’t much like being compared to Samantha. I haven’t tried this on my iPhone, but this is what it says she responded:

Siri are you her

No. I don’t spend much time with purely fictional characters.

Siri are you her

No. Her portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial.

Are you her

No. You know that it’s just a movie, right?

And speaking of movies, we went to see Saving Mr. Banks a few days ago. Oh, what a darling movie! It’s the true story of Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks) negotiating for the movie rights with P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the very British author of Mary Poppins. I had an event here at my house for 7 lady friends of mine – it was a fund-raising event that I offered to my PEO group. They paid between $28 and $35 apiece to come to my house for tea and scones and to go to the movie. I served two scones (I made my Buttermilk Scones and the newest ones, Savory Herb Buttermilk Scones), clotted cream, home made lemon curd, jam (huckleberry marmalade) and 2 kinds of tea. Then we left my kitchen in a disaster and I took them all to see the movie. Oh, I also served the Butternut Squash Bisque too. I was tickled because Emma Thompson in her character as P.L. Travers  is quite addicted to her TEA and it plays a regular part in the movie right up to one of the last scenes. When I planned this event about 5 months ago I just thought doing something kind of British (tea and scones) would relate some to P.L. Travers in the movie. Oh yes, it did indeed! Everyone had a grand time, me included, and the movie is well worth seeing. Emma Thompson was so ultra-perfect for the part. You’ll see her act as she’s never acted before. Oscar-worthy in my book.

Tweet

If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you may not need to review what I call the very best of the recipes. I post, generally, every other day. I missed a few, but that means I’ve written a post about 175 times in 2013. Some weren’t recipes (a few book reviews, some travel, an occasional essay or link to one), but I probably have posted 140+ recipes during the year. Only a few make it as blue-star winners. When I started with 2013’s list I had 33. Oh gosh. Too, too many. I’ve eliminated a few, and just couldn’t delete any others. My apologies for such a long, long post.

Angel Hair Pasta with Shrimp, Zucchini and Lemony Cream Sauce

Grilled Chicken with Jalapeno Jelly Salsa

Baked Salmon with Agave & Lime

“Greek” Lamb with Pasta

Pork Stew with Calvados Cream

Pecan Crusted Chicken Breasts with Corn & Blueberry Salsa

Eggplant Parmesan – with a very different preparation of the eggplant – lightly oiled and baked – before assembling the dish in the traditional way and then baking that

Dry-Brined Turkey Breast

Ground Pork and Ground Turkey Breakfast Sausages

Rustic Green Salad with Roasted Fresh Figs and Goat Cheese

Molasses Honey Vinaigrette

Roasted Root Vegetables with Olive Relish

Lemon Risotto

Horchata Milk Shake – a Mexican style drink that I served as a dessert. It’s a rice-based beverage.

Extra Creamy Rice Pudding

Prize-Winning Banana Bread – so very moist, which is exactly why I liked it so much – my friend Jerianne told me about this one

Chocolate Loaf Cake – it’s baked in a bread pan, but it’s really a cake masquerading as a bread – oh so very chocolaty!

Orange Tiramisu

Homemade Chocolate Syrup – what a revelation. Hershey’s will never find a way in my house ever again.

Rum Cake – well, this one’s very different as it’s actually an egg-separated sponge-type cake. Fabulous.

Pumpkin Amaretti Tiramisu

Sticky Stem Ginger & Prune Cake – this probably sounds like a British treat, and it is but it’s over the top on flavor, from my blogging friend Marie in England

Savory Herb Buttermilk Scones – I think I’ve made these 4 times in the last month, mostly for guests, but they make a wonderful accompaniment to a bowl of soup – I also served them at an afternoon tea recently

Cucumber & Herb Butter Tea Sandwiches – I could eat these any day, any time, with or without tea) from my daughter Sara)

Gingerbread Scones – all the wonderful parts of gingerbread made into a scone

Cauliflower Apple Soup with Almonds

Bacon, Black Bean and Sun Dried Tomato Soup

Turkey Burger Chowder

Butternut Squash Soup with Fennel and Ginger

Tweet