Fairy Tails

Fairy Tales Tails can come true. It can happen to you.

Are you old enough to remember Jimmy Durante? When I think of those song lyrics from “Young at Heart,” I don’t think of Frank Sinatra, who made them famous. I think of Durante, singing in his gravelly voice.

We’re just back from visiting our 92-year-old friend, Katie, in Baton Rouge. She is definitely young at heart – and awesome. We’ll have more food details about the trip at a later date, but suffice it to say, it was great to introduce our grandsons, ages 20 and 17, to the home and culture where their mama grew up (though they may have been more delighted by their side trip to New Orleans!).

Today our neighbor Deb is our guest blogger. She has a fairy tale tail to share with you, made all the more appropriate because we have tended to overdo dogs (Wynn, specifically) in our blog. Cats have taken the back burner – and they shouldn’t – especially one with a hint of Siamese. So here is the Story of Lumi, as written by Deb; it’s a great and happy one, sure to make you smile.

I have wanted a cat for about 3 years now.  My husband, who loves cats, didn’t want more dependents, but I needed a cat.

Lumi’s journey began in Texas.  Via two friends, he joined our family on November 30th, but let’s retrace the time before.  

Lois was visiting her two adult daughters in Texas over Thanksgiving.  When coming out of a restaurant in San Antonio, it was evening, dark, cold and raining, but there in the parking lot, was a young kitten.  He seemed to be asking each patron as they left with his “meow, meow, meow will you take me home”????  They scanned the parking lot to try and understand his origin, but all they saw were warehouses, business buildings and the question was, where did he come from?  He was persistent in his need, so they scooped him up, took him home, and gave him a bath.  The next day, they posted on Facebook his picture, the location where he was found and contact information.  They also sought out an animal rescue facility, in hopes of placing him, so he would have a future, but they were told him “we will take him, but would put him down”, so they then went to Austin, where the other daughter lived.  Again they sought out a shelter, but they were told “we will take him, but we will just turn him back out” (he wasn’t neutered, so they would probably neuter him and then release???)  Because neither option was a viable option for any of them, nor could either daughter take another pet, Lois paid to have this kitten fly back with her to California in a soft carrier, under the seat in front of her!

Upon her return to Sonoma, Lois knew she had too many animals to keep him, so she reached out to her good friend Pamela, who knew I was looking for a cat.  We met outside at a coffee shop, off a busy highway, for our first meeting.  There he was this lovely creamed colored, small cat with light orange ears and tufts, and a light orange banded tail and BIG blue eyes staring calmly back at me.  He was stretched out in the cat carrier with no concerns, rubbing his check on the nylon mesh, and just looking around; it took me seconds to decide, he just seemed so grateful!!

Lumi hanging out in Glen Ellen

I think it maybe took a week for my husband to say how happy he was we had a cat, and what a GREAT cat this one was.  It took us a while to name him, but after multiple trials and looking up things we settled on Lumi, which means “white in Finnish”.  

Lumi and Randall hanging out in Glen Ellen

Lumi is a grateful cat.  He asks for hugs after he wakes up from his naps.  He loves to rub on your face and wrap his soft paws around your neck and on your face.  He plays chase with our 15 year old Chihuahua/terrier mix, Randall, and is so lively and curious.  We are smitten!

So that’s Lumi’s Fairy Tail.

In his honor we have the perfect recipe, combining our trip to Baton Rouge and Lumi. After all, who can go to Louisiana without seeking out the perfect…you guessed it…CATFISH.

It’s a Little Seedy

Are you thinking about your summer vegetable garden? I am. Gardening, according to Andy, would be a “serious leisure” pursuit for me. That’s a phrase I’d never heard until last week, when Andy casually mentioned he’d be writing about that in today’s Andy’s Corner.

Early Fortune Cucumber and Capitano Yellow Romano Bean seeds have just arrived from Territorial Seed Co and Seed Savers Exchange. But I don’t have room in our raised beds for pumpkins…though I do love pumpkin seeds!

Ferry’s Seeds are now incorporated into Ferry-Morse, but their vintage art lives on – at eBay, Etsy, etc.

I’m not going to revisit Old Mother Goose tales today; we’ve covered that before. But I would like to reiterate that Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater was NOT a nice guy. Why was his wife smiling on that Ferry’s Seeds package?

I may not like that Mother Goose rhyme, but I love pumpkin seeds in salads, in granola, with nuts, in dips, in tacos, or roasted and salted by the handful. The only kind of bread we routinely eat is Pumpkin Seed Bread from Della Fattoria in Petaluma, which is sold at our Sonoma Market. For cooking I’ve been buying packages of USDA organic unsalted, unroasted pumpkin seeds from Aurora Natural Products – based in Connecticut. It was many months after I first started buying them that I happened to read the small print on the package: “Product of China.”

China and India are the largest producers of pumpkin seeds. Find everything you want to know about pumpkin seeds at 88Acres.com

Since I use and enjoy sunflower seeds almost as much as pumpkin seeds, I did a little research into where they are commonly sourced. Voila. Ukraine. Not surprising, given that the sunflower is their widely-referenced symbol.

Ukraine and Russia are the largest producers of sunflower seeds. Find more information about sunflower seeds at 88Acres.com

To Aurora Natural Products’ credit, they labelled the country of origin for the seeds. Not every producer does that – because they don’t have to, apparently.

According to the U.S. Dept of Agriculture, Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) is a labeling law that requires retailers, such as full-line grocery stores, supermarkets and club warehouse stores, to notify their customers with information regarding the source of certain foods. Food products covered by the law include muscle cut and ground meats: lamb, goat, and chicken; wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish; fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables; peanuts, pecans, and macadamia nuts; and ginseng. 

Interesting, right? Peanuts, pecans and macadamia nuts must be labelled. But not seeds? And not almonds? What about pine nuts? And why ginseng?

Back in 2014 NPR’s All Things Considered did a segment on “Love Pine Nuts? Then Protect Pine Forests.” It’s a fascinating look at the forests that produce our pine nuts: “China has its own pine forests. And it is the world’s biggest exporter of pine nuts. Pine nuts also come from North Korea, Pakistan and Afghanistan. (Look at that list and you realize that good food can come from troubled places.)”

I love that last line – “…good food can come from troubled places.”

A quote from Ezra Klein’s recent piece in the NYTimes says it all: “The West is going to think harder about depending on autocracies for crucial goods and resources.”

My garden plans may be changing. It turns out that I don’t need or want ginormous Halloween-type pumpkins to produce my pumpkins seeds (more correctly known as pepitas). I need Styrian (SE Austria) pumpkins – which produce seeds that don’t need to be shelled. I wonder how many Styrian seeds I need to plant to get my yearly pumpkin seed quota?

A Styrian pumpkin – 6-10 pounds average

In case you’re wondering what to do with the seeds you may (or may not) have, consider the following:

Crunchy Pepitas, Sweet Potatoes and Black Bean Salad
Sunflower (or Pumpkin) Seed, Apple, and Kale Salad
Deb’s Granola
Spiced Pine Nuts, Pecans, and Pumpkin Seeds
Mayan Pumpkin Seed Dip (Sikil-P’ak)
(I haven’t mastered Pipian Verde (green pumpkin seed mole) yet but intend to try Rick Bayless’ version)

If you want to try your hand at a yeast bread, here’s a simple, seedy recipe.

The Times They Are A-changin’

It’s a little hard, given what’s going on in the world, to write a light-hearted blog. At least without sounding tone-deaf. Suffice it to say, the news makes us disgruntled and dismayed. Maybe that’s what got Andy started on today’s Andy’s Corner. If we try to look on the positive side of things, are we “gruntled” and “mayed?”

The Times They Are A-changin’. Yes, everything – almost – makes me think of Bob Dylan and his lyrics. Which in turn reminds me of Heraclitus – who reportedly said “Nothing is constant but change” – or to put it another way, using the more apropos Greek: Panta Rhei (“life is flux”).

Andy and I got blindsided over Thanksgiving when L.A. friends were visiting. Vivi, our friends’ 11-year-old daughter, had joined us at the dinner table and was listening to our conversation when we casually mentioned “Raggedy Ann and Andy.” Vivi looked perplexed and innocently asked “Who are Raggedy Ann and Andy?”

Vivi didn’t know me?

We were devastated.

Can it possibly be that Generation Z-ers don’t know who Raggedy Ann and Andy are?

I had thought about entitling this blog “Forgotten But Not Gone.” But maybe we can’t even hope for that as times change and we move on. Here’s a site which is definitely worth checking out. It lists some of the favorite toys for each decade beginning with 1900. In 1900 my grandmother would have been about 11 years old. I was curious if I would recognize any toys she may have played with. Can you guess what the most popular toy was? Crayons. And Raggedy Ann and Andy top the 1920 list. I might mention that Mr Potato Head (1950s), Etch-a-Sketch (1960’s), and The Rubik’s Cube (1980’s) are also on the list. Is it possible that Vivi wouldn’t know about those either? Or are The Raggedys especially forgettable?

A favorite with my grandmother?

Coming right on top of the Raggedy incident was another one, further reminding me that all things change. Nothing is forever. Our son, Travis, who visited us for several weeks – made possible by our new work-at-home phenomenon – off-handedly mentioned that he just realized that we’re not supposed to be double-spacing at the end of sentences. WHAT? Since WHEN? Well, some quick research indicates that I’m not the only one out of sync. The Smithsonian Mag has a helpful review of the “two space” issue. And The Atlantic reported on a scientific study on this controversy.

Even more interesting about 2 spaces is the fact that WordPress, which is our host for this blog, has been automatically changing my 2 spaces to 1 space – and I hadn’t even realized it. Wow. This is huge.

And now on to recipes. Someone online posted a recipe from an old box of C&H cane sugar. It was for Raggedy Ann Cookies. Perfect. For remembrance.

Raggedy Ann Cookies – for remembrance. Note: I updated this a bit in the recipe below.

Then I thought about Space Cookies – to represent my new one-space awareness. When I looked up Space Cookies two things came up over and over. The most ho-hum is about the chocolate chip cookies baked in space by astronauts in the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft 2 years ago. But Space Cookies is also a “new, flavorful weed strain…”a hybrid that orbits on a cloud of sweetness with the booster power to blast you to the stars.” You may not all be interested in growing that – but we know some who may be. Wink, wink. And we probably know some who might be interested in baking some edibles by infusing chocolate chip cookies with weed, maybe even using the Space Cookies variety. Cookies in cookies. Oh my.

Space Cookies…”feminized.” Sounds interesting to me.

You can’t beat our recipe for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, which we posted back in 2018. And here’s a link from Food52.com for how to infuse your butter with cannabis before making our yummy chocolate chip cookies. You might even go so far as use infused butter in the Raggedy Ann cookies. Good luck with that to all of you weed-lovers out there. LMK how they turn out. 🙂

But if you’re not interested in weed-infused cookies, rest assured that these are totally delicious as they are. They are only mildly sweet (if made with unsweetened coconut) – with a great crispiness. The Raggedy Ann Cookies will keep well for a number of days in an air-tight container and will freeze well too. We’ll definitely remember them the next time we need a cookie fix!

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