I believe I\u2019ve mentioned before that there was plenty of singing in the Busk household when I was growing up. We sang while we did the dishes, while we did Saturday morning house cleaning, and while we went on long family drives. The songs we sang were the ones our mother taught us. Evie had the lyrics to hundreds of songs lodged in her head. As for our father? He listened but didn\u2019t participate. As my brother Arlan once said, \u201cThere are eighty-eight keys on the piano, and Daddy sings in the cracks.”<\/p>\n
So today we\u2019ll start with one of my personal favorites of Evie Busk\u2019s songs.<\/p>\n
There once was a maiden to cooking school went, Vive la cookery maid. She started with doughnuts that didn\u2019t cook through, Vive la cookery maid. At last she made something, a pie so she said, Vive la cookery maid. See there? Even as a little kid, I loved murder mysteries!<\/p>\n But the truth is, I grew up to be a walking talking \u2018cookery maid.\u2019 In a high school Home Ec class I mistook 1 tablespoon for 1 teaspoon. The resulting chocolate cream pie was inedible.<\/p>\n At Pima Hall, there was a good reason I didn\u2019t sign up for any of the cooking duties. I didn\u2019t want to poison anyone.<\/p>\n I managed to pick up a few cooking skills during my first marriage and while I was divorced\u2014I was especially good at pancakes, but once I married Bill, he did most of the cooking. I made occasional pies\u2014pumpkin in the fall and rhubarb in the spring. I also took charge of Thanksgiving dinner, but Bill was usually the one at the helm in the kitchen, and he was very good at it.<\/p>\n All that changed four years ago when a sudden onset of health issues put me in charge of the kitchen for the first time at age 75. It\u2019s been a long learning curve. I own an InstaPot but I haven\u2019t exactly made friends with it. My failed effort to make chicken curry in that was definitely a one-and-done affair.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve kept at it. My initial efforts at making breaded pork chops were always spectacular failures. One day Bill found a recipe for wiener schnitzel which he printed out and handed to me. I\u2019m accustomed to starting rattling pots and pans about 5:15 in the afternoon in order to have dinner at six. <\/p>\n That\u2019s what I did that day, too, but then I read the recipe. You dose the pork cutlets with lime juice and salt\u2014then you let them rest for half an hour. Then you dose them with flour\u2014and let them rest for half an hour. Then you dose them with the egg batter and crumbs\u2014and let them rest for half an hour. Then you cook them over a low heat.<\/p>\n Dinner wasn\u2019t ready at six pm that night. By you\u2019d better believe the coating stuck. I\u2019ve since breaded pork chops with everything from potato chips to Cheez-Its. Trust me, that hour and a half of resting is what makes it work. By the way, the same technique can be applied to coconut prawns.<\/p>\n Somewhere during the pandemic, I gave French toast a try. Last week I gave my grandson a choice between a trip to Burgermaster or Grandma\u2019s French Toast. He chose the latter. Whoo-hoo!!!<\/p>\n Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I made short ribs in my trusty CrockPot while the InstaPot continues to gather dust. They were delicious, and I tasted them as I went. If you decide to give short ribs a try, be advised. You\u2019ll have to spend half an hour or so ladling grease off the top of the gravy.<\/p>\n While the ribs were cooking, I boiled a big pot of potatoes and mashed them\u2014with plenty of melted butter and sour cream. That\u2019s what Bill and I had for dinner last night\u2014short ribs and mash. During dinner I noticed there wasn\u2019t enough color to the mix, so after dinner I added a bag of frozen peas to the ribs. Then I grabbed five plastic takeout containers and dished up five meals worth of short ribs and mash. They\u2019re in the freezer now, and we\u2019ll be having those for dinners here and there along the way when I\u2019m ready to press the easy button rather than rattling pots and pans.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure Miss Rosewarren, my high school Home Ec teacher, is spinning in her grave at the idea of my writing a blog update full of cooking hints. My Phys Ed teachers would be equally astonished at the idea of my becoming an on-line fitness advocate. Please note I didn\u2019t say \u201ccoach.\u201d As far as I\u2019m concerned, the coaches I met in my past life were anything but encouraging!<\/p>\n As for tonight\u2019s dinner? We won\u2019t be having short ribs and mash. The menu for tonight is egg salad, with the eggs cooked in my six-egg egg cooker\u2014which works like a charm, by the way. In my past life, I\u2019ve burned up more than one pan while boiling eggs. As long as you remember to unplug it when you\u2019re done, the egg cooker doesn\u2019t overheat.<\/p>\n By the way, don\u2019t ask me how I happen to know that last small detail. <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t pretty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I believe I\u2019ve mentioned before that there was plenty of singing in the Busk household when I was growing up. We sang while we did the dishes, while we did Saturday morning house cleaning, and while we went on long family drives. The songs we sang were the ones our mother taught us. Evie had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-JH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOn dishes delicious her heart was intent, Vive la cookery maid.
\nHer apron was spotless her cap it was neat, The figure she made was distractingly sweet, But the stuff she concocted a goat couldn\u2019t eat.
\nVive la cookery maid.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nShe toyed with the soup and they used it for glue, Vive la cookery maid.
\nThe used her plum pudding to poison the rats, Her griddle cakes could have been used for door mats, With her biscuits her brother disabled three cats, Vive la cookery maid.<\/p>\n
\n\u2019Twas hard as sole leather and heavy as lead, Vive la cookery maid.
\nShe put it away and retired to bed
\nA burglar broke in and upon it he fed.
\nWhen they came in the morning, the burglar was dead, Vive la cookery maid!<\/em><\/p>\n