The Culinary Class - Thai Cooking

Last fall at an auction I won two expensive cooking lessons at a fancy place with a beautiful view of a tree lined ravine with a fast rolling river at the bottom. It seems I was one of the few people at the auction who recognized the bargain price the classes were going for. I was thrilled when I won. Last night I cashed one of the certificates in on a three hour class on Thai cooking. Let me tell you, I was a fish out of water with all the foodies in our little group as we sat on tall stools around a chef’s stainless steel topped table. But I was honest about my lack of cooking background so I’m sure my naïve questions amused my companions whose questions were far above my skill set. The chef had a sous-chef who did all the chopping and running. He was a good looking guy of---I’m guessing---Italian descent and I wanted to take him home, stand him in the corner of the kitchen to come to attention whenever I need assistance.

They started out with Pork Satay and Peanut Sauce, then they progressed with putting on a pot of Tom Kha Gai soup. While that was on the stove they made Phat Thai and ended with Sticky Rice with Mangoes for the dessert round. We were munching and drinking wine the whole time---well, I wasn’t drinking, but the others were and it was fun to watch them all get buzzed while exchanging foodie stories as the night advanced. I learned two things: 1) To do Thai cooking you need to keep the following ingredients in the house: brown sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and soy sauce. And 2) Thai cooking has five flavor profiles: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and spicy. Thai cooking is good at isolating those different profiles in the same dish so you continue to get unexpected flavor bursts as you eat. All in all, I had a great time and a to-die-for meal.

Will I ever make any of this stuff at home? No, but at least I’ll appreciate my take-out Thai more. But I probably will get some coconut milk, lemongrass paste, scallions and chicken and play around with inventing my own soup concoction. Recipes are for sissies. Or so my mother taught me by example which is probably one of the reasons why cooking freaks me out so much. It’s always an 'adventure' into the unknown.

As usual for me, I took my camera but it never made it out of my purse. The stock photo at the top is pretty close to the Phat Thai I ate last night. Oh and by the way, I sat next to a guy close to my age who was there alone, too, as were three other women. So there is no reason for widows to fear going alone to classes like this. The only couple in the group were young and are getting married next summer. The guy I liked, the girl reminded me of a few bridezillas I dealt with back in my former life.

“It’s going to be MY wedding,” she announced at one point, “not his and he doesn’t get a say in anything.”

The rest of us were all old enough to have grandchildren and we looked at each other at that statement. If I had been drinking, too, I would have been tempted to ask the others if they wanted to place bets on how long their marriage would last with that attitude. One of the other women did say, “Marriage is an 80% 20% deal. 80% of the time you love each other and 20% of the time you want to kill each other.” 

Then I said, “I agree except the longer I was knew my husband that equation changed to 90%, 10%” and others agreed that was true for them as well.

Bridezilla piped up, “For us, its 50%, 50%.” I looked at her would-be spouse and hoped he’d could read my mind because I was telling him to run for the hills. Seriously, you shouldn’t have to work that hard at love! The only time I had to work that hard at love the relationships didn’t last. Am I just too old to remember how it is with young people or am I just making myself feel superior by thinking I can accurately read the signs when a relationship is doomed from the start? We widows do tend to have thick rose-colored lenses in our glasses when it comes to remembering our other half and our shared romantic past.

I’m saving my other class certificate for something to do with summer stir-fry or grilling. So part two to this story will be along someday. ©

The Week That Flew By

It’s been one of those weeks when I was busy all the time but at the end, there wasn’t much that stood out as being worth taking up space in my memory bank or my blog. Not being memorable can actually be a good thing because that rules out a whole host of bad things that could have happened. No funerals to attend. No falling down and going boom in the night that required a trip in an ambulance. No bills came I can’t pay. I’m still old---that hasn’t changed---but, jeez, I’m not dead and according to Marlo Thomas’ new book, It Ain’t Over…Till It’s Over, I still have plenty of time to reinvent my life and chase my dreams. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of obvious things like that.

I did have one outing this week that is worth mentioning. For our April walk-about my Red Hat Society Chapter finally made it downtown to the dinosaur exhibit. We tried to go once before but the line was too long so we went to plan B. I don’t really care about dinosaurs. As fast as the world is changing I’ll be one myself soon enough. Like yesterday when my WiFi quit working and it took me over an hour to get the darn thing working again. A seven year old probably could have done it in five minutes. But as exhibits go, it was impressive and it took us two hours to view all the animatronic dinosaurs, the feather, dung and head fossils and the full skeletons. I learned that dinosaurs are now believed to be the ancestors of modern birds, not reptiles as people in my age bracket were taught decades ago and they are still digging up dinosaurs fossils today which are in big demand on the black market. Who knew you could get millions of dollars for a pile of old bones to reconstruct? And what does one do with a dinosaur in a private home? They don’t have folklore properties like ground-up rhino horns that are erroneously believed to help a guy get a hard-on. But who decides these things? And why can’t we just supply the rhino horn buyers with a lifetime supply of Viagra and save the destruction of those butt-ugly-but-still-beautiful-at-the-same-time animals? Let those rhino buying guys wear themselves out to the point of extinction. Sometimes the simplest answer to a problem is right before our eyes.

This week I also got two phone calls on my husband’s birthday from longtime friends. It was nice to know that others still remember and miss him as much as I do. It’s weird knowing I’m now officially older than he was when he died. And my brother and sister-in-law are taking me out for dinner on Sunday to mark the occasion of both Don’s and my birthday. I won the in-law lottery with those two. About the only thing I could ever do wrong in their eyes is to shoot a polar bear. I could understand their admiration back when Don was alive…they had a big stake in me staying healthy and happy to take care of Don since they were next in line as power of attorney. But with Don no longer in the picture they still hang in there with me and not all widows can say that about their in-laws. In fact, I can say that about all of his family. I am still one of them and for that I am grateful.

Next week is move-in time for my new antique booth and this past week was devoted to getting everything ready. Thankfully, I have a good friend who will help me move in my heavy showcase. He’s like the son we never had. He’s one of these extremely busy, do-good types who spreads himself too thin and has a big family that he is devoted to. So I don’t see him more than a handful of times a year, but he calls often and has always been there to volunteer to help when I’ve needed it. In fact, this time he actually called me to tell me about this booth opening up and urged me to rent it. He’s got a booth in the same mall, so I’m hoping we’ll cross paths often as we restock. He’s a crazy, upbeat kind of person who never seems to age. Just fun to be around and don’t we all need more people like that in our lives.(Wow, who knew I'd be writing an ode to Tim today?)

I’ve got a busy but fun week ahead. Besides the move-in mall business I have a Thai cooking class on my schedule and my Movie and Lunch Club meets. Then at the end of the week I’m going to a surprise birthday party for my brother---not to worry, he doesn't owe a computer and won't see this. I can’t wait to visit my family. I haven’t seen them since last fall. (Well, except for a baby shower in January where I saw the female half.) I wish they didn’t live so far away, but they do so that just makes the times when I do see them all the sweeter. ©

Remember Back When Obama Was President?

My first week of returning to eBay auctions went well enough. I listed five items, sold four for a grand total of $282.45. With the one that didn’t sale, I had calculated the shipping wrong, so the corrected listing should sell the item this coming week. That old can photographed at the top accounted for more than half of that $282.45 and many widows---upon finding that in the garage---would have thrown it away. It makes me crazy when I hear about widows who throw out all of their husband’s garage stuff without first finding out if there was a method to his madness. And tools alone deserve a garage sale, not a trash bin. But I can only sing that song so many times before I start sounding like a broken record. Now, I only have to repeat my first auction results two more times this month to pay for the spring cleanup and bark application in the yard. Then May’s auction should pay for my wrap-around deck to get stained. My financial life this summer will be like one big Monopoly game. I advance past ‘Go’, collect $200 then I land on a piece of property that just happens to cost $200.00. Funny how that works. I want to get the house power washed, the windows professionally cleaned and few other things that didn’t get done last summer when my sump pump failed during our record setting rains and the basement got flooded. Knock on wood that this summer doesn’t bring me another “Go directly to jail,” card “do not pass go, do not collect $200.”

One of my cousins used to administer tests to determine if someone could be declared legally incompetent to live alone. Twenty-one questions---back 15 years ago---was all that stood in between old people being shipped off to a nursing home or them being able to thumb their noses at a relative who doubted their mental facilities. She used to joke that she had all the answers memorized so that she could pass the test when the bell tolled for her. In the last few years of my dad’s life, I had to take him to a geriatric psychiatrist every two months for an interview and one of those twenty-one questions competency tests. His testing was required because he was taking part in a clinical drug trial designed to slow down the early stages of Alzheimer’s, a drug that has since come to market. I think of all those times I sat and listened to him struggle to come up with the names of politicians in office whenever I’m tempted to give myself a news blackout. You’ve got to stay current when you get old! It doesn’t matter that a good share of kids under 40 can’t name a Supreme Court Justice but if you’re 75 or 80 you bet your future on knowing stuff like that.

My dad was the wisest, most compassionate man I’ve ever known. Even so, sharing care of an elderly parent in their own home isn’t easy but I am proud of the fact that my brother and I was able to do it until a couple of weeks before he died. We would have made it to the end if I hadn’t taken a nasty fall, broking my arm in three places, and I had to have surgery. Then I spent twelve weeks in a turn-buckle cast. Try picking out clothing to wear to a funeral with one of those things attached to your body. As hard as those five years of caring for my dad were, I have many treasured memories that were generated during that time frame. Like the time the doctor asked Dad who the president was and he gave the wrong answer. When the doctor corrected him, Dad replied: “My daughter tried to tell me that in the parking lot but I didn’t believe her!” Caregiver humor seems to come along when you need it the most. Kind of like the darker form of humor that comes along during the first year or two of widowhood. What got me to thinking about Dad today was my hairdresser. She is at the beginning stages of having to oversee her aging mother. If it’s true that we can judge a society by the way we treat the elderly, I think there is much to be hopeful about in America. Most of us do step up to the plate when the times comes.

Some people don’t understand why some of us faithfully tend our blogs like spring gardens that need their tender little sprouts babied along, and I think the answer to that question can be found in this quote from The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield: “Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic. As one tends the graves of the dead, so I tend the books. And every day I open a volume or two, read a few lines or pages, allow the voices of the forgotten dead to resonate inside my head.”  I think we write blog posts to preserve the voices that speak inside our heads and the memories that seem to want to crowd each other out as time marches us toward our graves. In my case, I like to think that someday when I'm too old to remember who the president is one of my nieces will occasionally sit beside me, like a mother reading a fairytale to a five year old, and she’ll read me a few pages from my blog starting with the words, “Aunt Jean, remember back when Obama was the president and you wrote this….” ©