Gourmet a la Costco

For the last twenty years, we have been a part of a gourmet group. We were invited to join four other couples when another couple resigned, and for years our group of ten people met to break bread five times a year . About two years ago, one couple in their early eighties resigned, and we four couples continued.

The group is called Gentlemen’s Gourmet, and yes, the men are supposed to be responsible for the whole process of selecting the menus, cooking, serving and cleaning up. We were excited to be invited to participate, but pretty much from the get-go, it’s been understood that the man in my house doesn’t cook unless it involves the gas grill. Our very first assignment was an appetizer: bread sticks with bacon wrapped around them, microwaved and rolled in Parmesan cheese. I remember my panic. We were part of a gourmet group; my translation: high-falutin’ food and self-imposed pressure to perform. Thankfully, the breadsticks turned out okay, and we weren’t drummed out of the group. In fact, the group has always been highly complimentary and supportive of each other, making it easy to take risks with exciting and exotic menus.

The way our group works is that we meet four times a year. The host couple decides on the menu and recipes. This usually entails hours of poring over Bon Appetit, scouring the Epicurious website, and sorting through piles of clipped recipes to come up with a dining experience that is a feast for the senses and, well, a feast, period. Each couple is assigned a course, with the hosts responsible for the main course and wine. We usually get our “assignments” a week or two before the dinner so we have time to shop for unusual ingredients or practice an unfamiliar technique. We’ve had many wonderful meals and have seldom repeated anything. We have learned over the years that there are endless varieties of cheesecake, and we have loved them all.

This time was different. On the Monday preceding our Saturday night dinner, we still hadn’t heard what the hosts had in mind. By coincidence, we ran into them while shopping at Costco. Fred and Judy greeted us, and we stood chatting for a couple of minutes. The subject of the impending gourmet dinner arose, and they laughed. “We’re having a Costco dinner,” they declared. “Your assignment is to get those frozen creampuffs. You can just drizzle some chocolate syrup on them.”  We dutifully bought our creampuffs and headed home. We learned what the rest of the courses would be: sliced fruit appetizer; Caesar salad; baby back ribs and mashed potatoes for the main course.

Linda and Vern brought the sliced fruit which was delicious: pineapple, mango, kiwi, strawberries, and melon. The mere act of moving the fruit from its clear plastic container to a pottery platter made it that much more appealing. We sipped cold champagne as we nibbled on the fruit.

Doug and Diane had the salad course, and they discovered the Law of Costco the hard way: better buy early, or else it might not be there later. Et tu, Brute? Caesar was gone. Doug had to make his own salad, sans Costco. Not to worry. Doug knows his way around a kitchen. He very capably produced a delicious salad, crisp Romaine, just the right amount of Parmesan, croutons and dressing.

Fred and Judy served those baby back ribs over mashed potatoes to die for. Yes, the butter and cream cheese and sour cream in them will clog our arteries, but we’ll die happy. The tender, flavorful meat practically fell off the bone. Even some of the ladies had seconds.

We finished with coffee and the creampuffs. I couldn’t “just drizzle some chocolate syrup” over them. I remembered a delicious bidonata that we had in Italy years ago. Ice cream-filled puffs were piled into a conical shape and covered with chocolate. I had my inspiration and my Smucker’s Magic Shell chocolate sauce! I layered the creampuffs, holding them in place with dabs of Magic Shell. After they were assembled, I studded the whole hill with frozen raspberries (purchased fresh from Costco earlier this summer). 

Just before serving, Henry drizzled Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate syrup over the whole thing. We all agreed he drizzled with panache.

The verdict? The Costco Dinner was deliciously simple and simply delicious.

Home Show

This was the weekend for the home show, an event that usually brings out a good crowd in our town. Before we left the house, I had to promise to keep my credit card in my pocket and not to be conned into buying “another steam cleaner or something else you don’t need.”  I admit that over the years, I’ve bought orange-oil cleaner, jewelry cleaner, and yeah, a floor steamer – when I already had one. I think there’s something about the home shows’ two-day runs that makes everything seem more appealing, knowing we won’t be able to find some of these things again ‘til next year.  Something akin to those “sold only on TV” ads.

What gets me is that, aside from the occasional fundraiser shopping extravaganza, how many other times we have to pay for the privilege of looking at spas, patio covers, and paving stones? This year, we probably wouldn’t have gone had it not been for the complimentary tickets we received from one of the vendors. (This particular vendor sold a kind of long-last lipstick, and I’m still not sure how that figures into a home show.)

 We arrived at the event in the hottest, and usually busiest, time of day: Saturday afternoon. The large umbrellas with misters attached were helping to keep visitors a bit cooler as they walked around the outdoor living area, past yard-art chickens and other metal sculptures.

 As we approached, we were greeted by a young woman who wanted us to try samples of pulled pork that had been cooked on a pellet grill. She pronounced it “pooled pork” and, curiously, didn’t have many takers. She was followed by another woman offering samples of pizza, also grilled. Large women clutched large bags of caramel corn. Kids who had painted tiles in the Home Depot DIY pranced around in their own orange aprons, paint staining their hands, elbows and knees. 

We wended our way inside and were greeted by the first two displays: spiders for sale (great for keeping pesky garden pests away) and dress-your-own teddy bears. We saw a travel agent, a couple of wine merchants, and tables of chocolate-covered apricots; displays of roofing material, triple-pane windows, and security doors.  What we didn’t see were many people, aside from those hanging around the fast food stands.

 Most of the vendors sat listlessly at their tables, barely stirring themselves to look up from their laptops. This was a lousy weekend for the home show – it was competing with the county fair. The old story about poverty says people are more likely to spend their last dime on entertainment, and the fair apparently still outranks the home show for that.

Puppy Love

Dad has always loved dogs. From my earliest memory, he had a wall display of small ceramic dogs of all kinds. When I was about five years old, we drove to Fresno in the old grey Plymouth sedan and came home with a Boxer puppy, the real thing. I think she was named Princess Magda something-or-other but was Maggie to us. Maggie was really Dad’s dog. In fact, there were those moments when Mom used to kiddingly accuse him of giving Maggie more sweet-talking than he did her. I think she was kidding, anyway!

Shortly after I graduated from high school and had my first job, I decided to get a puppy. I brought home a honey-colored cocker spaniel named Samantha. Sure, Mom, I’ll clean up after her. She’ll be my responsibility. I didn’t learn the first rule about training dogs and was a dismal failure with Sammie. What saved me was going away to college, leaving Sammie’s care to Dad. I think Mom may’ve made some remark about hoping that I wouldn’t abandon my children someday the way I had abandoned Sammie. I am pretty sure my kids would say I was a better parent!

Years later, one of my brothers asked Dad to board George and Tigger, a couple of Dachshunds that were no longer welcome in his home. These dogs had their own personalities, and Dad became quite fond of them. Mom probably thought history was repeating itself: one of her children abandoning their pets.

Time passed, and my parents had no pets around. Things were getting a little too quiet at home. Then Mom suggested the unthinkable: Let’s get two dogs, one for each of us! In their early eighties, our parents were taking on the responsibility of 12-week old Dachshund puppies! Before they even had them home, Mom had named hers Teddy because she resembled a furry little teddy bear. Teddy’s sister, Mattie, didn’t have the same long, wavy hair; instead, she is short-haired and about half Teddy’s size. 

These puppies have taken our parents’ hearts. At almost two years old, “the girls” still get warm milk first thing in the morning. As soon as they are let in the house each day, they make a mad dash (timed at seven seconds, according to Mom) to their bowls of milk which they lap up in hardly more time than it takes them to reach it. After breakfast, they are cuddled and given treats.

The doxies, variously called “the babies” or “the girls” have their own distinct personalities. Teddy is the only one to chase and retrieve tennis balls. She will climb into your lap and rest her head on your chest, and look soulfully into your eyes.  Mattie is not to be outdone in the lap-sitting, however; she’ll usually find a way to usurp the best lap spot, working her sister farther away. 

While smaller, Mattie is more aggressive, more talkative, and more apt to bare her teeth, but only in play. They both love to play with their toys, especially the squeaky ones. Like small children, they drag their toys out to play and leave 'em to be picked up by Mom and Dad.

I recently had “doggie duty” while Mom and Dad were out of town. Since the girls haven’t been left alone very often, they required three visits a day: before 8am to have their milk; again about midday, just to check on them and  make sure they weren’t digging their way out of their enclosure; and finally in the evening for some play and cuddles.

While Dad usually says something like, “Aren’t we lucky to have these puppies,” that comes as no surprise to those of us who know how much he likes dogs. The really telling point, though, is that the afternoon Mom and Dad returned after their 3-day trip to Yosemite, Mom was the one who rushed in the house because she’d missed her girls.

Wheels

When we retired, I badgered and cajoled Henry until he bought us bicycles. He resisted at first, saying that I wouldn’t ride it. This, of course, was not my first bike. In fact, I have a half-century’s worth of biking memories.

I remember my first bicycle, a big red coaster bike I received from Mom and Daddy one year. I imagine that bike was probably used and that Dad had painted and fixed it up before I saw it. I must’ve been at least eight years old when I learned to ride, shakily steering down Bardo Lane after Daddy let go his guiding hand. I don’t remember a lot about those early days, except for clothes-pinning old playing cards to the spokes with my friend Pam, making a satisfying clatter as we pedaled down the street. We also tried riding “no hands,” which worked for awhile, so long as we were going on level pavement. Being able to ride gave us a certain kind of freedom in those days. I could ride to Granddad’s butcher shop to pick up Mom’s order or ride to Granny’s to play Scrabble. Sometimes, Pam and I would ride over to “the ditch” and sit on its bank to eat our lunch; other times we’d ride to the 7Up bottling company where we’d get free samples of the sweet soda. Back then, nobody had heard of bike helmets. We didn’t have bicycle lanes painted on the pavement. We just rode. If we fell off and skinned our knees, we limped back home for Band-Aids and sympathy.

There were some bike mishaps in my experience. One summer our family, Mom, Daddy, three of us kids and Granny, camped for a week in Yosemite. Since our sister was only 13 months old, she stayed back at camp with Granny while the four of us rented bikes for a ride in Yosemite Valley. It wasn’t like riding at home: the scenery was way better, but the traffic was intimidating. Somewhere along the way, I managed to take a tumble where the asphalt met the sandy shoulder. My timing was great. As soon as I crashed the bike, the threatening clouds turned into a downpour. Mom waited with me and my brother Brent in the meadow while Dad pedaled back to get the stationwagon. This wasn’t any skinned-knee tumble: this was a broken collarbone, necessitating a trip to the Yosemite hospital. Once the doctor wrapped my broken wing in a tight figure-eight of first-aid tape, we returned to the campground. The break didn’t spoil our camping or my memories of Yosemite, but I never rode a bicycle there again.

In 1971 when Henry and I were first married, I wanted us to have bikes. “It’ll be fun,” I exclaimed. “We can take rides all around!” We bought matching dark-green Raleigh bicycles, bikes with thin racing tires, hand brakes and six gears. Truth was, we didn’t ride all that much until our friend Al proposed a real bike ride in 1973, one that entailed riding from San Francisco to San Diego.
Actually, I wasn’t really invited on this trip, but I convinced Henry that I could make it, and the boys eventually relented. Some months before our big trip, an acquaintance said, “Oh, you don’t need to get in shape first. You’ll get in shape on the ride!” Clearly, this woman had never ridden her bicycle past her own corner. The guys carefully planned our trip, mapping out 40-50 mile increments, depending on the available campsites and the occasional motel room. I made sure my bike had an old-fashioned squeeze-horn so that if the guys got too far ahead of me, I could squawk at them.

We flew to San Francisco, reassembled our bikes that had been boxed for the trip, and headed away from the airport and up Skyline Drive. The first few miles of our trip portended the rest of the trip: all uphill. A couple of miles up that first road, I watched as my horn came undone and dropped away in the bushes. I would have to squawk on my own, apparently. What I couldn’t do, though, was ride on my own. Dear sweet husband-of-mine figured out quickly enough that I wasn’t going to “get in shape on the ride” and would need the not-so-occasional helping push from behind. That first night we made it to Half Moon Bay. In the next nine days, we traveled on down Highway 1, through Big Sur and the wild boar in our campsite, eating in a cafe with the “No Hippies Allowed” sign posted above its door, down through Cayucos, Morro Bay and points south.

Our last night out, we stayed with our friend, Boomer, in Costa Mesa and the next day rode the remaining 90 miles. Eleven days and more than 700 miles later, we made it home, unscathed, unbroken and happier for having made the trip.

The matching green Raleighs are long-gone, now replaced with something a little comfier. I don’t have one of those really soft seats, but I do have the nice wide handlebars that keep me upright instead of crouched over the front wheel. This bike is great for riding around our neighborhood or with friends. Once, we even rode to the gym. All I need is a horn.

iPhone Homage

At the risk of seeming really ancient, I remember when all telephones were either mounted to the kitchen wall or positioned on a telephone table or desk. If you wanted to have a private conversation, you’d try to pull the receiver cord around the corner and out of hearing of the rest of the family. Black was the only color choice for the phone with its rotary dial; any call beyond ten miles was considered “long distance” and was charged accordingly. There were no area codes, and most phone numbers started with a word, followed by five numbers, e.g., REdwood-45128. In the manner of all things techno, the staid telephone eventually became smaller, faster, and smarter, with more memory, more attachments and more applications.

Three years ago, when I needed a new cell phone, I told the guy I just wanted a phone. I didn’t want it to do anything but make calls. I didn’t text. I didn’t need a camera. That’s it. A phone. But that was three years ago, eons in techno-time, and now it was time to catch up.

A month ago today, I bought my iPhone. We were visiting San Francisco when I nudged my sweet husband, Henry the Technophobe who hates change, into the Apple store. We had been in an Apple store once before, in Chicago, when I bought my iPod. The store was humming with activity and music, even at ten in the morning. There were plenty of blue-shirted, smiling customer service people who greeted us at the door, but at first they assumed we weren’t actually buying anything. After all, we were way over the median age of 15, and we didn’t rush over and attach ourselves to any of the machines on display.

Eventually we convinced a Blue Shirt that we were serious about this. We wanted to buy. When we bought the iPod, I recall it was a pretty simple procedure. I told the young man I wanted an iPod and a case, and we were out of there in about twenty minutes. Purchasing a phone, though, is akin to buying a car. How will we use the phone? Did we travel? We could turn off the phone with “airplane mode.” Did we want the protection program? Two years of Apple Peace of Mind? Did we know that if we purchased the MobileME, then we could also locate the phone should it get away from me? Is that a built-in lowjack or what, I thought. With a minimum of eye-rolling, we bought the whole package, a sleek white phone with headphones, USB connection and universal charger. Our guy was apparently obligated to show us all the bells and whistles, and two hours later we walked out of the store, eyes glazed with techno-fatigue. What he hadn’t been able to do, though, was transfer all my contacts from my old phone. Instead, he sent us down the street to the AT&T store. At that point, the AT&T guy rolled his eyes. “He should’ve been able to do that for you,” he mumbled.

This new, slim rectangle has no protruding antenna certainly no rotary dial. Instead, as legions of younger people already know, there is a smooth surface with colorful icons to touch. The sole button is to reach “home,” but of course that’s not as in “Phone home.” In fact, the only way to learn to use this mini-marvel is to engage the help of a younger person. So far, David set me up with iTunes and some nifty apps; Monica has shown me how to edit my photos. What I have discovered with my new phone is that its ability to make and receive a call is almost incidental. I can Google, read my email, play TapWord, record the food I’ve eaten for the day, check the weather in Buenos Aires and the rate of exchange for dollars with Peruvian Nuevo Soles. I can also check the time in New York, work a crossword, read a book, look up a word in the dictionary; listen to all my music transferred from my iPod, text my daughter-in-law and take pictures of Michela. Sometimes, but not often, my phone even rings.