Is the Man That Hath His Quiver Full of Them Happy?

The snow just keeps falling around here.  The wind blows down our necks.  In the hours before the storms hit, the stores empty of bread and milk.

That's OK.  Why go anywhere?  Why not just stay home, buried in Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist? 

Despite an improbably slapstick opening chapter, I lived in reading heaven for a week.  Golden Richards has four wives and twenty-eight children, and this massive household (three houses, actually) is out of control.  Golden leaves Utah's Virgin Valley every week for his big construction job over in Nevada.  He's building a nursing home, he tells the wives, except it's something else entirely.

Meanwhile back at home, first wife Beverly runs the clan with an iron will and a great many placards posted all over her house:

Please Place Shoes in Shoebox --Neatly and Quietly
Remember: Use Only Your Toothbrush and Your Toothbrush Only
Boys:  AIM!!! Please and Thank You.   

Fourth wife Trish longs for his attention, which leads to a running gag involving a piece of gum.


And Rusty, the chubby, almost adolescent child who falls somewhere in the middle of the pack, is caught trying on his sister's underwear, which earns him yet another banishment to his bedroom, and no dessert.  Don't let the underwear business turn you off to Rusty.  He is such a loveable misfit, I didn't know if I wanted the family to come to their senses and treat him nicer, or if I wanted to see his grand plans for revenge play out. 

Udall writes frankly about people's sex lives; how can you take on the subject of polygamy and not follow the characters into their bedrooms?  But he keeps it all in the service of getting the story told.  We peek through the keyhole long enough to understand what happened, then we move on.

And we meet such lovable and droll desert characters along the way:   The other seven apostles of Golden's fundamentalist sect.  (They haven't worked their way up to twelve yet.  "You'd think," says their leader, "that an outfit like this would grow.  But we just keep shrinking.")  The boss on the "nursing home" construction sight.   A creepily observant ostrich.  The wives, the tenants of Golden's rental houses, the "plyg kids," the sheriff, and even the atomic bombs going off in the nearby desert.

Yep, it was a good time for the snow to fall. 

And for dinner, we had  Slow-Cooked Chicken and Stuffing, which might have gone a long way toward feeding Golden's clan, except that the family kept dipping in for second and third servings. 

Those Crazy Dreamers

I used to have a powerful People Magazine habit.  I kicked it, much to the relief of my husband. But I remember what I liked best about it--story after story of people who clung to their crazy dreams.  Much to the consternation of all who knew and loved them, they threw their all into making jewelry, or raising ostriches, or singing in backwater bars in Texas.  And their dreams worked out.

So how about an entire book about somebody's dream?

In Outcasts United  by Warren St. John, Luma Mufleh grows up in a prosperous family in Jordan.  She can expect a good education, a good marriage, a few Mercedes in her driveway. But she just wants to go to the United States.  She's not sure what she wants to do there.  She ends up in an Atlanta suburb, coaching a girls' soccer team.

On a grocery run to a store that carries some of her favorite middle-eastern foods,  she makes a U-turn in an apartment parking lot and finds a group of barefoot boys playing soccer "with the sweaty mixture of passion, joy, and camaraderie" that she remembers from her own country.  As she learns more about these boys, her dream takes shape.

They come from Bosnia, Liberia, Afghanistan, the Sudan and other war-torn countries.  After fleeing murder and plunder, after living in refugee camps and applying for asylum, they find themselves settled in some dilapidated apartments in Clarkston, Georgia.

Clarkston, a peaceful town at the end of the commuter train line, isn't sure what has hit them, but they mostly don't like it.

At any rate, Luma forms a few soccer teams and begins coaching the boys. Clarkston's mayor refuses to let them practice on the greenest fields in town, relegating them a rutted, glass-strewn patch of dirt behind one of the town's worst elementary schools.  And the boys themselves present no small challenge.  "After the trauma of war and relocation, many refugee kids had severe psychological and behavioral problems."

Outcasts is a fascinating look at political asylum, a growing phenomenon in American life.  It is also an account of a woman who gives her all on the soccer field, as well as her car if they need rides, her wallet if they need groceries and her time, if their parents needs help filling out endless forms in a strange language.

I could never be Luma Mufleh.   For one thing, the woman has no time to cook, even something as quick as:  

French Toast Sandwiches 

This is your first installment of french toast sandwiches.  I tasted something similar and quite heavenly at the Frango Cafe in Chicago's downtown Macy's.  I intend to reproduce it at home and share it with you, so wish me luck and keep your griddle ready. 

  

Literary Cheese Puffs

A Montana cowpoke that falls for a night-class teacher.   Two brothers that would like to throw each other off the ski lift.  A father in mourning, doing what he should've hired a detective to do.   An Argentine aristocrat, longing for the old days.

These are some of the people that appear in Maile Meloy's short story collection,  Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It.

Meloy's characters just want to know that they matter to someone.  No, wait.  Only half of them pull your heartstrings that way.  The other half display monumental selfishness, throwing their near and dear away like empty water bottles.  Meloy's tales kept me on her what-will-happen-next hook, but when I closed the last page, I couldn't remember a single one of them.  It was as if I had wolfed down a bag of Cheese Puffs.  Airy and unsatisfying, they only make you want to search the cupboards for some other junk to fill the void.  

Maybe the trouble with short stories is that the reader moves from one person to the next--college girl, wronged wife, pitiful floozy--never knowing enough, never stopping long enough to care.  I can see the most interesting people in Wal-Mart, wearing what ought to be pajamas, and forget them a half-hour later.  But as for people at church, I remember their hometowns, their wardrobes, their visiting relatives and their oddest comments in Relief Society, simply because I'm with them long enough for all this minutiae to build up and stick.

But let us recognize Meloy for her many awards.  She writes a well-constructed tale.  A lot of well-constructed tales, actually, even if they are populated with people you wouldn't want as neighbors or relatives.  

As long as we're dealing with fleeting characters, why don't we celebrate one of nature's most fleeting foods -- the strawberry.


My mother-in-law grew strawberries, sending jars of freezer jam to our house every June.  The jam lasted not much longer than the third week in July.  The second-best way of remembering Grandma and her strawberry crop was the jello she brought to holiday dinners, rich and thick with berries she had frozen the summer before.  The woman hates cooking; she would rather spend Christmas playing with the kids and their new toys, then serve pot pies for dinner.  On the effort scale, this jello was as high as she would go.

For my children, a  holiday isn't holiday without:

GRANDMA JELLO

1 container (16 oz.) frozen, sweetened, sliced strawberries

1 package (6 oz.) strawberry jello

2 cups boiling water

2 bananas

2 cups mini-marshmallows

Partially thaw the berries in the microwave, 1 minute at 30%.  

Dissolve the jello in boiling water.  Add the berries, stirring until they break up into bite-sized chunks.  Chill for 15-20 minutes, or until syrupy.  Slice the bananas, stir into the jello mixture.  Stir in marshmallows.  Pour into a serving bowl or 9x13-inch pan.  Chill for four hours.  Serves 8 at 200 cals. each. 

Maiden Voyage

Look at my new toy--holds 7 quarts!

It got a workout tonight.  We invited a family of beautiful children and their charming parents to join us for dinner.  In addition, our kids came home for the week--Yay!  This qualifies as feeding a crowd, no?

On its maiden voyage, the crock pot cooked a double batch of:

Italian Bow Tie Supper

For dessert:

Pineapple Layer Cake


I consider company for dinner as my reward for finishing Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb.  Despite a book jacket of shiny Christmas tree balls, the story was only vaguely about Christmas.   Mostly it was a profane little comedy about fifth-grade boys clashing with the nuns at their school.  The protagonist hangs out with the class slacker, a 12-year-old already carrying condoms in his back pocket.  You are forewarned. 

On this Thanksgiving week, may you load up on happy memories as least as much as you load up on stuffing and pie.  As for me, my house is is full of people to cook for, which is one of my reasons for living, if you haven't guessed that already. 

Out Night-Owling My Night Owl Self

I woke up on Saturday with a powerful case of short-on-sleep eye bags, not to mention styling a total bedhead.  That's what happens when you're up until 3 a.m., finishing David Wroblewski's Story of Edgar Sawtelle.  

Even if he wrote a few chapters with his perfumed-prose pen, the story gripped me. 

Although it occurs to me, in the light of day, that we never learn why the bad guy was bad.  What did he want that made him do -- well, I can't tell you what he did.  That would be giving it away.

And another thing:  why did Edgar -- oh, I can't tell you that either.  But what Edgar did was as puzzling as me mixing up a stiff glass of chocolate milk, then dumping it down the kitchen sink.  Plots have to make a little more sense than that.

Readers on Amazon mentioned the story's parallels to Hamlet.  Thanks to my sub-standard education, I never picked up on this.  Will I actually have to read Hamlet now?  Am I supposed to plug the bad-guy motivation from there into Wroblewski's story and call it good?

Still, I congratulate the author.  He kept me up until 3 a.m., didn't he?   He made this night-owl out-night-owl herself.  And this was a first novel, by the way.


But I think he owes us something on what drives the bad guy.

Now, having slept off my Edgar Sawtelle reading binge, I'm back to thinking about practical things, like what to fix for Sunday dessert: 

Easy Apple Crisp

You're on your own for the ice cream.

Next book:  a Christmas story.

Nice Doggie, Nice Doggie

If Oprah liked it, will I like it?

That's not exactly why I picked up David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but I can just imagine Oprah holding up this thick book on her TV set and sincerely bearing testimony that it will hold you in its grip clear up to the last harrowing page.

Actually, I have no idea how harrowing things will get, but from the halfway point where I now sit, the antagonist is somebody I sure wouldn't want next door to me in one of those hotel rooms with the shared door.

Edgar is born to a family of dog breeders.  He has no voice.  When one of the dogs notices baby Edgar crying in hunger and no sound coming out, she knows she has found her Important Job.  Wake up momma and get her to feed him.  Go everywhere with Edgar and watch out for him. 

So I'm reading along, getting all heart-warmed by a dog, and wondering what's happening to me.  Why, just weeks ago, I said nice things about the two doggies at my daughter's house--"They are kind of gentle.  Oh, you sweet pooch," pat, pat.  You don't know how it disturbs me to admit these things, but OK, there's something sweet about an animal companion that waits for you to come home, that follows you around as if your business is her business, that knows what you want for your birthday . . .  Oh, wait, that's probably a bit much to ask.

If I were you, I wouldn't lay down money that I'm about to bat for the other team.  And besides, my cats do wait for me at the door and they do follow me around.  So I feel loved.

It's just that I get, if only a little bit, why all those people who choose an animal that has to be walked (rain, snow or ice) and that chews their boots and that slobbers on them . . . Ok, I get why they might feel all nutty with love for these creatures.

Anyway, back to Edgar.  His uncle appears on the dog farm.  The man is impulsive.  Or maybe he's dangerous.  Or maybe he's changed and isn't all that anymore, but the uncle and Edgar's dad sure do have a lot of arguments.  And Edgar's dog isn't much help on the day he has to call the early '70s version of 911.   

So here I am, halfway through the book, where things are just crackling with danger.  The house could use a good vacuuming and it's not gonna happen until I see Edgar through his troubles.

However, I do manage to feed people around here.   After laying about for a week, I re-entered the kitchen and produced:

 Microwave Pizza Dip

Outsmarting Your Off Days

I'm kind of laid-up at the moment, which calls for the family to eat straight out of the Costco freezer section.  Tonight, it was some kind of chicken-patty-and-cheese thing that moms can nuke for the kids' after-school snack. Billed for "smaller appetites," I requested that the cook fix me three, because my appetite is more than a distracted child's.

You need contingencies for these times when the cook is not up to it, or when the kitchen is a disaster.  Which reminds me of the time when Mr. Bye-Bye Nesquik was in one of his project moods.  I knew the day was going to be the kind when we turned on the faucet and it coughed up grime, not to mention finding my counters crowded with hammers, copper wire, paintbrushes and whatever else the mister needed for his project.   

I figured I'd get in there before he did, put a nice potato soup in the crockpot and leave it to simmer while he tore and built and cussed and went to the hardware store for more copper wire, paint or whatever.   Yes, at the end of the day, after all the chaos, we'd all have a steamy, salty reward waiting for us. We would avert hunger, and ill-tempered desperation. 

When dinner time came around, I lifted the lid off the crockpot and braced myself for the head of steam wafting off that wonderful soup.

And the soup inside was . . . . cool, the potatoes . . . . hard.

Because Mister's project included turning off the power to that particular outlet. 

Could've used a freezer full of Costco chicken-patty things that night, oh yes.

Or I could've used this SKIER'S STEW, because it would've cooked in the oven, on the side of the kitchen the mister didn't touch.

2 lbs. stew beef, cut in 1 1/2-inch cubes
8 medium potatoes, quartered
8 large carrots, cut in fourths
2 bay leaves
1 pkg. (1 1/2 oz.) dried onion soup
1 can (10 3/4 oz. cream of mushroom soup
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) cream of celery soup
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce

In large Dutch oven or heavy pan with tight-fitting lid make a layer of beef, then teh vegetables. Top with bay leaves, soups and tomato sauce.  Bake at 325' for 3 hours, 15 275' for 6 hours, or at 250' for 8 hours.  Or cook on high for 4 1/2 hrs.  YIELD: 12 servings, 395 cals. each.

From Managing Your Meals  by Winnifred C. Jardine.  Also available at: http://www.dvo.com/D_Managing-Your-Meals.php 

Meanwhile, I finished Lisa See's Shanghai Girls, in which she spends the second half of the book zooming out with a wider lens, attempting to document everything that the Chinese suffered as they came to America.  She bites off a lot, but narrows it all down to the personal drama again at the end.  Overall, I'm recommending it as a good read.

Next book:  562 pages, set in the backwoods of Wisconsin.  Since I'm not cooking for anybody this week, what else do I have to do?