You say potato, I say toboggan; you say tomato, I say slumgullion... let’s eat!

Sometime around 1990, after I’d been working downtown for a year or so, one of my coworkers invited me to lunch and I declined, saying I needed to go to Kaufmann’s and buy a toboggan. 

I’ll never forget the reaction I got—“are you serious??”  I said yes, sure.  Winter was coming and I needed one.  She said “I’ll believe it when I see it.”   Er.. okay.

Later that afternoon, she came over to my desk and said ok, where is it.  When I held it up, she said “You bought a ski cap?”  and that’s when I learned that some of the words I used back home weren’t necessarily common ones here.  Oh, people got a big kick out of it, they knew I was from a rural area south of the city & tortured me for it:  “You really call a ski cap a toboggan?  Give us some more hillbilly words!”   Okay, here’s another one.

When I was a kid, my mom would say “Doug, chop up a big onion for me honey” & I’d ask if she was making potato soup, one of her specialties.  She’d say no, slumgullion. Ooh!   A mixture of ground beef, celery, onions, tomato juice and macaroni—she’d make an army-sized pot of it for her ravenous army of six kids, and we’d scarf it down like there was no tomorrow.  

I’ve tried making it on my own, but it always seems to lack something special—Mom, I’m guessing.  I’ve seen some recipes for it online, but I’m always surprised how much the ingredients can vary.   Anyway, I’ve been making my OWN version of slumgullion now for several years & I think it’s pretty good.  I’m basically substituting ketchup & cream of celery soup for the tomato juice.  Trust me, it works!

Not my Mom’s Slumgullion 

1. Brown 1 LB ground beef & one large chopped onion –OR- two smaller ones; drain. 

Don’t be afraid there’s too much onion, everytime I make this my first thought is “Why don’t I make this more often?” and my second thought is always “Wish I’d added more chopped onion”

2.  Stir in 1 can ‘Campbells Cream of Celery Soup’, 1/3 cup ketchup, 2 tablespoons Worchestershire Sauce & 1/4 teaspoon black pepper.  Stir it up good, cover & set it on very low heat.

3.  Boil 1 cup (uncooked) macaroni to desired softness, drain, plop the pasta back in the pot—add in the soup mixture from the first pot.  Cover & put on low heat and let it heat together for a couple minutes.   You’re done!

By the way, as much as I love this stuff it’s even better with some VERY crusty bread—that makes all the difference.  I usually heat up a can of green beans too, just to soften the guilt a little from all that carb-on-carb action..         .         .

Well, if you’re scratching your head right now & thinking “Did I really just read some hillbilly’s recipe for Hamburger Helper?”  I don’t blame you—but take it from a single guy (and former Hamburger Helper expert), this concoction tastes a whole lot better.    

Four weddings and no funeral--I hope it stays that way (‘cuz I don’t have a thing to wear)

Two days ago while chatting with my sister Shawn via email, she threw this fun message at me:

On an unrelated note, Shannon called here last night very excited that she and Charlie are engaged.  She wants to be married in July and instead of waiting till next year, she thinks they want to do it July 14, seven days after her brother Michael’s wedding.  She says it will be small, 50 people.  And Jim's cousin who is getting married next month?  Sandy’s daughter? Sandy's other daughter just got engaged too and plans to marry this year as well.

(Michael & Shannon are my sister’s husband Jim's kids from his first marriage.)  Anyway, when I read this email I shuddered and thought “There but for the grace of God go I…”  because the thought of having to attend 4 weddings in the space of a few weeks… oh the horror.

For the record, I don’t see myself being invited to any of these & that’s fine; I always assumed it was a ‘man thing’ though, disliking weddings--but a couple weeks ago when Shawn first brought all this up, I exclaimed “Poor Jim!” and my sister said "What ‘poor Jim’, he lives for these things!”  

Really?  Fine, I’m a social misfit then, because it’s been years since my last one & I aim to keep it that way!

My friend Carolyn & myself at our friend Elisa’s wedding some years back; don’t let my smile fool you, for six months the blushing bride sent me weekly reminders promising certain death if I didn’t show

Funerals on the other hand… there’s no getting out of ‘em.  And forgive me for sounding selfish or morbid, but the thought just hit me yesterday, that I hope no one I know dies anytime soon—mainly because I don’t own a single wearable suit!  And I have no desire to get fitted for one while I’m trapped in this tubby body my brain cells call home.

How did I get to be this way?   (No, not my overweight self—I know how THAT happened.)  How is it that I don’t own any formal attire?  Back when I landed my first ‘computer job’ in 1988, a business suit was a job requirement.  By the mid-90s, I owned several of them (and I still have a shoebox full of old dry cleaning receipts to prove it).  I even became a ‘suit-expert’; if another guy was walking down the street in my direction I could tell with a glance if he’d bought that navy wool at Men’s Warehouse (ah, just another drone like me) or Brooks Brothers (ooh, he’s higher up on the food chain). 

I guess around the same time the dress code began relaxing at the start of the 21st century, I found less & less reasons to have my closet stuffed with these corporate get-ups (and more & more reasons to only shop for Dockers and short sleeve sportshirts).  Why replace that pinstripe with the shiny seat if you don’t have to?   And this light gray one has worn elbows, and that navy suit from Banks had a mind of it’s own—it somehow grew smaller and got way too tight around the stomach & shoulder blades.  I wound up giving them all away, save for one (an awkward-fitting steel blue that I wasn’t even that fond of in the first place, but had the distinction of being the last one purchased, and the least worn).   It lurks about here somewhere still, but I don’t see myself in it again for a long time; the last guy who wore it was 40 lbs thinner than me.  God, I miss him.

So, for the time being at least, I’m just going to keep my chubby fingers crossed and pray that my friends & loved ones are healthy and safe and remain living while I’m in this chubby state, and don’t put me through the embarrassment of having to purchase a fat man’s suit anytime soon.  

I mean, that’s the least they can do, right?   

As I consider joining the Amish, Sophie builds a robot

 

Last week my 7 year old niece Sophie and her first grade class were given a project; using items from around their homes, they were to each build a robot.

I thought Sophia did a fine job here (the kid was thrilled because hers was the only one in her class that could actually speak, heh heh) and I also thought the ‘mini-Slinky’ arms and ‘snack pack Pringle chips’ feet were the perfect touches.  It even has a working calculator on it’s back—might as well make this thing useful!  

I couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar project I had to do when I was her age—our class was building a prehistoric exhibit and we were each instructed to build a dinosaur.   (I remember most of the kids used Play-Doh or modeling clay, but one boy in our class arrived that morning with his father & a life-size pterodactyl made from paper mache, hanging from wires, which made the rest of us kids look at our own concoctions with some mild disgust.)   ANYWAY, that was shortly after the Mesozoic Era, in 1968.  Nothing like these 21st century kids today.

I suppose I’ve been feeling a little sensitive to technology lately, as I recently purchased a new laptop and have been going thru an annoying learning curve.  (Dammit I miss that Windows Vista Photo Editor!)   Even the new keyboard (with the ‘soft-touch keys’) is cramping my style. And don’t even get me started on the LED backlit screen (it’s like staring at a light bulb while you type). 

Around the same time that I got this infernal contraption, I watched a 2 hour special on PBS “American Experience” about the Amish.  It’s nothing that I didn’t already know or haven’t seen before (well, I did take for granted that all Amish were farmers, which was the case until 1950 or so, now only half of them own farms; the rest work as tradesmen or in factories).  But listening to them talk about their way of life, as we’re shown images of horse-drawn buggies, kitchen woodstoves and clotheslines hanging with the morning wash, I couldn’t help but feel a yearning for their simpler way of life; oh I know it’s a harder existence, but is the gizmo-laden one we have now really such an easier one?

 

I bet the new ipad is the last thing on these ladies minds!  But then again, they’re a bit limited in what they can wear, read or listen to; and I’m not too keen on the fact that the menfolk have to sport those Abraham Lincoln-type beards either

 

Well, as I sit here silently cursing this new Toshiba keyboard (the space-bar is only 3/4 the size of my old one and everything is half an inch to the left and I KNOW, we should all have such problems) I guess I’ll take a break and see if I have something I can pop in the microwave.  Weren’t we supposed to have robots by now that do the cooking for us?