Sunday Favorites- Do You Cook Like Your Mother Did?

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you're all enjoying this weekend. Wanted to share with everyone for Sunday Favorites a post that I wrote on August 1, 2009 about cooking and mothers, especially my mother. Hope you enjoy it and have a great Sunday! Please go over to visit Chari at Happy to Design and see what other favorites posts you might have missed!

Sharing a Favorite Post

from

August 1, 2009

Had an interesting and thought provoking conversation with my mother this morning. We were watching the Food Network and one of the cooks was making a homemade pizza. She started out by rolling out a frozen, store bought pizza crust and forming it into the pan. Where by, my mom says, "That's not cooking! She's using store bought pizza crust!"


I've been thinking about this because I love the Food Network and I wondered if all our mothers feel that way about our cooking since many of us working, single or not single moms don't have a ton of time to spend in the kitchen making things from scratch.


About a month ago, I told my mom I was going to make some chili beans. My son and daughter love my home made chili beans and they're also a big hit with my son's friends during Super Bowl Sunday!



I was getting my ingredients together while my mom watched and she asked if I wanted her to make the chili for the beans. I told her, "Nope! It's easy mom, see this little packet? It's Taco Bell seasoning." She said, "What's that for?" I told her it was the seasoning for the meat. I then pulled out two big cans of canned beans, one pinto and also a can of white beans. Again she said, "What's that for?" So I told her those were the beans I use. "You don't cook your own beans???" my mom asked in shock! "No mom, I don't make my own beans. I don't have time to sit at home all day waiting for beans!"


Now I know that you can put beans on to cook in a crock pot all day. My sister does this. But we don't eat many beans. It's just my son and me. So opening a can of beans is good enough for us. So I made the chili beans and while they were stewing I pulled out a box mix of corn bread. Well I won't even tell you what my mom said then! But of course she was in shock! Corn bread from a box?


Once my homemade chili beans and corn bread were done, my mom tasted them and said they were good, for beans from a can with Taco Bell Seasoning and hamburger meat in them!


When my mom makes chili beans, she makes beans fresh in a pot. She cleans them and puts them to boil. Throughout the day she boils water and will only add boiling hot water when more water is needed so that the beans don't get dark and they stay light and pretty. I have to admit, it works. My mom's beans are beautiful. I can remember her making beans like this since I was a little girl and I remember always having to replace water in the bean pot with boiling water.


Mom also makes her own chili for the beans. She takes dried New Mexico Chile's. She likes those as she says the New Mexico ones are a bit more flavorful and a little more spicy than the others. She takes the dried Chile's and cuts off the stem, slits them down the middle, cleans out the seeds and puts them in a pot with boiling water and blanches them for a bit. Then she puts them in the blender with a few cloves of fresh garlic and various other spices. I have no clue what they are. She puts some of the hot water that is left from boiling the Chile's and grinds them all up into the sauce.


She then browns her ground beef, adds fresh beans and the Chile sauce she's ground up in the blender and adds more salt and other seasonings to taste and lets them boil so the flavors all come together. Let me tell you. . . they are mmmmmmmmmmmm, wonderful. I love my mom's beans and when she's invited to a potluck her beans are what people request that she bring.


And when she goes to all that trouble to make chili beans she also makes these small breads we grew up calling "panecitos". They're small round bread that's made like tortilla's except they are not rolled out flat like tortillas but are left about the size of a hamburger bun. When the weather gets cooler and my kitchen is not 140 degrees I will do a blog of my mom making panecitos. Remind me!


And that is why my mom says my chili beans are not home made! Hers, in her eyes are homemade! So I thought about this all for awhile and then asked my mom what her mom would have said if she had been invited to dinner and my mom had made homemade Chili Colorado and beans and then she had pulled out a package of store bought tortillas? Wouldn't her mom have commented on why my mom didn't make homemade tortillas and not store bought? And trust me, we know how to make homemade tortillas.

I then told my mom that someday, my daughter and my nieces will watch their daughters put a small pill into a bowl of water and it will automatically turn into chili beans and then I will make fun of them and talk on and on about my homemade chili beans with Taco Bell seasoning and canned beans!


I guess my point is that no one cooks like mom cooks. Homemade like moms made in the 40's, 50's or 60's or homemade like my sister and I cook now...to our children, it's mom's food and nothing tops that!


What do you make that your mom would tease you about if you called it homemade?

Easter Memory

There are going to be lots of Easter Egg Hunts tomorrow. Lot's of little boys and girls all dressed up for Easter running around with their loving parents behind them with cameras and video recorders running. Wonderful memories will be made tomorrow, chocolate eggs, plastic eggs filled with candy and/or money, confetti eggs being cracked on the heads of loved ones...good times.

I've always loved Easter Egg Hunts even though I have never been very good at them. I remember when I was smaller all my cousins would find tons of eggs and I might have one or two.

I will always remember one Easter when we lived in Arizona and we were hunting eggs with all my cousins on the Bruce Church Ranch where we lived. There was a line of mailboxes, about 12 of them and there was an egg hidden in each one.

My dad whispered in my ear "Go look in the mailbox" because he knew what a lousy little egg gatherer I was. I ran to the first one, opened it and JOY...there was a bright beautiful egg. I grabbed it, put it in my basket and ran back to my daddy. Then I turned around to look for more and I saw my cousin Elpedia run and open each mailbox and there was an egg in each one. I burst into tears!

My dad knew that I was again...a lousy little egg gatherer so he told me not to worry and went to the car and brought out a bag full of Easter candy for me. Nothing soothes having an Easter basket empty of colored Easter eggs than filling it with lovely Easter candy!

Happy Easter everyone!

Books...Books...and more Books

I've finally had a spare moment to update my Books Read in 2011 list which shows at the very bottom of this page on the sidebar to the right. So far I've read seven books and am more than halfway through number eight.

It seems like I've been a big fan of Jodi Picoult this year. I've always loved this author. She has such a unique way of weaving a story and emphasizing the thoughts of each character. There is never a disappointment in picking up one of her books.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is a story of two sisters. One sister, the oldest is very ill with leukemia. The other sister was conceived specifically to provide blood from her birth cord in hopes of helping the older sister to go into remission. Jodi makes you stop and think from all the different viewpoints on whether genetically engineering a child just to save another child is right or wrong, then she ends the story with an unexpected twist. You won't be able to put this one down until you read the very last word! Trust me.

This book was also made into a movie, but the book is so much better than the movie. Aren't they usually? A movie can't do a book justice.

Mercy also by Jodi Picoult really made me mad while I was reading it! One of the main characters, a man is having an affair and when Jodi gets into his head and you actually understand how he feels about his wife and his mistress...well it just makes your blood boil!!!

But the main point of the book is mercy killing. A man kills his wife who is suffering from cancer. Is mercy killing right or wrong? Would you watch someone you love suffer and not do anything to alleviate that suffering when they beg you to end their life? Again, Jodi makes you stop and think.


Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult is another wonderful, powerful book. In this one Jodi tells the story of a little girl traumatized by the ending of her parents marriage due to the father being unfaithful. The little girl, Faith starts talking to God and sees God and has the power to heal, even bringing her grandmother back from death just minutes after being declared legally dead!

One of the main characters in this story is a man who is kind of like a televangelist in reverse. Instead of preaching the Word of the Lord to the masses, he's an atheist to has made it his goal in life to provide proof to discount stories of faith healing and spiritual visions. Is this child really talking to God, can she really heal or is it all a coping mechanism to help her deal with the divorce of her parents? Or maybe the child is simply seeking attention and knows the way to keep the focus on her? You decide, I'm still not sure.

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks was pretty good as well. It has a twist in it that I wasn't expecting. At first I just thought it was a happy-happy feel good book about boy meets girl and they fall in love, but it's actually more than that.

Nicholas Sparks is the author that wrote the book The Notebook which was made into a movie starring James Garner and Gena Rowlands and Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. This movie makes me cry every single time. It's heart wrenching. The Choice will get to you the same way, they should make this book into a movie. I love movies that make me cry!


The English Patient I read because the movie was nominated for so many Academy Awards. Honestly...I didn't like this book at all, mainly because I didn't understand it. I even rented the movie to see if it would help me to understand the book better, I wasn't impressed. Maybe it's just me, maybe the book and the movie was "too deep" for my understanding, but I wouldn't recommend this one at all.

Have you read it? What did you think of it? Would you recommend it?

John Grisham...what can I say, I love him. I love everything he writes. He's the male version of Jodi Picoult, only different. I had read A Painted House many years ago but had forgotten the story. I'm glad I re-read it because I really enjoyed it.

John Grisham usually writes courtroom drama and I love those types of books, but this one was very different. This book was inspired by Grisham's own childhood and tells the story of a young boy growing up in rural Arkansas in the 1950's. The boy, Luke Chandler lives in a small unpainted house with his parents and grandparents. Luke witnesses many secrets that cotton season. Luke loses his childhood innocence and in the end his mother and father take him away from the farm and a certain  life of struggle and hopelessness.

And last but not least, one of my very favorite stories whether in book form or in movie form. I love The Princess Bride!

The Princess Bride is the tale of Princess Buttercup and her beloved Wesley, aka The Dread Pirate Roberts. This story has everything, adventure, murder, a Spanish swordsman, a six-fingered man, a gentle giant, an evil Sicilian, Prince Humperdinck, Miracle Max and his wife the Witch.

If I were to be asked if there is one book that every person must read; one movie that every person must see it would have to be this one. I've even mentioned this book to men and had them quote passages from the movie to me! A wonderful story that I can read and watch again and again! I highly recommend it!

I've been A.W.O.L.

So I've pretty much been absent from my little blog here. I've had the "blahs" I'm afraid. Just personal things going on that for a while now have brought my spirits down and left me with nothing but ugly, negative things in my head. Today I'm feeling a little more myself and I felt like blogging about random things because this is off the cuff, not planned or anything.

First random thought is that even though I've had the blues I've kept up with my low-carb, high-protein diet. Have I lost anymore weight? Well ...NO. But I haven't gained any either (always keeping that glass half-full over here). I have a feeling tomorrow when I weigh in I'll have lost a bit as I feel lighter, but if not, it's ok cause I know I won't cheat or revert back to my old eating habits!

Second random thought ties in with the first one. Because I have lost weight the clothing I was wearing was starting to look sloppy because it was WAY TOO BIG. Can I get a "hallelujah"? No you know what...lets all sing it, c'mon, a little sing along to lift our spirits! I've even provided the words.



See...don't you feel better now. I hope you sang that at the top of your lungs cause remember. . .

Work like you don't need the money.

Love like you've never been hurt.

Dance like no-one's watching.

Sing like no-one's listening.

Live like there's no tomorrow.

Fear like a stone.

Back to my too-big clothing. This past weekend I did what my mom loves to do. I took her thrifting. I can remember back in the old days when I used to go thrifting and I would buy all kinds of cute little nick-nacks and things for my home; dishes, cups, picture frames and assorted what-nots. But my little house is fair to bursting with stuff & I've promised myself for over a year now that I won't buy any more little treasures until I have a yard sale and clean out my garage.

I did however browse the clothing aisles and I found several items. For about $30 I scored 5 pairs of dress pants, 1 pair of capri pants and 5 blouses that can be worn to work. I'm wearing one now in fact! I know it's going to be hard to keep replacing my wardrobe as I continue to lose weight, so thrifting is perfect for me! I have new clothes (new to me) and at a fraction of the price. Aren't you proud of me?

Third random thought is this little item here:

Have any of you used this product before? I LOVE it! I am prone to oily skin but as I love to wear makeup I had a hard time wiping the oiliness off without removing the makeup as well and ending up at the end of the day as this bland, colorless, beige person. Now, thanks to these, I just gently blot the oiliness away and it really does not smudge or remove makeup!!! You all have got to try these. (Thanks April for turning me on to these little gems!)

And one more little thing...because I'm being better at what I eat I realize I need to drink more water. Problem is, I hate water...Yuk! I mean I can drink it if I have to, or if I get thirsty, but I was lucky if I would drink 16 ounces in a week! Now I'm drinking water like its going out of style and these are the reason why.

Have you guys tried these??? I love them, especially the Wild Strawberry flavor! Ok, so that's all the random thoughts I have for today. I hope to begin my little blogging adventure again in the next few days as I still have things to share from my trip to Sacramento and I have a couple of book reviews and stuff. I also haven't done an Iwanna Wednesday in a while and I miss them.
Thanks for sticking by me. I know many of you continue to come check to see if I've posted anything new and I appreciate it. Hugs to all of you my friends, family, followers and readers!

Bark for Life - American Cancer Society

Today my daughter April and I joined the American Cancer Society 1st Annual "Bark for Life" walk and I think it was a big success and if I get the chance I'll definitely do it again next year!

There were so many beautiful dogs there and dog people are just the nicest bunch of people ever! The walk was held at Yokuts Park which sits on the edge of the mighty Kern River. In this first mosaic I put a couple of pictures of the river. It's really full and flowing right now because of all the rain and run-off from the snow in the mountains. It was a beautiful, sunny, windy spring day. I even got a little bit of a sunburn!

Here's Chorizo and me in the top right and April and Chorizo in the bottom left.

Chorizo took third prize in the costume contest. She was dressed as a Sundae...a Chorizo Sundae! Here's some random pictures of all the people and their doggies!

It was a lot of fun and hopefully there was a lot of money raised!

Please visit all the other mosaics by clicking HERE and visiting Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday!

Also linking up to Susan at A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday.

*****JUST AN UPDATE, I HEARD ON THE NEWS THAT OVER $10,000 WAS RAISED!!! ****

Famous People in History visit Sacramento

Last week on Thursday my sister Lisa and I headed to our state capitol for the annual conference for the California Association of Public Cemeteries. My sister is the District Secretary for our local cemetery and they held the conference in Sacramento. Normally she takes her husband to these conferences and meetings. But once a year she likes me to go with her to the one that hosts a costume party and dance. Last year we went to Seaside and the costume theme was the "70's", you can see those pictures HERE.

This year it was a little tougher to come up with costumes as the theme was "Famous People in History". The theme was fitting since the conference was being held in Sacramento, our state capitol, a city filled with so much history.

Lisa and I went through a lot of research trying to find a female person in history; keeping in mind also how easy/difficult it would be to create the costume. Lisa decided to go as Helen Kane. American actress and singer Helen Kane may best be remembered as the original "Boop-boop-a-doop" girl. A native of the Bronx, born Helen Schroeder, Kane got her start in vaudeville working with the Marx Brothers at age 17. In 1927, she made her Broadway debut in A Night in Spain, a musical. In 1928, Kane appeared in the musical Good Boy the show that produced her signature song "I Wanna Be Loved by You" with its boop-boop-a-doop tagline that Kane sang in a little girl's voice. She eventually became a contract player with Paramount and appeared in a few films. While at the studio, she became the inspiration for the animated cartoon character Betty Boop and launched a whole new series for animator Max Fleischer. Boop was first drawn by Grim Natwick who used Kane's face and physical features and combined them with those of a French poodle. In 1950, Kane was played by Debbie Reynolds in the feature biography of songwriters Kalmar and Ruby. When Reynolds sang "I Wanna Be Loved by You," Kane dubbed in her famous line.

Helen Kane battled breast cancer for more than a decade. She had surgery in 1956 and eventually received two hundred radiation treatments as an outpatient at Memorial Hospital. She died on September 26, 1966 at age 62, in her apartment in Jackson Heights, New York. Her husband of 27 years was at her bedside. Her remains were buried in the Long Island National Cemetery. Lisa based her costume on the fact that Helen battled breast cancer and she wore pink (as you can see in the picture to the left) as part of her costume along with a breast cancer awareness pin.

We arrived on Thursday thinking that we were going to take a tour of the Capitol before the Meet and Greet that day. Unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs in Sacramento and as Lisa and I are made of sugar and would melt in all that rain we stayed in the hotel and had a drink and popcorn at the bar and whined about the rain!

That evening we went to the Meet and Greet where the vendors in cemetery products had set up booths and displays. After the event we met up with my sisters boss, Tim and four members of the cemetery board to head over for dinner at a very popular restaurant in Sacramento called Aioli Bodega Restaurant. They have a varied menu and specialize in Tapas and Short-ribs. (I had the chicken, what can I say, I'm not the bravest of diners.)

The next day dawned bright and beautiful and poor Lisa had to attend seminars and classes but I had the whole day to do whatever my little heart desired. So I went shopping. I had wanted to take the Capitol Tour but the day got away from me and I headed back to the hotel to help my sister get herself ready for the costume party. Here are some photos I took to capture the evening. Whenever they ask me if I'm going to dress up I tell them I can't as I'm the official photographer!

Getting ready in the hotel...makeup has to be perfect!

Then we had to take some pictures before we headed downstairs to join the other famous people. Here's Lisa sitting in the window, you can see the view. We were on the 7th floor.

 Lisa really loved the pink gloves that she was able to find to match the long string of pink pearls. She said she felt like a Flapper Princess!

And here's one of the two sisters ready to head out. Everyone kept asking if we were twins the whole time we were there. We don't see the resemblance but I guess a lot of people do. What do you think? Could we be twins?

There were lots of people dressed up, I didn't get a chance to take pictures of everyone. I did get group pictures but because the reception hall was so dark the pictures didn't come out very well.

Here's Helen Kane and Wyatt Earp. Isn't he handsome? Love a cowboy!

And here's Helen Kane with Benjamin Franklin...he left his kite and key behind because of the bad weather. Good thing because we didn't want lightening to strike him while we were partying!

Helen Kane with ...yes, you guessed it!! Little Miss Shirley Temple! This young lady was adorable as Shirley Temple! She had tap shoes on and just tapped her way around the whole night! She was a lot of fun on the dance floor!

Helen Kane with Athena, Goddess of War. Let's hope she was there to defend California against more taxes!

Helen Kane with Ben Franklin again and now they've also met up with Albert Einstein. A trio of great minds!

Can you guess this next one? She's the wife of one of the characters above. No clue? It's Josephine, wife of Wyatt Earp.

We had a couple of Julius Cesar's in the place, here is one of them with Helen Kane of course! Helen Kane was just everywhere "Boop-boop-a-dooping"!

Here's another Julius. This one is also my sister's boss Tim, and of course Helen and Josephine.

Helen Kane and Shirley Temple with Cleopatra! Isn't she regal and beautiful? I just loved her costume and her eye makeup. Oh...by the way, you can click on any of these photos to enlarge them and see more detail.

There was one very special couple that joined us that evening. They are members of the Cemetery Board for the cemetery my sister works for. This couple came as Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower. The costume that Dwight is wearing is the actual uniform that this man wore when he served his country! Can you believe it still fits him? He just added the four stars since he only made it to Liutenant and not General.  Mamie's costume is also original. The hat, glasses, gloves, jacket, pearls and brooch all either belonged to Beebs aka Mamie or to her mother! How sepcial is that? To save all these items!

Oh and one other special thing I want to mention is that this beautiful couple is celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary this year! 60 years....can you even imagine that? How blessed are they! Congratulations Dave and Bebes!

Here's General Eisenhower with Shirley Temple. What's the connection here? They are the winners of the Best Costume female and male! I think Lisa should have won for the females, but I may be a tad prejudiced. These two really did a wonderful job. Mamie was a runner-up!

These next pictures are of the other two members of the board with Dwight and Mamie. Can you guess Superman? I'm pretty sure he is one of the most famous people in history (no one said they couldn't be fictional). And beautiful, sweet Florence Nightingale was there to nurse us if we needed and to provide the best bubble blowing in the room!

Such a cute picture! Florence Nightingale blowing tiny bubbles for Julius Cesar! How fun are cemetery people?

Here's the group shot. My sister Lisa as Helen Kane; her boss Tim as Julius Cesar; Dave and Beebs as Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower and Kathy (Mayor of the City of Shafter) and her husband Bill as Florence Nightingale and Superman.

After the socializing, the contest and a fabulous buffet dinner we danced our butts off...literally! I've never had such a good time and seen such great dancers!

I had to add this one last picture because I played around with it and tried to make it look like the era of the Flappers. Isn't this a great shot? Thanks for taking me Lisa! I had the best time ever!

Sunday Favorites - Elephant Beach

For Sunday Favorites this week I'm sharing a little trip I took last year in March with my daughter. I was just telling a new friend about this place and it made me remember it. Hope you enjoy it and please travel over to visit Chari at Happy to Design for more Sunday Favorites!

 Favorite Post that was originally posted on 

March 28, 2010

Last weekend my daughter April and I and my grand-puppy Chorizo took a day trip to the coast, which is about 2 hours from Shafter. I've been to Pismo, Morro Bay, Cambria, Cayucos, Avila Beach, all those little coastal towns a million few times, but I'd never been to Elephant Seal Beach at Piedras Blancas in the southern range of Big Sur, near San Simeon. Count on April to show me something new, she loves to explore and visit new places.

She took me to a wonderful spot on scenic Hwy 1 to Elephant Seal Beach. Why I had never known this place existed is beyond me!

First off, the drive from Morro Bay to Elephant Seal Beach is gorgeous. Hwy 1 is known for it's beautiful ocean and mountain scenery. It seemed like the temperature changed every 5 miles. First it's foggy and overcast and cold then all of a sudden it's sunny and green and gorgeous. The drive alone was worth going.

But what was really amazing is that there is a small strip of beach known as a Rookery where these fascinating mammals come to birth, breed, molt and rest. Depending on the time of year that you are there you can watch  the males battle for breeding rights, you can watch seals give birth, and you can watch them sun themselves on the beach.

That's what we witnessed, the sunning on the beach, and it was awesome! I couldn't believe it when I first saw them. They looked like dead lumps of flesh that had washed up on the beach. But as we got closer we saw that they moved. The most hilarious part is while they lay there on the beach every once in a while they flip sand onto themselves with their flippers. There are several signs along the beach explaining facts about these seals and they say that while they don't know for sure why they flip sand it's probably to keep themselves cool from the sun blazing down upon them. (Click to enlarge)

It was so funny to watch them. When they moved they kind of just bounced around on the beach to get to where they wanted to go, not that they ever went very far. My daughter April said that other times when she has been there the beach is so packed with seals that you can't even see the sand!

If you ever get the chance, please visit this beach, it's worth it and if you have kids they will love it! We only had Chorizo and she loved it as you can tell in the mosaic below. If you would like more information I found a great website that gives lots of details and has an awesome slide show. It's from the Friends of the Elephant Seal and you can visit it here.  (click to enlarge)

And the view is awesome as you can see in the mosaic above. Chorizo just didn't know what to think. She would look at her momma and then back at the seals and you can tell she was just overwhelmed by all the different ocean smells. She loved it! She's a true water dog.

Mosaic Monday - Chorizo all Dolled Up with A Lil' Bit of Glam!

That little Diva...Chorizo (my daughter's Shih-Poo puppy) had another photo shoot recently. She's now the first and only doggie model of the beautiful bow, clippies, headbands and flowers created by A Lil' Bit of Glam!

A Lil' Bit of Glam offers really beautiful, handmade hair products for your little girls, for big girls, for all girls and puppies too! Go visit them and let them know Chorizo sent you, just click HERE to get there!

And now my precious little Chorizo, the most feminine puppy I know (even though she does have a masculine name!).

Isn't she adorable? She has so much attitude and she's such a patient little girl! Isn't that hair bow beautiful? I wonder if she'll let me borrow it?

As usual when the Diva is tired she just plops down and that's it! She's not posing anymore...she's all done! You can click on the mosaics to enlarge them to better see the detail of the hairbows. Please do go visit A Lil' Bit of Glam as they have lots of pretty, feminine, girly hair items!

Don't forget to go visit Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday as well. Thanks!