GenX

Dog karma

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments

Do you believe in karma?

You know how people always say that you can tell if someone is actually a good person based on how children and dogs feel about them?

Well, I don’t love that, because I’m not a big fan of dogs. Does that make me a bad person? (I’m great with kids, by the way.)

Well, last night, I had an experience that improved my dog karma (I think). There was no actual dog present (yay), but I felt the dog’s spirit.

A wonderful church friend in her 80s had had to put her beloved dog Grace down earlier that day. At choir practice, she told us the meaning behind the dog’s name and a bit about her personality. (Apparently Grace disliked men, but was a peacemaker amongst dogs.) My friend then asked us to sing two different versions of Amazing Grace in honor of Grace the Dog.

It was so moving. I have honestly never heard our choir sing so beautifully. I’ve never sung so beautifully. There were tears, even from one of the men Grace constantly barked at while she was alive.

We sang all three verses of the song over the two renditions, the last one a cappella. Then we silently closed our hymnals and moved on with choir rehearsal.

It was the perfect way to honor a dog.

Image from Pexels

Another baking post

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

How do you write what people actually want to read?

One of my recent posts was selected for “Freshly Pressed” on WordPress and I got some nice comments and a few new subscribers. It’s a post about baking a Dutch Pear Pie with fruit from the trees in our yard. So, welcome to anyone new here. I assume you love dessert like me.

I post about a variety of things, including baking, but mostly I just talk about whatever’s on my mind, including whatever the WordPress “daily prompt” elicits from me. I like the community here on WordPress. Most people are very kind and supportive.

We finally harvested some of the Bosc pears on our tree because a big Nor’easter (windy rainstorm) is expected this weekend.

Over 15 pounds of Bosc pears harvested and there are still many pears left on the tree.

The Bosc is the last of our fruit trees to ripen (we also have a Winesap apple and an Asian pear) and honestly, I think we should wait a bit longer to pick the rest of the pears. I don’t think the ones we picked are fully ripe yet, but that didn’t stop us from trying out another new recipe.

This recipe—for Pear Cobbler—is one I found on YouTube. I was able to screenshot the relevant information. (I’m sorry I lost track of the original creator.)

FRESH PEAR COBBLER

Pear Filling

• 4–5 cups diced pears

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 2 tablespoons corn starch

• 1/4 cup water

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Batter

• 1 1/2 cups flour

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 cups milk

1. Combine the diced pears with the sugar, corn starch, water, and cinnamon.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and milk until combined.

3. Set the oven to 350°. Melt one stick of butter in a 9×13 baking dish.

4. Pour the batter over the melted butter (do not stir), then spoon the pear mixture on top.

5. Bake for 1 hour.

6. Serve with ice cream.

VERDICT: Very good. It think it’ll be even better next time with riper pears. We were wondering how this cobbler was going to “cobble together” since you don’t stir it, but it actually does. It’s definitely a bit of a pain to peel the pears, but you really have to with Boscs. We used a potato peeler.

Related post: Stress baking

Going solar

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments

What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?

Sometimes in long marriages you develop certain “areas.” For example, I do all the travel arrangements. My husband is the vegetable gardener. I dealt with the teachers and most of the school stuff when the kids were growing up. My husband deals with the household technology (WiFi, etc). Somehow, I relinquished much involvement in his longstanding interest in buying (not leasing) solar panels for our home. I know I agreed to have him “sign for me” when the contract was finalized. It all sounded good in the 15-30 minutes I spent thinking about it. I mean, it’s a LOT of money to pay out at once, but we will allegedly get it all back in savings within 7 years. And clearly energy prices are not going down anytime soon with Orange Dipshit messing up the entire Middle East (and everything else).

But now the day has come. The guys are on the roof. It’s happening. I mean…I knew it was coming, but it feels a bit “spontaneous.” Like, are you sure you’ve thought this through?

I guess my one day of peace and quiet is all I get after our return from very loud Brooklyn.

The banging, drilling, etc has begun.

I need to go find my earplugs now.

“Made in Philippines”

Brooklyn

~ MaryG ~ 25 Comments

I have returned from a busy weekend in Brooklyn—the borough of NYC from which my mother’s parents hailed. They left Brooklyn for another great immigrant city—Worcester MA—long before I was born, so I had never been to Brooklyn before. All my prior trips to NYC were Manhattan only.

We were there to celebrate the marriage of a beloved nephew in his early 40s and got a glimpse into his life there. A very urban life.

Due to Amtrak cancelling our train, we had to drive from Massachusetts. A last minute detour sent us over the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, from which we could see the Statue of Liberty, which was very cool. It almost made up for all the traffic we hit in Connecticut.
This part of the Brooklyn waterfront is called Pebble Beach. There are great views of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges.
Manhattan Bridge
Blue steel is a feature of the Manhattan Bridge
Jane’s Carousel, built in 1922
View of the financial district from under the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s the Freedom Tower with the black spire.
Lady Liberty in the distance
A bison puppet in Brooklyn
A herd of bison puppets 🤷‍♀️
My son and his girlfriend in front of a chain link fence with a heart on the Lower East Side/Chinatown (Manhattan), where we went for an interesting dinner
Both jellyfish (top) and chicken feet (bottom) were served as appetizers. I tried both.
I couldn’t bring myself to try the “live fish” because I was too afraid of getting a bone stuck in the back of my throat, which happened to me once as a kid.
The happy couple sharing their absolutely beautiful vows 🥹
Weather was pretty rainy so this lovely patio area was a bit soggy, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

We made it back to Massachusetts in much better time. (The traffic gods were with us.) But my ears are still ringing. Brooklyn was loud. From the constant sirens to the extremely noisy restaurants and bars, I’m happy to be home and can’t say I’m dying to head back to NYC anytime soon.

Stress baking

~ MaryG ~ 43 Comments

I gotta say, this whole situation with the midterm election (and Trump’s plan to undermine it), the mess in the Middle East, inflation, AI coming for us…and on and on…is…STRESSFUL.

Baking with fruit from our own trees is a good counterbalance to the news.

A friend’s trip to Germany inspired me to try making apple strudel for the first time. My husband cut-up the last of our Winesap apples and we used a recipe I found online.
I have very little experience baking with puff pastry. It turns out the timing of when you take it out of the freezer is a key.
There were dots of butter under the top sheet of puff pastry, which I brushed with milk.
After 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven
Amazing. No ice cream needed.

The midterm elections have begun. VOTE like your life depends on it, because it does. VOTE early if you can.

Find voter information here.

A baking post

~ MaryG ~ 39 Comments

We are making the most of the big harvest we got from our fruit trees this year.

I had a recipe for “Dutch Pear Pie” printed out in a 3-ring binder. I had scribbled “good” in pencil across the top—and so it is.

My husband did the hardest job of chopping up most of our remaining Asian pears. The rest is pretty easy. Something about a streusel-topped pie that’s just so delicious. And it’s really not that hard. No special equipment required. I just softened up the butter for about a minute in the microwave on 50% power and then made the streusel with a fork.

How do you like my “staging” of my pie in this photograph? I feel like I really nailed it. I’m getting a lot of compliments from my friends on Instagram. So many, that I’m reminded of a Josh Johnson comedy bit about how much white ladies LOVE autumn. (Oh they do, they really really do. I’m a summer lover, but my friends love fall.)

Side view of a slice 😋

This is one of the rare baked fruit pies that doesn’t require ice cream or whipped cream. (I mean, they won’t hurt, but they’re not needed.) It’s a complete dessert on its own. I think the sour cream in the filling fulfills the dairy role.

Here’s the recipe:

Betty Crocker Dutch Pear Pie

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings: 8

Ingredients

Crust

  • 1 box Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts, softened as directed on box

Filling

  • 1 cup sour cream
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Gold Medal all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 3+ cups coarsely chopped fresh pears (6-8 pears, or as many as will fit in your pie shell)

Crumb Topping

  • 1 cup Gold Medal all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup packed brown sugar
  • ½ cup butter or margarine

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 425°F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell, using a 9-inch glass pie plate; do not prick crust. Carefully line pastry with a double thickness of foil, gently pressing foil to bottom and side of pastry. Let foil extend over edge to prevent excessive browning. Bake for 10 minutes. Carefully remove foil; bake 2 to 4 minutes longer, or until pastry just begins to brown and has become set. If crust bubbles, gently push bubbles down with the back of a spoon.
  2. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the filling ingredients. Pour into the warm baked pie shell.
  3. In a medium bowl, mix the crumb topping ingredients with a pastry blender or fork until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the filling.
  4. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the top is light golden brown. After 30 minutes of baking, cover the top of the pie with foil to prevent excessive browning. Cool at least 30 minutes before serving. Store in the refrigerator.

Source: Betty Crocker / General Mills

Final note: we didn’t peel the pears

The Great Elephant Migration

~ MaryG ~ 27 Comments

If your pet an elephant could talk, what would be the first thing it says?

100 life-size elephant sculptures, each hand-carved from the invasive plant lantana camara by roughly 300 Indigenous artisans from India’s Nilgiri Hills and modeled after real, named elephants, are on display for free along Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue Mall. They’re all facing in the same direction—moving as a herd down Comm Ave.

So, what would they say? Thinking…

Maybe, “stick together – we’re all we’ve got”

Independent People

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Have you ever regretted reading a book — which one and why?
View all responses

Once, for my Book Group, I selected a classic that was highly recommended by the author Ann Patchett on the Instagram account of her Nashville bookstore—Parnassus Books. The book is called Independent People by the Icelandic author Halldór Laxness. It was written a long time ago and considered a seminal work. It led to the author getting a Pulitzer Prize.

It was awful. Nobody in my book group made it through to the end, but I felt like I HAD to finish it, because I chose it.

I’ve mostly blocked it out, but let’s just say I know more about sheep and their various disgusting ailments than I ever wanted to and Iceland is permanently OFF my Bucket List. 😉

The Boston Masshole

~ MaryG ~ 29 Comments

What’s the most annoying trope in books or movies?

Listen, one thing I know about is Massholes. I grew up with plenty of them. I know when the accent is real.

In movies, they never get it right. Even Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who grew up in highbrow Cambridge, don’t get it quite right. (Despite that slight flaw, I loved the film Good Will Hunting. It captured one of the key characteristics of Masshole mentality—class awareness. “You think you’re bettah than me cuz you go to Hah-vahd? Well Faaaack you”)

Mark Wahlberg, on the other hand, is an objectively terrible actor, but an authentic Boston Masshole. Did you know he grew up in the infamous South Boston “projects” and was involved in a number of serious racially-motivated assaults and harassment incidents as a teenager in Boston during the mid-1980s? I did! He’s the type of guy I would’ve avoided like the plague in high school.

This is a famous image by Stanley Forman. Titled “The Soiling of Old Glory,” the photo won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. Forman took the picture on April 5, 1976, for what was then the Boston Herald American. A young white man lunges at a black man (Ted Landsmark) with the sharp point of a flagpole, with the American flag attached.

Well, this is all a long-winded way of saying that I finally saw an authentic portrait of that trope last night. The film Tony about one summer in the life of the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has a great Masshole character played by Leo Woodall. He’s SO good in this. In my opinion, he steals the film, which is largely set on Cape Cod in the summer of 1975. His accent and demeanor are perfect. It just figures that he’s a Brit! He totally nailed his part. GENXers should go see the film for Woodall and the soundtrack (including some classic Jonathan Richman) alone.

Leo Woodall as the Masshole character—a restaurant worker named Sal—in Tony (in theaters now)
Here’s me at a dinner with Ted Landsmark (from the Pulitzer Prize winning photo) in 2013. It was an honor to meet such a distinguished Bostonian.