My parents were children of the Great Depression, so leftovers were a regular feature at our dinner table. My mother never threw everything into one pot, like a “hobo stew,” but instead served the drips and drabs on a night we called “Druthers.” It got this name from the question, “Would you druther have this or that?” She believed a little bit of food shouldn’t go to waste if there were children starving in China. We lived far away from China, but her missionary heart invited us kids to consider the plight of others and be thankful for leftovers. After all, we should be glad for the food on our table.
Medically Approved!
Of course, we were children of the prosperous 1950’s, and were brought up on Tang, the drink of astronauts, and Wonder Bread, which builds bodies eight ways with added vitamins and minerals. We wanted interesting food, not recycled food. Yes, we were spoiled. Our parents weren’t having this conversation. Instead, they insisted we remember our humble origins and eat leftovers.
The Jif peanut butter brand was created in 1958
This family drama could have played out in several ways in the next generation. We children could have decided we weren’t going to inflict such indignities upon our own children. We might have done this by “short order cooking” meals to everyone’s taste or getting takeout for every meal. Or by cooking just enough so we had no leftovers (my favorite). If people were still hungry, peanut butter and crackers were in the cabinet and fruit was in the fridge. I also would plan my meals with a soup night in mind, so I could have the leftovers appear as a part of that recipe.
Veggie Soup with Chicken
My traveling nurse neighbor recently went back home to the East coast. She cleaned out her ice box before traveling home. I made a good soup of her “leftovers” and enjoyed it very much. I hope she takes an assignment here next year. She was a delight to have as a neighbor.
Another option is to realize we Americans toss out 30% of our food each year. Repurposing our leftovers is the best way to avoid the greenhouse gasses and economic loss to our pocketbooks. Which brings me to leftover blueberry donuts and bread pudding. I’ve always known how to make rice pudding and stale bread pudding, but donuts are a new favorite recipe.
Leftover Blueberry Donut Bread Pudding
INGREDIENTS:
3 leftover donuts
1 Tbs unsalted butter
2 large eggs
170 grams 5% plain Fage Greek yogurt (3/4 Cup)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup wild blueberries (small enough to get into the nooks and crannies)
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Lightly spray a small baking pan with cooking spray. Add in the doughnut chunks.
In a medium bowl, mix together the eggs, Greek yogurt, cinnamon, melted butter and vanilla. Mix well. Add the wild blueberries. Pour the egg and fruit mixture over the doughnuts. Press on top of the chunks of donuts to combine. Allow to sit for around 5 minutes so that the doughnuts absorb the liquid. (I didn’t wait and it turned out great).
Cover the baking pan with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and return to the oven for an additional 25 minutes, or until the pudding pulls away from the edges and the center tests “clean” when a toothpick is inserted.
This makes 3 servings.
Tasker, William, Artist. Help US Preserve Your Surplus…food . Pennsylvania Philadelphia, None. [Philadelphia, pa.: wpa war services project, between 1941 and 1943] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98518439/.
My old Nannie, who saw rationing in two world wars, was fond of saying, “Waste not, want not.” As a steward of God’s creation, caring for God’s resources so everyone can be full is one way we can live out our Christian witness. Enjoying leftovers is a plus in my book.
Nutrition Information
Joy, peace, and a Happy Thanksgiving to all my Kitchen family!
Beatrix Potter’s Garden: Inspiration for her Books
When Benjamin Bunny sneaks into Mr. McGregor’s garden at the first of October, he’s sure to find Marigold and Cosmos flowers planted abundantly. These fall colors set the scene for the changing season, even if our Arkansas temperatures still feel like summer time. We’ve been averaging about 11 degrees F above our normal high. At least the marigolds, symbols of creativity, passion, and optimism, are reminding this sweaty bunny cooler days are not far off. The cosmos, a symbol of peace, tranquility, and harmony, will be lovely in a bouquet when I have my first sweater day.
Week 1 of October is Get Organized Week. If this rabbit ever gets organized, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it. Week 2 is Fire Prevention and Pet Peeve Week. As the sun sets earlier, some folks begin to burn candles. Let’s keep them away from flammable materials and don’t go to sleep and leave them burning. I’ve been on some spiritual retreats in which late into the night, the candles caught the stage on fire, not to mention one lingering post Thanksgiving coffee and pie session when the centerpiece burst into flames! Watch those rabbits leap into action! As I approach the “age of forgetting things,” I’m using battery candles, so I have one less thing to concern my rabbit mind.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. ~~ Matthew 5:16
My Pet Peeve is Candy Corn. It ranks about even with Circus Peanuts. I know rabbits who dearly love these two sugar bombs, but give me dark chocolate any day. At least it has flavonoids and some passing acquaintance with “health.” These other two candies are straight sugar without even a vitamin added! Candy Corn was invented in the 1880’s, at a time when American sugar confectioners were molding liquid sugars into different agricultural shapes. At the time, our nation was distinctly rural, with half of workers employed on farms. The candy was first marketed as “Chicken Feed,” because corn wasn’t really a food most Americans considered fit for human consumption.
Vintage Candy Corn Advertisement
When World War I caused wheat shortages, Americans turned to corn flour, corn meal, and cornbread, foods which once were considered “poor folks’ food.” War became a great equalizer, in life as well as in death. Even after World War I, candy corn maintained its association with chickens. Packages of candy corn from the Goelitz Candy Company in the 1920’s displayed a rooster and the motto, “King of the Candy Corn Fields.” After the turn of the century, bunny children bought this candy in bulk for a penny and kept many a dentist in business. In the 1950’s candy corn became a Halloween staple, so much so nearly 35 million pounds are sold every year.
Jim Doran, Circus Peanut, mixed media, @10’ tall, 2010, Baltimore.
Circus Peanuts are 2023’s #1 Most Hated Halloween Candy, followed by Candy Corn at #2. Please don’t buy these for the darling bunnies who dressed up to beg at your door for a treat or a trick. Or you could keep a stash for teenagers who’re too old to be out and about, but then the upcoming “Do Something Nice Day” might be difficult for us. Remember, we rabbits form our habits from an early age, so limiting added sugar to occasional treats and giving little bunnies natural sugar is a better choice for a healthy life. My trainer used to remind me I could never out exercise a bad diet, so most of my benefits were gained in the kitchen.
I’m not sure I could drink this coffee…
International Coffee Day is October 1. As far as this bunny is concerned, every day is Coffee Day, but I do like my coffee. I take mine black at home, and barely treated up in the coffee shop. National Frappe Day is October 7. Don’t confuse the Greek Frappe with the Starbucks Frappuchino: the former is shaken and the latter is blended. Of course, we rabbits don’t need an official day to celebrate with our brew of choice. Every day is coffee day.
The first two weeks of October wrap up National Hispanic Heritage Month plus National Taco Day is October 4. The origin of the word taco comes from the Nahuatl’s “tlahco,” translating to “half, or in the middle” in English. This describes the way we fold this tasty flatbread before eating it. Tacos are made from the crop we know as corn, which was domesticated from wild teosinte grass as far back as 8,000 years ago in Mesoamerica. The maize grown in the Americas (Zea mays) wasn’t eaten fresh like sweet corn, but was allowed to dry on the stalk and then ground into flour for tortillas, corn breads and corn mush. From its origins in central Mexico, knowledge of maize production spread to all corners of North and South America. The first European settlers learned to grow maize from the Indigenous peoples already present in the New World.
Mayan Maize God Statue is a photograph by Philippe Psaila, Figure of the Mayan maize god holding ears of maize (corn). Maize was an important staple food of the Mayan civilisation, which developed around 1800BC and ended with the arrival of the Spanish in the 14th Century AD. Photographed at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.
Do Something Nice Day is October 5. Of course we bunnies shouldn’t wait until an official day to do something nice for someone, as 1 Thessalonians 5:15 reminds us:
“See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.”
If we bunnies keep acting like this, we’ll make World Smile Day, October 6, into a daily occurrence. What a concept, we bunnies acting for the common good, rather than what’s merely in our special interest. If we find life too hard to smile, remember National Depression Screening Day is October 8.
The Mad Hatter
Mad Hatter Day is October 6 because the Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland wears a hat with a 10/6 tag. Hatters were known to be a tad loopy because they used mercury in the felting process to make the top hats in fashion during the 19th century. France banned the use of this toxic substance in 1898, but until WWII took priority, mercury was used in American felt hats. Now hydrogen peroxide is used instead. As we consider workplace safety and health, don’t forget World Mental Health Day is October 10. For those bunnies who work from home, paid or unpaid, your mental health is also important. Reach out for help—don’t suffer alone—others have been where you are now. It’s never the end of your journey as long as we keep walking together.
Also happening near mid month is Earth Sciences Week from the 8th to the 14th. This is a week dedicated helping the community understand the earth sciences and to encourage all us rabbits to practice Earth stewardship. Science helps understand the interconnection of species and habitats, while faith helps us understand our place in the great scheme of all things. As Psalms 24:1 reminds us:
“The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;”
Omelette with Butternut Squash, Spinach, and Cheese
World Egg Day is October 13. This is a day to enjoy your eggs sunny side up, scrambled, as an omelette, a quiche, or French toast. Eggs have gotten a bad rap over the years, falling out of favor because of their cholesterol levels. Of course, we also tend to eat our eggs with fried bacon, sausage, and heavily buttered toast or biscuits. Maybe we impugn the egg, when it’s their fellow travelers that bring along the excess fat and cholesterol baggage instead. Anyway, as the ancient Greeks were fond of saying, “Moderation in all things,” and “Nothing to excess.”
To be alive is the strange and wondrous miracle we forget.
Global Handwashing Day and National Mushroom Day are both celebrated on October 15. As a reminder, mushrooms from the grocery store need to be washed before you put them in a salad or cut them up to cook, just as your bunny paws should be washed before you begin to handle food in the kitchen. As we approach cooler weather, we’ll all be inside with our families and friends, as well as with our colleagues at work and our social gatherings. These aren’t well ventilated places, so we’ll need to use good handwashing techniques when we return home, so we won’t bring germs and viruses inside with us.
Bunny K9 Germ Officer
I know I sound like a bunny germ cop, but of the 40% of Americans who’ve had COVID, 1 in 5 of those are still experiencing long COVID symptoms. That’s nearly 9 million adults who’re still affected by long COVID symptoms, as well as over 380,000 children. The pandemic may be officially over, but COVID still stalks us like an ex that won’t let go. This bunny is about tired of all this, but we’ll all get through this hard time together. Sometimes we think our actions only affect us, but when we jump into the great pond of life, our splashes get not only those near to us wet, but the ripples from our entry travel far out to the distant shore.
Actions have consequences
We may not see how our actions or inactions affect others, but rest assured they do. We do well to remember The Golden Rule as Jesus taught it in Matthew 7:12–
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
Unfortunately, too many little rabbits today live in fear, so they never risk doing good in case they get harmed in return. Better to do nothing, never stick your neck out or get trapped, by entering into the world. In the Golden Rule principle, if you do nothing for no one, no one will do anything for you. Our lives are communal: we live in families, neighborhoods, towns, and cities. We also have counties and countries of which we’re a part, not to mention athletic teams we cheer for and hobbies we practice with other interested folks. As the Buddhist principle of karma understands it, “What goes around, comes back around.” In other words, we get out of life what we put into it. If we want a richer, deeper, more meaningful life, we practice the activities of the heart, mind, compassion, and community to bring us into a more meaningful life. If we want a small life, we shrink within our shell.
Leave No One Behind.
World Food Day is October 16. It celebrates the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) aim to help the lives of people in third-world countries and rural populations, to aid countries in famine, and to contribute to their economic growth. They do this by highlighting the importance of agricultural productivity, helping countries to change their agricultural policies and implement new technology, and providing a safe and neutral space for politicians to discuss agricultural issues. The theme this year is “Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind.”
World hunger is still a problem. An estimated 829 million people still go hungry every day, approximately 11% of the global population. There was a large increase in the number of people without food between 2019 and 2022 due to war, COVID-19, and related issues such as homelessness and poverty. The continued Russian aggression against Ukraine has diminished their once dominant sunflower oil industry and decreased their wheat production and exports. Although the USA doesn’t purchase these agricultural commodities, the nations in Africa do. With the price increases, the economic instability in multiple countries has led to multiple military coups. Because the African continent has a growing population and is expected to surpass even the Chinese population by 2100, economic and political stability in this part of the world is important to the rest of us around the world.
Week 3 is Pastoral Care Week. Remember, your pastor takes care of the body of Christ, both within and without the church walls, all year long. On the 3rd week of October, I hope the body of Christ takes care of the pastor.
The best candy gets sold out, the least candy goes for half price.
Most of October in my rabbit hollow will be taken up with decorating for Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve as it’s known in the church. Already the front porches and bushes near my own cozy den are overwhelmed with pumpkins, straw bales, cobwebs, scarecrows, witches, ghostly sheets, and other ghoulish creatures. Some of these items will be stashed away come November and the remainder will be Thanksgiving motifs. These will soon be whisked away or trashed if they’ve been too long in the elements (this is an earth science project for you—start a compost pile with your outdoor decorations rather than put them in the trash. Your garden will thank you.)
Nights come early these days
The change of seasons always puts me in a Robert Frost mood. Some can’t resist barn attire, boots, and corduroy jeans, but I’m still wearing sandals and shorts. Still, an October Poem from 1915 by Robert Frost seems appropriate:
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
Shadows on the Greenway
The harvest season is upon us. May yours be bountiful and the days be sunny.
I’m declaring my Independence from housework, moving fast, cooking on the hot stove, and outdoor exercise. I’m celebrating American Independence Day on July 4th, and National Ice Cream Month all month long. Usually at Cornie’s Kitchen we celebrate all the holidays, but due to the Heat Dome of Doom lingering over my neck of the woods as I write this month, I’m also declaring my independence from my normal themes.
Massive Milkshake for a Patriotic Fourth—Las Vegas style
In the days before air conditioning in the heat of a Louisiana summer, my brother rabbits and I resorted to whatever shade we could find. Under a tall pine or a neighbor’s spreading magnolia tree, we called a truce to whatever sibling squabbles in which we usually engaged. Our mother bunny had banished us from the house because we were on her last nerve and it in our best interest to survive until the cooler days of autumn and school had begun.
At least we all had the evening’s relative coolness to soothe all our frazzled nerves, as well as giant pitchers of Kool-Aid to refresh our thirsty bunny bodies. At night we’d sleep under the ceiling fans with only a sheet covering the least of our bodies possible. Maybe in the depths of our sleep, we might pull that cool cotton over our bodies and enter the depths of our dreams of cooler days, but it might have been our rabbit parents covering us up before they turned into bed themselves.
We added our own sugar. Notice the ice trays in the small freezer.
Our whole neighborhood looked forward to the Fourth of July picnic, even though the weather was always “hotter than a firecracker on the 4th of July.” My daddy always brought this saying out at this time, even though we young bunnies weren’t allowed to shoot the firecrackers, because he didn’t want us to lose our “lucky rabbit’s fingers.” We always got the sparklers, with his admonition not to touch anyone, for these bright wands can burn up to 2000 F.
My pottery kiln in the art room heated between 1800 and 2400 F, so I never turned it on until my youngest students had left for the day. We always train our small ones not to go near a hot oven, but then we put even hotter sparklers in their hands every Independence Day. This ought to be a supervised celebration. After all, one in four rabbits who end up in the emergency room on the Fourth are there due to a sparkler burn.
I always tried to write my name with brilliant light against the black of night.
My family always hosted this neighborhood celebration, since we were located in the middle of the city block. All the families brought food, but what I remember best is the churning of the ice cream maker. We had a hand cranked system. Our mother poured the cream, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and seasonal fruit into the inner container. The outer container held the rock salt and ice. The whole thing went into an aluminum washtub with more ice, since it was shared with several other hand cranked ice cream machines.
Our ice maker was avocado green.
We children lined up early to take our turn at cranking the handle, for once the concoction inside began to set up, only the biggest rabbits could move the handle. Every one took a turn at the crank, for making the ice cream was a communal event, just as the holiday was a community celebration. This is one of the important aspects of the American Democratic Project. Our forebears didn’t individually decide to secede from Britain and the King. Instead they joined together as a group. As Benjamin Franklin may or may not have said, “We must all hang together, or … we shall all hang separately.” Those of us with gallows humor reflect that the King might have gotten a volume discount on rope and planks for his rebellious colonists.
For those of us today, raised in a media age, used to tidy storylines wrapped up in half hour, one hour, or two hour movie spectaculars, and with attention spans clocking in at 22 minutes on average, we might have found our early war for independence excruciatingly drawn out, much like the ongoing defense of the Ukrainian people’s sovereignty. In the late 18th century, the British Stamp Act imposed a tax on legal documents, newspapers, and even playing cards. “Taxation without representation!” became a rallying cry among colonists who resented their lack of voice in Parliament.
When other goods were added to the tax duty, the colonies began an import boycott and started manufacturing locally. They would have said, “Buy American,” but there was no America yet. The final insult was the Tea Tax, since it served no purpose but to bail out the East India Tea Company, whose prosperity was integral to the British economy. The first independence skirmishes began in Boston with the massacre in 1770 and in 1773 with the Tea Party dumping the goods into the harbor.
Grant Wood: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, oil on Masonite, 1931, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
Still, the groups weren’t at war yet. Britain sent a general and an army to enforce Coercive Acts in 1774 to bring these rowdy colonists back into line. Gone were colonial governments and in were Quartering of the British Army in citizen’s homes without reimbursement. By April of 1775, the shooting was real. General Gage took his army to Lexington to seize arms and ammunition, and hoped to capture several of the leaders of rebel colonies. Because his plans were leaked, his army took greater losses and the leaders remained free.
From October of 1775 through January 1776, the British navy bombarded two ports and burned them to the ground. George Washington denounced the burning of Falmouth, MA, and Norfolk, VA, as “exceeding in barbarity & cruelty every hostile act practiced among civilized nations.” Leaders of the rebellion seized the burnings of the two ports to make the argument that the colonists needed to band together for survival against a ruthless enemy and embrace the need for independence. This spirit ultimately would lead to their victory.
John Trumbull: Signing of the Declaration of Independence, oil on canvas, 1826, 12’ x 18’, rotunda of the Capitol.
Not until June 11, 1776, did our founders meet to declare their independence from Britain. Six years of negotiations and struggles for recognition had passed before they were sure they had irreconcilable differences. If this were Netflix, it would be an extreme binge watching event with buckets of popcorn and multiple Door Dash orders. (This rabbit can’t go that long without bathing, but that’s TMI.)
When we rabbits gather in a group to come to a consensus, we don’t always agree on everything, but somehow we find a way to get common agreement on the biggest issues and save the rest for another time. In my family, I have at least one rabbit relative that’s always “my way or the highway.” We sometimes have to let him travel solo, since he doesn’t play well in groups. We still invite him to Thanksgiving dinner, even though he’s irritating, because he’s our kinfolk, and we can stand him in small doses. He probably thinks the same about us.
When the five-person committee appointed by the Continental Congress committee was writing the Declaration of Independence, they gave the lead to Thomas Jefferson. This is why Jefferson is often called the “author” of the Declaration of Independence, but he wasn’t the only person who contributed important ideas. The committee also included besides Jefferson: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman.
When writing the first draft of the Declaration, Jefferson primarily drew upon two sources: his own draft of a preamble to the Virginia Constitution and George Mason’s draft of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights. Mason’s Virginia’s Declaration of Rights inspired: “all men are born equally free and independent” and listed man’s “natural Rights” as “Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring and possessing Property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety.” Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Jefferson also listed man’s “inalienable rights” as “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
After Jefferson wrote his first draft of the Declaration, the other members of the Declaration committee and the Continental Congress made 86 changes to Jefferson’s draft, including shortening the overall length by more than a fourth. As my old rabbit preaching professor once said, “You don’t have to tell folks everything in one sermon or talk.” I imagine Jefferson merely wanted to make his case completely and with no logical gaps.
Original draft of the Declaration of Independence
Jefferson was quite unhappy about some of the edits made to his original draft of the Declaration of Independence. He had originally included language condemning the British promotion of the slave trade (even though Jefferson himself was a slave owner). This criticism of the slave trade was removed in spite of Jefferson’s objections. Sometimes we have to set pride aside for the sake of the common good. If our goal is to bring all the colonies into the independence effort, then we may have to live with what we see as imperfections in the cause. The good in this case is declaring independence from Britain, even though the slave owning southern colonies have their primary markets with the homeland. As Voltaire once said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Only John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, and Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Congress, signed the Declaration on July 4th. Most delegates signed the Declaration on August 2, and one didn’t sign it until 1781. No one who signed the Declaration of Independence was born in the United States of America, for the USA didn’t exist until after the Declaration was signed. All but eight of the signers were born in the colonies that would later become the United States.
The two youngest signers of the Declaration of Independence were both from South Carolina. Thomas Lynch, Jr. and Edward Rutledge were both born there in 1749 and were only 26 when they signed the Declaration. Most of the other signers were in their 40s and 50s. The oldest signer of the Declaration was Benjamin Franklin, who was born in 1706 and was already 70 at the time of the Declaration. Franklin went on to help negotiate the Treaty of Alliance with France in 1778 and the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War in 1783. This was a seven year war for independence. No wonder people today get cold feet when even a just war drags on “too long.”
The first public reading of the Declaration took place on July 8, 1776, in Philadelphia. In the summer of 1776, some colonists celebrated the birth of independence by holding mock funerals for King George III as a way of symbolizing the end of the monarchy’s hold on America. Philadelphia held the first annual commemoration of independence on July 4, 1777, while Congress was still occupied with the ongoing war. Concerts, parades, and the sounds of gunfire from muskets and cannons could be heard during this first celebration.
My rabbit daddy had an old muzzle loading rifle, which he only fired on the Fourth of July. I think he enjoyed bringing out this bit of history for his bunny children and their friends, who would encircle him in awe, at a safe distance, of course, as he poured gunpowder into the barrel, tamped it down with the dowel, and placed the wad and shot. Then he tamped the whole again before raising the stock to his shoulder and aiming for the moon high in the night sky, he pulled the trigger. The whole thing went off in a mighty blast, with fire shooting from the muzzle, much to the delight and screams of the assembled crowd. My daddy always grinned. I think he lived for this moment.
As I think back on this scene, wars must have been very different back in the time of our forebears. Today missiles fly from afar and automatic weapons fire multiple rounds per minute. Then again, life was slower. Or perhaps life was more dear. People had time to write letters and keep journals. They considered the moments of their lives as if they had unique meaning, rather than as experiences to be ravished at an all you can eat banquet until all things began to taste alike. If all we had today were these “original weapons to solve our current disagreements,” my guess is we’d do a lot more of talking folks to death than actually killing them dead. But the originalists who interpret our history and laws today aren’t frequenting my bunny world.
King George III in Hamilton, the Broadway musical.
One thing was certain, the people in the New World wanted to determine their own fate, elect their own governments, and have a say in their own affairs. They were no longer willing to be ruled by an unelected tyrant, especially one who ascended to his position by reason of birth, and not by the will of the people. They were going to begin a new experiment, a representative democracy, or a republic. We know this because of the initial paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
Elizabeth and Samuel Powel’s house at 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia
A decade later, in a journal kept by James McHenry (1753-1816) while he was a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention, McHenry records the events of the last day of that convention, September 18, 1787: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” Then McHenry added: “The Lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philada.” Elizabeth and Samuel Powel’s house at 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia, was where the conversation between Elizabeth Powel and Benjamin Franklin might have taken place. She was a socially connected woman who entertained many of the movers and shakers of the new nation.
In honor of the Fourth of July, you might want to try Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for ice cream. The rage for ice cream came over from Europe to the New World in the early 1700’s. Several books on confectionery had been produced and included recipes for ices and ice cream. Our historical records show ice cream was on the menu in colonial America as early as 1744. Housewives would serve these treats to guests in the shape of vegetables, fruits and animals, thanks to special ice cream molds. Scholars believe the first major cookbook written by a woman, in what was until then an almost exclusively male domain, was Mrs. Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Easy (1747).
Jefferson’s handwritten recipe for Ice Cream
One of only ten recipes surviving in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, the recipe for ice cream most likely dates to his time in France. People have been making frozen desserts since before 2000 BCE. Of course, these ice and fruit concoctions weren’t like our ice creams of today, but more like sorbets.
Lantern slide, showing an ancient ice house inside a defensive wall. Iran. Photographed by Gen Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes KCIE. Around 1900. British Museum, London.
How did people actually making ice cream before freezers? The primary piece of equipment was a sorbetiere, a pewter vessel nestled into a mixture of ice and salt. The ice cream mix was then poured into the interior and agitated using the handle, or a flat spoon, known as a spaddle. This technology was surprisingly effective, freezing the mixture in a shorter amount of time than most contemporary ice cream machines. The machinery relied on a supply of ice, but was otherwise simple and portable.
Pewter Sorbetiere with Spaddle in Tub of Ice
Jefferson had traveled to France as the ambassador for our brand new nation, and there he developed a taste for ice cream. Today we’d call it “frozen custard,” since the French recipe has more eggs and a higher milk fat content than even the recipes for our current deluxe ice creams. When he returned home to the young United States, he brought several moulds for this sweet treat, which he served at the White House during his presidency from 1801-1809. Today’s recipes use different stabilizers and fewer eggs, but if you want to try Jefferson’s recipe for ice cream, it resembles my grandmother’s “boiled custard” which was the best comfort food of all time. It was served chilled, but not frozen.
Jefferson’s Ice Cream Equipment
Thomas Jefferson’s (Modernized) Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe:
Beat the yolks of 6 eggs until thick and lemon colored. Add, gradually, 1 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil 1 quart of cream and pour slowly on the egg mixture. Put in top of double boiler and when it thickens, remove and strain through a fine sieve into a bowl. Temperature should be 170-180F. (Don’t overheat or it gets grainy.) When cool add 2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla. Freeze, as usual, with one part of salt to three parts of ice. Place in a mold, pack in ice and salt for several hours. For electric refrigerators, follow usual direction, but stir frequently.
However you celebrate this long holiday weekend, remember to hydrate with water, since alcohol is a dehydrating beverage. Also use plenty of sunscreen and keep your cold foods cold and hot foods hot. You don’t want to have any bunny tummy troubles that keep you out of the fun. I’ll be inside chilling with cold iced teas due to a past bad experience with heat exhaustion that has ruined me forever. The bad heat is a bad bunny for this rabbit. I plan on making Jefferson’s peach ice cream as a diversion.
5 – The art of cookery made plain and easy; : which far exceeds anything yet published. Containing … to which are added, by way of appendix, one hundred and fifty new and useful receipts, and a copious index. / By a Lady (Hannah Glasse 1708-1770)—ice cream recipe. Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822031021678
On this Monday, a good strong cup of coffee (or any caffeinated beverage) helps me to remember God gave us a rainbow as a sign the earth would never be destroyed by a flood again. This rainbow is used in the Emmaus Walk Community, the Tres Dias Community, and the other Cursillo Communities around the world as evidence of God’s love for all creation. ALL really means ALL, without exception.
Monday Rainbows and Coffee
This is why people who have been pushed to the margins, vilified and unfortunately, often targeted for exclusion or death, have adopted the rainbow as their sign also. Because God is a God of abundance and not a god of scarcity, those of us who believe in an awesome God aren’t holding onto the rainbow as “ours.” After all, as Paul reminded the Philippians (2:5-8):
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.
If the Son of God had thought he was too good for our human flesh, and wasn’t willing to give himself utterly and completely, even to the point of a criminal’s death on a cross, where would we be now? Each one of us would still be trying to earn our way into the good graces of a distant and unforgiving world, in which the goal line just keeps moving farther and farther away.
Three Crosses: paper, shells, plastic jewels, crochet, and other embellishments
Yet God had the wisdom and the compassion to send his own Son to bring us back into a close relationship with him, even when our families or society turn their backs to us. This is the promise of the rainbow for all people: we can only see the beautiful colors after a period of rain. Perhaps only those who suffer will know joy, for they will know the truth of God’s abundant love and this will set them free to live and love and serve.
ALL really does mean ALL.
This is the tail end of Pride Month, but for each and every one of my Kitchen Peeps, I want to tell you I love you for putting up all year long with my chatter. I also hope I share some few words of wisdom and encouragement along the way. Every one of us is unique in some special way, for we all have a back story of joys and pains that affect our lives today. Look always to the rainbow and not to the clouds!!
Strange thoughts run through my bunny brain on cold and rainy afternoons. While the northern parts of our state wre promised “up to ten inches of snow” recently, my neck of the woods down south had only more of a nearly freezing drizzle. I’ve thrown another quilt on the bed and I’ve been sipping hot green tea all day long. Even my heaviest sweatpants aren’t enough to warm my bunny buns. I’m glad the heating system is still working.
I must be getting old, for I’ve already had an early Ground Hog Day. It doesn’t come until February 2, but I spent a recent Wednesday thinking it was Thursday, so when Thursday actually arrived, it was as if I’d traveled in time. Thoughts don’t get any stranger than that.
Vintage Ground Hog’s Day Poster
What are those strange thoughts, you ask? When I was very young, our parents called severe weather “acts of God.” Today, events, such as floods, earthquakes, or natural catastrophes, trigger these acts of God. Because these events are considered uncontrollable by human intervention, if contracts have force majeure clauses—meaning “superior force”—parties may not be liable if the terms of the contract cannot be carried out. Flood insurance, for instance, is a separate coverage for most homeowner’s policies, as well as earthquake insurance, but many people don’t know this and end up with uncovered losses. Before computers, radar, and other modern tools of weather forecasting, we had no way to predict storm paths or the sudden development of tornados. Now we can tell people the streets and intersections, as well as the path of destruction these storms will take.
Somehow, our ability to predict the chaos in advance doesn’t seem to prepare people for the chaos that follows the storm path. Just because we can give a warning things will go wrong beforehand, we can’t tell people how long it will take to repair the damage on the backside. I’ve always wondered why this is.
Some thoughts I have on the subject: folks have no idea how long it took to put the infrastructure in place to begin with. Take the electric lines. The old rabbits remember when electricity first came to their rural regions, whereas we younger ones have always had the benefit all our lives. Therefore, we think flipping a switch will make the electricity come back, just like we can snap our fingers. The minutes will seem like days for those who don’t have a generator to provide emergency power.
I was on the Blevins Charge when I first came to Arkansas to serve as a pastor. I was rudely awakened by the sound of a freight train going over the parsonage roof. Half awake, I thought, “That’s odd,” since the parsonage was at least two blocks from the railroad tracks and trains don’t fly.Then I went back to sleep, since it wasn’t my time to get up. When I woke up, I couldn’t make coffee because the electricity was out. I got dressed in the daylight, since the overhead lights weren’t coming on. I went to the corner gas station, but the gas pumps didn’t work. Neither did their coffee maker.
“What’s wrong? No coffee, no gas? No electricity at my house either.” The clerk answered for the umpteenth time that morning, “We had a tornado this morning. Came right through the heart of town, didn’t you hear it?”
“Was it the freight train sound this morning?” “That was it alright.”
“I’ve always heard the tornado sounds like a freight train. I guess it’s true.” She just shook her head. This will go down in her book of Dumb Preacher Tricks everyone seems to write.
I had enough gas in my old Ford to go into the nearby big town to see if they had coffee. Not even a tornado would keep this rabbit from her morning coffee. I was sure someone somewhere would have a cup for me to drink.
How long does it take to rebuild what is destroyed? We can restore electrical lines quicker than we can rebuild roads. We can rebuild roads quicker than we can rebuild whole neighborhoods. We can rebuild neighborhoods faster than we can rebuild communities. Our first project in rebuilding communities is to rebuild hope and trust. Without these, we might not even get started on the physical projects.
We rabbits like to share food and drink with each other as a means of sharing trust and community. Those who eat together “commune” together, for they not only share the meal, but communicate their thoughts and feelings with one another. Perhaps the joy of the meal relaxes us, or the endorphins of the carbohydrates ease our tensions, but we find we can find more common ground when we break bread with one another. At least we’re stabbing the baked carrots instead of each other. Perhaps this is why we rabbits in seminary were taught to “follow the food.”
Handmade Tea Treats from Tea Ceremony: Bean, Cranberry, Sugar, and Coconut Oil
I had the privilege of participating in a Chinese Tea Ceremony recently. It is a ritual of simplicity, order, balance, and hospitality. Tea culture is an old ritual of hospitality, balance, sharing, and appreciation of the beauty of simple moments in one’s day. The Classic of Tea, the first known monograph on tea in the world, was written by Lu Yu between 760 CE and 762 CE, during the Chinese Tang dynasty. It described the 28 utensils used to brew and drink tea, including teapots and bowls.
AI CREATED IMAGE “Chinese tea ceremony white rabbit”
Today, the practice of tea culture helps us harried and frenetic bunnies find islands of peace and quiet in the midst of the world’s pandemonium, just as others in ancient days sought balance and harmony in their lives. We don’t need many tools to create calm, for simplicity creates its own serenity. The tea cups are chosen for the season or for the occasion. I understand this practice, for my coffee habit includes drinking from special mugs, depending on the day of the week, the weather outside, or the holiday being celebrated. As the author of The Book of Tea says, “Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others.”
Awakened Tea: First Pouring
I attended a tea ceremony at Emergent Arts, where I learned the utensils need to be prepared, the tea needs to be awakened with the first pour, and then the second heated pouring brings out the fullness of the flavor. In our friendships, we first make an acquaintance, then we awaken to our possibilities, and later we come to know one another more fully. If we just make our friendships in the drive through windows of the fast food shops, we never get the opportunity to have the small rituals or sharing of ourselves or our experiences.
Tea Pet—Bunny Rowing
The tea pet is a fired clay figurine, and is the decoration for the tea ceremony. It’s placed on the tea tray edge, often used to pour on the tea before it goes into the cups. Over time, the pet will get smoother and more delicate. As time goes by in a friendship, we forgive the small differences and those once irritating details smooth over and we ignore them. We focus instead on their better qualities.
Black glazed tea-bowl with Mount Fuji in buff glaze on the outside. Made of pottery. Signed Dohachi, 18th CE. British Museum, London
This bunny thinks our recent past years of isolation have destroyed our social relationships, for we’ve decided we don’t want to interact with people who might have different experiences or opinions. We no longer have energy for this. Unfortunately, we also lose our ability to see another’s point of view or have empathy for others. At worst, we can begin to see those who don’t agree with us as less than human, or unworthy of God’s love and care. Having a variety of friends and relationships keeps us on our toes, or as my daddy rabbit would say, “Keep you hopping!”
Chinese Lantern in the Snow
The Chinese New Year comes to a close on February 5, with the great Lantern Festival. The lanterns symbolize letting go of the old year and welcoming the new year.we rabbits often need an extended period of time to let go of yesterday’s mindsets. How often have we kept an item of too large clothing after losing weight, since we “might need it one day?” That’s a yesterday mindset, or “stinking thinking.” We need to adopt a positive attitude instead.
People in Asian countries enjoy the beautiful lights against the night sky, eat sweet treats, watch the lion and dragon dances in the streets, and try to guess the riddles written on the lanterns. In Texas, everything is bigger, of course. I saw these same photographs with sites in Arabic nations, so this may be a traveling exhibition.
Big Texas Lantern Festival, Dallas
Those born in the year of the Rabbit are believed to be clever, compassionate and generous. Their negative traits include being over-cautious and vain. You’re a Rabbit if your birth year falls on: 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023, 2035, and so on. As the famous rabbit Carl Jung once said, “We each have our own darkness, which we only recognize in other people.”
Jung Quote
Super Bowl Sunday is February 12. It qualifies as a holiday because it’s the second highest caloric food consumption day on the calendar. Only Thanksgiving exceeds it. The Monday after the big game the phones ring off the hook at the diet companies with men wanting to lose the weight they packed on snacking during football season. One in four NFL fans pack on an average of 10 pounds during football season, so the diet company says at the official end of the season, men typically are ready to get rid of the excess.
Super Bowl Commercial for junk food with the Manning Brothers
Other notable February holidays we celebrate are Valentine’s Day and American Heart Month. This year on February 14, I suggest we focus more on the love of God for God’s creation and God’s creatures, than on whether someone loves you or me. After all, God Is Love, as 1 John 4:7-8 reminds us:
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
Presidents’ Day is February 20, a Monday holiday. We can remember Lincoln and Washington for their great accomplishments. Washington helped to birth our nation and Lincoln helped to keep it from splitting into two nations. Lincoln also kept the USA from being half slave and half free, but Jim Crowe laws in the nation continued to oppress persons of color. This search for justice in Black History Month is still a work in progress, but one day perhaps we all will see one another with the eyes of God.
Mardi Gras Crew of Bunnies
Mardi Gras is February 21, with great parades and a final day of feasting on pancakes, sausage and bacon in preparation for the beginning of Lent. Thinking about pancakes on this cold winter day reminds me Ash Wednesday begins on the 22 of February. For Christians, this begins a period of spiritual fasting before Easter.
However, many of us rabbits have been on a fast for weight loss since the first of January. While some of the rabbit clans have adopted various and sundry programs to achieve five and ten pound weekly loses, these have usually come at the cost of elimination of whole food groups, particularly vegetables. While very high protein diets will cause the pounds to drop quickly, it’s mostly water weight. Once the goal weight is achieved, eating veggies and other normal foods will bring back the weight with water gain. A sustainable, long term lifestyle change, even with slower weight loss, will be better in the long run, since it avoids the problem of yo-yo dieting and the metabolic health risks associated with it.
Most Americans get enough protein in their diets, but eat too much fat, and over all eat too many calories and expend too few calories. Aiming for 25% of your calorie intake as protein (low fat animal or plant-based protein) should help curb your desire to snack in between meals. Some folks will cut out every food that has “sugar” in it or every food that is “white.” Unfortunately, this eliminates both the nutritious and unhealthy foods: fruit, Greek yogurt, cheeses, cottage cheese, dried fruits, juices, honey, many processed foods (fructose), and even snack foods such as hot cocoa made with milk. Once a rabbit starts an elimination or restrictive diet, such as the Whole 30 plan, they don’t get to eat out with friends anymore, unless they too are on the same restrictions.
Most of us rabbits have misconceptions about our foods. We give our potatoes wide berths because we’ve always cooked them with half a stick of butter and a cup of whole milk, plus at least a cup of shredded cheese. We’ve never trained our taste buds to appreciate the potato itself with herbs and olive oil, plus some salt and pepper. Three ounces of potatoes with the skins on have only 80 calories, 2 grams of protein and 18 grams of carbs. The daily totals in this serving: 14% Vitamin C, 13% Vitamin B6, 13% Potassium, 10% Manganese, 6% Magnesium, 6% Phosphorus, 6% Niacin and 6% Folate.
Mr. Microwave and Mr. Oven are great helpers when I cook my dinner. Some folks swear by their air fryer, but I never got into that method. My kitchen is quite cozy, and Mr. Microwave is fussy about sharing the kitchen (territorial issues…). I’m surprised when they let Mr. Crockpot have a turn as guest cook.
Pirate Bunny by Mardi Speth
February is Low Vision Awareness Month, so this bunny will celebrate by having cataract surgery. I feel like a pirate now, since I can hardly see anything out of my right eye. This may affect my future painting and blogging activities, but I hope to be in better shape soon afterwards.
I hope the month of February, although short, gives each of you an opportunity to practice love, simplicity, plus
My under caffeinated brain did not at first appreciate this fine, but terrible map. When crunch time would come during my working life, I often had to admit I wasn’t Wonder Woman. Eventually too many extra duties would mean take out meals or delivery instead of a home cooked dinner. I only have so many brain cells, and the holidays or other stressful times would fry what few I have left. I don’t have “the I’m working and I have too much to do” excuse now. I just seem to get more easily stressed as I get older. Hello, Domino’s?
Biltmore Mansion Sitting Room Christmas Tree
I also have come to grips with the reality my “fantasy Christmas decor” is guided by the champagne pocketbooks of the Vanderbilt family, who undertook a six year building plan to create the nation’s largest residential project near the turn of the 19th C. The family opened the Biltmore Estate to family and guests on Christmas Eve, 1895. Named for a Dutch town from which the Vanderbilts hailed and “more,” a word for the rolling hills of North Carolina, the home itself covers over four acres of floor space, and has 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. Every living area gets a Christmas tree or holiday decor, but the work rooms were kept scrupulously clean, of course. My Christmas decor is more a beer or Diet Coke pocketbook in comparison.
Biltmore Mansion Main Kitchen and Copper Pans
During the Great Depression, the family opened the home to tourism to help the Asheville economy and in World War II, the National Gallery of Art stored America’s priceless art treasures here, away from “ground zero.” Today, the Biltmore is a National Historic Landmark and offers tours of its buildings and extensive grounds. It also has a winery, as well as deluxe (champagne) accommodations for guests. I stayed with a friend nearby and took the grand tour. With 8,000 acres of grounds, we took the auto tour!
As we get ever closer to the “NIGHT,” for those who believe in Christ and celebrate his birth, sometimes we forget simplicity, love, and worship are more important than rich gifts. After all, only the magi from the east brought gifts fit for a king. Everyone else came to be a witness.
Adoration of the Christ Child, Book of Hours, France, 16th C, manuscript illustration, The Morgan Library
If you don’t have something checked off your to do list by now, don’t stress about this being a “terrible Christmas.” Mary and Joseph weren’t with their family, or even at a Motel 6. They shared the cave and manger where the animals spent the night. None of their family came to help them birth the savior. Angels announced his birth, but only lowly shepherds heard the good news, so they came to adore the little one.
Sandro Botticelli, The Mystic Nativity (1501), London National Gallery
No one back then had credit card debt to pay off in January, which just adds more stress to our already crazy lives. The Holy Family did have to flee to Egypt to escape King Herod, who ordered all the children under two years old to be killed, for the magi had told him a new king had been born. (Egypt is the top right corner on the map above).
Odilon Redon: Rest on the Flight into Egypt, oil on canvas, 1900-1903, Musée d’Orsay, France.
Another place TO GO is your local church for Christmas Eve: most churches, including First UMC in Hot Springs at 1100 Central Avenue, will have an evening candlelight service with carols.
My Antique Santa Mug, from which I drink a small toast to Santa every Christmas Eve, since I was eight years old.
Relax with a mug of hot chocolate, listen to Christmas music on the radio, the tv, or your phone, and enjoy the life and love of the Holy Family poured into your family’s hearts and minds. Hug each other and be thankful. Even for those of us who live alone, remember, we are united into the great and unbroken love of God with all the saints beyond and all the saints still living. We are one large family, part of God’s holy and beloved family.
God bless and Merry Christmas to my Kitchen Peeps!
Just in time for the feasting season, Cornie’s Kitchen comes to remind you of portion control. Yes I know I’m a nag, but I have science behind me. How many of us will attend not one, but two or more thanksgiving meals this year? In this era of blended families, young people can have two sets of parents and at least four sets of grandparents if they’re still living. I hope they all live close together or the car gets good gas mileage. This is why we need to practice portion control.
Turkey Leg Dinner
When I was young, I ate a full thanksgiving lunch at one grandparent’s home and a full thanksgiving dinner at the other’s. No wonder as a small child I fell asleep, head down on my plate, with the giant turkey leg in my hand. Before my aunt passed on, she reminded me of this every single thanksgiving, and now my first cousin has taken up that duty. No doubt, each of you in Kitchenland have some ancient trauma about which you’ll be reminded on thanksgiving. All I can say to you is “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Also, “this too shall pass,” for thanksgiving comes but once a year. As my mother used to say, “laugh it off, you’re better than the people who try to make you small so they can feel big.”
Time for Super Stretchy Pants
Thanksgiving is usually when we wear our stretchy pants, so we won’t feel the after effects of the feast. My mom always wanted to serve dessert directly after the meal, while we were still at the table. None of us had a bit of room for that. She was met with groans. We’d clean up the table, put all the food up, and settle in for the Cowboys game on the tv. About halftime, coffee and pie would begin to sound good to everyone. After the game, we’d “glad the leftovers” to those traveling onward.
Thanksgiving Pie by a Famous Arkansan Baker
The bad news is the feast this year will cost about 20% more, due to several factors. Farmers have to pay larger fuel costs for their tractors and harvesters, just like we’re paying through the nose at the pump when we fill our vehicles. Also, many commercial fertilizers use petroleum byproducts, which also have increased in cost. The flour shortage, affecting stuffing and rolls, is a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to statistics by the US Department of Agriculture, Ukraine was the world’s seventh-largest producer of wheat in 2021/22 with 33 million tons.
American Drought Map
We also have to factor in the long running drought in the USA, which has not only diminished crop size, but also has shrunk the rivers on which the crops move. The Mississippi River is so low now it’s only about eleven feet deep in places. Its mighty width, once a full mile, has shrunk to half of that. Barges are now running lighter loads so they don’t run aground. Moreover, since 2019, the cost to ship grain down river has gone up over 2,000%. My Kitchen math doesn’t go into those stellar realms. My calculator just screams “Holy Cow!” and melts down like a popsicle in the Arabian desert.
Cooking Together in the Kitchen
Now for the good news: cranberries will cost less, due to overproduction. Also, smaller turkeys will be available, which will cause less of a hit to our pocketbooks. If you have a larger group for your feast, think about cooking a breast along with the smaller bird. Then you’ll have plenty of pan drippings for real gravy. Please don’t buy that instant packaged thing. Real pan gravy is way too easy to make, and so much better. Plus you’ll get your merit badge for Making a Roux. The word is French, from beurre roux, or “brown butter.” Read on for Pan Gravy:
First Cook the Turkey or Chickens
What you need: pan drippings, flour, chicken broth (canned or reconstituted bouillon), wooden spoon or wire whisk, white wine (optional), and 15 minutes max. If you are watching your salt intake, omit the chicken broth and use water with added herbs.
When you’ve taken your turkey out of the oven, pour the drippings left in the roasting pan after cooking the turkey. This includes fat that has melted and any bits of meat that have fallen off. from your turkey into a large bowl. Tip the pan away from your body and be careful not to burn yourself!
Now let the drippings sit for a minute, allowing the fat to naturally separate from the rest of the drippings. You’ll notice the fat will rise to the top, leaving the drippings and liquid on the bottom. Use a large spoon or ladle to skim/remove most of the fat from the top of the the drippings.
To make the gravy, use a large sauce pan and add 1 cup of drippings to the pan over medium heat.
Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup flour to the pan and whisk flour and drippings together until you have a smooth paste. At this point, you’ll need to use a little of your own judgement. If yours seems a little greasy, add more flour.
Making a Medium Roux
When you’ve found the right consistency, whisk the mixture slowly over the heat as it begins to brown. You’re creating a roux. You should be feeding a little giddy now!
Once you get a nice golden brown color, or a “medium roux,” slowly add 4 cups of chicken broth and 1 additional cup of drippings. Keep stirring!!
Allow the gravy to cook, whisking constantly for about 5 to 8 minutes, or until thickened.
Once you’re happy with the consistency of your gravy, taste it. If it’s too salty, add a squeeze of lemon to offset the saltiness. Another trick to take away the saltiness is to add a wedge of raw russet potato and simmer the gravy with the lid covered for about 10 minutes. Add pepper for sure. If the turkey was brined, the gravy might not need salt.
Store leftover gravy covered, in the refrigerator.
As an option, you can heat the chicken stock with 1 dried bay leaf, 1/2 sprig of rosemary, 2 sage leaves, and 2 sprigs of thyme if you want more flavors. Discard these before adding stock to gravy.
No matter what you cook for your dinner, or if you buy all or most of it precooked from the grocery store, remember the one ingredient necessary to make your meal complete: a heart full of love of God and neighbor. This love allows us to express our gratitude for the blessings in our lives and to share with others who have less.
From my Kitchen to yours, I wish you
Joy and Peace,
Cornie
In Cornie’s Kitchen, everyone gets the bigger wishbone!
This bunny will be close to the fan until the frost is on the pumpkin.
When I attended seminary, I quickly memorized the phone number for the campus heat and air guys—all the prefixes were 768 and the extension for the environmental control center was DAMN, as in “Damn, it’s hot or damn, it’s cold!” Who says the phone company doesn’t have a sense of humor?
Here in Arkansas we rabbits have just experienced a July with multiple consecutive days of 100+ F high temperatures and evening lows never never touching the 70’s. We can’t even go to the beach to swim out into the deep water because SHARKS! They’re not just on Discovery channel, but in the water beyond our waistline. And what is it with those jellyfish blooms off Israel’s beaches? We can be thankful we weren’t living in 1934, when the record high temperature in Hot Springs hit 109 F. I imagine our famous hot springs were even hotter back in the day!
Jellyfish bloom swarms off the coast of Israel, summer 2022.
The weather gurus say the omega block system currently affecting the central states and another one affecting Europe is the current cause of our record heat. An omega block is an upper-level pressure pattern. It gets its name because it looks like the Greek letter Omega. Omega blocks are two cut-off low-pressure systems and a blocking high pressure system in the middle. The west-to east flow has a difficult time going around the high pressure because of the strength and size of the high. Omega blocks lead to stagnant weather patterns for a matter of days or weeks. The area under the ridge with the high-pressure system typically experiences dry, warm temperatures, and calm winds. The areas on either side, or the “feet of the omega,” have the low-pressure systems, which tend to experience rain and cooler temperatures.
The typical Omega Block in action
This is why we hear about “fires and floods” on the evening news at the same time. It’s not the Apocalypse, even if our air conditioning bill makes us wish the Lord was coming to take us away from all this. This is Summer, my rabbit buddies, not the Second Coming of the Lord. We’re merely living “hell-adjacent,” but not quite ready for the weeping and gnashing of teeth place yet. August should be a few degrees cooler, as in “my oven is cooler than a blast furnace.”
The year 1934 was much closer to the Apocalypse for many reasons. Not only was it smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression, but it was also a very hot year in the United States, ranking fourth behind 2012, 2006, and 1998. In 1934, there were forty days over 100 degrees, with some going as high as 118 degrees. Then again, we rabbits today could live in Texas, with their notoriously quirky independent electrical grid, which “isn’t suited for extreme cold,” but also has an “on and off relationship issue” with extreme heat also. Melting butter on countertops is not my favorite kitchen flavor. I’m keeping my cond at 74F for the summer, but I’ll be glad to go back to 68F this winter.
Tree Rings show the Mega Drought in southwest USA is the longest in 1200 years, with wildfires increasing because of human induced climate change.
Despite the U.S. heat in 1934, that year wasn’t as hot over the rest of the planet, and it barely holds onto a place in the hottest 50 years in the global rankings (today it ranks 49th). Growth rings of a tree in Nebraska showed 20 droughts in the 748 years before the 1930s. In 1931, the middle of the nation was in the midst of the first of four major drought episodes that would occur over the course of the next decade. Still, the 1930’s drought and heat aren’t an argument against global warming, for global warming takes into account temperatures over the entire planet and the U.S.’s land area accounts for only 2% of the earth’s total surface area. Most areas of the country didn’t return to near-normal rainfalls until nearly a decade later in 1941. The outbreak of World War II also helped to improve the nation’s economic situation.
Steam shovels load rocks blasted away onto twin tracks that remove the earth from the Panama Canal bed, 1908
Most of us rabbits today remember 1934 for the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, when so little rain fell, the sky turned black with the dust from the Great Plains. April 14, 1935, was Black Sunday, a day when twice as much dirt blew away as was dug out of the Panama Canal, a great project which took 7 years to dig. More than 300,000 tons of topsoil blew away.
Panama Canal excavation, 1913
In 1933 there are 39 dust storms. The the color of the dust told where the storm came from: black soil came from Kansas, red soil came from Oklahoma, and gray soil came from Colorado and New Mexico. 350 million tons of soil left Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma and was deposited in eastern states. One night, Chicago alone got 12 million tons, or 4 pounds of grit for each person in the city. In New York and Boston. The dust darkened the sky so much, the street lamps were lit in the daytime.
Black Sunday Dust Storm of the Dust Bowl Depression Era
Robert E. Geiger, a reporter for the Associated Press, gets credit for naming the Dust Bowl. After a dust storm delayed his journey, he wrote an article for the next day’s Lubbock Evening Journal, which began: “Residents of the southwestern dust bowl marked up another black duster today…” Another article, also attributed to “an Associated Press reporter” and published the next day, included the following: “Three little words… rule life in the dust bowl of the continent – ‘if it rains’.” These instances are considered the first-ever uses of the phrase by which the events of the 1930s have been known to history ever since: The Dust Bowl. Dust from these storms would travel as far as the nation’s Capitol and even into the Atlantic Ocean, when ships would get covered up by topsoil brought by the offshore winds.
Dorothea Lange: Migrant farm worker’s family in Nipomo California, 1936
2.5 million people left their farms in 1935. Some just went to nearby town, but 300,000 traveled to California. This was the largest single migration in U.S. history. Grape pickers in California worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for $4. Children were paid less. The WPA paid 18¢ an hour and the CCC paid 20¢ an hour in Edwards County. Horses made $1.00 per day or nearly twice what an adult made. In January 1937, gas was 22 cents per gallon. It took a full day’s work on a government road job to fill a tank. A 1930 Model A held 11 gallons and cost $2.42 for a fill up.
For reference, $1 in 1935 would be about $18.55 today. The $4 weekly wage, or $8 if both adults worked, didn’t go far, just as today some are taking a second job to afford the gas to get to their day job. For instance: Milk was 47¢ per gallon, Eggs sold at 36¢ per dozen, and Ground beef was 25¢ for two pounds.
We recognize August 14, 1935, as the birthday of Social Security. Although by 1934, 30 States had responded by providing pensions for the needy aged, total expenditures for State programs for the aged that year were $31 million—an average of $19.74 a month per aged person. As the Depression worsened, benefits to individuals were cut further to enable States to spread available funds among as many people as possible.
A Depression-era “Hooverville” in the old Central Park reservoir in New York City. Undated photograph. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Homelessness was a big problem also. Many lost fortunes in the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929, while others lost homes and farmsteads due to the shrinking economy or the drought and poor farming techniques, which destroyed their crops. The unemployment rate was 25%, which was bad, but those with jobs were often working only part time, with reduced pay. This led to labor unrest.
October 1929 was rough on the stock market and American economy. This man represents the millions of Americans who were directly affected by the economic issues at the time and ended up out of work for months to come.
Up to two million able bodied men roamed the country looking for part time work, often by hitching a ride on train boxcars. As the United States emerged from the Great Depression and the country entered World War II, the nation needed every able-bodied young man it could get to help the war effort. Hobos could give up their transient lifestyle and trade their economic instability for a military career or full-time factory job. Although some hobos refused to give up their carefree lifestyle, most did, and the number of homeless, unemployed men drastically decreased.
Feeling Bad: Attitude Affects Behavior and Results in Consequences.
Today all the nattering rabbits on my television screen are worried if we’re in a recession or not. Like the Field of Dreams movie, the mantra, “If you build it, they will come” rings true here. If we feel good about the future, Americans go about their business spending like there’s no tomorrow. If we begin to worry, we start cutting back, and then the dollars don’t flow. The next thing you know, we’ve jumped on the recession train like hobos of old.
My old daddy rabbit often said, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job.” We tend not to worry about the things which don’t directly affect us. This is why we complain so much about the weather—it affects everyone!
People do worry about the cost of gasoline. We can do something about this cost if we combine our errands into fewer trips, instead of joy riding about town like gasoline only cost 22 cents a gallon. If we have work commutes or if we’re driving our kids to school, we might look into a carpool. As a young rabbit, our city block had several girls of the same age, so our mothers shared carpool duty. One single mom took two mornings and my mom took two afternoons, since my friend’s mom was still at work. We made it happen.
Those were also the years my daddy cried at night because people paid their doctor’s bill last. We had a brand new 1957 Ford station wagon we couldn’t fill with gas except for Sundays, so we walked to the grocery store every single day. We had our meals daily, and didn’t worry about the morrow.
Of course now I’m an old rabbit and don’t buy processed or prepared foods because they have too much salt and often too many carbs for my health. I learned long ago a can of mushroom soup, a bag of noodles, a pound of ground beef, a half onion chopped, some garlic, Italian spices, a little cheese, and some fresh mushrooms made a far tastier dinner than a macaroni helper in a box. It also made more food, something I always like! It won’t be less expensive, but it also won’t give you half your daily intake of sodium in one meal to raise your blood pressure. If you spend your money on healthier food, you have a better chance of having a healthier body. (P.S. I’m not a real doctor, just a bunny doctor.)
There’s a Bugs Bunny Doctor in the Kitchen
1.79 hamburger helper 6.99 Simple Truth Organic™ 85% Lean Grass Fed Ground Beef—sale $8.78 Total cost—claims to make #15 1/2 cup servings—most folks eat 1 cup, making this a package of #4 adult servings
1.50 sale Campbell mushroom soup 12 oz 0.50 medium onion 1.38 Manischewitz Fine Egg Noodles—12 oz 2.08 —8 oz only (4 oz left over) 6.99 Simple Truth Organic™ 85% Lean Grass Fed Ground Beef—sale 0.83 Kroger Italian Seasonings (1.99/3 ) 2.99 whole Portobello Mushrooms—8 oz—2 oz per serving $14.19 Total cost—4 servings—$11.20 if you omit the fresh mushrooms
As we rabbit families prepare for school, let’s set a budget for the clothes for the older bunnies in our groups. They’re old enough to share in the choices for this new normal. If they pick out one outfit for the whole amount, you can ask, “Do you plan on wearing this every day between now and Christmas?” That will turn the bunny wheels in their brains and they’ll reconsider their choices. That way we aren’t the “bad bunny” for imposing difficult choices. I never liked being the harsh bunny, but sometimes I had to draw the line.
Sic Transit Gloria Choco Taco 2022
When it gets hot in August, a recipe I recommend on the 4th, National Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookie Day, is a frozen chocolate chip cookie sandwich with your choice of ice cream inside. Mine would be chocolate, of course, but peanut butter, vanilla, or banana would also be good. It won’t be a Choco Taco, but it’s hard to beat chocolate chips and ice cream.
The full moon in August, called the Sturgeon Moon, will rise on August 11, 2022 and will be the last full supermoon of the year. This full Moon is traditionally called the Sturgeon Moon because the giant sturgeon of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain were caught easily during this part of summer, but now due to overfishing, are a rare catch. Native American peoples gave this moon different names such as Corn Moon, Ricing Moon, and Chokeberry Moon, all related to natural harvest cycles.
August 12 is Middle Child Day. Many middle children feel overlooked or unappreciated, since parents often seem to focus on the first and the last child. This is a day you can acknowledge your sibling and affirm their sacred worth.
May 4, 1912—Suffragette parade, New York City
Speaking of worth, August 26 is Women’s Equality Day in the United States, a day to commemorate the 19th amendment of the Constitution which, in 1920, gave women the right to vote. Before the Civil War, only white men with land could vote. The 14th Amendment gave all men born in the USA the right to vote, and the 15th of 1870 ensured no man could be denied this right due to prior slave status. Although the fight for women’s rights in the United States had begun on July 19, 1848, with the Seneca Falls Convention, the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote wasn’t passed by Congress and the States until 1920. This bunny hopes we don’t slide back to those dark old days when women were without a voice or agency.
The best way we can do this is to make sure our children attend school. Send your bunnies with food in their tummies, and please apply for free breakfast if food is short at home. When we work, we pay taxes into the great pot, so when we fall on hard times, we’ve already paid for the help we need. We’ll be paying taxes again once we get back on our feet. This will fill the “need bucket” once more for others. There’s no shame in this. Our little bunny babies learn better when they aren’t hungry. Every bunny deserves the best chance at a good education, for it’s the meal ticket to a better life.
Sharks aren’t in the shallow water
Until September, stay cool, stay hydrated, and watch out for SHARKS!
It’s summertime and nobody wants to cook when the weather gets both humid and hot. I visited Arizona one summer and nearly died from the heat. Everyone kept telling me, “But it’s a dry heat!”
I replied, “So’s my oven!”
Spinach Tomato Quiche with Whole Wheat and Almond Flour Crust
There’s no way anyone can talk me into thinking any temperature over 95F is comfortable. Actually, temperatures over 85F are beyond my comfort zone ever since I had my brush with heat exhaustion while teaching art in an unaircondirioned shotgun shack back in Louisiana. I grew up before the days of air conditioning, so I remember puddling in my own sweat as I moseyed slowly from place to place. In the vacation months, we planned our excursions according to the amount of shade available, even if it meant a longer journey. And we always started out early in the cool of the morning. When I was in high school, pep squad, band, and football all finished practicing before 8 AM. By 10 AM we were barely moving, having found a shady spot for the quieter games requiring less action. As a child, cloud spotting and naming their images was one of my favorite pastimes of summer. Playing in the sprinkler was a close second. In fact, my good memories of childhood outweigh any bad ones I may have had.
Original Broccoli Cheese Quote
This quiche is a variation on the broccoli cheese quiche I’ve posted before. As in my art studio, I like to be creative. I reason if the ingredients are similar in form, then they’re replaceable in a recipe. If one is more liquid than another, the cook time may need increasing, but that’s not a problem, just another consideration. We can overcome these variations with a little creative thought. There are no insurmountable hurdles.
Spinach and Asparagus Quiche
I made this spinach and tomato quiche earlier in the week, in anticipation of high heat factors coming down the pike. I like to cook when I’m stressed, since it’s a form of meditation and self care at the same time. I also like to cook comfort foods but make them healthier at the same time. I used to self medicate with food, but I’ve pretty much broken that habit. I have stashes of chocolate that can go untouched for months. My ice cream purchases now are pints, not half gallons, plus I have to scrape off ice crystals to get to the good stuff when I consume my treat.
Serving Size 1/8 Pie
My guess is retirement has something to do with this! During my active years, I was never sure when I would be home to eat on a proper schedule. I also was expected to attend multiple potlucks at which I had no control over the food preparation or offerings. Clergy are the only professionals who get fed nearly every time there’s a meeting. Your dentist, physician, barber, beautician, or lawyer doesn’t snack you up when you have an encounter with them. Now that I prepare my own food, I have healthier metabolic readings.
I still feel a calling to share what I’ve learned over these years of pursuing a healthier lifestyle. There’s no swift fix to a problem we’ve practiced over a lifetime. That’s magical thinking, as if a special potion could give us special powers or a desired outcome. We also engage in magical thinking when we attribute the woes and benefits of our economy to just one individual, the president in power, even though many and varied are the individuals and sources of input to the health of our economy.
Twinkie Dust isn’t going to make the widgets fly off the shelf.
Of course, magical thinking is supposed to be a characteristic of childhood, which should fade by the time logic and reason take over, around the age of 13. Maybe this explains the $75 Billion Americans are projected to spend in 2022 to get rid of their pandemic pounds. They buy special foods, or invest in pills of unknown provenance. Of course, $75 Billion would buy lots of fresh foods ($226 per person or $902 for a family of 4). Or it could buy some help in the kitchen, but lots of people are looking at recipes with 25 ingredients and hours of chopping. This recipe has 10 ingredients, but you could omit the Muenster cheese and add another ¼ cup of ricotta. It takes an hour, but 30 to 40 minutes of this time is waiting for the quiche to bake. I call this family time, or relaxing time. Don’t nap time, however, or you could overcook dinner!
Processed food is the source of most of our salt intake
Another reason to cook is we can control the ingredients for our own health and taste. I had leftovers several days in a row, so my salt sensitive body showed some swelling. If you have trouble with that, omit the extra salt or use less ricotta. I chose to eat mine as cooked and have a week to clear it out of my system before I see my doctor for a checkup.
I also cook to have a connection with my food. I shop for it, making my recipes seasonal to take advantage of foods which are on special price due to their abundance. Shopping also connects me to my community, for when I’m present in the aisles of my local grocery, I can assist the very short grandmother get her coffee from the upper shelf. God always provides a taller helper in our time of need. Someone is always around to help me when I need a longer arm.
Who could say NO to these eyes?
Cooking slows us down. We need to do this more often, even if only on a special day in the week. We hurry far too much, thereby treating our bodies as machines, which are disposable. We use them up and throw them away. No wonder we often treat others as means to an end, for they’re mere tools to be used for our benefit. If we treated them with love and care, taking time to feed and nourish them, we’d respect them more.
The homemade pie crust takes about 20 minutes total, including the pre baking. You prepare the quiche while the crust is in the oven. Then you cook for another 30 minutes or until the egg and cheese mix is set. The whole takes an hour. I suggest having an iced tea or other beverage with conversation while you wait for the meal to bake. Once you get this crust down, you have the makings for a healthier cheesecake.
Healthier Cheesecake, still has yum factor.
I eat ¼ of pie for a fully satisfied meal, or you could have 1/8 and a large salad. It depends on whether you want a high protein meal or a balanced carbohydrates and protein meal. The best way to reheat leftovers, if you have any, is to cut into individual servings, place them on parchment paper in a cold oven, and turn oven to 350F. Set your timer for 30 minutes. They will be gently heated and not toughened. Don’t microwave.
Joy, peace, and quiche,
Cornie
SPINACH TOMATO QUICHE WITH WHOLE WHEAT AND ALMOND FLOUR CRUST Preheat your oven to 350 F while you make the crust.
Sift together the dry ingredients: Bob’s Whole wheat flour ½ cup 280 calories Bob’s Almond flour ¼ cup (4 Tbs) 160 calories Sea salt 1/8 tsp 211 mg sodium
Cut into slices the cold fat and work with a knife or fork into the flours until the mix has the texture of a coarse corn meal. Land O Lakes Unsalted Butter 4 Tablespoons 400 calories
Next add the ICE water. Not tap water! Amount depends on how much it takes to get dough to adhere into a ball. Water 4 to 6 Tablespoons of ice water
Roll out on a lightly floured parchment paper to a round disk slightly larger than the pie pan. Set pan upside down on the pastry. Grab the edges of the paper and turn. Slowly release the paper and push pastry into dish. Trim edges. Use scraps to mend tears, if any. Cook for 10 minutes in preheated 350F oven while you assemble the following quiche mixture.
Beat together Large eggs 6 well beaten (420 calories) with spices of your choice. I used rosemary garlic blend. Add 2 servings = ½ cup simple truth organic ricotta cheese to eggs and mix well (180 calories) Layer pre washed Baby Spinach 6 oz in pre baked pie crust (42 calories) Pour the beaten egg and cheese mixture over it Cut 6 oz grape tomatoes and arrange cut side up around the outer edge of the pie in two rows (60 calories) Add 2 slices of Muenster cheese in the center 2 oz (206 calories)
Put pie into 350 F preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the egg mix is set. Check at 30 minutes, and if the crust or spinach is browning, tent a piece of foil over the whole, but don’t seal up the quiche.
Take out and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving. ENJOY.
When I turned 40, my brother covered my office desk with dying plants and black balloons in honor of my “Going Over the Hill” in style. He did remind me not to return the favor in two years when he reached the same milestone. That’s what I get for being the oldest: I get to put up with little brothers.
The decades were bad enough, but billions of seconds?
Baby Boomers have always been a big demographic: we wrote the book on youth movements, reimagined “middle age” by pushing it an entire decade into the future, and now are rewriting retirement. We’ll also be the largest group ever to enter our twilight years, or experience cognitive impairment. Of course the generations behind us all say, “Hold my beer. None of us will ever SEE retirement, what with college loans and mortgages being like they are.” I nod my head, having said the same thing when I was their age.
With the aging of the ‘baby boom’ population and the high costs of providing health care for many cognitively impaired individuals, the next decades are going to be imperative to develop interventions to delay and/or blunt the age‐related development of cognitive impairments. Indeed, without effective intervention or treatment, the prevalence of dementia worldwide could exceed 135 million individuals by the year 2050. The United States alone will have 13 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias at a cost of $1 trillion dollars. And you thought climate change was a pressing problem.
In my years of ministry, I’ve known many older people who were dealing with the progressive decline of the various dementias we humans have to suffer. I knew one man who was a brilliant scholar, top of his field, and a leader in his community. We “came a caroling” one Christmas season, and the disturbance from his routine upset him so much, his wife had to place him in a special care home to get him settled down again. None of us, his wife included, thought he’d have this response to our seasonal attempt at good cheer.
I knew another gentleman who would drive around town until he remembered where he was going. He’d get lost going to the grocery, the church, or the barber shop. A woman in another town would drive down the middle of the road on the yellow stripe. Everyone knew her vehicle and pulled over to let her go past. Her grown kids didn’t take the keys away until the insurance company canceled her after multiple accidents in one year.
My dad was afflicted with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, both of which affect cognitive functioning. Often he saw people who weren’t there. I would find him standing at the front door. When I asked why he was there, he’d reply, “That Chinaman doesn’t want to leave.”
“Is that all? Let’s just open the door and let him go on his way.” I’d open and close the front door, then I’d say to my daddy, “We can go back now. He’s gone.” Compassion is a must when your loved one’s mind doesn’t work in the same way as it used to.
Diabetes, both recognized and undiagnosed, is a contributing factor to cognitive decline. Today, an estimated 37.3 million U.S. residents have diabetes, including about 8.5 million who have not been diagnosed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, about 96 million American adults have prediabetes, meaning they are on the cusp of having full-fledged diabetes. Some have said diabetes is a precursor disease to Alzheimer’s Disease, since insulin dysregulation affects the materials which clog the brain in dementia.
Insulin Resistance and Inflammation are at the center of the two overlapping disease burdens of our age
In older people with Type 2 diabetes, the brain appears to age at an accelerated rate — about 26 percent faster than normal, according to research published in the journal eLife.
Relying on brain scans, brain functioning tests and other data from 20,314 people, ages 50 to 80, the researchers compared neurological changes in those who did and did not have Type 2 diabetes. In both groups, they found declines in executive functions such as working memory, learning and flexible thinking, as well as declines in brain processing speed.
The declines, however, were greater and occurred faster in people with diabetes. Executive functions declined 13 percent more among those with diabetes, and brain processing speed decreased 7 percent more than for those who did not have diabetes, causing earlier cognitive decline than seen with normal aging. In a Religious Order Study, those who had diabetes had a 65% increase in the risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease compared with those without diabetes mellitus.
Use it or lose it. Staying sharp is the key to independence.
As I age upwards, I consider daily whether my brain has gone to Pluto for a short diversion, or an extended vacation. I’m getting closer to my parents’ life spans, but I’ve had better medical care and nutrition than they did. I also didn’t go through the Great Depression, an experience that would negatively affect anyone. I have led a stressful life, given my occupations, however.
Nevertheless, I was always good about sleep. I wasn’t so good about my food choices, having never met a doughnut I didn’t want to devour, but now I’m all in on this healthy food choice habit. My doctors have made me a believer. Exercise, a good habit of my youth, I’ve now come to appreciate once again. I identify it now as any movement that gets me on my feet and moving, so even vacuuming can count. One of these days, I’ll be old enough that lifting a coffee cup will count as exercise if I’m standing up.
The average adult needs 7 hours of sleep each night.
Studies have shown while the brain deteriorates and degrades when we engage in unhealthy behaviors, it also can be enhanced by participation in healthy behaviors. A sedentary lifestyle and the ‘Western’ style dietary pattern, characterised by high intake of red meat, saturated fat, and refined carbohydrates, increases the risk for cognitive impairment as well as a wide variety of chronic diseases. On the other hand, physical activity and following a Mediterranean style dietary pattern are two lifestyle behaviors known to promote and support the brain’s structural integrity and function. We call this ‘brain health’.
Exercise may prevent age‐related deterioration of cognitive and brain function and reduce age‐related brain atrophy (loss). People who maintained regular physical activity show a lower incidence of cognitive impairment, depression and dementia. Regular exercise also helps decrease inflammation, and improves insulin resistance and general metabolic conditions.
Consequences of the Seated Life
When we retire, if we take to sitting and surfing the internet or the television, our couch potato life will be shortened. Engaging in regular cognitive activity helps to ward off dementia by exercising the frontal cortex, or the decision making part of the brain. Even more successful are activities done in a social group. Maybe “getting out and about” has something to do with keeping our brain cells perking.
The Nun Study (not the Nun’s Story) found that nuns whose diaries revealed greater time spent in reading, writing, and other intellectual activities had a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease than their less academic counterparts. Another study found increased time spent reading, playing board games, and doing puzzles is associated with a reduction in dementia as diagnosed by neurological and neuropsychological exams.
Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story
Another way we can modify our lifestyle is by diet. If we want a different outcome, we have to change our behavior. We don’t get to do the same old things and expect a miracle. Along with physical and cognitive activity, choosing a healthy food plan is a third lifestyle factor linked to overall brain health and attenuated cognitive decline.
One diet in particular, the Mediterranean Diet, is characterized by high intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, fish, nuts, and olive oil. It’s received particular attention in the literature because adherence to this diet has evidence in both epidemiological studies and clinical trials. The Mediterranean Diet shows reduced risk for developing cancer, metabolic syndrome, and vascular disease as well as lower incidence of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.
Four veggies and 4 oz lean chicken is a typical Mediterranean diet plan for supper
Results from the Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMED) study showed that risk of stroke – a major risk factor for cognitive impairment – was reduced by 46% during the 4.8 year follow‐up period (median follow‐up time) in participants who followed a Mediterranean style dietary pattern including 30 g daily of mixed nuts (7.5 g hazelnuts, 7.5 g almonds, 15 g walnuts).
In addition, in a subsample of the participants that were tested for neuropsychological function, higher intakes of olive oil, coffee, walnuts, and wine were associated with better global cognition and memory function, with walnuts in particular linked to better working memory function.
Almonds, mixed berries, and Greek yogurt
Berry fruits are another example of food high in polyphenols shown to contribute towards brain health and preserve cognitive function in ageing. Impressively, a large epidemiological study concluded that high consumption of berry fruits such as blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries – rich in anthocyanin polyphenols – actually delayed cognitive ageing by 2.5 years.
The conclusion is the older adult brain retains its capacity for plasticity, and a triad of healthy behaviors is a likely key to maintaining this fundamental neural property. We can build up a reserve through physical and cognitive activities and by adhering to a diet rich in healthy fats and plant phytochemicals so we don’t see the earlier clinical manifestations of ageing and neurodegenerative disease.
If we adopt a brain health‐promoting lifestyle, we may even improve current cognition function, as well as attenuate any decline, in addition to preventing the development of other age‐related diseases. Remember, the most promising effects on cognitive performance were found when physical and cognitive activities were combined. If we added the Mediterranean Diet as a third leg to the stool, the whole would stand firmly.
Drink a little coffee or tea daily in the morning
As a parting encouragement from Cornie’s Kitchen, I remind you, it’s never too late to start. Perhaps your journey will be slower and more hesitant, and if you’re already impaired, you may not see great changes. Then again, you may not see more degradation, and that would be a plus in your life. The Mediterranean Diet is a healthy diet for most people, if you keep it within an appropriate calorie allowance. (Also, just because it allows wine doesn’t mean you get to drink the whole bottle by yourself. Portion control, people!)
Forward into the Future
So we go into the future, one day at a time, always hopeful, for as it’s written in 1 Corinthians 2:9— “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
Arvanitakis Z, Wilson RS, Bienias JL, Evans DA, Bennett DA. Diabetes Mellitus and Risk of Alzheimer Disease and Decline in Cognitive Function. Arch Neurol. 2004;61(5):661–666. doi:10.1001/archneur.61.5.661 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/785863
Cornie's Kitchen 