TOFU FU FU

My husband does not eat vegetables he cannot spell; his favorites are corn, peas, beets, and beans.

He will not touch cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, or cabbage. 

He grimaces at the sight of tomato, cucumber, and carrots, and throws up a little in his mouth at the sight of kale, chard, spinach, turnip or collard greens.

Reminding him that Popeye ate spinach and grew huge muscles as a result does not make him crave good vegetables.

I knew the kids would rat me out, so I waited until they left home before I manufactured methods to add healthy vegetables to his diet.

Each day I threw a vegetable into the blender to liquify or puree it so I could add it to a dinner entree. I stuffed green broccoli goup into a whole baked chicken, mashed yellow squash into meat loaf, or added carrot puree to macaroni and cheese, his favorite.

Wild rice with ground beef or chicken or shrimp mixed with finely chopped green beans stuffed into a green or red or yellow bell pepper made his mouth water.

On days he ticked me off, I peeled a radish or diced a turnip and just threw it into whatever I was serving. The white color was remarkably unnoticable.

One year at Thanksgiving, a neighbor sent over leftover tofu turkey. Delicious! I explained to LB that tofu absorbed the flavors of other foods and spices and that the soy content was very healthy. He made me promise never to serve a tofu turkey. And I
didn't . . . make a tofu turkey, that is. I just added it to stuff.

I added a bit of tofu to sauce or heavy gravy such as spaghetti sauce or roux. Casseroles have indistinguishable ingredients, so the addition of tofu makes perfect culinary sense.

Today I served ground beef and pork meatballs embedded with eggplant in a thick tofu spahetti sauce. Remarkably tasty.

At dinner tonight, I watched carefully as he took his first bite. He remarked how much he loved the chunks of cheese in the spaghetti sauce.

I think that, given the efforts I make to ensure my husband has a healthy diet, I should never suffer recriminations for my creative culinary experiences.

Remember the saying, "Good food, good wine, and a bad girl."

BAD TEACHER

BAD TEACHER Elizabeth, [Cameron Diaz] is a hoot. Trash talking, potsmoking, inappropriate, and sexed up Elizabeth with a rockin hot body [her words] becomes a teacher when her wealthy boyfriend dumps her. Every sound, cookie-cutter educational practice is satirized when she shows movies every day [egads!], keeps pot hidden in a drawer with a secret bottom in her desk, and sneaks sips from a flask as her students watch movies about great teachers [Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me]. Plenty of irony in that.

She sees Justin Timberlake, a rich colleague, as her ticket out. A woman without a conscience, she breaks every rule imaginable. She hosts a school car wash to acquire cash to pay for a ta-ta enhancement. The car wash generates $7,000, mainly because she wears Daisy Dukes and a skin tight top and uses some pretty provocative car washing techniques to lure customers. Mostly men show up, and a police officer crashes his vehicle into a parked car when he spots her.

This movie will not stimulate your intellect, but you will laugh so hard you'll have side stitches. If you are an educator, you'll love it because we all have known teachers like her, and she will enhance your view of yourself as a good teacher.

The rest of you who have no idea how the teaching profession is populated by teachers like her will be entertained by this low comedy.

Remember you out there who denigrate this movie, taste and humor are subjective.

SWAMP PEOPLE

"Shoot him Lizbeth!"

SWAMP PEOPLE on the History Channel is my new favorite show starring my Louisiana relatives Troy and Elizabeth.

Hunting for alligators near Pierre Part in the bayous and the basin is a lucrative occupation for them and for other Cajun fishermen.

I am learning the ABC's of handling and hiding bait, navigating the treacherous waters in a skiff, and using a big a-- gun to shoot gators in the head. Tagging them is the easy part. Lifting a 1,000 pound gator into a small boat takes a real man . . . or woman.

I admire Elizabeth. I would love to have her autograph my alligator handbag. Who knows. It might have been fashioned with skin from a gator she shot. As a favor, I am sending my Romanian esthetician to wax her face.

SHOPPER ALERT

As I left Jazzercise yesterday morning, I noticed a new store located in the old Kroger/Steinmart shopping center on Sandy Plains and 92. I was dripping wet, and my hair was matted to my head, but I felt I needed to be rewarded from that strenuous hour of dancing in the 105 degree  heat index.

The manager explained to me that he and his wife attended clothing shows all over the U.S. and that he sold new and donated merchandise. Sales from the donated merchandise are donated to the non-profit FULFILLING DREAMS, INC located in Marietta.

Of course I was in my ME [mois] mode, so I rifled through the neatly organized racks of women's clothing in this small, simple boutique. Many of the items looked like they would fit Mary Kay Olsen, that anorexic, sunken-eyed Hollywood actress. I needed something that would fit a voluptuous woman. Uh huh.

BINGO! I ripped, from the rack, a Michael Kors black cotton sleeveless top decorated with real leather belt buckles on the shoulders. Retail $98, store price $18. Excited beyond words, I moved on to another rack where I found a cute yellow INC tank top bedazzled on the front. Retail: $105, price $20. My total purchases $38. I know my designer brands, and those two purchases were pheeeenominal! Is this place retail heaven or what?

Why am I going against my best shopping instincts to publicize my new-found outlet store? Because the store is named TRINITY, an allusion to the Blessed Trinity, and I am Catholic. And God and the most holy Saints in Heaven want me and all my friends to shop there.

SING YOU HOME Jodi Picoult

Have you ever read a book so compelling that you wanted to hug it and discuss it with every friend or enemy who also read it? I have read every one of Picoult's novels. This is her best.

"Music soothes the savage soul." 

I don't remember who first coined this phrase, but I recalled it as I read about Zoe Baxter, a music therapist who tries very hard to reconcile herself to a failed marriage, tough decisions about parenthood, and struggles with patients and families who doubt the effectiveness of music as a healing force.

Jodi Picoult, again, addresses a controversial and politically divisive subject. She explores the definition of family and the legal and moral issues associated with the concept of this phenomenon in our modern culture.

I could not put this book down. I read it on the trip home from Florida and recommended it to friends after I explained the issues Picoult addresses in her newest novel. Read it with an open mind.

JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE?

JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? Facing the Truth About the American Voter

Democrats and Republicans blame each other for wrong political decisions, but one thing they agree on is the state of the American voter.

Shenckman blames voters for their lack of knowlege about the world, their dumbed down perception of the political scene, and their lack of interest in the issues facing our nation.

Shenckman illustrated the illusion Americans had that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and the consequences of that myth. WMD became an everday term as the public believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Voters believed President Bush's claim that Saddam's nuclear program threatened America, despite the Department of Energy and the "UN International Atomic Energy Commission's" claims to the contrary (5). Other national agencies promoted the same information, but the public remained unaware. Americans knew little about the isolation of our country. The planned invasion of Iraq gained more criticism than support from many other nations, some allies, who denounced Bush and the United States.

Schenkman notes that "if Americans cannot think straight about events of the magnitude of 9/11 and the Iraq War, what can they think straight about?" (6)

The chapter GROSS IGNORANCE laments the fact that television sound bites have replaced informative media such as newspapers and news magazines. Few Americans can locate Iraq or Afghanistan on a map, and only 20% of Americans hold a passport. "Americans are vastly inferior in their knowlege of world geography as compared with Europeans" (18). 

A recent poll revealed that 49% of Americans could not name the cities where the first atomic bomb was dropped or who said,"Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev." Watch David Letterman or Jay Leno's street interviews with Americans. Unbelieveable. Makes you wonder what information they use when voting in national elections.

Forty three per cent of Americans pay no income tax-65.5 million people (Tax Policy Center). They skip the April 15th race to the post office to send a check because they expect the government to send them a check.

Schenkman notes the manipulation of voters by the media and by politicians. He cites the example of the famous Nixon-Kennedy debate where Kennedy won a landslide.

Kennedy's people had the thermostat pushed up so Nixon would sweat as he was prone to do. Kennedy remained cool.

Kennedy wore a blue shirt which enhanced his visual appearance on black and white television, while Nixon's white shirt made him look tired and pale. Kennedy looked tanned.

Nixon shifted from foot to foot because of pain in his knee from a recent surgery whike Kennedy remained steadfast and poised. After that debate, Nixon put his best television and publicity people to advise and prepare him for his next appearance.

It is no coincidence that Bush manipulated the American voter by his rugged cowboy persona, bragging that he made C's at Yale, and pictures of his Texas ranch and the bar-b-ques and cowboys. That stuff endeared him to the populace. Branding has become a political pasttime.

Reagan told a group of students, "You'd be surprised how much being a good actor pays off in politics."  Hilary cried real tears in the New Hampshire primary, and Bill played sax on the Arsenio Hall show. 

Cable news shows concentrate on the sensational rather than on vital issues facing our nation. A young girls is supposedly murdered and her body unrecovered on a Caribbean island. Casey Anthony's trial is the latest media phenomenon. Reality tv mops up on the ratings. News shows lack audiences who are mesmerized by sitcoms, reality tv, and movies.

That great philosopher Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does."

Shenkman posits that Americans are dumb by choice. His final statement, "We can have a country of smart voters."

Very interesting reader, no matter your political stance.

My Player Piano

I love Big Lots! Did I mention that I love Big Lots? Last visit to Big Lots, I noticed a sign next door reading BARGAIN BOUTIQUE. Never one to ignore a bargain, I braced myself for a marathon shopping spree.

The owner told me this store was a non-profit dedicated to Battered Women. All of the irems were donated, some used, some new. All the more reason to drop some big bills here. I felt empowered.

I found a porcelain leopard-themed bathroom set, a silver antique hand mirror, and a bone china ONLY A ROSE tea set made in England. Elation city!

THEN . . . I spotted a piano. As I walked over to inspect it, the owner told me she researched it, and it was a Louis XV player piano crafted in 1926 that was donated two days ago by a very wealthy Cumming resident.

The piano was magnificent! The keys looked good, but I could tell it needed to be tuned. I opened the top and read THE MATCHESS PIANO COMPANY, Philadelphia, PA USA. The mahogany finish was stunning.

I called Larry to leave his precious boat to see this work of art. He mumbled,"Last month French classes, this month a piano." I ignored that comment and asked him to rush over to the store. He handed over the $1,000, and thrilled, I vowed not to spend another cent on what he calls my WANT NOT NEEDED items for a time.

Larry hired movers to transport it the 50 miles from Cumming. These guys wrestled it into my living room and told me it weighed 700 pounds. For real.

On Monday I called Inzler Piano Company in Lawrenceville. The piano guy told me he had calls in Marietta today and would come over to look at my piano. When he arrived, he lifted and slid doors and compartments to look at every possible part of this amazing machine. After the inspection, he asked me to sit, and he began this discourse.

"Ma'am, do you know anything about player pianos? Did you inspect it before you bought it? I cannot tell you how many times I have inspected player pianos that people have forked over thousands of dollars, and I have to tell them will serve as a nice piece of furniture. After the shock wears off, they sometimes get angry with me."

I thought a minute before I spoke. "Do you have any good news for me? My husband has an elephant's memory. He will remind me about this silly purchase until the day I die."

"As a matter of fact, I do. Someone spent $15,000 to $20,000 restoring this piano. The structure, finish, keys, parts are all in spectacular condition. This  piano was built in 1926. The parts are no longer available, so damaged or worn out parts must be rebuilt; therefore, the enormous cost. All I have to do is tune it. You must have had an angel on your shoulder when you found this piano."

I about fell off my chair. He turned on the player, and as I watched the piano roll turn, the keys jumped to life, and old show tunes reverberated throughout the house. He showed me how to work the mechanisms, knobs, and how to load the piano rolls. He told me that the QRS piano roll company was still in business, and I could find it on Google. He turned off the player, sat there and played beautifully. I sang along to TEA FOR TWO. I was mesmerized, relieved, and excited.

I called Larry to tell him the good news. He drove home from his office because he wanted to hear the words from the mouth of the expert. He looked at me and said, "You done good, Baby!"

I so wanted to tell him that was an incorrect verb tense.