Little boxes on the hillside

"Little boxes on the hillside,

 Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
 Little boxes on the hillside,
 Little boxes all the same."

             

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Song Lyrics to Little Boxes

This song played through my head when I pulled out these recipe index card boxes.

Four index card boxes

For a long time, before I started a blog for it (Rooms with Windows), I would keep a record of the books I read on 3x5 cards in one of these boxes, alphabetized by title.  At the end of each year I would pull out the cards and transcribe the notes to a spreadsheet to create my annual reading list (can you say "anal retentive?).

Even further back, before my beloved Palm Pilot, I kept the business cards I collected in a couple of these boxes.  I still have a much larger (think, Michael Jordan-size shoe) box full of business cards which I've thought about using to create wallpaper in my office (I know, how geeky-nerdy can I get?).

The green plastic one I picked up at an estate sale.  It's full of recipes, mostly from the 60's and 70's which means "oleo" is an ingredient and there are fifty variations of jello desserts.  I can't imagine why anyone would not want to keep their family recipes, even ones evidencing such an obvious sweet tooth, although maybe diabetes was a contributing factor to the loved one's demise and these would be a bitter reminder.

The Christmas design is a box of recipes from my step mother that she no longer wanted.  There's a story here; recipes written on church bulletins during the potlucks or directions for dishes that may have been a family favorite from her first husband's side of the family.  There a lot of sweet desserts with pineapple and coconut featured prominently.  It makes me think I grew up in an age where sugar addiction was a concerted effort put forth by our home bound mothers.

I've picked out a few recipes to try though I don't know if I'll really get around to it.  At this point in my cooking life I'm pretty confident I can create something edible with not much prompting from a recipe.  I think too that the recipes we collect are more about wanting to emulate the cook than the food she'd prepared.  Maybe her happy family, satisfied husband, or well-groomed children could be replicated if we nourished our family with the same foods.  Then again, maybe recipes represent a burst of enthusiasm for creativity in a daily mundane task that now is either completed unconsciously or omitted entirely.  

These little boxes full of dreams of order and happiness, plans for pleasing and memorable meals are going to Goodwill.

A fallow season

Here at the start of September I'm without a contract for work.  In the meantime, I'm looking for things to purge and found these aluminum drinking glasses.

aluminum drinking glasses

I ordered these many years ago to remind me of my Grandmother Schwab.  See, we went to visit her back East only a couple of times when I was a child, maybe when I was 9 and then again about 12, I'm not sure of the dates.  She lived in the same home on Mansion Street in Coxsackie, NY, which her and my grandfather rented until they died.

Her kitchen always smelled of fresh baked goods.  It had high ceilings and linoleum floors.  There was a woven calendar on the wall and one of those 1950's kitchen tables with the matching armless chairs.
I was given a picture recently of her kitchen at Thanksgiving in 1971, with her and my Uncle Tom.  He passed away last year, the last male Schwab.

 She kept a cookie jar on the counter that always seemed to be full of chocolate chip cookies.We'd have those cookies with ice cold milk out of her brightly colored aluminum drinking glasses.  I'd had a set of the red/blue/green ones similar to hers but they weren't quite the same.  These are the same shape.


I loved my Grandma very much, even though I only saw her in person as a child a few times and then as an adult when I traveled to the East Coast on business occasionally.  She was a "blessed are the meek" person, as my Mom would say, because she was a gentle spirit who would always laugh at my Grandfather's teasing.  My love for her was a reflection of my own Mom's deep love for her.

The glasses are going to Goodwill but the memories remain.

2014 in 2014

What better way to start the new year than with a resolution?  I love new beginnings and the start of a new year is one of my favorites.  In the year 2014 I'm going to get rid of 2014 things.  It sounds like a huge number, 169 or so each month, but I suspect there is enough stuff around here that I can achieve it.

Now, I'm being pretty generous with my counting.  I have at least 50 spools of thread that I can cull and over 200 books that haven't been opened in years.  Each colored pencil that has languished in a drawer will count as an item.  It's not so much the things as the process.  Sort of like "moving in place" and seeing what's left.

I plan to post each month about what goes out the door and share some pictures and stories along the way.

Keep me honest please!

Culinary wish lists - purging cookbooks

When I first got married I was not much of a cook.  My mother had said that we'd do enough of that when we got older so she didn't spend much time teaching us to cook and with 5 kids I don't think she enjoyed it except for baking.  The first "dinner party" I had at our one-room apartment was almost cratered when the spaghetti noodles I'd made turned into one huge lump.  And then there was the time I'd thought I'd make coq au vin only I didn't have any wine and used some whiskey leftover from a friend who came to visit.  Smelled good, but another disaster.

As a young wife and student I figured I'd fix the problem by educating myself - but only through books, no classes that would reveal my ineptitude!  We bought a microwave and a crockpot and the cookbooks that came with them are staying in my collection along with my go-to tome, my trusted Betty Crocker Cookbook that was a wedding shower present I think.  We survived as my then spouse "ate to live" and wasn't interested in pitching in except for breakfast pancakes and occasional grilling.  Then came the weight battles.

See all those "low calorie" gems in the picture?  All efforts on my part to find some way of enjoying food without having it stay on my hips.  There were the "good food" (read, healthy and bland) cookbooks, like the seafood and rice ones.  Needless to say, they are in better shape than the Toll House cookbook and Pillsbury crescent rolls ones. The Richard Simmons cookbook (so annoying) and Low Fat Living (an oxymoron in my mind) were more failed efforts.

Sometime in the 90's I won an award at work and got a trip to Aspen, Colorado for a weekend.  We were wined and dined, toured Barbie Benton's Copper Palace and partied late into the night.  The Aspen cookbook was one of the goodies we were given.  Notice the "Lighter" in the title.

Aphrodite is really a story with lots of recipes by one of my favorite authors, Isabel Allende.  I liked how she reminisced about her life through cooking and eating.  Sort of like what I'm doing here.  

Recently I've been looking for recipe books and boxes and files at estate sales.  I found one that was all desserts and drinks from the 50's through the 70's and after scanning a few of the recipes, I'm shipping it off to a historical gastronomy fan.  

The books in the picture are going off to the trade-in store and what they don't take will go to Goodwill.  At least getting rid of the cookbooks is making me feel lighter already!

Matchbooks and Memories

In my ongoing pursuit of purging my home of clutter I came across a basket full of matchbooks, almost 100 of them.  There’s no reason to keep them, I never smoked although someone used several of them in part or completely.  I collected them when I visited a place I wanted to remember, maybe to come back and visit again with the thought of enjoying another meal or another night’s stay.  Truth is, they were meant to be bits of memory, stored away to be re-visited some lazy afternoon when I wanted to reminisce.  Some are over 30 years old.

There are matchbooks from all the way back to the early 70’s at Paul Shank’s in Scottsdale where I went on my [first] honeymoon; Los Olivos, Sugar Bowl, local restaurants when I was in my 20’s and chain restaurants like Marie Callender’s, Sesame Inn, The Good Egg and Reata Pass Steak House.  Trips I took after graduating from college and before and after having my son to the Silverton Train in Silverton and the La Quinta in Colorado Springs; the Hotel del Coronado where there was a family vacation and the Westin Bonaventure where we went with some church couples in California.  The Royal Hawaiian in Hawaii to celebrate 10 years and the Fabulous Toots Lagoon, the Adobe Inn and Em Le’s in Carmel by the Sea where my son went to tennis camp in California; Wickenburg Inn, John Gardnier’s Enchantment, Las Campanas de los Catalinas, El Dorado and Poco Diablo Resorts, in Arizona for Charro celebrations. 

And then there were the Las Vegas trips; the Alpine Village Restaurant with the train and the pewter serving dishes; Jai Alai at the MGM Grand, the Riviera, the Golden Nugget with its yummy shrimp cocktails, Caesar’s Palace, Luxor, Fremont, Circus Circus, Gold Coast, and the Stardust.

In my 30’s it was Club Mediterranee and the years of living it up; Mancuso’s, Ruth Chris’, Jewel of the Crown and La Chaumiere.  And the travel for work, how I loved to travel; the Millennium Hotel in New York City at the World Trade Center, Le Bor Bat Restaurant, Essex House, Hotel Nikko, Caravela, B Smith’s, Le Parker Meridien, and the Restaurant Francais all in New York.  International travel to the Top of Toronto and Anderson’s Dining in the Creek in Vancouver, Canada; Hotel L’Horset, Hotel Metropole, L’ Alban Chambon Restaurant and Meridien Hotel in France.

Then life took another turn and I was at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort, Doubletree and Registry Resort putting on seminars for geriatricians.  Meeting dates at Marilyn’s First Mexican Restaurant, Ed Debevic’s, Chevy’s, Z’Tejas, Planet Hollywood and Kowabunga.

And here I am now.  Moving on.

Gifting memories

In addition to donating or selling things after recording their meaning to me in this blog, I've begun to look at my possessions and consider them as potential gifts.  I have too much and a gift with a "story" of the memories surrounding it may be more precious to the recipient.  Besides, the story will be lost if I'm not here to share it.

I recently gave as gifts some books - a child's picture book to a grand nephew, a book on rural living to a niece living on an old dairy farm, a coffee table book on Fractals to a sister who's interested in the topic.  I gave away some watches that I haven't worn since I left the corporate rat race to a niece on the edge of jumping into it.  These items will receive more use in their new homes and new memories will be made.

Purging my library

I have a library, I would guess of over 300 books.  I love them.  They have been my companions all my life, with me at every stage, through every life experience.  Many haven't been opened in years yet remind me of who I was, where I've been and how I got here.  Today I started to purge them so that, when I'm gone, someone else won't have to do it.  My book friends and I have been together a long time, some over 35 years and only we know the times we shared.  Here's some that I'm passing on.

From before the 90's
Beyond Freedom and Dignity - B. F. Skinner
Passages - Gail Sheehy
The Closing Circle - Barry Commoner


There's a couple diet books in there too.  The Before 90's collection has the flavor of the decades of ecology, social issues, feminism.  Sigh.

From the 90's - my second childhood
Approaching Zero - Turning Stones - Managing Your Mind - Darwin's Machines - Collapse of Chaos - Beirut to Jerusalem - Being in Dreaming


The collection here shows someone looking for something, different thinking, self-improvement, what the future may hold.




If any of these titles strike your fancy let me know and I'll hold them aside for a little while, maybe the end of the month.  After that, out they go.  Keep in mind these are some that I'm getting rid of.  What remains on the shelf are still a part of me that I can't or don't want to let go of yet.  If you want to know those titles you'll just have to visit me!