Tag: chicken

Mirror Mirror on the Wall Father Time You’ve Got Some Gall!

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Father Time You’ve Got Some Gall 

Who loves mirrors? Raise your hands if you think mirrors are your friends?

Funny I think we’re divided down age lines on that one.

When I was young during the American Revolution, I saw the mirror as a necessary evil. One needed to use it to make up, do your hair and ensure that mountainous blemish has succumbed to the clearasil.

As I aged I realized mirrors were slowly becoming a foe. So I was happy that my close up vision allowed for some degree of blurriness while putting on lipstick or eye make up and disguising a bit of the wrinkling that was attacking my skin.

However, as any woman knows it’s impossible to allow the blurry make up thing to continue unless you don’t mind looking like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd. And no I was definitely not ready for my closeup. So we all must admit that sooner or later the old magnifying mirror must enter our life.

And there it stands on the bathroom counter, defying me and showing no mercy. Determined to bring home the reality of what’s going on around my eyes, the puppet lines that are suddenly giving me the appearance of Howdy Doody and a forehead that cries out for Botox.

I often wonder where and who was the first woman to look into a mirror. I did some checking and according to Google, or as I refer to it, my default brain, the earliest known manufactured mirrors, approximately 8000 years old were found in Anatolia in south central modern Turkey. They were made from obsidian (volcanic glass), had a convex surface and with remarkably good optical quality. Is that where the phrase turkey neck was coined?

The mirrors we use today are from Germany 200 years ago. Google says that in 1835, German chemist Justus von Liebig developed a process for applying a thin layer of metallic silver to one side of a pane of clear glass.

I will refrain from any obvious comments about the evil of Germany here. 

So is it the mirror’s fault that a close up of my face is showing more crags than the Rocky Mountains?

Shall I blame a magnifying mirror for the ravages of time?

Yes, I definitely feel that’s the way to go here.

I mean who can I blame, Father Time? Sure, if I could find the old coot I’d kick him in the ass for rushing the years and showing no mercy. But where is he? Where does he hide out? If anyone knows please let me know? In the meantime I feel perfectly comfortable blaming the damn magnifying mirror for my shortcomings.

I didn’t invent the ten times magnification. I could never be that cruel. To enhance a face and make every wrinkle look like the Grand Canyon, who could possibly think this was a good idea? I believe his name is Satan, although he goes by other names.

Ever since my childhood mirrors have gotten a bad rap.

After all everyone knows that the wicked queen used her trusty mirror to verify Snow White’s beauty and the mirror was her ally.

Oops, so the mirror was aligned with evil. Hmmm?

So from the time we are old enough to hear fairy tales we are taught that mirrors aren’t so up and up and can be used to evoke evil intentions.

Still we go through childhood believing they are there to ensure the lipstick falls between our lip line, our hair looks okay in the front and back and our eye make-up is actually placed around our eyes.

We use mirrors constantly, looking and primping and then suddenly the day comes when we are squinting to see. The mirror is suddenly blurry and we can no longer tell if our lipstick is on our lips or heading toward our ears leaving a pink highway along our cheek.

So we are faced with a dilemma. Should we ignore the obvious and simply begin looking like we got dressed in the dark? Or should we put on our big girl pants and go out and buy a magnifying mirror?

At first we start with low magnification like, four or six or seven times. But little by little we are forced to up the ante until we reach the dreaded ten times when suddenly there it all is. Right before our eyes in gigantic proportions.

Suddenly our face looks like a linen skirt we’ve been sitting on in ninety-degree weather for hours.

We tell ourselves it’s the mirror and it’s overblown. Our face doesn’t look like this. Where once my face looked like the Sea of Tranquility it now looks like a crater where a meteor landed. 

So suddenly mirrors present an existential crisis. Do we stop looking in mirrors altogether?

I guess one could live that way. Just make sure if you have spinach for dinner you make someone check your teeth afterward.

Or we could look into a regular mirror and risk putting our eyeshadow on our lips by accident.

Or we could bite the bullet and buy a magnifying mirror. I suppose, the size would depend on how big a masochist one is.

The ten would have to be for those who wish to truly punish themselves.

Maybe a four-times or so might work to at least ensure your make up actually lands on your face.

I have nothing against mirrors, well I kinda do, but it’s not their fault.

I need to go mano a mano with that creep Father Time. I have a feeling he’s hiding inside some women’s wrinkles who avoids mirrors on purpose.

Just wait, you old evil creep till I get my hands on you. I‘ll do such a job on your face, you’ll never be able to look into a mirror again. And then maybe you’ll know how we feel.

Easy Southwestern Salad

This is an easy salad to make and incredibly filling and tasty. It also makes enough to feed a family and most ingredients are already in your pantry or fridge. Enjoy!

I head of lettuce cut up or torn

I tomato cut up

2 fresh avocados 

4 strips of bacon cooked and then cut up

3 hard boiled eggs

1 cup of sweet corn

2 radishes sliced thin

1 heaping cup of shredded Mexican Cheese

tortilla chips or garlic croutons

taco seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

1 /2 cup of mayo

14/ cup of sour cream,

½ teaspoon of cilantro

one lime freshly squeezed or 1 teaspoon of lime juice

Lime Dressing

In a bowl add sour cream, mayo and lime juice with a ½ teaspoon of cilantro and a light sprinkling of salt. Mix until smooth and everything is incorporated. Refrigerate until salad is done.

Salad

Hard boil the eggs and peel and let cool then slice. Cook bacon until crispy and then cut up the lettuce and tomato. 

Place everything but the avocado and tortilla chips or garlic croutons into a large salad bowl and season to taste. Taste as you go as this should be a salad that highlights the fresh ingredients not the seasonings.

Toss lightly with salad dressing then peel and cut up avocados and add to salad. Add chips or croutons just before serving so they remain crispy. 

This salad can be adjusted to taste every easily. If you like salsa you can add it to the dressing it will taste great.  If you want to add shrimp or chicken or steak go for it!

We Need to Watch Blazing Saddles Daily

puffychicken

We Need to Watch Blazing Saddles Daily

“Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one…” Mel Brooks

I was about ten or so and I knew I was the crazy one when my fellow campers nicknamed me Giggles. I was often reminded of this designation by my father’s constant inquiries about my remarks and behavior when he asked, “What are you, some kind of comedian?”

Yep, Dad I guess I was. I learned at a young age that the only escape from the unpleasantness of life was Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason.

My escape always included someone saying or doing something stupidly funny. Milton Berle in a dress, Sid Caesar spouting some outrageous accent, or Jackie Gleason and Art Carney exhibiting their brand of the sublimely ridiculous week after week. Stupid equals funny always worked for me.

“Does anyone of our generation not laugh when they remember Art Carney’s attempt at addressing a golf ball, “Hello, Ball.” Or Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks as the 2000-year-old man or Jack Benny’s alleged stinginess? Perhaps you had your own favorite comedian on The Ed Sullivan Show; Myron Cohen, Richard Pryor, Jackie Mason, Flip Wilson, Jack Carter, Totie Fields, Henny Youngman, Senor Wences, Jack Benny, Godfrey Cambridge, George Burns, Bob Newhart, George Carlin and so many many more.

One could count on little in life except that there would be one of the world’s great comics performing on Ed Sullivan each week.

I’ve been asked countless times why so many Jewish people are comedians and the answer is not all comics are Jewish, perhaps they are just more obvious. Maybe their pain is more palpable than others. While many comics of that era observed the times, Jewish comics observed their own circumstances.

Laughing at their own existence is what made life bearable in a strange new world where so many struggled to feed their families.

For example Melvin Kominsky, AKA Mel Brooks was two years old when his father died leaving his mother with four young boys to feed. She worked tirelessly and suffered for her children and it would be impossible for Mel not to have been affected by his mother’s plight.

So many young Jewish comedians of that era found their release in laughter.

I can’t honestly remember any Rockefellers or Carnegie’s stepping on stage to tell jokes to the masses, can you? Not too many comedy clubs in Newport or Palm Beach back then.

Humor comes from pain and the greater the suffering the higher form the humor.

There is a legacy of suffering in Europe and throughout time that has forced Jewish people to look toward laughter to lighten their load. Humor is one of life’s greatest gifts that can be had for free.

The ability to destroy one’s enemies with a joke is an art that has been cultivated for centuries by Jewish and all people and must continue to be embraced in these harrowing times.

I won’t even get into the fact that anti-Semitism has had a great resurgence, suffice it to say we need our senses of humor now more than ever.

Yet, that is the conundrum we now face as a people.

The Jewish people have throughout time been credited for two healing discoveries aside from their other numerous accomplishments, chicken soup AKA Jewish penicillin and their sense of humor. I’m willing to bet the king’s jesters were the Cohens and Goldbergs in the kingdoms.

If nothing else the Jewish people discovered that laughter is the best coping and defense mechanism and have honed comedy as a method of survival. Sadly, today many lack understanding of the power of humor to heal and restore.

Great comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and others have lamented the fact they can no longer work on college campuses because young people are too politically correct and according to Jerry, “Don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

This lack of a sense of humor and understanding the true essence of how to do funny has been seriously corrupted.

Today too many comics bring the mean in lieu of the mirth. There is an art to humor and just insults and mean spirited attacks do not “bring the funny” but only add to the anger filling up space. There is a way to punch a hole in what one feels compelled to destroy and letting the air out of a negative balloon.

Being critical and destructive is no substitute for humor. There is a path to hilarity in every unhappy situation in the human condition and true comedians can find and exploit it with wit and skill.

Despots possess no sense of humor but have honed the art of ridicule. Humor should never emulate criticism laced with cruelty and far too many comic posers can no longer discern the difference.

Aside from Mel Brooks, one of the comedians capable of taking someone to the distant outposts of discomfort is Larry David.

Yes, some of Larry’s humor can make you squirm, but if you get his joke it can also make you laugh harder than anything. Great humor must occasionally broach thorny subjects to achieve its goals, but without that bravery humor is only a superficial laugh and no more.

Great jokes dig deep down into your soul where pain lives and exorcise that ache to rid it from your life.

At times winning a war is not always enough to destroy residual pain.

Case in point, “Springtime for Hitler.” Come on, is there anything funnier than a bunch of Nazis singing and dancing about their attempts to take over the world with chorus girls dressed as beer and pretzels? Mel Brooks is the master at doing Hitler but he is not alone.

Charlie Chaplin created the little tramp character to imitate the most evil man on the planet and reduce him to an object of ridicule, and he succeeded beautifully.

Laughing at or mimicking someone plunges a knife into their bubble of evil and contempt  puncturing the harmful effects and deflating the injury.

No one can be taken seriously when we are doubled up with laughter at his antics. Not too hard to figure out why becoming the class clown was preferable to becoming the class punching bag.

That’s why kids today miss the point. They mistakenly believe that by not mentioning it they can destroy the bugaboo. They are patently wrong. Hate cannot be eradicated by ignoring or legislating it out of existence.

If there is one thing I’ve noticed over the years it’s that comedy clubs are the great equalizer. People who are laughing together are not shooting one another.

No one screaming in pain at a joke is spouting hateful remarks toward others. Humor creates camaraderie among all people and bonds them in their suffering.

No society can exist without laughter and more than anything else I’m witnessing today that must give one pause is that the lack of humor is palpable. Laughing at our fears diminishes them while anger elevates. Everyone is allowing rage to fill his or her spaces in lieu of hearty laughs.

We need to chuckle together to solve many of the world’s problems, to seek out the tenth crazy among us to entertain with hilarity and we must chill out and let it all go. More than ever it’s imperative comedians bring the mirth not the malicious.

Every laugh lowers the level of hatred and pain, so laugh your asses off daily and encourage everyone else you know to do the same.

Watch Blazing Saddles, The Producers or your favorite comedy or comic and roar hysterically until you’re writhing in pain. If you do this I guarantee you’ll consume less calories and live a far happier and more positive life.

Puffy Chicken Apple Cheddar Bake

6 boneless breasts pounded until thin

Grated cheddar cheese

6 thin apple slices

3 strips of cooked bacon

1 box of puff pastry

Salt and Pepper to taste

½ tsp. Paprika

1 cup of heavy cream

Season chicken and place 1 slice apple, cheese and ½ slice of bacon on top and place inside square of puff pastry. Place egg wash around the square edges and cover with another square. Crimp the edges together with a fork. Brush with melted butter or if you prefer an egg wash and place on cookie sheet and bake according to the package instructions. Before serving pour cheese sauce over the top and sprinkle with grated apples.

Apple Cheese sauce

2 cups of cream

Grated cheddar

Salt and pepper

1 Teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

½ tsp. paprika

Grated apple

Mix together and pour over pastry or serve on the side.

Dueling Doctors; Who to Believe?

chicken

Dueling Doctors: Who to Believe?

My hands screamed up at me chapped and red from washing and cleaning and begged me to stop with the hand sanitizer already. Every day the story changes! Is it living on surfaces or isn’t it? One week no, next week, yes. What’s with these people and why not say we don’t know so just do everything? I am getting more mixed messages here than from the last guy I dated.

Not only do I wear a mask to get the mail in my own lobby, or to pick up a delivery outside my door, but nothing gets inside without being sprayed, wiped and left to sit for days to avoid any live virus germs from escaping and attacking me in my sleep.

I have even toyed with locking my bedroom door in case they can crawl over the floor into the hallway, slip inside and sneak up on me. Can it climb through windows, maybe open doors? How many powers does this thing have? Maybe it should be a new character in the next Avengers movie? It could play the villain with 19 super powers. Maybe the Hulk could take this thing out?

Paranoia gone wild? I think not! They should make a video and film the virus romping on a beach during spring break.

In case you think I’m the only one who is so germ phobic take a look in the mirror at your new designer mask and matching gloves. Now it’s a damn fashion statement. I hear Prada and Chanel are showing a line of masks on the runway and Alexander McQueen is designing plastic body covers next year.

So now that we have all been trained to wear hazmet suits in our homes and check for corona virus germs trying to climb in our windows or be delivered on a food delivery box, we are told maybe they are not as hardy as we were told. Oh, I’m sorry that was yesterday and today they took it back. Guess they’ve been eating their spinach.

Yesterday as I was wiping down every doorknob and light switch in my home I heard the CDC had determined the disease doesn’t live as long as they thought and it takes more than simply passing someone on the other side of street to catch it. Today the germs have recovered their superpowers and are alive and well on every surface of our homes.

So I must ask myself, what’s the truth and if we ease up on worrying and being paranoid will they change their minds again next week. Is it capable of living a hundred years or more and popping back up to say hello from time to time?

I can see it now, the virus laughing and dancing on those surfaces we now feel safe enough to leave unwiped. Sneaking across the floor while we unsuspectedly watch the second season of Shtisel, unaware that the germs are crawling up the sofa legs in pursuit of our unprotected immune system.

So what should we do while we wait for more contradictions?

I’m well aware that scientists and researchers don’t always agree and I know how many people ridiculed and contradicted Jonas Salk on his quest to create the polio vaccine?

He had naysayers and critics galore, yet his persistence paid off and the world was ultimately saved from a disease that scared me as a child even more than corona does now. Public swimming pools were closed to protect children and adults while parents feared taking their kids to crowded places.

I had nightmares about those scary iron lungs and remember the day I received the vaccine in school. We all lined up and one by one we were handed a sugar cube on a paper cupcake holder with pink medicine squirted over the cube, then the nightmares about the iron lungs disappeared.

When scientists are flummoxed it doesn’t help the confidence of the regular people that are afraid to touch their own refrigerator door. Isn’t it enough the calories are lurking out there to attack us as we are held in captivity with junk food calling our name?

So who and what do we believe? I guess since we don’t know, it’s best to proceed with caution. In the meantime I’m cleaning, spraying, masking and holding my breath when I’m not stuffing my face.

Which unfortunately seems to be most of the time lately.

 

Here is my recipe for Garlic Chicken Enjoy!

 

Easy 40 Clove Garlic Chicken

 

4 chicken thighs and 4 drumsticks

40 or so cloves of garlic

1 ½ cups whipping cream

½ stick of butter

1cup chicken bouillon

½ cup white wine

Onion powder

Thyme (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Place chicken and garlic cloves in a roasting pan and season. Add liquids except whipping cream and melt butter and pour over chicken and garlic. Roast it in a 325-degree oven for an hour or until chicken is fully cooked through.

When done, remove chicken from the pan and scoop out pan juices and then add whipping cream and mix together. Taste and if it needs salt you may add more at this point. You may strain sauce if you wish or enjoy the garlic whole.

Smashed Sweet Potatoes

1 large Yam

1 Large Sweet Potato

Salt

3 tablespoons of butter

Peal and cut up potatoes and boil in salted water until fork tender.

Remove from water and add butter and salt to potatoes.

Using a fork mash them gently until smooth but still chunky.

Enjoy with the chicken and sauce.