R is for recipe.

Today's recipe for cooking class is peas in roux. If you are what you eat, that makes me, and this recipe, cheap, quick, and easy.

Make a roux. That means mix about equal amounts of flour and fat (using a bit more fat than flour helps it not stick at all) -- bacon grease is a favorite, butter is good, canola oil is virtuous, and burn the flour in the fat slowly, very slowly.

Saute some chopped onion in the roux.

Sprinkle some sugar over it, stir and cook for a moment, and add a couple of cans of peas, some creole seasoning or tabasco or whatever you like, and salt and pepper.

Cook down a bit, and serve over rice. A complete protein meal.

#2 Son will be cooking dinner tonight, or so he says.

He wants to try a new recipe, something about Chinese dumplings, and he wants to do it totally by himself.

If nothing else, this should prove interesting. And heaven help my kitchen. If he is like his father, I will come home to an explosion to which he will casually say, "I cooked, I shouldn't have to clean also." If I took that attitude...

Ah, never mind. Pass the soy sauce. (And thank heaven for the fish sticks in the freezer that I keep for backup!)


Today is:

Andorra National Day

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin -- Catholic Christian

Feast of Papa-Lea (god of Kava Drinking)

Independence Day, Guinea-Bissau

International Literacy Day

National Date Nut Bread Day

National Pardon Day

One World Festival, NY

Sheriff's Ride Ceremony, Lichfield, UK

St. Adrian's Day (patron of arms dealers, butchers, prison guards)

World Physical Therapy Day


Birthdays Today:

Frankie Avalon, 1940
Guitar Sorty, 1939
Patsy Cline, 1932
Peter Sellers, 1925
Sid Caesar, 1922
Claude Pepper, 1900
Antonin Leopold Dvorak, 1841
Richard I (Lionheart), 1157


Today in History:

Michaelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence, 1504
Juan de Elcano, Spanish navigator, returns to Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the globe which began under Magellan, 1522
St. Augustine, FL, becomes the first permanent European settlement of the New World, 1565
The US "Pledge of Allegiance" makes its first appearance in print, in the Youth's Companion, 1892
Galveston, TX, is struck by a hurricane and tidal surge that kill 6,000, 1900
First appearance of the comic strip "Blondie", 1930

I feel like my days are getting longer, yet less productive.

Co-op starts this week, and the only thing I have come up with for a quick first lesson is how to "marble" a home baked cake and make a very delicious frosting that is simple and that everyone likes.

I want the first lesson to be that simple, so we can spend some of the class talking about what they want to learn to cook this semester.

I cook so much that everything seems stale to me.

If they come up with things they want to learn, maybe having to teach it will make it seem fresher in my eyes.

That, or I'm just an old crank, which is likely.

Either way, marble cake on Tuesday, with a simple hot icing that is quick to make, spreads easily and sets right up, and I know they will want to eat cake.

In fact, let them eat cake. Even if I don't feel much like a queen.


Today is:

Day of Nemesea -- Old Roman Goddess Nemesis defender of the relics and

memory of the dead from insults

Festival of Fire

Ganesha Chaturthi -- Hindu (Festival of the Elephant God)

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its

Abolition

Kirvis, Lithuania (Harvest Festival)

National Plumber's Day

National Spongecake Day

Permanent Press Day

Ride the Wind Day

Romania Liberation Day

Schuetzenfest (German Hunter's Festival)

St. Apolinaris' Day

St. Rose of Lima's Day (Patron Saint of Peru, Central and South America,

the Philippines, florists, and gardeners)

Valentino Day

Vertumnalia -- Old Roman God of the Change of Seasons


Birthdays Today:

Kobe Bryant, 1978
River Phoenix, 1970
Shelley Long, 1949
Barbara Eden, 1934
Mark Russel, 1932
Vera Miles, 1930
Gene Kelly, 1912
Louis XVI, 1754


Today in History:

On the feast of Vulcan, Roman god of fire, Mt. Vesuvius begins to rumble, 79
Visigoths storm Rome, 410
Edward I executes William Wallace, Scottish patriot, for high treason, 1305
Rabbi Joseph Caro completes his commentary of Tur Code, 1542
The first one-way streets open in London, 1617
Steamship service begins on the Great Lakes, 1818
Mexico declares its independence, 1821
Great Britian abolishes slavery in the colonies, 700,000 slaves are freed, 1833
Automobile tire chain is patented, 1904
Bryan Allan, in a Gossamer Condor, completes the first man-powered flight of one mile, 1977