What is this lovely mixed grill we have? We have:
Yesterday the Kronk, tomorrow your grandma’s grave: Scrap-metal thieves target grave markers.
The best/worst thing about the internet is, it makes you care about the fates of strangers’ cats. Alas, Waffles didn’t make it. Damn Chows. Damn stupid Chow owners.
And finally, a recipe. This was sent to me from someone who attributes it to her “Michigan cousins.” If you believe, as I do, that recipes are a form of anthropology, well, many things about Michigan will reveal themselves to you in just a few short lines. So enjoy…
Caramel apple salad
1 cup sugar
1 tbs. flour
1 heaping tbs. cornstarch
4 tsp vinegar
2 eggs
1 – 20 oz can crushed pineapple (or tidbits)
Cook until thickens (continue to stir so that it will not burn). Cool completely (if you are in a hurry, place the pan in the freezer and stir periodically to reduce cooling time). Sauce can be made the night before and refrigerated until you’re ready to mix the salad.
Mix with:
5-6 cubed Granny Smith apples
1 cup chopped Snickers candy bars or crushed Heath candy bars or peanuts
1 – 8 oz carton Cool Whip
Cool Whip — the secret weapon of every Midwestern cook’s larder.
deb said on September 25, 2006 at 2:02 pm
i have a similar recipe, minus the snickers, although i think it might involve peanuts. and you know what? it really does taste like caramel apples.
know what you mean about quintessential midwestern recipes. i was well in my 40s before i realized all my favorite potluck dishes featured the same secret ingredient: half a pound of bacon.
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brian stouder said on September 25, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Gosh – by the looks of the recipe for the caramel apple salad, it might be pretty tastey….but I bet the finished dish looks like a bowl of vomit!
See, THAT’s the anthropological part of recipes….what they name the dish
(almost any church carry-in in the bible belt will include a bowl of ‘chocolate sin’, for example)
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Danny said on September 25, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Ummm, you having deja-vu?
Danny Says: September 20th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Here, in San Diego, we had a guy who was stealing bronze grave markers and flower urns. As you might imagine, this really pissed people off. He was caught.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060824/news_7m24prell.html
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mary said on September 25, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Cool Whip has never been in my refrigerator, ever. Brian’s right about the looks of that salad too.
I like those cakes that always show up at potlucks that have holes poked in them to absorb green jello. Cool Whip is part of that recipe somewhere. For me, potlucks mean hauling out the Fannie Farmer cookbook. It’s all good from scratch stuff and it’s not exotic or strange.
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mary said on September 25, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Waffles looks like he was a great cat. My Anna has that coloring and a similar face, and she’s a very sweet one . I never liked Chows, either. They’re fuzzier Akitas, and I really really don’t like Akitas.
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nancy said on September 25, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Yes, Danny, I know you posted that, and thanks. I was just being an echo chamber, dude.
The more I look at Waffles the sadder I get. Spriggy chases cats, too, but because he wants to play with them. (And no, they never want to play with him.) Once I saw him go around a corner and run up to an obviously thousand-year-old cat lying under a tree on our walking route. The cat was too stunned to bolt, and Sprig just touched noses, wagged his butt madly, and sat back for a minute asking, “You want to run around like lunatics?”
The cat maintained its dignity and Spriggy gave up. I’m sure he has a cat massacre buried somewhere in his DNA, but I hope he’s more well-bred than that.
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Danny said on September 25, 2006 at 4:31 pm
HELLO… Hello … hello
😉
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Danny said on September 25, 2006 at 4:59 pm
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/lanaist_1.jpg
Saw this in my paper this weekend. Lanai the 6-week-old gray squirrel on the mend after falling from a tree.
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mary said on September 25, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I’ve only had one dog who wanted to hurt cats, but she loved the cats she lived with. She just didn’t like intruding cats, and she chased them off in a way that left no doubts about what she would do if they didn’t run fast enough. Every great dane I’ve had has been a real softy for cats, and my whole dog crew right now either ignore the cats or they stand there looking at them, wagging their tails slowly wanting to play.
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Dorothy said on September 25, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Danny that squirrel picture was TOO much!
My husband is equally on the mend after falling from a ladder Friday night, while painting our 2 story entry hall. We are old hands at painting, and not quite sure what happened here. I left him for 10 seconds to put something in the garage and BANG down it went, with him on it. He dislocated his calcaneus (heel bone for those of you unfamiliar – which I was until I heard the word for the first time Friday night), broke the heel as well, broke his ankle in several places and some foot bones for good measure. Had surgery to put in a long screw holding 4 bones in place. We are hiring someone to finish the job – no more ladders for Mr. Mike.
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brian stouder said on September 25, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Oh! No fun, Dorothy!
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Carmella said on September 26, 2006 at 5:43 am
We make the same snickers dessert, only with 4 ingredients, red and green apples, snickers and cool whip. Chop and mix. Yum!
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Marcia said on September 26, 2006 at 8:15 am
Mmmm…Cool Whip.
And while you’re talking about cemeteries, I personally favor regional ghost stories as anthropology. You get it all there; local history, regional beliefs, cultural influences.
And you don’t have to eat any icky results.
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MichaelG said on September 26, 2006 at 8:50 am
Sorry to hear that, Dorothy. For some reason I don’t fully understand, ladder falls are THE worst.
I read in the paper just the other day that thieves were carrying off telephone wire in Nevada County leaving people without their house phones. Copper is king. Save them pennies.
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Bob said on September 26, 2006 at 9:03 am
I grew up with cats. We had a dairy farm, and the cat population maintained a fairly constant level at 25 – 30. What we didn’t have was rats. Our place sat back a 1/3-mile lane off the county road, so we didn’t have much problem with traffic mortality.
One of our most memorable cats was a big short-haired yellow tom who spent his days lazing on the front porch in the sun and keeping his domain under surveillance. He was friendly to a point and would even rub against my legs on occasion, but any attempts to handle him were usually met with teeth and claws. The first of the few times I was allowed to pick him up, I was quite startled to discover that all kitties are not soft and cuddly. He was lean, heavy, hard and sinewy, probably from prowling the woods at night and climbing trees in pursuit of prey.
The neighbors across the county road from our lane had a German Shepherd, a little over a year old, who wasn’t very good at internalizing the boundaries of his domain. He liked to roam to indulge his amorous inclinations, and we had a female dog of undefined ancestry. Though spayed, she still seemed attractive to the opposite sex.
One balmy summer afternoon I was sitting on the front porch with the big yellow tomcat sprawled across my feet. Suddenly he tensed and raised his head, and I followed his gaze to see the neighbor’s dog headed up our lane.
The cat gathered himself, and staying low, practically slithered off the porch, down the steps and across the yard to a large forsythia bush that stood on the inside of the bend where the lane curved around the front of the house. He positioned himself in the bush about three feet off the ground and waited.
As dog trotted past the bush, cat launched himself with perfect aim and landed astride dog’s back, anchoring himself with claws and with teeth sunk firmly into the back of dog’s neck.
Never before nor since have I heard any creature emit such a vocal expression of pain and terror. He wheeled about and headed for home with his tail tucked between his almost motion-blurred legs.
Cat rode him about halfway home before bailing and disappearing in a flash into the corn field, and dog never slowed down. Dog must not have been quite as stupid as I gave him credit for; he never ventured up our lane again that I knew of.
I’ve known a lot of impressive cats, but none so awesome as that one.
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