Welcome!

Lily and I have been basking in sunshine, this past week, here in Ohio. We've spread a blanket at the park, and soaked up the last rays of summer, while the puppies played, and ran and tumbled around us. We talked of family and children; friends and enemies; statesmanlike candidates and pit bulls with lipstick; quilting and knitting; Wall street horrors and Halloween costumes; Florida vs. Ohio [she keeps pointing out houses for sale in her neighbourhood!] And recipes.

Ah yes! Recipes! Jess at Daysgoby tagged me a while back to do a meme: Eight things You Want To Do before You Die. One of them would be to tame the Recipe Monster. When I got married I couldn't boil an egg, to the horror and consternation of Maria, my mother-in-law. She thought her darling Sonny Boy was going to starve to death. Thirty eight years later, not only has he not starved to death, he could lose a few pounds and not miss them! I'm not Julia Child [though I used to do a fairly good imitation---the voice, not the cooking!] but I'm a pretty good cook.

My own mother was a wonderful cook, but she had her hands full with my brother, and wasn't inclined to encourage people to be dollacawling and making a mess in her kitchen.

When I went away to college, in Dublin, I lived in a hostel run by the holy nuns [there was no getting away from them!] who fed us three meals a day whether we wanted them or not. Mostly we wanted them---we were young and burning calories at a great rate.

After college I went to a teaching job in the North of Ireland. Another teacher I'd befriended, and I, rented rooms from a sweet widow lady, Mrs. Keenan. Mrs. Keenan was tiny and very prim, and had never rented rooms before, to anyone, and had her doubts about the whole venture. But we were desperate for digs, and so she agreed to give it a try. The arrangement worked out well for both parties. I think she'd been very lonely. Miriam and I became almost like her adopted daughters. She fed us a hearty breakfast before we walked down the hill to school every day. We walked back up the hill at noon, to a big dinner, and she fed us supper in the evenings. Mrs. K made the best steak and kidney pie I've ever tasted!

So, you can see, I was spoiled rotten for the first twenty two years of my life. Didn't have any need to know how to boil an egg.

And then I said "I do", and found myself in charge of the care and feeding of a red-blooded American male, whose mother would have made Julia look like a scrubber!
And then Lily was born, and following the lead of a friend, I opted not to feed her baby food from jars, but haunted the library instead, in search of guidance on feeding babies natural, home-made food. Over the years, Lily acquired four siblings, and I was spending most of my life in the kitchen. The recipes started accumulating. More were added as we moved around every three or four years.

You know you've got a problem when it takes you twice as long to find the recipe as to make it!

So. Lily and I did not solve any of the pressing problems of the worlds' financial markets, as we sat on our blanket at the park; we didn't come up with an iron-clad plan to organize her vast collection of irresistible wools, or my vast stash of irresistible fabrics; we did not make any family problems evaporate.

But when we folded up our blanket, and called the puppies to heel, we were both smiling, extremely pleased with ourselves. Because we had a cunning plan. A plan to gain control of the Recipe Monster.

We would start a joint blog, just for recipes!

There will be recipes, lots of them. All our favourites. The OC will be smiling his "I-told-you-so" smile when he gets wind of this! He told me years ago, when I hadn't a clue about computers [even less than I do now!]that the best way to organize my recipes would be to put them in files on the computer! "Files" sounded so dry. But a blog! Now that's a different story. In a blog you can write down the recipes, but you can also write about the history, and the background of each one, and all the interesting stories behind them. That's my kind of file! There won't be this much rawmaysh* with each one, but there will be a little. I can't let all that Blarney Stone-kissing go to waste!

So, come on over! Visit Lily and me in the kitchen. After all, it's the warmest, friendliest place in the house!


*A phonetic rendering of the Irish word for "mindless blather!"