I Heart Home Ec

Today Laci and I went to the store and pre-shopped for her next food lab. Laci has to buy 250 eggs in the morning. I don't miss that part of my job. You see, I taught home economics for 15 years and LOVED it. My favorite subject was Food Science and Nutrition.

I grew up before Food TV and used to watched Julia Child every Saturday with my mom. Mom had a lot of cookbooks and was always trying things out she read about or saw on television. She and my brother Bill like to talk and read about food. They go to grocery stores for fun. I do too.

Now that my friend Laci is teaching Food Science and Nutrition at Rockport-Fulton High School, I get to go up there and help out. I recently got to show her how to make biscuits from scratch. I had to laugh when I was showing her because I slipped back into teacher mode. It was just me and her but I was talking like I had a class of 30 sitting there in anticipatory set. Demos were my favorite.

Right now they are learning about eggs and cheese, so naturally an omelet lab is in the works. I used Julia Child videos (along with my demo) but Laci is using the more hip and trendy Alton Brown DVD. Same technique just a little more appropriate for this Food TV generation.

My friend Stacy teaches junior high home economics in San Antonio. We talked today, at length, about omelets. She told me about a very successful lab she used with her 8th graders....Omelet in a Bag.

I was hooked and had to try it. If I were teaching I would soooooo do this in class. First they would do it the classic way (French/rolled) and then the wacky, mad scientist way. Man, where is a classroom when I need one?

For a copy of the Omelet in a Bag recipe please, click here. I encourage/dare you to try this at home, and if you do tell me about it. As Julia would say, "Bon appetit."

Noodle Returned to the Earth

Well, this has been an odd month. First of all, my apologies for being absent from the Twelve Days of Catherine. I didn't post once about it, or even publish my annual Wants and Needs Birthday List (which, by the way, is still available if you're interested).

In my defense I was VERY busy with the Young Life Fish Fry fundraiser. It being an all consuming fry makes it hard for me to get into the spirit of Catherine. I wasn't bummed, just too busy.

Then there was the Noodle factor. Her health slowly deteriorated until I decided on the night before my birthday that the next morning I would take her to the vet and have them pull the plug. Instead I woke up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about her and decided to go check her status. I scratched her ears and she kicked her leg a little. I said her name and she opened her eyes. Then she took a deep breath and left me. It was 3:58 (I got that from watching ER).

I got flowers for my birthday, so after a day or two I took them out and put them on her grave.

Carlos and I have formed a support group.

Noodle

Being that it is Halloween, I thought I would dedicate this post to my black cat named Noodle. Why? Because the clock is ticking. She is 17 years and 7 months old and basically a fossil.

Her best friend is Carlos (another black cat). Carlos loves her very much and they have both lived out in the garage for years, but when Noodle started getting feeble I brought her inside. Soon Carlos moved in to help take care of her. I'm serious. He guards her, grooms her, and sleeps near her to keep her warm.

She tells me things, but I don't know what she is saying. She is really sweet.

Salisbury Steak

I have such fond memories of school cafeteria food: corn, Salisbury steak, fish sticks, pinto beans, turkey and dressing (OMG), so many good things. Attending school in Brazoria County, we got great meals served to us on mobile steam carts. You could buy a lunch token (red) or get lunch for the whole week (5 tickets). You also had the option of buying an extra milk token (white). We ate them right in our classrooms. They would also put a big bowl of pinto beans with extra white bread in every room during lunch. Then in the afternoon we all got a carton of chocolate milk.

Recently I told my friend Laci, the new Family and Consumer Science teacher at RFHS, to email me when Salisbury Steak was on the school menu. There are only three places to get this kind of a meal: TV dinners, hospitals, and school cafeterias. So today I had Salisbury Steak, cabbage (with corn in it) and potatoes au gratin. I love that stuff, but you have to eat it before it cools off because then it gets rubbery. :)

Parting Shots

No one seemed too curious as to why I had blood work done a few weeks ago (remember that's how I found out I had high cholesterol). Well with the blood work I also had an EKG and wore a Holter Monitor for 24 hours. We are trying to figure out why I am having heart palpitations. I ignored the symptoms for a week or two until I started having numbness in my left arm. DANG! One or the other isn't bad, but those two symptoms together are ALARMING.

As symptoms would have it, the minute I go to the doctor, they [the symptoms] disappear. Regardless, I will follow these medical precautions to the end. I said all that to say this:

I went to the cardiologist Thursday and he asked me if I drank coffee. I said yes, but wasn't forthcoming about the quantities. He somehow knew, because he gave me this look, and I caved. I confessed my addition and asked if I could just go half-caf. He said, "How about all caf?" What a HACK! So I told him I would quit on Saturday because Starbucks was closing in Rockport for good on Friday.

Gina making my last latte. As always she made it with love!

Susan was my most frequent Starbucks partner.

I told the manager about my pending heart attack, so he gave me a free lb. of decaf. I drank some last night....it's like drinking brown water.

Baristas I love and will miss.

Above: Jamee (straw in nose) always had a joke of the day when I went through the drive through. He got them off his Laughy Taffy. The girl in black is named Glory....just like my sister. That is rare.

More baristas. Aaron (blue shirt) came back from school for the customer appreciation party.

Goodbye Starbucks drive thru.

Good-bye to the best Starbucks EVER! :(

Private Bander

Rockport, Texas is a pit stop for the southern migration of hummingbirds. Where they are going I am not sure, but during September they are swarming this town like gnats.

My good friend Susan is a certified bander of hummingbirds and has a back yard filled with feeders. She was scheduled to do demonstrations during this year's Hummingbird Festival but it was canceled due to the pending hurricane.

I work with the Odyssey After School Enrichment program and we collaborated with Susan on a field trip to her house for a private banding session. I have lived in this bird loving town for 15 years and have never seen anything like this. It was great. Here are some pictures.

Merritt Madelynn

While I worried about what cats to take with me during my Ike evacuation, my friends Anne and Seth had a more complicated problem. Anne was on the brink of childbirth.

They evacuated to Austin where Anne gave birth to their first baby on September 12th. You can see a video of the news coverage by clicking HERE.

Merritt Madelynn

9.12.07 ~ 4:43 a.m.

20 inches ~ 9 pounds ~ 14 ounces

Ike SIKE!

The following is Catherine's Ike Chronicles:

Tuesday of last week I was aware that there was a hurricane named Ike headed for the gulf. At that point the only thing I had heard on the Weather Channel was: "Once it gets into the Gulf, it's got to hit something." This prediction was not alarming because the Gulf Coast is expansive and the odds of it hitting me were slim.

So I left the house and went out into my community, where all hell was breaking loose. There were long lines at the gas stations, the grocery stores were over crowded and people were boarding up. Then I heard they cancelled school for the rest of the week. They even cancelled the Hummingbird Festival. All this and Ike wasn't even IN THE GULF yet.

By that evening Ike was in the Gulf and had left in his wake a path of destruction over Haiti, Cuba and part of Florida. All models had him heading straight for Rockport/Corpus Christi. I started having heart palpitations.

Wednesday morning Shane got my window's boarded and I went to the store to by a gallon of water for me and a gallon of water for my dog. I bought Twix bars and Dr. Peppers. I got some extra cat carriers from a friend. My friend Amanda found a kennel in Wimberly that would take 11 cats. I was ready to go, but decided not to leave until Thursday morning.

Thursday I wake up to find that in the night Ike had taken a turn and headed up the coast to Freeport/Galveston. I was safe, but now my mom and all my brothers were not.

Saturday I watched Ike crash into Galveston. It was terrible. And yet, in Rockport we didn't even get one drop of rain.

My mother and brothers fared well also. No one lost their home and power was restored in a matter of days instead of the weeks they had predicted.

In conclusion, I came to one very dramatic realization. I am no more prepared for a hurricane than the man in the moon. How can you truly prepare for something like that. How much money would you have to save to be able to take care of yourself in a crisis like Ike?

You can never fully prepare, that is why community is so important. My thanks to all the people who called me and offered shelter from the storm. Thanks to Shane and Addrian for boarding my windows. Thank you to Amanda for finding a kennel that will take 11 cats at a seriously reduced special evacuation rate.

Regardless, I still need to buy flood insurance and maybe a van for transporting cats.

Perspective

I love life, living and all things about being alive. That being said, I would also like to say that life and living and being alive has it's annoyances. So today I want to write about perspective.

I am frail and physically weak. My whole life I have been very underweight. I was so skinny that I have been accused of being anorexic (always behind my skinny back mind you). My struggle with weight is closely linked to having cancer as a child and all the treatments I received to free me of that disease, but people don't know that when your 30 years old. So, as long as I have memory I have been encouraged to eat any and everything. I have never really thought about my diet other than JUST EAT.

I got a call from Dr. Haun's office this week (I had blood work done) informing me I have high cholesterol. REALLY? ME? I have been extremely annoyed by this information. All week I kept thinking of all the modifications I will have to make to my eating habits. While laying in bed last night thinking about how I was going to write you about the cruelties of cholesterol it hit me:

Three years ago I was on life support, and it looked grim to say the least. Today I have to give up corn dogs. Now how is that for perspective?

Isn't life GREAT! :) High five everybody!

Addiction's Bad Attitude

Alright, before I wax philosophic about the local Starbucks closing, I think I need to address an issue that has popped up a few times in my comment section. It has been implied more than once that I might have an caffeine addiction problem.

First of all, you can't tell me anything. I am fully aware of my addiction and frankly, do not consider it a problem. The problem (as I see it) is I don't care that I have a problem.

Sure, from time to time, I think about my health and wonder about making positive lifestyle choices. When I get on this vein of thinking I will list the reasons why I should stop/cut back on drinking coffee, they are:

1. The only fluid I consume is coffee (or some other form of brown, like Dr. Pepper or tea). I'm sure that can't be good.


2. I only have one kidney and at this point I'm sure it's mocha colored.


3. My resting heart rate is 120 beats per minute. RESTING! The doctor prescribed a Beta-Blocker to get it down some. I take the pill every morning with a cup of coffee. Ironic?

Knowing all this, I still don't care. I will just drink the coffee. No need for an intervention. I will fight you. Dr. Drew can just step off.