PARMESAN TILAPIA

Tilapia has never been my favorite fish but I like it this way very much--parmesan cheese, butter and mayo makes everything better--and it is very quick and easy.  I cooked it on the grill the second time and it was nice cooked there but the oven was good also.  I thought 2 T. was too much lemon juice. One was perfect for my taste. I am thinking this might be good on Salmon or other fish.   http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/main-courses/broiled-tilapia-parmesan/ 


Ingredients
 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
 1/4 cup butter, softened (don’t melt)
 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
 1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
 1/8 teaspoon onion powder
 1/8 teaspoon celery salt
 2 pounds tilapia fillets


Directions

1. Brush a little olive oil lightly on each side of the fish and sprinkle with a little salt, pepper and garlic powder. 
2. Preheat your oven's broiler. Grease a broiling pan or line pan with aluminum foil.
3. In a small bowl, mix together the Parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise and lemon juice. Season with dried basil, pepper, onion powder and celery salt. Mix well and set aside.
4. Arrange fillets in a single layer on the prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2 to 3 minutes or on the barbecue grill. Flip the fillets over and broil for a couple more minutes. Remove the fillets from the oven and cover them with the Parmesan cheese mixture on the topside. Broil for 2 more minutes or until the topping is browned and fish flakes easily with a fork. Be careful not to over cook the fish.

MOVIE REVIEW - THE PRIZEWINNER OF DEFIANCE OHIO

I joined Net Flix just so I could get this movie.  I enjoyed the book and wanted to see how they translated the story to the screen.  I liked the movie.  Julianne Moore was maybe a little too glamerous for the part but she was good as the mother and believable.  Woody Harrelson was sleezy enough to play the angry alcoholic father.  His portrayl of drunken tantrums were very real (I know because I was a child sitting there with the family)  His swearing was graphic and some of the domestic anxiety might be hard for small children to watch.  It wasn't really a movie for children.  It was a PG 13 and I think that might be an age to see this.  It is definately not a comedy but had some light hearted, charming family scenes. The children were adorable.  Seeing 10 children mill around this small family home made me wonder how the mother did it when they were all young.  They would have carried me off, I believe.  Read my book review below for the story.  There were a few scenes in the book I missed but all in all I liked the movie version.  I would give it 3 stars. 

BLACK BEANS AND RICE WITH A CUBAN FLARE

Recently we were invited to a dinner where the hostess was making pulled pork and wanted a side dish to go with it.  I decided to make black beans and rice and after searching the internet I combined a couple of recipes to creat this.  It was a hit!  A little different, crunchy and delicious.  It would be a very nice vegitarian main dish.  


BLACK BEANS AND RICE WITH A CUBAN FLARE
1 C. finely chopped sweet onion
2 Cloves of garlic grated
2 T. olive oil
4 T. butter
1 T. fresh ground cumin seeds (mortar and pistol)
Saute these until nice and brown add:
1 Cup golden raisins or chopped dried apricots
1 roasted red pepper chopped
1 roasted Anaheim chili chopped or 2 jalapeno peppers (chopped fine) seeded with white membrane removed to control the heat.
( For Peppers: broil or put on the grill until all sides are brown and blistered. Put in a plastic bag and let sit for 5 minutes, peel thin skin and remove seeds)
1 tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. thyme leaves
2 tsp. oregano leaves
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
10-15 grinds of fresh pepper
Barely cover with water and simmer low for 15 minutes.
If using apricots instead or raisins add them here. 


Rinse and drain 2 cans of black beans. Mix with 4 cups of cooked rice.   Toss together with vegetables and put in a casserole. (adjust salt) Toast 1 Cup pecans cut in half or coarsely chopped toasted almonds and sprinkle on the top. Put in the oven until just heated through.

BOOK REVIEW -THE PRIZEWINNER OF DEFIANCE OHIO

If it is true that it's not what happens to you in this life but how you react to your circumstances, then Evelyn Ryan is a poster child for that philosophy.  She was rearing 10 kids in a dilapidated 2 room house in the 1950's with an alcoholic husband who drank away any security they might have had.

Evelyn Ryan took her jaunty writing skills and created jingles for the myraid of consumer contests that were part of the advertising culture at this time.  Evelyn had been writing all her life and decided to try turning her love of words into a way to augment their meager existence with some short, pithy, humorous prose.  She ended up entering thousands of contests and won hundreds with her wit, wisdom and family experiences turned into poetry. 

Folks endowed with
Luck or virtue
Get the tissue
To the Kerchooo

Her contesting career began with Berma Shave roadside rhymes.  I am old enough to remember them with delight.

The book is written by the second daughter and sixth child, Terry Ryan, after her mother died and she retrieved the piles of information left as memoribilia by her mother.  All 10 children submitted memories of their family events to Terry for her wonderful story.  If this story was fiction it would be charming but maybe just a little "too much", but as a memoir of this remarkable mother it becomes an enigmatic treasure.

Evelyn Ryan felt a keen responsibility to stay home to rear her 10 children but she also had a desperate desire to advance their financial needs in some way.  Two miraculous wins came on separate occasions when the family was about to lose their very humble abode.  The children went to Catholic schools and although religion wasn't a prominant theme in the story I saw this woman with faith that astounded me.  She was tireless, agressive in defense of her "chicks", funny and upbeat when she had every reason to go to bed with the covers over her head.  Leaving her useless husband was never an option in her thinking.  She tried to focus on his good traits.  And I believe because of her acceptance of him he learned to appreciate her over the years and maybe even try harder.

There was an angel in the story in the form of an Aunt who bailed them on several occasions and took the children in times of stress and need.  I believe God sends these angels to people who are trying.

Baseball may have been another saving element of this family.  Two of the boys were gifted players and the family practiced with them and united with excitement as they played during their youth.  Both boys ended up playing with the pros for awhile.

In my family writing classes I try to convince my students that if they share their stories with family members that they will be motivated to write their own stories.  Evelyn proved my theory. Everything she wrote was critiqued by the family first.  Many of her children ended up writing.  The youngest daughter Betsy wrote a moving afterward that I can't help copying here.

There is a movie by the same name made in 2005.  I hope to find it and leave a review of it.  Stay tuned.

Betsy Ryan: My mother wrote from her own life, recording embellishing, or ignoring as she chose, in the middle of everything.  From the newsroom of her girlhood to the ironing board of her family life, the writing went on, shaping itself while she worked toward wildly differing goals.  Whether for her cheeky column in her grandmother's newspaper, the fourth line of a breezy Birds Eye jingle, or the turn of phrase in a short story that might express, once and for all, the combined affection and horror we all felt for Charley the Chicken, it was a writing of humor and ease, rooted in her daily life and uniquely expressive of it.  When many writers might retreat from the world for some needed solitude, she grabbed that writing pad and got it down, the prize won, the moment captured, the other hand on the iron.

But biography was not exactly her aim.  She was more of a poet--someone who tinkered with words and shades of meaning and phraseology for the fun of it, someone whose search for the telling detail was a source of joy.  In this way, she shaped her surroundings as much as they shaped her.  And let's not forget laughter.  She had an unerring sense of what was funny, coming as she did from a strict Methodist upbringing and learning through living to leave it well behind, and could double over from the effects of her own writing.  It was a focal point for her talent, yes, but also a necessary release.

The thought used to cross our minds that Mom could have had a wonderful life writing advertising cipy on Madison Avenue instead of raising 10 children on no money in the middle of nowhere.  But this was before we really knew her.  We have learned from the things she left behind that hers was a remarkable life, defined most of all by the wish to include everything.  From a child's poem or a paid-off loan note to her rural Ohio domestic life that allowed, or inspired, the perfect turn of phrase in a prizewinning entry, one thing was as important as the next, and equally absorbing.  Looking through these things she left for us in the months after she died allowed us to see, piece by piece, what she was all about, and to appreciate the true extent of her accomplishment.

I have a recurring dream about my mother.  She is sitting on her living room couch, holding this book in her hands.  "This is wonderful," she is saying, with tears in her eyes.  "But where did you find all of this material?  Where did it come from?"

From you, Mom.  It came from you.
(p. 363-364)
A LOVELY BOOK! 
Thanks to Margene Snow for recommending this for our Book Club reading this year.

BOOK REVIEW - THE GIANT JOSHUA

Twenty years ago or so I read “The Giant Joshua” by Maurine Whipple. It is a story that speaks to my heritage because it is about the settling of St. George. The first Mormon convert in my family was Jacob Hamblin and he was there on the front lines of this pioneering experience. Jacob wanders in out of the pages of the story but it is not about him. It is about a young girl who arrives in the first wave of this desert settlement, 17 years old and the third wife in a polygamist marriage. This week I read the book again and I know that it will take a few weeks to recover from the emotions I have experienced reading this story again.

Some years ago, when Eugene England was still teaching at BYU, he taught a class at Education week about the book. I was lucky enough to be there. I have never forgotten what he said, that the book was the most beautiful Mormon fiction ever written--I would say this assessment still holds. I recall him reading a passage, typical of many wonderful images from the book:


There before them, carpeting the depression, were thousands of fairy bells with lavender hearts, tossing their lovely heads. Flowers wilting at a touch, so delicate as to be almost other earthly there among the black rocks. Sego lilies! Sown as thickly as a desert sky with stars. Poised like heavenly butterflies there on the grim lava surface as if they needed no roots, would float upward at a breath...P. 174


The story is about the survival of the human body and spirit amid the raw dessert elements...heat, starvation, floods, plagues of death and polygamy—why we mortals are not good enough to live polygamy. Maurine Whipple portrayed every possible side to the good bad and ugly aspects of the principle.


Maurine Whipple wrote the book in 1941 and entered it into a national first novel competition. She won. Brother England said she was hailed across the country for the book but it couldn’t be purchased in Utah. The church thought it was too negative a portrayal of polygamy. My mother said that you could borrow it at the library but there were long waiting lists of those wanting to read it. 1941 was still close to the very ugly ending of polygamy and I understand how the leaders of the church would still be sensitive.


Attitudes did change, however, and the book has been republished several times and sold in church bookstores. It is sad that Maurine felt such rejection from the homefront that she never wrote another novel...a tragedy indeed because her ability to capture the wrenching, loving, dreaming, suffering spirit is beyond anything I have ever read. If I have a favorite novel this is it.

CASHEW CHICKEN

I found this recipe on  http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/  My husband gave it the thumbs up and he is fussy.  I liked it also.  It is surprisingly quick and simple and would be a respectable dinner party entre.  I thought it needed a little more sauce and changed things a little to eliminate some of the fat with the heavy whipping cream. We didn't miss it but if you want to make it very rich use all cream and eliminate the water and flour.    If you are not a curry fan there is not enough here to tell it is curry. It serves about 6 but not huge servings.

4 chicken breast halves cut into bite size pieces.

1/4 C. dry sherry or apple juice.  (I used the juice and it was fine)

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 large clove of finely grated garlic

1 1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. curry powder

Mix these ingredients together and marinate for 15 minutes to a few hours

Melt 2 T. butter in a large frying pan.  Saute 8 oz. sliced mushrooms until they begin to brown.

Remove from the pan and set aside.  Melt 2 more T. of butter (I used lt. olive oil here) in your pan and when it begins to sizzle add the chicken with marinade.  Stir fry until the chicken is nice and brown.  Add the mushrooms.

In a bowl mix together 1 C. whipping cream 1/2 C. water and 1 T. flour until smooth.  Pour over the browned chicken and simmer for 10 minutes.  Serve over rice or noodles.  Sprinkle each serving with salted cashews or pass around the table.  Add chopped parsley if desired. 

WALLACE GODDARD YOUTUBE ON HEALTHY MARRIAGES

CRITTERS IN OUR LIFE

My boys always liked critters—the uglier the better and we have housed them all—snakes, lizards, and rodents of various kinds. When Beau was a little guy he had a visual fascination with all animals. We started drawing spiders with him when he could barely hold a pencil. When we moved to Farmington he started chasing and catching lizards and snakes in the hills behind our house. At one time he had a Blow Snake in a cardboard box with a board and a rock on top of it. He would periodically take out the snake and carry it around his neck. This was not a little snake. It was about 4-5 ft. long and more than 2 inches in diameter. It was very unnerving. He also had a terrarium with 7 captured lizards.
I was not happy with the snake in his room. A good friend in the neighborhood, (the Johnstons) had a snake get loose in the house and it crawled in the heater vents. Besides, it wasn’t a very good life for a snake even if he was loved. Beau was not ready to give it up. He went to Boy Scout camp at the end of the summer. I decided this was a perfect opportunity to free the snake so the day he left I took the box the board and the rock up the hill and let the snake go. Before Beau returned home a week later the cat had eaten all of the lizards. This was one mighty unhappy boy. I am glad I don’t remember how long it was before he was willing to speak to me. I hoped for forgiveness knowing I wouldn’t get permission. The cat just licked his chops.


Then we had hamsters and gerbils—not at the same time, thank heavens. These were very irritating critters. The entire night of these nocturnal little creatures was spent trying to get out of their cage and they often succeeded. We did learn how to catch most of them. You get a tall plastic bucket and make stairs up to the top of it with books. Then you put a carrot in the bottom. It worked almost every time. The rodent would jump in after the carrot and couldn’t get out. Once we didn’t catch one and sometime later I found its carcass in a jar in the storage room. It found the jar before the carrot bucket.
The boys had a good friend down the street, Bret Miller, who also had a gerbil. He brought it for a visit one day. They put it in the cage with our gerbil. The visit consisted of 30 seconds of what appeared to be a violent fight with rolling, squealing and flying fur. Well, about a month later the kids told me to come and look at the little worms in the cage. They were not worms but tiny pink baby gerbils. We let them get old enough to wean and gave them to the pet store. There would be no more visits from Bret’s gerbil!


Beau brought home a cute little spotted mouse once but Ian adopted it and took care of it. It escaped in his room and we never found it. We figured it crawled into a hole in the closet where the air-conditioning pipes come in. I guess the carrot bucket only works on hamsters and gerbils.


I am not sure who brought home the black and white rat but he would be the best critter yet. Rats are not so visually appealing because of their naked tail but Poser was a sweetheart and totally bonded to Ian. I often sing the praises of rats because they seem to relate to their captor and they are not obsessed with escaping. Poser lived in an aquarium in Ian’s room. Ian would let him out when he was doing his homework and this lovable creature would climb around the room and around Ian. If it got out of its cage at night it would get in bed with Ian. Poser’s main problem was running on its wheel at night and making racket that disturbed Ian’s sleep.


 One day when Ian came home from school the cage was full of his socks. Poser had gotten out and Ian had left his sock drawer open that morning so Poser decided to feather his nest with all of Ian’s socks. It was quite comical to see the rat lying in the aquarium full to the top with the socks.


Poser had been with us for over a year when he got sick. He was lying in the bottom of his cage with blood coming out of his nose. Ian was devastated and I was sure that the rat would not live long. It was the weekend and Ian would not leave his side. When Sunday came he would not go to church. I couldn’t imagine Poser would live through the night but Monday morning the rat was still breathing. I convinced Ian that he should go to school and that I was sure he would be dead by the time he returned home. Poser hadn’t moved for 4 days now. I promised a funeral and a burial in a nice box. I told him we would go to the pet store and get another rat that afternoon.




 All day I checked on the rat. He didn’t die. Ian would be arriving home about 3:30 p.m. and it was about 2:00. I decided that it might be best to hurry things along so I got a plastic bag and tied it tightly around its head. At 2:45 the rat was still alive. This is a gruesome confession but I went in the room in a cold sweat with a determination to squeeze on the head until it died. I couldn’t imagine it had that much life left in it but it did.


When Ian arrived home I had a nice little fabric lined box prepared and we dug a hole and had a nice funeral for poor old Poser. We got in the car and went to the pet store for Poser II. Ian was getting to be a teen about this time and his interests were elsewhere and Poser II was getting neglected. He decided to let him go. One Saturday morning he took the rat and a little bag of wheat and went up in the trees behind our house to say goodbye to his little friend. He was gone for hours and crying when he returned. Then every few weeks after that he would tell me that he was going to get another rat. "Not in my house—My critter days are over!"

BOOK REVIEW - JOOP - A NOVEL OF ANNE FRANK

Recently I ran across a clipping from the Deseret News about this book and decided to send for it since Masterpiece Theatre is going to do Anne Frank's story this year and our book club is picking books soon.  This isn't a story of Anne Frank perse. It is told by an old man recounting the horrors of the German Occupation of Amsterdam during WWII when he was a boy.  Who was Anne Frank's betrayer?  Can hunger cancel out compassion?  This book is a fascinating look at an adolecents desire to understand human suffering as experienced in his family's war time deprivation and his intense need to be accepted by his father.  The writing style is wonderfully rich in detail, comfortable, breezy and a little irreverant at times.  It is 200 quick, compelling pages that I couldn't put down. It left me with lots to think about.  I highly recommend it.

BOOK REVIEW - THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE

I don't usually read this much.  But taking a book to bed on these cold winter nights has been very enjoyable.  Thanks to Mary Silver for recommending this book.

In 1986 I visited Howarth parsonage in Yorkshire England with my husband. I will never forget the moors covered with heather so parallel to the moors I conjured up when I read Wuthering Heights. I have always loved the “Jane Eyre” story. I own the Masterpiece version with Timothy Dalton as Rochester. He is too handsome to be the real character but is so wonderful in the part I forgive his good looks. I never tire of  the four hours it takes to watch "Jane Eyre". After reading Syrie James’s lovely book I will enjoy this movie even more.


If James made a mistake in her writing of this book it was using the diary format. The story moves along with crisp first person story telling from Charlotte Bronte's point of view.  It feels more like a memoir, but every now and then Charlotte talks to the confound diary and I found it very irritating and distracting.


With that said I loved the book. I enjoyed getting to know the Bronte family; where they lived; about their writing process; their personal struggles; the life experiences that played out in their novels; the aspects of their successes and disappointments that I did not know—so well captured in believable language that Charlotte Bronte would approve, I believe.


Some parts of the ending veered off into the direction of a mass-market romance but not so far that it ruined it for me. The book had so much class I didn’t understand why James found this necessary. The afterward in the book is filled with actual letters and poetry written by the Brontes. I liked reading them as they gave some credibility to the authors research.  If you love Bronte literature you will enjoy this book.