Mammy How I Love Ya!

Mammy is the name I hold dear because as a child I knew she loved us more than our own mother. This is a tribute to her. She was my first impression of a Black Lady. She represented love to me. There will always be a warm spot in my heart for her.

Hattie McDaniel

As an adult I learned that I had a Mammy of my own. She was my great-grandmother. She was actually called Mammy. All my life I wanted a Mammy to hold me and love me . I never got to meet her and never even knew her name until about three years ago at a family reunion. My aunt kept calling someone Mammy and when I asked who it was she told me it was my great-grandmother. I nearly cried. All this time I had my own Mammy and didn't even know it. Praise God.


Rufus Wainwright Swanee Lyrics:
Swanee, how I love you, how I love you
My dear old Swanee
I'd give the world to be among the folks in
D-I-X-I-E-ven now my mammy's waiting for me
Praying for me, down by the Swanee
The folks up north will see me no more
When I get to that Swanee shore

Swanee, Swanee,
I'm coming back to Swanee
Mammy, mammy,
I love the old folks at home

I love you Swanee
How I love you, how I love you
My dear old Swanee
I'd give the world if I could only be
Sitting on my mammy's knee
I love the old folks, I love the young folks
I love my honey lamb, I love 'em all in Alabammy
Mammy, mammy, my dear old mammy
The folks up north will see me no more
When I get to that Swanee shore
Lyrics: Swanee, Rufus Wainwright [end]

Cookie Comfort

I needed some comfort this weekend and I turned to cooking. Isn't that the best place to get comfort?

I decided to try to tweak a chocolate chip cookie recipe I made. It contains some ingredients that most people don't normally have in their kitchens. I have an extra refrigerator in my garage so I can keep bags of flour in it so they don't go bad while waiting on me to cook. I love to cook and I have developed my own recipes through the years. Some recipes have taken many tries and other happened the first time. I have thrown out the old tries for this chocolate chip cookie recipe. Now I wish I had kept them for reference sake. I could have gone back to see what didn't work and what did. I make notes on the recipe card telling me if the recipe is too sweet, too dry, too grainy, too anything. After trying the recipe this weekend using Buckwheat flour I have decided that I like the previous recipe better. At the same time I want to incorporate Buckwheat flour into more of my recipes because it is much healthier than white flour. I have tried to stop using white sugar for the same reason.

For all those who are adventuresome and would like to try a healthier cookie here is the recipe.

Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mix together and sift into a bowl.

1 cup 100% Stone Ground Whole Wheat flour
1/2 cup Buckwheat flour
1/4 Cup Graham flour
1/4 Cup Oat flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Sift all flours, salt, soda, and baking powder together. This gets out any lumps from the baking powder.

In the mixer, I use a Kitchen Aid Mixer with the large paddle, combine the following ingredients.

2 sticks of unsalted butter softened
(I had unsalted butter on hand but if your salt intake is not restricted I see no reason you could not use salted butter. I'm not a cooking scientist.)

1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Turbinado Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 large eggs

Beat until smooth and creamy.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients 1 cup at a time until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrap down the sides of the mixer bowl and beat again until all is mixed well.
Add one 12 oz. package chocolate chips. I used Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips this time.

You may add:
2 cups Old Fashioned Oat Meal
(This is the ingredient that I forgot to add to the cookie dough. I will remember next time because I love Oat Meal in my cookies.)

Bake at 350 degrees on greased cookie sheet. Bake about 9-10 minutes.

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This recipe seemed to have a gritty feel in my mouth when it was warm. I didn't notice the gritty feeling after the cookies had cooled. I don't know how adding the oat meal will change this grittiness.

This is the sugar I used in this recipe. I love this sugar.
region: Hawaii, USA
Sugar In The Raw Turbinado Sugar is made using 100% pure Hawaiian cane sugar from the initial pressing of the cane, allowing the natural molasses to remain in the crystals. The flavor is sweet and rich. The color is natural amber.

This is the Oat Flour I used. Bob's Red Mill is the brand. I don't know if there are other flour brands, this is the one I bought and used. I'm sure others are just as good. I used Bob's Red Mill flours on all the flours.

Am I Necessary?

July 4, 2007

I felt so tired all day yesterday because I stayed up until 5:00 am today. I laid around and slept. I ironed clothes. About 9:00 pm I started to get ready to do down to the 4th of July Celebration on the river. There was a Phil Harmonic Orchestra, rides, food, thousands of people. My husband told me he had invited my mom to go. I was not thrilled. We went and picked her up and on the way there she saw a place on the side of the road where people were gathering and mom said, "Just let Joe and I out here and you can get lost." I can't remember what I said. I think it was, "You want to get rid of me and have Joe?"

Mom also told me that she had told Joe that we were going to Yukon's Festival. Either that or she said that they had decided to go to Yukon's 4th of July Festival. I told her I hadn't decided where I was going and I started to name all the places where there were events for the 4th of July. I did this instead of confronting her and him. It hurts to know that your nothing but a spare tire. I felt like that in my first marriage.

The guy I was married to the first time would go and to talk to his mom every day after work. He would come home from work and change clothes and then head straight for his mom's house. They lived right next to us on ten acres. They would make plans for everything and then they would come and tell me what they were going to do. If I wanted to go along I could go and if not they didn't care. It was as if my mother-in-law was the wife instead of me. That went on in my first marriage with my mother-in-law and now my own mother wants to do the same thing to me.

I don't understand why this happens? These guys must have something in common. I know the common denominator is me but other than that what is it? What am I doing wrong or what is it about them? I know that my husband now will talk to his family and then when I ask what they talked about he just says nothing much. Yet they talk for a long time. I wonder if he is making plans with them and I'll find out later. I know he has made plans with his friends to go places and then he tells me about it. He never consults me unless he needs something from me. Maybe I'm not necessary.

Am I Smart?

May 30, 2006 is the date this was entered.

Last week, Thursday, my mom had a dental appointment and I offered to go with her in case she needed help driving. When we got on N.W. Expway going East from Rockwell she told me to get in the left lane. I asked whey and she realized she was turned around. The dentist office is inside a large office building and I stayed out in the hallway. It's really nice in the hallway because they have lots of plants and several small fountains with fish. I sat down and wrote checks to pay my bills. After her appointment we walked around the walk-way inside the building because it is so beautiful there and then we went to Wal-Mart.

In the Wal-Mart parking lot she didn't want me to park her car by the shopping basket return. I wasn't going to park there in the first place. I had only driven by while finding a place to park. I found a place three spaces from the basket return and asked if three spaces was too close and she called me a "smart ass." Then she said that I had only wanted to come because I wanted to shop at Wal-Mart. I thought for a few minutes while we walked into Wal-Mart. I decided to respond because I had only wanted to help her. I told her that when I called her I had no idea she was going to Wal-Mart. She told me she was going to the dentist and I only wanted to help her. She apologized. I accepted and forgot about it. We were going to get her makeup and stopped at the clothes and we stayed there. I tried on all kinds of clothes. She sat in the dressing room with me.

She told me she was going to get her makeup after we got through in the clothes section. As soon as she got her makeup she wanted to leave. She wouldn't say what was wrong. I hadn't finished shopping and felt irritated. I kept asking her if she could sit at MacDonalds and eat something. She was holding her stomach so I thought she was hungry. She kept saying she needed to go home.

Was I smart to call her and offer to help? She seems to think I'm a smart ass. I guess I should have told her, "Thank you, I am smart enough not to park your car next to the shopping basket return." I know she feels bad a lot of times but she won't tell me what is wrong so it is very difficult to know what what to do. I knew she wanted to go home and she was holding her stomach. It is very frustrating to go with someone someplace and then suddenly they want to leave with no explanation. She has done that other times and as soon as she is finished shopping she wants to go. It doesn't matter if I'm shopping or not. I imagine she is sick and doesn't want to tell me. I think it is because she doesn't want to worry me or to have me try to fix her. I thought it was because she just wanted to control the situation. Who knows?

Grandma's Trinket Box

What did I buy you for Christmas? I bought you a piece of the wind. I put it in a bottle so you could open it in the winter when you're in a stuffy house full of stuffy people.

I also want you to have a trinket box I found in grandma's hope chest. I opened it last spring early in the morning and caught the sun's first rays, and the smell of the morning mist on the magnolia. Keep it and take what you need, but leave some for tomorrow.

Lie down here beside me my precious, and I'll sing you a lullaby. It begins with love, and ends with love, and in the middle is the story of Jesus. A love lullaby through and through. If the angels join in it will be a lullaby symphony made just for you.

Shhh...Listen! Do you hear God's whispering wind in the magnolia tree? The wind is God's breath saying, "I love you." Maybe that's why it's December and the magnolia leaves are still green. If God's breath can make the leaves green, just think what it will do for you. So when you're in a stuffy house full of stuffy people, open the bottle of wind and listen to Him whisper, "I love you."

Remember too grandma's trinket box filled with the spring morning sunrise and the smell of mist. With it you'll always have the hope of Spring in December. It wasn't in grandma's hope chest for nothing.

These are my Christmas gifts to you. The bottle of wind, grandma's trinket box, and my love lullaby. Listen now as I hum it for you. It is the same song the wind sings in the magnolia leaves, "I love you through and through."

[I wrote this as a Christmas gift for my two sons, James and David, many years ago, some where around 1989.]

Template html

Just trying some new html on the template and it seems to be working very nicely. I just have to add a post and check out to see if I have enough padding between the post and the side bar. I'm really enjoying working with the html again. I don't know a thing about CSS but need to learn.