The Crab Chronicles

Christmas 2017

We have had a very festive, laid back Christmas, with just Bruce visiting. 

Bruce drove in from Columbia late Saturday afternoon and was able to stay until mid afternoon today. He brought a beef tenderloin and fixed it last night for our Christmas dinner. I fixed Brussells Sprouts, rolls, and green beans. Bruce sliced an onion and put it in some salt and apple cider vinegar and pickled it. For dessert we had a homemade chocolate pound cake, plus cookies and pecans and other goodies given to us by friends and family and neighbors. All in all, a feast. 

Saturday night we had takeout Italian from Bambinelli's and they give such huge portions we got two meals out of everything. 

The tenderloin Bruce got was huge so there was a lot left over for lunch today.

Bruce is a big lover of cooking and he likes this author very much. There were instructions in here on how to cook a beef tenderloin. I prefer cookbooks put together by ladies who like to cook, like church cookbooks, or the Teatime books done by the Augusta Junior League. Those always have great tried-and-true recipes. 

One of my presents was an Instant Pot -- a really fun, updated pressure cooker and more. Got a recipe book, too. I am itching to try shrimp creole that can be ready in 20 minutes. Wow. I have friends who have one so I will call them if I cannot figure it out. 

I got a paint by numbers kit and I already started my Hummingbird. Laugh if you like. Painting relaxes me. The kits they have now for grownups are really nice. 

My mother wrote a great blog about her memories of Christmas from her childhood.

Below are some of our Christmas shots. Merry Merry Day!

 

Claiming my Ancestors

I like to watch a show called Finding Your Roots, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, on PBS. I am always fascinated by the ancestors of any celebrity, even celebs I have never heard of before -- by the end of the show it feels like they are a friend, no matter what their age or occupation or background. 

Here's something we ALL have in common: we all have ancestors that did things that we find... disturbing? Appalling? Just weird? 

I have often wondered what I would say if Dr. Gates ever dug into my family tree and presented me with a Book of Life, or one of those cool charts showing your forebears. 

I have always thought most of my ancestors were simple farmers, folks who likely owned no slaves. 

I'm wrong. 

I have learned over the past year or so that a number of my ancestors owned slaves. I cannot change that. What I've often pondered is, should I apologize for it? Should I be ashamed of those folks? 

I don't know. I don't think so.

above, my great great grandparents John T. Hasty and his wife Sarah, (Sarah was half Cherokee)

On the one hand, since my children and I are mixed race, not lily-white, any of us, I feel I shouldn't have to apologize or even feel bad. I have ancestors who likely WERE slaves, not just slave owners.  

On the other hand, wouldn't a sensitive, kind, caring person feel the need to apologize for having slaveholder DNA?

What troubles me is that there are folks in this country who will be very critical of me for simply saying that I don't feel great remorse for what my ancestors did. In the politically-correct view, I should be ashamed to be southern, ashamed to come from such a racist place, ashamed of my people, going as far back as anyone cares to trace. 

As a logical argument, though, let's just say I decided to swallow all the shame and regret and righteous indignation that one might assign to me in the politically-correct universe likely inhabited by most PBS viewers. Where would the apologies stop? How far back would I have to go, and how much research would it take? 

What if I apologized for my evil ancestors and then realized, as I did recently, that I am related to Thomas Jefferson? He was a slave owner, yes, but he was also brilliant and a key figure in forming the United States. Do his good deeds outweigh the bad? Historians likely all have an opinion on that.

I'm also related to George Washington. Slaveholder, yes, but without him we would likely still be English subjects.

One of my cousins traced our ancestry all the way back to England, to John of Gaunt. He was the ancestor to a lot of English kings who liked to chop people's heads off. Should I track down the descendants of all those headless folks and apologize?

If I feel shame and regret and remorse for my ancestors -- and I am not saying I do -- then logically I should take on their sins and try to ameliorate them. How much atonement is enough?  How many good deeds have to be attributed to me before I am absolved? How do I undo what was done decades or even centuries before I was born? Where would it end? Who would decide it had ended? 

Let's simplify things a bit. 

The clearest indicator to me that I am not like my ancestors is just next door. My next door neighbors on one side are a mixed race couple, a white man and a black woman. They are more than neighbors. They are friends. They are the type of friends I can call and say "I am so sick and Lola desperately needs a walk" and they will walk her for me -- until I am completely well. They did that not long ago, in fact. They have brought me groceries when I couldn't leave Mom and Michael wasn't available. They are two of the finest people I know. 

My neighbors on the other side are Asian. My neighbors a few doors down are a gay couple. Many of my neighbors are Roman Catholic. We are all friendly. I love my neighbors.

I have slaveholder DNA and yet I don't hate any other races. I have Huguenot DNA and yet I don't hate Roman Catholics. I have South Georgia redneck DNA but I have friends from all over the United States.

Some of my ancestors would likely be appalled by my declarations in the paragraphs above. They would also be appalled, I am sure, that I got DNA testing done and learned I am .5% black and not only am I not ashamed, I am delighted. I am delighted to know some of my Hasty ancestors were Cherokee. I've always suspected I was not purely European, and in my view that's a good thing. (Purebred animals are usually high-strung and not hearty -- give me a mutt dog any day, not some purebred ninny that's super high maintenance.)

above, my ancestor CC Phillips

My great grandmother Beulah Phillips Butler was the daughter of a Confederate veteran (see above). There are confederate soldiers on the Hasty side, too, and so on and so forth. I wish they had not owned slaves. I wish they were more forward-thinking than that. I wish I could travel back in time and undo whatever awful things they might have done.

I cannot, however.

I'd like to travel back in time and take back things I've said and done. I can't. None of us can.

The bible says "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In my view that means "don't judge." I don't have the right to judge anyone's choices. If I had lived back then, in the 19th century, undoubtedly I would have had a very different worldview than I do now. We are all products of the times in which we are born.

Perhaps one day my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will look back and say "Wow, Memaw Dee sure had some wacky ideas! Glad she's not around now to embarrass us!" 

There are two ways to live one's life -- going around passing judgment on everyone and everything, which is pretty normal behavior for most of us -- and choosing to consciously NOT do that. I have lived both ways, and I can tell you that making a conscious choice to not be judgmental of other people is by far the more healthy thing to do.

Filling your soul with judgmental thoughts is like filling yourself with something foul and rank. It accomplishes nothing good. 

Instead of condemning my ancestors, I prefer to celebrate them. I like to learn as much as I can about them. I like to see places they lived and see photos or paintings of them, to see if I look like them.

My ancestors, some of them, survived religious persecution in France and came to America to start over. That took courage. The French Huguenots were tortured, and some were burned at the stake, for their faith.

Some of my ancestors survived the Scottish clearances, and came to America to start over.

My Cherokee ancestors survived having their land and homes ripped away, and many were marched to death on the Trail of Tears.

My ancestors survived the awful Reconstruction time, when the south was beaten down and people starved, when the Klan rose to fame and Jim Crow became the terrible law of the land. 

My ancestors survived the Great Depression. All four of my grandparents suffered a lot of hardships during that time, but they survived. Their children all grew up, went to college, started families, prospered. 

My parents survived being young and poor and they worked hard and they made a good life for us. 

We are all products of all the choices made by all the people who went before us. Good choices, bad choices -- we are all products of a million choices made over many, many generations.  It's not my place for me to judge my ancestors harshly, or judge their choices. It's not the place of my descendants to judge me.

 

I am going into the Christmas season this year happy to have survived another year, although there were a lot of hardships this past year. We survived. We held onto our faith. We were given much help and love from family, friends, and neighbors. 

I do not know what next year holds. 

I do know this: I am alive and I am strong because the people whose DNA is in my body were strong. They were resilient. They endured, and even prospered, surviving hardships and heartaches I can only imagine.

God bless them.

I am grateful for their courage and tenacity. 

I am grateful technology allows me to learn more about them, and about the times in which they lived.

I am grateful I do not bear any malice in my heart for anyone whose color, race, religion, or background are different from mine.

Because of those ancestors, I am alive, and I have a chance to do good deeds, and pass along a little wisdom, faith, and courage to the next generations.

Because of those who have gone before, I can pass along my love to lots of people, related and unrelated, and they can pass along love -- like ripples, spreading out endlessly.

I think that's the most important thing that God really asks of us, to love expansively and extravagantly.

photo by Linda Hasty Harris

A Note to Matt Damon

The allegations against many famous men that they have sexually harassed and in some cases sexually assaulted women, have drawn a variety of responses. I have seen the news articles and been shocked and horrified by the allegations against famous men such as Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, and Dustin Hoffman. 

However, I have not been surprised.

They are all famous men in positions of power, who used that power to get away with horrible behavior.

I was reading this morning [see People] how Matt Damon made some controversial remarks about the allegations against Hollywood figures Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis C.K.

Matt:  “I do believe there’s a spectrum of behavior… There’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.”

Matt, you are right. There's a big difference between a pat on the butt and assault. However, what you fail to understand is how the pat on the butt opens the door, and it swings wide. A man who thinks it's OK to pat a woman's butt -- especially a powerful man -- may think it's OK to take it a lot further, and therein lies the issue.

In Twitter land, several actresses including Alyssa Milano and Minnie Driver jumped all over Damon. 

 Matt, here's what you don't understand, though, and why you [and 99% of all men in the world] simply cannot understand it: You cannot understand how it feels because you cannot ever have been in our shoes. It's physically impossible. 

I could never understand what it feels like to be black or Asian or Hispanic because I am white. I can greatly sympathize but it's literally physically impossible for me to empathize.

No man [unless he is transgender] can understand how it feels to live in a woman's smaller, weaker body. It's just impossible.

I was subjected to a variety of unwanted attentions from a male supervisor many years ago, when I was a paralegal. The man who harassed me was known as a jokester. He was also well-liked by the other men in the firm. If I had complained about what he did, I would have been told to ignore it, or quit. In the unlikely event he was reprimanded or confronted in any way about my accusations, he would have retaliated against me. I would quite likely have been made so uncomfortable I would have wanted to quit. I saw just that kind of thing happen.

This is the reality women live with EVERY DAY. We are viewed as objects. Rarely ever are men viewed in the same way. 

I was in a restaurant when I was a college student and a drunk guy came up and grabbed me and gave me a long, passionate kiss on the mouth. He was a complete stranger. I had been drinking and I was so startled, I did nothing but leave. I ran for the door as quickly as possible hearing laughter behind me. I went back to my dorm and shook for about an hour, thanking God  friends had been with me. My friends were all drinking too. 

So is it ok that he grabbed me and kissed me without my consent, since we both had been drinking? NO. Had I been a few years older I likely would have slapped him. I was 19, though, and just wanted to get out of there.

For the sake of argument, let's say a man was viewed as simply a sexual object, a collection of body parts. The male reaction will likely not be the same as a female reaction. Why?

Males are dominant in our society. They are almost always bigger and stronger than females.

Males hold the power positions physically, professionally -- in almost every way.

Males STILL run the show, in almost all situations.

I read the Salma Hayek article in the New York Times with great interest and sympathy.  What she had to endure to get the movie Frida made was horrible. Harvey Weinstein put her through hell. He was in the more powerful position and he could do it. 

The mentality that women have been up against since the dawn of time is the "boys will be boys" mentality. We endure or even shrug off horrible behavior because that's how we are conditioned. That attitude is why women have stayed silent for so long. That's why many women in my mother's generation don't understand what all the fuss is about -- unless they have been assaulted. 

I am amazed at the courage of the women who have come forward against powerful men, now, and said NO MORE.

I don't expect men to change overnight. I hope and pray that within perhaps 20-50 years we will see men who have evolved and will treat women with respect, so harassment and assaults will not be so common. 

Matt, I hope and pray none of your daughters ever experiences sexual harassment in any form, from a pat on the butt to outright assault. However, if one of them did, maybe you would understand a tiny bit of the unfairness, shame, and fear that women have endured. Maybe then the notion that men will view YOUR precious little girls as simply sexual objects will outrage you and you will alter your beliefs.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I wish you could imagine for a moment how you would feel in that instance. 

Maybe if all men could imagine how it feels to be a woman, we would see real change.

Party Foods for Kids

This is the time of year when a lot of folks have holiday parties and invite the entire family. Kids don't always have any interest in "grownup food" such as raw veggies with dip, but you want the children to enjoy themselves and eat. It's been a while since my kids were small[ish] but I wanted to share a few ideas for tried and true party foods kids will like -- already tested and approved. 

The last party we hosted here was my mother's 80th birthday bash and I made Apple Dip and put it on the table and man, it went FAST -- grownups and kids both love this one. I first had the Apple Dip at an office Christmas party years ago and when I watched my friend mixing up the dip I thought, that looks WEIRD. I don't think that will be good. WOW was I wrong! It's addictive. 

Grownups usually love the meatballs, too, fyi.

These first two recipes are not really for tiny kids [under 5] unless they are being supervised by a grownup.

Apple Dip

8 oz. Cream cheese

¾ cup light brown sugar

pineapple juice [sometime this is hard to find at a grocery store, but check a good liquor store]

½ pkg. Bits o’brickle toffee pieces

3-4 Granny Smith apples

Take out the cream cheese to soften. Wash and slice apples thinly without peeling. Set slices in pineapple juice and refrigerate. [Juice keeps the apples from browning.] Put toffee pieces, sugar, and cream cheese in a sturdy bowl and mix well -- can microwave the cheese if necessary. Just before the party, arrange the slices around the bowl of dip.

TIP: Check on this a lot because people tend to mess it up.

 

MEATBALLS

Years ago a cousin of mine told me this recipe and I thought it sounded.... weird? Gross? Sort of like cheating? I was dead wrong. This is always scarfed up quickly. You have to put it in a crock pot or chafing dish to keep warm, but it rocks. Basically, you just make meatballs [ground beef, breadcrumbs, an egg, soy sauce, Italian seasoning, garlic and onion powders, mix and saute in skillet], put them in the crock pot or chafing dish, and dump in a bottle of barbeque sauce and a jar of grape jelly. I usually use less than a full jar of jelly, and I add garlic powder and onion powder so it's more savory, but just taste and adjust seasonings to your liking. Mix it around well and coat the meatballs. Put toothpicks nearby.

 

PB&J Bites

This is sort of ridiculously easy and obvious, but I'm going to include it anyway. Make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cut them in fourths. Little kids especially eat these well. If you want to be creative, use a small cookie cutter and cut out shapes of sandwich so they look more festive and like hors d'ouvres.

 

OTHER TIPS

Another thing little kids love: cheese cubes 

Best punch recipe: Sprite mixed with white grape juice [save some out and freeze it in a plastic bowl, then put it in the punch bowl to keep the punch cool]

Kids party table -- take a small table, and pile with PB&J bites and cheese cubes, maybe some Goldfish crackers

 

This is the table at our last party -- notice lower right the Apple Dip!

Kitchen and Cooking Advice

I recently joined a Facebook group for people who love to cook and it's always fascinating to post on that and see what folks say. I posted this last night:

I really like non-stick skillets and I use my skillet every day. The latest one is now not non-stick. That always happens. Anyone ever buy a non-stick skillet that STAYED that way?!? I would use cast iron but I don't think I could ever season it properly...

So far, more than a hundred people have replied to that! Lots of opinions. The most-given advice really surprised me. Lots of folks use cast iron skillets. They season them with oil, but never wash them with soap and water. Sounds un-hygienic but it's really not -- once you heat something to at least 200 degrees any germs are not going to survive.

I have two cast iron skillets that were used by my mother and possibly my grandmother, and Mom brought them when she moved here in 2005. The big drawback? They are super heavy. 

This morning, though, I threw out my Calphalon non-stick skillet and said so be it -- I'm going to use cast iron. I can always get my son to lift it when I need to move it far. I can lift it off the stove with two hands. I made Michael an egg and it stuck a little bit, but thirty minutes later I cooked myself two eggs and they didn't stick. Yay!

Not having to buy a new non-stick skillet every year or two will be a joy. Sometimes old ways are the best.

I got to thinking, what other tips/tricks/ideas help make my cooking life easier?

Before I adopted my kids and moved into this house I didn't cook a lot, except when friends came over or I did holiday baking. Now, I cook every day. So I have learned little tricks and bought appliances to make life easier. 

My son is reluctant to look in plastic containers and see what leftovers I've put away. So I started covering everything with foil and writing with a sharpie on the foil. So if he is looking for cookie dough or fried chicken or whatever, he can find it easily, by reading my labeling. It's helpful, since he is now 21 and though he lives at home he often comes in after I am in bed at night, and he forages.

Another trick I use all the time: I stopped washing skillets in the sink with soap and water. That ruins the seasoning on any skillet. What I do is put some water on the bottom of the skillet and heat it up on the stove, then wipe it out with paper towels. Then I pour in some olive oil and put the gas on low and let it re-season for 30 minutes or so. 

If I put something really messy in the skillet like tomato sauce I will just wipe it out more carefully, use more towels.

When it comes to appliances, I use my electric tea kettle every day. It's brand, Krups. It was pricey in 2005 when I bought it. I remember feeling wicked to spend the money, something like $50 or more, but it's WORTH EVERY PENNY. I can make my tea in about 90 seconds. 

Here's one way the kettle comes in really handy. When I cook pasta, I put a full kettle on and in just a few minutes it's boiling and I pour it on the pasta. Then the water boils on the stove much more quickly. There's a myth that you have to use gallons of water to cook pasta. Not so. Throw some olive oil in the water, stir it around, and watch it a bit, then throw in tea kettle water and some salt. Works much more quickly. 

Now, I HATE pasta that's "al dente." I like it soft. I usually cook it 2-3 times longer than the package says. Still don't need to use gallons of water. 

Since my 83 year old mother lives with me I have learned to cook for an old person with bad teeth. Nothing in this house is "al dente" any more. Meat cooks low and slow, in the oven on 200 for HOURS and HOURS. Beef or pork roast, ribs, even chicken -- low and slow. Crock pots are good too, but a pain to clean. 

When I cook veggies for Mom I boil the hell out of them, then add in some seasonings and go to work with the immersion blender. Cauliflower is the best, done that way. Usually I just throw in about a cup of mayo, a spoonful of mustard, some Colby Jack cheese and onion and garlic powders, and it's delicious. 

A note about olive oil: don't use anything else. Seriously. Nobody in my household has cholesterol issues, thank goodness, but we stopped using anything but olive oil years ago. It has the good cholesterol you need, and all our good cholesterol is always VERY good. 

I keep sesame oil in the fridge and occasionally use it in pasta salad but 99% of all my cooking is done with olive oil.

Now, I don't use margarine. I use real butter, and have for years, since I realized margarine is like one molecule away from plastic. I grew up with a Dad who had awful cholesterol issues so we switched to margarine and skim milk when I was tiny. I never knew better until I grew up and tried real butter. YUM. My brother who loves milk (I hate it) discovered WHOLE milk, and it was a revelation to him. 

Now my brother loves to cook as much or more than I do. He walked in a few years ago with a brick of Plugra, a French butter his friend the professional chef told him to buy. WONDERFUL stuff, Plugra! It can be heated much more than regular American butter, too. I find it at Publix and try to always have some on hand but I only use it for special occasions.

Speaking of Brother, years ago when he was married his wife decided to stop using all salt in cooking and not to even have salt in the house. They didn't have high blood pressure or edema issues so I didn't understand it but Brother put up with it... until they divorced [a very happy day, for me, for a lot of reasons]. They found out that un-salted food is generally AWFUL. Makes food inedible. DUH. I feel so sorry for those truly in medical need who have to restrict salt -- but then again there are lots of herbs and seasonings.

Even people who don't know how to use seasonings should at least use salt and pepper. Turn on the cooking channel or Food network and watch some cooking shows. Professional chefs ALWAYS use salt. It makes food edible, particularly meat. 

I cook with lots of garlic and onion powders, and Lawreys seasoning salt. Are fresh garlic and chopped onions better? Sure. One doesn't always have that kind of time, though. I've also seen professional chefs use garlic and onion powders so they shouldn't be considered cheating or wrong, IMHO. Many times I will saute onions and then throw in onion powder, to deepen the flavor.

A final thing, probably the most valuable cooking advice I can give you is this: TASTE while you cook. Taste and adjust seasonings. SO important. 

above, my brother in my kitchen recently

Rocks, Snow, and the Rose Bowl

I just realize I have not posted in a while. The past ten days have been a bit challenging.

Brother came in for Thanksgiving with a cold. He gave it to me. I gave it to Mom. Brother is now well. I am about 75% well. Mom is about 50% well and still coughing. Fortunately, we have a home health nurse coming in to check on Mom and she came a couple of days ago. Mom's chest was clear, no fever, and oxygen level was good. No need to haul her to the doctor, thanks be to God. Mom has a yucky cough which worried me.

Anyway, being a caretaker to an elderly person when all you want to do is curl up on the sofa and do nothing is.... a bit of a challenge. When I get a cold my voice gets very hoarse and I tend to sound like a demented gnome -- with drill sergeant tendencies when I talk to Mom because I have to talk LOUD so she can hear me. 

The house is decorated for Christmas and 90% of the gifts are bought. Lola has not wagged all the ornaments off the tree, but she is trying. Putting it right in front of the french doors is why -- she likes to look out and bark at anyone in our yard, and Michael, when he's coming home from work, and squirrels, and the neighbor's cat who likes to swish around the front patio and torture her...

I try to get presents under the tree as quickly as possible every year, because it cuts down on ornament loss due to her running under the tree.

This year I made a gift for a family member that took some time. Not a huge amount of time, but enough to make it a project. Two of my cousins helped me with it. I will try to get it mailed off today or tomorrow. 

We are supposed to get SNOW tomorrow. Yes, you read that right. I suspect we will see flurries but no accumulation because the ground is warm and the high will be 38 degrees. Still, just the word snow makes me want to jump in the car and go buy bread and milk. Kroger will be crazy today.

On a happy note, The Georgia Bulldogs are the SEC CHAMPS! Woo hoo! I was hollering the other day when we beat Auburn for the championship. On New Years Day my fanny will be parked in front of the TV watching the Rose Bowl. UGA fans and alumni are already booking flights. Not me. I like to sit on my sofa and watch games.

I didn't used to get too excited about football, but my southern heritage is kicking in. Here's how I know I am an old white southern lady now:

Every summer I grow tomatoes. Tons of them. I don't even like tomatoes. I feel compelled to grow them, however.

I get really excited watching SEC football games featuring the Georgia Bulldogs -- I am an alumni, as are my parents, my aunts and uncles and some cousins..

At Christmas I like to get my tree up, presents under there, and baking started no later than December 5th. It might snow a little bit and cause the city to shut down, so Christmas has to be done before that possible crisis.

I baked Rocks the other day. You can find the recipe here. Nothing makes the house smell so good as those savory cookies. They are the Family Cookie.

I am contemplating getting Lola a Christmas stocking. She needs a new leash and she can always use treats. (That may not be a Southern thing but so be it..)

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I have friends and family in California in the path of those horrible wildfires. Please say a prayer for them. I am concerned.